IT MUST BE TRUE… I read it in the tabloids

The Vatican has launched an investigation, after Pope Francis’s official Instagram account “liked” a photo of a Brazilian bikini model. Natalia Garibotto’s management team crowed that she had “received the POPE’S OFFICIAL BLESSING” after a post with a racy shot of her dressed as a schoolgirl was endorsed by his account, which has 7.5 million followers. The Pope doesn’t manage his own social media accounts, and the Vatican insisted that Francis himself had not personally “liked” the photo. But Garibotto was delighted, joking: “At least I’m going to heaven.”

A Sri Lankan politician has taken drastic steps to try to boost fish sales: he bit into a raw whole fish at a news conference. Opposition MP Dilip Wedaarachchi was moved to action after sales fell following a Covid outbreak at Colombo’s Central Fish Market last month. “I am making an appeal to the people of this country to eat this fish,” he said, adding: “Don’t be afraid. You will not get infected” – before biting into the fish’s spine.

French police have fined a man who left home during lockdown with a written declaration stating that he was out to “smash a guy’s face in”. The man, 39, from Lannion in Brittany, filled out the form now required before leaving home in France; but when police found him lurking behind a car, they deemed his stated reason “not valid”. “He was trying to fulfil the letter of the law, in his own way,” said police chief Daniel Kerdraon. As well as the x135 fine for having an invalid excuse for being out, he was also fined x150 for public drunkenness.