An endurance runner dubbed Ireland’s answer to Forrest Gump has arrived home after an epic four-year 50,000km run around the world.

Former construction worker Tony Mangan is now threatening to recreate the famous “little run” scene from the Oscar-winning movie as he prepares to end his adventure at next month’s Dublin Marathon.

The 57-year-old Dubliner set off on his solitary east-west run across five continents, six deserts and 41 countries in October 2010 after running his home town race but now Mangan is back on Irish soil, he hopes the exploits will continue after he invited people to join him on stretches of a 45-day 1,600km circuit of the country.

Chinese snap up British flavours

British flavours like gin and tonic and Cheddar cheese are going down a storm with Chinese snackers, according to British popcorn brand Joe & Seph’s.

The firm has launched into China in a 50-store deal that is projected to generate £200,000 in sales for the business over the next 12 months.

Orders from retail buyers for Cheddar cheese and gin and tonic have far outstripped the brand’s Far Eastern flavours, including peanut satay and caramel, mirin, soya and sesame so the firm also plans to launch strawberries and cream flavour popcorn.

Raccoon on the run from UK zoo

Police are investigating after a raccoon dog went missing from a zoo. The animal, which belongs to the same family as wolves and foxes, vanished from an enclosed area at Tropiquaria zoo near Minehead in Somerset.

Staff arrived this morning to find damage to a wire panel and a steel bar removed.

Taxi drivers judged on odour

Body odour is among 52 criteria that officials at San Diego Inter­national Airport use to judge taxi drivers, which cabbies say smacks of prejudice and discrimination.

For years, inspectors with the San Diego Regional Airport Authority have run down their checklist for each cabbie – proof of insurance, functioning windshield wipers, adequate tyre treads, good brakes. Drivers are graded pass, fail or needs fixing.

Anyone who flunks the smell test is told to change before picking up another customer. Leaders of the United Taxi Workers of San Diego union say it perpetuates a stereotype that predominantly foreign-born taxi drivers smell bad.

Breadstick row in takeover bid

US restaurant chain Olive Garden has been accused of hurting itself by providing customers with too many breadsticks by an investor disputing how it is run.

In a wide-ranging critique, the hedge fund Starboard Value says restaurants lack training and waiters bring too many breadsticks to tables at a time. That leads to waste – and cold breadsticks, it says.

The document is part of Starboard’s push to take control of the board of Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants. It also attacked Olive Garden’s failure to salt the water used to boil its pasta and its liberal use of salad dressing.

Lawsuit over missing tank

A company headed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit in the US over a Second World War-era German tank it says it paid $2.5 million (£1.5 milllion) for but never received.

The Panzer IV tank was part of a fleet of military vehicles amassed by Stanford University-trained engineer Jacques Littlefield. His family turned them over to the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, which put some of them up for auction.

In the lawsuit, Allen’s company, Vulcan Warbirds, says it was later told there had been a mix-up and the foundation did not want to give the tank up. Foundation CEO Rob Collings told the Palo Alto Daily News the tank was never sold.

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