A bloodied body caused a fright in an Austrian motorway rest area on Tuesday morning, before police raised it again from the dead.

Passers-by alerted the authorities at dawn that a body covered in blood lay in a rest area off the Tauern motorway near Salzburg.

A pair of ample bloomers once owned by Britain's Queen Victoria sold for more than £9,000 ($14,330, 10,500 euros) at an Edinburgh auction on Tuesday, more than three times the original estimate.

An anonymous buyer paid £9,375 for the white silk undergarments during an auction of items from London's Old Battersea House -- the London home of the Forbes family, the American publishing dynasty.

It will be the world's most literary mortuary.

Ten leading crime writers are competing for the honor of having a morgue named after them.

Police officers in Oregon say a domestic disturbance suspect more or less fell into their hands — through the ceiling.

Portland police were called Monday to a home to deal with an intoxicated man reported as threatening relatives. Lt. Robert King says they found him barricaded in the attic and determined he wasn't a threat, so they began to leave with the intention of following up later.

Nicole Leszczynski couldn't imagine that two chicken salad sandwiches would land her and her husband in jail and her 2-year-old daughter in state custody. But it happened five days ago, when the 30-weeks-pregnant woman forgot to pay for her snack while grocery shopping.

"It was the most ridiculous chain of events that happened," she said while sobbing Monday. "It's still hard to believe what happened."

A Hong Kong school has lost an appeal against a noise abatement order issued after a neighbor complained about the daily ruckus emanating from its playground, reports said Tuesday.

High Court Judge Thomas Au dismissed an appeal by Lantau International School, which was required in 2009 to keep noise levels below 60 decibels or face fines, the South China Morning Post reported.

Just as in the Middle Ages, flocks of sheep and herds of cows made their way through Madrid city center on Sunday, marking the centuries-old annual tradition of transhumance, in which cattle migrates from summer to winter pastures.

Thousands of bleating sheep that had left the mountains of the north or the hot plains of the south, found their way through the city streets no differently than they would a rural hamlet.

German police called to a traffic incident early Sunday were astonished to find themselves face-to-face with Jedi master Yoda from Star Wars, much the worse for wear after Halloween celebrations.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, a 42-year-old male driver, resplendent in his Yoda costume, had a minor collision with a pedestrian and sped off in his car, only to be collared by a police vehicle two minutes later.

A Moscow driver smashed into 17 cars in the Russian capital Sunday on a drunken rampage while naked behind the wheel of his car, later explaining he was flying on "the wings of love", police said.

A police spokesman said the man "was in a state of insobriety behind the wheel of the car, lost control" and smashed into 13 civilian cars and four police vehicles, the RIA Novosti news agency said.

Filipinos who cannot make the traditional All-Saints' Day visits to cemeteries will be able to offer their prayers for the dead online through a website set up by the country's Catholic bishops.

The website, http://undasonline.com/, is aimed mainly at the millions of overseas Filipinos who cannot visit the graves of their departed relatives on November 1, a widespread tradition in this largely-Catholic nation.