Regret the Error

Reuters issued the following advisory May 9 in regard to a story
published May 4 on MSNBC.com: “The Budapest story headlined "Hungary
workers get shock at bottom of rum barrel" issued on May 4 is
withdrawn. Police said the incident, reported on a police magazine Web
site, happened 10 years ago. Reuters has been unable to make any
further checks to substantiate the story. There will be no substitute
story.” Link

The story was widely disseminated, and MSNBC published a corrective article here. This is the story in question (it was still on the Reuters site here as of last night):

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian builders who drank their way to the
bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty
surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a
police magazine website reported.
According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the
south of Hungary tried to move the barrel after they had drained it,
only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body
of a naked man fell out.
The website said that the body of the man had been shipped back
from Jamaica 20 years ago by his wife in the barrel of rum in order to
avoid the cost and paperwork of an official return.
According to the website, workers said the rum in the 300-liter
barrel had a "special taste" so they even decanted a few bottles of the
liquor to take home.
The wife has since died and the man was buried in a proper grave.

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