Now for Some Really Important News

Here's a problem you don't run into every day:

German toad experts are baffled by an acute outbreak of exploding toad syndrome which has totalled hundreds of the amphibians since the beginning of the month. The former inhabitants of a Hamburg pond - now chillingly renamed the "pond of death" - spontaneously swelled to enormous proportions before going bang, in the process propelling their entrails for up to a metre.

Thank heavens, the government took swift action to protect the public:

The authorities have moved swiftly to protect the public from the exploding toad menace. The pond is now closed and a biologist is on station every night between 2 and 3am, when toad explosions reach a peak.

So you can watch for exploding toads and shooting stars at the same time! Fortunately, the baffled German experts finally figured out what was causing the phenomenon:

... crows have been fingered as the culprits. Apparently the crow pecks a small hole in the toad to get at the liver. The toad begins to inflate itself - its normal defence mechanism - but because there is no separation between lung cavity and abdomen, the poor blighter keeps on expanding until it goes pop.

I just hate when that happens. Well, that's all of the important news for today. Tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel...