Stolen: 65 cases (about 195 bottles) of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon
In October 2013, all that iconic 20-year-old bourbon, plus nine cases of 13-year-old Van Winkle Family Reserve rye were stolen from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. The total value of the theft is said to be around $26,000 (that bourbon sells at auction for as much as $1,190 per bottle). A local high school principal (!) is being investigated on claims that he tried to sell the stolen booze to a Louisville, Kentucky, liquor store, but he argues that he was at the liquor store to inquire about purchasing it, not to sell it. The case is still under investigation.

Stolen: 384 pounds of marinated meat
A man broke into JK Kabab House, an Indian restaurant in Chicago and snatched hundreds of pounds of marinated chicken, lamb and beef in September. He tried to ride off to glory with the meat—about $800 worth—balanced in a bucket on the front of his bike; when that proved unwieldy, he switched to a shopping cart. It was all caught on a surveillance camera. Said Grub Street, “Police say they’re now looking for a guy who’s been doing a lot of grilling.”

Stolen: 11,000 pounds of Nutella
With a street value of $21,000, 6,500 jars of Nutella were stolen from a parked trailer in the central Germany town of Bad Hersfeld last April. (The AP called it “gooey loot.”) Maybe the thieves were throwing a massive post-rave brunch: A trailer full of coffee and a few tons of Red Bull disappeared from the same town in March.

More at the link: http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2013/11/04/the-year-in-food-crime/

It has taken thousands of years, but a combination of 21st-century forensic science and luck has finally revealed what happened to Tutankhamun – the world's most famous pharaoh.

Mystery has surrounded the boy king ever since his death in 1323BC, aged 19. The mystery intensified when the archaeologist Lord Carnarvon died in Cairo shortly after he and Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922.

Now British experts think they have solved the riddle of the king's death. They believe injuries on his body are akin to those sustained in a chariot accident and that his mummification was botched.

Dr Chris Naunton, director of the Egypt Exploration Society, was intrigued when he came across references in Carter's records of the body having been burnt. A clue came from Dr Robert Connolly, an anthropologist at Liverpool University, who was part of the team that X-rayed Tutankhamun's remains in 1968. Among the bones in his office he recently found a piece of the pharaoh's flesh – the only known sample outside Egypt.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/solved-the-mystery-of-king-tutankhamuns-death-8919262.html

f you witnessed a llama - yes a llama ! - getting on the tram on thursday morning in Bordeaux, you do not need to worry: this is not necessarily a hallucination and may have nothing to do with too much drinking of that wonderful red wine the city is famous for worldwide.

On thursday morning before dawn, five young people, who had just left a disco in the Bassins à Flot area, went wandering up to the street Rue Lucien Faure, where a Franco-Italian circus currently resides.
Obviously very drunk, a crazy idea crossed their minds when they noticed a cage, in which several animals were being kept. They entered the circus' site and stole a llama (named Serge, like a famous french crooner) ! The youngsters pulled the rope around the animal's neck to make it walk out of his cage.
On the same occasion, they also stole a lion (well... a plush lion doll, that is !) and a trombone.

http://www.sudouest.fr/2013/11/01/drunk-youngsters-steal-a-llama-from-a-circus-and-take-it-for-a-ride-in-the-tram-1217379-2780.php

A giant rubber duck has deflated - and some fans have called for a silence to honour it's demise.

The 18m-high artwork by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman has toured the world this year, and is currently in Taiwan.

Known by some as "Duckzilla", the inflatable duck was damaged when a 6.3-magnitude quake struck the country.

The duck began to deflate after a power cut caused its air pump to fail.

Some onlookers were reportedly so upset by the incident they asked for a ten-second silence to honour the much-loved duck.

Officials are confident that they will be able to re-inflate the duck having done so already when it was stationed in Hong Kong.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/earthquake-deflates-giant-rubber-duck-2675430