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Odd News Item 1
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Six people have been killed in three days by icicles falling from buildings in a central Russian region, ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday.
Plummeting chunks of ice is an annual hazard for pedestrians in Russia during the spring when the sun finally melts thick layers of ice and snow which build up on roofs over months of freezing temperatures and darkness.
Medical authorities in the region of Samara told ITAR-TASS that five people died in the city of Samara and another person died in the nearby town of Otradny between February 23 and February 25.
(Writing by James Kilner; Editing by Matthew Jones)
Odd News Item 2
LONDON (Reuters) - A Buddhist monk from Japan was killed after slipping and falling under the blades of his runaway tractor lawnmower, an inquest into his death has found.
The Reverend Seiji Handa, 50, was cutting the grass around his peace pagoda in the English city of Milton Keynes when the accident occurred last August.
He got out of the tractor to inspect something but the vehicle, which was pulling a multi-bladed grass cutting machine, slipped its handbrake.
The coroner's office in Milton Keynes, northwest of London, said it had recorded a verdict of accidental death.
Handa, from Niigata in Japan, came to Britain in 1978, when he began building a pagoda to promote peace. He had tended the pagoda with the help of nuns ever since. His main job was to trim the 12 acres of lawns around the monument.
(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Charles Dick)
Odd News Item 3
VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuania's main airline is to change the code number under which its shares are listed to get rid of sixes at the end -- giving way to a Christian tradition identifying the number 666 as a cipher for the Antichrist.
"It might look strange at first glance, but the meanings of numbers are still important in such an area as aviation ... For example, often there is no 13th row marked in the airplane," Linas Dovydenas, the head of flyLAL Group, told Reuters.
He said the airline's International Securities Identifying Number (ISIN) would be changed to LT0000127995 from LT0000126666.
The number 666 is used as the "number of the beast" in the New Testament's Book of Revelation and is seen by some as a cipher for the Antichrist -- though its significance is hotly contested by scholars and theologians.
"We live up to the tradition, and therefore we decided to change our ISIN code, which ends in sixes," Dovydenas said.
Lithuania is a mainly Catholic country.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Myra MacDonald)
Odd News Item 4
AUBURN, Wash., USA - An employee of an Auburn nursing home called firefighters for help on Tuesday because the toilets were exploding with steam. The fire department said there was a boiler malfunction at Regency Auburn Rehabilitation Center that caused a minor explosion.
The blast set off the sprinkler system and flooded the floors of the three-story building.
The Valley Regional Fire Authority said no one was hurt, but water damaged electrical systems and the kitchen. So, 72 occupants had to be temporarily moved to five other rehabilitation facilities using ambulances, buses and vans.
The home was formerly known as the Life Care Center of Auburn.
http://news.yahoo.com/i/757
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