Smuggler caught with snakes and horned lizards hidden in his pants

From a headless Vladimir Putin to a skin-crawling story of snake smuggling… Your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

– Putin loses his head… –

Vladimir Putin has had his head chopped off in Paris, where they have considerable experience of decapitating leaders who displease them. 

The city’s Grevin wax museum has put the Russian president’s rather youthful head out of harm’s way after it was attacked by visitors and staff refused to walk past it because of his invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s statue still bears the scars of an attack by a Femen activist in 2015, when a topless Ukrainian feminist stabbed him in the chest after he annexed Crimea.

In the cruellest cut, the museum’s director Yves Delhommeau says they are thinking of replacing him with a statue of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

– …And turns stomachs in Canada –

Putin is also putting Canadians off their favourite food.

Poutine, a calorific concoction of French fries, cheese and a mysterious oleaginous “brown sauce”, is particularly popular in French-speaking Quebec.

But the Russian leader’s name is also spelled Poutine in French, giving gourmets heartburn.

A poutine takeaway in Paris has been bombarded with abusive calls by people thinking it was named in his honour.

The Quebec restaurant which invented the dish, Le Roy Jucep in Drummondville east of Montreal, has withdrawn the word “poutine” from its menu, replacing it with “frite-fromage-sauce” (French fries, cheese and sauce).

The rival Frites Alors! chain has gone one better, renaming its poutine “Volodymyr” to big up Zelensky.

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– Holy trouser snakes! 

A smuggler who stuffed a wriggling mass of snakes and horned lizards down his trousers was caught by US customs at the Mexican border.

The man had nine snakes and 43 lizards hidden all over his body as well as in his jacket, trouser pockets and groin, officials in San Ysidro in California said.

Some of the bagged reptiles were endangered creatures, though officials were not able to say if any got their fangs into the smuggler.

– Moo-ve over. Cow coming through –

California police had to play cowboys when a steer went for a stroll along a busy Pasadena highway causing chaos.

Television news cut live to the chase as motorists and police tried to corral the cow as it went for a stroll through a strip mall and then up some stairs to avoid being lassoed. A motorcycle cop finally managed to herd the animal into the more experienced hands of some farm workers.