The grateful dead

The Australian government has admitted that cash hand-outs aimed at stimulating the economy have been sent to thousands of people who are dead. The money was part of a multi-billion dollar package under which every tax-payer was entitled to a payment of up to A$900 ($700, £440).

About A$14m of the money went to dead people, ministers said, and A$25m to Australians living overseas. Local media have dubbed the deceased recipients "the grateful dead".

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said that the money would still help Australia's economy.

"Even where they go to people who are dead, of course they go to the estate," he told local media. The estate typically is going to consist of ordinary Australians who will in turn get the payments, and on balance over time, will spend those payments."

Banana robbery

Authorities say a North Carolina teen who was thwarted as he tried to rob a store with a banana ate it before they could arrive.

Winston-Salem authorities say 17-year-old John Szwalla held the banana under his shirt when he entered the store Thursday, saying he had a gun and demanded money.

Owner Bobby Ray Mabe says he and a customer jumped Szwalla, holding him until deputies arrived. While they waited, Mabe says the teen ate the banana. Mabe says deputies took pictures of the banana peel. Forsyth County Sheriff’s office spokesman Maj. Brad Stanley says deputies joked about charging Szwalla with destroying evidence.

Szwalla faces a charge of attempted armed robbery. Jail officials say he doesn’t have an attorney.

Pub "research centre"

Barnsley, UK - Enforcement action was expected today against a pub landlady who tried to sidestep the smoking ban by exploiting a legal loophole. Kerry Fenton, landlady at the Cutting Edge in Worsbrough, Barnsley, turned the pub's tap room into a "smoking research centre", where people could smoke if they filled in a questionnaire.

It included questions such as how many cigarettes people smoke, and whether they like a smoky atmosphere in pubs.

The idea was dreamed up by pub regular James Martin, a 40-year-old Sheffield printer, who saw that part two, item nine of the Smoke-free (Exemptions and Vehicles) Regulation 2007 sets out conditions for research into smoking. The regulations state that a "designated room in a research or testing facility" does not have to be smoke-free "whilst it is being used for any research or tests".

But Barnsley Council officials have pointed out that the Cutting Edge is "clearly not a research or test facility" and therefore not exempt from the smoking ban.

Enforcement officers were expected to visit the premises in Bank End Road today and take action, which could lead to a maximum penalty of £2,500.

The ruling will be a blow for non-smoker Ms Fenton, who claims trade has doubled since the "centre" was set up on Friday, May 8. She said: "Before Friday we were lucky to get 10 people in at a weekend. On Friday we had 29, on Saturday 31 and on Sunday 46."

Signs on the door of the tap room, which has its own bar and is completely separate from the rest of the pub, indicate the place is a "Designated Smoking Room."

Ms Fenton, 36, also asks smokers to put 50p in a charity box and part of the money goes to a cancer research fund. The landlady says she has not taken legal advice on the scheme - instead relying on Mr Martin's interpretation of the rules - but she believes that she has complied with the regulations by making sure the smoking room is entirely separate from the lounge.

The "research centre", however, has not found favour with the pub's owners Punch Taverns. A spokesman for the company said: "Punch does not endorse this activity and will not be rolling it out across any of our other sites. Our licensee will be advised against undertaking this activity."

Customers at the Cutting Edge, however, say they are all in favour of the smoking room. Regular Christopher Pick said: "I think it's brilliant. Before this I was standing outside no matter what the weather was like. I don't know whether they can get away with it but there you are."

Non-smoker Rob Hudson, who has been coming to the Cutting Edge for 35 years, said: "I would rather come into a full pub than an empty room. I have the choice of the tap room and the lounge and I come in here."

Moldy old d'oh!

An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill.

Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday after the fumes led someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in.

What crews found was an unplugged refrigerator crammed with moldy food.

Authorities say an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess.

The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea.

Authorities say the worker who cleaned the fridge didn't need treatment - she can't smell because of allergies.

Burrito craving

A suspected drug dealer who led police on a 90mph chase in Indiana was arrested after he stopped for a snack at Taco Bell. Fort Wayne police Sgt Mark Walters said 36-year-old Jermaine Askia Cooper was picked up in the car park of Taco Bell.

He told officers he "knew he was going to jail for a while" and wanted to get one last burrito. He did not get the burrito, police said.

Cooper was held without bail on four counts of dealing cocaine, one count of resisting arrest by fleeing and other charges.

Police say the chase began Tuesday after officers spotted Cooper, who was wanted on other charges. The chase ended in nearby Decatur.

Inspired Bicycles - Danny MacAskill April 2009

Filmed over the period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby, this video of Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill features probably the best collection of street/street trials riding ever seen. There's some huge riding, but also some of the most technically difficult and imaginative lines you will ever see. Without a doubt, this video pushes the envelope of what is perceived as possible on a trials bike.

Danny MacAskill's mini film, Inspired Bicycles, is third in YouTube's worldwide most viewed on Tuesday.

The 23-year-old street trials biker jumps across roofs, off roofs and even along a spiky railing in the video.

He told BBC Scotland he took it as "the best compliment" that some people thought his stunts were fake.

The force is strong

Eight police officers serving with Scotland's largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.

Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.

The details were obtained in a Freedom of Information request by Jane's Police Review.

Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.

Egg Jarping Champion

About 40 people turned up to contend a bizarre Easter-inspired world championship in County Durham. The 26th world egg-jarping championship took place at a Peterlee social club on Monday evening.

The event resembles a game of conkers, with two players clashing the pointed end of hard boiled eggs together to see which one cracks first.

Ann Watson, 65, of Peterlee, won the knockout competition and received a first prize of £75. Ms Watson, who entered on impulse, said: "I was surprised to win - I guess I just had a good egg!"

The event also raised £100 for Macmillian Cancer Support.

Entrants in Monday's event at Helford Road Sports Club in Peterlee, submitted eggs to be hard boiled the day before, which were stamped and locked away. Strict rules are in place to prevent competitors toughening the shell.

Judges especially look out for eggs which have been dipped in beer, brushed with nail varnish or warmed against radiators.

Organiser Roy Simpson, added: "We've been told that egg-jarping is springing up all over the world. We've got ex-pats from the North East organising contests in Majorca and even in Poland."

Russian doctors find tree growing in man's lung

Surgeons in Russia's Urals Region were staggered to find a 5-centimeter high spruce growing inside a man's lung, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported on Monday.

The discovery was made while Artyom Sidorkin, 28, from the Urals city of Izhevsk, was undergoing surgery.

Sidorkin had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood, doctors suspected cancer.

"I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," Izhevsk surgeon Vladimir Kamashev told the paper.

Medical staff believe Sidorkin had somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted inside his lung. The spruce, which was touching the man's capillaries and causing severe pain, was removed.

"It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me," Sidorkin said.

Lego Jesus

Parishioners at a church in Sweden celebrated Easter on Sunday by unveiling a 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) statue of Jesus that they had built out of 30,000 Lego blocks.

It took the 40 volunteers about 18 months to put all the tiny plastic blocks together, and their creation shows a standing Jesus facing forward with his arms outstretched.

The Protestant church was filled to capacity with about 400 worshippers on Sunday when the statue went on display behind the altar, and some of the children in the congregation couldn't help but touch the white art work.

Church spokesman Per Wilder said the statue at the Onsta Gryta church in the central Swedish city of Vasteras is a copy of Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen's "Christus" statue on display in Copenhagen.

He also said that even though the statue is all white on the outside, many of the donated Legos that the church received were of other colors and were placed inside.

Polish Drunk Cyclists

Poland's Constitutional Court upheld a ruling this week that drunken cyclists should be treated like drunken motorists and face prison if caught. Two thousand Poles are currently in prison for riding a bicycle whilst under the influence of alcohol.

The ruling has sparked a lively debate about whether cyclists should face such strict punishment. The Constitutional Court ruled that drunken cyclists should be tried as criminals just as drink drivers are.

Under a law passed in 2000, anyone riding a bike under the influence of alcohol faces a fine or up to two years in prison, depending on the level of their intoxication.

Many courts here apply the stricter penalty and the average sentence is 11.5 months imprisonment. Such a state of affairs has been criticised by both the prison service and some judges.

Jaroslaw Sielecki, a 37-year-old judge from western Poland, called it absurd and draconian, adding that it can drag whole families into poverty. He argued that intoxicated cyclists should be treated like drunken pedestrians, who face a fine rather than jail, as both use their own muscles to achieve motion.

The Constitutional Court, however, ruled that cyclists use public roads and are considerably more dangerous because of the speed they can travel.

Rue Matics

Crash test dummy

A Philippine plane with 80 passengers aboard narrowly avoided a crash - after a man teaching his girlfriend to drive sped across the runway as the aircraft landed.

The Cebu Pacific plane briefly touched down at Legazpi airport in the central Philippines on Saturday, but took off again as the van being driven by the couple crossed the runway.

'That van could have turned us into a fireball had I not successfully aborted landing,' said pilot Christopher Nowioki. According to the Philippine Star newspaper, the culprit was actually the son of the airport manager.

It's thought that he may have thought all the flights to the airport were completed for the day, and decided to use the runway to give his girlfriend a driving lesson. However, a recent increase in the number of scheduled flights, combined with poor visibility, caught him out.

His father, Frisco Sto. Domingo, has now been sacked, the Philippine Star reports.

Crockpots

Police in Spain have seized a 'crockery' dinner set made out of 20 kilos of cocaine. Madrid police said that they had detained a 35-year-old man who received a parcel in the mail from Venezuela containing the pretend 42-piece dinner set made up of cups, plates and bowls, which had arrived at his home in Barcelona.

The package, containing 44 lbs of the drug, was sent to Barcelona from Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, via London in the middle of February. Police suspect the man had been recruited by a Venezuelan drug trafficking gang to receive the package which he was supposed to hand over to members of the group who would then extract the cocaine so it could be packaged and sold.

Barcelona has been the scene in recent days of several creative attempts to smuggle cocaine into Spain, the main entry point for the drug into Europe.

Tongue insured for $14m

The tongue of the chief coffee taster for a worldwide chain of coffee shops has been insured for £10m ($13.95m).

Gennaro Pelliccia personally tastes a sample of each batch of raw coffee beans at its London plant before they are roasted and shipped to its stores.

"My 18 years of experience enable me to distinguish between thousands of flavours," he says.

Costa Coffee, which sells 108 million cups of coffee worldwide each year, aims to double its number of outlets.

The insurance policy was taken out with Lloyds of London.

"The taste buds of a Master of Coffee are as important as the vocal cords of a singer or the legs of a top model, and this is one of the biggest single insurance policies taken out for one person," said a spokesman for Lloyd's broker Glencairn Limited, which arranged the insurance cover.

"In my profession my taste buds and sensory skills are crucial... and allow me to distinguish any defects," said Mr Pelliccia.

Gay Ducks

Keepers at a bird sanctuary in West Sussex hoped that the last remaining female Blue Duck in the country - called Cherry - might mate with either of the drakes, Ben or Jerry.

But neither male duck appeared interested and are now inseparable at the Arundel Wetland Centre, leaving Cherry to her own devices. Centre warden Paul Stevens said he was disappointed that efforts to produce new Blue Duck offspring had failed but said the two male birds made "a lovely couple".

"They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with," he said.

"People who visit the centre think they're a fantastic couple, without really coming around to the idea that they are two males. They both have very big personalities and people come from all over the country to come and see them. Cherry doesn't seem bothered by it, she's just happy to keep herself to herself."

Blue ducks originate from New Zealand but there were thought to be just three birds in the UK. Keepers initially introduced Ben to Cherry, but neither seemed keen. They then brought Jerry down from a sanctuary in London.

Mr Stevens said: "Cherry showed some interest in him. She displayed typical mating behaviour - she approached him and called to him, she even looked like she was nesting.

"We thought it was great and it was all going to happen but nothing ever did."

Mr Stevens said the male ducks were then placed in the same enclosure: "To our surprise the two males really took to each other and it was obvious that they really liked each other.

The long and short of it ...

A pony with short legs and a long body has caused numerous people to call the emergency services in England, in the mistaken belief she is stuck in the mud. Hampshire fire crews were last alerted on Tuesday as Mayflower was grazing by the River Test in Southampton.

An animal rescue expert said Mayflower seemed to be a cross between a Shetland and a New Forest pony, making her look like a "sausage-dog horse".

Her owner is now considering erecting signs advising passers-by.

Rescue specialist Anton Phillips said Mayflower could appear to be stuck in mud as she was half the height of other nearby ponies.... "We have been called out several times for the animal now and it is getting a bit ridiculous. We are changing our mobilising policy for this particular area now and in future we will only send out an animal rescue specialist to evaluate the call-out before sending a full team out," he said.

"These calls from the public are with good intent. When viewed at long range, this pony looks like it is trapped, particularly if it is standing still next to its mates which are twice its height."

Bush "shoe thrower" Jailed

An Iraqi journalist hailed as a hero in the Arab world for throwing his shoes at former US President George W Bush has been jailed for three years.

Muntadar al-Zaidi had told the court his actions were "natural, just like any Iraqi" against a leader whose forces had occupied his country.

Shoe hurling is a grave insult in Arab culture, but Mr Bush - on a farewell trip to Iraq - shrugged off the attack.

Defence lawyers described the sentence as "harsh" and said they would appeal.

The head of Zaidi's team Dhiaa al-Saadi said the sentence was "not in harmony with the law" because his client had not meant to cause injury, but rather to express contempt

Man vs Truck vs Train

There’s luck, and then there’s the luck Turkish haulier Cem Tokac has.

Tokac was waiting by a rail line for a train to pass, when a truck drove in front of the train next to where he was standing. The train hits the truck, and the truck hits Tokac, who goes straight to the ground.

His injuries: cuts, bruises, and probably a soiled pair of pants.

The entire incident was captured on CCTV at two different angles. Watching it you just can’t believe that he walked away.

Can you break a $1,000 ?

Three teenagers fell foul of the law after ignoring one of the cardinal rules of safe-robbing: if you try to use the money you've taken from the safe, make sure that it's not antique bank notes that haven't been printed in over 60 years.

According to authorities, the teenaged friends allegedly stole the safe containing the bank notes last Thursday from one of their parents in Texas Township, which (confusingly) is in Michigan.

They then drove south in a stolen van, eventually winding up around 600 miles away in Birmingham, Alabama. That's where the 18-year-old member of the party tried to exchange a $1,000 bill at a bank.

Unfortunately for them, the U.S. Treasury hasn't printed $1,000 bills since 1945.

The bank called police, who arrested the 18-year-old and his 15-year-old friends. They remain in custody, waiting to be taken back to Michigan.