Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Giant panda twins have been born at the Qinling Panda Research Centre in China, the third set of twins born at the rescue centre after vets started using artifical insemination to try to boost numbers of the
endangered bears. ● Ghanaian authorities are investigating after a man climbed into the lion enclosure at the Accra Zoo and was mauled to death. It is suspected that he was attempting to steal two rare white lion
cubs, which were in the enclosure with their parents. ● A man in Pombal, Portugal, who was having construction work done on his home noticed what appeared to be a large bone sticking out of the ground. It turned
out to be a fossilised sauropod (long-necked dinosaur, such as the brontosaurus or diplodocus) over 80' (24.4m) long, possibly the largest sauropod remains found in Europe. ● A 10'- (3m)-long swordfish has
been filmed 5 miles (8km) of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, only the sixth known sighting of the mid-ocean and Mediterranean fish in British waters. ● A state record 10' 2"- (3.1m)-long female alligator has
been caught in Mississippi. The same alligator had previously been caught and tagged in 2009, close to where she was trapped again this year. ● A wallaby called Winnie who escaped from her enclosure at Glenpark
Estate, Omagh, Northern Ireland, was recaptured safe and well last a few days later. ● A display by the Red Arrows aerobatics team over Rhyl, North Wales, had to be ended after a bird collided with the cockpit
of one of the planes, smashing the glass. The pilot managed to safely return to Hawarden airport, followed a short time later by the other six planes. ● A penguin at San Diego Zoo has been fitted with orthopaedic
footwear made of neoprene and rubber after suffering from a condition that causes sores when he stands and walks. ● Also at San Diego Zoo, a rare southern white rhino has been born. ● A sheep has been sold
at auction for £168,000 ($195,120). The Texel lamb will be bred from once it reaches maturity. ● A sheriff's deputy in Alabama, who left his patrol car door open while he went to serve papers because he has had
to run from aggressive dogs in the past, heard noises coming from the vehicle behind him and discovered two goats, one climbing over the roof, the other inside eating other papers and equipment. ● When a farming couple
adopted a stray cat called Misty they hoped she would be a good mouser, like her predecessor Molly. Instead, Misty became friends with a mouse and often shares her food with it...
- The Allen Telescope Array northeast of San Francisco has been hunting for radio signals from aliens since 2007. Following a refurbishment it detected a wholly non-random signal which, sadly for alien hunters, was
from a very human source - NASA's Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977 and still beaming back data from about 14.5bn miles (23.3bn km) away. ● NASA had to scrub the first attempt to launch its new Space
Launch System (SLS) rocket on an unmanned test flight around the Moon after problems emerged with one of the rocket engines and the appearance of what looked like a crack on the SLS body. The 'crack' turned out to
a build-up of frost, and another launch attempt will be made on Saturday. ● Astronomers may have discovered the first exoplanet completely covered in water. TOI-1452b is slightly larger than Earth and 100 light years
away. ● The James Webb Space Telescope has recorded the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet; WASP-39b is a hot gas giant 700 light years from Earth. ● The ashes of
Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols, along with those of her co-star James Doohan, series creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife, actress Majel Barrett who appeared in different Star Trek series over the
years, will be sent into space aboard a special memorial rocket flight later this year. The payload, which will also contain human genome DNA samples, will eventually enter interplanetary deep space.
- To mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee earlier this year towns were invited to bid to become cities, with eight ultimately chosen. One of the bidders was Gibraltar, a British overseas territory since 1713. Government research
found that Queen Victoria had actually granted Gibraltar city status in 1842 but it had accidentally been left off official lists so, 180 years after becoming a city, Gibraltar can now officially call itself one. ● A carved
wooden medieval fishing boat was dug up near Gigglewick Tarn in North Yorkshire in 1863 and put on display at Leeds City Museum. During World War II the museum was bombed in an air raid and the boat broken into 45
pieces. The boat has now been pieced back together and is going on display at the Leeds Discovery Centre. ● The Williamson Pink Star, an 11.15 carat flawless cushion cut pink diamond is to be auctioned this
autumn, with an estimated value of £18m ($21m). It is the second-largest flawless pink diamond known. ● A collection of hundreds of Star Wars collectibles sold at auction last weekend, raising nearly
£27,000 ($31,360). The lots included a boxed 1978 radio-controlled Jawa Sandcrawler, which sold for £850 ($987), a 1985 trio of Ewok figurines (£400; $465) and an R2-D2 with a pop-up light sabre from
the same year (£360; $418). ● John Lennon's family home in Liverpool, where Lennon and Paul McCartney would rehearse as members of the Quarrymen (Lennon actually lived nearby, with his aunt), is to be
auctioned, with a valuation of £250,000 ($290,360).
- An Atlanta man who fell and broke his neck, leaving him paralysed, after a police officer tasered him as he ran away after being stopped while begging for money has been awarded $100m (£86m) damages by a jury to pay for
his required 24-hour care. ● A man who was caught trying to smuggle 1,700 animals including turtles and crocodiles into America has pleaded guilty to two counts of smuggling and one of animal trafficking. He will
be sentenced in December, and faces up to 25 years in prison. ● Sergeant Gavin Hillier, 35, of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards was shot dead during a training exercise by a severely short-sighted recruit who was
not wearing his glasses and mistook Hillier for a target. ● A car, stolen in Getafe, Spain, ended up stuck halfway up a staircase linking a train station and a shopping centre after the driver took a wrong turn
and got wedged between handrails. Police found the driver trying to get out of the car and arrested him. Firefighters had to use a winch to remove the car. ● Two Air-France pilots have been suspended after getting
into a fistfight during a flight from Geneva to Paris. Cabin crew had to intervene and one crewmember stayed in the cockpit until the plane landed. ● French tax authorities have raised around €10m (£8.5m;
$9.9m) after using artificial intelligence to scan aerial photographs and identify undeclared swimming pools, which are taxed because they increase property values. They will now test the software's ability to detect
illegal and undeclared home extensions and garden structures like gazebos and patios.
- When wild beavers were reintroduced to Devon in 2015 a five year study began to investigate their effect on the land. The study has now ended, and concluded that the network of dams they created has helped to maintain
a large area of wetland on land owned by Clinton Devon Estates, despite wider drought conditions. The wetland benefits other wildlife, contributes to carbon capture and helps prevent flooding. ● Research published
in Nature Climate Change has found that, even if greenhouse gas emissions were to stop today, the loss of ice from Greenland will cause at least a 10" (25.4cm) rise in sea levels by the end of the century. ●
The Hornsea 2 offshore wind farm 55 miles (88.5km) off the coast of Yorkshire has become fully operational and is now the world's largest offshore wind farm. It can generate enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes.
● A plastic shampoo sachet which washed up on a Somerset beach recently is thought to date from the 1950s. The printing was still clearly legible and the plastic had not deteriorated.
- A Texas church which staged two performances (one live-streamed) of an unauthorised production of the hit musical Hamilton, with some lyrics rewritten to reference Jesus and Christianity, and added scenes
where Alexander Hamilton repents and a sermon is delivered inviting people "struggling" with drug addiction and homosexuality to turn to God, has apologised after being condemned by Hamilton creator Lin
Manuel Miranda and threatened with legal action. The church has promised not to stage their version of the play again, to destroy all recordings and photographs, and to pay unspecified damages, which a spokesman for
Miranda said would be donated to the South Texas Equality Project, a coalition of groups supporting the LGBTQ community and allied businesses in South Texas.
IN BRIEF: Derek Skipper, from Orwell in Cambridgeshire, is thought to be the oldest person in the UK to sit a GCSE exam after getting a grade five (top marks) in Maths at the age of 92. GCSEs are normally
taken around the age of 16. ● The evacuation order for the town of Futaba, near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, has been lifted more than ten years after Japan's worst nuclear disaster. It is the last of 11
evacuation orders brought in after the accident to be lifted. ● Duane Hansen, 60, has set a new world record by paddling 38 miles (61km) down the Missouri River in a hollowed-out 864lb (384kg) giant pumpkin he had
grown specially for the attempt. ● The Malaysian army has apologised after two of its tanks broke down on consecutive days in Kuala Lumpur, blocking traffic on busy roads. ● Irish woman Ceola McGowan has
won the World Double Bit Axe Throwing Championships. The 31-year-old credits her balance, focus and core strength on her other hobby, pole dancing. ● Crime writer Val McDermid has revealed that her publisher
received a legal takedown notice from the Agatha Christie estate after they promoted her as the "queen of crime", a phrase the estate has copyrighted. ● A Silicon Valley start-up which has developed
a system that can change the accents of call centre staff in real time has denied that by changing South Asian agents' voices to sound "white and American" it is racist. ● A Tesla owner, fed up with
his phone's Bluetooth power management frequently stopping him from unlocking his car has had a chip implanted in his hand. As well as unlocking the Tesla, the chip can access his digital wallet and provide other
contactless card services. ● The US Federal Aviation Authority has approved the Switchblade flying car for flight testing. ● A California highway had to be closed for several hours after a lorry was involved
in a collision and shed more than 150,000 tomatoes across a 200' (61m) stretch of it, causing seven cars to crash in the resulting red slurry and bringing traffic to a standstill. ● After a two-year break thanks
to COVID the World Gravy Wrestling Championships have returned to the Rose 'N' Bowl Pub in Rossendale, Lancashire. As the name suggests, contestants grapple for 2-minute bouts in a pool of gravy, with points awarded for
wrestling skill, fancy dress and entertainment value. The men's and women's events, which raised money for East Lancashire Hospice, were won this year by Lloyd Clarkson and Imogen Young.
UPDATES: The trial reintroduction of bison in Kent has been so successful the Kent Wildlife Trust and Wildwood Trust want to open up a larger area of woodland to the animals, which clear undergrowth, allowing
other plants and animals to thrive, fertilise the soil, de-bark invading conifers and provide nesting materials for birds with their moulted fur.
Little Mary's mother had taken her and Little Jennifer for a riding lesson. When Little Jennifer got home her mother asked her how it had gone. "Very well, Mummy", Little
Jennifer said, "but Little Mary's pony was much politer than mine."
Somewhat bemused, her mother asked what she meant. Little Jennifer smiled as only she could, "Well, Mummy, we were learning how to do jumps and her pony let her go over first!"
