Another Week in Review
A corpse caused a traffic jam on a Dallas, Texas highway after it fell off a pickup truck late Tuesday, local media reported.
The body was being transported to a Shreveport, Louisiana funeral home when it fell off the truck and landed in the fast lane, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday.
Wrapped in a sheet and still strapped to a gurney, the body looked like a large white parcel from afar, Mary Ellen Douglas told the paper.
But as she switched lanes to avoid the gurney, Douglas said she spotted feet sticking out from the sheets.
"I didn't think it was possible for that to happen," Douglas said. "I wanted to get out of there. It was too freaky for me."
It took a while for the driver to notice the body was missing, police said. Eventually he saw that the back door of his truck was open so he pulled over to check on his cargo. When he realized the body was missing he turned around and searched along the highway until he found it.
Noon-hour drivers managed to swerve to avoid the body and the driver was able to retrieve it intact.
Russian Police Find Mummified Family
Russian police who smelt something amiss when the owners of a Moscow apartment failed to pay their bills found four mummified corpses and a fridge full of out-of-date food, the prosecutor's office said Wednesday.
Investigators established that the bodies were those of four family members, who died at intervals over a five-year period, prosecutor's spokesman Sergei Marchenko said.
The first of the four deaths, around five years ago, was that of a man born in 1912.
His death was followed by that of his wife, born in 1914, their daughter, born in 1942, and their granddaughter, born in 1971.
"The initial results of our investigations show that all the people died at different times over a five-year period," Marchenko was quoted by Interfax as saying.
A murder investigation has been opened in relation to the find, he said.
While the precise time of the last death has not been established, food in the apartment's fridge dated from 2003, he added.
The investigators also found a large amount of religious literature.
Report: Hong Kongers Don't Know What to Do in Bed
Hong Kongers usually rank near-bottom of the international list of lovers and a social worker may have discovered why: they don't know what to do between the sheets.
Grace Wong of the southern Chinese territory's Family Planning Association said the number of inquiries at her agency rocketed 50 percent last year, with many clients claiming to have no idea how to have sex.
"Some married couples are not familiar with their body parts," Wong was quoted as telling the Sunday Morning Post. "They don't know where their sex organs are.
"They don't know the physical changes associated with sexual response, like males getting an erection," she added.
Regular international surveys by condom manufacturers have found the city is less than amorous. Durex's last poll found Hong Kongers get it together 79 times a year, while the French manage it the most, at 137 times.
Another poll even suggested Hong Kong men prefer to go to work rather than have sex.
The frenetic work ethic in the former British colony is usually blamed for interfering with the course of nature.
But the paper said sociologists believe Chinese sensibilities, which deem discussion of sex even in school as taboo, are responsible.
Man's finger just makes the train
A German man's severed finger traveled 60 kilometers by rail after its owner trapped his hand in the door trying to board a train at the last minute, police said Tuesday.Passengers traveling from Freiburg to Cologne Sunday noticed the finger lying on the carriage floor and alerted police.Officers collected it at the next station.
Doctors said they were confident they could reattach the finger to its 34-year-old owner after it was rushed back to Freiburg in an ambulance.