And Finally

A former mayor of Turkey's capital Ankara who was taken in by a hoax tweet announcing the discovery of "jelly bean reserves" in the country has been roundly mocked. Melih Gökçek, who served as mayor for over two decades before standing down in 2017, was tricked by the tweet posted by a l

A man who mistakenly believed he was wanted by police has been arrested after breaking into a jail to hand himself in. Jail authorities said Wisconsin man Tavier Holling, 30, began pounding on their door early on Sunday morning before growing impatient and smashing his way in.

Hairdressers are facing fines of up to €500 if they breach an Italian town's new ban on the traditional practice of double-washing hair. Castenaso, a small town of around 15,000 people near Bologna, has cracked down on double-washing to save water as the region suffers a drought emergency, The

A court has been set afizz with the presence of a defendant who turned up sipping champagne. Cameroon's former defence minister appeared in court in the capital, Yaoundé, to face corruption charges – with a glass in hand.

A castle near Helensburgh which, for 25 years, has been at the centre of a protracted legal battle over a £230 debt has been put up for sale for nearly £1.3 million. Knockderry Castle's former owner, Marian van Overwaele, was made bankrupt in 2000 after her repeated refusals to pay the &

Greece’s state TV has been criticised for a segment showing viewers how to steal gasoline from cars as fuel prices rise sharply. “It’s not something terribly complicated … you don’t even need a special tube, even a hose for balconies will do,” station reporter Co

The Google employee who was fired for claiming that the company's AI had become sentient has now said it has hired a lawyer. Blake Lemoine was suspended after telling the media that the tech giant's new AI, LaMDA, had achieved a breakthrough in consciousness.

A new tax on table football has sparked an outcry from beach café owners in Italy. The country's tax authority has reclassified table football as a form of gambling, requiring café owners to pay for permits or face €4,000 fines, Italy24 News English reports.

A trainee police officer who drew a red line on his Covid test to get time off work breached police standards, a tribunal has ruled. Ahmed Anwari used a red pen to manually alter his lateral flow test result before sending a photograph to Lancashire Constabulary.

Hundreds of kilograms of cocaine have been turned over to police by baffled supermarket workers after being discovered in shipments of bananas from Colombia. The drugs – totalling around 998 kilograms, worth nearly £70 million – were mistakenly delivered to a number of Czech superm

Having chosen the cheapest option, McDonald’s is to pay a record €1.25 billion to the French authorities to avoid prosecution for alleged tax evasion. The fast food giant will pay a fine of €508 million and settle a bill of €737 million for tax it failed to pay between 2009 and

A couple who took their neighbour to court over a "very minor” trespass which they refused to settle for £13,000 must now pay a £130,000 legal bill. Liz and Adam Peck refused the offer of a settlement from Debbie Ranford, a City banker, in a dispute relating to their home in Dulwic

Animal rights advocates have failed to persuade a court that an elephant named Happy who was captured at the age of one and brought to the US is legally a person. New York's highest appeals court ruled by 5-2 that Asian elephant Happy, who was born in the wild in Thailand, has not been illegally det

British peers have kicked up a fuss about the quality of the heavily subsidised food and drink available in the House of Lords. In letters and emails sent to parliamentary authorities and published by openDemocracy, members of the unelected chamber moaned about the quantity of salmon and quality of

A major insurance company has been ordered to pay £4 million ($5.2 million) to a woman who caught an STD after having unprotected sex in a man's insured car. A court in Missouri upheld the decision of an arbitrator requiring Geico to make the payment to the woman who they say contracted HPV, a