The weekly weird

Published August 29, 2020

Baby albino kangaroo missing from zoo

Officials at a German zoo said a baby albino kangaroo is feared to have been stolen.

The City of Kaiserslautern posted a statement on its website revealing Mila, an all-white kangaroo born at the Kaiserslautern Zoo in July, was noticed missing from the enclosure she shared with her mother, Monja.

Zoo Director Matthias Schmitt said Mila is still very young and would be unlikely to wander far from her mother on her own. He said search dogs were brought and did not detect any traces of foxes or other predators that could have invaded the enclosure and taken the young marsupial.

The zoo is asking anyone with information on Mila’s whereabouts to contact the police.


World’s fastest backward speller

A Minnesota woman’s unusual talent made her a Guinness World Record holder when she spelled 56 words backward in one minute.

Pal Onnen of Hastings said she wanted to attempt the record to put her town on the map.

Guinness shared video of Onnen quickly spelling 56 backward words from a randomised list in the one-minute time limit.

The video also featured Onnen showing off another of her talents: pronouncing words backward.


Guinness record for fastest ice cream truck

A British inventor who set out to create a more environmentally-friendly ice cream truck broke a Guinness World Record when the food-dispensing vehicle was declared the world’s fastest.

Edd China broke the record when he took it to a top speed of 73.921 mph at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, England. He was inspired when he discovered some London boroughs had banned the vehicles due to their emissions.

China previously set six Guinness World Records for vehicle speeds, including a 2006 record for the world’s fastest office, which achieved a top speed of 87 mph. The inventor said his next goal is to break the world record for the fastest motorised shopping cart, which currently stands at 70.4 mph.


Silver coins discovered with metal detector

Luke Mahoney, a metal detectorist was left stunned after he discovered the ‘biggest hoard’ of his life just behind his local restaurant in Lindsey, in Suffolk.

He found 1,061 silver, hammered coins which dated back to somewhere in the 15th to the 17th century, in the 15-acre field behind Lindsey Rose restaurant which was recently cropped with a plough. This had somehow cracked a clay earthenware pot buried 2ft beneath the ground.

The most popular theory was that the coins had been buried in the field by a wealthy landowner who had gone off the fight in the English Civil War. It is estimated that the coins would fetch at least £100,000 at auction. The earliest coin was an Elizabeth I era shilling dating back to 1573-78.

Published in Dawn, Young World, August 29th, 2020

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