■ UNITED STATES
Manhattan corpse caper fails
Two men wheeled the corpse of their friend around the sidewalks of midtown Manhattan in an office chair in a failed attempt to cash his US$355 Social Security check, police said. Virgilio Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes when two of his friends, both aged 65, brought him to a check-cashing store in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood on Tuesday. "They were trying to pass him off as still being alive," a police spokesman said. The suspects left the corpse on the sidewalk and attempted to cash the check, but the clerk knew Cintron and asked to see him. The two men promised to bring him right back, but when they went outside to retrieve him a crowd had gathered around the dead man. An on-duty detective who had been eating lunch nearby spotted Cintron and put an end to the caper.
■ RUSSIA
Man kills dog-eating pals
A man has confessed to killing two friends with an axe after returning home to find them cutting up and preparing to eat his favorite dog, prosecutors said in a statement on Wednesday. "Flying into a rage, the dog's owner picked up an axe from the floor and cut off the heads of the uninvited guests," prosecutors in the Siberian region of Chita said in a statement. The 40-year-old man then called the police and confessed to the killing last month, prosecutors said. It was unclear why his acquaintances wanted to eat the dog.
■ UNITED STATES
Death row inmate gets life
An Ohio death row inmate who had received a state record seven reprieves and faced execution this month had his murder sentence commuted to life in prison without parole. Governor Ted Strickland based his decision on Wednesday on the lack of physical evidence linking John Spirko, 61, to the murder. Strickland is a death penalty supporter, but he has said he is conscious of the numerous examples of exoneration through DNA testing around the US. The attorney-general's office said last week it had concluded that no DNA evidence links Spirko to the 1982 killing of Betty Jane Mottinger.
■ UNITED STATES
Dog rescued from tiger pit
A stray dog was recovering on Wednesday from puncture wounds to its neck and shoulders after seeking shelter in a Tennessee zoo's tiger pit. The 23kg female retriever mix darted inside a service entrance to the Memphis Zoo on Tuesday and led workers on a brief chase before it bolted over a 1.2m-high railing and a retaining wall at the tiger exhibit. She swam across a 3.7m-wide moat to the interior of the exhibit and was attacked by a 102kg female Sumatran tiger. Zoo workers used fireworks and air horns to distract the two tigers.
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