Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S

Black Cat

US: Stowaway kitten takes plane ride in a suitcase

A kitten survived a plane trip halfway across the United States after accidentally ending up in a suitcase, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Seth Levy's suitcase, in which 10-month-old tabby Gracie Mae stowed away, was mistakenly picked up by the wrong person after a 2 1/2 hour plane trip from Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas.

Smiley

Not dead yet, Chilean man wakes up at his own wake

An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday.

When Feliberto Carrasco's family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian's hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor.

Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell.

Cowboy Hat

Diamonds? Gold? Old hat! Tractors are the thief's holy grail

Tractors are the latest target in Britain for an international criminal gang making millions from stealing top-of-the-range models which are smuggled abroad.

The thefts are planned and carried out so meticulously that investigators believe they could be dealing with former Irish paramilitaries.

Hundreds of tractors are being stolen in an extraordinary crimewave that is worth ยฃ3 million a year and affects most counties in rural Britain. It is being investigated by police forces nationwide, working with the National Plant and Equipment Register in Operation Mermaid.

Stolen tractors, diggers, trailers and quad bikes are being transported openly and shipped overseas as far as Australia. The criminals have even managed on occasions to steal equipment that was seized and held by police.

Heart

Russian couple reunited after 60 years apart

When Anna Kozlov caught sight of the elderly man clambering out of a car in her home village of Borovlyanka in Siberia, she stopped dead in her tracks, convinced her eyes were playing tricks.

There, in front of her, was Boris, the man she had fallen in love with and married 60 years earlier. The last time she had seen him was three days after their wedding, when she kissed him goodbye and sent him off to rejoin his Red Army unit.

©Unknown
Anna Kozlov and her husband Boris were reunited after 60 years apart

Roses

Chinese police marry in mass wedding ceremony

Some 100 Chinese couples who met while serving as police officers have married in Beijing at a mass wedding, China's Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

The minister of public security, Meng Jianzhu, extended his best wishes to the newly-married at the ceremony.

Smiley

German teenage hooligan 'exiled' to Siberia

Authorities in the German state of Hesse have sent a local teenager to live in a Siberian village for nine months in an attempt to curb his aggressive behavior, Russia's Izvestia daily said on Friday.

The 16-year-old boy will live in the Sidelnikovo village near Omsk. The partially abandoned village is cut off from the rest of the world and experiences winter temperatures as low as - 40 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit). The village has no central heating, water supplies, television, telephone or Internet.

The young boy will have to chop logs to warm up the house. He will also have to walk to a Russian school, about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) away from the village.

Evil Rays

Bin Laden pops in to say 'Boo!'


Smiley

UK: Panto pirates told to report their plastic swords to the police

If you're in the Cornish village of Carnon Downs and encounter a blood-thristy band of sword-wielding pirates, don't worry. The police know all about them.

For while the pirates are only amateur actors from the local panto, they have been ordered to alert the police that they are using weapons - even though the swords are made of nothing more deadly than plastic.

Not only that, but because of health and safety regulations they have had to promise to keep the pretend cutlasses under lock and key when they are not being used.

©Unknown
Health and safety risk: Drama group member John Barker with one of the prop swords that had to be reported to the police

Hourglass

Boomerang comes back after 25 years

Brisbane, Australia - Boomerangs really do come back - even after 25 years. Officials in an Australian Outback town were surprised when a boomerang arrived in the post. Along with it was a note from a guilt-ridden American who said he stole it years earlier from a museum in the mining town of Mount Isa, and now felt rotten about it.

"I removed this back in 1983 when I was younger and dumber," said the note, according to Mount Isa Mayor Ron McCullough. "It was the wrong thing to do, I'm sorry, and I'm going to send it back," said the note.

Eye 2

'Killer' caught out after confessing to cats

An alleged killer confessed to his pet cats - unaware police were eavesdropping on his conversation.

David Henton was suspected of battering his partner, Joyce Sutton, to death as she lay sleeping. But police could not prove it, so they bugged his house, a court was told.

He was recorded talking to his pets and apparently let the cat out of the bag.