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MAN CAUGHT WITH MORE THAN 100 HUMAN SKULLS

(Calcutta) - A man who was carrying 100 human skulls in a bag has been arrested in the east Indian city of Siliguri. Police said he claimed the remains were to be used by Buddhist monks in religious ceremonies. Police superintendent Rajiv Mishra said Sangha Lama, 25, had collected the skulls from burning pyres in the city of Gaya in the neighboring state of Bihar. He was carrying them in bags to Sikkim, a remote hill state famous for its Buddhist monasteries, police said. Lama was arrested while waiting for a bus to Sikkim.

PHONE COMPANY SENDS BILL TO DEAD MAN

(Massachusetts) - A man's phone bill has followed him to his grave. A local cemetery received a phone bill last week for David Towles at his correct address?Hillside Cemetery, Evergreen Section, Auburn, Mass. 01501. Towles was buried there in December 1997. He died at age 60. Cemetery Superintendent Wayne Bloomquist says he was surprised to see the Sprint bill for 12 cents, including 10 cents for a call placed on Feb. 16, five years after Towles died. "Our clients here don't usually get mail," he said. "I wondered if maybe we should start putting mailboxes on the monuments." A call to Sprint's automated service on March 6 showed that charges on the unpaid account had inflated Towles' bill to $3.95. The bill was turned over to interim Town Clerk Ellen Gaboury, who said she would hold on to it for a while. "I'll have to," she said. "Mr. Towles' credit could be affected if it remains unpaid."

BULLET STRIKES, KILLS FATHER TEACHING SON ABOUT GUN SAFETY

(Colorado) - A 36-year-old Lakewood, Colorado man was killed while trying to teach his 13-year-old son about gun safety, police say. Investigators say the man was trying to show his son how to deal with intruders when the gun went off at their home. A bullet struck the man in his head. He died at St. Anthony's Hospital a short time later. No names have been released. Police said the teen thought the gun was unloaded when it went off. At this time, police have not decided if they will file charges against him.

BOMB HOAX SPARKED BY DESIRE TO SEE NAKED WOMEN

(Russia, Ananova) A Russian man allegedly made hoax calls to police about a bomb in a public spa because he wanted to see naked women being evacuated. Police say it was women's day at the bath house in Ulyanovsk, Russia when the hoaxer called with a bogus warning. Officers say he had hoped the women would run out into the street still naked, but was disappointed to see they had all got dressed first. They claim the 33-year-old later admitted his motive was to see naked bathers being evacuated. He faces up to three years in jail for deliberately giving false information about an act of terrorism, reports Pravda.

BRITISH MAN REPORTEDLY BUILDS GUILLOTINE, KILLS SELF

(London) - Police in Britain are investigating what they describe as a "very unusual" suicide case. A man apparently killed himself with what police describe as a homemade guillotine. Police say the 36-year-old man attached a timer to the device and apparently set it to kill him early on a Monday morning. They said the guillotine was found in a bedroom?and media reports indicate a bed was placed underneath it. Police said the man's death isn't considered criminally suspicious.

SKI AREA DROPS "NIPPLE" FROM MOUNTAIN NAME

(Wyoming) Pressure from uncomfortable skiers and other tourists prompted the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort to blank out the second half of the name of one of its ski mountains. Mary's Nipple is now just Mary's. "Nipple" has been covered with tape until new signs arrive in about two weeks. But the sanitized signs have rankled some local skiers, who feel a bit of their history has been lost. "If the name changed, it wouldn't be the same," said Mark Franklin of Driggs, Idaho, who has skied the mountain for 26 years without feeling offended. "It's always been Mary's Nipple to me, and probably 99.9 percent of the people around here will agree with me." The name dates back three decades to a story about a redheaded waitress named Mary, who was working at Targhee's Trap Bar and streaked through it and the resort one night. The bartender compared her bare breast to a peak he had skied earlier that day and then attached the name "Mary's Nipple" to the mountain as a joke. The U.S. Forest Service has never acknowledged it officially.

THREE DIE RETRIEVING PHONE FROM LATRINE

(Nairobi, Reuters) - Three Kenyans died trying to retrieve a mobile phone that slipped down an open-pit latrine while its owner answered a call of nature, a newspaper reported. Anxious to recover her phone, the owner in the coastal town of Mombasa offered $13 to anyone who would recover it, the Daily Nation said. Well over half the Kenyan population of 30 million people lives on less than $1 a day. The first to try?a 30-year-old radio technician?failed to resurface after disappearing down a ladder into the latrine. His friend went after him but slipped and fell. The third casualty, trying to rescue the others, was hauled out of the pit by neighbors after he inhaled the fumes and lost consciousness. The man was rushed to hospital but died on the way. "The fumes inside must be extremely poisonous considering the short time it was taking to disable the retrievers," acting Mombasa police chief Peter Njenga was reported as saying. The Daily Nation said police prevented a fourth man from climbing into the latrine and the search for the phone was eventually abandoned.

SHEEP HEAD BREAKS MUSIC FAN'S SKULL

(Norway, AP) - A flying sheep's head hit a concertgoer and fractured his skull at a concert of metal band Mayhem. The band, part of Norway's death metal music scene, was carving up a dead sheep as part of its stage act when the animal's head flew off lead singer Maniac's knife and struck Per Kristian Hagen, 25. The show was in Bergen, west of the capital, Oslo. "My relationship to sheep is a bit ambivalent now. I like them, but not when they come flying through the air," Hagen told The Associated Press from his hospital room. "I have a headache now." He is expected to recover.

BEANS ON TOES PUZZLES POLICE

(Scotland) - A female shop assistant had beans and other foodstuffs poured over her feet by a man who falsely claimed he was raising money for charity. The man entered a shop in the New Town area of Edinburgh and told the woman he was performing bizarre stunts for "Comic Relief." He asked the young woman to close her eyes and guess what foods he was covering her feet with. He then poured various tinned foods over her feet, including baked beans. The man had said he was being sponsored to carry out the stunts but there were no witnesses with him and no money was handed to him. The man, believed to be in his early 30s, took a number of photographs of her feet before leaving. Police said that when the woman told her friends what had happened in the incident, she realized she had been duped. The woman was not assaulted and no money was taken but police have warned the public to be on the alert and voiced concern about the man's bizarre behavior.

GERMAN WOMAN LIVES WITH DEAD AUNT

(Berlin, Reuters) - A woman from southwestern Germany has lived with her dead aunt tucked up in bed for 18 months, police report. Police entered the house in a suburb of the city of Stuttgart to discover a skeleton in the bed of the house occupied by a 54-year-old woman. The woman told police her aunt had died, aged 89, in June 2001. An autopsy revealed the aunt died of natural causes. The niece has since been admitted to a psychiatric clinic. "Neighbors described both women as rather peculiar," a police spokesman said.