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The first talking humanoid robot “astronaut” has taken off in a rocket, Japan’s space agency has said.

Kirobo – derived from the Japanese words for “hope” and “robot” – was among five tons of supplies and machinery on a rocket launched for the International Space Station from Tanegashima, southwestern Japan.

Developers say the childlike robot will be a companion for astronaut Koichi Wakata and will communicate with another robot on Earth.

Robot designer Tomotaka Takahashi, of the University of Tokyo, advertiser Dentsu and car maker Toyota worked on the robot.

Handcuffed lovers rescued

A fire brigade has blamed erotic fiction for a rise in the number of couples it has had to rescue from handcuffs.

Crews in London have responded to 79 appeals for help over the past three months.

Third officer Dave Brown said: “The number of incidents involving handcuffs seem to have gone up. I’m sure people will be 50 shades of red by the time our crews arrive to free them.”

Two-year-old son is best man

A two-year-old boy who has been given only weeks to live has served as the best man for his parents’ wedding.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that Christine Swidorsky carried Logan Stevenson on her shoulder at the Saturday afternoon wedding in Jeannette, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States.

Looking dapper in a tiny tan pin-stripe suit and orange shirt, Logan stood with his grandmother, Debbie Stevenson, during a ceremony uniting Logan’s mother and his father, Sean Stevenson.

The boy has leukaemia and other complications.

The couple tied the knot in a hastily arranged garden ceremony that served to celebrate Logan’s life.

They abandoned an original wedding date of July 2014 after learning from doctors late last month that their son had two to three weeks to live.

Public lunch during Ramadan

About 300 people in a restive northern region of Algeria have joined a public lunch during Ramadan to protest at what they say is persecution of people who refuse to observe the religious fast.

The protest lunch was highly unusual for North Africa, where fasting during the Muslim holy month is effectively legally required. It was held to protest at the decision of security forces to question three young people who were eating outside last week in the Kabylie region during the 18-hour daily fasting period.

The lunch in Tizi-Ouzou, about 95 kilometres from Algiers, was not contested by either local Islamists or authorities. In previous years, residents in the largely secular region of Kabylie who refused to fast during the month of Ramadan faced charges of “acting against Islam”.

Birth control plan for deer

A suburban New York village has a birth control plan – for deer. It plans to inject females with a contraceptive made from pigs’ ovaries.

Hastings-on-Hudson mayor Peter Swiderski says he’s hoping for a reduction of 35 to 40 per cent in the deer population over five years. If the state approves the plan, does in Hastings could be tranquilised, then injected, by next winter.

Scientists and humane groups hope the programme can become a model for other places that are too congested or compassionate to consider killing. Swiderski says deer in Hastings cause car wrecks, devour gardens and are destroying the village forest.