PIZZA WEDDING

A couple have held their wedding reception at the pizza restaurant where they had their first date 14 years ago.

Housekeeper Julie Hansford, 50, and Paul Young, 49, a customer services assistant, invited 80 guests to the Salisbury branch of Pizza Hut, where they had a pizza-shaped cake, The Sun reported.

They were married in Coombe Basset, Wiltshire, 16 miles from the pizza restaurant - where staff wore lilac waistcoats over their black uniforms, the paper said.

MARVELLOUS MOSS

Moss can spring back to life after being frozen in Antarctic ice for more than 1,500 years, research has shown.

The discovery shows for the first time that plant life has the ability to survive millennial-scale ice ages. Mosses are the dominant plants across large areas and they have been known to survive extreme environments for up to 20 years.

Professor Peter Convey, one of the scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which worked with colleagues from the University of Reading, said: "What mosses do in the ecosystem is far more important than we would generally realise when we look at a moss on a wall here for instance." The scientists report their findings in the journal Current Biology.

PLANE LOSES PART OF WING

A flight from Orlando, Florida, landed safely in Atlanta after declaring an emergency because a part of the plane's wing was missing.

The Federal Aviation Administration says Flight 2412 landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at about 7.10pm on Sunday. The plane, a Boeing 757, stopped on the runway and was towed to the gate.

After the flight landed, officials told the FAA that a 4ft (1.2m) by 8ft (2.4m) panel from one of the plane's wings was missing. No injuries were reported.

WHISKEY ROW

US politicians are considering scaling back laws setting out strict requirements which distilleries must stick to in order to market their spirits as Tennessee whiskey.

Currently spirits need to be fermented in Tennessee from mash of at least 51% corn, aged in new charred oak barrels, filtered through maple charcoal and bottled at a minimum of 80 proof to be marketed as Tennessee.

But the people behind whiskey firm Jack Daniel's see the hand of a bigger competitor at work - Diageo, the British conglomerate that owns George Dickel, another Tennessee whiskey made about 15 miles away.

CHOCOLATE PILL

Scientists will examine whether pills containing the nutrients in dark chocolate can help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The study, involving 18,000 men and women across the US, will be the first large test of cocoa flavanols, which in previous smaller studies improved blood pressure, cholesterol, the body's use of insulin, artery health and other heart-related factors.

The pills are packed so heavily with the nutrients that participants would have to eat countless chocolate bars in order to consume the amount being tested in the study.

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