A breed apart

Pablo Escobar may be dead, but his hippopotamuses are still causing havoc in Colombia. The drug kingpin whose cocaine trade made him one of the world’s richest men died in 1993. Now 25 years later, the herd of hippos he smuggled onto his ranch in northwest Colombia have seen their population increase tenfold. David Echeverri, a researcher with the Colombian government, said the massive mammals, which are native to Africa, have no natural predators in South America. “They are in a quiet area where they are reproducing,” he told Euronews, calling the animals an “invasive species.” Echeverri said the government has considered sterilizing the growing herd, but calculated the cost at nearly $36,000 per animal.

Don’t drink the water

Some jokes fall flat. And then there’s the joke told by Egyptian pop star Sherine Abdel-Wahab. A video clip that emerged last year showed the popular singer making a joke about one of her song lyrics, which translates as “Have you drunk from the Nile?” In the clip, the singer answered her own question, saying that if you do, you’re bound to contract a disease called schistosomiasis. An Egyptian court convicted her on Feb. 27 on a charge of insulting the state, sentencing her to six months in prison.

Reality check

Short on B-roll footage, producers for a state-run television network in Russia apparently cribbed from a popular video game for their coverage of recent combat in Syria. During its Feb. 25 telecast, Channel One TV included a short clip of what appeared to be a Russian jet attacking a truck. But social media users in Russia quickly identified the footage as an animated clip from Arma 3, a combat video game. In a statement, Channel One acknowledged the mistake but denied it was intentional.

Out of the frying pan

It may have looked like a chase scene in a movie, at first. Shoplifting suspects Marwan Al Ebadi, 28, and Salma Hourieh, 29, were reportedly on the run from police after an alleged shoplifting at a Peoria, Ariz., gas station when they jumped a fence—and landed in a secure area of a police station where several officers were conducting a training exercise. Hourieh tried to hide under a bench, and Al Ebadi jumped back over the fence. Both were quickly arrested.

Silence in the court

If you have a case in court and no jury is there to hear it, is it still a trial? Not in Forsyth County, N.C., where officials reportedly forgot to mail notices for jury duty to about 1,700 residents in late February, causing the court system to grind to a halt. Pleas for volunteers on a television station and at a shopping mall produced only 19 prospective jurors. Some trials were postponed up to a week.

Runway flight

Now the robots are taking the models’ jobs. Fashion house Dolce & Gabbana upended Milan’s Fashion Week on Feb. 25 by using a fleet of drones to fly women’s handbags down the runway rather than using models. The surprise runway event led off the famous fashion show, but technical difficulties with the drones also caused a 45-minute delay. After flying up and down the runway, the drones were sent offstage, and then human models carried on as usual.

Real drill

A fire drill at a rural Egyptian school became all too real for students at the school. In an attempt to make the fire drill more lifelike, school employees set fire to some trash inside the school. Gusty wind whipped up the flames at the school located in Kom Obmo village in Aswan. Adults were eventually able to put the fire out, but not before students began falling ill due to smoke inhalation. The school said nine students required brief hospitalization as a result of the fire drill.

Easy rider

A penny-pinching man in England came up with an idea for a cheap ride to visit a friend in the hospital. The man, unidentified in reports, called emergency services in Manchester, U.K., complaining of pain and odd sensations in his legs. That call led to an ambulance ride to the hospital paid for by the U.K. socialized medicine system. “We took him to hospital for him to then get up and walk off on arrival,” Shaun Gerrard, an EMT with the North West Ambulance Service told the Stoke Sentinel. “He admitted he faked the whole lot just to get a lift to hospital to see his friend.” A spokesman for the ambulance service later said, “This is what we’re dealing with day in, day out.”

Along for the ride

In 2009, a museum in Marseille, France, reported that thieves had taken Les Choristes (The Chorus Singers), a work of art by impressionist Edgar Degas. More than eight years later, French customs agents in Marne-la-Vallee found the painting by surprise inside a suitcase during a search of luggage on a bus. The painting is reportedly worth nearly $1 million. Nobody on the bus claimed the suitcase.