Would-be cop gets caught
A man in Florida who led cops on several chases on his motorcycle turned out to be an officer in training. The 24-year-old man was about to take his final exam for the police academy when police were finally able to stop him. The man led police on chases with speeds in excess of 140 mph. On the final chase, the man had given cops the slip and hid his bike in his bedroom. When police arrived at the suspect’s house, he pretended to be washing his car. His dog, however, knocked down the blinds in his bedroom as he was barking at the window and police saw the hidden bike. The man was charged with three counts of aggravated fleeing, two counts of aggravated assault on law enforcement officers and one count of reckless driving.
Chocolate therapy
A Paris health spa is using chocolate in its beauty treatments. The treatments include a chocolate and cranberry body scrub, a toffee chocolate wrap and a deep chocolate massage. Chocolate is believed to have anti-aging properties. A manager of the salon said that customers can indulge without any regrets afterwards. The “Decadent Chocolate Package” lasts two and one half hours and comes with a bowl of chocolates to eat next to the massage table.
Folk music soothes the soul
Greek police officers are giving away free CDs in an attempt to calm drivers. The CDs, which have folk music on them, are quite popular and come with maps and different highway laws. A Greek official said that he wants citizens to be very careful while driving, and folk music is said to soothe people. Traffic accident deaths in Greece are among the highest in Europe with more than 100 fatalities already this year. Greek police are also dispatching more patrol cars, undercover cars, motorcycles and tow trucks in an attempt to slow drivers down and make them more cautious.
Environmentally-friendly graveyard
Some Australian farmers have been given permission to open a “feet-first” graveyard. The cemetery will be friendly to the environment because it will save space by burying bodies vertically instead of horizontally. The bodies will also be buried in bio-degradable bags because the field being used will be as a pasture for animals. The chairman of the graveyard said he wants this to be a no-fuss alternative for people who do not want to pollute the environment when they die. He said that cremation can pollute the environment because of the gas that must be used in the process, and contemporary graveyards are not useful for anything other than a burial space.
Alcohol in space?
A Russian cosmonaut said that alcohol should be allowed on spaceships. Salizhan Sharipov, who has returned from the International Space Station, said that allowing booze in space would allow cosmonauts a chance to relax. Sharipov said at a press conference that having a glass of wine or cognac would improve their work by allowing them a means of coping with stress.
Merman spotted
Fishermen in the Caspian Sea claim to have seen an amphibious creature that resembled a human while on a fishing trip. Gafar Gasanof, the captain of the ship, said he saw the creature swimming parallel with the boat for a while. At first he thought it was a big fish, but he spotted hair on the head of the creature, strange fins and arms on the front of the creature’s body. Local newspapers wrote that sightings of the “man of the sea” have become more regular with the rise in off-shore oil production in the Caspian Sea area. Witnesses said the creature has a strong build and is roughly 5’6 with a big stomach, webbed hands and black-green hair. The creature’s lower lip is said to join with its neck just above its gills.