Monty Python star Terry Jones has been shortlisted for a top children’s book prize.
The funnyman, writer and broadcaster is up for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize which is awarded to the most rib-tickling reads for young people.
Mr Jones, 69, is nominated for his book Animal Tales – a collection of whimsical animal fables – which is battling it out with a book about a smelly troll and an alien schoolboy.
The prize – organised by Reading charity Booktrust – is named in honour of late children’s author Dahl, who would have celebrated his 95th birthday today. (PA)
Boy or ‘girl’?
A 10-year-old boy with gender dysphoria has started the new school year in the UK dressed as a girl, it emerged yesterday.
The child, a year six pupil at a school in Worcester, has been diagnosed with the condition by experts and decided during the summer break to return to class as a girl, The Worcester News reported.
The newspaper published an interview with the boy’s mother but has not named the family or the school in question.
The 36-year-old mother described her child as a “girlie girl” in the wrong body. She said: “She is within her mind a girl but she has a boy’s body.”
The school’s headteacher said: “Our school operates an inclusive policy and works hard to ensure all our pupils have the support they need.” (PA)
Billionaire dies
Yuli Ofer, one of Israel’s richest men, has died at the age of 87– just months after the death of his long-time business partner and brother, Sammy Ofer.
The pair built a sprawling business empire which included holdings in international shipping, property, chemicals and banking.
They divided up their assets in recent years, but media have reported their joint worth ranged from $4 billion to $10 billion.
Mr Ofer had emigrated from Romania with his family in 1924. (AP)
Smoking orang-utan
A captive orang-utan often spotted smoking cigarettes given to her by zoo visitors is being forced to kick the habit, a Malaysian wildlife official has said.
Government authorities sei-zed the adult ape named Shirley from a state-run zoo in Malaysia’s southern Johor state last week after she and several other animals there were deemed to be living in poor conditions.
Shirley is now being quarantined at another zoo in a neighbouring state and is expected to be sent to a wildlife centre on Borneo island within weeks.
Melaka Zoo director Ahmad Azhar Mohammed said that Shirley is not being provided with any more cigarettes because “smoking is not normal behaviour for orang-utans”. (AP)
No oral exams
In a bid to curb cheating, the Congo said yesterday it would stop the practice of pupils taking the final test for their high school diploma orally.
“The decision to stop oral exams comes from high up,” Education Minister Rosalie Kama said.
According to education ministry officials, passing the oral exam has become a “mere formality” with pupils bribing their teachers for higher marks.
The high school diploma is needed to gain access to university.
The UN Development Programme estimates the Congo’s illiteracy rate at 88 per cent. (AFP)
Toilet alerts
Fighter jets escorted two flights – one to New York City, another to Detroit – after passengers’ use of the bathrooms aroused suspicions on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
On a Los Angeles-to-New York American Airlines flight, three passengers made repeated trips to the bathroom. The three were cleared after the plane landed safely at New York’s Kennedy Airport.
Earlier, on a Denver-to-Detroit Frontier Airlines flight, the crew reported that two people were spending “an extraordinarily long time” in a bathroom.
Police detained three passengers at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport after the plane landed without incident. They were released after questioning.
In both instances, the FBI said the jets shadowed the planes “out of an abundance of caution”.(AP)
Potential spy
David Cameron would have made a “very good” spy for the Soviet Union, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has said.
The comments came after Mr Cameron told of an apparent KGB bid to recruit him when he was a gap year student in 1985 and was approached by two Russians on a Black Sea beach who took him out for dinner and asked what he thought about politics.
“When I got back I told my tutor at university and he asked me whether it was an interview. If it was, it seems I didn’t get the job!” he added. (PA)
Tip for mayor
A woman frustrated by a mix-up of the garbage collection schedule decided to dump hers in the mayor’s office.
Janice Shanks carried two bags of refuse into Portsmouth mayor David Malone’s Ohio office.
He gracefully accepted it, saying he would take it to the city’s waste disposal department. (PA)