Quirky World ... Smitten pooches guide owners down the aisle
A case of puppy love has led to the wedding of two guide dog owners — with the bride saying their pets helped her find “true love”.
Claire Johnson, 50, and Mark Gaffey, 51, got married in Baralston, Stoke-on-Trent, after their dogs fell in love at training two years ago.
The guide dogs, Venice and Rodd, took the happy couple through the service and even acted as ring-bearers.
The newlyweds met in 2012 on a two-week guide dog training course. It became apparent Rodd and Venice had fallen head-over-paws in love, playing and nuzzling together throughout the training.
The bride said: “I have no doubt that our guide dogs brought us together and helped me find my true love. Much like our two guide dogs, we really are best friends and soul mates.”
“Our dogs were the class love story. Everyone used to joke about how Mark’s dog Rodd and my dog Venice were meant to be together.”
Mr Gaffey popped the question on Valentine’s Day last year.
Pupils are making their way to school in a flood-hit part of Vietnam by crossing a swollen river inside giant plastic bags.
Adults have been putting the children inside the bags, to keep their uniforms dry, and then pulling them through the raging torrent.
The bizarre school run was filmed by a teacher in Sam Lang village, Dien Bien Province, near Hanoi.
The clip shows a man carefully wrapping up each child in a plastic bag before launching himself neck deep into the flooded river.
Once at the other side the perfectly dry child is then unwrapped by the man who returns for more.
Tong Thi Minh, a teacher at a village preschool, filmed the perilous journey on her mobile phone when the nearby suspension bridge was out of use because of the floods. She told Vietnamese newspaper Tuoi Tre news: “It’s normal. That’s the only way to cross the stream because no bridge can stand floodwater.”
Three elephants escaped from their handlers at a circus near St Louis and damaged several vehicles in a car park before they were recaptured.
Television station KMOV reported that the female elephants escaped from the children’s ride section of the Moolah Shrine Circus at the Family Arena in St Charles.
TV station KSDK says the circus issued a statement saying the handlers were able to occupy the animals and that “they are now resting comfortably in their compound at this time”.
Police say that the animals also damaged the venue’s loading door.
Labour is demanding that George Osborne comes clean amid reports that he signed off a “patronising” budget advert.
Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps was widelypilloried last week after posting an image on Twitter claiming cuts to bingo and beer taxes would “help hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy”.
But according to The Sunday Telegraph, the image was designed on treasury premises and signed off by the chancellor, Tory election supremo Lynton Crosby, and the prime minister’s political secretary Stephen Gilbert.
Shadow cabinet office minister Michael Dugher has now written to treasury permanent secretary Nicholas Macpherson asking who was at the meeting that approved the ad.
Like his papal predecessors, Pope Francis receives all kinds of official gifts from visiting dignitaries: plaques, religious icons and limited-edition books.
But he has received something unique from little Luca Manconi, the three-year-old grandson of Maltese president George Abela, who tagged along for his grandfather’s audience with the pope.
When Luca and his parents joined Abela’s delegation at the end of the private meeting, he presented Francis with a little plastic dinosaur.
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