oddly enough
oddly enough
UK aircraft carrier for sale on Internet
LONDON
For sale: one aircraft carrier, slightly used.
Britain put the mothballed carrier Ark Royal up for sale Monday on a military- auction website.
The former flagship of the Royal Navy was decommissioned this month, four years ahead of schedule, as part of defense-spending cuts. Bidders have until June 13 to make an offer. No minimum price was set.
The government sold another carrier, HMS Invincible, which was bought for its metal and towed to a Turkish scrap yard.
The Ark Royal could be sold for scrap, but there also has been a proposal to park it on the Thames river as a heliport.
Britain is reducing the army by 7,000 soldiers and slashing billions from its defense budget as part of deficit-reducing cuts.
Raccoon’s head stuck in peanut-butter jar
RONKONKOMA, N.Y.
A New York raccoon found itself in a sticky situation over the weekend.
For eight hours Sunday, the scavenger sat with its head inside a peanut-butter jar while perched atop a Long Island utility pole.
The unusual sight brought out dozens of curious residents on a Ronkonkoma street. Children quickly nicknamed him Skippy.
Newsday says Debbie Sullivan spotted the raccoon outside her house at 7 a.m. She called Suffolk police, the town of Islip and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. They all said little could be done.
The raccoon’s ordeal finally ended around 3 p.m. when a crew from the Long Island Power Authority came to its rescue. The jar fell off as they used a pole to grab the animal.
Skippy quickly scampered off.
Greece nabs potato thieves from Bulgaria
THESSALONIKI, Greece
The farmer had to stay up at night to guard his field and get help from police, but he’s finally stopped the foreign marauders who were stealing his potatoes.
Five men and four women from neighboring Bulgaria were arrested early Sunday while digging up and loading 1,760 pounds of stolen potatoes into a van in Ochyro, a village in northern Greece near the Bulgarian border, police say.
The farmer, who was keeping an overnight watch for the thieves, got help from police and border guards after he lost 15.3 tons of potatoes the previous week.
More than 200 empty potato sacks and digging forks were found in the van and confiscated.
Police now are looking for other thieves in the region — these ones targeting olive groves.
Associated Press