SWITZERLANDA Swiss holiday resort is offering mountain-cleaning courses after an April Fools spoof caught the imagination of a nation known for its cleanliness.
Authorities in Engelberg, an idyllic ski resort that attracts ten
s of thousands of skiers each year, said the April Fools joke had such global impact that they were now using it as a marketing tool to attract holidaymakers.
"We are offering four weekend courses after which participants can call themselves qualified mountain cleaners," Modeste Jossen, Engelberg cable car services director, said. Participants are awarded a special mountain-cleaner badge.
On 1 April this year, the national tourism board aired an online video to recruit mountain cleaners to keep the country's Alpine peaks in pristine condition all year round.
The video was translated into six languages and more than 30,000 people completed the application to become a mountain cleaner in the first 24 hours of it being posted.
"The full spot was aired on the French and Italian evening news and more than 100 million people have seen it since," Jossen said.
"This global interest can really be used to our advantage."
UNITED STATESThe population of Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades may have grown to as many as 150,000, as the non-native snakes make a home and breed in the fragile wetlands.
Wildlife biologists say the troublesome invaders – dumped in the Everglades by pet owners who no longer want them – have become a pest and pose a significant threat to endangered species such as the wood stork and Key Largo woodrat.
"They eat things that we care about," said Skip Snow, an Everglades National Park biologist, as he showed a captured, 15-foot Burmese python to US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who was on his first fact-finding mission to the Everglades since the Obama administration took office.
With Snow maintaining a strong grip on its head, the massive snake hissed angrily at Salazar and the other federal officials who gathered around it at a recreation area off Alligator Alley in the vast sawgrass prairie. It took two other snake wranglers to control the python's body.
FRANCENearly 200 prisoners will cycle around France next month, watched by scores of guards on bicycles, in the first penal version of the Tour de France.
The 196 prisoners will cycle in a pack – and breakaway sprints will not be allowed. They will be accompanied by 124 guards and prison sports instructors.
There will be no ranking, the idea being to foster values such as teamwork and effort.
"It's a kind of escape for us, a chance to break away from the daily reality of prison," said Daniel, a 48-year-old prisoner in the western city of Nantes, at the official launch of the event.
"If we behave well, we might be able to get released earlier, on probation," he added.
The prisoners' Tour de France will take them 1,400 miles around the country, starting in the northern city of Lille on 4 June and stopping in 17 towns, each of which has a prison. However, participants will sleep in hotels.
The finish line will be in Paris, following Tour de France tradition.
"This project aims to help these men reintegrate into society by fostering values like effort, teamwork and self-esteem," said Sylvie Marion of the prison authorities.
"We want to show them that with some training you can achieve your goals and start a new life."
AUSTRALIAAn Australian student worried about her parents' money problems rifled through a pile of her lottery tickets on Thursday and discovered that she had won A$13 million (£6.3m) ten months ago.
The student, living in the west coast city of Perth, received the winning ticket for a draw on 22 July last year as a gift from her father, Western Australia's state agency Lotterywest said.
She had been unaware that it would have expired after 12 months, it said in a statement.
"I woke up this morning worried about our finances. Something made me think to check the tickets and I thought that if I win something, then I could help mom and dad out," Lotterywest quoted her as saying. She declined to be named.
"The people close to me will be looked after and I might give some to research or a charity of some kind. It's nice to have this much to fulfil my dreams and the dreams of the people around me," she told the agency.
OH, REALLYAs record-setting sandwiches go, the world's largest lobster roll will be a colossal crustacean creation.
A culinary team in the United States plans to combine 45lb of lobster meat, four gallons of a sandwich spread and a special blend of herbs and seasonings into a mix that will be slathered on to a 60ft roll – so large that the bread will be brought in on a flatbed truck.
The monster lobster roll is scheduled to be unveiled during Maine's Old Port Festival in Portland next weekend.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
YUSUF RAZA GILANIHunters in Pakistan are trying to catch a wild leopard roaming the grounds of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's official residence.
The animal, first spotted on a closed-circuit television camera, slipped into the garden of the Islamabad compound more than a week ago, perhaps in search of prey such as wild boar.
ARMIN MEIWESA German appeal court has overturned a ban on screening a film inspired by the case of a confessed cannibal, ruling that artistic freedom trumps the man's personal rights.
A lower court banned the screening of Rohtenburg in German cinemas in March 2006. It found that the film infringed the rights of Armin Meiwes, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in a case that both fascinated and appalled Germany.
The makers of Rohtenburg, directed by Martin Weisz and starring Thomas Kretschmann as a cannibal named Oliver Hartwin, argued that Meiwes' case did no more than provide inspiration for the movie.
DEMI MOORE AND ASHTON KUTCHERThe celebrity couple threatening to quit Twitter over reports of a new reality TV show being made about the social networking site.
Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment, the production company behind The Sopranos, are developing a show encouraging ordinary people to compete over "trailing" their favourite celebrities using Twitter. Moore, 46, and Kutcher, 31, have been avid Tweeters, exchanging love notes online, but both posted messages saying they would stop using the site if reports of the TV show were true.
OJ SIMPSONOJ Simpson has filed an appeal against his conviction for kidnap and armed robbery.
The former American football star and actor was jailed last year after being found guilty of recruiting five men to help rob two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel in 2007. In a document submitted by Simpson's lawyers, it is claimed the conviction was flawed due to judicial misconduct, a lack of racial diversity on the jury and errors in sentencing.
