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Strange stories: Saturday
A selection of weird stories in the news from around the world.
PLAYHOUSE FINE
A couple were fined 1,000 after refusing to take down a garden playhouse and greenhouse, a council has said.
Anna and Russ Platt, both 45, of Costessey, near Norwich, were prosecuted after ignoring an enforcement notice, South Norfolk District Council said.
A spokesman for the authority said the couple were fined 500 each and ordered to pay 1,000 costs following a hearing at Norwich Magistrates' Court.
BIRD BRAIN
A woman has been ordered to stop feeding birds in her garden because her "excessive" generosity with food scraps has sparked an invasion of rats, a council said.
Ann Bell, 59, scatters so many snacks in her garden and on her birdfeeder that rodents have flocked to her neighbourhood in Tuffley, Gloucester.
Her fellow residents in Brookthorpe Close complained to the council that rats have now made their way to their properties and Mrs Bell is facing legal action.
LOUD HAILER
Police on late-night patrols will use megaphones to wake up homeowners who have left their houses unlocked.
Officers in areas of Northampton have adopted the strategy in a bid to fight burglaries.
A Northamptonshire Police spokesman said that in the areas affected, Thorplands and Lumbertubs, there were 30 burglaries in three weeks during April.
REELED IN
An angler had more of a catch than he realised when a fish he reeled in contained a gold ring.
The ring turned up inside the belly of a fish caught off Fort Victoria, near Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight.
Jamie Bowley, of Gold Rush gold dealers, in Lower St James's Street, Newport, who examined the ring, told the Isle of Wight County Press: "This was the craziest story we'd ever heard but 100% true."
BATON BASHER
A majorette fought off two would-be muggers with her marching band baton.
The 17-year-old was walking to school outside Los Angeles when two men approached her from behind, tried to grab her coat and demanded money.
Instead, one got a punch in the nose and the other a kick to the groin. The girl then beat both of them with the baton before she ran away.
TICKET TO RIDE
A 13-year-old autistic boy went unnoticed when he got on a flight from Florida to California.
Kenton Weaver took his father's car, drove 30 miles to the airport and caught a flight to San Jose near where his mother lives.
He used one of his father's credit cards to buy the ticket, but had no identification on him.
CURSED
A man on the Caribbean island of Grenada has been jailed for using obscene language and threats beside a church.
David Buckmire was given three months after being convicted on one count of riotous behaviour at a place of divine worship.
Police said they had warned him several times about using obscene and threatening language against a pastor who was preaching in his church.
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Weather for Kettering
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 12 C to 26 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
