“Ice ball” hits victim

An elderly Spanish woman has claimed she was hit by a falling ice ball, apparently the first victim of a phenomenon that has been puzzling scientists for days, state radio said yesterday. Juana Sanchez Sanchez, 70, said she was knocked out briefly by a large, flying, frozen object that hit her on the shoulder as she walked in a street near her home in Almeria, southern Spain, the radio said. A man in Seville escaped injury last week when a four-kilo (nine-pound) ice ball slammed into his car.