strange stuff

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

Stories 3001 - 3020 | << Prev   Next >>

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...

Fencing Coach Foils Crime as Only a Fencing Coach Can

Tennessee man chases off robbers with sword

(Newser) - Two Nashville robbers had the misfortune to try to steal a purse in a shopping center parking lot just as Franco Scaramuzza pulled in. That's because Scaramuzza is a fencing coach who had just left practice and still had his equipment with him, reports WSMV . What results is explained...

Teenage 'LSD Party' Ends Really, Really Badly

How badly? Well, a blood-covered boy attacked paramedics, for one

(Newser) - There are destructive teen parties where kids punch holes in the walls ... and then there are ones like the one that was broken up in Mill Valley, California, on Sunday morning. It sounds, quite frankly, nuts: Paramedics showed up at the house around 7:30am in response to reports of...

Dye Trap Nabs Green-Faced Thief

London police testing invisible spray

(Newser) - A luckless thief in London was caught not red-handed, but green-faced after breaking into a police "decoy car" equipped with a dye trap, the BBC reports. The 28-year-old, who stole a laptop and other items from the car, was arrested when the system alerted police to the theft and...

Cops Seek Pair Who Parachuted Into Manhattan

Security guards reported seeing parachutists near Goldman Sachs HQ

(Newser) - New York City police are looking for two unidentified people who may have parachuted onto a lower Manhattan street. NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said private security guards reported seeing parachutists land in front of Goldman Sachs' headquarters at about 3am today. The building is near the World Trade Center site....

Teacher Finds Human Fetus in Classroom Cabinet
Teacher Finds Human Fetus in Classroom Cabinet
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Sep 29, 2013 7:01 PM CDT

Teacher Finds Human Fetus in Classroom Cabinet

May have been used as a teaching tool for years

(Newser) - A teacher at Florida's Cape Coral High School returned to his classroom at the beginning of the school year and was greeted with a not-so-pleasant surprise: Inside one of the cabinets was a mason jar wrapped in a paper bag ... and inside the jar was a human fetus, WFTX...

Giant Hornets Are Killing People in China
 Giant Hornets Are 
 Killing People in China 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Sep 29, 2013 10:22 AM CDT

Giant Hornets Are Killing People in China

28 dead, 18 in one city alone

(Newser) - As many as 28 people have died and hundreds more have been injured in a wave of giant hornet attacks in China, the Guardian reports. Eighteen of the fatalities occurred in the city of Ankang alone. The stings are believed to be the work of the Asian giant hornet or...

Shining Hotel Plans Creepy Cemetery Move

Get married at hotel that inspired book ... on top of former pet cemetery

(Newser) - It doesn't exactly sounds like every bride's dream: Get married at the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining ... atop a former pet cemetery. But that's exactly what Colorado's Stanley Hotel intends to make possible. The hotel doesn't seem to intentionally be going...

Man Grows New Nose ... on His Forehead

Not your average nose job

(Newser) - A 22-year-old man in China needed a new nose. So a surgeon has built him one ... on his forehead. The surgeon, Guo Zhihui from Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, constructed the second nose out of cartilage from the man's ribs, then put it under the skin on his forehead...

EPA Official Stole $900K by Not Showing Up for Work

Says he was on special assignment at 'Langley'

(Newser) - There's calling in sick with a little white lie, and then there's this guy: A former high-ranking official with the EPA pleaded guilty today to stealing nearly $900,000 from the agency over 13 years by failing to show up for work while falsely claiming to be working...

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