And Finally

A six-year-old boy has cost his mother over €13,000 by buying virtual gold rings for real money in his favourite mobile game. Real estate broker Jessica Johnson was cleared out over the course of a month by her young son when he went on a spending spree in the Sonic Forces mobile game.

A night owl who couldn't stand the crowing of his neighbour's rooster has been given a five-month suspended prison sentence for shooting it. The 47-year-old fireman from southern France, known only as Gérard A, shot and beat rooster Marcel to death after being woken too early in the morning.

Audacious thieves have apparently raided a military plane designed to keep Russian president Vladimir Putin safe in the event of nuclear war. The Russian government said equipment worth roughly one million roubles (around €11,000) was stolen from the Ilyushin-80 plane while it was undergoing ma

Three supermarket fishmongers have been convicted of cruelty for keeping carp in unacceptable conditions after a decade-long legal battle. The landmark case in Poland may have repercussions for the fish industry there, where carp is usually bought alive and kept alive until Christmas dinner.

A tonne of cocaine worth £100m has been found hidden in a shipment of banana pulp, the Home Office has said. The drugs were found at the London Gateway depot in Essex last month, concealed in a shipping container.

Police are under fire for posting a photo on social media of a Christmas tree decorated with mugshots. A sheriff's department in the US state of Alabama called the Facebook photos "thugshots".

A mayor who flew off on holiday by private jet urged residents to stay at home – in a video recorded from a beach resort. Steve Adler, leader of Austin, Texas, has become the latest politician to be accused of Covid-19 hypocrisy. He went to Mexico after telling people to stay indoors amid risi

Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and other Muppets were listed to appear in court on criminal charges in an apparent mistake by courts staff. At least three Crown Courts in England listed various Muppets as well as cartoon and fairy tale characters in official court listings.

An investigation has been launched after a two-metre-tall sculpture of an erect penis disappeared from a mountainside as mysteriously as it appeared. The sculpture baffled locals when it first appeared on the Grünten mountain in the south of Bavaria, Germany some years ago but later became a po

A lawyer who represented a non-existent victim in one of the highest-profile trials in German legal history has been found not guilty of intent to deceive. The 53-year-old lawyer, who has not been named, took part in the trial of several members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground (NSU) g

Pig entrails have been flung across the floor of parliament in Taiwan in protest at new pork import rules. Opposition MPs threw offal at their government counterparts in the latest escalation of protests against plans to relax restrictions on pork imports from the US.

An attempted armed robbery in Australia failed after the would-be victim pulled out a larger knife. Evoking the famous scene in the film Crocodile Dundee, café manager Johan David Cruz Arevalo scared off a knife-wielding robber.

A hair salon that invoked the authority of Magna Carta faces a fine of £27,000 for repeatedly breaching the lockdown rules. Sinead Quinn, owner of Quinn Blakey Hairdressers in Oakenshaw, Bradford, was working when Kirklees Council issued a fine for £4,000 and thereafter two more for &pou

A former gymnast has reportedly defected from North Korea to the south by vaulting a three-metre high border fence. South Korean media said officials who found and detained the man were so astonished they asked him twice to show his jumping skills.

A man who held a cardboard sign with a smiley face outside of a police station has been arrested for taking part in an illegal protest. Jolovan Wham was arrested in Singapore after the brief one-man demonstration in solidarity with arrested climate activists, The Guardian reports.