You've seen Vladimir Putin the bomber pilot, judo expert and fisherman - but tiger tamer?

A 93-year-old debut novelist has used the proceeds from her book to move her friends out of nursing homes and into her new country house, she said in British newspaper reports on Monday.

A pet rabbit in Australia was credited with saving its owners on Thursday after scratching at the door of their bedroom as their home burned, emergency workers said.

Australian Aboriginals replanted an ancient boab tree on Sunday after it was driven thousands of kilometres with a police escort to save it from destruction.

Britain's Oxford University has accepted a 17-year-old from Hong Kong on one of its doctorate programmes, making him one of the famed university's youngest such students, a report said Wednesday.

For sale: tiny Channel island. Includes own jail. One of the eight inhabited Channel islands off the northern coast of France has gone on the market, the estate agency handling the sale said.

It's certainly a good start - a 19-year-old political science student who dreams of becoming US president was elected mayor of Muskogee, Oklahoma, beating a 70-year-old for the job, the city hall announced Thursday (May 15).

Icarus crashed and burned when he flew too close to the sun but a modern-day Swiss adventurer had a happier landing on Wednesday when testing his new jet-powered "wing".

SWITZERLAND, PAYERNE: A 36-year-old Swiss amateur parachutist made a successful 650-metre drop on Saturday (April 26) using a replica of a parachute designed more than 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci.

"I came down... smack in the middle of the tarmac at Payerne military airport," said Olivier Vietti-Teppa. "A perfect jump."

Vietti-Teppa is the first person to have made it safely to the ground with the Leonardo model.

In 2000, Britain's Adrian Nicholas tried it but had to pull the ripcord on a modern backup parachute to complete his descent safely.

At first glance, Xu Liancheng’s (name transliterated) home gives the impression of some fantastical menagerie. A magnificent eagle stands on its perch with its wings outspread, as if ready to take flight, while a horned bull throws its head back, mouth open to issue a challenge.