QUIRKY WORLD: A daily look at some of the world's stranger stories
A US sheriff says he has cancelled Valentine’s Day because of the bad weather, telling men they are off the hook for the romantic gifts their partners may be expecting.
Sheriff Scott Berry in Oconee County, Georgia, took to Facebook to announce his decision after an ice storm slammed into the state.
Men, he wrote, “are exempt from having to run out and buy lottery scratchers and Hershey bars from the corner stores” until Tuesday.
The post was in fun and was shared more than 1,500 times. But it angered a man who called the sheriff’s office from a Michigan area code to protest at the decision, saying snow up north isn’t a big deal.
A New Mexico judge stopped at an accident scene on a snowy highway and helped an injured person who turned out to be a defendant due in her courtroom.
District Court Judge Sheri Raphaelson and a court bailiff were driving to court in Tierra Amarilla when they came upon an overturned pick-up that had skidded off the road.
Ms Raphaelson recognised an injured passenger as burglary defendant Isaac Martinez, who had a pre-trial hearing scheduled that day.
She checked Martinez and covered him with her jacket as they waited for help. Others helping included several other defendants also on their way to court. They held a tarpaulin to keep falling snow off Martinez who was later discharged from hospital after treatment.
A replica of poet Dylan Thomas’s writing shed is beginning a tour as part of a festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth.
The shed, built last month, will be taken around the UK and visitors can make up a new word which will be published in a dictionary of Dylan, in honour of his love of words.
The original shed sits above the Boathouse in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, in the south west of Wales where Thomas lived for four years before he died in 1953. Creators of the replica shed have paid close attention to even the smallest detail, including curled-up pictures on the walls. Stops on the tour include the Hay Festival, the Royal Welsh Show and the National Eisteddfod.
A mutation in a gene which has a critical role in the brain could explain why some people are more likely than others to be couch potatoes, according to research.
The “key discovery”, which centres around the system that regulates physical activity levels, has been made by scientists in China and Scotland.
The study raises the prospect that personalised pills could be developed in future to help those who are less inclined to exercise, experts said.
A pensioner has returned to boxing training more than 45 years after he was forced to give it up as his sight deteriorated.
James Peline, 65, has lost both his sight and hearing due to Usher syndrome and is supported by charity Deafblind Scotland. His trainer communicates through a series of touches on his arms and shoulders that guide his movements.
Mr Peline, from Cardonald, Glasgow, was a keen boxer as a teenager but had to stop when his sight got progressively worse. He returned to training six months ago as part of a charity initiative to keep him active and healthy.
They call it the holy grail of ready-to-eat meals for soldiers in combat or remote areas — a pizza that can stay on the shelf for up to three years and still be edible.
Researchers at a US military lab in Massachusetts are closing in on the pizza soldiers have been asking for since 1981.
Research has helped them work out ways to prevent moisture from migrating to the dough, creating conditions for potentially dangerous bacteria.
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