BERLIN (AP) These thieves might really have sticky fingers.

Police said Monday an unknown number of culprits made off with 5 metric tons (5.5 tons) of Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread from a parked trailer in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld over the weekend.

The gooey loot is worth an estimated 16,000 euros ($20,710).

Germans news agency dpa reported that thieves have previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.

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PHOENIX (Reuters) - The cowboy now has a home on the range in Arizona.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Friday signed legislation creating an annual "National Day of the Cowboy" to honor the Western state's "unique cowboy culture" and recognize its proper place in history.

"Many of the blessings enjoyed by Arizonans today are because of the contributions of our Keepers of the Range: The Arizona cowboy and cowgirl," Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday.

"These men and women - of all races and backgrounds - are among the truest symbols of the American southwest."

The cowboys will be honored every fourth Saturday in July. It will not be a paid legal holiday.

Arizona, which last year celebrated its 100th anniversary, becomes the fourth state in the nation to observe such a day, joining New Mexico, Wyoming and California.

(Reporting by David Schwartz; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Xavier Briand)

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DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) An African leopard tortoise thought to be stolen from an Iowa museum was actually trapped behind paneling in her enclosure, and a misguided employee who found her lied to keep up the story about her theft, the museum announced Friday.

In a bizarre move, the employee who found the 18-pound reptile named Cashew put her into a building elevator in an attempt to prevent the museum further embarrassment, said Jerry Enzler, president and CEO of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque.

The tortoise was found alone in a museum elevator on Thursday, two days after the museum had discovered she was missing and announced that she had been stolen. Museum officials told media outlets Thursday that they believed a regretful thief had smuggled her back inside.

But several hours later, a museum employee came forward and told the truth: Cashew was never stolen.

"The action taken by the employee Thursday afternoon was wrong and is not reflective of the integrity of the staff who dedicate themselves to the highest of Museum & Aquarium standards," Enzler said in a statement Friday.

Enzler said the employee, whose name and position has not been released, will be reprimanded. He said it was a personal issue and did not provide any additional information.

Cashew is one of six large tortoises on display in the enclosure. A 4-foot glass wall separates visitors from the creatures.

Enzler said the notion of a stolen tortoise grabbed national attention.

"The idea that someone may steal a tortoise was so disturbing, and I think people responded to that," he said.

He's just glad the tortoise is in good health, and he said staff is reviewing the enclosures.

"It has good karma to know Cashew wasn't stolen and someone didn't violate the museum and its exhibit," he said. "I think it restores our faith in humanity to know someone didn't take the animal."

The 9-year-old tortoise will be back on display Saturday.

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By Tara Oakes

PARIS (Reuters) - The roof of France's National Assembly is ready to buzz with activity after the arrival of three large bee hives this week as part of a project to promote pesticide-free honey.

The bees are expected to be moved in once the weather warms up, should produce up to 150 kg of honey a year and help pollinate flowering plants around the capital at a time of worldwide decline in bee numbers.

The project is part of a new trend across Europe to put bee colonies on city rooftops, taking advantage of the fact that bees adapt well to urban living and can target the many varieties of long-blooming inner-city greenery.

"This is a great symbol for us," Thierry Duroselle, head of the Society of French Beekeepers, talking to Reuters about the new hives perched atop part of the grandiose 18th Century palace on the Seine River that houses the lower house of parliament.

"We think it's a nice opportunity to educate people - the public and politicians - on the role of bees."

Despite their reputation for painful stings, bees are vital for human existence. A global decline in their numbers, the reasons for which are baffling scientists, is alarming everyone from farmers to European Union policy makers.

The loss of habitat due to urban expansion, and, in France, an invasion of bee-eating Asian hornets, is adding to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder.

More than two-thirds of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food are pollinated by bees, including fruit, nuts and grains. A 2011 United Nations report estimates the work done by bees and other pollinators to help food crops reproduce is worth 153 billion euros (129 billion pounds) a year.

The EU is still battling to agree on a ban of farm pesticides linked to the decline of honeybees, but studies show the insects adapt well to city living as the plants they encounter there have been treated with fewer chemicals.

While bee colonies adhere to a firmly royalist system, the hives have been painted in the post-revolutionary French flag colours of red, white and blue in a nod to the swarm of lawmakers below in the Fifth Republic's lower house.

Six volunteer beekeepers from among the National Assembly staff will tend the hives, which are nestled together on a raised platform on the roof of a rear palace building.

Despite their enviable Parisian vista, the bees will be packed tightly into their windowless homes, with each of the hives housing up to 50,000 bees in the summer months, a population that will drop to 15,000 in the winter.

Left-wing lawmaker Laurence Dumont said estimated annual honey production should fill around 800 pots a year which would be given to schoolchildren on educational visits or charities.

The farm ministry is working to revive beekeeping and reduce a dependence on imported honey, and Paris already sports bee hives atop other prestigious buildings including the Garnier Opera and the swanky Tour d'Argent left-bank restaurant.

Meanwhile another species began doing its civic duty in the city this week as four fluffy black sheep were unleashed in a public garden under a new plan to use grazing animals, rather than machines, to trim city lawns.

(Reporting by Tara Oakes; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Paul Casciato)

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MADRID (Reuters) - Spain has raised the minimum age for marriage to 16 from what had been one of the lowest in the world at 14 as part of a wider reform to improve health and safety for children and adolescents.

The reform, announced by Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato on Friday, also raises the age for consensual sex from what was the lowest in Europe at 13. The new age will be decided by Parliament.

(Reporting By Paul Day; Writing by Tracy Rucinski)

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HANOI (Reuters) - A fish farmer who became a cult hero in Vietnam after fighting off an illegal eviction with homemade guns and mines was jailed on Friday for five years for attempted murder in a case that has stirred public anger over state-backed land grabs.

Doan Van Vuon, plus two of his brothers and one nephew, were given jail terms of between two and five years for injuring seven police and soldiers in northern Haiphong last January, state media reported. Two of their wives received suspended sentences of 15-18 months for resisting officials.

Land grabs, both legal and illegal, are a major source of public discontent with the state in Communist Vietnam, which owns all the country's land. The case has been a major talking point in social media and blogs, with critics calling for changes in land laws.

The government offered land leases of 20 years to farmers as part of pro-peasant policies in the 1990s, but critics say corrupt state officials have allowed illegal seizures in return for kickbacks from businesses.

State television showed footage this week of the courtroom displaying the cooking gas cylinders, electrical cables and steel pipes Vuon and his relatives used for bombs and hand guns.

The authorities in Haiphong have admitted their eviction was unlawful and several officials face trial next week.

Tran Dinh Trien, a defense lawyer in the trial, said Vuon had no intention of causing harm and had exercised all legal means to protect his land before staging his spectacular display of resistance.

"I had warned them that I would resist. It pained me to have to criminalize this civil issue, so that the agencies would look into it," Trien quoted Vuon as saying in a Facebook posting.

Rapid economic growth, foreign investment and industrial expansion has made land highly lucrative, and Vietnamese who dare to criticize a government that responds harshly to dissent say it has allowed abuses of broad clauses in leases that allow land seizures for reasons of national security, defense, economic development and public interest.

Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch, said the lengths to which Vuon went should serve as a wake-up call for the government about a growing problem.

"The issue of widespread arbitrary land seizures by corrupt officials or without due process and just compensation is what really made this trial resonate in the minds of ordinary Vietnamese people," he said.

(Reporting by Hanoi Newsroom; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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BUTTE, Mont. (AP) So the goat that walked into a Montana bar last weekend ... was stolen from a petting zoo.

Fairmont Hot Springs Resort general manager Steve Luebeck says staffers knew the goat was missing but didn't realize it had been stolen until they saw a story in The Montana Standard on Wednesday reporting that a goat had been taken into a Butte bar early Sunday.

The pygmy goat, named "Shirley, was returned to the resort's petting zoo.

Luebeck tells The Standard he has never had an animal stolen from the zoo, which has goats and miniature horses. He says zoo managers would like to know who took the animal so they can press charges.

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Information from: The Montana Standard, http://www.mtstandard.com

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DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) An 18-pound African leopard tortoise who went missing from an Iowa museum has been found alive in an elevator in the building.

KWWL-TV (http://bit.ly/Zb7sED) reports that officials at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque believe the tortoise named Cashew was stolen, but that the thief quietly returned the animal.

The museum says a visitor found Cashew on the elevator floor Thursday. She appears to be in good health.

The museum discovered Cashew was missing Tuesday from an exhibit with a 4-foot glass wall. Museum officials suspected she was taken as a prank or to sell.

Museum officials are reviewing surveillance video to try to figure out exactly what happened and find a possible suspect.

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Information from: KWWL-TV, http://www.kwwl.com

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) Philadelphia is getting ready for a supersized game of "Pong" on the side of a skyscraper.

The classic Atari video game will be re-created later this month on the facade of the 29-story Cira Centre, where hundreds of embedded LED lights will replicate the familiar paddles and ball.

Organizers expect hundreds of onlookers as gaming enthusiasts use giant, table-mounted joysticks to play from afar. The players will be standing on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a site that offers an unobstructed view of the office building from across the Schuylkill River.

"'Pong' is a cultural icon, cultural milestone," said Frank Lee, the Drexel University game-design professor behind the concept. "This is my love letter to the wonders of technology as seen through the eyes of my childhood."

Despite the buzz the idea has received since being announced Wednesday, Lee said it took five years to find people willing to make it happen. He eventually met kindred spirits at Brandywine Realty Trust, which owns the Cira Centre, and at the online news site Technically Philly.

Now, what might be the world's largest "Pong" game will be played April 19 and 24 as part of Philly Tech Week, the news website's annual series of events, seminars and workshops spotlighting the city's technology and innovation communities.

"This is one of the best things I could imagine that could make people aware that there's something happening here, and bring more people into the fold," Technically Philly co-founder Christopher Wink said.

Wink estimated about 150 people might play over the two days most will be chosen by a lottery, but some spots will be reserved for younger students enrolled in science, technology, engineering and math programs.

Among those playing will be 36-year-old Brad Denenberg, one of three winners picked at random during a Tech Week preview on Wednesday. Denenberg, who runs the tech startup incubator Seed Philly, confessed to some trepidation. He said he's actually not a big gamer.

"My biggest fear is that I'm going to play against some 8-year-old who will destroy me," Denenberg said.

In today's gaming era of lifelike graphics think "Call of Duty" and colorful characters think "Angry Birds" it's hard to imagine how the pixelated "Pong" qualified as revolutionary when it was introduced in 1972.

The black-and-white arcade game used simple block shapes to simulate two paddles and a ball; the object was for players to hit the ball so their opponents could not return it. A home version paved the way for the game console industry.

At the Cira Centre, the game will be re-created using hundreds of lights already embedded in its north face. The tower stands by day as a gleaming, mirrored edifice in west Philadelphia, but each night it illuminates the skyline with colored, patterned displays. A spokesman could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Lee said he was driving by the building one night five years ago when he was suddenly struck with the idea that the lights could be configured to play the shape-fitting game Tetris.

The concept grew from there. Last month, after finally securing the necessary permissions, he and two colleagues successfully tested giant versions of "Pong" as well as the classic games "Snake" and "Space Invaders." People might get to play "Snake" on April 24, Lee said.

The effort has been satisfying on a technical level, Lee said, describing "Pong" as "a large-scale interactive, light-based art project."

But he noted it was rewarding on an emotional level as well, comparing it with the excitement he felt as a boy when he would put the "Pong" game cartridge into the console. And he hopes it inspires a new generation of innovators.

"I hope kids ... will go on to be the leaders, and push technology forward and do wondrous things in the future," Lee said.

___

Online:

http://ph.ly/pong

http://phillytechweek.com/

___

Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson

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LONDON (Reuters) - Bogged down by a stagnating economy and sinking poll ratings, British Prime Minister David Cameron ventured into a new swamp when he waded waist-deep into mud to rescue a drowning sheep.

Cameron was on his way back from visiting a farmer near his weekend home in the Oxfordshire countryside last month when he heard bleating and spotted a ewe that had got stuck in the mud after following her two lambs.

In jeans and rubber boots, Cameron waded into the swamp, followed by his two bodyguards, wrestled the sodden sheep and hoisted it onto safe ground, the Sun newspaper reported.

"When I got there, David (Cameron) was in the swamp, waist-deep in mud, along with the two police, who had all gone in there to help drag this sheep out," farmer Julian Tustian told the Daily Telegraph.

"He was brilliant, pulling, pushing and shoving. He was covered in mud, he looked a mess."

The ewe, which has since been nicknamed Swampy, has fully recovered from the ordeal, which unfolded on the evening of March 1, Tustian said. The lambs drowned.

The story of the lost sheep's messy rescue could have passed for an April fool joke but a Downing Street spokeswoman confirmed it had taken place.

Twitter users mocked what they labeled Cameron's "ewe turn", describing it as an unusual show of compassion from a prime minister imposing harsh welfare cuts and talking tough on immigration.

"Are you sure it was not the over way round? The ewe saved #Cameron from the swamp he's in?" wrote one user calling himself @Brianma68.

(Reporting by Natalie Huet; editing by Estelle Shirbon and Guy Faulconbridge)

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LONDON (AP) Could a Roman gold ring linked to a curse have inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create The One Ring?

Britain's National Trust and the Tolkien Society are putting the artifact on display Tuesday for fans of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" to decide for themselves whether this was Tolkien's precious ring of power.

Found in a field near a historic Roman town in southern England in 1785, the gold ring is inscribed in Latin, "Senicianus live well in God," and inset with an image of the goddess Venus. It is larger than average, weights 12 grams, and is believed to date from the 4th century.

The ring is believed to be linked to a curse tablet found separately at the site of a Roman temple dedicated to a god named Nodens in Gloucestershire, western England. The tablet says a man called Silvianus had lost a ring, and it asks Nodens to place a curse of ill health on Senicianus until he returned it to the temple.

An archaeologist who looked into the connection between the ring and the curse tablet asked Tolkien, who was an Anglo-Saxon professor at Oxford University, to work on the etymology of the name Nodens in 1929.

The writer also visited the temple several times, and some believe he would have been aware of the existence of the Roman ring before he started writing "The Hobbit."

"The influences most often cited for Tolkien's creation of The One Ring usually take the form of literary or legendary rings," said Lynn Forest-Hill, education officer for the Tolkien Society.

"It is, then, particularly fascinating to see the physical evidence of the (ring), with its links to Tolkien through the inscription associating it with a curse," she said.

The gold ring is displayed at The Vyne, a historic mansion in southern England, starting Tuesday.

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By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Donald Trump is withdrawing his lawsuit against television host and comedian Bill Maher seeking $5 million (3.3 million pounds) that Maher said he would give to charity, in a seemingly facetious offer, if Trump could prove he was not the son of an orangutan.

The lawsuit stems from comments Maher made during an appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show" in January in which he said an orangutan's fur was the only thing in nature that matches the shade of Trump's trademark hair.

Records in Los Angeles Superior Court show the real estate mogul requested the lawsuit be dismissed without prejudice on Friday, eight weeks after he filed it. His spokesman, Michael Cohen, said Trump plans to file an amended lawsuit sometime in the future.

Cohen declined to offer further details, including a reason for the withdrawal.

Maher offered a $5 million donation to the charity of Trump's choice - "Hair Club for Men," he suggested - if Trump produced a birth certificate that proved he was not half-ape. A Maher spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Last year, during the presidential campaign, Trump offered to give $5 million to charity if Democratic President Barack Obama would release his college records.

Trump, who briefly considered a White House run, had previously questioned Obama's citizenship and boasted that his scepticism prompted the president to release his so-called "long-form" birth certificate.

In a letter to Maher before filing the lawsuit, Trump's lawyer wrote, "Attached hereto is a copy of Mr. Trump's birth certificate, demonstrating that he is the son of Fred Trump, not an orangutan."

Legal experts said Trump was unlikely to succeed in his lawsuit because Maher's offer was obviously a joke, and courts rarely enforce verbal contracts that are clearly satirical in nature.

In an appearance on Fox News after the lawsuit was filed, Trump said he was convinced that Maher was not joking.

"That was venom," he said. "That wasn't a joke."

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Tim Dobbyn)

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LONDON (Reuters) - Bogged down by a stagnating economy and sinking poll ratings, British Prime Minister David Cameron ventured into a new swamp when he waded waist-deep into mud to rescue a drowning sheep.

Cameron was on his way back from visiting a farmer near his weekend home in the Oxfordshire countryside last month when he heard bleating and spotted a ewe that had got stuck in the mud after following her two lambs.

In jeans and rubber boots, Cameron waded into the swamp, followed by his two bodyguards, wrestled the sodden sheep and hoisted it onto safe ground, the Sun newspaper reported.

"When I got there, David (Cameron) was in the swamp, waist-deep in mud, along with the two police, who had all gone in there to help drag this sheep out," farmer Julian Tustian told the Daily Telegraph.

"He was brilliant, pulling, pushing and shoving. He was covered in mud, he looked a mess."

The ewe, which has since been nicknamed Swampy, has fully recovered from the ordeal, which unfolded on the evening of March 1, Tustian said. The lambs drowned.

The story of the lost sheep's messy rescue could have passed for an April fool joke but a Downing Street spokeswoman confirmed it had taken place.

Twitter users mocked what they labelled Cameron's "ewe turn", describing it as an unusual show of compassion from a prime minister imposing harsh welfare cuts and talking tough on immigration.

"Are you sure it was not the over way round? The ewe saved #Cameron from the swamp he's in?" wrote one user calling himself @Brianma68.

(Reporting by Natalie Huet; editing by Estelle Shirbon and Guy Faulconbridge)

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By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - A white supremacist parolee suspected of killing Colorado's prisons chief and a pizza delivery man last month had been mistakenly released from prison in January - four years early - due to a clerical error, court officials said on Monday.

Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, was killed in a roadside gun battle with police following a high-speed chase in Texas, two days after the March 19 killing of Tom Clements, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Ebel had been released from prison in Colorado early after a judicial assistant failed to note on his prison file that sentences he received in 2008 for second-degree assault were supposed to be served consecutively rather than concurrently, the chief judge and district administrator for the 11th Judicial District said in a statement.

Ebel, who pleaded guilty to the assault charge and received a reduced sentence in a deal with prosecutors, was released on mandatory parole on January 28 of this year, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections.

"The district has undertaken a review of its practices in an effort to avoid a re-occurrence of this circumstance," Chief Judge Charles Barton and District Administrator Walter Blair said in the statement.

"The court regrets this oversight and extends condolences to the families of Mr Nathan Leon and Mr Tom Clements," they said.

Authorities have also named Ebel as a suspect in the killing of Domino's pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon in the Denver area two days before Clements was shot dead when he answered the door at his home 45 miles (72 km) south of Denver.

KAUFMAN COUNTY KILLINGS

Ebel was a member of a white supremacist prison gang, the 211 Crew.

According to Colorado court records, he was arrested at least seven times between 2003 and 2010 for crimes including burglary, weapons possession, assault, menacing, robbery and trespassing.

Authorities have said they were looking for ties between the murder of Clements and the January slaying of Mark Hasse, a prosecutor in the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office. Kaufman County is east of Dallas.

The January 31 murder of Hasse occurred the same day the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was among the agencies involved in a racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist group.

On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found with fatal gunshot wounds at their home near the Texas town of Fourney. Fourney Mayor Darren Rozell has called the killing of McLelland and his wife a "targeted attack."

A search of Ebel's car following the shootout with Texas police turned up a pizza deliverer's shirt, visor, pizza box and heat bag. Ballistics tests established that the same gun he fired at police during that gun battle matched the weapon used to kill Clements and Leon.

Also found in the car were bomb-making materials and instructions for building bombs, according to Texas authorities.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman; Writing and additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and David Brunnstrom)

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By Alastair Macdonald

LONDON (Reuters) - The April Fool is dead. Or at least the gentle jester of the common folk has been converted into a corporate colossus controlled by global marketing executives.

Companies around the world, from Google to BMW and Sony, have adopted the tradition of goading the gullible on April 1 to show their lighter sides and steal some free publicity.

Google Inc extended a practice dating back a decade or so in poking fun at its own ubiquity: it introduced a database of smells, pretended that it was shutting down its YouTube service, offered a treasure-hunting mode and old parchment style navigation on Google Maps, and unveiled Gmail Blue, a new version of its email service that is ... blue.

In Japan, telecoms company KDDI offered a mobile phone that was actually a bed - to save ever having to get up. And Sony Corp went to the dogs, rather literally, introducing a TV that only displays pictures in dog-friendly colours and has a remote with paw-enabled buttons.

A blog at Twitter, or rather "twttr", said users who wanted to use vowels would have to pay $5 (3.2 pounds) a month. "Trd th nw Twttr yt? Mr tm fr mr twts!" was one of the blog's more easily deciphered examples.

Procter and Gamble Co's mouthwash brand Scope offered a new "Bacon" flavour with taglines like "For breath that sizzles" and the appetizing "Indulge your meat tooth."

German carmaker BMW offered British readers excited at the impending arrival of a royal baby the P.R.A.M. (Postnatal Royal Auto Mobile) complete with picture of a sportily styled buggy and corgis at Windsor Castle - inquiries to Joe.King@bmw.co.uk.

SATIRE

In the more traditional realm of news-based fun, Yahoo's French website led its front page with the announcement that, to save money, President Francois Hollande would move his offices from the Elysee Palace to one of Paris's grittier suburbs.

Iceland Review Online reported that the country's central bank had solved the problem of how to value the local currency, the krona, which was badly damaged during the financial crisis -- replace it with Africa's CFA franc.

In Britain, the Guardian offered its leftish, liberal readers "augmented reality" spectacles to let them "see the world through the Guardian's eyes at all times."

By staring at a restaurant, cinema or retail product the paper's critics' reviews would come into vision without all the hassle of reaching for the phone, wrote the Guardian's anagrammatic correspondent Lois P. Farlo.

"Nesta Vowles" had a story in Britain's Daily Mail about owls being trained, Hogwarts-style, to deliver internal mail in an office. It carried photographs of what it called the "Roy-owl Mail." The Sun mocked up a shot of Mick Jagger in a tent and said the millionaire Rolling Stones were practising for the Glastonbury rock festival by spending Easter outdoors.

But few papers may top the Times Daily of Florence, Alabama, which fronted Monday's edition with a picture of a local bridge coming under simultaneous attack by the Loch Ness Monster, a UFO and Godzilla.

"Panic unnecessary: No deadly tomatoes reported near scene," the paper reported.

COULD BE TRUE?

It took French post office, La Poste, to highlight the struggle for survival faced by traditional media in a new technological age; it issued a press release announcing that airborne drones were delivering newspapers to people's homes.

Blurring the lines between mirth and marketing, Britain's Daily Mirror carried a story on the launch of glass-bottomed airliners - offering special sightseeing trips over Loch Ness. It would, it said, be operated by Richard Branson's Virgin airline - which duly carried its own online advert for the new planes, along with publicity for its real new domestic service.

With April Fools Day ever more an ad man's dream, Coca-Cola put an ironic, postmodern twist on the whole bluff-or-double-bluff atmosphere by advertising a relaunched vanilla version of the fizzy drink in Britain:

The slogan? "It's back! - (no really, it is)."

If the stress of sifting fact from fiction seemed too much, particularly for fellow journalists writing reports from the frontline of foolery, once could have left it to Britain's Metro newspaper to do the legwork and make things easier.

Its 2013 "round-up of the best jokes" from other media included a BBC story on NASA's Mars rover tweeting that bullying by Internet trolls was forcing it off Twitter, the Telegraph on rabbits bred with human ears and a supermarket press release offering to deliver food via a 3D printer.

Trouble is, those were all made up by Metro. April Fools!

(Additional reporting by Eric Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Giles Elgood and Eric Walsh)

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By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - An 80-year-old Japanese mountain climber who has had heart surgery four times is heading to Mount Everest to try for a third ascent of the world's highest peak and will become the oldest person to reach the top if he succeeds.

Yuichiro Miura climbed to the summit of the 8,850 metre (29,035 ft) mountain in 2003 and 2008. He skied down Everest from an altitude of 8,000 metres (26,246 ft) in 1970.

Miura and a nine-person team will climb up the standard southeast ridge route, pioneered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they became the first people to reach the summit in May 1953.

"The record is not so important for me," the white-haired Miura told Reuters in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, before setting out for the mountain.

"It is important to get to the top."

The record for the oldest person to climb the mountain is held by Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, who reached the summit at the age of 76, in 2008.

A doctor specialising in heart ailments is in the team to keep an eye on Miura's health. The group hopes to summit in May.

Miura has skied down the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, and is merely following family tradition. His late father, Keizo Miura, skied down Europe's Mont Blanc at the age of 99.

"If you wish strongly, have courage and endurance, then you can get to the summit of your dream," said Miura.

He already has a new dream. He wants to ski down Cho Oyu, the world's sixth highest mountain at 8,201 metres (26,906 ft), also in the Himalayas.

"Maybe, when I become 85 years old, and if I stay alive, I want to climb and ski down Cho Oyu," Miura said. "It is my next dream."

About 4,000 climbers have been to the top of Everest and about 240 people have died on its slopes.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Elaine Lies and Robert Birsel)

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc, getting a headstart on the annual tradition of April Fools' pranks, released a YouTube clip on Sunday declaring that the world's most popular video website will shut down at the stroke of midnight.

The three-minute video intended as a gag - a montage of clips and cameos from viral video stars like David Devore from "David after the dentist" - describes how the website will wind down as some 30,000 technicians begin to trawl through 150,000 clips, to select the world's best video.

The winner gets a $500 stipend, a clip-on MP3 player - and becomes the sole video to be featured on YouTube when the website relaunches in 2023.

"Gangnam Style has the same chance of winning as a video with 40 views of a man feeding bread to a duck," YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar pronounced, referring to the viral sensation from Korean pop artist PSY that's now the most-viewed video on the site.

Google's video also features intense discussions between judges, who hotly debate the merits of everything from Citizen Kane to "epic skateboard fail". While clearly tongue-in-cheek, several YouTube viewers appeared stricken or dumbfounded, while others expressed sadness and regret in attached comments.

(http://www.youtube.com/watchv=H542nLTTbu0&feature=player_embedded)

(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - After more than 50 years, loyal fans have one last chance to visit the Easter bunny and other Easter-themed mosaics made of thousands of brightly colored eggs on a lawn in an eastern suburb of Cleveland.

The displays have drawn thousands of visitors each year to the sprawling lawn of Betty and Ron Manolio in Lyndhurst, Ohio, but the 55th annual event this year will be the last.

Eggshelland was created by Ron Manolio, 80, who died in August. This final display is dominated by a 16-foot by 15-foot portrait of the man who each year spent months hollowing out and hand-painting anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 eggs. A message below the picture reads "thank you all, and goodbye."

This year, Manolio's children and grandchildren set up the 21,630 eggs in 24 colors in a display entitled "A Labor of Love" in tribute to their grandfather. The egg mosaics depict a 45-foot cross, an Easter bunny and an EGGSHELLAND sign propped up in front of the couple's house.

"Our children did this their entire lives. They thought everyone does this," Betty Manolio told Reuters. But the months it takes to design and two to three weekends for installation are too much for the family to keep up.

Egg mosaics in past years have depicted characters from Sesame Street, Winnie-the-Pooh, and Harry Potter and spring scenes.

Manolio said that because her husband was the creative force behind project, it would be too difficult to continue Eggshelland without him.

"Actually, I was amazed we were doing it for 55 years," she said. "If he (Ron) was still around I think we would do it until we both died. I'm going to miss it next year."

Others will miss Eggshelland too. On a typical day, cars line up on their street and around the corner to catch a glimpse the display that began with a mere 750 eggs saved over the course of a year in 1957. At Eggshelland's peak in the 1970s local police were called to direct traffic.

Local and national media have described Eggshelland as a childhood fantasy land but in truth the phenomena has quite an adult following including a website dedicated to its 55-year history and its creators (http://eggshellandeaster.tripod.com), and a 2004 award-winning documentary on their efforts.

Eggshelland will be up until April 5th. After that, Manolio hasn't yet decided what will happen to the eggs. Previously, they stored the eggs for the year and replaced those that had broken.

"We haven't decided what to do with them. We've gotten some calls," Manolio said. "My grandchildren, of course, told me to put them on eBay."

(Editing by Jackie Frank)

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(Reuters) - Airlines should charge obese passengers more, a Norwegian economist has suggested, arguing that "pay as you weigh" pricing would bring health, financial and environmental dividends.

Bharat Bhatta, an associate professor at Sogn og Fjordane University College, said that airlines should follow other transport sectors and charge by space and weight.

"To the degree that passengers lose weight and therefore reduce fares, the savings that result are net benefits to the passengers," Bhatta wrote this week in the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management.

"As a plane of a given make and model can accommodate more lightweight passengers, it may also reward airlines" and reduce the use of environmentally costly fuel.

Bhatta put together three models for what he called "pay as you weigh airline pricing."

The first would charge passengers according to how much they and their baggage weighed. It would set a rate for pounds (kg) per passenger so that someone weighing 130 pounds (59 kg) would pay half the fare of 260-pound (118-kg) person.

A second model would use a fixed base rate, with an extra charge for heavier passengers to cover the extra costs. Under this option, every passenger would have a different fare.

Bhatta's preferred option was the third, where the same fare would be charged if a passenger was of average weight. A discount or extra charge would be used if the passenger was above or below a certain limit.

That would lead to three kinds of fares - high, average and low, Bhatta said.

Airlines have grappled for years with how to deal with larger passengers as waistlines have steadily expanded. Such carriers as Air France and Southwest Airlines allow overweight passengers to buy extra seats and get a refund on them.

Asked about charging heavier passengers extra, Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said: "We have our own policies in place and don't anticipate changing those."

United Air Lines Inc requires passengers who cannot fit comfortably into a single seat to buy another one. A spokeswoman said the carrier would not discuss "future pricing."

About two-thirds of U.S. adults are obese or overweight.

In a 2010 online survey for the travel website Skyscanner (www.skyscanner.net), 76 percent of travelers said airlines should charge overweight passengers more if they needed an extra seat.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; editing by Andrew Hay)

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LONDON (Reuters) - A rare four-inch fragment of a dodo bone will go on sale in Britain in April, around 300 years after the flightless bird and icon of obsolescence was hunted to extinction.

Auctioneers Christie's said on Wednesday it was hoping to raise as much as 15,000 pounds ($22,600) for the piece of a bird's femur.

The last sale of dodo remains the auction house could find took place in London in 1934 - and it was expecting considerable interest from a highly specialised band of collectors and enthusiasts.

"It is so rare for anyone to part with these prized items," said James Hyslop, head of Travel, Science and Natural History at Christie's auction house in South Kensington, London.

"From its appearance in "Alice in Wonderland" to the expression 'dead as dodo', the bird has cemented its place in our cultural heritage," he added.

The Western world first heard of dodos in 1598 when Dutch sailors reported seeing them on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Less than 100 years later, the birds had disappeared. Most experts say they were probably hunted down by successive waves of hungry sailors, and the pigs and other large animals they brought on to the island.

No complete specimens have survived - and scientists have been pouring over fragments of remains for years to try and reconstruct what the dodo might have looked like.

The famous image of a squat, comic, short-necked bird, immortalised in John Tenniel's illustrations for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", is widely thought to be wrong.

Christie's did not say whether the thigh bone, part of an unnamed private English collection, would provide any fresh clues.

The auction house said its bone was almost certainly excavated in 1865 at Mare aux Songes in Mauritius during a dig by natural history enthusiast George Clark.

The bone is one of 260 lots in a Travel, Science and Natural History sale held by Christie's in London on April 24. The items are open to public viewing from April 20.

Other items on the block include a fossilised egg from Madagascar's equally extinct elephant bird, more than 100 times the average size of a chicken egg, as well as scientific instruments, maps and globes.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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