Funny old world: The week's offbeat news

Barking Argentina's eccentric new president Javier Milei, he of the wild hair and the chainsaws, is mad about his dogs. So mad he had the names and faces of his five massive English Mastiffs engraved on his staff of office. Which is where it gets weird. One of them, Conan -- named after Conan the Barbarian -- from which the other four were cloned, appears to have been dead since 2017. Which wouldn't be a worry if Milei didn't consult his dogs -- dead and alive -- about major decisions with the help of a medium specialised in "interspecies communication", according to his biographer. The medium, Celia Melamed, told TN television she had helped Milei "overcome the grief over his dog". Politician Rafael Bielsa -- who worked with Milei in the past -- told the media the president had spoken to him about receiving "divine" messages from Conan. Milei refuses to answer questions about what he calls his "four-legged children", four of whom are named after neo-liberal economists. But forced to respond to growing questions about Milei's mental health, the president's spokesman Manuel Adorni lashed out at reporters. It was "disrespectful to describe the president as a person who speaks to things that do not exist", he said. It was not fair "to mess with his family". "I don't see what the difference is whether it be four or five dogs or 43 rabbits." Former president Alberto Fernandez also entered the fray, baiting Milei on social media, "My dog does not advise me and is alive." Protesters have also taken up the joke, with one walking an invisible "dog" on a leash with an empty collar with the name "Conan" on it. Amazon Purr-rime A curious kitten was shipped with boots bought on Amazon when the cat sneaked into a cardboard box. Carrie Clark's pet, Galena, vanished from her Utah home only to turn up a week later when worker Brandy Hunter found her at an Amazon warehouse in California. "She must have jumped into a box of 'try before you buy' steel-toed work boots," Clark said. Ear, ear A Mexican bargain hunter is celebrating victory over luxury giant Cartier after getting a pair of $28,000 earrings for $28 after the French brand mispriced its jewellery online. Rogelio Villarreal couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the deal. But Cartier refused to deliver when they realised they had dropped three zeros from the price, instead offering the doctor a refund and a bottle of champagne. But Villarreal dug his heels in and took them to Mexico's consumer protection agency, where he won. "War is over. Cartier is complying," he wrote on X with the earrings finally in the post. You great ape Scientists have discovered that our distant cousins orangutans are as keen on self-medicating as we are. German and Indonesian researchers observed a male called Rakus successfully apply a herbal unction in the wild to an open face wound. They spotted him chewing the leaves of a vine called Fibraurea tinctoria, long used in Indonesian traditional medicine, and then dabbing the wound with the juice and pulp. A week later, the wound was healed, the journal Nature reported. Rakus has yet to apply for a patent or set up his own pharma company.