Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

An Italian judge has given a church its bells back after confiscating them following complaints from locals that they rang too loudly. Italian locals in Dolina, a town with a substantial Slovenian minority, began complaining about the bells from the Slovenian congregation at Sant’Ulderico after pandemic restrictions went into effect. “It was bam-bam, bam-bam all day long,” protest organizer Mauro Zerial told The Guardian. Zerial said he counted 4,650 chimes in a single week, including 70 bell chimes to the tune of “Ave Maria” at 6 a.m. on Sundays. Eventually an Italian judge took the bells, then returned them in January with a warning not to play them. Lawmakers from Slovenia have appealed to the European Commission to force Italian authorities to allow the bells to ring freely.

Batty attraction

Patrons at a March 4 showing of The Batman in Austin, Texas, experienced an interruption when a real bat was spotted inside the theater. Staff at the Moviehouse & Eatery by Cinépolis paused the movie and attempted to capture the animal or shoo it out of the theater. When their efforts failed, managers proposed to cancel the screening and refund all the customers’ expenses. But most of the crowd decided to stay and watch, despite the bat continuing to flutter around the theater’s screen. Austin’s Congress Avenue Bridge hosts the world’s largest urban bat colony.

Magical fruit

After waiting a year for confirmation, an Israeli farmer can now boast he’s grown the world’s largest strawberry. Farmer Chahi Ariel said he picked the prize-winning berry in February 2021. When he weighed the strawberry at nearly 10.2 ounces, he submitted a claim to Guinness World Records. “We waited for a year for the results,” Ariel said. “We kept it in the freezer for a year. It’s no longer as pretty as it was.” Finally, in February, Ariel got his confirmation.

Moose on the loose

Police in a Boston suburb needed a pair of tranquilizer darts to down a loose moose wandering the town on Feb. 22. Citizens phoned police after spotting the 600-pound juvenile plodding through Marlboro, Mass. Environmental Police responded, firing two tranquilizer darts to bring the adult female down. State wildlife officials say moose are drawn to neighborhoods because of the ornamental vegetation. Once abundant in Massachusetts until the 1700s, the animal’s population has climbed to about 1,000 statewide.

Deputy Billy Goat

Henry County, Va., Sheriff’s deputies got an assist from a helpful goat while pursuing a suspect on Feb. 13. As soon as Deputy David Parnell told a man he was under arrest, the unnamed suspect fled on foot, racing through a field toward a nearby woods. Parnell and his partner gave chase, and then they were joined by an unlikely helper. “A goat from the property joined Deputy Parnell,” a sheriff’s spokesman told the Martinsville Bulletin. When the suspect entered the woods, Parnell held back, but the goat continued the pursuit, eventually flushing the suspect from the tree line and into the custody of ­Parnell’s partner.

Calling out callers

A heroic Texas man says he’s earned $75,000 by suing telemarketers. Dan Graham of Austin, Texas, said he placed his cell phone number on the National Do Not Call registry after receiving sometimes up to 24 robocalls a day for auto warranties, insurance, and credit card services. But rather than hang up like most people, Graham stayed on the phone, eventually learning the name of the companies who were pestering him. Filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission got him nowhere. So last April Graham began taking the companies to court for violating the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. As of March, 11 months later, Graham said he’d settled about 50 small claims cases against companies employing robocalls, netting him a nice pile of money in settlements.

Well done

A horse that fell down a 15-foot well on a Washington farm has been dragged back to the surface and appears no worse for wear. Karl Lang, a farmer in the Puget Sound region, said his daughter noticed their horse Blaze missing on March 2. After a short search, the horse was spotted at the bottom of a concrete well. “Luckily he went down heinie-first,” Lang told KING-TV. “If he had gone down any other way, he wouldn’t be alive.” Local firefighters, including some from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, formulated a plan for rescuing the horse. Rescuers sedated the animal, affixed a harness, and used an excavator to lift the beast to safety. A veterinarian called out by Lang said the animal suffered only minor injuries.