Two hyenas escaped from a South African wildlife park Wednesday by chewing through an electric fence during a power outage, but were recaptured within half an hour, the park said.

"The power went off... and the hyenas -- who will chew through wire and even iron bars -- managed to escape," said Earl Smith, general manager of the Lion Park, located just outside Johannesburg.

After vowing a single-minded focus on jobs, President Barack Obama's Republican foes in the House of Representatives called a vote late Tuesday to reaffirm "In God We Trust" as the national motto.

Lawmakers voted 396-9 in favor of a symbolic resolution, crafted by Republican Representative Randy Forbes and sure to appeal to the party's religious conservative base with the November 2012 elections on the horizon.

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.