Italian town bans selfies

And other stories from the stranger side of life

Two women taking a selfie

A town on the Italian Riviera has introduced no-waiting zones to stop tourists for “lingering” in popular spots for selfies. Visitors to Portofino could now be fined up to 275 euros (£242) for hanging around too long in the zones, which include “the most photogenic hotspots”, said the BBC. The local mayor, Matteo Viacava, said that “anarchic chaos” had been caused by tourists stopping to take pictures, leading to huge traffic jams and blocked pavements.

Toddler infiltrates White House

T-rex ‘skeleton’ sold for $6m

A Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton has sold for US$6.1m in a rare auction in Switzerland. The skeleton, made up of the bones of three different T-Rexes, is thought to be 65m to 67m years old. Named ‘Trinity’, it had been expected to fetch a higher price after it was put up for sale by an anonymous US individual. However, the sale had critics. Vertebrate palaeontologist Thomas Holtz told The Guardian that Trinity “really isn’t a ‘specimen’ so much as it is an art installation”.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.