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Around the World

Anonymous Sender Returns Long-Lost Wallet

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A wallet lost in southern Sweden more than 40 years ago has been returned to its owner -- with her cash still in it.

Gulli Wihlborg was 18 when she dropped it while cycling in the town of Trelleborg in the summer of 1963.

The wallet contained 45.54 crowns -- a sum she said was half her monthly rent at the time -- receipts and photographs. Its equivalent in today's money is about 412 crowns ($56).

It arrived in the mail at her home of 25 years in the nearby city of Malmo with a handwritten note, saying:

"Dear Gulli, never give up hope. Here is the wallet you dropped on Ostersjogatan (a street) many years ago. Greetings from Trelleborg."

"I find it quite fantastic," she told regional newspaper Trelleborgs Allehanda.

Fri Nov 7, 7:55 AM ET

Singapore Policeman Gets Two Years for Oral Sex

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean police sergeant has been jailed for two years for having oral sex in a country where prostitution is legal but oral sex is not, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Straits Times reported that the 27-year-old police coast guard sergeant landed in court after a 16-year-old reported to the police that she had performed oral sex on the man.

She was above the age of consent and agreed to perform the act, but oral sex is against the law in the city-state, the paper said.

"The act by itself is an offence. It is not a question of consent or no consent. Even between consenting people, it is an offence," criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan told the paper.

The maximum punishment for the offence is life imprisonment.

Mon April 12

Timmy, British Navy Tortoise, Dead At 160

EXETER, England (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A tortoise who was a veteran of fighting ships and German air raids has died at his home in a British castle at the age of 160, the BBC said Wednesday.

Timothy, or Timmy to friends, is believed to have been the oldest living Mediterranean Spur-Thighed tortoise in existence until his passing last weekend.

He was first discovered on board a Portuguese vessel in 1854, and served as a mascot on a number of Royal Navy ships, including service in the Crimean War.

He was brought ashore in 1892 and moved to his own garden at Powderham Castle, near Exeter. His most recent inherited owner is Lady Gabrielle Courtenay, 91, who said Timmy will be buried at a family plot on the estate.

"You could call him, and he would come and say hello and have a strawberry," she said, adding he seemed to recognize different people's voices.

During World War II, he was seen digging his own bomb shelter under some steps when bombs hitting Exeter shook the ground.

Last summer, he was so active in the garden, staff had to put panels on his old shell to prevent sunburn, the report said.

Tue Nov 11, 8:16 AM ET

Woman Sues Over Condom in Her Clam Chowder

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Waiter, there is something worse than a fly in my soup.

A California woman who found a condom in her bowl of clam chowder has sued the upscale restaurant that served it to her -- saying she has suffered depression and anxiety from the shocking discovery.

But an attorney for McCormick & Schmicks Seafood Restaurant in Irvine, California, says the eatery has no idea how the condom got into Laila Sultan's food.

Sultan, 48, and her three companions are suing the restaurant for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress in a case that is expected to go to trial early next year.

"I thought it was calamari or shrimp or something so I chewed one more," Sultan told local KCAL-TV on Monday. "It felt rubbery. I told my friends, 'My God, there's something in my mouth.'"

Sultan said she spit the offending object into a napkin and at first thought it was a latex glove. Then her friend realized what it was.

"I said, 'Oh, my God' and ran into the bathroom with another friend of mine and I started throwing up," she said. "I threw up everything I ate there, every single thing, I threw up in the bathroom."

But Patrick Stark, an attorney for McCormick & Schmicks, told the Los Angeles Times that its staff had no idea how the condom got into the chowder, adding: "It's as big a mystery to us as it is to anybody else."

"We are going to argue at trial there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the restaurant was the source of the condom," he told the paper. "Either it came from (the four women) or it was thrown in as a practical joke by another patron at the restaurant."

Thu Nov 6, 7:49 AM ET

Dog Shoots Man

PARIS (Reuters) - A French hunter was shot by his dog after he left a loaded shotgun in the trunk of his car with two dogs and one of the animals accidentally stepped on the trigger, police said Wednesday.

The man, from the village of Espelette in the Basque region, was admitted to a hospital in the nearby town of Bayonne Monday with leadshot injuries to the hip.

"As he was driving along, one of his dogs accidentally set off the gun," said a police official.

Fri Oct 24, 9:54 AM ET

What's in a Name? Everything When the Name is Butt

LONDON (Reuters) - A British couple have been forced to move house because of the shame caused by the name of their street -- Butt Hole Road.

Paul and Lisa Allott sold their $250,000 bungalow in Conisbrough, northern England after living there for just 15 months, fed up with the constant leg-pulling.

Taxis and pizza delivery men would fail to turn up, thinking their order was just a prank, and they grew tired with groups of youths posing for photos by the nearby street sign with their buttocks bared.

"I like a laugh, but it was beyond a joke," Allott told the Sun newspaper.

Attempts by Reuters to contact the new residents were unsuccessful -- they have taken a confidential telephone number.

September 22, 2003. 8:10am (AEST)

Roo to the rescue

ABC News - A man knocked unconscious by a tree branch during the weekend's storms in north-eastern Victoria has been rescued, reportedly, by a Morwell family's pet kangaroo.

The kangaroo kept banging on the door of the family's house in Tanjil South, then led it to the man lying unconscious about 150 metres away.

Authorities have allowed the family to care for the kangaroo since it was little, because it is blind in one eye and thinks it is a dog.

Rural Ambulance Victoria paramedic Eddie Wright says the man was taken to the Austin Hospital with serious head injuries.

He says he could have died if he had not been found until later.

"The kangaroo alerted them to where he was and has gone and sat down next to him and that's how they found him," he said.

"Especially when you consider it's not a pet as such, it's just an animal that's adopted them over the years and comes and goes as it is free to, they were lucky yesterday it was in the area."