Hitching a ride on alligator's back

Is this terrapin [a small edible fresh water turtle] having a whale of a time or is this its last ride on this earth?

When photographer Shawn Miller saw this weird scene during his visit to the Sea World in San Antonia, Texas he couldn’t stop clicking his camera into action. Shawn had the impression that this was an unusual friendship between the fearsome alligator and the small colourful turtle.

He said: “I was looking at the pond and noticed this particular alligator with the red-eared terrapin on his back.

“He was swimming around the pond slowly and the turtle was simply hitching a ride. “Then as they began to go under this branch as seen in the picture, the terrapin tried stretching to grab the piece of moss hanging down from the branch. “I had my camera ready and was lucky enough to get this frame.”

He added: “I think since they live in the same pond year round that they must have become very accustomed to each other and considered it no big deal to share the same space.

A special wheelchair for the paralysed goat

For visitors to the zoo in Tianjin Municipality, China a she-goat trundling along in a special wheelchair is a very common sight.

No one seems to be concerned about why she is in such a pathetic state.

She was paralysed after an angry pony bit her on the spine.

‘Due to the spine injuries, she couldn’t stand up again and was paralysed. She could only crawl on the ground,’ said one of its keepers, Wang Donghao.

She was the chance to walk again after being fitted with a personalised wheelchair.

The female goat was born alongside a twin but suffered her terrible fate when she was just four days old.

The zoo hasn’t said whether it plans to keep the modified wheelchair long term or whether it a permanent solution in the future.

Top Swedish school closed due to bullying

It was some shocking reports of bullying that impelled Swedish educational authorities to close down one of the country’s oldest and renowned national boarding schools.

The decision to close the school for up to six months followed a weekend incident in which nine older pupils burned two younger ones with a hot iron as part of a new term initiation ritual. They allegedly blindfolded the boys, ordered them to lie face-down on the floor and put a hot iron against their backs until they screamed. One had to be taken to hospital.

Lundsbergs, founded in 1896 is located in Storfors, a small village outside Karlstad in central Sweden, it teaches about 200 pupils aged 13-18. Its graduates include many famous politicians, business leaders and royals, most recently Sweden's Prince Carl Philip, who graduated in 1999.

The Swedish Schools Inspectorate ordered the Lundsbergs school to shut until its management can assure the safety of the boys and girls enrolled there. Sweden's schools watchdog had previously received numerous reports of bullying at the school - including degrading traditions in which younger pupils are forced to act as servants for older ones - and violent initiation ritual. It had warned school authorities to take action against several times.

“Phenomena that are regarded as unacceptable in society at large have become normalised at Lundsbergs”, the watchdog said in its report ordering the school to close. That included informal rules among the students involving power games, assaults and degrading slurs, it said.

The school said it will comply with all the watchdog's demands and aims to restart its operations as soon as possible.

Threatening cloud!

When you look at the sky you’ll see all sorts of weird cloud formations and you always try to give some meaning to those cloud designs. “It is the face of an old man or it is like an elephant”, you will say.

But for Jamie O’Connell the cloud formation he saw made him “gobsmacked”[Irish word for being dumbfounded or stunned] when he saw this picture in the sky.

Jamie was unnerved after he looked up to the skies and saw what looked a giant hand pointing the middle finger at him.

He was minding his own business while walking his dog in Fort William, Scotland, when he came across the ominous looking cloud.

The 23-year-old, who took a photo, has since questioned if what he saw was a coincidence or a sign he had angered the wrong entity.

‘I was just walking the dog when I looked up and saw this cloud,’ he said.

‘I was absolutely gobsmacked. I had to double look at it, and I nearly wet myself.

‘A lot of people have said it might be a sign – I must have annoyed someone!’ The offshore steward added his surprise at how much the cloud looked like a real hand, despite the fact it looked like it was flipping him off.