And Finally

Businesses will be expressly banned from microchipping their employees under legislation proposed in a US state. Legislators in the state of Washington are currently considering House Bill 2303, which provides that an employer "may not request, require, or coerce any employee to have a microchip imp

An English pub which was told selling pints for 25p would be illegal decided to give them away for free instead. Whitelocks, in Leeds, had intended to offer pints of a popular 1970s beer, which had been recently relaunched, at 1970s prices.

India's top court has banned a school textbook which made references to court backlogs and "corruption in the judiciary". The Supreme Court of India has imposed a "complete blanket ban... on any further publication, reprinting or digital dissemination" of the book, which was published last week by t

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has been charged with drugs offences after telling a podcast he once took ecstasy decades ago. The controversial left-wing politician and leader of the MeRA25 party said he had tried ecstasy in Australia in 1989 but was discouraged from doing so again a

A senior judge in Pakistan has been removed from office after it emerged he obtained his law degree through fraud. Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri served on Islamabad High Court for five years before the invalidity of his undergraduate degree at the University of Karachi came to light.

New York police say they are investigating "criminals" who pelted officers with snowballs after they turned up to a mass snowball fight. Videos circulating on social media show a rain of snowballs coming down on officers attending the event, which was organised online in the wake of a major blizzard

A man who admitted smuggling drugs into Mexico has been given the benefit of the doubt after saying he didn't mean to bring them back to Canada. Daniel Jacob Cluett was charged with three counts of importing substances into Canada after border officials found cocaine and MDMA in his luggage.

A flying pig caused a power outage in rural China after a farmer decided to try transporting his animals via drone. The man, who is now facing a police investigation, had sought to find a quicker route to a local slaughterhouse in the mountainous Tongjiang county area.

Russia's Supreme Court has upheld a fine imposed on search giant Google which is roughly a million times more than the combined GDP of the entire world. Judge Sergei Samuylov said there were no grounds to review the imposition of the 91.5 quintillion rouble fine (around €1.2 quintillion or &pou

A top City of London banker has admitted to systematically dodging rail fares for nearly a year – saving himself £6,000 in the process. Joseph Molloy, a former HSBC executive, avoided a prison sentence after admitting to 740 instances of "doughnutting".

A "two-email limit" has been imposed on lawyers in England's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in a bid to encourage younger members of staff, whose entire generation appear to have telephonophobia, to pick up the phone. Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, has ordered a clamp-down

An actress who provided the face of Albania's AI government minister is suing over the alleged misuse of her image. Albania made global headlines last year after unveiling an AI chatbot called "Diella" which it said had joined the government as minister of state for artificial intelligence.

A local authority is recruiting a team of professional sniffers to help identify businesses producing bad smells. Brendola, a small town of around 4,000 people in northern Italy, is putting together a team of six "odour evaluators" following complaints from local residents about bad smells, The Guar

A man wanted by Italian police for 16 years has finally been caught after returning to the country to watch the Winter Olympics. The 44-year-old Slovak national, who has not been named, was convicted of a series of thefts in 2010, according to DW.

An athlete who defrauded a teammate has now also beaten her victim to a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Julia Simon came first in the women's 15km biathlon – which combines skiing and rifle shooting. Her victim and teammate, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, came in 80th place.