Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- A live frog has been found in a bag of fresh mint imported from Ethiopia to a Northumberland shop. The frog, dubbed 'Minty', was being cared for by an RSPCA inspector before being sent to a specialist centre
in West Yorkshire where experts will try to determine his species. ● A cat has been reunited with his owners nine years after he went missing from their home in Ilford. In October last year pensioner Paddy
Prentice had a friendly stray cat keep visiting her but she already had a cat and could not cope with looking after two so she caught him and took him to a vet to be scanned for a microchip. He was chipped, but
the family no longer lived at the address and neighbours did not have their new address, so appeals were made over social media by two cat charities. A retired detective saw them and decided to track down the
family. Basil is now home. ● A Colorado rancher who has lost three of his cattle to wolf attacks has brought in a new line of defense. It is illegal to shoot wild wolves in Colorado under state and federal laws
so Don Gittleson has brought in seven donkeys to live with his cattle, in the hope that their noise and hooves will scare off any wolves going after his livestock. ● Skye, thought to have been the oldest working
mountain rescue dog when she recently retired aged 16 has been awarded the PDSA Order of Merit, considered the animal equivalent of the OBE. Skye had been a member of mountain rescue teams in the Lake District for 11
years. ● A rare black lion tamarin has been born at Jersey Zoo. A critically endangered species in the wild, the infant, named Grace by keepers, had to be hand-reared for the first few days because she was too
weak to hold on to her mother. ● Biologists conducting a survey of wild turkey nesting and habitats in Pennsylvania were stunned when they caught one turkey and discovered that she had been tagged 10 years ago,
suggesting that she is 12½ years old. Wild turkeys normally live no more than 3 years. ● New research has suggested that Tyrannosaurus Rex's famously short arms might have adapted that way to
protect them from being bitten off when packs of T.rex descended on carcasses in a feeding frenzy.
- The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the most distant single star yet seen. Dubbed "Earendel", the star is 12.9bn light years away and was only visible thanks to gravitational lensing; the gravity of
supermassive objects or clusters of galaxies can act like a magnifying glass for other objects behind them. Earendel is so distant that astronomers today see it as it was 900 million years after the Big Bang when the
universe was 6% of its current age. ● A sample of Moon dust collected by Neil Armstrong on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission will be auctioned later this month. As the only Apollo 11 sample that can be sold legally
it has been difficult to value, but based on the prices of samples from later missions Bonhams have given it an estimated value of $800,000 to $1.2m (£611,000 to £916,000). ● NASA has had to scrub
the final prelaunch test of its Artemis 1 Moon mission, comprising the 323'- (98m)-tall Space Launch System rocket and Orion module for a second time. Last Sunday the first attempt was ended by a problem with
the mobile launch platform the rocket sits on, then on Monday a vent valve fault ended the second attempt. The final prelaunch test sees everything being done for the launch up to - but not including - ignition.
- A miniature handwritten book by the 13-year-old Charlotte Brontë is to be auctioned in New York. The book, titled A Book of Rhymes by Charlotte Brontë, Sold by Nobody, and Printed by Herself,
contains ten poems over fifteen pages hand-stitched together and is about the size of a standard playing card. It has an estimated value of $1.25m (£950,000). ● A team of archaeologists from India and
Australia has uncovered 65 sandstone jars of varying sizes over four sites in Assam, northeast India. Similar jars have been found in Laos and Indonesia. The purpose of the jars in unknown, but folklore of the local
Naga people suggests that they might have been used for cremated remains and grave goods. ● Golfers in Eastham on the Wirral were up in arms for two reasons earlier this month. The council-owned Brackenwood Golf
Club had just been closed due to budget cuts then, to add insult to injury, the bomb squad detonated a WWII bomb found in a nearby river in one of the course's bunkers the day after the closure. ● A rusty
original 1970s Raleigh 'Chopper' bicycle, found in a shed and rescued before it could be thrown into a skip, has sold at auction for £692 ($906). The bike, with two flat tyres, has the original gear shifter,
replaced on later models by a more health-and-safety-friendly T-bar. ● Two of Charles Darwin's notebooks, stolen from a Cambridge University library 22 years ago, have been returned. Library staff discovered
a bright pink gift bag that had been left in the library. Inside was the blue box the notebooks had been kept in and a note written on an envelope reading "Librarian, Happy Easter X." Inside the box were the
two notebooks wrapped in clingfilm, which the staff had to wait for five days to open so police could examine the package. Inside they found the notebooks in the same condition they had been when taken. The identity
of whoever took and returned them remains a mystery. One of the notebooks contains an early version of Darwin's "Tree of Life" diagram that would contribute to his theory of evolution 20 years later. Together
the two notebooks are worth millions of pounds.
- Businesses and people in Newport, Oregon, have been put on alert to watch for fake money after a large amount of movie prop $10, $20 and $100 bills were stolen from a car. The money is marked "For motion
picture use only" but there have been issues with similar prop notes in the past. ● Hackers who faked the emergency data request orders sent by police persuaded both Apple and Meta [Facebook's parent
company] to hand over user data including IP addresses, phone numbers and home addresses. ● Canada's Supreme Court has upheld a fine of C$9.1m (£5.5m; $73m) issued to a man convicted of being a major player
in one of the worst crimes in Canada's history - the theft of 3,000 tonnes of maple syrup. The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist saw the sweet stuff taken from the emergency reserves kept in a Quebec warehouse to cover
years when the harvest is poor; the criminals replaced it with water, then sold the syrup across the country. Richard Vallières was convicted of fraud, trafficking and theft in 2006, sentenced to 8 years
in prison and ordered to repay the value of the syrup he had personally sold on (about half of the amount taken) or face an additional six years' jail time. ● Thams Valley police who pulled over a driver after
seeing him swigging from a vodka bottle while driving were stunned when a breathalyser test showed he was completely sober. The driver explained that he did not like drinking from plastic bottles so had filled an
empty vodka bottle with water. ● An Indian man has admitted hacking into low-cost airline IndiGo's computer systems to find the contact details of another passenger after they accidentally took each other's
suitcases and the airline would not give him the details, citing data protection laws. ● A Conwy man has been fined for harassing his neighbour over a period of years including singing rap songs late at night
and cutting a 7' (2.1m) hole in his neighbour's hedge to give himself a better view of distant mountains from his bedroom window. ● Washington, DC, police, tipped off to a "potential bio-hazard material"
in the home of self-described "Catholic anarchist" and leader of an anti-abortion group Lauren Handy discovered five human fetuses. Handy was separately indicted last week of forcing her way into an abortion
clinic to block access for patients. ● Romance writer Nancy Crampton-Brophy, 71, is due to appear in a US court charged with shooting dead her husband of 27 years. In 2011 she published an essay titled How To
Murder Your Husband. She pleaded not guilty at a pre-trial hearing.
- The RRS Sir David Attenborough has completed its icebreaking trials in the Antarctic. The final report is yet to be published, but early indications show a couple of minor details that will need to be fixed
when it returns to Britain in the coming months including a rudder realignment and strengthening, and a seawater intake that became blocked. ● A study by British Antarctic Survey scientists has for the first time
shown a direct link between ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and greenhouse gas emissions, which affect wind patterns in the Southern Hemisphere. Were the ice shelf to completely melt sea levels would rise by
almost 10' (3m). Researchers studying lakes that have formed around the East Antarctic Ice Sheet are warning that the ice is nearing a tipping point and could collapse. ● Scientists at Stanford University have
developed a solar panel that generates electricity at night by tapping into the radiation of infrared energy from the panels as they cool down. ● April sees many cricket teams posing for pre-season
photographs, but Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club's team photo suffered a most uncricketing disruption - snow. ● NBC Washington weather broadcaster Doug Kammerer stopped in the middle of a tornado alert
broadcast, apologised to viewers and phoned his children live on air to tell them to go to their cellar. After the call he explained to viewers that he knew they would not have been watching the broadcast. He was
widely praised online for his actions.
- Last week's Friday Irregular was dated April 1st, April Fool's Day. Some of the more amusing jokes we saw were The Sun's report that US artist Joseph Kerr [Jo Kerr... Joker] had been
hired to create a 10' (3m) statue of controversial broadcaster Piers Morgan to stand in Trafalgar Square, 'quoting' Piers as saying that "The world's best columnist will now be standing alongside the world's
most famous column. And like Admiral Lord Nelson, I'm always on the right side of history. Just be grateful that, unlike Michelangelo's David, I'm not totally naked.". The Mirror reported that the
remains of the Marble Arch Mound, a deeply-unpopular recent tourist attraction in London, would be used to rebuild Hadrian's Wall, the Roman wall built to keep the troublesome
ScotsPicts out of England.
The Daily Star claimed that Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds would be playing in goal for Wrexham in their match against Stockport County, and had commented that "[..] when corners come in, I'll be punching
the ball away harder than Will Smith smacked Chris Rock". Ruck magazine reported that after their dire performance this year, England were to withdraw from the Six Nations rugby contest. Kent Live
claimed that, in the spirit of the Angel of the North, a 320' (97.5m) statue of a white horse would be erected. The Guardian reported that lobbying was underway to allow the royal family to use superyachts
seized from Russian oligarchs for state visits. The BBC Three Twitter account trailed "new" shows that were coming to the relaunched channel, including a Gavin & Stacey
spin-off based on the earlier years of Pam Shipman (played in the original show by Alison Steadman) - and promptly got hit with a flood of complaints of cruelty from G&S fans who realised it was a joke...
Finally, we would like to congratulate the one reader who contacted us to point out that, contrary to our story about the Chinese Moon rover, there are - as far as we know - no rocks resembling green cheese on the
moon...
IN BRIEF: The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust charity is looking for people to spend five months manning the Port Lockroy base in Antarctica, running the most remote post office in the world, maintaining the
base and counting penguins. ● Rower Victoria Evans has set a new world record for the fastest solo crossing of the Atlantic by a woman, with a time of 40 days and 19 hours, almost 9 days faster than the previous
record. ● A Chinese man has been living at Beijing Capital International airport for the last 14 years because his family will not let him drink and smoke at home. ● The pilots of a Delta Airlines flight
from Salt Lake City to Washington, DC safely made an emergency landing in Denver after one of the cockpit windshields shattered above 30,000' (9,140m). ● A man who picked up his new £250,000 ($327,000)
Ferrari F8 Tributo from a dealer in Derbyshire crashed it less than two miles away. ● Right-wing evangelical pastor Jesse Duplantis was widely mocked online after telling viewers of a four-day live TV event that
Jesus has not returned yet because people are not giving enough money to churches... [More likely out of embarassment at having such people speaking for him... -Ed] ● The first complete sequencing of human genome
DNA has been published, filling in the gaps left by the 2003 Human Genome Project. ● The Environment Agency is trialling using Minecraft to teach children about flood prevention. ● The DeLorean Motor
Company of Texas (whose owner bought the IP from the original company in 1995) has announced a prototype electric DeLorean car [but what about a plutonium- or Mr Fusion recycled rubbish-powered time machine one? -Ed] ●
Scientist have claimed that the most popular smell worldwide, across all cultures, genders and nationalities is... vanilla.
UKRAINE: For the last two weeks shipments of narcotics have been washing up on Libyan beaches, each pack bearing the picture of Vladimir Putin. Their origin is unknown. ● The Russian army is reportedly
running into problems replacing missiles, tanks and aircraft fired or lost in the war for one simple reason. Key components of the most high-tech equipment in the Russian army were made in Ukraine, and replacement
parts are hard to come by if you are attacking your supplier...
UPDATES: A British autonomous robot boat called Maxlimer is being sent to Tonga to survey the underwater Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai volcano and take measurements of the water and environmental
conditions to help scientists determine how it erupted and its effect on marine life.
Little Jennifer had come home from school with her latest maths test which her parents had been told she would show them. "Oh, Little Jennifer," her father sighed, "Look at
this - your teacher put a big zero on your test."
Without hesitation, Little Jennifer smiled as only she could. "Oh no, Daddy, that's not a zero. Miss marked my paper last and had run out of stars so she drew a Moon!"
