QUIRKY WORLD ... Diamond the size of a tennis ball could fetch €60m in sale
Sotheby’s says it will offer the Lesedi la Rona diamond in London on June 29.
The diamond was unearthed in November in Botswana at a mine owned by Canada’s Lucara Diamond Corporation. It measured 1,109 carats, making it the second-largest gem-quality rough diamond ever discovered. Its name means ‘Our Light’ in the Tswana language.
The auctioneer says the rough gemstone could yield the largest top-quality diamond ever cut and polished.
The largest diamond ever found was the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, unearthed in South Africa in 1905. It was cut into nine pieces that form part of the UK Crown Jewels.
Food for thought
A top criminal court has ruled that a hungry homeless man who took a package of hot dogs from a supermarket committed no crime.
The man had been about to leave the store after paying for breadsticks but not for the hot dogs and some cheese he had in his pocket. He was convicted of theft, and sentenced by a lower court in Genoa to six months in prison and a €100 fine.
However, the Rome-based Cassation Court ruled the man was driven by necessity.
A columnist in Turin newspaper La Stampa wrote that the high court’s ruling “reminds everyone that in a civilised country not even the worst of men can die of hunger”.
Blunder laid bare
An Arizona student who showed his penis in his football team’s photograph was arrested briefly after his high school unwittingly sent the image to hundreds of his Phoenix-area classmates as part of its yearbook.
A spokeswoman for Red Mountain High School said the photo was printed in all of the yearbooks destined for some 3,400 students, but only about 250 books had been given out.
The school hopes to get back the 250 books. The others will be edited to cover the inappropriate content.
The student, Hunter Osborn, 19, told police he was acting on a dare from another player when, court documents said, “he exposed his penis through the top of his waistband of his football uniform pants”.
