It must be true...

I read it in the tabloids

■■ A British municipal worker whose phone accidentally played pornography during a staff meeting has been fired after claiming the moaning noises were, in fact, made by a goose. About 100 people at the meeting broke into awkward laughter when David West, an electrician for the Redditch Borough Council, opened a video of a woman making loud “sexual moans,” which continued for 30 seconds while he frantically tapped the phone. When bosses confronted him, West insisted the deleted video had shown a “goose honking.” Colleagues disputed his story. “I know the sound of a goose,” said one, “and it wasn’t [that].”

■■ A team of Czech scientists has assigned a robot to write a performable stage play by January 2021. Researcher Rudolf Rosa of Charles University in Prague said the intention of his team’s effort is to honor the R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots, a 1921 play credited with originating the term “robot.” “One hundred years ago, a man wrote a theater play about robots,” Rosa said. “What if today, robots wrote a theater play about men?” His team has partnered with some stage professionals, and Rosa said the January premiere of the robot-conceived production is “clear and fixed.”

■■ Nearly 200 Rhode Island taxpayers received refund checks signed by Mickey Mouse. The checks have the name of the famous cartoon character over a line identifying him as the state’s “General Treasurer.” Walt Disney’s name also appears on the checks as the “State Controller,” in script that looks like Disney’s real signature. The Department of Revenue has apologized and attributed the incident to a “technical error.”