And Finally

A university has begun offering a course on the law and judicial system of Harry Potter. The module is entitled “An Interface between Fantasy Fiction Literature and Law: Special Focus on Rowling’s Potterverse” and students are only eligible to sit the course if they have read all t

The estate of singer Prince has issued a statement requesting that US President Donald Trump stop using the song Purple Rain at rallies. At recent events, including one in Mississippi, the playlist has featured the track, word of which reached the late artist's estate.

Students have been given a list of offensive costumes they have been told not to wear for Halloween, including cowboy outfits. Also in the list of proscribed dress, issued by Kent University's student union, are the clothes of priests, nuns, Nazis, Crusaders, ISIS bombers, Native Americans, Israeli

A Northern Ireland man has been hospitalised after he allegedly tried to steal a diamond ring – by swallowing it. Ian Campbell, 54 from Newry, is accused of gulping down the £30,000 gem in a jewellery shop after he initially tried to leave with it clenched in his fist.

Police are searching for thieves who stole a whole vineyard of grapes. The thieves made off with their grape haul by "running a professional harvesting machine over the entire vineyard", police in southern Germany told the Rheinpfalz newspaper.

A mafia hitman testified against his former colleagues is suing a TV network over a drama which revealed his past to his teenage daughter. Pasquale di Filippo spent ten years in jail after admitting to four murders, but helped convict other mafia bosses and was granted a new identity on his release.

A man has been jailed for spraying a pesticide which led to the death of dozens of bee colonies. The 47-year-old man spread chloropyrifos over trees on his property which were attracting bees.

A claimant was reprimanded in Dublin Circuit Civil Court after addressing the judge as "love". James Flynn, 46, had been addressing defence counsel Adrianne Fields as "love" but was sharply rebuked when he did the same to Judge Sarah Berkeley.

A local authority is under pressure to reveal the full cost of a court battle it fought against a cheesemaker. South Lanarkshire Council's legal department has admitted it spent almost £600,000 in the case against Errington Cheese and it is thought the final bill will exceed £1 million a

Divorce judges will assign custody over pets on a similar basis to custody over children under new legislation in the US state of California. Judges are now legally required to consider an animal's best interests in divorce proceedings, and can order shared ownership of a pet.

Police officers attending domestic disputes are to be issued with sound protection because of noise at work regulations in a UK first. The initiative, pioneered by Police Scotland, follows a review prompted by the PSNI's £135 million bill paid to former officers with damaged hearing.

A go-kart operator that allowed drivers to dress up as Mario characters and drive through major Japanese cities has lost a court battle with Nintendo. The video game company said the MariCAR go-kart service did not have permission to allow drivers to dress up as its characters.

A man has been jailed for three years and fined over £1 million for overharvesting sea cucumbers. Hoon Namkoong, 62, failed to report nearly 115,000 kilograms of sea cucumbers which he bought between 2014 and 2016.

A new start-up has announced plans to launch a cannabis-based treatment for anxious and depressed pets. Weedentity will take advantage of recently relaxed Italian laws to sell a new cannabis oil product aimed at cats and dogs.

A group of people who thought they had survived the Great Tribulation, a period of suffering that Evangelical Christians believe precedes the Second Coming, and who kidnapped their neighbours in order to protect them from demons, were found naked in an SUV they had crashed into a ditch as they attem