Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- The birth of twin red-bellied lemurs at Chester Zoo is being hailed as "incredibly special" as the species is listed as vulnerable in its native Madagascar. ● A Connecticut man who went to
investigate why the lights on his mother-in-law's car were on discovered a black bear rummaging in the vehicle. Officers from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection were called and eventually
persuaded the bear to leave the car by shooting a non-harmful bean bag round at it. It is thought that it had been attracted by the smell from an empty McDonald's bag. The car was a write-off with its interior
almost completely destroyed. ● A dog which went missing in Crediton, Devon, was found over 56 hours later stuck in a rabbit hole. Flossie was safely rescued, dehydrated and hungry but unharmed. ● An
extremely rare 12'- (3.7m)-long oarfish has been found washed up on a New Zealand beach. Oarfish can grow up to 26' (8m) in length, normally live around 650' (198m) below the sea surface, and have been considered
responsible for many reported sightings of sea monsters. ● A makeshift bridge had to be erected to allow five sheep which had jumped from their field onto the roof of a neighbouring building to return to their
flock. ● Firefighters called to rescue a cat stuck up a tree in Sheldon, West Midlands, found that the tree was too spindly to put a ladder against so they put boards over the rungs of their 44' (13.5m)
ladder and used props to make a ramp for the cat to crawl down. ● A US Navy veteran combat medic who served in Afghanistan and Iraq is praising his 500lb (227kg) pet pig for saving his life after he woke up to
find a fire had broken out. Hamilton the pig had been trained to open and close doors and closed the door between Gilbert Anaya and the fire, slowing the fire's spread and allowing Anaya and his housemate time to
escape. By the time they got out Hamilton had already left the building. ● Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers called out to a report of a pack of wolves found that the sighting was "actually a group of large breed St Bernard
dogs that live in the area and have a documented history of escaping their enclosure". ● A tourist in Yellowstone National Park who tried sneaking up on a bison found himself running for his life after it
turned and charged. Bison can run up to three times faster than humans and are strong enough to knock each other off their feet.
- The United Arab Emirates' Hope space probe, orbiting Mars since February 2021 to study the atmosphere has discovered an intense ribbon-like aurora of ultraviolet light circling halfway around the upper
atmosphere and scientists are at a loss to explain it. On Earth auroras are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with the magnetic field, but Mars has no magnetic field. Instead, previously observed small
auroras were caused by sections of Mars' crust that are still magnetically charged, but that does not explain the range of the newly-discovered one. Planetary scientists will now re-examine data from the earlier
MAVEN and Mars Express missions to look for a cause. ● The Canadian government has enshrined in law that actions considered illegal in Canada are also illegal in space for Canadian astronauts, ahead of the
county's collaboration with NASA and other space agencies to develop the Lunar Gateway space station orbiting the Moon.
- Hundreds of skulls discovered by Mexican police in a cave near the Guatamalan border in 2012 were initially thought to be a crime scene as the area was known for violence and kidnappings, but ten years of testing
and analysis have shown that they were from sacrificial victims killed between 900 and 1200 CE. ● Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a temple dedicated to the Greek god Zeus, in the form of Zeus Kasios, a
deity merging Zeus and Mount Kasios on the border of Syria and Turkey, known for its thunderstorms. According the legend Zeus defeated the monster Typhon on the mountain using lightning bolts. Inscriptions at the
dig site record that the temple was renovated by the emperor Hadrian. Temples dedicated to Zeus have been found across the near east. ● On April 28th 1945 hungry members of the American 88th
Infantry Division fighting their way through Vicenza, Italy, stole a cake that had been left to cool on a windowsill. It had been baked to be a birthday cake for 13-year-old Meri Mion by her mother. Last Thursday
officers from the US Army Garrison Italy presented Meri, now 90, with a birthday cake and a round of Happy Birthday sung in both English and Italian. ● The step-cut DeBeers Cullinan Blue, the largest blue diamond
in the world at 15.10 carats has sold at auction in Hong Kong for 450,925,000 HKD (£45.9m; $57.5m).
- When police in the small Alabama town of Flomanton turned to a local Facebook page to help identify a facemask-wearing woman caught on camera riding a stolen lawnmower with a flat tyre, pulling a small stolen
trailer full of stolen goods, it did not take long for her to be named. Flomanton has a population of around 1,440 people, the Facebook group has almost 7,000 members. ● Last week a 4-year-old boy in the
Netherlands managed to steal the keys to his mother's car, unlock it, get in, start it and drive off before crashing into two parked cars after which he fled the scene on foot, in his pyjamas. He was later spotted by
a concerned person who called the police. They took him to the station, gave him hot chocolate and a teddy bear while checking his health, and tried to find out who his parents were. A report of the crashed car led
them to phone his mother. During the call the boy made steering gestures so they took him to the car and asked him to show them how the car worked. No charges were pressed, and police dubbed the boy "the
new Max Verstappen". ● The makers of the Call of Duty military first person shooter videogames have developed a unique anti-cheat mechanism. Any players detected to be running cheat software will be
unable to see or hit regular players, who will be able to see and shoot the cheats. Developers Team Richochet have banned over 100,000 players for cheating in recent years. ● Greater Manchester Police have
arrested a Deliveroo driver who was also delivering drugs. In a tweet the GMP apologised to anyone who did not get their fast food fix that morning... ● A Cheltenham woman has received a driving ban after being
stopped while riding an e-scooter erratically in and out of traffic and being found to be more than twice over the legal blood-alcohol limit. ● A Florida man has been sentenced to two years in prison for illegally
obtaining more than $72,000 (£57,450) in military veterans' benefits using his twin brother's identity documents. ● An American family caused chaos and a bomb scare at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's main
international airport outside Tel Aviv, when they tried to take an artillery shell through security. The shell had been found in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, scene of historic battles between Israel and Syria,
and was still live. ● Historic low water levels in Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir, have revealed a body in a rusted barrel. Police think the victim was shot sometime in the mid 1970s-80s, and are trying
to identify them. ● Caroline Henry, Nottinghamshire's Police and Crime Commissioner who was elected on a platform of cracking down on speeding, has been caught breaking a 30mph (48km) speed limit five times across
four locations in the county in the last four months...
- Mosquera, a small town on the outskirks of the Colombian capital Bogotá is being inundated by massive foul-smelling blobs of white foam drifting through the air and clinging to buildings. It is thought that
they were caused by industrial detergents dumped in a local river. ● Parts of India are facing the highest temperatures since records began more than a century ago with average maximum temperatures in the central
and northwest states peaking at 37.78oC (100oF) and 35.9oC (96.6oF) respectively. ● Methane emissions from burping cows have been detected from space for the first
time, by Canadian environmental data company GHG Sat's high-resolution satellites. ● Researchers have developed a solar powered device that weighs 22lb (10kg) and is small enough to fit in a suitcase, that uses
electricity to remove salt molecules, viruses and bacteria from sea water to convert it into drinkable water at the push of a button. ● Plastic is one of the worst threats to the environment, but scientists
have now reported the development of an enzyme that can break down plastic waste in hours or days rather than the centuries normal degradation takes.
- The Lakota School Board in Ohio voted 4-1 to censure board member Darbi Boddy after she posted a link to Facebook to content supporting her arguments against sex education and promoting abstinence. Unfortunately
for her she made a typing mistake and the link as posted was to pornographic content... She was the sole voter against the censure, after which she walked out of meeting declaring that "I will no be part of this
political ruse". The board then voted 4-0 to accept her resignation. ● In England Neil Parish resigned as a Member of Parliament after being seen by two female MPs viewing pornography on his phone in the
Chamber of the House of Commons. Parish, a farmer and now former MP for Tiverton and Honiton, claimed to have been searching for information about tractors but followed a wrong link, prompting a few days of amusing
Twitter trending topics and cartoons... [For non-pornographic tractors, see below.]
IN BRIEF: Lester Wright, 100, has broken the world record for his age group in the men's 100m race, with a time of 26.34s. ● A man bottle-feeding his baby in the crowd at a Cincinnati Reds baseball
game last week calmly caught a foul ball with his free hand. "Holds the bottle, no spillage, baby in perfect bliss and a souvenir!" a broadcast commentator told viewers. ● The Baltimore Public School
System has come in for criticism after a student who missed the first 140 days of this school year (he has medical needs and a nurse was not available) was still marked as present and passed his classes. ●
After their flight from Dallas to Las Vegas was delayed, meaning they would miss their scheduled wedding, a couple were married on the aircraft by a fellow passenger who was ordained and had overheard them talking.
Cabin crew decorated the plane's aisle, passengers used the call lights as mood lighting, a stewardess acted as bridesmaid and "Here Comes the Bride" was downloaded and played on phones as the bride walked
down the aisle. Southwest Airlines later provided the couple's guests who were on the plane with free drinks. ● Veteran amateur rugby player Mike Ireland, 56, captained his final match for Heaton Moor third XV on
Saturday and it was certainly a special game. Joining him in the scrum for the match were all seven of his sons, aged between 18 and 35. Heaton Moor beat Wythenshawe 65-7. ● A funeral for a car crash victim in
Peru was interrupted as pallbearers lifted the coffin onto their shoulders, when they heard noises from inside the coffin. Rosa Isabel Cespedes Callaca had been declared dead along with her brother-in-law, and her
nephews seriously injured in the crash, but upon opening the coffin mourners found her weak but very much still alive. She was rushed to hospital and put on life support but died - for real - a few hours later. ●
A drunk Scotsman who wanted a McDonald's after a night out was dismayed to find the walk-in resaurant closed, so he tried the drive-through. When staff told him to leave because he was not in a car he made engine
revving noises and announced that he "identifies as a truck", only to be told that he could "identify as whatever you want, but you're no in a vehicle." ● A German DIY enthusiast who bought
a set of kitchen cabinets from an elderly couple's estate on eBay discovered euro notes worth £130,000 ($163,000) concealed in two secret boxes. Because keeping more than €10 (£8.41; $10.54) of found
money counts as embezzlement under German law he notified the police who established that the money belonged to a 91-year-old woman who was being nursed in a retirement home after her husband died (her grandson was
the eBay seller). Under the law the man was entitled to a finder's fee of €4,482 (£3,784; $4,743). ● Arizonan Jacky Hunt-Broersma, 46, who lost her left leg to cancer at the age of 26, ran a full
26.2 mile (42.2km) marathon every day for 104 days starting in mid-January, breaking the Guinness world record for women's consecutive marathon running. She runs using a special blade prosthesis. ● There have
been plans for building floating cities since at least the mid-1990s, but the first one is now due to be built off Busan, Korea. Once complete it will comprise 15.5 acres of floating platforms connected by bridges and
housing as many as 12,000 people, with restaurants, shops, flats, a winter garden and other venues. ● The British record for a modern classic machine sold at auction has been broken after a businessman paid
£214,000 ($268,200) for a restored 1982 County "Short Nose" tractor, about ten times its original retail price. Tom O'Connor, 60, who lives near Manchester, grew up on a farm and dreamed of collecting
tractors. He now owns "about a dozen".
UKRAINE: Russian soldiers who looted an Agrotek John Deere dealership in Melitopol, Ukraine, of almost £4m ($5m) worth of tractors, combine harvesters and other vehicles, put them on military low-loaders
and drove them more than 700 miles (1,127km) into Chechnya to sell on found that none of them would start. All the vehicles were fitted with GPS so the Agrotek staff were able to track them, and had been remotely
disabled by the time they got over the border.
Little Jennifer's class were having a lesson about families. "Now, children," the teacher said, "it is traditional to dress baby boys in blue and baby girls in pink. Who
can tell me why you think that is?"
The class thought for a moment, then one hand went up. "Yes, Little Jennifer?"
"Is it because they can't dress themselves, Miss?"
