Odd News Roundup: Russian town hires cat chief, Axe throwing takes aim at sunny Los Angeles

Purrfect job; Russian town hires cat chief to attend to strays

It was an unusual job advert. Wanted: Cat chief. Location: Zelenogradsk, Russia: Duties: Tending to the town's approximately 70 stray cats. Some 80 applicants applied for the new role with the municipality in the small town in the Kaliningrad region, which has also erected a cat statue and added a feline to its emblem in a bid to rebrand itself as Russia's foremost cat-loving community.

A wagging finger sticking out of your mobile phone is creepy. Why?

A French researcher has invented a robot finger that attaches to your mobile phone. It can wriggle across your desk. It can stroke your hand. And guess what? It's creepy. No, really, watch the video. Creepy, see? He wants to know why.

Axe throwing takes aim at sunny Los Angeles

Axe throwing may not seem to have a place in Los Angeles, where sun and surf reign supreme, but the city's first venue featuring the niche sport is counting on people to ditch the waves for steel hatchets. On a sunny fall day, a group of real estate agents visited the North Hollywood warehouse that is home to LA Ax to try their hand at the sport.

And the fattest bear in Alaska is ... 409 Beadnose

In an Alaska clash of tubby titans that has become a social media sensation, a shaggy, brown and possibly pregnant mother known as 409 Beadnose was crowned on Tuesday as Fattest Bear of 2018. Beadnose nosed out a larger Alaska brown bear, a male called 747 – and likened to a jumbo jet – in online votes collected by staff at Katmai National Park and Preserve during a wildly popular event called Fat Bear Week. Male bears are bigger but Beadnose was deemed to be more round.

(With inputs from Reuters)