Yahoo! News: Odd News

Odd News

• Ind. inmates sneak through ceiling to have sex (AP)

  AP - Three male and three female inmates at a southern Indiana jail face charges that they devised a way to sneak between cell blocks to help pass their time behind bars by having sex.

• Rapper gets 20 years after writing shooting song (AP)

  AP - He shot a man twice and felt so good about it, police said, a rapper wrote a song describing the shooting and calling out the victim by name. A judge sentenced 25-year-old Rico Todriquez Wright Monday to spend the next 20 years in prison after his victim mentioned the hip hop confession to police.

• Thieves pry bronze Virgin Mary statue from church (AP)

  AP - Thieves may have to take an awkward trip to the confessional. A bronze statue of the Virgin Mary was lifted from a Catholic church in Newport Beach. Police Lt. Craig Fox said the 4-to-5 foot statue was pried from its base on the front of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church on Friday night.

• NC undercover officers use Taser on pallbearer (AP)

  AP - Five sheriff's deputies will be disciplined after they used a Taser while serving an arrest warrant on a man at his father's funeral, a North Carolina sheriff said Wednesday.

• Mass. woman's 1 cent debt paid in full (AP)

  AP - A 74-year-old blind woman's 1 cent debt to a Massachusetts city has been settled. People from across the country called Attleboro City Hall on Tuesday offering to pay the 1 cent balance owed by Eileen Wilbur for an overdue water and sewer bill.

• Parliament picks bomb hoaxer as speaker (Reuters)

  Reuters - Lithuania's newly elected parliament has chosen as its new speaker a popular television talent show host once convicted of placing a prank call about a bomb in a hotel.

• Couple pays $200 for "special" samosas (Reuters)

  Reuters - A Dutch couple on a visit to the eastern Indian state of Bihar paid 10,000 rupees ($204) for four samosas, a spicy deep-fried snack that usually doesn't cost more than a few rupees, a newspaper reported on Monday.

  
  

• Pudgiest pets compete in slimming contest (Reuters)

  Reuters - Eight of Britain's fattest pets are to embark on a 100-day diet and fitness regime in a bid to crowned this year's pet fit club champion.

  
  

• Climber plumps for portable toilets for Everest (Reuters)

  Reuters - A young Nepali climber is seeking to popularize a toilet fashioned from a plastic bucket with a lid to promote eco-friendly climbing on Mount Everest.

  
  

• Ancient Greeks pre-empted Dead Parrot sketch (Reuters)

  Reuters - "I'll tell you what's wrong with it. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it."

  
  

• Obese have right to 2 airline seats (Reuters)

  Reuters - Obese people have the right to two seats for the price of one on flights within Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday.

• Sumo-Happy hunter Asashoryu plots New Year ring return (Reuters)

  Reuters - Volatile grand champion Asashoryu will not return to the ring until the New Year despite being fit enough to hunt and cook wild animals in the Mongolian mountains.

• Gaffe-prone Japan PM apologises over doctor remark (Reuters)

  Reuters - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso apologised Wednesday for appearing to insult doctors, an important political interest group, by saying many of them lack common sense.

• General and daughter enjoy Thai-style family feud (Reuters)

  Reuters - Thailand's three-year political crisis has divided friends and families, but few can have felt the strain as much as the Sawadipol clan.

• Kangaroo genes close to humans (Reuters)

  Reuters - Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans and may have first evolved in China, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

  
  

• Irate man wields bat to liberate his lost cat (AP)

  AP - Police are looking for an irate pet lover so intent on liberating his lost cat that he wielded a bat to fend off animal shelter employees. Dallas Animal Shelter manager Kent Robertson said the man found his missing gray and blue short-haired cat at the shelter, where it had been brought by someone who thought it was a stray.

• China farmer avoids jail in fake tiger photo trial (Reuters)

  Reuters - A farmer in northern China found guilty of doctoring photos of an endangered tiger after collecting a cash reward from wildlife authorities, has been handed a lighter sentence on appeal, local media said on Tuesday.

• Man nabbed after hitting girlfriend with sandwich (AP)

  AP - A man faces a domestic battery charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich as she was driving on Interstate 95 on Friday. Police said the 19-year-old man became angry and hit the woman in the arm and face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off.

• World's oldest polar bear dies at Canadian zoo (Reuters)

  Reuters - Canadian zoo officials on Tuesday were mourning the death of what is believed to be the world's oldest polar bear.

• Driver loses control after sneeze, hits river (AP)

  AP - An untimely sneeze nearly cost Andrew Hanson his life. The 42-year-old Weymouth man told authorities that a sneeze caused him to lose control of his pickup on Soldiers Field Road and plunge into Boston's Charles River on Tuesday.