Quirky World ... Museum has a skeleton in the closet
The Penn Museum has rediscovered a 6,500-year-old human skeleton. The remains were originally excavated from southern Iraq around 1930.
Officials said the rare specimen was identified during efforts to digitise the museum’s collection. They believe it is a man of at least 50, who stood about 5ft 9in tall.
A New York woman who crashed her car into a Long Island fire station was found to be in possession of marijuana — and a stolen snake wrapped around her neck.
Nassau County police said Sarah Espinosa, of Albany, was driving west on Jericho turnpike when she crossed the central reservation and struck a vehicle. They said she continued through the front door of the New Hyde Park fire station and collided with two fire engines.
Fire staff rushed to her aid and were surprised to find a small ball python around her neck. Authorities said the snake had been stolen from a nearby pet shop shortly before the accident. Espinosa faces charges including reckless endangerment and driving while intoxicated.
A black bear who managed to climb out of a Texas zoo exhibit took a dip in a pond with some harbour seals before staffers tranquillised him.
No one was hurt in the incident at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. Zoo spokeswoman Cynthia Galvan said the 220lb male bear, named Oscar, is staying in his sleeping quarters, out of public view, until repairs are made to cracks in the concrete wall of the bear grotto.
Oscar apparently made his way out by digging his claws into cracks in the wall, Ms Galvan said.
“A zoo visitor witnessed that he was trying to climb the wall, went to report it to one of the zoo employees.”
When staff arrived, Oscar was already out. “He meandered his way through the amphitheatre and into the harbour seals’ pool for a dip,” Ms Galvan said. Staff members contained him within 15 minutes at the pool, she said.
A passenger who was forced to land a plane after the pilot was taken ill has thanked the RAF Search and Rescue crew who guided him down, saying “It’s hard to believe I actually did all this.”
Grandfather John Wildey, 77, landed the light aircraft at Humberside Airport last October after being talked through it by a flight instructor and guided in by a Sea King helicopter from RAF Leconfield in East Yorkshire.
Now the former RAF clerk has met the crew who came to his aid in front of the yellow helicopter which helped him find his way down.
Young people have been warned against free running along roof tops after police said they continue to receive reports of it.
The urban craze, also known as Parkour, has grown in popularity over recent years and sees people climbing and jumping over obstacles and buildings.
But Northumbria Police have warned against taking part in the discipline after they received another report of “a youth” doing it in Alnwick, Northumberland.
Police in Los Angeles are looking for a man they say pretended to be blind in order to rob a cheque-cashing store of about $5,000 (€3,740).
The Torrance Daily Breeze said video shows the man wearing dark glasses and walking with a white cane as he entered the store in Wilmington on July 24.
He kept up the fraud for about 90 minutes, chatting with an employee and asking for help filling out an application. He claimed to have lost his sight while serving in the military in Iraq.
But the woman said when she opened the security door to give him a bottle of water, the man pulled a gun and made off with the money.
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