A 95-year-old German woman caught a thief in a retirement home near the spa town of Bad Lobenstein after recent thefts. She left some cash in her room and hid in her toilet, setting off an alarm when the cleaner took her money.

A US Coast Guard helicopter had to rescue a Texan and his cockatoo, Geronimo, from a tree. William Hart climbed the tree to get the bird after it escaped from its cage. Firemen had trouble backing a truck up to the tree, so the helicopter was called. The crew used a harness to get both down.

Sick of the hullabaloo over India's dismal performance at the cricket World Cup, a string of villages in the Jind district has banned the game. Cricket was "no different from alcoholism or the DJs who dish out noisy and senseless Bollywood songs and Western music", the panchayat - or council - said.

Unable to come to terms with the death of their pet dog, a couple in southern India committed suicide. Police said the childless couple, aged in their 60s, held a burial ceremony for "Puppy", their dog of 13 years, and hosted a feast for friends before hanging themselves in their bedroom.

A watch buried in the ice at the North Pole three years ago has been found in the Faroe Islands almost 3000 kilometres away. Niels Mortensen, 11, spotted a black box on Suduroy, the southern-most island of the Faroes. Inside was the watch buried by Joergen Amundsen, a descendant of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. It was in working order.

Search engine Google yesterday unveiled its free Toilet ISP project, in which users flush a cable down the loo so it can be connected to an internet access node. The April Fool's Day joke was confirmed by posts to a users discussion forum.

A New Zealand academic has won a grant for postgraduate research into bogans. Proud bogan Dave Snell, 27, will research his PhD topic, The Everyday Life of Bogans: Identity and Community Among Heavy Metal Fans, at Waikato University.

A Beijing migrant worker who broke into luxury villas to get a good night's sleep has been jailed for a year. The man took showers, tried on clothes and slept in beds even when householders were home, the Shanghai Daily said. He was caught when one owner came home at 2am and found him, bathed and with a clean shirt, watching TV.

Scientists in Austria say sharing a bed with someone temporarily reduces men's brain power. When men spend the night with someone their sleep is disturbed, whether they make love or not, and this impairs their mental ability the next day. According to the New Scientist study, women who share a bed fare better because they sleep more deeply.

A $US1 Wisconsin parking ticket from 1980 has finally been paid off, after the offender sent police the fine and a $US3 late fee anonymously. The signature on the money order used to pay for the ticket is not readable, and the return address reads: "Someone who keeps way too many old papers way too long."

The BBC has been criticised for filming its Easter Songs of Praise special in November, immediately after a Christmas service. Producers switched flowers and got the congregation to switch seats and ditch winter clothing. "It will give an air of unreality to the Easter program," lamented Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield.

Li, 45, a single Chinese man, is advertising on the internet for a female tomb-mate so he won't be alone after death. "I don't want a relationship with her. I just want to find someone to share the lonely tomb," he told reporters in Nanjing city.

A man found dead in the Siberian tawny owl cage at Moscow Zoo, wearing nothing but boxer shorts, is believed to have been drunk when he entered the cage. Zookeepers believe the intruder may have hit his head after an altercation with the bird.

A Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who applied for a job as a gun-carrying assistant superintendent of police in Colombo has been turned down - because he wouldn't give up his saffron robes.

Would you have your car serviced by this man? English mechanic Chris Donald, 38, admits to having sex with cars _ a recognised psychological condition called paraphilia, says The Sun. Donald, from the West Country, has had sex with more than 30 cars, two motorboats and a power-ski in the past 20 years, he says. He has a steady girlfriend.

Tata, India's largest automotive manufacturer, has reportedly developed a car that runs on compressed air and vegetable oil. It costs less than $A4 to fill a tank on which it can run for 200 to 300 kilometres. The car will cost about $A9000 and has a top speed of 110 km/h.

Ireland's High Court has struck down a 19th-century law against begging, backing a beggar who argued that his arrest violated the right to free speech. Niall Dillon was arrested for begging in Dublin in 2003 and charged under the 1847 Vagrancy Act. The ruling means his prosecution cannot go ahead.

Portugal's Renova, one of Europe's biggest producers of household paper products, has put a diamond-encrusted toilet-paper holder on sale for �?00,000 ($A168,000). The bog bling is to mark the worldwide sale of 1million rolls of the company's novelty black toilet paper.

A German brothel hopes to capitalise on the growing number of pensioners interested in "matinee" sex by offering those over 66 a 50 per cent discount during afternoon hours.

Twice world touring car racing driver Andy Priaulx could not be at Carlee Yates and Andy Richmond's wedding in person so he sent a life-sized cardboard cut-out of himself and a pre-recorded speech. It stood at the altar as the couple tied the knot in front of 100 guests on the island of Guernsey.

State wildlife officials in Brattleboro, Vermont, have confiscated a two-metre alligator that had been living in a family's home for seven years. A bemused reptile expert warned: "They just don't warm up to people. They don't ever become friendly. They don't make good pets."

Buddhist monks are grappling with how to rid a Malaysian temple of an infestation of ants whose sting is so bad one worshipper has been admitted to hospital. The monks have tried using a vacuum cleaner to gather up the ants before freeing them in a nearby forest, but to no avail.

Five Romanian prisoners used a hacksaw blade to escape while guards were watching a Champions League soccer match between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. All five, aged 17 to 19, were caught half an hour after leaving the prison. The guards are being investigated by their superiors.

Police in Atlanta, Georgia, believe one man is behind 11 robberies of Subway stores because he orders the same style of turkey sandwich, which he uses to hide his handgun from other customers as he threatens staff. He then walks out with cash and a sandwich.

When dozens of chickens went missing in India from a village in West Bengal, the locals blamed dogs. Villager Ajit Ghosh was surprised to discover that it was his cow, Lal, that was dining on chickens in the cow shed that also served as a chicken coop.

A groom is in jail accused of trying to run over his new wife after a wedding in Las Vegas. Police say the couple were married on March 4 and were on honeymoon in Utah when James Olwine, 33, ran over his wife, Katie Martindale, 29, after an argument. She was not seriously injured. Olwine is in jail on assault charges.

A nine-months-pregnant mother from Bournemouth, England, was forced off a bus because her toddler was having a tantrum that the driver claimed was distracting. The woman had to walk 800 metres home carrying the toddler and two bags of shopping.

An Ohio lawyer challenging the authority of a police chief in a drugs case has asked for the department's police dog to appear in court, because he says Rocko and police chief John McGuire have degrees in criminal justice from the same Virgin Islands-based online school, Concordia College and University.

A German who spent 10 days in a box atop a 20-metre pole to protest against a jail term was lured down after his wife sent up in his lunchbox a topless picture of herself. Fred Gregor, 45, wanted a conviction for fraud overturned. His wife, Susanne, 25, backed his protest until she decided she had had enough.

A Romanian has named his daughter SLK after the "expensive and beautiful" Mercedes model. Birth registry officials tried to make him change his mind but the father insisted, saying that if the baby had been a boy he would have named him BMW.

A Bulgarian football fan has scored a partial win in his two-year battle to change his name to Manchester United. Marin Levidzhev can now call himself Manchester Levidzhev, but magistrates won't let him change his surname. "I am only at the half-time break," he said.

Thousands of British children believe that cows lay eggs and many believe bacon comes from sheep, a survey by Dairy Farmers of Britain shows. More than 1000 children aged eight to 15 were asked where they thought food came from in the poll. Townies fared worst, with 8 per cent unaware that beef burgers originate from cattle.

Norwegian artist Jan Christensen's creation, Relative Value, featured banknotes worth 100,000 kroner ($A20,600) pasted on a large canvas. Unfortunately, he used real money. Thieves smashed a window in the MGM Galleri in Oslo and made off with the work, prompting the artist to muse: "We were afraid of something like this."

A Chinese businessman has advertised on the internet for a stand-in mistress to be beaten up by his wife to vent her anger and to protect his real mistress. The successful candidate would be 35 and originally from north-eastern China. She would be paid $400 for every 10 minutes.

Serbian football player Slavomir Milnovic, 25, was so furious to find he had been dropped from local amateur side FC Mramor, near Nis in southern Serbia, that he ploughed up his club's pitch with a tractor in revenge.

Fast-food chain KFC has asked Pope Benedict to bless a Lenten addition to the chain's sandwich line. KFC said the fish sandwich should prove popular on Fridays, when Catholics traditionally don't eat meat in the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday.

James Van Iveren, of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, broke into an apartment with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his upstairs neighbour was watching. "Now I feel stupid," he said after being charged in the case. He faces 33 months' jail.

Raymond Snouffer jnr of Maplewood, Minnesota, won a $US25,000 ($A32,000) lottery jackpot two days in a row this week, changing one number from his five-number sequence from Saturday to Sunday. Minnesota Lottery officials said it was so far-fetched that the odds against it were "virtually incalculable".

Kalgoorlie hotel housekeeper Julie Lockett claims she has been sacked for not wearing a bra to work at the Quality Inn Railway Motel - an ironic twist for a town famous for its bra-less barmaids. She has complained to the Equal Opportunity Commission.

A trip to the dentist took on new meaning for Oregon Zoo resident Tusko the elephant. It took about 20 people five hours to remove an infected tusk using a chainsaw, hand saws and a drill that can punch through concrete. Tusko, who weighs about 6100 kilograms, broke both tusks decades ago.

A bridge too far �?Macedonians Nikodim Bozinovski and David Gorgievski, who stole two nine-metre bridges, piece by piece, have been arrested after trying to sell them. A scrapyard dealer smelt a rat when 20 trucks loaded with 200 tonnes of steel turned up at his yard.