Following is a summary of odd news briefs compiled from stories that have run separately and are available in full on the file.
Man sues airline over flight spent in toilet
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour JetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."
When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a JetBlue <JBLU.O> flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court.
But Mutlu was allowed to board after a JetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working.
However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.
The pilot "became angry at (Mutlu's) reluctance" and said Mutlu "should be grateful for being onboard," the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the "jump seat," he was told it was reserved for airline personnel.
Woman mistook naked thief for husband
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian woman woke up to a real-life nightmare, discovering that the naked man who had slipped into her bed in the middle of the night was a thief, not her husband, a newspaper said on Tuesday.
The 36-year-old housewife was asleep when the thief, noticing that her husband was fast asleep on the couch, quietly stripped off and lay down beside her, the Star newspaper said, quoting a police report filed in the eastern state of Terengganu.
The dozing woman's suspicions were raised when she spoke to him and his voice sounded strange, the paper said.
"She then went to another room and found her husband fast asleep on the couch. That's when she screamed, causing the thief to flee by leaping out the window together with the stolen items," it added.
A new wrinkle in smoking enforcement...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Cigarette vending machines in Japan may soon start counting wrinkles, crow's feet and skin sags to see if the customer is old enough to smoke.
The legal age for smoking in Japan is 20 and as the country's 570,000 tobacco vending machines prepare for a July regulation requiring them to ensure buyers are not underage, a company has developed a system to identify age by studying facial features.
By having the customer look into a digital camera attached to the machine, Fujitaka Co's system will compare facial characteristics, such as wrinkles surrounding the eyes, bone structure and skin sags, to the facial data of over 100,000 people, Hajime Yamamoto, a company spokesman said.
"With face recognition, so long as you've got some change and you are an adult, you can buy cigarettes like before. The problem of minors borrowing (identification) cards to purchase cigarettes could be avoided as well," Yamamoto said.
Japan's finance ministry has already given permission to an age-identifying smart card called "taspo" and a system that can read the age from driving licenses.
Man pokes shark in eye during attack
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian swimmer survived a great white shark attack by poking the creature in the eyes as it dragged him through the water after badly savaging his left leg.
Jason Cull was swimming off a beach on Australia's southwest coast on Sunday when the four meter (12 feet) shark attacked.
"Initially I thought it was a dolphin," Cull told The Australian newspaper on Monday. "I just remember being dragged along backwards. I was trying to feel its gills but I found its eye and I stuck my finger in and that's when it let go."
The shark tore two chunks from Cull's left leg, ripping off half his calf and leaving him with deep lacerations to his knee and thigh. A local surf lifesaver heard Cull, 37, screaming and raced into the surf to rescue him.
An Australian teenage surfer was killed in a shark attack in April. Sharks are protected in Australia and attacks on humans are relatively rare, despite the country's huge coastline.
Olympics bonuses tailored to prevent squandering
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand is offering its athletes big cash incentives for Olympic gold medals -- but will pay out in installments to stop them squandering it.
Gold medalists will earn 10 million baht ($314,000), silver medal winners will take six million baht, while a bronze is worth four million baht -- sizable sums in a country where the minimum wage is just 203 baht ($6) a day.
However, half of the money will be paid over a 20-year period to prevent Thai Olympians, many of whom are from poor backgrounds, from frittering it away.
"We don't want them to spend it all at once, they might need this money when they get old," Thai Olympic committee member Charoen Wattanasin told Reuters.
"We will give it to them every month. Most of them manage their finances but there have been a few bad examples in the past."
