Mysterious rodent-human ‘mummy’

The strange package greeted staff at Wayne County Historical Museum in the US city of Richmond, Indiana, when they arrived for work.

Inside was something resembling a mummy with a rat-like head, a humanoid body, and pointy teeth and claws, accompanied by a note.

The note said it was the “Richmond Rat Boy”, and that it was found long ago in the basement of a local hospital, and that it once belonged to a circus worker-friend of the donor’s late grandfather. It had some old newspapers as padding, dated 2019.

The museum staff think the artefact is probably a “gaff” — likely made from plaster of Paris and clay, moulded over an armature frame, and decorated with animal claws and hair. It’s thought to have originated in the circuses that frequented the area from the 1910s to the 1930s.

Sofa swept off balcony by heavy winds

During stormy weather in Turkey, a resident was shocked to see a piece of patio furniture being thrown across the sky.

The bizarre sight, captured on video by Ankara resident Onur Kalmaz, showed a sofa flying off the balcony of a 35-storey block of flats, crashed into a number of other buildings before landing in a garden between other nearby buildings.

Onur had his phone in his hand as he peered out the window of his own flat, hoping to check on his car, and spotted the flying furniture.

He said: ‘No one was hurt, but we were pretty scared.’

Ankara, the Turkish capital, has been battered with stormy weather in recent days.

Student’s service dog gets honorary diploma

The graduation ceremony at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University featured a diploma being presented to a very special graduate: a student’s service dog.

A video tweeted by the university shows Grace Mariani and her service dog, Justin, being presented with diplomas by Seton Hall’s Joseph E. Nyre. Mariani received a bachelor’s of science in education degree, while Justin was presented with an honorary diploma for attending all of his owner’s classes.

Mariani said she plans to teach elementary and special education, and Justin will remain by her side in her career.

World’s largest T-shirt unfurled in Romania

Guinness World Records announced a garment measuring 357.48 feet long and 241.08 feet wide has officially been certified as the world’s largest T-shirt.

The record-keeping organisation said Asociatia 11even, Kaufland Romania and Federatia Romana teamed up to create the massive T-shirt from recycled materials to encourage residents to participate in recycling programmes. The gargantuan garment was made from more than 500,000 recycled plastic bottles and was sewn by a team of seamstresses over the course of a month.

Organisers said it took a team of more than 120 volunteers an entire day to unfurl the T-shirt at the Arcul de Triumf National Rugby Stadium in Bucharest. The T-shirt will now be used to make about 12,000 normal-sized shirts to be distributed to children in need.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 10th, 2023