The snakes Vs The Police Station?
Reporting by Christo JohnsonFREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Police in Sierra Leone have called in the army and fire brigade to try to take back control of a police station which has been overrun by hundreds of poisonous snakes.
Snake charmers have tried in vain to lure the beasts, mostly cobras and vipers, out of Gerihun police station in the southern district of Bo. Attempts to smoke them out also failed.
Officers and residents wanting to report crimes have grown too afraid to come to the building.
"Even during work time when statements are being taken, these snakes can come out in dozens. Inhabitants have found it difficult to report cases to the police," station spokesman Brima Kota said.
Soldiers and fire fighters had been dispatched from the capital Freetown and would try to flood out the snakes, believed to number as many as 400, he said.
Wild animals have regularly had run-ins with villagers in remote, thickly forested parts of Sierra Leone, particularly in settlements where humans have only recently returned after fleeing the country's 10-year civil war.
Paramilitary police were drafted in to protect villagers in Bo from wild bush cows after a farmer was gored to death a few years ago, while rampaging elephants killed eight people and chased 600 from their homes in the east not long before that.
Strange story about cash, trash and a mattress
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM, Israel - A treasure hunt in the trash was the talk of Israel Wednesday after a woman said she had accidentally dumped a mattress stuffed with $1 million in notes.
Identified only as Anat, the woman at first told Israeli media she had replaced her mother's mattress as a surprise, learning too late about the stash of cash.
She then went off to search local landfills, so far fruitlessly, for the old mattress, she said.
Questioned later on television news, the woman said she had known about the money -- which she called "a substantial sum," not $1 million -- and blamed a "very serious trauma involving banks" for her mother's unusual choice of hiding place.
Asked how she could have thrown away the mattress knowing about its contents, she told her skeptical questioner "My brain simply blew a fuse."
Chimp bites off Zoo director's finger
Reporting by Jacob Comenetz
BERLIN, Germany - The director of the Berlin Zoo made famous by the polar bear cub Knut has had his finger bitten off by a chimpanzee called Pedro.
Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, 55, was feeding Pedro walnuts as he showed a visitor round the zoo Monday when the ape grabbed his hand and bit off his right index finger.
"Pedro is the boss of the group so he has to demonstrate a certain dominance in it to prove himself," zoo spokesman Andre Schuele said Tuesday. "Under normal circumstances, a chimp would never have the chance to reach a keeper or our director."
Doctors sewed Blaszkiewitz's finger back on but said it was not clear if the operation would be successful.
Schuele said the incident would have no repercussions for the 28-year-old Pedro.
Police to probe missing gold at mint
Reporting by David Ljunggren
OTTAWA, Canada - Canadian police will investigate why the Royal Canadian Mint seems to have lost some of its gold and other precious metals, the government said on Tuesday.
Media reports say more than C$10 million ($9.1 million) in gold and other assets are missing. Ottawa acted after it learned that an independent audit of the mint was not going to be able to solve the mystery.
"I have instructed the mint to call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to (do) a full investigation," junior government minister Rob Merrifield told reporters, declining to say how much was missing.
Opposition politicians said the incident showed the minority Conservative government was hopelessly incompetent.
"If they can't even hold on to the gold in the mint, what are they capable of doing?" asked New Democrat legislator Thomas Mulcair.
The mint says its plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba, produces over one billion circulation coins each year. It also says its vaults are "an exceptionally secure facility."
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