QUIRKY WORLD ... Puppet show knocked back over links to violence

ENGLAND: A seaside resort has axed a Punch and Judy show over fears it trivialises domestic violence.

The traditional puppet show had been planned to feature as part of the Barry Island Beats, Eats and Treats festival in south Wales next month.

However, it faced opposition from a number of officials who said the performance would be at odds with the county council’s standpoint on domestic violence — including objections from local councillors.

Some package

USA: An Arkansas man has been arrested after police say he had 60kg of marijuana shipped from Mexico to his home.

Jonesboro Police Department spokesman Paul Holmes said officers posed as delivery men and arrested 52-year-old Alberto Gomez-Reyes after he signed for the package containing the marijuana.

Police say he had the officers place it in the back of his truck.

Origami robot

USA: An ‘origami robot’ that unfolds itself to perform remote-controlled surgery in the stomach has undergone laboratory tests.

The small rectangular device, swallowed in a dissolvable capsule, is steered by magnetic fields and can crawl across the stomach wall to patch a wound or capture foreign material.

One of its uses could be to remove potentially harmful swallowed button batteries, said the US researchers. Each year, 3,500 cases of batteries being swallowed are reported in the US alone.

Hair-raising

USA: A lock of hair from Thomas Jefferson has sold at auction in Texas for $6,875 (€6,000), nearly 190 years after the former president died.

Heritage Auctions in Dallas said Saturday’s sale involved 14 strands that were snipped by Jefferson’s physician at the time of the statesman’s death on July 4, 1826.

A Heritage Auctions statement says the pre-auction estimate for the hair was $3,000.

The buyer wished to remain anonymous. The seller was collector William F. Northrop, who purchased the lock in the early 1980s from an autograph scholar. The documentation includes a letter confirming the lock as part of a limited number of Jefferson’s hair samples known to exist.

Crab spectacle

USA: Thousands of tiny red crabs are carpeting beaches in Orange County and creating an amazing spectacle for swimmers and surfers.

Lifeguards estimate that hundreds of thousands of the tiny crustaceans have washed up Friday on beaches in Newport Beach. Others were spotted in Laguna Beach.

The Orange County Register reports that pelagic red crabs are usually found off Baja California, but currents that are part of the El Nino weather pattern are sweeping them north.

The 2.5cm-7.5cm crabs have washed up for several years along the Orange County coastline.

Before that, they hadn’t been seen in the area for decades.

Bad luck day

USA: Bad luck followed a group of teenagers heading to the prom on Friday the 13th as the limousine they were riding in caught fire.

WFXT-TV reports that the Natick High School students from Massachusetts smelled smoke in the white stretch limousine around 6pm on Friday.

Good luck returned when the 10 teens and the driver escaped the limo unharmed before it burst into flames.

It’s unclear what caused the blaze. Natick police tweeted the limo “might be evil” because the fire later rekindled.

The teens did make it to the prom; they caught a ride on a passing trolley also headed there.

Tigers on the roam

Holland: Two tigers escaped from their enclosure at a Dutch big cat sanctuary on Saturday, prompting police to warn residents to stay indoors, but the animals were shot with tranquilisers and never got beyond the sanctuary’s outer fence.

“The tigers are back from their adventure and indoors sleeping it off,” tweeted the local Dutch municipality of Ooststellingwerf in Friesland province.

Police spokeswoman Nathalie Schubart said the animals had been cornered by officers and tranquilized by a veterinarian as the sanctuary’s outer fence was not considered tiger-proof.

Schubart said it was not immediately clear how the animals escaped, but a gate to their enclosure could have been left open.

The tigers did not hurt anyone during their brief foray into the wooded grounds of the sanctuary.

Dogged loyalty

USA: When a venomous Eastern diamondback rattlesnake appeared in the backyard of a 7-year-old girl, her German shepherd came to her rescue, refusing to back down even when the snake bit him three times.

In short, Haus is a hero.

“It shows you that a rescue dog, for us, paid it forward by protecting my family,” said Adam DeLuca of Tampa.

Now hundreds of donors are coming to the family’s rescue to help pay for the antivenin needed to keep the dog alive.