And Finally

A police force has defended spending nearly €15,000 on a coffee machine after criticism from auditors. Police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia spent a total of €4.66 million on a new "innovation lab" which was originally set to cost just €250,000.

Indonesia's human rights minister has called for a crackdown on the flying of a straw-wearing skull-and-crossbones flag from a popular Japanese anime. An online protest movement has encouraged members of the public to raise the pirate flag from TV series One Piece in place of the Indonesian flag, Th

Helsinki has become the first European capital city to record zero road traffic deaths for an entire year. The Finnish capital is comparable in population size to Dublin, with around 1.5 million people living in or near it.

Singers who glorify "mafia culture" face up to three years' imprisonment under a law proposed by junior members of Italy's hard-right government. Lega, a far-right party with long-standing roots in the north of Italy, has taken aim at the neomelodica genre of music associated with the southern

A man accused of arson has said he set his apartment building on fire while trying to cremate his pet cat. Five people were displaced after the fire allegedly caused by 53-year-old Vince Hildestad, who went missing for a week afterwards.

A local authority in England has voted to recognise the personhood rights of the River Test. Test Valley Borough Council now recognises rivers as vital, living ecosystems deserving of legal rights and stronger protection from pollution, development, over-abstraction, and habitat degradation.

The UK's strict new age verification rules can be bypassed using popular video games, Internet users have found. Thousands of websites and online platforms now require users based in the UK to verify their age before accessing adult content, following the commencement of key provisions in the Online

A man returning home from his allotment became the victim of police stupidity after he was arrested by armed police when a member of the public mistook his gardening tools for weapons. Manchester man Samuel Rowe, 35, is mulling legal action after accepting a caution from Greater Manchester Police fo

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are suing U.S. political commentator Candace Owens for defamation, following repeated claims that the first lady is a man. Their lawyer, Tom Clare, told CNN the lawsuit filed in Delaware is a “last resort” after a year of failed atte

A woman who stopped to let a chicken cross the road has been accused of spraying a fellow driver with bear mace after she sped by her and killed the bird. Cynthia Sosa, 38, stopped at an intersection in Key West, Florida, on July 9 to let the chicken cross when another driver honked and passed her,

A man who allegedly ran a fake embassy for a country that does not exist has been arrested. Harsh Vardhan Jain claimed to be the Indian ambassador for various non-existent countries, including "West Arctica, Saborga, Poulvia and Lodonia".

Dozens of peacocks and peahens have been reported stolen from the grounds of a luxury hotel. The birds have become an iconic feature of the Ryde Hotel in Walnut Grove, California since their introduction nearly 15 years ago.

A top New York law firm has reportedly sacked a summer intern who allegedly bit a number of colleagues. Sidley Austin was forced to drop the intern after a number of complaints, according to American legal blog Above The Law.

An Irish TikToker is being sued by the manufacturer of the children's toys she uses to tell soap opera-style stories involving sex and drugs. More than 2.5 million people follow @sylvaniandrama on TikTok, where Thea Von Engelbrechten posts short stories illustrated with Sylvanian Families felt figur

A bumbling group of drug dealers who allegedly plotted to deliberately get arrested in order to benefit from bail conditions have been foiled. Singaporean police believe that the group of five Chinese nationals deliberately got caught offering bribes to officials in order to prolong their stay in th