Weird News

WOODSIDE, Calif. - A third woman has filed a lawsuit claiming a caretaker for Koko, the world-famous sign-language-speaking gorilla, pressured her to expose her breasts as a way to bond with the animal.

Iris Rivera, 39, sued the Gorilla Foundation this week in San Mateo County Superior Court, saying the foundation’s president, Francine Patterson, repeatedly told her to expose her breasts.

Rivera, an administrative assistant at the foundation until she quit last month, claims Patterson told her last year that Koko was signing that “she wants to see your nipples.”

Two other former employees of the foundation, Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller, filed similar claims last week.

Kraft halts production

of roadkill candy

TRENTON, N.J. - Production of candy shaped like roadkill has come to a screeching halt. The decision, announced Friday by Kraft Foods Inc., was the result of an outcry by New Jersey animal rights activists who said the candy encouraged children to be cruel to animals.

“We take comments from our consumers really seriously and, in hindsight, we understand that this product could be misunderstood,” said Kraft spokesman Larry Baumann.

Kraft plans to stop production as soon as possible and then sell off remaining inventory, Baumann said.

No, really,

it was a big fish

OSLO, Norway - Unlike many fishermen, Harald Skoge didn’t have to exaggerate the size of his latest catch. The 321-pound halibut was too big for his nearly 29-foot boat.

Skoge, who fishes as a hobby, was trying his luck off western Norway with a simple hook and line on Wednesday when he thought something had gone wrong.

“At first, I thought the hook had gotten stuck at the bottom,” the retiree was quoted as saying in Friday’s edition of his local newspaper, Sunnmoersposten.

Slowly, he was able to roll in the line, and realized something very, very big was on the end. When the giant halibut broke the surface, he realized it was too big to haul into his boat.

“I had to tow it to land,” he told the newspaper. After three hours of towing the fish, he was able to deliver it to a local fish processing plant, which weighed and bought the catch.

According to Skoge, the fish’s head alone weighed 42 pounds, more than many anglers can claim for their whole catch.

TOKYO - Japan created what engineers here call the world’s longest overland tunnel on Sunday, when railway workers blasted through a final layer of rock with a governor and other dignitaries looking on.

The 16.4 mile Hakkoda Tunnel will become part of a new bullet train line under construction to link Tokyo with the northern city of Aomori about 360 miles to the north. The tunnel burrows under Mount Hakkoda in Aomori prefecture.

Local television showed 600 or so people sitting in the ribbon-festooned tunnel as they watched officials press a button to clear the last yard of rock with two large explosions. “This is an incredible feeling, it’s an incredible memory,” Aomori Gov. Shingo Mimura said.

The previous record, set in 2002, was a 16-mile tunnel for a railway line in a neighboring prefecture, according to the Japan Society of Civil Engineers’ Web site.

The Hakkoda tunnel will not hold its title for long, however. Japan’s Kyodo News agency said a 22.6-mile tunnel is set for completion in Switzerland this spring.