News of the weird

Happy birthday: A court in York, Pennsylvania, has sentenced a man to 23 months' probation for breaking into a car and stealing a $1,440 stereo system. As the crime was committed on 21 August, which is also the birthday of the judge who tried the case, Leroy Murray, 20, has also been ordered to send Judge Sheryl Dorney a birthday card this year and next, to remind him of the crime.

Never too old: Harvey Penson, 93, has celebrated his bar mitzvah in the Philadelphia Geriatric Center. He decided to study for it "because I love all this Jewish stuff".