From Shakira’s boar brawl to Nicki Minaj’s testicle fiasco: the weirdest news stories of 2021

In another fraught year full of depressing news, animals, celebrities and headline writers kept things wonderfully absurd

In a year that began with the US Capitol attack, continued with the fall of Afghanistan and is ending with the rapid spread of Omicron, the global news cycle has at times felt overwhelming.

But while 2021 has been another fraught year, not all the news has been negative. Here are a few of the funniest and weirdest stories and headlines published this year.