Several rare early 20th century Swedish, German, Italian and American movies have been discovered in a cellar in southern Poland, the country's national film library said yesterday.
"They are going to undergo cleaning and conservation, before being watched, identified and archived," library spokesman Justyna Jablonska said.
The Polska newspaper reported that experts have identified several cinematic gems in the metal boxes discovered in a parish building in Sosnowiec. The films included the 1913 Gränsfolken (People of the Border), adapted by Swedish director Mauritz Stiller from a novel by French icon Emile Zola, as well as Zwei Himmelblaue Augen (Two Skyblue Eyes), released in 1932 by Germany's Johannes Meyer.
In addition, Polska said, the films include a 1929 German version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles by Richard Oswald.
The collection belonged to the parish priest Father Jerzy Barszcz, a local film buff who began collecting movies after World War II, and who died in 2004, Polska reported. (AFP)
WWII bomb on Russia runway
An unexploded artillery shell dating from World War II was discovered under a runway at Pulkovo airport in St Petersburg, Russia and safely removed, an airport spokesman said yesterday.
The shell was found as work was being carried out on the runway and bomb disposal experts were called to Pulkovo, the city's main airport, to dispose of it.
The northern city, known at the time as Leningrad, was besieged for nearly 900 days by Nazi troops between September 1941 and January 1944, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of residents. (AFP)
Lord of the ring
A New Zealand man has been dubbed the Lord of the Ring after he searched and found his wedding ring more than a year after it slipped off his finger and sank to the sea floor.
The ring was lost for 16 months in the harbour of the country's capital city, Wellington, before Aleki Taumoepeau found it shining on the sea floor, The Dominion Post newspaper reported on Thursday.
"The whole top surface of the ring was glowing," Mr Taumoepeau, an ecologist, said.
Mr Taumoepeau had been married for just three months when he lost the wedding ring while conducting an environmental sweep of the harbour. He roughly marked the spot where the ring had flown from his finger, but was unable to find it despite returning to the area many times.
His wife offered to buy another ring, but he refused, pledging to find the ring. So, equipped with new global satellite based coordinates and offering up a quick prayer, he found the ring after an hour's search.
"I couldn't believe that I could see the ring so perfectly," Mr Taumoepeau said. (Reuters)
Sues zoo over splashing dolphins
A woman is suing a Chicago-area zoo for a 2008 fall near a dolphin exhibit, accusing zookeepers of encouraging the mammals to splash water and then failing to protect spectators from wet surfaces.
In her suit filed earlier this week, Allecyn Edwards said she was injured while walking near an exhibit at Brookfield Zoo, where a group of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins were performing.
Officials "recklessly and willfully trained and encouraged the dolphins to throw water at the spectators in the stands, making the floor wet and slippery," but failed to post warning signs or lay down protective mats or strips, the suit said.
Ms Edwards is demanding more than $50,000 for lost wages, medical expenses and emotional trauma from the Chicago Zoological Society and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which operate the zoo in Chicago's southwest suburbs. (Reuters)
Stolen dogs found in medical lab
At least two stolen dogs were found in an operating room used for dissections at the medical school of South America's oldest university, but its dean denied relying on dognappers to collect specimens for classes.
The University of San Marcos does not have access to enough human cadavers for its students, so they sometimes cut dogs open instead.
Carmen Valverde's dog Tomas was stolen by two men while she was walking in the working-class Brena district of Lima, and a friend who works at the school's teaching hospital spotted him by chance in a surgery room where dogs are dissected.
Ms Valverde donned a lab coat and snuck into the hospital to rescue Tomas. A video her friend shot a week ago and aired on local TV, shows him sedated, splayed, and strapped to a stainless steel table - just moments away from the knife.
After local newspapers published the story, other people missing dogs rushed to the hospital's door and one owner found her dog Chico.
"The University of San Marcos still hasn't apologised for what it has done," Ms Valverde said. (Reuters)
Return to sender
A ship laden with containers suspected of containing toxic waste illegally exported to Brazil arrived back in Britain yesterday.
Brazilian health authorities say the shipment, supposedly recyclable waste, was in fact full of condoms, syringes and human waste.
The material was found by Brazilian officials in three of the country's ports over the past few months. Britain's Environment Agency said 71 of the 89 containers have arrived at Felixstowe docks in Suffolk, with the rest expected from next Tuesday.
"From what they have told us, they contain household waste and things like syringes," said an Agency spokesman, "But we can't confirm that because no one from the Environment Agency has actually seen the content of the containers."
Three men have been arrested in Swindon in connection with the shipment. (Reuters)