A five-year-old girl who wrote to the Queen to ask if she could keep a swan as a pet for the weekend has received a reply from Buckingham Palace. Lyndsay Simpson promised Her Majesty that she would look after the bird at home, and told her she would keep it in the bath. She decided to write her letter after her mother Jennifer Bax, 35, told her that the Queen owned all the swans.

Pet owners in the US are turning to medical marijuana in growing numbers to treat their sickly pets for ailments ranging from arthritis to cancer. Dogs, cats, pigs, horses, lizards, and even turtles are among animals said to have benefited from the drug, which has become a multi-billion dollar industry since its legalization for human medical use in 29 American states.