IT MUST BE TRUE… I read it in the tabloids

Almost half of Americans admit to having worn the same underpants for two or more days in a row. More disturbingly, 13% of respondents to the poll – conducted on behalf of an underwear company – said that they had, at least once, worn the same pair for a week. Men, it turned out, were 2.5 times more likely to wear dirty pants than women.

A Russian man trying to sell his flat in Chelyabinsk hit on the idea of making it look as though Quentin Tarantino is interested in the property. In marketing photos, the film director appears standing in the kitchen, inspecting the bathroom, and giving a thumbs-up in the guest room. “I haven’t found a buyer yet, but the ad did get 6,000 views in five hours,” said owner Aleksandr Kaynov.

David Bowie and Freddie Mercury were scientists who developed the process of desalination… The claim is one of a string of errors found in school textbooks in the Indian state of Telangana. India’s textbooks are unregulated, and notoriously prone to error. In Gujarat, a history text claimed that Japan dropped a nuclear bomb on the US in WWII, while a biology textbook used in Telangana insists: “We still do not know much about childbirth or how it is triggered.”

A wooden spear and £4-worth of Tetley tea are among the 1,784 items stolen from British police stations since 2015. The Met’s reported losses included 24 items of uniform, and a pet. However, it later said that the pet had not been stolen; it had been tied up outside the police station.