An eight-year-old Cuban boy who likes to dress up as Fidel Castro got to meet his idol after Cuba’s 88-year-old retired leader invited him and his family to his Havana home for a chat.

“I felt a lot of emotion upon seeing Fidel,” Marlon Mendez told Reuters from his home near Havana.

“The whole family hugged him. It was my dream to meet Fidel, and I did it. ... my mother was shaking.”

The retired leader is revered by some and detested by others for leading the Cuban revolution of 1959 and staying in power for 49 years.

The boy likes to dress in green fatigues, army boots and cap as Castro once did. Marlon wore the costume to his meeting with Castro, but without Castro’s trademark beard. (Reuters)

Brownies plant poison by accident

Potentially poisonous flowers have been removed from a British town after being mistakenly planted by a group of Brownies, the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald reports.

Amateur photographer Mike McKee made the discovery after spotting the unusual looking red flowers last week in Jubilee Park, Royal Wootton Bassett.

His research showed they were corncockles, which were thought to have been eradicated from the UK but have been making a return.

Contact with the flower is potentially harmful. The town council fenced the area off before cutting back the plants. (PA)

Stolen zoo monkey has twins

A critically endangered monkey that was stolen from a UK zoo has given birth to healthy twins.

Mamma the cotton-top tamarin was one of five monkeys taken in a raid at Blackpool Zoo in April when thieves cut a hole in a perimeter fence and removed the locks from two enclosures. Four of the primates, including two female cotton-top tamarins and two male emperor tamarins, were recovered later in Yorkshire but Mamma’s baby was not found.

After they were stolen, Lancashire Police said it believed the monkeys were targeted specifically and their details were circulated to ports and airports in case the thieves tried to take them abroad. (PA)

Gold thief didn’t use his nugget

A man who took a gold nugget worth almost $5,000 (£3,788) from an Alaskan jewellery store has offered to pay for it two days after his face appeared in photos distributed by the media.

Police Lt. Kris Sell said the man apparently did not realise he was being videotaped when he pocketed the gold. The tape showed a man attempting to get a clerk’s attention, but then putting the nugget in his pocket and leaving.

The man is a former resident who participated in a Juneau fishing derby. Police said he has called the store and left his credit card number. Prosecutors are deciding whether to press charges. (PA)

Life sentence for murderer aged 75

An elderly woman convicted of killing her husband four decades ago and burying his body in an abandoned Wyoming gold mine has been sentenced to life in prison, a prosecutor said.

Laramie County District Attorney Scott Homar had sought a minimum of 20 years in prison for Alice Uden, 75, of Chadwick, Missouri, while her lawyer argued for a suspended sentence that would see her get probation. But the state judge opted for life.

Uden, who ultimately remarried and was living quietly in Missouri when she was arrested a year ago, was found guilty in May of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Ronald Holtz in Wyoming in 1974 or 1975. (Reuters)