Strange news from around the globe
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Hungarian scholar stumbles on original score of Mozart piano sonata
Flipping through a dusty folder of unidentified music scores in Budapest's national library, Hungarian scholar Balazs Mikusi's heart skipped a beat when he came across four pages of the score of a famous Mozart sonata - written down by the composer himself.
Mikusi, head of the Hungarian National Szechenyi Library's music collection, told Reuters TV about the moment he realised what he had stumbled on.
"I of course remember the heartbeat. You are turning the pages of hundreds of sources which are obviously written by copiers, not the composer. And suddenly you see something that is a composer's handwriting - and it even looks similar," he said a few days after the manuscript was presented to the public.
"I said 'This looks like Mozart', and very soon I realized this must be Mozart because I started to read the piece, and it happens to be one of the most famous Mozart sonatas."
He said there were many Mozart autographs that even turn up at auctions, but the world has known about those for long.
"What makes it very interesting is that it's new, nobody has ever seen this or if not ever, in the past 200 years," he said.
"Everybody is intrigued, all the pianists, even average music lovers, and of course Mozart scholars, of what is actually on this page, how should we re-interpret this sonata in the light of this discovery," Mikusi said.
It remains a mystery how the score ended up in the collection of the Szechenyi library.
Dallas man arrested after ill-fated casket prank
A Texas man suspected of stealing a casket to play a prank on his sister by making her think he had dug up their dead father was arrested after she called police, police said on Tuesday.
Once Dallas police received the call from the sister who was concerned about what her brother had brought home, they linked the incident to a report of an assailant stealing an empty casket out of a hearse parked in the lot of Hughes Crown Hill Funeral Home, they said.
The man was arrested for public intoxication and will likely by charged with theft for the stolen casket, police said, adding the suspect did not disturb the grave of his father.
Spanish caver rescued from Peruvian cave after 12 days
A Spanish speleologist trapped 400 metres underground in a cave in the Peruvian Amazon for nearly two weeks was pulled to safety on Tuesday, a rescue worker said.
Cecilio Lopez-Tercero was stuck in the cave, named Intimachay, for 12 days in Peru's northern Amazonas region, where the temperature can drop to as low as 10 degrees Celsius and humidity reaches 100 percent.
After being lifted from the cave with a pulley, Lopez-Tercero said that he hopes to get well enough soon to continue exploring the area, rescue worker Javier Farje told Reuters.
More than 100 rescue workers, including several Spanish colleagues who travelled to South America to help in the effort, broke into applause and embraced each other after Lopez-Tercero appeared at the surface, according to local broadcaster RPP.
Lopez-Tercero suffered a back injury when he fell in the cave, according to local media.
After being pulled from the cave, he was moved to a makeshift camp for initial medical care, Farje said, and would be taken via helicopter to Lima.
Silicon Valley man unwittingly invites fugitive into home amid manhunt
A Silicon Valley homeowner unwittingly welcomed a fugitive into his home and shared a meal with the wanted man as California law enforcement officers canvassed the neighbourhood in a manhunt, police said on Tuesday.
Police in Palo Alto launched the search after receiving an emergency call on Monday about a possible fraudulent bank transaction linked to a man wanted in Oklahoma for a sex crime with a minor, the city's police department said.
Officers tried to nab 35-year-old Dominique Tabb of San Francisco at the bank, but he hopped a fence and ran into a residential neighborhood where officers began a yard-to-yard search, Palo Alto Detective Sergeant Brian Philip said.
A homeowner in his 60s saw Tabb in his yard with some minor scrapes, and Tabb told him that assailants had beaten him up and that he was trying to escape, police said. Believing his story, the homeowner invited Tabb into his home and they shared a meal.
"In his mind it appears he was helping a person out and doing him a favor and getting him out of harm's way," Philip said. "Fortunately nothing bad happened."
Source: Reuters
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