Irish-American dance master Michael Flatley is back on stage after years of suffering from a "mystery virus", thanks to a treatment by an Irish "energy healer", Irish media quoted Mr Flatley as saying yesterday.
Mr Flatley, born in the United States in 1958 of Irish heritage, rose to fame as a member of the Riverdance troupe that helped propel Irish dancing into the global spotlight and later opened his own Lord of the Dance show.
He was taken to hospital in London in 2006 with a virus that forced him to cancel the European tour of his Celtic Tiger show, a dramatisation of Ireland's history.
"Conventional medicine failed to cure me from my mystery virus," Flatley told the Irish Independent newspaper. "And then, by chance, I met a young man from Ireland called Michael O'Doherty who works on the body's energy," Mr Flatley said.
Beer lake freezes after truck mishap
A busy intersection in the German city of Kassel turned into a lake of frozen beer on Tuesday night when some 1,600 bottles smashed after poorly secured crates flew off a delivery truck, police said.
The truck, carrying 12 tonnes of freshly brewed beer, lost most of its load on a sharp left-hand turn at the bottom of a hill, according to Kassel police inspector Wolfgang Jungnitsch.
Nearly 80 crates carrying about 800 litres flew off the truck, most of the bottles smashed, and their contents quickly froze in the chilly temperature of about -4°C, he said.
"A sheet of ice quickly formed and the air was filled with beer fumes," Mr Jungnitsch said.
It took an hour to clear the intersection, and police said the trucker faced a fine for not securing his load properly.
Villager gets death for election killing
A villager in China has been sentenced to death for hiring hit men to kill a rival for the post of village chief, state media said yesterday.
Wang Bentie paid five men 8,000 yuan (€830) to kill a challenger for head of the villagers' committee in a local election in Xiawan in Zhejiang province, Xinhua news agency reported.
The victim died three days after being stabbed by his attackers.
Mr Wang "committed the crime to retain his post", Xinhua quoted a court in Wenzhou as saying in delivering its verdict. One of the hired killers was also sentenced to death while the other four were jailed for between six and 15 years in prison.
In a separate case, a village official in the northeastern province of Liaoning is on trial charged with killing five people over an election-related dispute, Xinhua said.
Li Hui was elected head of the villagers' committee of Zhaoyingzi village in April but was later accused by a distant relative of vote-buying, Xinhua said quoting court documents.
Mr Li is accused of killing the relative's entire family of five several months later, Xinhua said.
Glitch leaves man €102bn overdrawn
A man was left reeling in shock yesterday when his bank statement showed him to be £100 billion pounds (€102 billion) overdrawn.
As if the credit crunch was not hitting Britons hard enough, Donald Moffat was temporarily in deep, deep, deep financial trouble - due to a "technical error".
The 38-year-old, from Irvine on Scotland's east coast, said his wife noticed the somewhat "major discrepancy of two £50 billion debits" after he logged on to his account online.
"When I saw it... I've been shaking, I've been feeling sick - everything," the stunned student and part-time care worker told the BBC.
"We knew we still had quite a bit left in the account as we checked last night before we went out. This morning I went out to get a few things then, when I came back, my account was overdrawn by that amount."
Barclays bank said in a statement: "A technical error caused some customer accounts to be incorrectly debited. "The problem was immediately identified and corrected within less than an hour, and all affected customer accounts are now showing correct balances."
Britain hunting lovelorn beaver
There's a gnawing problem in the countryside - a giant beaver on the loose, wreaking havoc in southwest England.
And his owner reckons there's only one thing that can lure the lovelorn rodent back into captivity: the scent of female beaver.
The 38-kilogramme animal escaped from the Upcott Grange Farm in the county of Devon back in October, along with two females who were recovered soon after from a nearby lake.
But the one beaver still on the run is thought to be the culprit felling trees some 32 kilometres down the River Tamar at Gunnislake.
Conservationist Derek Gow, who owns 24 of the animals under licence, reckons the runaway is hunting for female beavers. He is planning to catch the escapee using honey traps: boxes that smell of females.
"I know where he is, but he's occupying a territory of probably a kilometre in length," Mr Gow said.
"We've got traps being made up at the moment. Using the scent from one of the female beavers, we'll be able to catch the male beaver fairly quickly."