QUIRKY WORLD ... Our daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories

Woman gives birth in Subway restroom in Nevada

USA: It was just another day at work for Flora Vargas until a screaming woman burst into her Subway sandwich shop in Nevada and announced she was in labour.

After the pregnant woman raced for the women’s bathroom, assistant manager Vargas and her boss sprang into action, placing sandwich wrappers and rubbish bags on the floor for sanitation.

With Vargas’s help, the mother gave birth on the bathroom floor in Minden, 65km south of Reno, a few minutes later.

“It was a boy. A beautiful boy,” Vargas said. “He didn’t cry when he came out. Then he cried, and I breathed easier knowing he was alive.”

No customers were in the restaurant at the time of the 9.30am birth, but the outlet was open. The only employees inside were Vargas and the manager.

Vargas helped calm down the mother and get her on the restroom floor, she said, and it was “a blessing” that paramedics from the East Fork Fire and Paramedic District arrived in time to assist in the delivery. “The head of the baby was already out when she went to the floor,” Vargas said. “The baby came out really, really fast. Fortunately, the emergency service people got here really fast.” Paramedics transported the mother and child to Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Centre, where hospital spokesman Jon Tyler said he could only disclose that both are healthy.

Former Redneck Olympics get under way

USA: Despite being forced to change its name, the event formerly known as the Redneck Olympic Games continued its tradition of holding unorthodox competitions like lawnmower races and mud runs.

A full day of events was on tap during the Maine Redneck “Blank” Games. Organiser Harold Brooks changed the name under pressure from the International Olympics Committee, but noted that “everyone knows what the ‘blank’ stands for”.

The events included a wedding and a demolition derby. Other events over the weekend included bobbing for pigs’ feet, toilet seat horseshoes, and a greased watermelon relay race.

The idea behind the event, Brooks said, was to have what amounts to a great big outdoor picnic and pig roast for hardworking people who’ve earned the right to blow off some steam.

Being a redneck, he said, isn’t about living in a trailer, or getting drunk. “A redneck is someone who works hard. They say their neck is red because they work outside. A redneck can make fun of himself and have a good time,” said Brooks.

The Redneck Olympic Games kicked off three years ago. But the name was changed after the International Olympic Committee came after him, telling him he couldn’t brand his event as an Olympic event. That still doesn’t sit well with Brooks because he doesn’t think anyone should own the rights to a word. “The word was around before they were around,” he said, pointing to the Olympics’ origins in ancient Greece. “If they want to complain, then they should have the Greeks call and tell me to stop using it.”

Mexican bid to smuggle phone into prison in coffin

MEXICO: Mexico City prison authorities say they have quashed an attempt to smuggle a prohibited mobile phone into a city prison in the coffin of an inmate’s mother.

Prisoners in the city have the right to have the casket of a deceased parent or child brought into the prison yard so they can bid farewell to their relative.

But city correctional spokesman Emilio Castelazo said that before the coffin was allowed into the Santa Marta Acatitla prison, guards searched the casket and found the phone inside.

Castelazo said a criminal complaint has been filed. Several relatives were with the coffin at the time.

Mobile phones are banned because inmates frequently use them to co-ordinate criminal activities outside prison or make extortion calls.

Discarded NYC theatre prop sparks bomb scare

USA: A New York City playwright who directed a show called the American Suicide Bomber Association unwittingly sparked a bomb scare when he threw a prop from the production into the rubbish at his home.

Playwright Ethan Fishbane told The New York Post he wasn’t thinking when he discarded the fake bomb while cleaning out his Manhattan apartment last week.

A building superintendent saw the prop the next morning and called police. That brought out the bomb squad.

It didn’t take long for investigators to figure out what had happened.

Fishbane says he was stunned when officers knocked on his door, but he praised the department for its quick response, saying it was “wholly appropriate”.

The 23-year-old wrote the play while attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.