A Romanian Orthodox priest and four nuns were sentenced to prison on Monday for their roles in the death of a 23-year-old nun in a crucifixion exorcism ritual in the cellar of a church. 23-year-old Sister Maricica Irina Conici died in June 2005 after spending three days tied to a cross with no food or water during an exorcism ritual designed to cleanse her of the evil spirits the priest and nuns believed possessed her. Conici survived several days without food or water, but died of dehydration, exhaustion and suffocation.

In the first incident of its kind, a doctor skiing down the Haulback Trail at Sugarloaf, was hit by something very unusual - a deer. A whitetail deer attempting to cross the trail crossed paths with Dr. Ray Stone, while making a turn, resulting with both of them falling to the ground. Stone, a family practice doctor who lives in New Gloucester and works at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston said he was utterly confused last month after being knocked-off completely while skiing.

Accompanied by his dog, a 44-year-old man has embarked upon a journey that has included ridinghis lawn mower for the last two years. Paul Woods travels by day and sleeps in a tent at night and he plans to reach Virginia from Alaska at the speed of 15 mph. The Herald Journal of Logan quotes him as saying. "You've got to be pretty strange and pretty weird to be driving a tractor mower across country. " Recently he took a break in the parking lot of Beaver Mountain ski resort, 107 miles north of Salt Lake City, near the Idaho border.

"One can't go against the word of God" - the idiom has held its good for a duck named Perky. After enduring being shot and then having her presumed dead body thrown in a kitchen fridge, the ring-necked bird has once again shown her lust for life on the operation table. The one-pound female duck had stopped breathing Saturday while the vets were performing a surgery on her to repair gunshot damage to one wing. But the fowl suddenly came back when veterinarian David Hale of the Cross Creek Animal Hospital performed a CPR on the duck, Noni Beck of the Goose Creek Wildlife Sanctuary told the AP.

A second-time mother has criticized hospital staff after she was ignored and gave birth to her daughter in the toilet. Kay Webb, 24, was rushed to Monash Medical Center on January 22 suffering contractions two to four minutes apart.