Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Binoculars

Bear convicted of theft

A bear who kept stealing honey from a beekeeper's hives has been convicted of theft and criminal damage in Macedonia.

But the bear was nowhere to be seen as the court in Bitola handed down its judgement, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Evil Rays

Excuse of the year?

A German lorry driver escaped a rap for driving while using a mobile phone - after claiming he was using it as an ear warmer.

A court in Hamm accepted Walter Klein's claims that he had been using the phone which was warm after being recharged to warm his ears.

Health

Coeliac sufferer refused gluten-free wafer for his First Communion in Spain

A young boy who suffers Coeliac disease, caused by a reaction to a gluten protein found in wheat, has been refused permission by the Church for gluten-free wafers to be used at his First Communion. His parents, María José Martín and Javier Campo, told the newspaper 'Heraldo de Aragón,' that both their parish priest in Huesca City and the vicar general of the diocese refused to allow their son to receive the Host at his Communion in the form of a wafer made of maize flour supplied by the Coeliacs Association. The priets based their decision on a text issued by Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, in 1995, stating that wafers must contain at least a tiny amount of gluten in order to be 'valid matter for the celebration of the Eucharist.'

Light Sabers

US: Mouse grounds plane for over 5 hours

A mouse intent on flying to Atlanta prompted officials to ground a plane for more than five hours Thursday in Des Moines. A flight attendant spotted the mouse before passengers boarded the 5:50 a.m. Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight. About 30 passengers were kept waiting at the gate until the plane finally left about 11:30 a.m.


Light Sabers

Jail birds close Australian police station

An influx of jail birds has forced Australian police to temporarily close a country police station and courthouse.

The problem has been caused by large numbers of wild pigeons nesting in the town of Murray Bridge, about 100 km east of the South Australian state capital of Adelaide.

Padlock

Prisoner with hours left to serve breaks out of Serbian jail

A convict escaped from jail in the Serbian capital of Belgrade several hours before he was due to be released, the Beta news agency said on Thursday, citing the country's justice ministry.

Almir Ibisi, who was serving an eight-month jail term for illegally keeping arms and explosive devices, climbed a wall in a Belgrade District Prison yard and disappeared.

Cow Skull

'Sniff squad' to rate landfill odors

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - A "sniff squad" of trained noses is being called in to root out Northampton's landfill odors. The city has hired specially trained stink-sniffers to help determine whether the dump is too pungent for neighboring homeowners to stand.

Newspaper

Proposed Law Looks to Wipe Out Problem

A proposed law currently making its way through the Florida legislature might help you with what can be an embarrassing problem. Here's the bottom line, the bill would be a mandate that all eating establishment must have enough toilet paper when you go into the restroom.

The only problem is the bill doesn't dictate how much toilet paper is "enough."

Padlock

Italy: Mafioso too fat for jail released to house arrest

A suspected Mafia clan member weighing 210 kilogrammes (460 pounds) was placed under house arrest after putting too heavy a burden on prison staff, Italian press reports said Wednesday.

A court in the Sicilian capital Palermo agreed to allow Salvatore Ferranti, 36, who has been in preventive custody since August 2007, to go home because none of the five prisons that have held him have been able to guarantee respect for his dignity, the reports said.

Book

Finn returns library book more than a century late

A Finnish library-goer apparently thought 'better late than never' and quietly returned a book on loan for more than 100 years to a library in Vantaa, in southern Finland.

The library had long since lost track of the loan but welcomed back to its collections the bound copy of a 1902 volume of Vartija, an active religious monthly periodical at the time.