US-ODD Summary
Ageing Santa gets $100,000 facelift for Christmas
WELLINGTON tall fiberglass Santa has been among the festive decorations in Auckland since 1960 but in recent years began to struggle with one of his eyes that was made to wink and a mechanical figure that moved in a welcoming gesture.
Gang accused of killing to sell human fat
LIMA - Peruvian police said on Thursday they had broken up a gang that allegedly killed dozens of people and sold their fat to buyers who used it to make cosmetics. Four Peruvians were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, murder and trafficking in human fat.
Diplomats arrested for cigarette smuggling
STOCKHOLM - Swedish police have arrested two North Korean diplomats on suspicion of smuggling 230,000 cigarettes into the Nordic country, the Swedish Customs Office said Friday. The pair, a man and a woman who have diplomatic status in Russia, were stopped by Swedish customs officers Wednesday morning as they drove off a ferry from Helsinki, the Finnish capital.
New fossils reveal a world full of crocodiles
WASHINGTON - New fossils unearthed in what is now the Sahara desert reveal a once-swampy world divided up among a half-dozen species of unusual and perhaps intelligent crocodiles, researchers reported on Thursday.
U.S. election, iPhone among decade's top 10 Internet moments
NEW YORK - The launch of Wikipedia, emergence of the iPhone and the election of U.S. President Barack Obama were among the 10 most influential moments on the Internet in the past decade, according to the annual Webby awards. Other events singled out by the New York-based International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which has presented the annual Webby awards since 1996, were the Iranian election in 2009 when protests demonstrated the power of Twitter and other social network in reshaping democracy.
Lost man drives nine hours to get newspaper
CANBERRA - An elderly man who went out to fetch a morning newspaper ended up driving nearly 400 miles after getting lost and taking a wrong turn onto a major Australian highway, police said on Wednesday. The man, 81-year-old Eric Steward, eventually stopped and asked for directions after driving for nine hours, from the New South Wales country town of Yass to Geelong in the southern Victoria state. Steward, who did not know where he was, eventually approached a policeman at a petrol station and asked for help late Wednesday.
Johnny Depp named People's "sexiest man alive"
NEW YORK - "Pirates of the Caribbean" star Johnny Depp was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" on Wednesday, reclaiming a title he first won in 2003. Depp, whom People described as "the king of cool with the killer cheekbones," succeeded 2008 winner Hugh Jackman. Other stars who have received the honor twice include George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Lawmaker apologizes for insulting rival on Twitter
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Trapped thief drops trousers in bungled burglary
LISBON - He wiggled, jiggled and even dropped his trousers, but a thief trying to break into a supermarket in Portugal stayed stuck fast in a tiny window until he was rescued by police and the fire brigade. "Apparently he dropped his trousers as he was trying to free himself by wiggling," Capt. Santos, local police chief in Loule in southern Portugal, told Reuters Monday.
Make toilets cool to fix sanitation woes?
MUMBAI - Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization, has a theory about why governments and people are so reluctant to talk about hygiene: it isn't cool. "People demand a TV, not a toilet, because it is not aspirational or charismatic," said Sim, who does not hesitate to talk in graphic detail about the dangers of poor sanitation.