An elderly man who spent the past eight years working on a jigsaw puzzle has discovered that the final piece is missing. Jack Harris, 86, has filled the dining room of his home, in Shepton Mallet, in the west of England, with the 5,000-piece puzzle, a reproduction of a 19th-century oil painting by James Tissot, called The Return Of The Prodigal Son. Mr Harris and his family have searched the house but without success. They now believe that the dog may have eaten the missing piece.
Police in Germany are training vultures to track down dead bodies. They plan to attach global positioning devices to the birds in an attempt to recover corpses of people who have gone missing in remote areas. Vultures are said to be able to detect the scent of decomposition from nearly 1,000 metres. The first bird, called Sherlock, is currently being taught to recognise the smell of human flesh.
A finance minister in Britain's new government arrived at his desk to discover that his predecessor had left a hand-written note saying that all the money was gone. David Laws, the new chief secretary to the treasury, discovered the note on his desk from the previous holder of the office, Liam Byrne of the Labour party. It read: "Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there is no money. Kind regards and good luck!" Normally, government officials leaving office are meant to leave detailed advice for their successors. Although Britain's budget deficit is said to be approaching £200 billion (Dh105bn), Mr Byrne later said the note had been a joke.
A security alert at the White House was caused by a swarm of thousands of honey bees. The bees are reported to have hovered around a bush near the north-west security gate of the White House, where TV crews traditionally gather. They arrived as President Obama was attempting to leave the building to play basketball at Fort McNair. Secret service agents called a White House carpenter, who is also a beekeeper, to remove the insects.
Pizza restaurants in Naples were found to be using wood from stolen coffins to fuel their ovens. Police believe the wood was offered by a gang of coffin thieves operating in the city, which is notorious for its links with the mafia and organised crime. Il Giornale, the local newspaper reported: "A real suspicion hangs over pizza, one of the few remaining important symbols of the city, that it could be cooked with wood coffins. Not only the pizza, the bread, too, may have been cooked with the wood." Andrea Santoro, the president of the city's cemetery commission, said: "It's no wonder these things are happening given the state of the cemeteries. There are graves uncovered, thefts and vandalism."
Conservationists expressed outrage at plans by the government of Zimbabwe to sell an "ark" of endangered animals to North Korea. A pair of young African elephants has already been collected, while members of the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's staff are reported to be searching game reserves for giraffes, monkeys, antelopes, hyenas, zebras and birds. Mr Mugabe regards Kim Jong-il as a close ally, with the Zimbabwean authorities calling the deal a "legitimate business trade". However, the Born Free Foundation called the arrangement "a substantial threat to the welfare of the individual animals involved".
jlangton@thenational.ae
