Police and Zookeepers Chase Papier Mâché Rhino

The Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, Japan, holds annual escaped animal drills for zookeepers and emergency responders. However, there is no way to hold these drills using rare and possibly dangerous zoo animals. This week, the drill was held to train workers in how to deal with a rhinoceros on the loose, using a rhino made of papier mâché with two men underneath to provide the action. The rhino even attacked a zookeeper and had to be pushed away with sticks. Zoo visitors enjoyed the spectacle, which was recorded on video.

Man Adopts Girlfriend, Other Children Sue

John Goodman of Palm Beach, Florida, is facing a wrongful death lawsuit that could ruin him financially. As his assets are facing possible seizure, he legally adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend, Heather Ann Hutchins. She therefore is entitled to a share of a $300 million trust fund set aside for Goodman’s children. The trust would be untouchable if Goodman loses the lawsuit. The millionaire did not tell the judge in the adoption case about the lawsuit, nor did he tell his ex-wife or two biological children about the adoption. The two teenagers were surprised to hear the news, and are now suing their father to have the adoption of Hutchins set aside.

Police Officer Chased Himself

In a story that was shared with a monthly police magazine, a police officer in Sussex, England, ended up chasing himself around for twenty minutes. A CCTV (closed circuit TV) operator saw a suspicious man on the streets, and called a plainclothes officer for help. The operator gave directions to the areas where the suspicious man was caught on camera, and the officer always seemed to be close, but could not see any evidence of the man. That is, until they realized that the “suspicious character” was actually the plainclothes officer! The date of the misadventure has been lost in the retelling, as all police officers involved were too busy laughing.

Bomb Squad Finds Schrodinger’s Cat Alive

A mysterious box appeared in a parking lot at Erie Community College campus in Amherst, New York, last Friday afternoon. The state police bomb squad responded and took an x-ray of the sealed box, which showed a cat inside! Police turned the cat over to the local SPCA. Gina Browning of the Tonawanda SPCA says the cat is okay.

“The cat was not malnourished, not dehydrated, didn’t need any kind of veterinary care. So, it had a happy ending. What concerns me is the people capable of doing this might be capable of doing something worse,” Browning said.

Just who would put a cat in a taped up box and leave it in a parking lot remains a mystery at this point.

Capt. Camilleri said, “Right now it doesn’t appear there’s really much to follow up on. It didn’t have any identification on the box or anything like that.”

The upside to this is that the cat, named “Truffle,” is fine, healthy and back with her owner. Tracking down the person responsible is unlikely, if not impossible.

If found, the persons responsible could be charged with animal cruelty. Even Schrodinger never wanted to try his famous thought experiment on a real cat.

Toddler in Vending Machine Hands Out Toys

Three-year-old Noah Jeffrey wanted a toy so badly that he climbed into a claw machine at a restaurant in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. You’ve read stories of children in vending machines before, but Noah took the adventure to a new level when he started handing toys out to other children who gathered around the machine! Then his mother saw him. She tried to get Noah to climb back out, but he didn’t want to. She finally told him he would have to come down the chute to get a toy, and she helped him get past a barrier on the way. Noah managed to get out of the machine before the fire brigade arrived to rescue him.

Pennsylvania’s Purple Squirrel

Percy and Connie Emert of Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, trap squirrels in their yard to protect their bird feeders from raids. They normally release the squirrels elsewhere, but one squirrel stood out from the rest. Connie Emert saw a purple squirrel several times, but her husband did not believe her. Then it was caught in their squirrel trap Sunday and photographed. They relocated the purple squirrel on Tuesday, but those who saw the pictures are trying to figure out where the color came from. One theory is that it fell into a portable toilet and was covered in chemicals. Another is that it ingested too much bromide from molluscs or some other source. Or it could have been dyed. (Thanks, Brendan!)

Don’t Bring a Crack Pipe to Drug Court

Stanley Ramos was arrested in Manatee County, Florida, on New Year’s Eve for possession of a crack pipe, which a sheriff’s deputy said was in plain view in Ramos’ backpack. Ramos had a hearing Tuesday in connection with the case at the Manatee County Courthouse. As he was passing through the building’s security checkpoint, he was found to be in possession of another crack pipe. Ramos completed his court appearance and was then arrested on a second charge of possessing drug paraphernalia.

Police Chase Ends as Car Lands on Sleeping Man

Police in Hamden, Connecticut, tried to pull over an SUV for outstanding violations after midnight Tuesday, but were instead led on a five-mile chase. The driver sped through a college campus and into the town of New Haven. Police laid “stop sticks,” but the driver avoided them. The car finally stopped when it slammed into a house, landing on top of 34-year-old Michael Sweat, who was asleep in his bed. The suspect fled the scene. Paramedics responded and an engineering team arrived to prop up the house while Sweat was extracted from under the car, which took about an hour. Sweat was taken to the hospital suffering from burns, but his injuries are not life-threatening.

64-year-old Lard Deemed Fit to Eat

Hans Feldmeier received a can of lard from supplies distributed to Germans by the United States after World War II. He stashed it away and never opened the can. Feldmeier, who lives in Warnemünde, Germany, near the Baltic Sea, recently found the can and took it to authorities to see if it was still edible. The State Office for Agricultural, Fisheries and Food Security declared it fit for human consumption, although it had lost some consistency and taste. Feldmeier was delighted to hear of the unusually successful preservation, but when he requested his can back from the agency, they gave it back to him empty.

Holy Mackerel!

(more…)

Bank Robber Shoots Himself in the Foot

Three armed men entered a bank in Parana, Brazil, and took 30,000 Brazilian reals ($16,000). Security cameras recorded three of the robbers, but police believe six were involved. The surveillance video clearly shows one of the men accidentally shooting himself in the foot. He limped away with the others, but was arrested at a hospital the next day.

Cat in Cockpit Delays Flight

Air Canada Flight 603 to Toronto was scheduled to leave Halifax International Airport on Wednesday morning, but a cockpit intruder caused a delay. A cat traveling with a passenger escaped from its cage while the plane was loading. The cat, named Ripples, hid in the cockpit and became stuck in the avionics systems. A maintenance crew was called out to disassemble part of the flight deck to extract the cat. Ripples was returned to the cage, and the flight took off four hours and twenty minutes late.

Nail Removed from Man’s Head

(more…)

New Species is Really Faux Hawk

A farmer in New Zealand is in trouble for painting hawks. Grant Michael Teahan was found guilty of animal cruelty after a YouTube video showed him capturing a bird in a paint-laden trap. Teahan had apparently been coloring hawks pinkish-red since at least 2009 as a prank. The prank worked, as bird watchers thought they had discovered a new species. Their excitement was crushed when one of the birds was later found dead, hit by a car, and an examination found that it was a common hawk that had been painted. Teahan faces a stiff fine and possible incarceration.

Attachment About Attachments

The Islington Council made a sign warning people not to attach anything to park furniture or trees -and then attached it to a tree at Highbury Fields in north London, England. A neighboring architect, who was annoyed at the many signs posted recently, went to remove the sign and was surprised to see who had posted it on the tree. Soon, others gathered around to laugh at the nonsensical notice. The council soon relocated the notice to a nearby message board. They blamed the mistake on a junior member with good intentions.

Burglars Leave Photographic Evidence

A Frenchman and an Irishman went into a bar in New Zealand, but they weren’t supposed to. And they might have gotten away with the crime if they hadn’t left their camera with shots of their escapade in it. David Farrell and Nicholas Moinet, traveling vineyard workers, broke into a boat docked on the Opawa River in Blenheim along with some other men and helped themselves to alcohol on December 9th. They took photographs of each other on the boat before they left. However, they neglected to take the camera with them, and investigators found it simple to locate the perpetrators from the images. The two men were ordered to pay a $300 fine to the court and to pay $240 in reparations to the boat’s owner.

Drunk Driver Now Suing Victim’s Family

(more…)

Drunk Driver Speeds in Wrong Direction

Victims of near-misses say it was a miracle that no one was hurt when a woman drove 18 miles north in the southbound lane of Washington State’s I-5 expressway. Pamela Drawsby of Olympia, Washington, was arrested after police set a spike strip to stop her vehicle. She was observed driving up to 100 miles per hour at 2AM -against all oncoming traffic. Amazingly, there were no collisions as other drivers swerved to avoid the northbound vehicle. The 60-year-old Drawsby was found to be intoxicated on a combination of alcohol and prescription medication.

Sweden’s Silliest Place Names

We’ve read about strange and sometimes embarrassing place names in Britain and the U.S., but English-speaking tourists often don’t know when a place name in another language is, shall we say, unusual. Thanks to the English-language site The Local, we have translations for the strangest-named places in Sweden.

People outside Uppsala, for example, can take a stroll in the terrain of Djupröven (Deep Arse), and outside Gothenburg one can enjoy a swim in any of the Yellow, Small or Big Arse lakes (Gula Röven, Lilla Röven, Stora Röven).

A somewhat cuter name but still perhaps not the first pick to put on your resumé, is Kattsjärten in Värmland. The Local’s translation for this (hopefully) unusual name is Cat’s Bottom.

But that’s just the beginning. Check out Sex Swamp, Snot Bog, and more.

Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop Arrested

(more…)

Pepsi’s Scary Defense

Ronald Ball of Illinois filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo in 2009, claiming he found a mouse in a can of Mountain Dew after taking a drink. Ball claims that he sent the mouse to the soft drink company and that they destroyed it. In their defense, Pepsi says that a mouse carcass would not exist in that form after being sealed in a can of Mountain Dew. An expert claims that the acid in the drink would cause a mouse to transform into a ‘jelly-like’ substance. One has to wonder if a defense against the lawsuit is worth planting that picture in customers’ minds.

…But the Cat Came Back

Plucky Andrea the stray cat used up a couple of her nine lives, but would not succumb to the animal shelter’s two attempts to euthanize her. The cat was picked up and taken to West Valley City’s animal shelter in Utah. When she was not adopted within a month, the shelter sent her to a gas chamber, but she survived. A second gassing left her appearing to be dead, so the staff put her body in a plastic bag in a cooler. Later, she was discovered to have vomited and was checked for signs of life. When Andrea woke up, they decided not to try again. The cat was transferred to the Community Animal Welfare Society. Andrea has since been adopted, and is settling well into her new home.

Car Lands on Roof

(more…)

Girl Lost in Tsunami Found 7 Years Later

When a tsunami swept over Indonesia on December 26, 2004, one of the victims was an 8-year-old girl named Wati. She was swept away in the waters and although her body was never found, her family eventually faced the fact that she had died. However, the now-15-year-old turned up in her hometown of Ujong Baroh in West Aceh! She told workers in a cafe that she was looking for her family, but couldn’t remember their names, except that her grandfather was named Ibrahim. Wati was reunited with her grandfather and her overjoyed parents, who confirmed the girl’s identity by a scar she received when she was six. It is believed that Wati spent the past seven years wandering Indonesia trying to find her way home.

Man Wins, Crashes Lamborghini

David Dopp of Santaquin, Utah entered a contest and won a 640-horsepower Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster valued at $380,000 last month. He picked the car up on Saturday, and took a few spins to show it off to family and friends. Dopp said he was only going 40 or 50 miles an hour when he hit ice or gravel on a curve and lost control of the car. It crashed through fence posts and into a field. The car sustained front-end damage, scratches, and a punctured wheel. No one was injured. The good news? The Lamborghini is insured.

Corn Stolen from Moving Train

(more…)

Man Caught Shoplifting During Shop with a Cop

Around 50 police officers in full uniform were at a Walmart store in Waldorf, Maryland Saturday for a charity event in which they helped children select Christmas gifts. Timothy Randall Clark decided it would be a good time to pick up some video games. Store employees saw Clark cutting open video games and stuffing them into his shirt. It was easy for the store to contact police, who were right there. Clark was arrested on charges of attempting to steal 26 games, two controllers, and other game accessories that they found on him, worth a total of $635.

Dog Poop Lottery

The citizens of Taiwan will clean up the streets, given the right incentive. A recent lottery offered $2,000 in gold as the top prize. The catch? To get a ticket, you bring in a bag of dog poop collected from the street. Over 4,000 residents of New Taipei City signed up for the program, and have brought in 14,000 bags of excrement to trade for tickets since the launch of the program in August.

Mythbusters Wrecks Neighborhood

(more…)

Dog Shoots Man

A man in Brigham City, Utah was shot by his own dog during a duck hunt. The unnamed man and a friend were hunting Sunday using a boat. The man laid his 12-gauge shotgun across the bow while getting out. That’s when the dog jumped up on the bow and stepped on the gun. The gun fired and sent 27 pellets of buckshot into the hunter’s buttocks. The injuries were not life-threatening because the man was about ten feet away from the gun and wearing waders. He is expected to fully recover, except for the embarrassment.

Pepper-spraying Shopper Released

Remember the woman who pepper-sprayed Walmart shoppers on Black Friday? She turned herself in to authorities on Saturday. Los Angeles police interviewed witnesses and watched security camera footage of the incident and decided to let the unnamed 32-year-old woman go. Although it was first reported that she sprayed other shoppers in order to get to a discounted Xbox, video evidence suggests that she may have sprayed in defense, in fear of being crushed by the crowd. No charges have been filed in the incident.

Sheriff Held in Jail Named After Him

Former Arapahoe County (Colorado) Sheriff Patrick Sullivan was named the national “Sheriff of the Year” in 2001. He retired in 2002. Tuesday, Sullivan was arrested on charges of trading methamphetamine for sex. The investigation started on November 17th. The 68-year-old Sullivan was lodged in the Patrick J. Sullivan, Jr. Detention Facility, which was named in his honor. A hearing is set for December 5th.

Gigantic Baby Born in Berlin

A 13-pound (6 kg) baby boy set a new record for the largest baby born by natural delivery in Germany. The unidentified 528-pound mother had gestational diabetes, but opted for a vaginal delivery at Berlin’s Charité hospital instead of a caesarian section. The woman claimed she did not know of her diabetes. She had previously delivered nine baby boys and four baby girls, four of which were born at over eleven pounds. The woman named her 14th child Jihad.

Trail of Pine Needles Led to Christmas Tree Thieves

Three men were arrested for theft from the Notcutt Garden Centre in Pembury, Kent, England. They broke two CCTV cameras, but did not see others that caught their movements. Police cars cut off the garden center’s exits, then moved in to catch one thief making an escape and two hiding among the shrubs. A trail of pine needles let to a van, where the men had stashed 138 cut trees and 48 boxes of Christmas lights, worth about £7,000. The three Grinches who tried to steal Christmas later pleaded guilty to theft charges.

Man Sues Couple He Kidnapped

In 2009, Jesse Dimmick entered the home of Jared and Lindsay Rowley in Topeka, Kansas, and held them at knifepoint for a couple of hours. The three watched the movie Patch Adams and had snacks. When Dimmick fell asleep, the couple escaped and police, who had been in pursuit of Dimmick over a murder and a car theft, arrested him. Dimmick was shot during the arrest.

Various lawsuits followed. Dimmick sued the city of Topeka over the shooting, and (possibly because of the prospect that he might get money from that suit) the Rowleys sued Dimmick last September for trespass, intrusion and negligent infliction of emotional distress. That seems to have given Dimmick the idea to sue the Rowleys, and he brought a counterclaim against them for breach of contract.

You see, Dimmick alleges that, after breaking into the Rowleys’ home with a knife and gun, they all then sat down and hashed out a deal under which they would hide him from police (the police who were right outside) for an unspecified amount of money. “Later,” he complained, “the Rowleys reneged on said oral contract, resulting in my being shot in the back by authorities.” Ergo, breach of contract.

An attorney for the Rowleys says, of course, that any contract with Dimmick is not valid.

1,068 Meter Yule Log Cake

It’s a new world record for a Christmas yule log cake, measuring in at 3,503.94 feet. The cake was a team effort, requiring the talents of 80 chefs from the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai, China. The cake contains 904 eggs, 2,304 pounds of flour, 461 pounds of sugar, 884 pounds of chocolate, and 75 pounds of vanilla. The previous record for a yule log cake was set just last year at 681 feet. The original plan in Shanghai was to make a 2,913-foot cake, but the extra length may help ensure that this record stands for some time.

12-hour Cat Rescue Attempt Fails

A pregnant cat named Puss Puss had been missing for three days in the village of Moelfre in North Wales. She had escaped while being transported to a foster home by an animal charity worker. Then someone heard a meowing sound coming from a donation bin for used clothing! But the lock on the bin had been damaged, and it wouldn’t open. The fire brigade was called, and they, too, failed to open the bin. Finally, the entire bin was loaded up and taken 20 miles to an engineering company. Engineers used steel saws to dismantle the bin, and the source of the meowing was found. The sounds came from a talking plush toy! The stuffed kitten resembled the character Marie from the Disney movie The Aristocats. Rescuers had a good laugh at the 12-hour effort to save the toy. Puss Puss is still missing, but may have been taken in by someone unaware of the search.

Wedding Goes On as Lodge Burns Down

Mike and Nancy Rogers were to be married in the main lodge at White Point Beach Resort in Nova Scotia last Saturday. However, that building was on fire, so they and their guests were evacuated and they held the ceremony in another resort building. Firefighters from ten different departments battled the blaze, but the 83-year-old wooden lodge was a total loss. No one was injured. But the newlyweds took the opportunity to pose for a wedding portrait in front of the conflagration. That’s one photo composition you don’t see at every wedding!

Battle Over World’s Largest Bra

Who made the world’s largest brassiere? One bra was recently commissioned by the British Varnish company, and is said to be a size 1222 B-cup. It was hung on a building in London to raise awareness of the fight against breast cancer. When the Guinness Book people proclaimed it the world’s largest, New York artist and prankster Joey Skaggs begged to differ. In 1969, he built a bra that was 120 feet long, which he hung on the U.S. Treasury building on Wall Street. His mission was to point out America’s fixation on breasts. There is no word yet from Guinness about the challenge.

Husband Searches Through Dump for Ring

(more…)