Odd News: Is coughing a crime? Danish court hears appeal

Is coughing a crime? Danish court hears appeal against pandemic-linked conviction

Denmark’s top court will on Thursday begin an appeal hearing in which it will be asked to decide if coughing at someone while shouting “corona” constitutes threatening behaviour. The 20-year-old defendant in the case was arrested in March, when the country was under a full coronavirus lockdown, after subjecting police to what prosecutors called the “ruthless and thoughtless” actions during a routine traffic stop. He subsequently tested negative for COVID-19.

COVID maths: All the virus in the world would fit in a coke can

All the COVID-causing virus circulating in the world right now could easily fit inside a single cola can, according to a calculation by a British mathematician whose sum exposes just how much devastation is caused by minuscule viral particles. Using global rates of new infections with the pandemic disease, coupled with estimations of viral load, Bath University maths expert Kit Yates worked out there are around two quintillion – or two billion billion – SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the world at any one time.

Briton, 70, becomes oldest to row solo across Atlantic

When 70-year-old Frank Rothwell decided to row solo across the Atlantic, he didn’t realise just how boring it would be spending nearly two months on the 3,000 miles (4,800 km) journey. The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, an annual race from the Canary Islands to Antigua, is not for the faint-hearted but Rothwell, an experienced sailor, took up the challenge to raise money for charity.

Doughnut-loving Poles cram in calories as Fat Thursday lifts pandemic gloom

After some lean months during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fat Thursday finally brought some cheer to Polish confectioners as their sweet-toothed customers feasted on doughnuts. On the last Thursday before Lent, the period when Christians traditionally fast before Easter, Poles stuff their faces with doughnuts in a festival of calorific indulgence.