In 1995, an Egyptian farmer descended a 60-foot well to rescue a chicken. He drowned in the attempt. The farmers' sister and two brothers went in one-by-one to retrieve their brother, but they also drowned. Two elder farmers also came to help, but they suffered the same fate. All six bodies were eventually pulled out, along with the chicken. The chicken survived. - San Diego Union, 4/29/08
A German man lived after he fell down an elevator shaft because he landed on a woman who had fallen down the shaft a day earlier. Both survived their ordeals. - The Week Magazine, 5/2/08
18-year-old Alia Sabur of Long Island, NY is the world's youngest college professor. She read full novels at age 2, and entered college at age 10. - The Week Magazine, 5/2/08
The original creators of Superman, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, sold their rights to the character in 1938 for $130. - New York Times, 3/29/08
Oceanside, California teacher John Corcoran admitted that he taught high school for 17 years without being able to read or write. - 10 News (San Diego), 2/14/08
A Florida woman, Tina Williams, was pulled over by police for running a red light. In the front seat was a 24 pack of beer, strapped in with a seat belt. Also in the car was a 16-month-old girl, unrestrained in the back seat. - ABC News, 2/6/08
Dean Tong, an "expert" in domestic violence who has appeared on television shows like Dr. Phil and Nancy Grace, was arrested for domestic violence himself in January 2008. This was Tong's second arrest for domestic violence. - FoxNews.com, 2/1/08
A man stabbed his barber because he didn't like his haircut. - San Diego Union, 1-3-08
Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno gave a speech denouncing capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a Louis Vuitton tie. - Reuters, 12/14/07
A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after drinking a full liter of vodka at an airport security checkpoint, instead of handing it over to comply with the new rules for carry-ons. - MSNBC, 12/12/07
Rhode Island residents Cassandra Ormiston and Margaret Chambers married each other in Massachusetts three years ago since their home state bans gay marriage. They filed for divorce last year, but the petition was denied as Rhode Island does not allow gay divorce. They are trapped in marriage unless they establish residency in Massachusetts. - The Week Magazine, 12/21/07
A North Carolina woman gave birth in November 2007 to twins. The first child arrived at 1:32 am, the second at 1:06 am, after daylight savings time had ended. - San Diego Union, 12/11/07
Frenchman Alexis Lemaire, 27, correctly calculated the 13th root of a 200 digit number in his head in only 70.2 seconds. The correct answer was 2,407,899,893,032,210. - The Week Magazine, 12/21/07
A dentist was dancing to a song on the radio ("Car Wash"), when the drill snapped off and lodged near the patient's eye. Brandy Fanning, 31, had to undergo emergency surgery to remove the drill bit. - Chicago Tribune, 11/4/07
Joe Martins of Cobb County, Georgia got a letter from Wachovia Bank saying that he owed $211 trillion dollars due to a bounced check. - WSB-TV (Atlanta), 11/30/07
Arno Herwerth, a retired NYC police officer, has been asked to return his vanity license plates because they are "derogatory to a particular ethnic group". His vanity plate said "Get Osama". - FOX News, 11/20/07
A Washington man tried to loosen a stubborn lug nut by shooting it with a 12-gauge shotgun. He succeeded in injuring himself severely in both legs. No word if the lug nut loosened. - MSNBC, 11/12/07
Rolande Geneve planted an oak tree in her garden when she was six years old. Sixty years later, the oak tree toppled over, killing her. - San Diego Union, 11/20/07
14 year old Christopher Molly supposedly hit three holes-in-one on a regulation golf course in Naples, Florida. The odds against this happening are trillions-to-one. Molly rarely breaks 100 for 18 holes. There are no witnesses other than Molly and his father. - Naples (Florida) News, 10/26/07
Another Florida golfer, Bill Hilsheimer, racked up three holes-in-one (on three different courses) in a six month period in 2003-2004. Hilsheimer only has one arm. - CBS News, 3-4-04
Harold Stilson got his sixth hole-in-one at Deerfield Country Club in Florida in 2001. He was 101 years old at the time. - ESPN.com, 5-17-01
James Harris, an Iowa man was shot by his own dog during a hunting trip. Harris put his shotgun on the ground as he went to retrieve a downed pheasant. The dog apparently stepped on the gun's trigger, successfully shooting Harris in the leg at close range. There have been no citations issued. - FOX Sports, 10/31/07
A New York man was arrested in Times Square for not doing anything. Matthew Jones was "standing around" talking to friends when a police officer charged him with "disorderly conduct" because "numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around him". - New York Times, 10/18/07
A California dentist is trying to keep his license by arguing that chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain TMJ cases. This dentist has been accused of fondling the breasts of 27 female patients. - FOX News, 10/15/07
A Pennsylvania woman is facing jail time for swearing at an overflowing toilet in her own home. Her neighbor is a police officer who took offense at the language and had her cited for disorderly conduct. - Times-Tribune (Scranton, PA), 10/16/07
Japanese designer Aya Tsukoika has demonstrated new clothing designs that will hopefully ease the fear of crime. One of her latest designs allows the wearer to elude persuers by disguising herself as a vending machine. - New York Times, 10/19/07
Richard Yates, a British postman, defied historic floods to deliver copies of the latest Harry Potter book to stranded fans in the village of Evesham. He is now being hailed as a national hero. - The Week Magazine, 8/3/07
Felicha Marin was caught trying to shoplift shoes by London police. She went on to "resist arrest", assaulting the police officers by squirting milk from her right breast at one of the officers. - Associated Content, 4/15/07
An Austrailian rugby player, Ben Czislowski, finally sought medical attention for a throbbing headache that had lasted four months. Doctors told him he has been living with an opponent's tooth buried in his forehead. - The Week Magazine, 7/27/07
A Nevada couple have been charged with child neglect after their two babies suffered health problems. It appears that the parents ignored the children as they were addicted to the Internet and video games. The younger child had to have her head shaved because her hair was matted with cat urine. At 11 months of age, she weighed just 10 pounds. - Wired Magazine, 7/14/07
Retired Formula One race car champion Nelson Piquet has had his driver's license revoked for repeated speeding offenses. - The Week Magazine, 8/10/07
Galileo sketched a design of the first ballpoint pen. - Discover Magazine, 7/05
Golfer Jacqueline Gagne has hit 10 holes-in-one in the first four months of 2007. The odds of this happening are estimated to be 1 out of 670,000,000,000,000,000,000. - San Diego Union, 5/19/07
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was recently badly injured in an auto accident in which his SUV was racing through traffic at 91 miles per hour. "I hope the state will forgive me, and I'll work very hard to set the right kind of example," Corzine said. Reporters then clocked the SUV taking him home from the hospital at 70 miles per hour, 15 mph over the posted speed limit. - The Week Magazine, 5/11/07
Olafur Grimsson, President of Iceland, was the first person to drive faster than the speed limit in a hydrogen powered car. - Time Magazine, 4/9/07
Abdulhamid II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s, censored all references to water in chemistry books because he was convinced that H2O stood for "Hamid the Second is nothing". - Discover Magazine, 6/07
A North Carolina man attempting to pick up his pants from a dry cleaner was arrested for not wearing any pants. - The Week Magazine, 5/4/07
Federated CEO Terry Lundgren was paid $16,000,000 in 2006. He also gets 40% discount on anything he buys from any of the Federated stores (including Macy's and Bloomingdale's). All other employees only get a 20% discount. - The Week Magazine, 5/11/07
James Calderwood, an Eagle Scout from Chevy Chase, Maryland, has earned every one of the 121 possible merit badges the Boy Scouts offer. He got the last one two days before his 18th birthday, the cutoff date for earning new badges. - NBC4 (Washington DC), 4/3/07
In 1994, Filipino fisherman Renato Arganza spent several days clinging to a buoy after his boat capsized. He reportedly survived by eating his underwear. - San Diego Union, 4/3/07
Raymond Snouffler Jr. of Minnesota won the $25,000 state lottery two days in a row, defying incalculable odds. - San Jose Mercury News, 2/16/07
Esther Medley bowled a 244 game recently. She is legally blind. She is 94 years old. - Time Magazine, 12/11/06
Kevin "Cannonball" Alderton of Dartford, England hasn't let his blindness stop him. He recently broke two skiing records. He set an outdoor blind downhill skiing record by going a blistering 105 mph; and a 56-mph run won him the indoor blind skiing record. - New York Post, 11/21/06
Alfredo Martinez was arrested in Reno, Nevada after his car was spotted weaving across the lanes of a local highway. Mr. Martinez was not driving. He had turned the wheel over to a designated driver, his seven year old son. MSNBC, 11/1/06
Saddam Hussein and fourteen of the 19 September 11 hijackers are still on the federal "No Fly" list. - CBS News, 10/8/06
A British man, serving a sentence for drunken driving, snipped off his electronic ankle tag and attached it to his dog's hind leg. The man then went drinking with his buddies. - The Week Magazine, 10/13/06
Buck O'Neil became the oldest man to ever play professional baseball when he was signed to a one-day contract in July 2006. O'Neil drew two intentional walks. He was 94 years old at the time. He died two months later. - Yahoo! News, 7/19/06
A woman in England had a stroke recently and woke up with a Jamacian accent. - The Independent, 7/4/06
A court in Greece has allowed a 52-year-old woman to be implanted with a fertilized egg from her 29-year-old daughter. In nine months she will give birth to her own grandchild. - Yahoo! News, 7/19/06
David Sharp, a 34-year-old engineer, actually reached the summit of Mt. Everest, but ran out of air climbing back down. As he lay dying, 40 climbers passed him on their own way to the top, too eager to take a chance on using up their own oxygen. - The Week Magazine, 6/30/06
A Ukranian man shouted "God will save me - if he exists!" before lowering himself into the lion enclosure in the Kiev zoo. A lion quickly seized him by the throat and killed him. - Washington Post, 6/5/06
Alexander Graham Bell, after inventing the telephone, insisted that it be answered, "Hoy Hoy!" Reportedly, it was Thomas Edison who popularized the response we are familiar with now, "Hello." - San Diego Union, 4/26/06
Lewis Alsamari, an Iraqi actor who stars in "United 93" (Paul Greengrass's new film about one of the planes hijacked on 9-11) has been refused entry into the US for the movie's premiere. - The Guardian, 4/24/06
Meg McCormick said she looked into her bathroom and saw sewage spraying from her toilet bowl. “It was like we’d struck a small oil well,” she said. The 55-minute long sewage eruption flooded the first floor and the crawl space, which got covered with four inches of sludge. - Kokomo Tribune, 4/22/06
Steve King rode a wave for one hour and 17 minutes, setting the world record for the world's longest surf ride. This was a ride of 7.6 miles. - The Week Magazine, 4/28/06
Gilbert Gottfried was recently named the "Unsexiest Man in the World". - MSNBC, 4/18/06
When Elliot Voge, a 14-year-old Indiana middle school student, realized he was carrying a small Swiss Army knife as he arrived at school, he did the responsible thing. He went directly to the principal's office and turned it in. Nevertheless, Principal Jimmy Meadows suspended the "model student" for 10 days, citing the school's zero tolerance policy. - USA Today, 4/4/06
A Montenegro man watched as the local river burst its banks from a recent deluge of rain. It filled his basement with water quickly. Mile Tutic impressed his neighbors by landing 8 trout that were swimming around in his basement. - Seattle Times, 4/6/06
Curtis Gokey, a Lodi (California) city employee, was driving a dump truck and hit a parked car. The employee admitted he caused the accident, but the owner of the car will not get damages for the accident. The parked car is owned by the same Curtis Gokey. - The Week Magazine, 3/31/06
A Norwegian man won $900 in prize money - both first and second prize in an ice fishing contest. None of the other 65 competitors caught anything at all. The winner's prize catches weighed .07 and .05 ounces. - Associated Press, 3/28/06
Arthur Winston recently retired from his job at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, after 75 years on the job. He retired on his 100th birthday. He only missed one day of work in those 75 years - in 1988 when his wife died. - MSNBC, 3/22/06
Arthur Winston died less than a month after he retired. - Boston Globe, 4/15/06
President George Bush's former top domestic policy adviser, Claude Allen, was charged with theft - over $5000 of items from several Target stores. - Washington Post, 3/14/06
Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer never allowed a grand slam home run in his 19 season major league career. - Sporting News, 3/17/06
The reigning Miss Deaf Texas died after being struck by a train. Tara Rose McAvoy, 18, was walking Monday near railroad tracks when she was struck by a Union Pacific train. A witness told Austin television station KTBC the train sounded its horn right up until the accident occurred. - CNN.com, 3/14/06
Former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, recently convicted for taking bribes, will still receive his annual $36,000 pension while in prison for the next eight years. - North County Times, 12/14/05
195 deceased people's ashes will be shot into space in rockets in the spring of 2006, including James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek. - Time Magazine, 3/6/06
Benito Middle School student Jasmine Roberts won the science fair with a project that compared the ice used in drinks with the water from toilet bowls in the fast-food restaurants. Seventy percent of the time, the ice had more bacteria than the toilet water. - MSNBC, 2/26/06
Brittany Schneiders, a 12 year old honor-roll student, has been charged with battery for "kicking the ball a little too hard" in a wall ball (similar to dodgeball) game at Hermosa Elementary School. - Ontario (CA) Daily Bulletin, 3/2/06
A Hungarian skater fell through the ice of a frozen pond and was discovered by passers-by 10 minutes later clinging to the edge of the ice with her teeth as frostbite rendered her hands useless. - The Week Magazine, 2/17/06
One of the jurors in the Enron trial became "overwhelmed" by the heavy cologne of Daniel Petrocelli, the lawyer for Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. - MSNBC, 2/17/06
A soldier wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq was forced to pay for his body armor, which was discarded because it was covered in blood. William Rebrook, 25, told Army officials in Fort Hood, Texas, that the last time he saw the armor it was being peeled off his twitching body. But the Army said it had no record of that, and Rebrook had to borrow $700 from friends. “It was like, thank you for your service, now here’s the bill for $700,” said Rebrook, who has lost the full use of his right arm. - The Week Magazine, 2/10/06
An exhausted Saudi baggage handler took a nap in an airliner’s unpressurized and unheated cargo hold and woke up with the plane bound for Turkey. Muhammed Mursi was hospitalized for pneumonia after he spent the three-hour flight banging frantically on the passenger cabin’s floor. - The Week Magazine, 2/10/06
Multimillionaire David Pizer has made arrangements to have his body frozen in liquid nitrogen as soon as possible after he dies. He hopes to be revived sometime in the future when medicine has advanced far beyond where it stands today. Because Mr. Pizer doesn't wish to return a pauper, he's taken an additional step: He's left his money to himself. - Wall Street Journal, 1/21/06
The woman who had the first full face transplant has started to use her lips to take up smoking again. - San Diego Union, 1/19/06
A 20-year-old California Institute of Technology student set a new world's record for solving a Rubik's Cube puzzle. It took Leyan Lo 11.13 seconds. - MSNBC, 1/15/06
A 41 year old woman recently married a dolphin in Israel. - MSNBC, 1/3/06
Yoshiro Nakamatsu, a Japanese inventor, has been photographing and analyzing every meal he has eaten for more than 34 years. - Bloomberg.com, 10/8/06
John Mainstone of the University of Queensland continues to monitor an experiment that began in the year 1927, in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly dripping through a funnel at a rate of around one drop every nine years. - The Guardian, 10/7/05
A mugger who robbed a couple at a South African zoo tried to hide from his pursuers in the tiger enclosure, where he was promptly mauled to death. - CBS News, 12/21/05
In 1955, a 9-year-old girl from South Dakota was riding her pony when a tornado appeared, carried her over a hill, and safely set her down 1,000 feet away. - Entertainment Weekly, 1/13/06
Between 1942 and 1977, Park Ranger Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning seven times. - Entertainment Weekly, 1/13/06
Navy wife Suzy Walker bought a sailor mannequin as a substitute for her husband who is at sea aboard the USS West Virginia. She eats dinner with the mannequin and takes it on shopping trips. - MSNBC, 12/14/05
63 days after the earthquake in Pakistan, a survivor was rescued from the rubble. - Yahoo! News, 12/14/05
A man who was struck in the head by a subway train three years ago (as he impatiently peered into the tunnel) has been struck in the head by a subway train as he impatiently peered into the tunnel. - Akron Beacon Journal, 12/7/05
A man ran onto the field at a Philadelphia Eagles football game to scatter his mother's ashes around the 30 yard line. - Washington Post, 11/29/05
A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning when he adjusted a nearby microphone while standing in water. - CNN, 10/31/05
A man crashed his car into a Burger King in Wausau, Wisconsin. He then backed the car from the damaged entryway, exited the vehicle and went inside to order breakfast. Shocked Burger King employees served the man, and police arrived to find him eating at one of the restaurant's tables. - Wausau Daily Herald, 10/15/05
A flight attendant on a Britannia Airways flight was concerned with "weight distribution" on the aircraft, so asked eight fat people to move forward. - BBC News, 10/19/05
Thousands of elderly Japanese women are coming down with "retired husband syndrome". Symptoms include ulcers, rashes and polyps all induced by the stress of having to wait on a man who has nothing to do all day but bark orders at his wife. - Washington Post, 10/17/05
A blind woman has baffled scientists by apparently proving that she can distinguish colors by touch. - Daily Record, 10/7/05
Baseball fan Shaun Dean never caught a baseball at a major league game. On the 18 inning playoff game between the Astros and the Braves, he caught two. - ESPN.com, 10/14/05
A man held up a freight train with a homemade bow and arrow. Police (armed with guns) shot him in the wrist and arrested him. - Tuscaloosa News, 10/11/05
Carl Berg failed to pay a $25 annual fee for rural fire protection and, as a result, firefighters let his house burn to the ground near International Falls, Minnesota. - Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 10/6/05
Perhaps the best table tennis player in the world is 75 year old Marty Reisman. He will pay $5,000 to anyone who can beat him, as long as they use an old-style paddle with the pimpled layer of rubber. Reisman has won games where he has been sitting on a chair or playing with a trash can lid or a coke can instead of a paddle, even while giving the opponent an 18 point head start. - Forbes.com, 9/5/05
An Australian man built up so much static electricity in his clothes as he walked that he burned carpets, melted plastic and sparked a mass evacuation. - BBC News, 9/16/05
More than 300,000 children have been uprooted by Hurricane Katrina. Many of them have been enrolled in public schools in every state except Hawaii. - Los Angeles Times, 9/16/05
Several friends of Frank Hughes turned up at his funeral to pay their last respects. After the funeral, they saw Mr. Hughes walking around town, very much alive. It seems the dead man was another Frank Hughes of the same age living in the same town. - The Independent (UK), 8/30/05
About 1,400 college students in the United States die each year in alcohol-related incidents such as auto accidents, fights and falls from balconies. - USA Today, 8/21/05
On a typical workday, more Americans eat lunch in their car than eat lunch in a restaurant. - Associated Press, 7/20/05
A 6' 10" man was turned down for a job as an air traffic controller. While he passed all the tests, his legs would not fit under the desk. - News.com, 7/29/05
A 28 year old South Korean man had a 50-hour-long video game session (Starcraft), and promptly died of a heart attack stemming from exhaustion. - BBC News, 8/10/05
An 80-year-old German man was driving the autobahn at 6 mph. In his electric wheelchair. - Science Daily, 7/27/05
Henry Ford came up with the idea for charcoal briquettes in the 1920s. Also having a hand in the invention was Thomas Edison and Ford's cousin's husband, E.G. Kingsford. - The Week Magazine, 8/5/05
More than a quarter of a million Chinese commit suicide each year. Three million make unsuccessful attempts at suicide each year. Unlike almost everywhere else in the world, more women than men commit suicide in China. - BBC, 11/29/02
James Cave of Oklahoma City was bit on the hand by a pygmy rattlesnake. This caused him to fall backwards onto a copperhead snake, which bit him on the foot and the groin. - Washington Post, 7/15/05
The manager of a Hungarian supermarket told his staff to drastically lower the price on beef tenderloin, then told his wife to come in and buy 47 pounds of it. Authorities are trying to determine if the events are connected. - Chicago Sun-Times, 7/19/05
Over 15,000,000 Americans abuse prescription drugs (such as OxyContin). That's more than those who abuse cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants combined. - Reuters, 7/11/05
A first-time bank robber handed a teller a note that said, "Hi, I'm Thomas Mason." The note also mentioned that while he didn't have a gun on him at the moment, he knew where he could probably get one. Mason was arrested behind a liquor store where he had $100 of lottery tickets, drinking a case of beer. - Associated Press, 6/20/05
A disabled Italian woman has taken her first steps in 23 years. After doctors were unable to come up the reason for her disability after endless tests, Stefania Vanoni correctly diagnosed her own illness on the Internet. - Ananova.com, 6/15/05
A Nepalese couple have exchanged wedding vows on top of Mount Everest, the first people ever to marry there. They briefly took off their oxygen masks and put on plastic garlands, while the groom symbolically applied red powder on the bride's forehead. Moni Mule Pati and Pem Dorjee Sherpa kept the plan secret as there was no guarantee they would reach the top of the world's highest peak. - BBC News, 6/3/05
Five Montana drivers who claim they were wrongfully convicted of driving with a suspended or revoked driver's license because they were never issued a driver's license have taken their case to the Montana Supreme Court. - Billings Gazette, 6/10/05
Some people seem to have all the luck. Just ask Donna Goeppert. In early 2005, she won $1 million playing a Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off ticket. She then turned around and won another million-dollar jackpot in June 2005. The estimated odds of being a winner twice are 419 million to 1. - CNN.com, 6/14/05
An 11 year old girl, Katie Brownell, of upstate New York, pitched a perfect little league game where she struck out every batter that she faced. She is the only girl in the entire Oakfield-Alabama Little League. - USA Today, 5/19/05
An 86 year old woman, Lettie Kistler of Tacoma, Washington won over $2,000,000 in the state lottery. She announced one of the first things she'd buy is "one of those long-handled brushes to clean out the toilet." - Tacoma News Tribune, 5/19/05
38 year old Jeff Foran jumped from the window of a car that was going 60 mph to retrieve his dropped cigarette. - Texarkana Gazette, 5/23/05
A British couple recently celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary. He is 105, she is 100. - Daily Sentinel, 6/1/05
An Ohio man was arrested for wearing a "Grinch" mask in publc. - Kansas City Star, 5/26/05
A robbery attempt and a gunshot wound to the leg didn't stop a Tampa pizza delivery man from making his deliveries. Thomas Stefanelli says it was "dedication" that drove him to deliver four pizzas after being shot in the thigh by a man in a Halloween mask who pointed a gun and demanded money. - CBSNews.com, 6/8/05
A 69 year old Fort Lauderdale, Florida woman fell out of a 9th-story window, and wound up with only a dislocated shoulder. A green canopy supported by a metal frame on the first floor broke her fall. - Chicago Sun Times, 5/12/05
A man was found wandering in a rainstorm on the Isle of Sheppey (UK) in a dark business suit and tie. He was drenched to the bone and would not speak. On a sheet of paper provided by hospital workers, he drew what looked like a flag of Sweden and a grand piano. Hospital workers led him to a piano in the facility’s chapel, where he played flawlessly. He has been playing since, for up to four hours at a time. He protests when he is forced to stop. - Quad City Times, 5/17/05
A Columbus, Georgia high school student was suspended for 10 days for refusing to end a cell phone call with his mother, who was calling from Iraq (she is a soldier currently serving there). "I'm not going to hang up on my mom," Kevin Francois told his teacher. - CNN.com, 5/6/05
4,000,000 Americans live in a country other than the United States of America. - North County Times, 4/23/05
Authorities were called to Marshall Junior High School in Clovis, New Mexico after a boy was seen carrying something suspicious. A call about a possible weapon prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops and lock down the school. The drama ended two hours later when the item was identified as a 30 inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt. - USA Today, 5/3/05
A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls. - San Francisco Chronicle, 3/18/05
Mayoral hopeful Julian Castro acknowledged that his twin brother took his place in a parade this week, waving at onlookers who mistook the stand-in for the candidate. - Houston Chronicle, 4/21/05
A juror was fined $1,000 for yawning in a Los Angeles courtroom. The judge found the juror in contempt when the juror said, "I'm sorry but I'm really bored." - Seattle Times, 4/21/05
Interim Hewlett Packard CEO Robert Wayman earned $3,000,000 for running the company from February 8 to April 1, 2005. That is $57,692 per day. - Business Week, 4/7/05
After his party won a huge victory in parliamentary elections last week, an ebullient President Robert Mugabe joked that he might stay in office another 20 years. “Until I am old.” Mugabe is now 81. - The Week Magazine, 4/15/05
When Carly Fiorina was ousted as Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive officer, the number of women heading Fortune 500 companies dropped by 12.5 percent in one day. - The Week Magazine, 4/8/05
A lactating woman in Myanmar has volunteered to breastfeed a pair of endangered Bengal tiger cubs recently born at a Yangon zoo and separated from their aggressive mother. - Myanmar Times, 4/4/05
A 10-year-old Perth, Australia boy had three limbs surgically reattached after they were severed during a game of backyard basketball. Both of his hands and his left foot were cut off when a brick wall supporting a basketball backboard gave way as he executed a slam dunk at a friend's birthday party. In what is believed to be a world first, Perth surgeons simultaneously reattached all three severed limbs, which had been transported to Perth's Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in an esky packed with ice. - Sydney Morning Herald, 3/30/05
A woman in India got married to a clay pot. The pot contained a photograph of the woman’s fiancée, who was late for the wedding due to heavy snow. - The Week Magazine, 4/1/05
A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" smuggled in his own picture of a soup can and hung it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed. - CNN.com, 3/24/05
A Scottish man, Craig Crosbie, who works in a factory by day, managed to type out a 160-word message in 48 seconds: "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serra-salmus and Pygo-centrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." This set a new record for speed in text messaging on a phone. - NPR, 3/23/05
At least 12 Iraqi barbers have been executed by Islamic militant gangs in recent times. The barbers have been targeted because they provide Western-style haircuts. - Seattle Times, 2/23/05
Elizabeth Sulston, a 27 year old musician, can see color when she hears sounds. She says, "the sound of a truck looks green." She can also taste different flavors of music depending on the chord playing, scientists say. - CBC Health and Science News, 3/2/05
Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika has moved out of his 300-bedroom mansion, claiming it is haunted by ghosts. - South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 3/15/05
Malawi's president Bingu wa Mutharika ordered the arrest of reporters who revealed that he was afraid of ghosts. - Independent Online - South Africa, 3/15/05
One of 16 survivors of a 1972 Andes plane crash made famous by a book and movie ("Alive") has gotten his wallet and jacket back 32 years after leaving them in the mountain snows. Eduardo Strauch, who survived 72 days in high mountain snows by resorting to cannibalism, received the aged wallet, driver's license and other personal items a week after they were found in the Andes by a mountain climber. - Associated Press, 2/24/05
Aurora, Colorado police have reviewed a weekend incident in which a man accused of stealing salad from a Chuck E. Cheese salad bar was hit with a stun gun twice by officers. This was in full view of all patrons, mostly children. - NBC-4 TV, Los Angeles CA, 3/2/05
A deliveryman who vanished after taking Chinese food to a Bronx apartment complex was found alive Tuesday after apparently spending four days trapped in an elevator that had become stuck between floors. - CBSNews.com, 4/5/05
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman told a group of fourth graders that if he was marooned on a desert island the one thing he would want to have with him is a bottle of gin. - Las Vegas Sun, 3/2/05
A man given six months to live by his doctors has been told by an Italian court to come back in 14 months to hear the outcome of his demand for insurance damages. - Reuters, 3/8/05
A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage. - BBC, 3/9/05
