An eight-year-old German schoolboy who wanted to complain to his mother about being sent out of class took his teacher's car and crashed it, police said.
The boy, banished from class for disrupting a lesson, pinched the 40-year-old teacher's car key when she was not looking and managed to start up her compact car, accelerating and putting the vehicle into first gear.
"The little fellow drove for about 25 metres before crashing into a Volvo, also parked in the car park outside the school," a police spokesman in the eastern German city of Zwickau said yesterday. The boy later told police he had wanted to drive home to his mother to complain about the teacher sending him out of class.
Police estimated he caused €8,000 of damage.
Conman executed
China has executed the leader of a bogus scheme for breeding ants to make aphrodisiacs that conned investors out of three billion yuan ($439 million), the official Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
Wang Zhendong was executed on Wednesday in the northeastern province of Liaoning, Xinhua cited an unnamed local official as saying.
The fictitious ant-breeding project that Mr Wang fronted features prominently in posters and other government educational materials warning of the risks of pyramid schemes and other investment schemes that sound too good to be true.
Mr Wang promised investors in the fictitious project returns of 35 to 60 per cent, Xinhua said. The ants were to be used for making liquor, herbal remedies and aphrodisiacs.
One investor committed suicide after realising he had been duped, while many others suffered from depression, Xinhua said.
Homophobia row in Australia
Australia's centre-left government was accused of homophobia yesterday after two men appointed as high-profile ambassadors for men's health were linked to a newsletter containing anti-gay views.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon was forced to sack one of the ambassadors, appointed only two days before, and said she should have been more diligent about background checks for the men.
"These comments particularly about homosexuality are quite abhorrent," Ms Roxon told state radio after sacking one of the two men.
The two were among six men named earlier in the week as role-models for Australian men on health matters. Both were later found to have been listed as co-authors and contributors to a newsletter calling homosexuality a mental illness and blaming "radical feminist-led attempts to enforce social androgyny" for harm of boys and young men.
Hitler's bookmark
US police recovered a stolen bookmark once reportedly given to Adolf Hitler by his mistress Eva Braun and arrested a man in a sting operation, authorities said yesterday.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said officers arrested Christian Popescu, 37, outside a coffee shop in Bellevue, Washington, on November 25, as he allegedly attempted to sell the 18-carat gold bookmark to undercover agents.
The bookmark was reportedly given as a present to Hitler by his long-term mistress in 1943 to console the German dictator after the German defeat at the hands of Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad, ICE said in a news release.
Quake victims housed in trains
Ten Beijing subway trains that were phased out ahead of the Olympics will be used as makeshift housing over the winter for around 1,200 victims of May's devastating earthquake, domestic media said yesterday.
A total of 60 subway cars are being retrofitted with bunk beds to house residents of Guangyuan, Sichuan province, said the Beijing Youth Daily.
Millions of people were left homeless by the massive quake, and officials have warned that they face an unusually harsh winter this year, with many lacking sufficient supplies of basics such as quilts.
Air force wants to borrow pilots
Australia's air force hopes to borrow pilots from civilian airlines, including flag carrier Qantas, to contain personnel shortages that have also seen much of the country's navy sent on holidays, the government said.
The military would soon accept new tankers and early warning radar aircraft based on civilian aircraft and wanted a pool of reserve pilots and crew among commercial airlines to help fly them, Defence Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon said.
The move follows internal audits that show fighter planes and pilots are not meeting basic flight hours.
Three jailed for kangaroo T-shirts
Three Singaporeans were jailed yesterday after being charged with contempt of court for showing up at Singapore's Supreme Court wearing T-shirts depicting kangaroos in judges robes.
Isrizal Bin Mohamed Isa and Muhammad Shafi'ie Syahmi Bin Sariman were sentenced to seven days' jail, while Tan Liang Joo John received 15 days imprisonment. They were each ordered to pay S$5,000 (€2,567) in costs.
Mr Tan is the Assistant Secretary-General of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, led by Chee Soon Juan.
The three had worn the T-shirts at a court hearing in May to determine the damages that Chee Soon Juan and his sister Chee Siok Chin were to pay after being found guilty of defaming Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and former leader Lee Kuan Yew.