World Briefs

A Saudi court sentenced a teenage girl to 90 lashes and two months in jail after she thumped her school principal on the head with a cup, a newspaper said yesterday.

The incident happened in Jubail after the headmistress confiscated the girl's mobile phone because it had a camera which is banned in Saudi schools, Al-Watan newspaper said.

The principal asked the court to order the flogging to be carried out inside the school "to educate" the pupil, the newspaper said.

The newspaper did not give the age of the girl. (Reuters)

Royal remains

The remains of one of the oldest members of the English royal family have been discovered in a German cathedral, archaeologists believe.

Eadgyth - a Saxon Queen who was the sister of King Athelstan, the granddaughter of Alfred the Great and wife of Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor - was unearthed in Magdeburg Cathedral two years ago.

Experts have now confirmed that the bones are likely to be of the queen. Her death was marked in the cathedral by an elaborate monument but it was not known if any bones lay beneath. (PA)

Flushed away!

Our toilet habits have not improved since the time of Thomas Crapper as bulky rubbish and even wedding rings and false teeth are flushed away, a consumer group said.

The Consumer Council for Water urged Britons to be more careful about what they put down the loo, ahead of the centenary of Mr Crapper's death on January 27.

It said sewerage workers often find valuables such as jewellery or credit cards have been lost down the toilet, and refuse including face wipes, condoms, razor blades, tampons and nappies which should be put in a bin. Mr Crapper was a plumber who made toilets and bathroom fittings in the 1800s. (PA)

Lights out to boost birthrate

South Korea's health ministry is turning off the lights in its offices once a month to encourage staff to go home early and make more babies.

The ministry said in a statement yesterday the switches will be flicked at 7.30 p.m. every third Wednesday in the month to "help staff get dedicated to childbirth and upbringing". Those with urgent duties will be exempt from the switch-off.

"Going home early may have no direct link to having more kids, but you cannot just completely rule out a possible link between them," Choi Jin-Sun, who is in charge if the project at the ministry, said.

Low birthrate is a pressing issue in this fast-ageing society. South Korea's birthrate - the average number of babies born during a woman's lifetime - remained near the world's lowest at 1.19 in 2008 and there are fears the population will begin shrinking within a decade. (AFP)

Lady luck in bizarre fluke

Four card-playing friends were stunned to pick up identical straight run hands in a bizarre 61 billion-to-one fluke.

Lady luck was definitely at the table when Owen Williams, Meirion Hopkins, Ieuan Griffiths and Mike Harwood started to sort through their 13-card hands.

Each found he had a run of cards from an ace through to the 10 and completed with a jack, queen, king flourish during a game called Crush at Brynamman Industrial Club near Ammanford, South Wales. Cardiff School of Mathematics said the odds of it happening were 61,204,166,001 to one. (PA)

Broken spell at author's tomb

A mysterious visitor who each year leaves roses and cognac on Edgar Allen Poe's tomb in Baltimore, Maryland, missed his rendezvous last Tuesday for the first time in 61 years.

Each year since 1949, the 100th anniversary of Poe's birth, an often-times cloaked individual left a bottle of cognac and a few roses at the foot of Poe's tomb, usually at night.

"Occasionally he showed up early, like 11-11.30 the evening before. But normally it's from midnight to 5a.m.," Jeffrey Savoye, secretary and treasurer of the Poe society, said.

People waited in vain from Tuesday night to watch the "Poe Toaster" and many travelled across the US for the 201st anniversary of Poe's birth.

The original yearly visitor apparently died in 1998, but left the pilgrimage up to his two sons.

"We were left a note some years ago saying that the original toaster had died... We interpreted the message that the torch will be passed... ," Mr Savoye said. (AFP)

Funeral carriage needs licence

A lorry adapted for carrying two black horses and a gold-trimmed funeral carriage around the country does require an HGV operator's licence, according to the High Court.

The issue had been causing some legal confusion, but two senior judges made the law dead certain.

North Avon magistrates had cleared carriage owner John Clayton, of Headlands Farm, Gayton, Northamptonshire, of committing an offence by not obtaining a licence, but High Court judges overruled the decision, though they took no further action against him. (PA)