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From some flighty pigeon bigots to fugitives cheating justice to the end…a weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

leave their habitat

A “spy pigeon” held by Indian police for eight months has finally been cleared of being a Chinese spy.

The bird sparked suspicion when it appeared in Mumbai with a “Chinese-like text message” written on its wings. Officials suspected him of espionage and placed him in solitary confinement.

The jailbird, which appeared to be a completely innocent racing pigeon from Taiwan, has finally been released after protests from animal rights groups.

This is not the first time that an Indian spy chief has been frightened by pigeons. In 2016, one of the planes was intercepted near the border with Pakistan and sent a threatening message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and a few years ago another plane appeared in the same area with a Pakistani phone number emblazoned on it.

Amelia’s Big Mistake: Trusting Men

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, but mysteriously disappeared while trying to become the first person to circumnavigate the world.

If the divers who claimed to have finally found her plane were right, it was all the man’s fault.

Earhart’s biggest mistake seemed to be trusting a man with a map.

In 1937, the pilot was flying from Papua New Guinea to Howland Island, a small patch of U.S. territory between Australia and Hawaii, when she disappeared on the final leg of her epic journey.

Now, deep-sea divers claim to have discovered a shipwreck somewhere in the Pacific, seemingly confirming the theory that navigator Fred Noonan miscalculated their route. Former NASA scientist Liz Smith believes Noonan forgot to set his calendar back on the day he crossed the International Date Line.

final escape

One of Japan’s most wanted fugitives, on the run for half a century, finally surrendered… and died soon after.

Left-wing guerrilla Satoshi Kirishima is a fixture in modern Japanese mythology, his photo displayed outside a police station for decades and his Halloween costumes inspired by him. But the 70-year-old managed to hide in plain sight as a construction worker until last week when he turned up at a hospital with cancer to admit his identity.

“I want to die with my real name,” he told staff.

Really get into the game

A toddler who climbed into a Hello Kitty console was “in no rush to get out” when Australian police came to the rescue.

Three-year-old Ethan squeezed his way into a claw machine filled with cuddly toys through a prize chute on his way to the Queensland Mall.

He was having so much fun inside that he didn’t want to leave until the police broke the glass.

“You won the lottery, which one do you want?” a police officer asked after carrying him out.

Don’t sweat

In the most Scandinavian of rescues, two people were rescued from the icy waters of the Oslo Fjord when their Tesla drove into the drinks area and people floating in the sauna came to the rescue.

“They saved our lives,” said the owner, who immediately warmed up in the sauna.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)