Woman returns overdue library book after 63 years

After over six decades, a woman from Madison, Wisconsin returned a book she checked out as a child. The book was "Ol' Paul, the Mighty Logger," a collection of Paul Bunyan tall tales.

Latest stories

  • All the music from Prince Philip's funeral, including two pieces written at his request

    With the congregation barred from singing during Prince Philip’s funeral due to coronavirus restrictions, a four-strong, socially distanced choir performed the music inside St George’s Chapel. The quartet of singers – Tom Liliburn, Nick Madden and Simon Whiteley (who are lay clerks of St George's Chapel choir) and Miriam Allan (a soprano) – all live in nearby Horseshoe Cloister, forming part of what was an intimate and community-focused affair. The Duke of Edinburgh is understood to have taken a personal interest in the music chosen for both his funeral procession and service. Music played by the tri-service band in the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle before the arrival of the coffin included I Vow to Thee My Country, Supreme Sacrifice, Jerusalem, Isle of Beauty and Nimrod. As the procession stepped off, the Band of the Grenadier Guards played Beethoven Funeral March Nos 1 and 3. The national anthem was played by military musicians after the Queen, joined by a Lady-in-Waiting, left the Sovereign’s entrance of Windsor Castle to attend the funeral. The Rifles Guard of Honour, positioned in Horseshoe Cloister, gave a royal salute.

  • Paw Patrol: Feline drug smuggler caught on prison narcatics run

    It could have been the purrfect crime but an unlikely drug smuggler's journey was put on paws on Friday when it was intercepted by authorities in Panama. The fluffy white cat, concealing an assortment of drugs tied to its belly, was apprehended as it attempted to enter a prison. The feline felon was stopped outside the Nueva Esperanza jail, which houses more than 1,700 prisoners, north of Panama City. "The animal had a cloth tied around its neck" that contained wrapped packages of white powder, leaves and "vegetable matter", according to Andres Gutierrez, head of the Panama Penitentiary System. They were likely cocaine, crack and marijuana, according to another official.

  • Dominic Cummings, the last thing the troubled civil service needs is your advice

    Dominic Cummings, the last thing the troubled civil service needs is your advice. The Greensill scandal shows that public servants have been fatally compromised

  • Victoria Beckham Celebrates Birthday With Kim Kardashian And Husband David In Miami

    The former Spice Girl’s 47th was a star-studded affair.

  • Labour calls on Johnson to cancel India trip amid Covid variant surge

    ‘I can’t see why the prime minister can’t conduct his business via Zoom’ says shadow minister

  • Land Rover driver at Prince Philip's funeral spent week ensuring he could drive at correct speed

    The servicemen in charge of the specially modified Land Rover carrying the body of the Duke of Edinburgh spent the past week making sure they could drive “at the correct speed”. And, no wonder, as leading the vehicle on its way to the steps of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on foot were the most senior members of the Armed Forces and the Band of the Grenadier Guards. Corporal Louis Murray was behind the wheel, with Corporal Craig French, as Land Rover Commander for the Royal Hearse, both 29 years old, alongside him. The two staff instructors from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers had been picked “on a coin-toss” from a group of four who had been training for the purpose and were described by officials as a “trusted pair of hands”. Cpl French said it was his job to “ensure that the driver puts the vehicle in the right place at the right time and whether to speed up or slow down.” “We have done a lot of practice over the last few days and you get to feel what the correct speed is, and we know what pace we have to be at. It’s now like second nature.

  • Liam Williams vs Demetrius Andrade ring walks: What time will fight start in the UK?

    Everything you need to know ahead of tonight’s WBO world title bout

  • Coronavirus news - live: Fans return to live sport in trial as safe travel list could include only 8 countries

    Follow the latest updates

  • America on a knife edge ahead of Derek Chauvin verdict as protesters prepare to return to the streets

    Sand-coloured Humvees, barbed wire and concrete barricades surround the Hennepin County courthouse where the fate of Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer charged with killing George Floyd, will be determined. The plaza on which the building sits in downtown Minneapolis looks more like a military base than the heart of the local government, with armed National Guard troops occasionally peering through wire fencing at the protesters that gather outside. The heavy security presence is to be expected, given the rage that Mr Floyd's death provoked last May, setting the city ablaze with angry protests from a community which has seen police brutality claim the lives of countless black men. The three-week trial has brought the enduring tensions between law enforcement and the community to the fore, and many of the protesters who gather outside the courthouse each day fear the city is once more on a knife edge as it awaits the verdict.

  • Boris Johnson Must Cancel India Trip Amid Covid Variant Concerns, Labour Says

    "I can’t see why the prime minister can’t conduct his business with the Indian government by Zoom."

  • Duchess of Cambridge pays final respects to Prince Philip in first royal funeral

    Kate has never attended a royal funeral until she accompanied her husband to Prince Philip's.

  • St George’s Chapel: The setting for a Covid-secure royal funeral like no other

    The nave, which was packed with family and friends at three royal weddings in recent years, is an empty space with no pews.

  • Coronavirus in numbers: UK deaths rise by 35

    The Government said a further 35 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday, bringing the UK total to 127,260. Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 151,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. The Government also said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 2,206 lab-confirmed cases in the UK. It brings the total to 4,385,938.

  • Shadow warrior: Benjamin Netanyahu takes a dangerous gamble with Iran

    Shadow warrior: Benjamin Netanyahu takes a dangerous gamble with Iran. Israel’s prime minister is creating a climate of fear and crisis as his best hope for holding on to power

  • ‘Absolutely devastating’: how Australia’s deportation of New Zealanders is tearing families apart

    ‘Absolutely devastating’: how Australia’s deportation of New Zealanders is tearing families apart. Their accents, children and homes are in one country, but people jailed for more than 12 months are being sent back to a land they don’t know, where ‘everything that made you who you were is gone’

  • Prince Philip's cap, gloves and whip placed on carriage in tribute to his love of sport

    The Duke of Edinburgh's cap, gloves and whip were placed on the carriage driven to the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle to witness his funeral procession. The Duke's personal effects were placed on the seat alongside the carriage driver in a poignant tribute to his love of carriage driving. The carriage, made of aluminium and steel, was designed by the Duke eight years ago. A brass clock mounted in the front was given to him by the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars in 1978 to mark his 25 years as Colonel-in-Chief.

  • Archbishop of Canterbury: Royal Family can't say goodbye in the way they hoped but Britons unite in grief

    The Royals have not been able to "say goodbye in the way they'd hope or planned" like millions this year, the Archbishop of Canterbury has lamented. The Most Rev Justin Welby, who will deliver a blessing at the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral, said members of the Royal Family were united in grief with Britons who had lost their loved-ones during the pandemic. He praised the household for sticking to the Covid-19 social restrictions and said this means it "represents all funerals" in the last year - which have been characterised by the "burden" of not being able to have ideal send-offs for relatives. "My first thought when I heard the news was for the family," he said. "This is like every other funeral and distinct from every other funeral. It's like every other funeral because the family is the family is the family. But it's distinct because they're having to bear this loss and sorrow in the glare of goodness knows how many people watching them around the world. "The Royal Family has behaved superbly, they've just kept to the rules. That means that they're going through what between six and eight million other people have gone through in this country alone over the last year - not really being able to say goodbye in the way they'd hoped or planned. And that's an extra burden. "But as people around the world watch them tomorrow, I think they can identify with this and feel that here is a funeral that represents all funerals in a wonderful way."

  • Family of three contract Covid from infected neighbours in hotel quarantine in Sydney

    Family of three contract Covid from infected neighbours in hotel quarantine in Sydney. NSW Health reclassifies three coronavirus cases to locally-acquired after testing showed they shared same viral sequence as infected family next door

  • French medical academy wants to wait six months between Covid jabs

    France's Academy of Medicine has called for the delay between doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to be extended from six weeks to six months, in the case of the Pfizer and Moderna injections, in order to allow more people to get the first jab. Pushing the second injection back in the under-55 age bracket would "accelerate the vaccination campaign...and achieve herd immunity much faster with the same number of doses, while ensuring satisfactory individual protection", the National Academy of Medicine said in a statement on Thursday.The academy has no decision-making power in France, unlike the High Authority for Health (HAS), which can make such recommendations with the backing of the government. On Wednesday, the delay between the first two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which use new messenger RNA technology, was extended from 4 to six weeks."This will allow us to speed up the vaccination campaign without compromising public protection," Health Minister Olivier Véran explained to French weekly Journal du Dimanche.High-risk professionsThe Academy of Medicine said that, based on recent studies in the United States and United Kingdom, a single dose of the mRNA vaccine had been shown to provide very high level of protection against the coronavirus. With the more contagious British variant now the dominant strain in France, the academy said it made sense to delay second injections for those aged under 55 years with no history of immune deficiency, to allow more people in high-risk professions, such as teachers, to receive their first dose.In France, the only under-55s currently eligible for the vaccination are frontline priority workers (health workers, home care workers, firefighters) or those with pre-existing health conditions.Some scientists are reluctant to extend the delay between doses, fearing incomplete protection provided by the first injection may favour the emergence of new variants.The academy also called for the first injection to be postponed in the case of patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus within the preceding six months.

  • A beach town seized a Black couple’s land in the 1920s. Now their family could get it back

    A beach town seized a Black couple’s land in the 1920s. Now their family could get it backLos Angeles officials have announced an effort to return the valuable Manhattan Beach property to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce Chief Duane Yellow Feather Shepard is a relative of the Bruce family. Photograph: Damon Casarez/The Guardian