A man apparently sleeping in a trash bin woke up screaming to the pressure of a trash compacter. The incident happened early Thursday, when a Kansas City waste-truck worker, unaware of the sleeping man, lifted over the trash bin from a shopping center on U. S. 40, and routinely emptied into the truck and started the compacter. According to the Kansas City Fire Department, the driver stopped the compacter as soon as he heard somebody screaming. The driver jumped in to help the man out but couldn't.

Animal services are up in arms about a Tampa-based fast food restaurant promotional stunt asking customers to dress their cats in specially designed take out bags. The bags were invented after Checkers restaurant saw that Rap Cat, a cat puppet used in Checkers advertising commercials, was gaining popularity.

Stumpy, the eight-days-old duckling, stands discrete from the rest of the members of his family. The chicken has born with a rare mutation that has left him with an extra pair of full-sized legs. "It was absolutely bizarre. I was thinking 'he's got too many legs' and I kept counting 'one, two, three, four,'" Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, said as she showed the duckling to reporters.

A fireman rescued a cooked hamster from a fiery oven after a woman placed the animal's cage on their cooker and switched it on by mistake. The pet hamster, called Christmas, was brought back to life in a miracle-like situation when his cage burst into flames. When firefighters arrived, Christmas was lying unconscious on his back with his severely burnt legs in the air and tongue hanging out. The firefighter acted promptly and gave Christmas a blast of oxygen and a few sips of the blackcurrant drink, Ribena.

American firm Under-Tech has launched, Under-Ease pants, the world's first pants with built-in underwear designed to contain the smell of farts. The Web site of the company claims over 10,000 satisfied customers have tried and tested the new product. Buck Weimer, President of Under-Tec and inventor of the pants said the underwear has a built-in, multi-layered, replaceable filter made of felt, charcoal and fiberglass wool that traps the smell of flatulence.