Odd News Roundup: From Cheese Heists to Ant Surgery

A German police officer was dismissed for stealing cheddar from a truck, and British PM Sunak hunted for votes at a robot-filled warehouse. Ants perform life-saving amputations, unusual UK election candidates like Count Binface emerged, and Japan ended its use of floppy disks in government systems.

Following is a summary of current odd news briefs.

Cheddar heist costs German police officer his badge

A German police officer who was fired for stealing cheddar cheese from an overturned truck while attending a traffic accident has lost his appeal against dismissal, a court ruled. In his defence, he denied nibbling on any of the cheddar.

British PM Sunak hunts for votes among the robots at dawn

Badly lagging in the race to win Britain's election, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak went hunting for votes among robots and staff in a retail distribution centre on Tuesday, kicking off his first campaign stop of the day before 5 a.m. (0400 GMT).

Sunak, who has often looked exhausted as he crossed the country during a six-week campaign, started the penultimate day of campaigning before Thursday's vote in a vast Ocado warehouse in Luton, north of London, watching robots pick items for delivery.

Ants perform limb amputations on injured comrades to save their lives

Limb amputations are performed by surgeons when a traumatic injury such as a wound from war or a vehicle accident causes major tissue destruction or in instances of serious infection or disease. But humans are not alone in doing such procedures. New research shows that some ants perform limb amputations on injured comrades to improve their survival chances. The behavior was documented in Florida carpenter ants - scientific name Camponotus floridanus - a reddish-brown species more than half an inch (1.5 cm) long inhabiting parts of the southeastern United States.

Count Binface, Elmo and AI Steve: the UK election's unusual candidates

When either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer take to the stage to hail victory in the British election on Friday, they will be joined at their moment of triumph by either a man with a trash can on his head or someone dressed as "Elmo" from the Muppets. Among the more than 4,500 candidates standing for election to parliament's 650 seats are those from fringe parties, single issue campaigners, and, in a peculiarly British tradition, those who are simply making fun of the whole thing.

Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks

Japan's government has finally eliminated the use of floppy disks in all its systems, two decades since their heyday, reaching a long-awaited milestone in a campaign to modernise the bureaucracy. By the middle of last month, the Digital Agency had scrapped all 1,034 regulations governing their use, except for one environmental stricture related to vehicle recycling.

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