Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- A California man who thought he saw someone swimming in his pool was shocked when he realised it was a black bear. The bear climbed out of the pool after its dip and wandered off. With temperatures reaching
42oC (108oF) in Simi Valley where he lives, Mike Emmanuel told reporters that he could see why the bear had wanted to cool down, adding that "he's welcome in my yard as long as he doesn't
kill me or my family." ● Researchers in the Ugandan rainforest have found that wild chimpanzees send information over long distances by drumming on exposed tree roots, with each chimp having its own
drumming signature. [Gorillas are also know for their drumming skills... -Ed] ● A three-striped palm squirrel stowaway is being looked after
by the New Arc rescue centre after being caught aboard a container ship bound for Aberdeen from India three days before docking. Crewmen had fed him grapes and he was healthy but tired when he arrived at the centre,
which is now looking for a permanent home for the squirrel, which they have called 'Zippy'. ● The Atlantic Shark Institute posted a photograph from their underwater scanner on Monday, captioned "Does
the Meg exist?" It appeared to show a 50'- (15.24m)-long object with an apparent dorsal fin, too big to be a great white shark, but possibly a living megalodon, the giant extinct prehistoric shark made famous by a
recent Jason Statham film. The Institute 'fessed up at the end of the post, revealing that after a few minutes the shape dissipated into a large school of mackerel. "So close, but so far! The Megalodon (Otodus
megalodon) disappeared more than 3 million years ago and will likely stay that way, but, for a few minutes, we thought he had returned!" they said.
- The James Webb Space Telescope has found evidence of clouds of a sand-like substance in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf, VHS 1256-1257b, 72 light years away. Brown dwarfs are also known as 'failed stars', being bigger than planets
(19 times bigger than Jupiter in this case) but not big enough for the fusion reactions that trigger star formation to take place. ● The second attempt to launch NASA's Artemis I Moon rocket was scrubbed
because of a hydrogen leak at the connector as it was being filled. Another attempt could be made on Monday or Tuesday but it is more likely that the rocket will be moved back to its assembly building for a full
diagnosis and for maintenance on its other systems, including its batteries. ● The Voyager 1 probe, 45-years-old and 14 billion miles (22.5 billion km) away is still sending back data, although a fault has
recently meant that its telemetry (position, heading and orientation) data was being garbled. The orientation data is especially important as it allows technicians to ensure that the probe's antenna is still pointing at
Earth. The fault was traced to the data being routed through an on-board computer that had failed years ago, and was fixed by instructing the probe to route the data through the right computer. It is thought that a fault
in another computer had caused the probe to route its telemetry wrongly, so there is still a problem somewhere, but for now Voyager 1 continues to work normally. ● French and German scientists have fired
lasers at a film of PET plastic (the same plastic used to make drinks bottles) and created microscopic diamonds. The research was to investigate conditions on the ice giant planets of Neptune and Uranus.
- In 2019 renovations to the kitchen of a house in Ellerby, North Yorkshire, uncovered a salt-glazed earthenware cup containing a hoard of over 260 gold coins. The coins have now been researched, found to date from
1610 to 1727, and are to be auctioned with an estimated valed of £100,000 ($114,300). ● Renovation work in an Edinburgh pub after a major fire has revealed the former goods entrance to a now-built-over
square that was the first development outside the old city walls and once contained upper-class houses. ● Archaeologists in Cyprus have found evidence of a massive fortress beneath a 2,000-year-old burial mound.
The fortress is thought to have dated to the fifth century BCE. ● A team of geographers have reconstructed the route of the Nile through Giza over the last 8,000 years and revealed a "now-defunt" arm
of the river that passed close to the location of the pyramids, suggesting that it was how the 2.3 million stone blocks weighing 5.75m tons were transported to the site. ● A team of archaeologists excavating a
C17th cemetary in the village of Pien in Poland have found a female skeleton buried with a sickle across her throat, suggesting that she was a suspected vampire and the sickle was placed to ensure that she
could not rise from the dead. ● Three rare Fine Scale O Guage model locomotives made by James Beeson [1906-1990], thought by many to be the Fabergé of model trains, have sold at auction for £25,000
($28,570). ● A fossilised dinosaur skeleton discovered over two digs in 2017 and 2019, in Northern Zimbabwe, has been confirmed as being the oldest dinosaur skeleton yet found in Africa. The approximately 6'-
(1.8m)-tall, 20-65lb (9-30kg) Mbiresaurus raathi was an ancestor of the long-necked sauropods and lived about 230 million years ago.
- Ninety minutes after delivering a speech on his "cycling-infrastructure plan" to - amongst other things - crack down on bicycle theft, at a press conference in Winnipeg, Canadian mayoral candidate
Rick Shone had his bike stolen from the back of his truck while he was in a shop. ● A pilot who circled his small plane over Tupelo, Mississippi, for several hours threatening to crash into a Walmart store was
eventually persuaded to land safely and arrested. The Walmart and a neighbouring store had been evacuated. ● Waze is a mobile app that lets drivers report the locations of speed cameras, notifying other road
users where to slow down to avoid fines. Surrey Police have admitted to gaming the app to spook drivers into slowing down. Officers are using the app to flag themselves at various locations on their patrols, giving
users the impression that there are far more speed cameras than are actually in use. ● A 21-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of trespass after allegedly being seen climbing The Shard in London. Two
others were arrested on suspicion of causing public nuisance. At 1,016' (309.6m) and 72 storeys The Shard is the tallest building in the UK. ● On Friday US Customs and Border Protection officers seized 1,532lb
(695kg) of cocaine, concealed in 1,935 packages claiming to hold baby wipes. ● A man has been arrested on suspicion of assault after a woman fell 40' (12.2m) from a balcony in Manchester. She survived with
serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
- The UK Met Office has confirmed that this summer was the joint-hottest on record in Britain, tied with 2018. Four of the five warmest summers recorded have been since 2003. ● The temperature in California's
Death Valley hit a September world record 52oC (127oF) last Thursday. ● Mysterious white mounds which have appeared on the usually flat shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake have been confirmed as
being salt formations called mirabilite mounds or Glauber's salt. They are caused by minerals reacting with underground water and bubbling to the surface where they cool and solidify. The receding shoreline of the lake
in recent summers has provided ideal conditions for them to form. ● A 50-mile- (80km)-wide, up-to-6,000'- (1,828m)-high dust storm, or haboob, with winds up to 65mph (105km/h) swept across parts of Arizona last
weekend, leaving around 7,000 properties without power.
- It has not been a good week for broadcasters. In Canada Farah Nasser, anchoring a live Global National broadcast, swallowed a fly live on air. She carried on talking despite, as she later told CNN, feeling the
insect "fluttering" in the back of her throat. ● Julie Chin, presenting an item on the Artemis I launch attempt last Saturday for Oklahoma's KJRH Channel 2 became visibly confused and struggled to
read the autocue, repeating her words. She apologised to viewers and handed over to another presenter while colleagues called emergency services. Chin, who made a full recovery in hospital, later commented that "my
doctors believe I had the beginnings of a stroke." ● Meanwhile in the more weather-obsessed Britain, as preparations were underway in sporadic rain outside 10 Downing Street for newly-appointed Prime Minister Liz
Truss to deliver her first public address in office, BBC meteorologist and broadcaster Jen Bartram tweeted herself facepalming, captioned "When you're producing the weather and you're asked at 11am by the BBC News
editors if the showers will avoid Downing Street late afternoon and you say 'yes, probably'..." To her credit, the rain did eventually clear in time, after the podium had been covered with a bin bag to keep it dry,
taken back inside in case the address had to be held indoors and then brought out again.
IN BRIEF: A Brazilian fisherman has been rescued eleven days after his boat sank. He was floating in an open freezer, without food or water. ● A Colorado State Fair art competition has caused widespread
controversy after the first prize was awarded to a piece created by an artifical intelligence (AI) system. ● A front-centre seat at the theatre on Cromer Pier will be kept empty to honour Jo Raby, who had attended
almost every performance there "for decades", but died this week at the age of 60. ● Japan's digital minister has "declared war" on floppy disks. There are still about 1,900 regulations
requiring Japanese businesses to use low-capacity media 20+ years after the rest of the world dropped them. ● Global Dream II, one of the largest cruise liners of all time, could be scrapped before she makes her maiden voyage, as the
shipyard where she is being constructed - at a cost so far of around £1.2bn ($1.37bn) - filed for bankruptcy before she could be fitted out and a buyer has not been found. ● A Kent man fed up with people
parking on the narrow road where he lives and blocking residents from getting their cars out of their driveways has painted double-yellow ("no parking") lines on the sides of the road. ● Damien Davis, 46,
will take on the Three Peaks challenge - the ascent of the highest mountains in England, Wales and Scotland - for the second time. His first attempt, ten years ago, saw him climbing Stob Ban in Scotland by mistake,
instead of Ben Nevis. ● Mickey Dolenz, the last surviving member of The Monkees, is suing the FBI to find out what information on the band they filed in the late 60s. It is known that the FBI were monitoring
popular music figures during the Vietnam War, and a redacted document released in 2011 referred to "anti-US messages on the war" during a 1967 Monkees concert. ● A family in Germany have won an
appeal to change the name of their daughter after she was bullied at school for being called Alexa, the same name as Amazon's data-harvesting device 'smart assistant'. ● The annual Tomatina public
food fight has returned to the Spanish town of Buñol after being cancelled in the last two years because of the pandemic. ● Captain Dan Cross has been awarded the Merchant Navy Medal, the highest
maritime medal, for buying the badly-decayed and vandalised 1903 steamship Daniel Adamson in 2004 and leading a 12-year multi-million pound volunteer restoration programme. ● Last week it was tomatoes in
California, this week a lorry has spilled alfredo sauce (a butter/cream and parmesan sauce served with fettucine) across three lanes of the Interstate 55 in Tennessee. ● Collecting Panini stickers has been a
feature of soccer World Cups since the 1970s, but with the price of a pack of five random stickers risen from 20p ($0.23) some years ago to 90p ($1.03) football finance expert Kieran Maguire from Liverpool University
has calculated that completing the Qatar 2022 sticker album could cost up to £883.80 ($1,010). [Get swapping, kids... -Ed] ● Scientists in Seoul have managed to transmit a small electric current almost
100' (30.4m) through the air using a laser beam.
UKRAINE: The hacktivist group Anonymous, working with Ukrainian hackers, has claimed responsibility for hacking into the Russian Yandex Taxi cab hailing app to order all available taxis to Kutuzovsky Prospect
in Moscow at the same time, bringing the already-busy road to a standstill last Thursday. ● Ukrainian pensioner Valeriy Fedorovych has officially been given hero status for shooting down a £74m ($84.6m)
Russian Su-34 fighter jet using an antique rifle as it flew over his home in March.
UPDATES: Spencer Elden's lawsuit against photographer Kirk Weddle, former Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, and Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain's widow, over his appearance as the naked swimming baby
on the cover of Nirvana's bestselling Nevermind album, claiming child sexual abuse, has been dismissed by a judge for the second time, as it was lodged well beyond the 10-year statute of limitations. Defence
lawyers had also argued that Elden, now 31, had re-enacted the photograph in later life and enjoyed his fame as the "Nirvana baby".
The children were having a lesson about maths and money. "OK", the teacher said, "if you had three one pound coins and two 50p coins and you asked your father for a pound,
how much money would you have?"
Little Jennifer's hand shot up. "Yes, Little Jennifer?"
"Four pounds, Miss!"
"No, Little Jennifer. You don't quite know your maths."
Little Jennifer smiled as only she could. "No, Miss. You don't know my Daddy. If I'd asked my Mummy instead I'd have had five pounds!"
