Atlanta Assault on a toddler: An Idaho man was charged this week with federal assault for allegedly slapping a crying 2-year-old and calling him a racial slur on a flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta. Joe Rickey Hundley, 60, an executive with AGC Aerospace & Defense, was seated on the flight next to Jessica Bennett, 33, of Minnesota, and her adopted […]
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(1) The Albany, New York, company Vireo Health told reporters it would soon offer the world’s first certified Kosher marijuana, announcing that the Orthodox Union of New York had authenticated it as having met Jewish dietary laws (e.g., grown with insect-free plants). (Other Kosher-validating officials complained that the approval should apply only to marijuana that is eaten, not smoked.) […]
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■ A cat that ran for the U.S. Senate in Virginia received about 7,000 write-in votes in last week’s election, according to his owners. That means Hank, who hails from Springfield, Va., can claim third place behind Democratic victor Tim Kaine and Republican also-ran George Allen.The human candidates were separated by 180,000 votes, which means that Hank did not affect […]
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Prison officials in Tennessee say an inmate escaped from jail by smearing himself in grease and squeezing between the bars of his cell. Kristopher White, 23, is 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds, yet he managed to writhe his way between bars that were only four and a half inches apart. White then scaled a barbed-wire fence and led police on a […]
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The less sleep you get, the more likely you are to be overweight. Now, The New York Times reports, scientists have discovered one reason why: Sleep loss causes changes in the brain that make you crave high-calorie foods and weakens your willpower to resist them. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, scanned the brains of volunteers while they looked […]
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Scaphism was a method of torture that caused its victims to be eaten to death by bugs. It’s even more horriffic than it sounds. Scaphism, also called “the boats,” was an ancient Persian method of torture and, inevitably, execution. The victim would be placed in a boat, and then another boat would be placed on top. The victim’s feet, head […]
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A man snorkeling in the Colorado River near the Arizona and California border sent authorities on a hunt after he alerted them to what appeared to be “skeletal remains” at the bottom of the river. After he called police in Arizona, authorities launched a search for the remains on Monday, and divers from the Buckskin Fire Department swam down to […]
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Jackson, Miss. Belated ratification: Mississippi officially ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery—148 years late. The approval came after University of Mississippi medical professor Dr. Ranjan Batra watched the Oscar-nominated film Lincoln, and began looking into whether the state had ever endorsed the end of slavery. Batra discovered that by December 1865 the measure had been ratified by the three fourths […]
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It may not be big world news when an Elderly Swiss Couple Steals from church collection boxes for the mere fun of it, but it’s definitely news here! An elderly Swiss couple began robbing church collection boxes—because, they later told police, they needed some excitement. Prosecutors said the married couple, ages 70 and 73, had a scheme in which the […]
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Authorities in an east Indian state have made it mandatory for candidates contesting village elections to have a toilet in their home as part of a move to improve sanitation in the country, a senior official said. On Wednesday, the Bihar state assembly passed an act mandating that candidates must confirm that they have a toilet inside their home in […]
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