A koala that cheated death after being hit by a car at 100 kilometres per hour and dragged with his head jammed through the vehicle grill for 12 kilometres is being dubbed Australia's luckiest marsupial.
The eight-year-old male koala, named "Ely 'Lucky' Grills" by rescuers, was struck by an unwitting motorist north of Brisbane and found only when the car stopped after being flagged down by another vehicle.
"To have him survive and virtually unscathed is quite miraculous," Australian Wildlife Hospital's mouthpiece Carolyn Beaton said yesterday. Lucky hung on during his ordeal with one arm and his trapped head, and was freed with household scissors used like a fireman's "jaws-of-life" to cut around the car's mesh grill with the horrified owner's permission, Ms Beaton said. "Whilst Lucky was in shock, he quickly recovered and was nearly better after a couple of hours rest and a feed," she said.
Lucky will stay at the hospital, set up by the late television wildlife and crocodile crusader Steve Irwin, for 45 days to recover from his experience and receive treatment for a chlamydial infection.
Dogs frozen out as UK space bites
Thousands of dogs and cats face a bleak future in Britain because their owners are being forced to rent homes due to a housing downturn and landlords will not accept pets, a report showed yesterday.
The survey commissioned by UK charity Dogs Trust and conducted in June showed three-quarters of pet owners had faced problems finding rented accommodation, raising the risk of thousands of pets being abandoned or handed over to charities.
More than half of the 1,400 pet-owners surveyed said they had not found anywhere that allowed pets.
Dogs Trust also reported more calls from owners needing help with vets' bills as the British economy falters.
Man spent €610 a week on beer
An Australian man convicted of his seventh drink-driving charge was spending about A$1,000 (€610) a week on beer - enough to buy more than 2,500 small bottles a month, a newspaper said yesterday.
The heartbroken construction worker began drowning his sorrows after breaking up with his partner five years ago, the Northern Territory News said.
The magistrate declined to jail the father of four, Michael Leary, noting he had quit drinking since his latest arrest, but he banned Mr Leary from buying or even holding a beer for 12 months.
The magistrate also poked fun at Mr Leary's favourite beer, Melbourne Bitter, in a part of the country where drinkers can be as loyal to beer brands as they are to football teams. ''(That is) poor judgment on two counts there - drinking that much and drinking Melbourne Bitter,'' Magistrate Vince Luppino was quoted as saying.
Pours cold water on school reform
A student poured cold water on Chile's unpopular education reform - literally. The 14-year-old schoolgirl threw a pitcher of cold water in Education Minister Monica Jimenez's face on Monday at an event to discuss reform of a sector that students and teachers complain is underfunded and neglects the poor.
"They could have thrown a pitcher, a glass pitcher and I could be in hospital now," Ms Jimenez told reporters. "I particularly blame the teachers union. ... If they are inciting acts of violence, they should answer for what happened today."
Monday's meeting was part of a government effort to calm tensions after sometimes violent student marches in recent weeks to protest an Education Reform Bill they say does not address the shortcomings of an existing dictatorship-era law.
Smoky Trabis get a stay of execution
Hungary's government has ruled that communist-era Trabis cars can stay on the road until 2020 without catalytic converters, extending the original 2008 deadline. The decree published in the official gazette Magyar Kozlony affects Trabant and Wartburg cars and Barkas minibuses and vans, the national news agency MTI said.
The government threw a lifeline to owners of cars built during the communist era who argued that the number of the vehicles on the road had fallen sharply and pollution from their smoke-belching two-stroke engines was not significant.
There are an estimated 40,000 "Trabis" still running in Hungary.