Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
Hundreds of crab-eating macaques swarm the streets in Thai city of Lopburi in search of food during current drought crisis, the infamously naughty macaques are a great nuisance in parts of Thailand and the yearly city festival serving the monkeys a buffet exacerbates the problem, authorities began a program in 2014 where gibbons and langurs were trained and deputized to control the monkeys
Test subjects notice no difference when 25% of butter in cake is replaced with larva fat, if ratio is increased to 50% they report an unusual taste and say they would not buy the cake, according to Belgian researchers hoping to find ways to increase consumption of insect food
Actor Max von Sydow dead at 90, appeared in several landmark films and TV series over several decades with iconic roles in for instance The Seventh Seal and The Exorcist
900-strong Hungarian vigilante grouping "Easy Riders" pit biker brawn against against domestic abuse, one phone call summons legion of wind-browned bikers to your residence, Easy Riders also offer counselling services for those who wish to extricate themselves from abusive relationships, existing civil organizations against domestic abuse largely ineffective says female member Vera Mero
Wuhan stages perfunctory grocery deliveries just in time for Sun Chunlan's Premier progress through Wubei province, entourage of Party sycophants stand by in mute admiration as couriers defy infection hazard for the good of the nation, 15-second video clip of residents jeering "It's fake!" from rooftops trends briefly on Weibo before vanishing without trace Friday
61 year old woman in Ireland spends 20 years cutting down non-native spruces planted by the state and replacing them with indigenous trees, convicted for stealing logs but claims she has only fulfilled civic duty to protect environment and biodiversity
Jack Welch dead at 84, was CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001 and one of the iconic big business leaders of his generation
Music activists makes computer generate all possible melodies formed with twelve notes with eight different tones, copyrights all of them under permissive license to prevent musicians being sued for copying them in the future
Freeman Dyson dead at 96, was leading theoretical physicist and mathematician, pioneered important concepts in space exploration and several other areas, worked at Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 1953 to his death
Vladimir Putin denies rumours he uses doppelganger in public appearances, TASS reporter hazards "Are you real?", to which Putin replies "Yes", concedes rumours are true inasmuch as the FSB suggested Putin use a body double in the early 2000s, claims he gracefully declined
62-year-old former Marine George Hood sets world record by staying in the abdominal plank position for 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds, has trained an average of 7 hours per day for the last 18 months to regain the record he lost to Mao Weidong from China in 2016, now aims to beat the world record of 2,806 pushups completed in one hour
Skylines of African cities transformed by buildings funded, designed and built by Chinese actors who now have 40% of Africa's construction markets, transnational Sino-African architecture expected to link cultures for many decades to come
LEGO Chief Designer Jens Nygaard Knudsen dead at 78, created the iconic minifigure and was behind many of the classic themes such as Space and Pirates
Self-taught engineer and daredevil "Mad" Mike Hughes dead at 64 after crashing in a steam-powered rocket during filming of Science Channel series Homemade Astronauts, Hughes who reached 419 meters in a self-built rocket in 2014 also failed a 2018 rocket launch aimed at proving the Earth's frisbee shape and has held the limousine ramp jumping world record since 2002
Chess reborn as esport with more, faster and more entertaining games, new generation of chess pros build careers on Twitch and YouTube and world championships expand audience by millions online
Vegan activist Joaquin Phoenix rescues cow and calf from Los Angeles slaughterhouse, names them Liberty and Indigo before relocating them to sanctuary for liberated farm animals
Animal welfare organisations slam Pigeons United To Interfere Now's protest where pigeons with MAGA hats were released in Las Vegas prior to the Democratic debate, say the birds are likely suffering and that it's no laughing matter, one pigeon fitted with blonde Trump wig instead of a hat
Walking is a radical act of rebellion against modernity's obsession with speed, promotes clarity of thought and creativity says Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge who has travelled by foot to the North Pole, the South Pole and Mount Everest
Ghost ship runs aground in Ireland after drifting without crew over the Atlantic for 18 months, was hijacked while being towed to Guyana after crew abandoned ship near Bermuda, owner of vessel remains to be determined
Jordan Peterson near death during withdrawal from benzodiazepine tranquilizers, is currently at clinic in Russia where he has undergone eight days of medically induced coma, has sustained neurological damage but is on the mend according to daughter Mikhaila Peterson
Kirk Douglas dead at 103, iconic actor was last living representative of Golden Era of Hollywood, acted in more than 80 movies during seven decade career
Legendary Irish mercenary Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare dead at 100, was hired in 1964 to strike down the communist-backed Simba rebellion in the Congo and failed at overthrowing the socialist Seychelles government in 1981 – was impopular in parts of the world due to his fervent anti-communist beliefs and got his nickname from East German radio regularly describing him as "that mad bloodhound Hoare", a moniker he carried with pride
Man boards American airlines flight bound for Houston wearing a gas mask causing unease among fellow travelers, refuses to take mask off and is consequently removed from plane, the man allegedly wanted to make statement the nature of which remains unclear, gets rebooked for following day and boards without mask
10,000 bees estimated to have frozen to death after their hives were kicked over on grounds of Wisbech Castle in Cambridgeshire, the deceased insects belonged to rare species of British Black Bees, local police publishes photo of the two suspected culprits
83-year-old French writer Gabriel Matzneff comments on his well-documented underage sex tourism in Asia that no one back then thought of as crime but that if he regrets if he did anything wrong, Matzneff who has been awarded two major state honours and also benefits from special pension as well as reduced rent for his Paris apartment calls pulling his works from bookshops neo-puritanism and says government threats of taking away his pension is a Soviet style trap to get him to kill himself
41-year-old former basketball player Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter among the nine killed in helicopter crash in Calabasas northwest of Los Angeles, was considered one of basketball's greatest players of all time
French author Gabriel Matzneff spent decades writing and talking about his sexual relations with minors but only recently is he being investigated by police, book by Vanessa Springora who was seduced by Matzneff at 14 years of age sparks debate about how cultural elite protects predators
Building company Regard in Tokyo lets customers try out how it would be to live in one of their houses, provides the would be buyers with a wife and daughter to act out common situations such as preparing for a party, doing homework or relaxing on the balcony, good response with one man proclaiming that he now has a goal to have such a family
Two Vietnamese men fined USD 78 after video of them showering from a bucket and rinsing their hair while riding a motorcycle went viral – were fined for driving without driver's license, crash helmets, rear-view mirrors and civil insurance certificate
German police launches investigation after beer being sold under the name "German Reich Brew" labeled with the imperial eagle and the Iron Cross for EUR 18.88 per case in the eastern German town of Bad Bibra, neither the eagle nor the cross among the country's "anti-constitutional" banned symbols, the beer launched by former NPD politician Tommy Frenck is said to have sold out
Switzerland's national mint creates world's smallest gold coin at 2.96 mm in diameter and 0.063 grams, the 2020 official commemorative coin portrays Albert Einstein and has a nominal value of CHF 0.25, 999 coins have been made and will be sold for CHF 199 including special magnifying glass
Founding 'Monty Python' member and 'Life of Brian' director Terry Jones dies aged 77, diagnosed with dementia in 2015
Wombat physically removed from Tasmanian suburb after 12 months of entering houses through cat flaps to feast on cat food and make beds out of cushions, the animal who also tunneled under fences and dug out gardens is said to have lived in council pipes during days and visited the neighbourhood during nights
Coca-Cola has no intention to phase out plastic bottles, much to the chagrin and dismay of environmental activists, Coke head of sustainibility Bea Perez tells BBC reporter consumer wants must be premiered over activist furore, Coke projects they will recycle as many plastic bottles as they produce by 2030
New Hampshire father strangles coyote to death with his bare hands after it attacked his family during hike, the predator is also believed to have attacked another hiking family as well as a 62-year old woman with her dogs, rabies tests to be performed
Woman discovers 6-8 feet Boa Constrictor wrapped around sink in the bathroom of her home in Liverpool, Constable Chris Eastwood from the Matrix team gave the snake a drink of water before coaxing it to unravel itself
Hank Azaria says he will no longer voice the Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, decision follows years of criticism accusing the character of reinforcing racial stereotypes with regard to his eight children, arranged marriage and job as a convenience store owner, unclear if Apu will get a new voice or be dropped from the cartoon
Rare 22-carat Edward VIII gold coin first British coin to sell for GBP 1 million, coin originally from a small trial set collection created when Edward took the throne in 1936 but never publicly released as he abdicated the same year to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, coin also unique as Edward preferred to show his left profile and thus broke with the tradition of successive monarch's heads facing in opposite directions
J.R.R. Tolkien's son Christopher dead at 95, drew the Lord of the Rings maps and edited most of his father's posthumous works – also translated legendary sagas such as the Icelandic 13th century Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks which inspired his father to create Middle-earth
Paraplegic South Carolina man Adam Gorlitsky beats the world record for marathon in an exoskeleton suit by completing Charleston Marathon in 33 hours, 50 minutes and 23 seconds, completed the race without taking sleeping breaks and says he's gained a whole new level of respect for the former world record holder Simon Kindleysides who finished the 2018 London Marathon in 36 hours and 46 minutes
Conservative luminary Roger Scruton dies at 75, prolific scholar and thinker who produced works on everything from architecture to theology, was diagnosed with cancer summer of 2019
Montana's Glacier National Park replaces decade-old signs predicting glaciers to be gone by 2020 – park officials stated to have known the glaciers to be intact in 2020 by 2017 when the US Geological Survey forecast model changed, but strict maintenance budgets belated the sign changing
Paul Krugman claims in deleted tweet that his IP-address was compromised to download child pornography, believes it was either a fluke or a deliberate attempt to "QAnon" him, has since backpedalled to say it was probably just a 'scam'
Photographs surface showing Bill Clinton posing with Jeffrey Epstein's former associate Ghislaine Maxwell and sex-slave Chauntae Davies during five-day humanitarian trip to Africa, Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker reported to have been on the same private jet, ostensible purpose of trip to promote awareness of AIDS and poverty
Toyota Motors CEO Toyoda Akio reveals plans to build hydrogen-powered eco city in central Japan, capacity for 2000 inhabitants comprising mainly Toyota employees, fossil fuels cars to be prohibited as citizens are nurtured cradle to grave by AI and robotics
276 kilogram bluefin tuna sold for USD 1.8 million in first Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market auction of 2020, second highest price on record paid by Sushizanmai restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura, who also holds the record after spending USD 3.1 million on a tuna last year
Neighbour mistakes talking 40-year-old parrot Rambo for a woman screaming for help and calls the police to couple's Florida home, owner taught his pet to yell "help, help, let me out" when he was a child
Mother of Britain's biggest family Sue Radford pregnant with her 22nd child, Sue and her husband Noel had their first child in 1989 when she was 14 years old, the couple also has five grandchildren
India approves third lunar mission planned for 2020 launch months after last one failed to successfully land on the moon, the Chandrayaan-3 mission said to cost less than the previous mission and a human space-flight mission is slated for late 2021
Monkey house at German Krefeld Zoo destroyed in fire killing all animals but two chimpanzees, the enclosure housed rare Bornean orangutans, chimpanzees and marmosets, among other animals
Julian Assange tells journalist friend Vaughan Smith "I'm slowly dying here" in slurred phone call from Belmarsh prison on Christmas Eve, comes weeks after 60 doctors warned he could die without urgent medical care in open letter addressed to Home Secretary Priti Patel
Public First poll shows 74% of Britons want BBC license fee scrapped and 60% back plans to decriminalise non-payment, support for change higher among younger people than older ones, licence is stuck in place until 2027 but its level can be changed from 2022
Ari Behn dead at 47, was author and ex-husband of Norwegian princess Märtha Louise, claimed to have been sexually harassed by Kevin Spacey who day before Behn's death posted video where he talked about killing enemies with kindness
56-year-old convenience store clerk Mark Kasprowicz shoots dead armed intruder after being pistol-whipped during robbery by two masked men in San Francisco, Kasprowicz bled from the head but managed to fire one shot, one assailant died while the other got away
65-year-old David Wayne Oliver robs Colorado Springs bank before throwing stolen cash in the air shouting Merry Christmas, is arrested at nearby Starbucks coffee shop, police say thousands of dollars remained unaccounted for
Blind Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga, who died in 1996 and supposedly foresaw 9/11, predicted Muslim terrorists will try to wipe out Europe with chemical attack in 2020 and Vladimir Putin will survive an assassination attempt
Santa shortage in Germany forces local Santa agencies to raise prices from 45 to 120 EUR per visit, despite increasing demand supply shrinks due to unwillingness to work on Christmas Eve
Ram Dass passes away at 88 years of age, leader of New Age movement went from psychedelic experiments with Tim Leary to enlightenment in India under Neem Karoli Baba and lived last part of life on Hawaii giving lectures on internet
Private cities to be supported by newly launched Pronomos Capital with financing from Peter Thiel among others, long-term goal to create venture-backed city-states says founder Patri Friedman who previously started Seasteading Institute
Japanese mother leaves life-size cardboard cut-out of herself in one-year-old son's room to stop him from crying, boy first caught on in 20 minutes but his father got another cut-out made
PewDiePie announces he will take a break from Youtube next year, saying he feels tired and wants to not have vlogging in his brain for first time in 10 years
Sir Rod Stewart becomes at 74 years and 11 months of age the oldest male solo artist to top a UK album chart with You're In My Heart, he declares "a new government and a new number one for Sir Rod" and "well done Boris"
UK businesses offers increasingly flexible hours, including possibility of hangover days to work from home after pub nights, manager says such benefits are key to attracting workers from millennial generation
Smith most common surname in every English-speaking country around the globe, study finds, with Murphy most common in Ireland, use of surnames in England started around 14th Century but became law when King Henry VIII ordered all new births be registered in the name of the father
Cat owners bad at reading cat facial expressions according to study with more than 6,000 participants in 85 countries, cat expert who got a perfect score on test says many would benefit from education in cat body language
Model railway destroyed by thugs in May on display in Birmingham after being restored with GBP 107,000 in donations including GBP 10,000 from enthusiast Rod Stewart, Market Deeping Model Railway Club had GBP 30,000 display trashed at Stamford, Lincolnshire, on May 18
Lottery winner happier working in coal mine for 10 GBP per hour than after winning 9.7 million GBP and partying the money away, says he had ten years of fun but prefers to have normal life back
Swiss doctor dies after being crushed by fully grown giraffe knocked into his campervan by minibus at Kruger National Park in South Africa, the 5.5-meter-tall and 750 kg heavy animal dies by double impact
Quilty the cat held in solitary confinement with increased security measures after repeatedly helping other cats escape from cages at Houston shelter, has previously liberated dogs, receivs support in online campaign #freequilty
15-year-old Gabriel McFarlane from Scotland builds laser gun over a period of six months using 3D printer and parts found on eBay, can burst balloons, light matches and melt metal, says he might work on building a Tesla coil or a robot as his next project
Literary critic and Yale professor Harold Bloom dies at 89, author of The Anxiety of Influence and The Western Canon, championed Western civilization and criticized political correctness and the School of Resentment including Marxism, Afrocentrism, and feminism
Actor Robert Forster dies at 78 of brain cancer, known for his roles in Jackie Brown (1997), Medium Cool (1969) and The Delta Force (1986)
Peter Handke and Olga Tokarczuk win the Nobel Prize for literature for 2019 and 2018, respectively, the choice of Handke is considered controversial due to his support of the Serbs in the Yugoslav wars and his earlier criticism of the Nobel Prize which he has said should be abolished
Dutch Design Museum Den Bosch exhibits design from the Third Reich, sells 10,000 tickets in ten days while antifascists protest, selfies and other photography prohibited to avoid misinterpretations
Pundit Luciano Passirani dropped by Italian football channel Top Calcio 24 after saying the only way to stop Inter forward Romelu Lukaku from scoring was by "throwing him 10 bananas to eat"
BangBros online porn site makes bid on naming rights for home of Miami Heat currently known as American Airlines Arena, bids USD 10 million for 10-year deal, wishes to call venue the BangBros Center, or BBC, which isn't alluding to British Broadcast Corporation
Cametrione Moore-Brown gives birth to baby girl Christina weighing 9lb 11oz at 9:11pm on 9/11 – commemorations held across US to mark 18 years since the 11 September 2001 attack which left nearly 3,000 people killed
Barcelona-based vegan activist Mythical Mia steals 16 rabbits from Osono farm, resulting in 90 abandoned bunnies being euthanized, initial boasts on Instagram leads to account being disabled
Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan wishes to see a women for the role of 007 and refers to the importance of #Meetoo, the current star Daniel Craig is also positive, producer Barbara Broccoli has previously defended Bond's manliness and opposed gender ideology
Government decide to follow Japanese tradition of family-name-first order when using Roman alphabet to write Japanese names, practice to write given name first in foreign language began in 19th to early 20th centuries, writing in Japanese family name is always written first
Cardinal Achille Silvestrini dies at 95, the long-time Vatican diplomat played an important role in negotiations between Italian authorities and the Holy See on the agreement revising the Lateran Treaty in 1984
Owner of amusement park in German town of Löffingen shuts down ride that from a distance looks like two swirling swastikas, apologizes to anyone offended by the ride and says it won't be opened again until manufacturer makes modifications
New website Shameplane.com calculates how much Arctic sea ice melt a traveler's flight causes, spreading Swedish-born concept of "flygskam", or "flight shame"
Franz Kafka papers scattered across Europe finally brought together in Jerusalem as last batch arrives in Israel after 11-year search, includes hundreds of personal letters, drawings and journals, will now be published online, National Library of Israel says
McDonald's UK admits paper straws too thick to recycle, straws infuriates customers who say they dissolve in soft drinks and make milkshakes hard to drink, the replaced and dumped plastic straws company call "100 per cent recyclable" are fetching high prices on eBay
United Airlines flight from Glasgow to Newark cancelled when both pilots turn up drunk, arrested by police on suspicion of being under the influence of drink or drugs, incident comes three years after two other UA pilots were jailed for being drunk before flying same route
Canadian woman encounters a cougar while walking her dog in British Columbia, failing to scare off the cat by waving her arms and yelling, she plays Don't Tread On Me by Metallica on full volume and the puma bolts
Man donates his deceased mother's body to Alzheimer's research, her remains are secretly acquired by United States military for USD 6,000, strapped to a chair and blown up in an experiment
Wet Las Vegas spring spawns grasshopper hordes large enough to show up on weather radar, state entomologist says he's seen this type of swarms at least four times in 30-plus years, appears after a wet winter or spring
Thai Future Forward Party (FFP) accused of being a threat to constitutional monarchy and of links to Illuminati, former adviser to chief Ombudsman points out the upside-down triangle in FFP's logo resembles the sign of Illuminati, who was behind efforts to overthrow monarchies in Europe and played a role in US Declaration of Independence, FFP counters allegations in Facebook video
Palaeontologists unearth 6.5-foot thigh bone weighing half a tonne belonging to sauropod dinosaur around 140 million years ago, found in dinosaur fossil-rich dig site in Charente in south west France
Actor Rutger Hauer dies at 75 in the Netherlands after a short illness, played the murderous replicant Roy Batty in 1982's Blade Runner
Yokozuna Kakuryu wins his sixth Grand Basho after defeating Yokozuna Hakuho in deciding final match of Nagoya tournament, says back-pain almost made him withdraw, but support from family and the fans kept him going
Indian man fatally bitten by snake rips serpent apart with his teeth before being rushed to Lunawada hospital, where poison kills him hours later, while others ran away from reptile, he boastfully picked it up
Korean fashion designer builds device to help disabled goldfish swim, with swim bladder disorder, after many fish died due to swim bladder disorder, he used plastic components to create floatation device he calls a wheelchair, with help of YouTube videos and online tutorials