QUIRKY WORLD... Hapless thieves caught on helmet-cam
A video from a South African cyclist’s helmet camera shows a gunman running forward and stealing the bicycle and other possessions with the help of two accomplices — apparently unaware that they were being filmed.
Video footage helped police investigators track and arrest the three suspects, all of them 22 years old, who robbed the cyclist of his mountain bike and mobile phone, police said.
The robbery occurred on Saturday near the town of Somerset West, not far from Cape Town. The cyclist, identified in local media as Malcolm Fox, immediately gets off his bike, stays calm and co-operates with the thieves, who move quickly to take his possessions before running off and motioning to him to walk in a different direction.
The first peregrine falcon chicks to have hatched on England’s tallest cathedral spire in more than 60 years have been ringed.
The three peregrine falcon chicks hatched in a nesting box installed on Salisbury Cathedral’s 123m-high spire three weeks ago. They have been ringed with a unique colour-ring and identification number by well- known ornithologist and wildlife presenter Ed Drewitt.
The chicks, named Pip, Peter, and Paula, were each weighed, measured and ringed in a process that took between five and seven minutes for each bird.
An Iraqi man has gone from helping US soldiers communicate with local people during the 2003 invasion to becoming a US army lieutenant at Fort Campbell.
In the months after American forces invaded Iraq in 2003, Abdulla Mizead kept his distance. But, one afternoon, he approached some American troops stopped on a street after seeing them having a tough time communicating with an Iraqi man.
Mizead, 25 at the time, had learned English growing up around the world and stepped in to help translate. A few minutes later, a sergeant asked him if he would be interested in being a translator to replace a Kuwaiti who was returning home.
For 15 years, ferrets in New York City have been living in the shadows, outlawed under then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who famously told a ferret fancier that “this excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness”.
Now there’s a bit of hope for the slinky creatures. Years of lobbying by ferret owners has finally landed an audience in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, which says it could hold a hearing by the end of the year on a measure to make ferrets legal again.
A group called Legalising Ferret Ownership in NYC has collected 600 signatures on a petition to end the ban, but its leaders declined to be interviewed for fear of being outed and losing their furry friends.
While the city’s health department agreed last week to a ferret hearing, the mayor himself has been publicly non-committal.
A Pennsylvania school district says an aide has been suspended after she tricked students into eating pet snacks by telling them they were biscuits.
About 75 fourth-graders at New Hanover-Upper Frederick Elementary School received the pet treats during break-time on Thursday. No injuries were reported.
Student Gabriel Moore told WFMZ-TV the aide first joked they were dog treats, then told students they were actually biscuits. Gabriel ate three. Boyertown Area School District officials notified parents on Friday. They said the ingredients would only be harmful to people with certain food allergies.
Nevertheless, Gabriel’s father, David Moore, said the part-time aide should be “penalised pretty bad”. The aide has been suspended pending an internal investigation.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
