Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Crusader

Priest offers green confessions

Forgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer?

Smiley

'Virgin chicken' off the menu in Beijing

Hungry visitors to next summer's Beijing Olympics won't have to choose between "steamed crap" and "virgin chicken" if Chinese authorities succeed in ridding restaurant menus of mangled English translations.

The Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list with 2,753 proposed names for dishes and drinks, designed to replace bizarre and sometimes ridiculous translations on menus, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Bizarro Earth

Patient loses top of his head to faulty fridge

A German court has awarded 3,000 euros ($4,100) in damages to a man who had to have the top of his skull replaced with plastic because of a faulty hospital fridge.

Doctors removed the top of the man's head and put it in cold storage while they operated on his brain, the court in the western city of Koblenz said Tuesday.

Smiley

Heartbroken Bush Runs After Departing Rove's Car

WASHINGTON, DC - A confused President Bush broke free from the restraint of Secret Service agents and ran in pursuit of departing deputy chief of staff Karl Rove's car for several blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue before being outdistanced by the vehicle.

©The ONION
Bush sits in disbelief as his longtime buddy disappears forever and ever and ever.

Video

Iranian president agrees to Oliver Stone film about his life

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has agreed to let Oscar-winning U.S. film director Oliver Stone make a documentary film about his life.

Ahmadinejad told journalists: "In principle I have no objections to featuring in such a film, but all the details have to be agreed with my advisors."

The president had earlier refused to allow filming to go ahead, saying the director was part of the "Great Satan," a term used in Iran to describe the U.S. since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the despotic U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown.

Magic Hat

Indian suspect on trial despite swallowing knife

NEW DELHI - The Indian businessman spent years evading authorities around the world, fleeing accusations that he'd run elaborate bank scams, investigators allege. When he lost an appeal in Germany against extradition to India, he came up with a novel scheme: He swallowed a knife.

For four years, Amarendra Nath Ghosh refused surgery to remove the knife, hampering India's attempts to bring him back to stand trial because medics said flying with the 4-inch metal object lodged in his stomach might prove fatal.

Magic Wand

Miners unearth world's biggest diamond

The world's biggest diamond, believed to be twice the size of the Cullinan, has been discovered in the North-West Province of South Africa. The find has electrified the diamond community, but the circumstances of the discovery are shrouded in mystery.

The diamond is expected to attract furious bidding from buyers worldwide and could fetch up to £15m.

©Unknown
The 203 carat Millennium Star is the second biggest flawless diamond. The newly found stone could produce a stone even bigger.

Padlock

Missing German kangaroo captured

Skippi, a wily kangaroo on the run since early August was returned to his home at a petting zoo Monday in southern Germany, but not after a chase through the German Alps that left the animal with a strained leg.

The injured marsupial was captured in a cornfield near Leutkirch im Allgaeu, almost 10 miles from where his journey began, police in the nearby town of Ravensburg said.

Smiley

Finns crush cellphone-throwing competitors

Far from the World Athletics Championships in Osaka a Finn has emerged at the top of his game-- in mobile phone-throwing, organisers of the event announced Sunday.

Competitors were reduced to silence when Tommi Huotari threw his cellphone 82.62 metres (294 feet) at the eighth annual tournament in Finland, home of Nokia, the world's number one handset manufacturer.

House

House made of 13,500 plastic bottles

A Serbian pensioner is hoping to get in the record books by building a house, completely out of plastic bottles.

Tomislav Radovanovic, from the central town of Kragujevac, celebrated his retirement by moving into the unique house, which he created out of 13,500 bottles in five years, reports Ananova.

According to the national news agency Tanjug, all parts of the house are made of plastic bottles that Tomislav had been collecting for years, except for the foundation, which is of concrete.