And Finally

Albania has appointed an AI chatbot as a government minister who it says will be "free of corruption". "Diella" – meaning "Sun" in Albanian – has been put in charge of public procurement, The Guardian reports.

Our weekly round-up of human rights stories from around the world. South Korean women file landmark lawsuit accusing US military of systematic role in sex trade

A prisoner accused of threatening to shoot an officer after being served a jacket potato for lunch has gone on trial. Nicholas Brock, 57, a far-right sympathiser from Maidenhead, Berkshire, is currently serving a sentence for possessing terrorist materials. He is alleged to have threatened to kill a

Residents of a Bavarian apartment block who called police over persistent late-night doorbell ringing were astonished to learn the cause was not pranksters – but rather a slug. The creature had been sliding across the metal bell plate, repeatedly setting off the buzzer and disturbing residents

Police in the Czech Republic have arrested the man suspected of repeatedly driving a Formula 1-style racing car along a motorway since 2019. The distinctive red vehicle, in full Ferrari livery, was traced to a property in the village of Buk, around 60km south-west of Prague, following the latest rep

A lawyer who shares his name with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is suing the social media platform for repeatedly deactivating his account. In eight years, Mark Steven Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer in Indianapolis, has seen his official Facebook page suspended five times and his personal profil

Anti-pickpocket activists in Venice have found themselves reported to the police for stalking and unauthorised filming of alleged pickpockets. A crime wave in the tourist hotspot has prompted calls for a crackdown by police – as well as the appearance of activist groups who follow and film sus

Chinese fast fashion giant Shein has said it is investigating how a shirt was advertised for sale with a doctored image of Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering a healthcare CEO in New York City. The now removed listing showed a smiling Mangione modelling a short-sleeved shirt in what may hav

The beloved costumed mascot of a popular US restaurant chain was arrested in front of bewildered children after being accused of credit card theft. Florida man Jermell Jones, 41, was dressed as the eponymous rodent mascot of Chuck E. Cheese – even wearing a giant foam head – when he was

North Carolina’s law enforcement watchdog is proposing new standards that would explicitly ban police officers from having sex while on duty, in uniform, in police vehicles, or with subordinates and trainees. The initiative, led by the state’s Criminal Justice Education and Training Stan

A Wisconsin man who faked his death and fled abroad has been sentenced to 89 days in jail – the same number of days he was missing. Ryan Borgwardt, 45, pleaded no contest to obstructing an officer. Both prosecution and defence recommended 45 days in jail, but the judge matched the sentence to

A 17th-century painting stolen by the Nazis from a Dutch Jewish art collector briefly resurfaced this week in photographs of a house for sale in Argentina – a Nazi haven – before disappearing once again. The work, thought to be Portrait of a Lady by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghisl

A rail passenger in France has been slapped with a €110 fine for travelling with a cat who allegedly miaowed too much. Parisian couple Camille and Pierre have complained to French rail company SNCF over the treatment of her white cat Monet, BFMTV reports.

Turkey's transport minister has been fined after posting a social media video which showed he was speeding. Abdulkadir Uraloğlu was driving at 140mph, nearly twice the speed limit, in footage he posted to his X account on Sunday, Turkish Minute reports.

Archaic prison rules are forcing inmates in part of the US prison system to rely on floppy disks to work on their appeals. Jorge Luis Alvarado, a New Jersey prisoner writing for the Prison Journalism Project (PJP), compares the situation to "1985, where we rely on out-of-date word processors, electr