The Odd Truth, Sept. 19, 2003

The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum. A new collection of stories is published each weekday. On weekends, you can read a week's worth of The Odd Truth.

SALT LAKE CITY - It's soup you can sink your teeth into - at least according Tina Keeney. She claims she found a human tooth in a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Now, she's suing the New Jersey-based company. Keeney says she heated the soup for her 13-month-old son. Then, she says, she noticed a hard, white object in his hand. According to Keeney, Campbell offered to cover the cost of the soup, plus a little extra. They also wanted the tooth. She called a lawyer instead. The lawyer says lab tests show the object is indeed a human tooth, from a 13-year-old mouth. A spokesman for Campbell says they won't comment on pending litigation.

The Talented Mr. Maggot

LONDON - Four members of a gang led by a businessman nicknamed "Maggot Pete" were sentenced to prison Friday for selling condemned poultry to supermarkets, schools and hospitals across Britain.

Prosecutors said David Lawton, 55; Robert Mattock, 59; George Allen, 47; and Gary Drewett, 33, were part of a group that bought poultry carcasses that had been declared unfit for human consumption, stored them at the rat-infested premises of Denby Poultry in Denby, central England and then sold the meat on.

The men had pleaded guilty to fraud charges for recycling 450 tons of chicken and turkey - which in most cases had been deemed unfit even for pet food - into the human food chain. Some of it ended up in products such as spreads and pates sold by major supermarket chains.

A judge at Nottingham Crown Court gave the men sentences of between 15 months and 4 years and 3 months. A fifth man received a suspended sentence.

Judge Richard Benson told the defendants they had committed "a wicked fraud."

"If you had been dealing in Class A drugs rather than in chicken, then the sentences you would be receiving would be in double figures," he said. "The people who consume drugs know the risks involved. Your victims didn't."

The owner of Denby Poultry, Peter "Maggot Pete" Roberts, was convicted in his absence at an earlier trial. Police say they believe he has fled to continental Europe.

Crash Blamed On Singing And Driving

DAYS CREEK, Ore. - A Winston man told police he crashed his car after a bee flew into his mouth while he was singing along with the song "Rock Your Body" by Justin Timberlake on the radio.

Douglas County Sheriff's spokeswoman Pam Frank said John L. Nunes, 19, was trying to get rid of the bee or yellowjacket when his car hit a tree.

"I kind of panicked and went off the road," Nunes said Wednesday.

His car went down a 15-foot embankment.

He was taken by ambulance to Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg.

"I had to get a stitch in my tongue, and I got a gash on my left ankle," Nunes said. The tongue injury was from his teeth, not the bee, he said.

'Marathon Monk' Completes Ritual Run

TOKYO - A Buddhist priest dubbed the "marathon monk" has completed an ancient running ritual in the remote Japanese mountains that took seven years and covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe, wearing only a flowing white robe and flimsy straw sandals.

The 44-year-old monk, Genshin Fujinami, returned Thursday from his 24,800-mile spiritual journey in the Hiei mountains, a range of five peaks that rise above the ancient capital of Kyoto.

Fujinami was greeted at the end of his journey by a crowd of worshippers, who knelt to receive his blessings, said an official at Enryakuji Hoshuin, the temple that is guardian of the grueling tradition.

"I entrusted everything to God. I am satisfied," Fujinami was quoted as saying.

Since 1885, only 46 other so-called "marathon monks" of the Tendai sect have survived the ritual, which dates to the 8th century and is believed to be a path to enlightenment, according to temple officials. The last monk to complete it returned in 1994.

A few have done it twice; many more have not lived to finish. Traditionally, any monk, or gyoja, who can't continue to the end must take his own live, either by hanging or disembowelment.

A rigorous regimen dictates that in each of the journey's first three years, the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to pray, run along an 18-mile trail around Mount Hiei - stopping 250 times to pray along the way. He can carry only candles, a prayer book and a sack of vegetarian food.

In the next two years, he has to extend his runs to 200 days.

His most difficult trial, however, comes during the fifth year when he must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water or sleep, in a trial called "doiri," or "entering the temple."

It's Fashion Week, After All

NEW YORK - Two Bronx girls reportedly had to wear skirts made of trash bags to class as a punishment for coming to school in jeans rather than their uniforms.

The sixth-graders at the Bronx Preparatory Charter School were made to wear the bags by principal Marina Bernard Damiba.

The Daily News reports that Damiba called the garbage-bag skirts "Damiba fashions" and said they weren't meant to be humiliating.

Joy Vasquez, whose 12-year-old daughter, was one of the girls who wore the skirts, at first said the punishment was "really wrong." But after meeting with Damiba, she told the News that her daughter "got a lesson out of it."

Students at the school are required to wear a polo shirt with the school's logo and khaki, black, gray or navy blue pants or skirts that are at least knee-length.