After rescuing stranded people in mountains and hilly terrain and guiding the blind, dogs are now being used in German schools to boost performance in the classroom. Despite a grainy, gray September morning, the mood is upbeat in a class in Karlsruhe in Germany: and that's largely because Paula, a six year-old Golden Retriever, is here. Some parents were skeptical at the start, said teacher Bettina Brecht who has been bringing her dog to the classroom the past five years. Dogs are being brought into schools since the end of the 1990s and there are about 120 institutions welcoming canines.

Revenge Of The Garbage

Bin-men took their revenge on a driver who had blocked their way by stacking dozens of empty bins round the car.The incident was caught on camera and the footage is now a Youtube Hit.

The 62-second clip shows three men, each of them wearing a high-visibility jacket, dragging bins into the alleyway beside Stephenson Street, Horwich, near Bolton, Greater Manchester.

An accompanying narrative reads: “This shows Horwich Bin Men getting their own back on a car owner who has obstructed a back alley with their car.
“The bin men usually drive their van through this back alley to the next street and they are a bit annoyed they have to drive round via Chorley New Road, which is very busy.”
One local refuse collector claimed to be unaware of the incident but said: “These things do go on, but it is just a big of harmless fun.
“It can be frustrating when cars block the wagons, but the lads will have made sure they didn’t damage the vehicle in question”.
Officials at Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council believe the footage is at least four years old. They said they took such incidents “very seriously”.

Suspended Animation

Chinese artist Li Wei creates images of himself and his friends being thrown off buildings, dangling from bridges and hanging off cars, all in the name of art. Li's photos can take up to six months to set up and involve huge crews organizing props such as smoke, mirrors, wires and cranes. After the photographs are taken the father of one removes traces of the wires with a computer. Li, from Beijing, said: "One of the most difficult and expensive shots was where myself and 12 people were flying behind a car and we had to use a lot of cranes to keep us all suspended" "The images can involve me getting battered around a bit - most times I will pick up an injury from the stunt wires, one time I got my head stuck in a pane of smashed glass"
One of Li Wei's images is shown and it was taken with the help of cranes holding the people in position. 

Cinematic Compensation

A Chinese woman is suing a cinema and a film's distributors for wasting her time by showing 20 minutes of adverts before it started, according to state media.

Chen Xiaomei claims the Polybona International Cinema in the northern city of Xian and film distributors Huayi Brothers Media Corporation should have told her how long the advertisements for the film Aftershock lasted, Xinhua news agency said.

Ms Chen, who is a lawyer, has accused Polybona and Huayi Brothers of wasting her time and violating her freedom of choice.
The case has been accepted by the People's Court in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, Xinhua said, citing a statement from the court.
Ms Chen is demanding the companies refund her 35-yuan ticket (£3.30), pay her 35 yuan in compensation and one yuan (10p) for emotional damages and write her an apology, the report said.
She has also advised the cinema to publish the advertisement times on its website, in the lobby or on its customer hotline and asked Huayi Brothers to cut the length of commercials to less than five minutes.

Candid Bomb

An Iraqi prank television show has taken the 'candid camera' format to a new level after planting fake bombs under celebrities' cars.The programme, “Put Him In Bucca”, also threatens high-profile contests with jail in a maximum-security prison despite their protests of innocence.
The show, broadcast on the Al-Baghdadia Network , targets famous Iraqi singers, comedians and artists. 
It is named after the US military’s Camp Bucca high security prison that held thousands of Iraqi detainees before being closed in 2009.
Participants are invited to the station’s studios for an interview but as they arrive are subjected to a checkpoint complete actors posing as police and security personnel.
As they wait outside the building a fake improvised explosive device (IED) is then planted in the car before they are accused of being suicide bombers and threatened with prison.
But the programme has attracted criticism as being in bad taste, in a country where suicide bombings remain frequent.
The show has continued to be broadcast throughout the fasting month of Ramadan despite numerous protests being held objecting to its making fun of a serious issue.
Despite celebrities later giving permission for the show to air, some appeared to be have been shocked by the experience.
"I expected it to be a candid camera show but didn't expect all the army facilities and this level of acting," said actress Asia Kamal, who was targeted by the pranksters.