Weird World
Pigs might fly?
Police officers in Vienna, Austria, were called to a suspected murder scene after a group of children mistook a dead pig, clothed in jeans and a T-shirt, for a human corpse.
Investigations revealed it was part of a scientific experiment by a forensic pathologist to examine how quickly a clothed corpse would rot.
Professor Christian Reiter said: "Nobody was even supposed to be in the area, which belongs to Vienna's Institute for Forensic Medicine. The children simply climbed over the fence."
Pinned to the spot
A man who slipped while fixing a roof on his holiday home in Berlin was saved from falling to an almost certain death when the nail gun he was holding went off and pinned him by the leg.
Jan Madsen said he accidentally fired the nail through his knee and into the wooden support beams.
He remained conscious during the hour it took to free him and was taken to hospital where doctors operated immediately. They say he will suffer no long-term problems from the accident.
Football trials
Chinese authorities have moved a trial to a football stadium because the thousands of people who wanted to watch it couldn't fit into court.
At the first court date for the defendant, Chen Zhixiong, nearly 1,000 people tried to get into the courtroom, ignoring threats by police to open fire on the crowd.
He is accused of fighting with police after his mother was injured in a traffic accident.
Authorities have changed the venue in order to accommodate the 3,000 spectators.
Step-ladder rage
A security guard was allegedly punched and bitten as he tried to stop an 83-year-old woman stealing a step-ladder from a German building site.
The 21-year-old has claimed he was forced to make an emergency call to police in Hamburg to save himself after the pensioner flew into a rage.
Officers have arrested the elderly suspect and she has been charged with theft and assault and released on bail.
24th May 2001