Archive By Section - News of the Weird

Snail mail: There’s an app for that

Wait ... What? A startup company in Austin, Texas, also serving San Francisco, promises to take its customers' incoming U.S. mail three times a week, photograph it and deliver it back to the customers via mobile phone app, for $4.99 a month. The company, Outbox, provides some value-added services, removing the customer from junk-mail lists and paying bills. Still, Outbox's unorthodox business model assumes that a growing number of people absolutely hate opening, filing or ...

News of the Weird

Caught on Video: Christ's Return "Coming Up Next! The Resurrection! Live!": "If the Messiah descends from the Mount of Olives as foretold in the Bible," wrote the Los Angeles Times in an October dispatch from Jerusalem, the two largest Christian television networks in the U.S. promise to cover the arrival live from a hilltop in the city. Daystar Television has already been beaming a 24/7 webcam view, and Trinity Broadcasting Network bought the building next ...

News of the weird

Horse show jumping is a longtime Olympics sport, but for the last 10 years, equestrians have been performing in "horseless" show jumping, in which horse courses are run by "riders" on foot (who, by the way, do not straddle broomsticks). According to an October report in The Wall Street Journal, an international association headed by retired pro equestrian Jessica Newman produces at least 15 shows a year, with between 40 to 130 competitors galloping over ...

Oh, you darned kids

Michael Monsour, the former CEO of Monsour Medical Center in Jeannette, Pa., was charged with assaulting his brother, Dr. William Monsour, in their father's home.

There’s justice for you

Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme cost 16,500 investors a total of as much as $18 billion, according to the court-appointed trustee, but at least Madoff is not on death row.

They are better than one

Twice during 2011, babies with two heads were born in Brazil. Though the first, in Paraiba state, died hours after birth, the 9.9-pound "Emanoel" and "Jesus," born in Para state in December, are apparently otherwise healthy. The baby has two heads and two spines but shares one heart, liver, pelvis and pair of lungs. He's a shame to all collies The Dogs Trust in Kenilworth, England, was soliciting potential homes for "Bentley," a Border Collie ...

It’s so hard to please most dogs

Veterinary technician and food blogger Lauren Hicks recently inaugurated service on what is surely one of the few food trucks in the country catering exclusively to dogs.

Bridging past to the future

Traditional bridge replacement on as prominent a highway as Interstate 15 in Mesquite, Nev., has generally required rerouting traffic for as long as a year, but the new "accelerated" technology necessitated detours for less than a week.

You get what you pay for

There was no "individual mandate." To meet its municipal budget, the town of South Fulton, Tenn., assessed each residence $75 a year for firefighting service, but in the name of "liberty" gave people the chance to opt out of coverage. Vicky Bell chose not to pay, and when her home caught fire, firefighters rushed to the scene - but only to be on hand in case the fire spread to her neighbors, who had paid ...

Post traumatic garbage you mean

Former 11-year-veteran police officer Louise McGarva, 35, filed a lawsuit recently, asking the equivalent of about $760,000, against the Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh, Scotland, for causing her post-traumatic stress disorder.

But you made a promise

Jesse Dimmick filed a lawsuit in Topeka, against Jared and Lindsay Rowley - whom he has been convicted of kidnapping in a notorious 2009 episode that resulted in his being shot by police.

Hit man wasn’t a hit

Sheriff's deputies arrested novelist Nancy Mancuso Gelber, 53, in Bryan, Texas, after she had allegedly arranged a hit on her husband.

This gets to the bottom

You didn’t see that, did you?

Luckily he’d gotten shot