Villain
Hong Kong, which is culling around 2,000 pet hamsters as part of the city’s draconian zero-Covid policy, because a handful of the rodents tested positive for the virus. Authorities have already seized hamsters from one pet shop. But an underground resistance operation has sprung up, says The Washington Post: foster carers are taking in the hamsters and concealing them from the long arm of the law.
Heroes
British diplomats, who are among the most honest in the world. In a famous five-year survey of unpaid parking tickets accrued by United Nations diplomats in New York, the UK contingent didn’t receive a single one. Kuwait notched up an average of 246, per diplomat, every year. It’s a point worth remembering, says James Marriott in The Times. “In a global context, the British establishment remains notably uncorrupt.”
Heroes
A team of Hampshire police, firemen and coastguards who, as a last resort, tied a sausage to a drone to lead a stranded dog to safety. Millie, a Jack Russell-whippet cross, had resisted traditional attempts to coax her off treacherous mudflats as the tide rose perilously around her, but happily succumbed to the aroma of a dangled banger.