A German policeman handcuffed a primary school teacher to show her class how he would make an arrest - and then discovered he had left the keys at home.
The class of six- and seven-year-olds at the school in the western town of Saerbeck were delighted to see the officer clap the cuffs on the teacher during a road safety lesson.
But when he came to remove them, he found he had no key and had to call for back-up. "The children applauded, and the teacher thought it was all part of the lesson, so she went along with it," a police statement said.
Eventually another officer arrived with a bunch of keys. Only then did the teacher realise that anything had gone wrong.
Diamonds? Or an elephant?
Pity the busy Russian millionaire with no time to buy it all. Diamonds, helicopters, automobiles and art are all for the taking. But what about an elephant for his daughter's birthday?
A service now in Moscow - home to the world's second highest concentration of millionaires after New York - is set up to cater to the whims of a growing class of people with huge wealth but little time.
In its first year in Moscow the firm has taken clients past the velvet rope at exclusive nightclubs, landed hard-to-get table reservations in some of the world's most fashionable restaurants, and bought pet dogs.
Wildfire destroys ritzy homes
A fast-spreading wildfire destroyed dozens of homes from the mountains down to the beaches of Southern California's ritzy Malibu area yesterday and was still burning out of control, fire officials said.
The second fire in a little over a month to hit this seaside enclave hugging the Pacific Ocean, popular with many of Hollywood's biggest stars, has consumed 2,500 acres so far, Inspector Rick Dominguez of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.
"It is a dynamic and a dangerous situation," Los Angeles county fire chief Michael Freeman told a news conference. "The fire is zero per cent contained," a second fire official added.
Thousands march in Spain
Thousands of Spaniards marched in Madrid yesterday in an anti-government demonstration that highlighted Basque separatist group ETA would be a key political issue in next March's general election.
The marchers thronged the streets waving red and yellow Spanish flags and bearing slogans reading "We'll beat ETA". They also chanted for the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
The rally is the first organised by a group of ETA victims, the Association of the Victims of Terrorism, since a Spanish court last month found 21 people - mostly Moroccans - guilty of involvement in the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004.
Pope names new cardinals
Pope Benedict, elevating 23 prelates from around the world to the elite rank of cardinal, made a pressing appeal yesterday for an end to the war in Iraq and decried the plight of the country's Christian minority.
One of the new cardinals is Emmanuel III Delly, the Baghdad-based Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, and the Pope used the solemn occasion, known as a consistory, to express his concern for Iraq.
The other new cardinals come from Italy, Ireland, Germany, the United States, Spain, India, Argentina, Kenya, Mexico, Poland, Senegal, Brazil and France.
The Chaldeans are Iraq's biggest Christian group and the Chaldean rite is one of the most ancient of the Catholic Church.
Wearing gold embroidered vestments, the Pope said in his sermon that he had chosen the Iraqi patriarch as a cardinal to express his spiritual closeness to suffering Iraqis.
Eighteen of the new cardinals are under 80 and eligible under Church rules to enter a secret conclave to elect a new pope after Benedict's death. The other five, including Delly, are over 80 and were given the honour for symbolic reasons or to thank them for long service to the Church.