Indeed, a scroll through articles about the incident listed on Google News shows that major media outlets the world over caught wind of the story via The Local.

Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The New York Times, National Public Radio, ABC News, The Huffington Post, MSNBC all quote The Local in their reporting about the incident.

Of course, this comes as no surprise to those of us at The Local or our regular readers who are accustomed to reading stories about Sweden on The Local a day or two before they hit the international press.

Click here for at a look at a gallery of a five other stories that made headlines around the world after first appearing as a headline on The Local.

We’re proud to announce that we’ve reached the milestone of 20,000 “likes” on Facebook.

This news came after 60 new followers jumped to the cause after we announced we were nearly there on Wednesday.

60 new followers in two days… suppose that means 50, 000 is just around the corner.

If you’re one of the 20K, thanks for your support!

If not (yet), please click “like” here to keep up to date with Sweden’s news in English (and Germany, Switzerland, Norway and France’s news too!)

And have a nice weekend.

In fact, as this is being typed, the figure stands at 19,952.

Will you be the lucky person who takes us over the hump??

If you’re not already a fan, click here, “like” the page, and enjoy the highlights of the news (from all our five European sites).

What are you waiting for?

You’ll kick yourself when you hear it…

It was…

Gobsmacked

We did have one reader who correctly guessed it, however that was three weeks ago after we slipped a “gobsmacked” in as a red-herring.

So once again, The Local takes home the cake and the scoreboard now reads TL: 5 – Readers: 0

In case you missed them, the articles containing the word in question were:

• Stockholm iPad ‘magic’ a surprise YouTube hit
• 87-year-old woman discovers she is ‘dead’
• Pot growers plead not guilty for ‘organic’ weed
• Sweden mulls shaving products ban for minors

One of these was an April Fools’ story, too.

According to dictionary.com, gobsmacked is defined as an adjective meaning astounded or astonished, springing from British slang.

According to Tyda.se, gobsmacked can be translated into Swedish with the word “chockad”.

As for next week, keep an eagle eye out and you may become the first to guess The Local’s Word of The Week correctly. Simply email us or tweet to us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Perhaps we’ll make this one even easier for you…

Good luck!

Thanks to The Swedish Lad for that one! Stay tuned at The Local for more fun lists in the not too distant future.

Readers had to search extra hard as last week’s word didn’t appear as often as previous words of the week.

Ironically, this rather sparse showing for last week’s word is more or less in direct contrast with its meaning.

So what was the Word of the Week?

Bevy

According to Merriam Webster‘s online dictionary, bevy is defined as:

1) a large group or collection
2) a group of animals and especially quail

Equivalent Swedish words include “skock” and “flock”, according to Tyda.se.

As it turned out, however, there wasn’t really a bevy of articles featuring last week’s Word of the Week, which appeared in the following stories:

iPad-hungry Swedes make tablet sales double
Swan ‘chaos’ erupts after Swedish rocket attack

Keep an eye out this week for more out-of-the ordinary words which might qualify as the Word of the Week.

Let us know your guesses or your own suggestions by sending an email to news@thelocal.se or tweeting us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

It seems we caught you out with a few red herrings, such as kerfuffle, and bamboozle.

But, The Local did the final bamboozling, and we can now reveal that the word of the week for the 12th to the 19th March (known as week 11 in Sweden) was…

Oblivion.

Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a noun meaning

: the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten;especially : the condition of being oblivious

: the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown

Its Swedish equivalent according to tyda.se is glömska, meaning “The state of being disregarded or forgotten.

In case you don’t remember this popping up every day, or don’t believe us – here is the list of articles containing “oblivion”.

• District court ‘forgot’ child porn crime case
• Swedish woman’s hairy armpit hurrah goes viral
• Swedish comics set to storm Edinburgh Festival
• Volvo ‘in talks’ with NBA superstar Jeremy Lin
• Begrimed baguettes cause bakery battle

In terms of a Swedish word we quite like at The Local – why not try “att harkla” – a verb meaning “to clear your throat”. Sure, not an easy one to slip into a conversation, but no doubt likely to impress someone with your expertise.

Be sure to let us know if you think you’ve seen an unusual word popping up this week, email us or tweet to us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Will you be the first to guess it right, or will we be taking in the honour for the fourth week running.

1 Jonas Gardell, comedian/author.
2 Carl Bildt, politician.
3 Annika Lantz, journalist.
4 Timbuktu, musician.
5 Magnus Betnér, comedian.
6 Soran Ismail, comedian.
7 Niklas Svensson, journalist.
8 Maria Wetterstrand, politician.
9 Emanuel Karlsten, social media expert.
10 Jan Gradvall, journalist.
11 Fredrik Virtanen, journalist.
12 Hans Rosling, professor of international health.
13 Leif Pagrotsky, politician.
14 Isabella Löwengrip, blogger.
15 Lena Sundström, journalist

There were a handful of emails and tweet-guesses; however, no-one succeeded again this week, and now The Local has taken home the first two rounds.

The Word of the Week for March 2-March 9 (known as “Week 10″ in Sweden) was:

“Flabbergasted”

Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a transitive verb meaning “to overwhelm with shock, surprise, or wonder”

The word appeared in the following five stories last week:

• Gang of kids suspected of Uppsala burglary wave
• Sword-wielding Swedish teen attacks couple in car
• Ikea ‘not wrong’ to bar a 5-year-old from ball pit
• Gun-wielding threats no grounds for eviction
• Licence confirms Swede’s ‘star’ status

And for those working on their Swedish, here’s The Local’s Swedish word of the week, which obviously never made it into any articles, but has a special place in our hearts:

Att flanera

Which according to tyda.se means “to saunter, or stroll about”. Pepper your Swedish small talk with this one to impress your friends!

So – keep your eye out this week for a word that’s a little out of the ordinary, and seems to be popping up regularly… one’s already up there…

And feel free to let us know your guesses (or provide suggestions) via Twitter at @TheLocalSweden with a #tlwow hashtag or drop an email to news@thelocal.se — Will YOU be the first ever correct guesser?

Happy reading!