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- A freighter left Philadelphia in 1986 with 14,000 tons
of incinerator ash for burial in the Bahamas, but that country changed
its mind, and the ship drifted at sea under worldwide media scrutiny while
new sites were pursued. Only Haiti seemed even mildly interested, offloading
2,000 tons before it, too, backed off. After more attempts to strike deals,
the captain finally dumped the remainder at sea, but in 1998, Haiti ordered
the Philadelphia contractor (Waste Management Inc.) to remove the original
2,000 tons. Waste Management agreed to bury the ash in one of its U.S.
landfills, but so far in 2000, several states have denied it permits, for
fear that the ash was contaminated in Haiti. Thus, 14 years after leaving
Philadelphia, the ash is still around, and at press time, no one knows
where it will wind up.
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- Claiming that Virginia has inadequately prepared for
extraterrestrial invasions, Larry W. Bryant and two colleagues filed a
lawsuit in June in Alexandria, seeking to force Gov. James Gilmore to empanel
a grand jury to investigate alien abductions, to train the National Guard
to handle attacks from outer space, and to cover abductees under civil
rights laws meant for rape victims. Bryant told the APBnews service that
he was especially worried about the "dark, silently floating flying
triangles" that observers have noticed and that Gilmore has neither
explained nor put a stop to.
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- Orderly Murderers
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- Prosecutors said Alpna Patel, now awaiting retrial for
murdering her husband, did it because he had ignored her written list of
39 specific complaints about the marriage (Baltimore, February). And Pierre
Navelot, 21, convicted of murder in France in February, told the court
that his professional aspiration in high school was to "kill people,"
recalling that he had once written out a 13-page "career plan"
that included the names of his pending victims. And the best evidence against
Sante Kimes, convicted of murder in New York City in May, were her numerous
notebooks filled with reminders, such as "when (does the victim go)
to sleep" "any exits in her apt?" and "is there a burglar
alarm?"
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- Uh-Oh! The New Mexico attorney general announced in March
that he would open an investigation of TD's Showclub North in Albuquerque
for billing one customer's credit card, over four days, $26,974.50. The
customer said he was drunk most of the time and thus didn't consent to
the charges, but the card company said it called the man at the club twice
to ask if he knew what he was doing and that he had said yes.
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- Recent Implants Gone Bad: Dancer Doddie L. Smith sued
her plastic surgeon in January, claiming her operation left her breasts
too high on her chest for any club to hire her (Milwaukee, January). A
Sarnia, Ontario, dancer sued Dr. Gilles Lauzon because her implant made
one breast look like a "banana" (Montreal, February). Dancer
Mary Gale won $30,000 from a jury, claiming that Dr. Elliot Jacobs used
breast implants for her buttock augmentation surgery, making her posterior
painful and unsightly (New York City, June).
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- In May, the city of Pineville, La., admitted that about
60 homes had been receiving a drinking-water/sewer-water mixture for the
previous three months. The city said its chlorine treatment had probably
killed any bacteria, but that various water filters (in washing machines,
icemakers, etc.) had become clogged with dark specks (feces) and white
strands (toilet paper).
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- Robert Richardson, 20, and Lakrisha Nash, 18, were arrested
in May after allegedly walking out of a Costco store in Chula Vista, Calif.,
with $600 worth of unpaid-for DVDs. In their getaway, Richardson lost control
of the baby carriage that contained both the DVDs and the couple's 6-month-old
girl, sending the baby tumbling. Hurrying to continue, Richardson tossed
the infant over to Nash, but she, too, dropped her. The baby did not appear
seriously hurt, but the delay allowed police to catch up to the couple.
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- Inexplicable Pamela Oliver, 39, was arrested in April
in Des Moines, Iowa, and charged with assault for convincing three complete
strangers on the street to go beat up her husband, which they did. She
said she was surprised to find out that what she did was illegal, since
she did not even offer to pay the men anything.
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- The Food and Drug Administration announced in May that
it was considering several plans to get more doctors to read the labels
of the drugs they prescribe, which many doctors now say they are too busy
to do. In five previous instances, when dozens of patients died after taking
misprescribed drugs, a skeptical FDA chose to ban the drugs altogether
rather than try to change doctors' reading habits.
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- Philadelphia police told reporters that Officer Margo
Grady, who disappeared on April 1 while taking a crime victim from one
stationhouse to another (three miles away), had inadvertently gotten on
the New Jersey Turnpike and was almost to Newark (75 miles away) before
she turned on her emergency lights to stop a car and ask where she was.
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- In Their Own Words
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- Douglas Holmes, 30, explaining in February why he had
fled in the middle of his robbery trial in Kansas City, Mo., the month
before (after grabbing cash from the table of exhibits): "I saw the
evidence piling up on me (and) I thought it would be in my best interest
if I left for a little bit." (He was found guilty in absentia, sentenced
to 55 years in prison, and then recaptured two weeks later.)
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-
- Recurring Themes
-
- News of the Weird reported last year that certain Canadian
transport aircraft were undergoing expensive structural repairs because
beams had been corroded by men accidentally splashing urine when they used
the planes' cargo-hold toilets. In April 2000, a landlord in a Radeberg,
Germany, apartment house, facing a similar rusting problem in bathroom
radiators and pipes, ordered male tenants, "as a condition of the
rental agreement," to begin "to use the toilet like women: in
the sitting position."
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- Thinning the Herd
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- A 38-year-old man was electrocuted in Okolona, Ky., in
May while digging in his back yard; according to a deputy coroner, he had
received a mild shock while using a tiller and so thought the thing to
do at that point was to grab a spade and dig down deeper, to find out exactly
what had shocked him (answer: unshielded electric cable). And a 34-year-old
man was electrocuted in Lakewood, Colo., in April by the fence he had installed
to keep dogs out; he had rigged it at 10 times the typical, recommended
voltage.
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- Also, in the Last Month ...
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- A 25-year-old Tehran transsexual who had just become
a woman said he wants to change back after realizing just how poorly women
are treated in Iran. A 52-year-old man whose neck was broken in a truck
crash wiggled out of the wreckage and walked three miles to an Interstate
76 interchange to get help (Brighton, Colo.). An Australian physician announced
plans to open an assisted-suicide facility on an offshore boat, to circumvent
national laws (Queensland). A 16-year-old boy was sent to jail for 60 days
for extorting lunch money ($3 per day) from fellow students (Vernon Township,
N.J.). A 50-year-old man who accidentally dropped his keys into a park's
portable toilet got stuck at the hips when he lowered himself to retrieve
them, requiring a rescue by firefighters (Huntingdon Valley, Pa.).
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- (Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737,
Tampa, Fla. 33679 or <mailto:Weird@compuserve.comWeird@compuserve.com,
or go to <http://www.NewsoftheWeird.com/www.NewsoftheWeird.com/.)
-
- c. 2000 Chuck Shepherd - All Rights Reserved Distributed
By Universal Press Syndicate
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- For More Weird News <http://www.newsoftheweird.com/
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