You are dead, court tells man

Burglar breaking into a house and threatening with a knife. [Photo: Courtesy]

Constantin Reliu learned in January that he was dead.

After more than 20 years working as a cook in Turkey, the 63-year-old returned home to Romania to discover that his wife had had him officially registered as dead.

He has since been living a legalistic nightmare of trying to prove to authorities that he is, in fact, alive.

He faced a major setback this week when a court in the northeastern city of Vaslui refused to overturn his death certificate because his request was filed “too late.” The decision, the Romanian court said, is final.

Woman invites man to kill her

A man accused of killing 19-year-old Natalie Marie Bollinger told police he shot her after he replied to her online advert seeking a hitman — for herself, investigators said in court documents obtained this week.

But before the killing, the man, Joseph Michael Lopez, 22, tried to talk her out of suicide, he told Adams County deputies, according to an arrest affidavit.

After he failed to change her mind, they went for a drive and stopped by the side of the road, where they said a prayer together as Lopez knelt on the ground beside Bollinger and shot her once in the back of the head with a 9mm firearm, according to the affidavit.

State hires goats to fight fires

Goats have been hired by the government in Portugal to munch through the thick undergrowth that covers the hills and makes wildfires a regular summer occurrence.

While it is the first time Portugal has deployed animals to help prevent wildfires, they have been used for decades in the US - especially California and the Pacific Northwest - as an environmentally friendly way to limit the impact of fires.

Miguel Joao de Freitas, junior minister for forests and rural development, said: “Last year it became clear to us that something different had to be done.”