Starring: Kristen Bell, Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Ted Danson

The grand emancipation of America's popular performing orcas has been postponed, thanks to the not-so-startling conclusion of a district court judge in San Diego that, on balance, whales and humans are not the same thing.

A mass-stranding of whales on a New Zealand beach has left 36 of the creatures dead and threatens 40 more.

Police are investigating claims that a man tried to sell the bones and teeth of a whale found dead on a beach.

This year’s international Travel Photographer of the Year gong has been awarded to Louis Montrose from California for his images of a painted village in Burkino Faso and  the day of the dead festival in Mexico.

The redoubtable Joan Collins OBE complains on Twitter of "an extremely irresponsible headline in AOL quoting me falsely that I said 'fat people are orca sized oafs'... I NEVER said that, this why the press have a dishonest reputation". Collins does reportedly allude to "Orca-sized oafs from Planet Girth" in her new book, The World According to Joan, but I haven't read it, so perhaps she is merely referring to a small minority of fat people. Nevertheless, she told the Daily Mail: "I certainly don't admire [fat people]. They are digging their graves with their own teeth. I think to be terribly overweight is incredibly unhealthy. And how do they get into a tiny lavatory on a plane? I feel sorry for them, I do."

Hooked on this tale from the deep

Whale of a time with the monster bunch

Rescuers have returned 44 pilot whales to open water after a mass stranding in an estuary of a sea loch in the Scottish Highlands.

Three pilot whales have become stranded on the shore of a sea loch.

Japan and other pro-whaling nations walked out of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission yesterday to protest against a proposal for a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic.

British proposals to clean up the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which has been racked by allegations of corruption among its member countries, were accepted by the Commission at its meeting in Jersey last night.

Australia and Japan clash at International Whaling Commission meeting in the Channel Islands.