And Finally

A pair of armed robbers quickly regretted their choice of target after their raid on a McDonald's branch in eastern France saw them come up against an 11-strong elite police team. The two robbers burst into the packed restaurant and immediately began firing warning shots to intimidate staff.

A parrot who keeps repeating "Don't f**king shoot!" could be called as a witness in the trial of his owner's killer. Martin Duram, 45, was shot five times in his Michigan, USA home last May and his death remains under investigation.

A tired and emotional parish priest screamed that he enjoyed diplomatic immunity on behalf of the Vatican while drunkenly brawling with police and a paramedic. Gareth Jones, 36, was convicted after the bizarre incident in central London.

A newly-discovered species of leaf-dwelling praying mantis has been named after US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Scientists at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History said the insect's neck plate closely resembles Justice Ginsburg's jabot.

A judge in Ohio has spared a Catholic man from jail, ordering him to attend Baptist church services for twelve weeks instead. Judge William Mallory handed out his divine sentence to Jake Strotman, 23, who admitted brawling with Baptist street preachers.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has stunned the US legal profession by attacking a sitting federal judge as "a hater of Donald Trump". In a bizarre tirade, Trump himself said: "Everybody says it, but I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He's a hater."

A scientist and an academic have proposed creating robot sex brothels to undermine demand for human sex trafficking. Futurology specialist Ian Yeoman and sexologist Michelle Mars have co-authored a paper proposing robot sex workers as a means of tackling human trafficking and STI transmission.

An Italian court has acquitted a man accused of falling behind in child support payments after he decided to pay in pizzas instead of euros. Nicola Toso, 50, divorced his wife in 2002 and later found it difficult to keep up with the monthly €400 stipulated in the divorce agreement.

A 77-year-old erotic novel writer who died during a solo sex act was described as passing "in flagrante delicto" by an English coroner. Terence Charles Wakelin, writer of titles like Love Slave, was discovered dead by a friend, surrounded with an assortment of "accoutrements" including electric nipp

A county councillor in Wales has warned locals to keep on the look-out for psychotic, cannabis-fuelled sheep. Ioan Richard has cautioned locals about the possibility of an "outbreak of psychotic sheep rampaging through the village" after suspected cannabis plants were discarded in the countryside ne

A controversial Russian academic has proposed giving the vote to Russia's war dead to allow their continued participation in politics. Alexander Ageyev, director of the influential Institute for Economic Strategies, suggested that the descendants of around 14 million Russians killed during World War

An American man who correctly guessed the password for an electronic message board is facing a felony charge after changing it to read "Drive Crazy Yall". Geoffrey Eltgroth, 26, was arrested after motorists noticed a message board warning of road construction had been altered.

A judge fired for persistently watching adult material on official IT equipment has appealed his dismissal on the basis that he was depressed. Former judge Warren Grant, 61, claims he was suffering from "severe undiagnosed depression" as a result of marital problems and his employers had discriminat

A convicted killer who broke into a charity shop was caught after stopping for a mince pie at the scene of the crime. Cops found Paul Ness, 42, sitting pie-faced in the staff kitchen of the British Heart Foundation store in Leith at the end of January.

Owners of a Belfast lingerie shop have complained that the smell from a Greggs store opening next door will ruin their stock. Mike Tremellen, director of Bravissimo, has written to planning officials to complain that the smell of pasties and pies will "permeate into our shop" and make their stock "u