A selection of odd stories from around the world
Finland: A Finnish man and a Belarussian woman won a competition for sitting in a blisteringly hot sauna last weekend, with both nations keeping the world titles in the bizarre endurance test.
Leo Pusa, 56, a three times former champion took back the title won by a fellow Finn last year, spending almost 12 minutes in the 110 degrees Celsius (230 degrees Fahrenheit) heat.
Natalya Tryfanava from Belarus held onto the title she won last year in the women's contest, managing to stick it out for just over eight minutes.
Ninety competitors from 12 countries took part in the contest, held for the sixth time in the small Finnish town Heinola, some 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of the capital Helsinki.
Competitors sat in sauna cabins set up on a stage for as long as they could take the heat before running out to cool down.
Water was poured onto the sauna stove every 30 seconds to keep the temperature up.
A crowd of several thousand followed their favourites on a big video screen, cheering on every competitor as they rushed out.
Shanghai: Chinese eager to bare all in public will have to wait to disrobe after local outrage shelved the opening of the country's first nudist colony.
Originally scheduled to open to the public at a woodland park in China's eastern Zhejiang province on Thursday, that plan was put on hold after it sparked a furore among prudish locals, Wang Xiaoting, a spokeswoman for the park, said yesterday.
The move would have broken new ground in a country where sex is seldom discussed in public.
"It's caused a lot of debate," said Wang by telephone from the park near the town of Lin'an yesterday. "Many of the local people say it's disgusting and don't want it."
The park hit on the idea after a group of eight bold female university students stripped and went for a dip in the park's river, but were discovered by security guards, Wang said.
Park officials saw the opportunity after their blushes faded.
"I don't know why they did it here," she said, laughing. "I suppose it could be a good business opportunity for us though."
Los Angeles: A chain of private California schools that taught immigrants there were 53 US states and that World War II ended in 1942 was ordered to stop handing out phony diplomas this week, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said last week.
Authorities seized the assets of California Alternative High School and asked a judge to stop the company's 30 schools from handing out "high school diplomas" to students dreaming of a better life through education, Lockyer said.
The company charged its mainly Latino students $450 to $1,450 for a 10-week course based on a 54-page book that was riddled with errors, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday.
Students learned that Congress had two houses -- the Senate for Democrats and the House for Republicans, that there were 53 US states, and that World War II occurred from 1938 to 1942.
There are, in fact, 50 US states, represented on the US flag, and World War II, was fought between 1939 and 1945.
Berlin: A German reality television show will whip misbehaving husbands into shape in a physical and psychological battle to win back their wives.
Kaempf um deine Frau (Fight for Your Wife), due to be launched in September, follows the lives of 12 men in a rigorous 10-week training camp to kick bad habits while improving fitness, self-discipline and self-confidence.
"These men have been chucked out by their wives for impossible behaviour: being couch potatoes, unfaithful or totally uncommunicative," said Dieter Zurstrafenen, a spokesman for the show's producers, Sat 1.
"They have made the first step but their ultimate goal is to turn themselves into attractive partners again." The wives scrutinize their husbands' performance during the show.
The winner, picked by viewers, gets to ask his wife: "Will you have me back?"
Madrid: A blue-eyed, stripeless white Bengal tiger, one of about 20 in the world, has been born in Spain, a wildlife refuge said yesterday.
The three-month-old cub has been named Artico, Spanish for Arctic." His parents are normal Bengal tigers, orange with black stripes, but because of a genetic mutation he is completely white with no stripes," said Serafin Domenech, director of El Arca (The Ark) refuge in the southeastern province of Alicante.