Infozone Breaking World News

A flag carried by General Custer and the 7th Cavalry troops in the last stand Battle of Little Bighorn went under the hammer and fetched $2.2m (£1.4m) at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. The flag, which is the only one to survive the battle was valued at around $5m, but only managed less than half the price at the prestigious auction.

The sellers, Detroit Institute of Arts had aquired the flag in 1895 and originally bought it for just $54; Graham Beal the museums director said, “We’ll be using the proceeds to strengthen our collection of Native American art, which has a rather nice irony to it I think”.

The Battle of Little Bighorn saw General Custer and more than 200 of his soldiers defeated by Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors as they tried to reclaim the Black Hills as part of the government campaign.

A US Airways plane from Newark to Phoenix was forced to land in Pittsburgh after a passengers dog was let out of its carrier and bit two people.

It turns out that the dog’s 89 year old owner had let the Manchester terrier out of its cage and when the tranquilisers wore off it started biting the passengers. The pilot decided to land at Pittsburgh so that the injured parties could be treated and to ensure passenger safety.

The dog was locked back in its cage, but it is still unclear whether its owner will be prosecuted or fined for letting it out in the first place.

A chilli farmer from Cumbria has been added to the Guinness Book of World Records 2012 edition for growing the hottest chilli in the world. The chillies were tested at Warwick University and measured a staggering 1,359,000 on the Scoville scale (this scale measures the heat by testing how much capsaicin is in the chilli).

The farmer, Gerald Fowler has named his fiery chilli’s Naga Viper and sells them in a chilli sauce, he said; “When they grow chilli in India or the Caribbean they’re used to the heat and the drought. When they’re grown over here I think they fight back against the harsher climate and produce even more heat”.

Gerald, who runs the Chilli Pepper Company, says that the sauce is flying from the shelves, but he is getting more and more requests from other growers for the seeds.