A South African magistrate found herself swapping her robe and gavel for a pair of cleaners gloves, as she helped volunteers with the birth of a baby in a courtroom toilet.

Acting senior magistrate Pearl Andrews on Tuesday said she was among those crammed in to a bathroom stall giving a hand to the surprised mother and her newborn at Cape Town's Wynberg magistrates' court on Monday.

There was screaming. There was fainting. It doesn't happen every day: a car washer in Brazil walked into his own wake, where his distraught family was already weeping over their loss.

"People were so startled. Women were fainting, people started running all over the place," said Maria Menezes, one of the mourners at the event in Alagoinhas, in Salvador de Bahia state, G1 news reported.

Researchers in bicycle-mad Netherlands have come up with a novel way to get more cyclists out during the harsh winter months while also lowering the number of injuries: heated bike paths.

"The idea is to install a system under bike paths to prevent ice forming in winter," engineer Marcel Boerefijn from the Tauw engineering consultancy told Agence France Presse.

One in five lottery winners in Britain carry on working after they hit the jackpot and one third invest in a jacuzzi, according to a survey published Monday.

The study of 3,000 winners who became instant millionaires showed only 59% handed in their notice immediately after their life-changing windfalls, while 19% carried on working.

An Austrian artist has installed a one-way mirror in a Vienna cafe that allows men to peek from their restroom into the ladies room.

Alexander Riegler told the daily Heute newspaper Monday that the mirror is an attempt to "stir people into a discussion of voyeurism and surveillance," in an era when almost everyone is being watched.

Five teachers in Japan who sneaked off school grounds for a crafty cigarette in between lessons have been hit with hefty fines, officials said Tuesday.

Education board bosses docked up to 500,000 yen ($6,300) from each of the five after they were caught smoking outside school gates during the working day.

Philippe Labbe, the executive chef at the Shangri-La hotel in Paris, has been named France's chef of the year by the influential Gault Millau restaurant guide.

Labbe, 51, has been in charge of the food at the hotel's L'Abeille restaurant since it opened in 2010, having made his reputation as head chef at the Chevre d'Or, at Eze on the French Riviera.

Myanmar President Thein Sein said Sunday he had overcome his fear of the media after a recent grilling on the BBC's "Hardtalk" show that he admitted was tougher than expected.

"His questions were really difficult. I hadn't heard about Hardtalk," the former general told reporters in the capital Naypyidaw when asked about his interview by the BBC's Stephen Sackur during a landmark U.S. visit last month.

An Australian businessman is hoping to turn a disused morgue which once served unfortunate psychiatric patients into a unique motel -- offering autopsy slabs for weary heads.

The morgue in Tasmania state has been idle for more than a decade, after the Willow Court historic colonial-era mental hospital was closed down.

Polish police said Sunday they had arrested two men involved in stealing vans in Germany, including a vehicle which was carrying 12 bodies bound for a crematorium.

The two men, aged 25 and 27, were arrested on Thursday and Friday and are Polish nationals.