Seven members of a Chinese gang in Puning, Guangdong province, have been arrested in connection with the murder of 100 disabled or elderly people whose corpses were sold for cremation to families who wanted to bury their loved ones, the South China Morning Post reported.
Mainland China outlawed the several-thousand-year-old burial tradition in the 1950s and enforced cremation to save on farmland, a move many blame for the rise in the black-market corpse for cremation trade.
Wealthy people who want to respect their loved ones by burying the bodies will buy corpses of murder victims to cremate, replacing their relatives' bodies, a police spokesman told the South China Morning Post. The family will later bury the real body according to traditional customs.
A Puning Public Security Bureau spokesman who declined to give his name told the South China Morning Post that the suspects are being interrogated and the case is still under investigation.
The suspects would reportedly trail victims, usually mentally disabled or elderly, drag them into vehicles in remote areas and either strangle or poison them.
Corpses would be sold for approximately $1,500 each and substituted for cremation.
Read More: Reuters
‘Biggest Waste of Space Ever’
Months after the English national team was humiliated in the Euro Cup, the soccer squad has been dismissed by their own countrymen as “Biggest Waste of Space Ever.”
A poll of 3,000 Britons, taken by storage product company BiGDUG, gave the team the embarrassing distinction ahead of troubled rocker Pete Doherty and Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"As storage product specialists we try to minimize the floor space wasted by businesses across the UK — but there's not a lot we can do about the England team or Gordon Brown,'' a BiGDUG spokesman said.
Read more: NewsLite.tv.
Cat Survives 70-Mile Journey
A cat survived a 2 1/2-hour trip on a spare tire under her owner's truck. Gil Smith recently drove from his Gilbert home 70 miles away for a business meeting in Kearny. When he got out of the truck, he heard a cat in distress and realized it was his.
Smith said the cat, Bella, was hysterical, shaky and tired, but was smart enough to know not to jump off the tire as the truck was moving.
Smith and his wife have adopted three indoor cats, three goats and three chickens. But Smith said Bella, an outdoor cat the couple adopted years ago, has a special place in his wife's heart.
Smith said he canceled his meeting with a state Department of Economic Security official who had driven 50 miles to get to Kearny so he could get Bella home.
It was either that, or, he jokes, get a divorce. (AP)
Bikini Goal Falls Short
It was no day at the beach for bikini-clad world record seekers in the U.K., or maybe it was.
Some 250 women gathered on the sands of the Jubilee beach in Southend, England, until rain ended the effort.
Unfortunately for the women, who were bearing all for the Southend Hospital Breast Unit, they fell short of the world record mark of 1,010 women set last year on Bondi beach in Australia.
Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello could not be reached for comment.
Read More: The Sun
One-Dog Town
Officials in a Peruvian neighborhood are so fed up with a multitude of noisy dogs that it has decided to take matters into their own hands.
The town of Jesus Maria, a neighborhood in Lima, has issued an order barring households from having more than one dog. Families in violation of the order face fines of up to $237.
"Neighbors have complained they cannot live in peace, harmony, or good physical and mental health because ... noisy dogs disturb the peace," the order, printed in the neighborhood newspaper, says.
Read more: Reuters
Chili Achievement
A man nicknamed "Humble Bob" stuffed himself with 11.5 pounds of a local specialty called chili-spaghetti in only about 10 minutes to claim victory in an Ohio holiday eating contest.
Bob Shoudt won $2,500 at the inaugural Skyline Chili Spaghetti eat-off Monday at Kings Island amusement park. Shoudt narrowly defeated Coney Island hot dog-eating champ Joey Chestnut in the contest.
Shoudt, of Philadelphia, is ranked No. 5 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. (AP)
Haunted Spice Rack for Sale
It’s a spooky spice holder — and it can be yours if the price is right.
Fed up with strange happenings around his kitchen, a New Hampshire man has decided to unload an antique spice rack he claims is haunted on eBay.
“The first strange thing that occurred was the sound of an elderly woman humming in the kitchen as if to entertain herself while baking, banging of pots and pans have also been heard. Spices I had set on the spice rack have rearranged themselves overnight as if the individual haunting this spice rack didn't like how I had them placed,” the seller said in the eBay item description.
Read more, and place a bid: eBay
Pet Protection
There’s something fishy about new animal protection laws in Switzerland.
Among the strict new laws that went into effect Monday, a live goldfish cannot be flushed down the toilet unless it is first knocked out and killed. Also, fishermen are forbidden to conduct catch-and-release fishing, and can’t use live fish as bait, the law stipulates.
Dog owners are now required to attend special classes on how to raise their pups properly so as to keep biting attacks down, according to the law.
And score one for the Swiss swine civil rights movement: Pigs now have the legal right to enjoy showers when rolling in the mud just isn’t enough.
Read more: AFP
Dead Man Visits Doctor
As a dead man, Ahmad Akhtary shouldn't have needed a doctor's appointment.
Akhtary's checkup, six months after he allegedly died in Afghanistan, scuttled his ex-wife's attempt to collect $550,000 on a life insurance policy.
At a court hearing last week in Gloucester, a judge sentenced 34-year-old Akhtary to 60 hours of community service and his former wife, Anne Akhtary, to 40 hours of community service but suspended prison sentences of nine months each.
Anne Akhtary, 43, admitted trying to claim the payout from the Norwich Union insurance company by using a forged death certificate from Afghanistan claiming that her husband had died of brain trauma in an accident.
Within weeks, however, Norwich Union investigators were tipped off about the doctor's appointment.
"They were told that Mr. Akhtary's GP had seen him at his practice and he had attended hospital so it was not the most sophisticated way of going about making a false claim," said prosecutor James Cranfield.
Akhtary had continued to live openly in Gloucester after his supposed death, working and paying taxes, Cranfield said. (AP)
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Tom Durante.
Got an OUT THERE news story? E-mail us at OUTTHERE@foxnews.com.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox