weird news

Boys accused of stealing plane

Sheriff's deputies arrested two teenage boys they say stole a small aeroplane at a private airstrip in rural eastern Utah and flew about 15 miles (24 kilometres) before landing successfully at Vernal Regional Airport.

The Desert News reported the boys, who are 14 and 15 years old, stole the single-engine Cessna last Thursday from a private airstrip in Jensen along US Highway 40 about 15 miles west of the Colorado line.

The Uintah County sheriff's office said they left a group home earlier this week and were staying with friends in the Jensen area. They apparently gained access to a tractor and drove to the airstrip, where they took off in the plane and were spotted flying low along US 40 near Gusher.

They were arrested at the airport and are being held at the Split Mountain Youth Detention Center in Vernal.

Cop saves chicken from fire

A police officer who saved a chicken from becoming a roaster is taking a ribbing from his fellow officers.

Body cam video released by the Ossining, New York, police shows the officer responding to a shed fire on Saturday. He removed some propane tanks when he discovered the chicken. The bird clucks as the officer carries it to safety. He told the owner: "I got your chicken."

The police department wrote on Facebook: "Somewhere around the first day of field training some salty cop usually hits you with, 'Kid, you wouldn't believe what goes on around here if I told you.'"

The department says if you ever wanted to get a hard time from your co-workers, "be a hero ... to a chicken."

Money found in washing machine

Dutch police who found €350,000 (US$400,000) hidden inside a washing machine have detained a man on suspicion of - what else? - money laundering.

Police said in a statement last Thursday that officers were checking a house in western Amsterdam last Monday for unregistered residents when they found the valuable laundry load.

A photo displayed on the police's website showed bundles of bank notes, mainly 20- and €50 bills, crammed into the drum.

The officers also found a money-counting machine, a gun and several cell phones.

The 24-year-old suspect's name was not released, in line with Dutch privacy rules.

Police seize dinosaur skull

A doctor in Texas with a passion for palaeontology is challenging the federal government after authorities seized a 70 million-year-old dinosaur skull from his fossil collection.

Dr James Godwin argues that the government waited too long to file a forfeiture claim after it seized the Tyrannosaurus bataar skull that authorities say was among several fossils smuggled illegally out of Mongolia. Under the National Stolen Property Act, the government has five years from the time an offence is discovered to file a forfeiture lawsuit.

Federal investigators said the skull was unearthed from the Gobi Desert between 2000 and 2011, and it traded hands several times before it ended up at a store in Wyoming, where Godwin acquired it. Agents seized the fossil from Godwin in July 2013 and a forfeiture claim was filed in August 2017.

But Godwin's attorney argued that the government surpassed the five-year window to file a claim because, he said, agents first became aware of Godwin's connection to the fossil in July 2012.

"The statute of limitations begins when the government possesses facts sufficient to trigger an investigation - not whenever the government decides it has sufficiently verified the facts," attorney Michael A. Villa Jr. said in a recent court filing.

According to the Dallas Morning News, a judge in Fort Worth heard testimony last Tuesday in the case and says he will rule at a later date. The fossil is now being stored at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.