Welcome to another entry in our column, The Week's Weirdest World News. The world, you might have noticed, is a very strange place — so every seven days, we'll be rounding up the most bizarre things that have happened across the globe, purely for your enjoyment.

From panda impostors in China to a card game company suing SpaceX, these stories are sure to inspire wonder — or, at the very least, befuddlement — at the weird ol' world around us.

Chinese zoo caught painting dogs to look like pandas

A zoo in China has admitted that its so-called pandas are actually dogs painted to look like the animals.

Shanwei Zoo in Guangdong Province recently received backlash from visitors who noticed that its "pandas" were panting and barking (frankly, we're surprised they hadn't spotted the scam sooner).

After the truth about the zoo's star attraction went viral, organizers came clean and admitted that two Chow Chows had been painted black and white to resemble pandas.

"That's the Temu version of a panda," wrote one person who saw a video of the dogs online.

LAPD officer's gun gets stuck to MRI machine during raid

^{[Image credit: Tomás Del Coro/Creative Commons]}

The Los Angeles Police Department has been sued by a medical imaging clinic after an officer's gun got stuck to an MRI machine during a cannabis raid.

In the lawsuit, the owners of North Hollywood's NoHo Diagnostic Center allege that their business was wrongly targeted by the LAPD during a raid in October 2023, Law360 reported.

Officers allegedly raided the center believing it was a front for an illegal cannabis grow site, but didn't find a single cannabis plant, the lawsuit said. The plaintiffs also described the officers' behavior as "nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures or even a hint of coordination."

The lawsuit said that one officer entered an MRI room with his gun "dangling... in his right hand, with an unsecured strap," despite a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside the room. The magnetic force of the MRI machine then allegedly sucked the officer's firearm across the room and left it stuck to the machine.

The weapon was eventually freed when another officer pressed an emergency release button, which deactivated the machine, "evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process".

NoHo Diagnostic Center's owners are demanding an unspecified amount in damages.

French dig team discovers archaeologist's 200-year-old message in bottle

@annelisethearchaeologist #greenscreen This is so cute. And yes, we archaeologists do often leave little notes or gifts for future archaeologists in trenches from time to time! #archaeologytiktok #archaeology #ancienthistory #history #france ♬ original sound - Annelise the Archaeologist

Students on an archaeological site in France have dug up a note from an archaeologist working on the same spot 200 years earlier.

The archaeologists were working on the remains of a Gaulish village in Dieppe on Monday when they came across a message in a bottle.

Team leader Guillaume Blondel unraveled the note, which read: "P.J Féret, a native of Dieppe, member of various intellectual societies, carried out excavations here in January 1825. He continues his investigations in this vast area known as the Cité de Limes or Caesar's Camp."

Municipal records confirm that Féret, who was local to the area, conducted a first dig at the site two centuries ago.

"It was an absolutely magic moment," Blondel said. "We knew there had been excavations here in the past, but to find this message from 200 years ago... it was a total surprise."

"It's very rare in archaeology. Most archaeologists prefer to think that there won't be anyone coming after them because they've done all the work!"

'Cards Against Humanity' sues Musk's SpaceX

The maker of "Cards Against Humanity" has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk's SpaceX, which it says trespassed on and damaged a plot of land the company owns in Texas.

The adult party game's company has accused SpaceX of having placed construction materials and other debris on its property in Cameron County without asking for permission.

Cards Against Humanity purchased the plot of land back in 2017, as part of a stunt to oppose former president Donald Trump's attempts to build a border wall between Mexico and the US.

According to the company, the land — which it says 150,000 people had each contributed $15 toward — featured a "no trespassing" sign that made it clear it was private property.

The company is seeking $15 million in damages.

Hungry for more weird news? Check out last week's roundup.

[Image credit: Daniel Oberhaus/Creative Commons]