strange stuff

From strange crimes to strange celebrity deaths, read all of the latest weird and strange stuff news stories on Newser.com

Stories 2861 - 2880 | << Prev   Next >>

House Stenographer Dragged Out After Outburst

She grabs the mic, starts talking about God and Freemasons

(Newser) - Picture all the people present in the House chamber last night, and select the one most likely to lose it. Didn't pick "the House stenographer"? Yeah, neither did we, but that is apparently what happened during last night's debt ceiling/shutdown vote . Politico reports that a woman...

Man Behind Creepy British Clown Revealed

Newspaper ruins 22-year-old college student's fun

(Newser) - The mysterious clown that has been making a name for himself in the British town of Northampton has finally been unmasked. The Mirror applied its investigative reporting powers to ruining everyone's fun by revealing just who was behind the apparent homage to Pennywise from Stephen King's IT. And...

Arch-Enemy of Movie Ads: Popcorn
 Arch-Enemy 
 of Movie Ads: 
 Popcorn 
study says
Oct 14, 2013 5:05 AM CDT

Arch-Enemy of Movie Ads: Popcorn

Chewing it prevents us from mouthing brand names: study

(Newser) - Want armor against an onslaught of advertising? Just chew some popcorn, a study suggests. Eating the stuff during movie ads leaves viewers "immune" to the cravings those ads might otherwise inspire, researchers say. That's because, as the Guardian reports, we typically subtly mouth brand names each time we...

Judge Tells Man: You&#39;re Still Legally Dead
Judge to Man:
You're Still Legally Dead
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 13, 2013 10:13 AM CDT

Judge to Man: You're Still Legally Dead

Ohio man skipped town more than 20 years ago

(Newser) - Donald Miller remains legally dead, even though he showed up in court and tried to persuade a judge otherwise. As you can guess, there's a long story here: The Ohio man admits to leaving his hometown more than 20 years ago, a jobless alcoholic, and finding work in Atlanta...

Woman Hits Fawn, Then Fawn's Mom Hits Woman

Colorado woman seriously injured in bizarre series of events

(Newser) - A crazy chain reaction in Colorado this week left a woman seriously inured. Warning: Don't read on if Bambi makes you cry. It all started when the woman hit a fawn with her car on a highway, CBS 4 reports. She stopped to see if the fawn was OK,...

Vatican Misspells Jesus —on 6K Medals

FYI Vatican officials, it's Jesus, not Lesus

(Newser) - You'd think if anyone was going to misspell the name of God's son, it wouldn't be the Vatican. But some 6,000 gold, silver, and bronze medals to commemorate Pope Francis have been recalled after a misspelling in a Latin phrase turned Jesus into Lesus, der Spiegel ...

Rabbis Accused in Kidnap, Torture Plot to Gain Divorces

FBI says their business forced husbands to agree to Orthodox breakups

(Newser) - It sounds like the premise of a bad movie or a worse joke: A Jewish husband won't agree to a divorce, so a couple of tough rabbis make him an offer he can't refuse. FBI agents arrested two rabbis today and accused them of plotting to kidnap and...

Website Wants You to Drunk-Dial Congress

And it's willing to help

(Newser) - Today's shutdown-related media darling looks to be a new website called DrunkDialCongress.org . Its creators want you to vent some rage at a member of Congress over the shutdown, and if you're three sheets to the wind while doing so, all the better. It works like so: You...

Roadkill Permits? Montana's Getting an App for That

To find dinner, hit the road; or the gas when you see an animal in the road

(Newser) - Roadkill: It's what's for dinner in Montana—and now it's even legal, as a new law went into effect today allowing Montanans to harvest meat from animals who meet their untimely end on the road. As the AP reports, should you find yourself snacky on the roadside...

Driver Leads Police Chase... so He Can Finish Big Mac

Not surprisingly, alcohol was allegedly involved

(Newser) - Talk about a Mac Attack: An Ohio man allegedly driving at three times the legal alcohol limit led police on a chase so he could finish his Big Mac, the Smoking Gun reports. An officer tried to stop Randall Miller, 31, from pulling out of a McDonald's drive-thru in...

Clerk With Machete Chases Off Armed Robber

NY worker wouldn't back down despite warning shot

(Newser) - In a move police strongly recommend others don't try to emulate, a machete-wielding clerk chased a would-be armed robber out of a Long Island deli—even after the suspect fired a warning shot from his handgun. Surveillance video captured the clerk pulling out the machete after the masked man...

Love Vanilla? That&#39;s the Smell of Beaver Butt

 Love Vanilla? 
 That's the 
 Smell of 
 Beaver 
 Butt 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 6, 2013 7:00 PM CDT

Love Vanilla? That's the Smell of Beaver Butt

An anal secretion is used to flavor foods, perfumes

(Newser) - Like vanilla ice cream? Don't read this—because the smell of a beaver's butt is key to at least some vanilla flavoring, Time reports. More specifically, beavers like to mark their territory with a musky, vanilla compound located in sacs between the pelvis and the base of the...

Guy Crushed to Death by His Own Marijuana


 Guy Crushed to Death 
 by His Own Marijuana 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 6, 2013 10:44 AM CDT

Guy Crushed to Death by His Own Marijuana

Drug smuggler had half a ton in his backseat, crashed car

(Newser) - Very important lesson for drug traffickers: Do not store your half-ton of weed in the backseat of your car. A Brazilian drug smuggler did just that, police say, and the man was killed when he crashed into a tree while being chased by police ... because the 1,100 pounds of...

Boy, 2, Has His Own Twin Removed From Stomach
Boy, 2, Has His Own Twin Removed From Stomach
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 6, 2013 6:37 AM CDT

Boy, 2, Has His Own Twin Removed From Stomach

Parasitic fetus was 10 inches wide

(Newser) - When Xiao Feng was admitted to a hospital in China with an extremely swollen stomach, doctors made a pretty disturbing find: The 2-year-old boy was carrying his own twin inside his stomach. The undeveloped fetus acted as a parasite, growing until it took up two-thirds of Feng's stomach, Inquisitr...

Musical Score May Reveal Where Nazi Treasure Lies
Musical Score May Reveal Where Nazi Treasure Lies
in case you missed it
Oct 5, 2013 8:14 AM CDT

Musical Score May Reveal Where Nazi Treasure Lies

Two Dutchmen think it's in Mittenwald, southern Germany

(Newser) - It's quite the fanciful story: Nazis buried diamonds and 100 gold bars in a Bavarian town during World War II, in a spot whose location was encoded into an annotated piece of sheet music by Adolf Hitler's private secretary. That score, to Gottfried Federlein's "March Impromptu,...

Muslim: TGI Friday's Tricked Me Into Eating Bacon

Woman says server put bacon in her iced tea

(Newser) - Bacon-filled iced tea wasn't exactly on the menu when Nicole Queen sat down for lunch at TGI Friday's. But Queen, a converted Muslim, says the wait staff in Garland, Texas, gave her a refill containing bacon bits—a food her religion forbids her from eating, USA Today reports....

Norway's New Must-See TV Stunt: Live Knitting

Settle in for hours of riveting stitching

(Newser) - In its latest experiment with live coverage of mundane events, Norway's public broadcasting network plans to dedicate five hours of air-time to an attempt to break the knitting world record. The NRK network says the Nov. 1 broadcast will be preceded by a four-hour knitting documentary. "It's...

Boy Needs Surgery After Hitting Puberty at 18 Months

Good news is that it seems to have worked

(Newser) - It was your standard-issue case of a boy going through puberty—changes in voice, genitals, and demeanor, along with some acne—except for one crucial factor: He was just 18 months old. The bizarre case is from India, where doctors diagnosed the toddler with premature puberty, reports the International Business ...

Lake Turns Animals Into 'Statues'

Tanzania's Lake Natron, probably not a great swimming hole

(Newser) - We would strongly advise you not to go swimming in Tanzania's Lake Natron. Animals who are immersed in the water not only die, they're calcified and turned into creepy-looking "statues," New Scientist reports. Why is it so inhospitable? Alkalinity is extremely high (between pH 9 and...

Huge Nuclear Reactor Shut Down by Jellyfish

Swedish plant is back in business after massive clog

(Newser) - The Oskarshamn power plant in Sweden has one of the biggest nuclear reactors in the world, but it's apparently no match for tiny jellyfish. Tons of moon jellyfish clogged the reactor's intake pipes from the ocean over the weekend, forcing the plant to shut down, reports Popular Science...

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