strange stuff

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

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Authorities Have New Suspect in Family's Mysterious Deaths

Lightning strikes in Mariposa County's Hite Cove under consideration

(Newser) - Authorities still don't know what killed a family of three and their dog along a California hiking trail, though they're investigating a new possibility: lightning strikes. Law enforcement are "investigating possible lightning strikes" in the Hite Cove area of the Sierra National Forest, along the South Fork...

House Made of Shipping Containers Goes for Millions

The 6,000-square-foot Brooklyn home is actually pretty swanky

(Newser) - Housing prices have gone so crazy that a shipping container in Brooklyn is going for more than 5 million bucks. That's one take, anyway. Another take—it's a lot of shipping containers that make up a pretty cool house and, while hardly a steal, not tragically overpriced. After...

First His Wife and Son Were Killed, Now He's Been Shot

Prominent South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was shot in the head on a lonely road

(Newser) - The murder of a prominent South Carolina attorney's wife and son has gone nearly twelve weeks without any arrests but there's new startling twist: the attorney himself was shot in the head Saturday after experiencing car trouble on the side of the road. Per the New York Times...

Probe Ordered Into Mysterious Bishop Sycamore Football Team
Mysterious Football Team
Now Under Investigation
in case you missed it

Mysterious Football Team Now Under Investigation

Ohio governor calls for probe into online high school that played on national television

(Newser) - The mysterious football team whose blowout loss to Florida's IMG Academy was broadcast on ESPN is now the subject of an investigation. Bishop Sycamore is supposedly an online high school based in Columbus, Ohio, but it's not clear how it ended up on national television playing one of...

Judge Sentences Extremist to Read Better Literature

A 21-year-old in England was sentenced to start with Pride and Prejudice

(Newser) - It’s probably not the first time someone told Ben John to read a book already. John, 21, was recently sentenced to read something more enriching than white supremacist literature or a recipe for making a bomb, Vice reports. He was found guilty of possession of information useful for preparing...

Chicago Newlyweds Create $240 Invoice for No-Show Guests

Though they didn't actually send it

(Newser) - Anyone who's thrown a wedding, paying for all the guests in advance, only to have some of them fail to show up has probably been severely tempted to bill the no-shows—and one Chicago couple actually went so far as to create an invoice to do just that. Dedra...

This Time, Source of Dropped Calls Traced to a Local Home

Police in Morgan Hills, California, seize 2 signal jammers from residence

(Newser) - You might think that people calling 911 to complain about disrupted WiFi and cell service would be filed away as nuisance calls. But as it turns out, authorities in Morgan Hill, California, had been having the same problem themselves for months—including with emergency communications. As a result, investigators took...

Parents Tossed Son's $30K of Porn, Now They Must Pay

Judge ruled it wasn't their porn to destroy

(Newser) - A judge has ordered a western Michigan couple to pay $30,441 to their son for getting rid of his pornography collection, per the AP . US District Judge Paul Maloney's decision this week came eight months after David Werking, 43, won a lawsuit against his parents. He said they...

Floral-Scented Asphalt Is Now a Thing

Road builders have Poland's Budimex to thank

(Newser) - Construction workers know the stench of hot asphalt all too well, and it doesn’t smell like roses. Or does it? Polish construction firm Budimex says it's teamed up with refiner Lotos to create a floral-scented asphalt more pleasing to road builders. Added to the typical bitumen recipe are...

Man's Response at Contentious School Board Meeting: Strip

James Akers made his point on masks by showing how he didn't want to follow other everyday rules

(Newser) - School board meetings around the country have been going off the rails on COVID safety protocols, and now it's Texas' turn. The San Marcos Daily Record notes that even though Monday's gathering for the Dripping Springs Independent School District was meant to focus on such mundane agenda items...

Capone's Granddaughters Are Selling His Favorite Gun

They're worried that wildfires could destroy mobster's mementos

(Newser) - Would you want Al Capone’s favorite gun? Or the dapper gangster’s diamond and pearl stick pin? It’s not just a thought experiment—his granddaughters are selling off some family heirlooms. The items are pretty nice things, with dollar values inflated by the mobster cooties all over them....

Horse Bolts From Track, Hits Highway Instead

Bold and Bossy is recuperating after her Kentucky escape

(Newser) - A 2-year-old filly got loose before a race at a Kentucky track and ran onto a highway alongside cars before being corralled over the weekend, per the AP . The filly named Bold and Bossy got loose on her way to the starting gate at Ellis Park on Saturday, and jockey...

Woman in Tonga for Weekend Ends Up Trapped For 18 Months

She's not that upset about it

(Newser) - A British woman is telling her story of a weekend trip to the South Pacific that has now stretched on for some 18 months. It'll come as no surprise that COVID is to blame for what Zoe Stephens dubs "the longest weekend of my life," but the...

He Left Behind Two Widows and One Big Lawsuit
Widow Sues Funeral Home
Over Husband's Other Widow
in case you missed it

Widow Sues Funeral Home Over Husband's Other Widow

It's all explained in a strange federal lawsuit against a Baltimore funeral home

(Newser) - A Baltimore Sun report on a strange federal lawsuit begins with a doozy of a first sentence: "Demetra Street didn't know, as she sang at her husband Ivan's Baltimore funeral service in late January, that apparently he already had been buried days earlier and miles away,"...

The Publishing World Has Been Battling a Truly Bizarre Thief

Someone has been working to access manuscripts for years, but not for profit

(Newser) - Reeves Wiedeman has spent years trying to unravel a literary-world mystery, and his lengthy recap of his digging for New York Magazine is confounding at times. As is the mystery. In simplest terms, for the past four years someone has been using somewhat sophisticated measures to try to steal book...

Golf Ball Lands in Most Unusual Place During Tourney

Hideki Matsuyama's shot on the 10th hole during Northern Trust ended up in spectator's shirt

(Newser) - Some bizarre stuff has been happening on golf courses lately, and an incident Friday at the Northern Trust golf tournament at New Jersey's Liberty National Golf Course continued the streak. CBS Sports reports that Hideki Matsuyama was on the 10th hole during the tourney's second round when he...

Sea Snake Attacks Are Just Failed Attempts at Romance

Snakes aren't the only animals that 'court inappropriate objects'

(Newser) - Love is blind. That’s the best explanation researchers have for why sea snakes occasionally attack divers. Sometimes a fishing net will trap a venomous sea snake and the snake will try to bite its way out. But why would a snake, venomous or not, approach and tangle with someone...

Parents Went on Hike With Baby, Dog. They All Died on the Trail

Authorities in California haven't ruled out dangerous gases, toxic algae

(Newser) - A friend of a family of three found dead on a California hiking trail on Tuesday says the whole situation is just "freaky." Jonathan Gerrish and Ellen Chung had set out for an apparent day hike in Mariposa County with their 1-year-old daughter and dog on Sunday. A...

'Social Listening' Led to Pig's Blood Pizza

It was a big hit for Pizza Hut Taiwain

(Newser) - Pizza Hut in Taiwan harnessed the power of social media to create a truly unique pizza topped with preserved eggs and a snack cake made with pig's blood. The "Cilantro Century Egg Pig's Blood Cake Pizza" was invented after the company searched social media for the most...

Spend Eternity In a Very Hot Place Beside Marilyn, Hef
Go to a 
Hot Place
After You Die

Go to a Hot Place After You Die

There's a vault available in the same crypt as Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe

(Newser) - In an ultimate act of being kind of creepy, Hugh Hefner bought a burial spot next to Marilyn Monroe back in 1992. When he died in 2017, he went to a hot place—hot as in real estate market hot. And now anyone with $2 million to burn can go...

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