Heavy theft: When burglars go on a crime spree, it’s often to steal money or jewelry. Not so for a thief in Russia. His target for a heist was a road. The crime occurred in a remote area of Russia in the Komi Republic near the village of Parcheg. More than a loot bag was needed for this heist as the thief used a bulldozer and a forklift to take 82 reinforced concrete slabs from the road, which were then transported on three trucks. Luckily, police stopped the trucks and discovered the crime. The price tag on the slabs was about 200,000 rubles ($6,000 US). The thief is facing a prison sentence for this unusual crime of stealing infrastructure.
Love story: Heading out to a movie in Bristol, England, with boyfriend Johnny Wingfield, Lavinia Down thought she would have to suffer through a boring art film. However, she was in for quite a surprise! The film she ended up seeing might not receive high marks from a movie critic, but it certainly earned five stars in her eyes. That’s because it contained a wedding proposal from Johnny who had arranged with an animator friend to make the movie. The result was a two-minute cartoon, titled “A True Love Story,” detailing the couple’s courtship. Johnny asked a theatre in Bristol to host the viewing so it would look like the real thing. Lavinia accepted the proposal.
Unusual fence: When deciding on material to use for a fence, most homeowners choose wood, wire, brick or stone. None of these options suited Mehmet Ali Gokceoglu of Cesme, Izmir in Turkey. Instead, he enclosed his beautiful seaside villa with a 165 foot (50 metre) -long aquarium. A topographical engineer, Mehmet wanted to build something unique that others could also enjoy. For the water supply, he connected the structure with buried pipeline to the Aegean Sea. He stocked the ‘fence’ with many species, including eels, sea bass and octopus. Seeing people awestruck over his creation makes the whole project worthwhile to him.
Unique birth: A farm in the Opotiki District on New Zealand’s North Island was the site of a rare occurrence when a cow gave birth to three heifers. The farm belongs to Ann and Allan Looney who are quite amazed at the event. Their farm manager, Garney Morunga, was helping the cow with the birth, thinking that, as usual, one calf would be born. He was surprised when two came into the world. Then, to his astonishment, a third calf emerged. Alan Thatcher, a veterinarian from New Zealand’s Massey University commented that the birth of triplet calves does not happen often and he knows of only one other case in his 30 years as a vet.