Oddities

MCKEESPORT (AP) — A judge has ruled that a western Pennsylvania man must stand trial on charges he flushed his grandparents’ ashes down a toilet…

SEEKONK, Mass. (AP) — Police are searching for a thief with expensive taste in Massachusetts. Chris Gasbarro’s Fine Wine and Spirits in Seekonk says someone…

WINFIELD, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana town marshal wielding a chain saw rescued a horse that became wedged between two branches of a tree trunk…

CINCINNATI (AP) — The Cincinnati Zoo is celebrating another milestone for its famous premature baby hippo. The zoo said Wednesday that Fiona has hit 1,000 pounds (454…

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — It’s a busy time for Santa Claus, but he’s making time to feed some fish in San Francisco. The California Academy…

URANUS, Mo. (AP) — The Uranus Examiner, a small Missouri newspaper whose name inspired chuckles and groans when it launched a few months ago, is…

LAKE PRESTON, Australia (AP) — Knickers the steer is huge on the internet — for being huge. The black-and-white Holstein Friesian won social media fame…

BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania mom faces criminal charges for allegedly driving with her son on the hood of her car after the boy…

PEABODY, Mass. (AP) — A house where a victim of the Salem witch trials once lived is on the market for $600,000 just in time…

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A jogger’s run through the Dutch countryside turned into a walk on the wild side when he discovered a lion…

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — It’s not quite the World Wide Web — but the spiders of Aitoliko in Greece have made a good start. Spurred…

URANUS, Mo. (AP) — Cue the giggling: A small Missouri town has a new newspaper called The Uranus Examiner. KYTV reports that the newspaper’s launch was…

NEW YORK (AP) — A woman used Tinder to prank more than 100 men into showing up for a date that turned out to be…

SAN MARINO, Calif. (AP) — Visitors were flocking to the Huntington Library in Southern California on Friday to get a whiff of a so-called corpse…

MALDEN, Mass. (AP) — A 1-year-old motorist has been pulled over for driving without a license — but he got off with a “cuteness warning.”…

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A raccoon that appeared to be stranded on a ledge after climbing more than 20 stories of a high-rise office…

LAKE WORTH, Fla. (AP) — Officials say they still don’t know who sent a “zombie alert” to residents of a Florida city following a power…

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado woman has been cited by police after a container of what appeared to be urine blew up as she was…

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. (AP) — The bizarre trash items plucked from New Jersey’s beaches last year might be enough to cause nausea or heartburn….

The Associated Press If you’re working on 109-foot-tall bridges, you’d better not be afraid of heights. If you’re a goat wandering around on that bridge?…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA will fly you to the sun — or at least your name. Now until April 27, NASA is accepting…

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida woman says an airline told her to flush her hamster down an airport toilet because the emotional support rodent wasn’t…

APOLLO, Pa. (AP) — A family has been reunited with its dog 10 years after the dog went missing. Debra Suierveld and her family assumed…

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia Eagles fan whose attempt to rally subway passengers for a playoff game ended with him running into a concrete pole…

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — His name means “king of the tyrant lizards,” but sometimes Tyrannosaurus rex just wants to party. Make that many T. rexes….

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — It’s so cold in Florida that iguanas are falling from their perches in suburban trees. Temperatures dipped below 40 degrees…

BUTLER (AP) — Police say someone on the naughty list stole a Santa suit and hat valued together at $520 from a Pennsylvania mall. State…

FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — An opossum that apparently drank bourbon after breaking into a Florida liquor store sobered up at a wildlife rescue…

ALTOONA (AP) — A Pennsylvania gynecologist says she has been inundated with calls from men trying to set up appointments after hearing she was permitted…

HONOLULU (AP) — Cans of Spam have become a common item that’s being stolen from Honolulu stores and then sold on the streets for quick…

NEW YORK (AP) — Some flowers have found a nifty way to get the blues. They create a blue halo, apparently to attract the bees…

PARMA, Ohio (AP) — A two-story, “Star Wars”-inspired Halloween yard display in Ohio should be enough to make any trick-or-treating Darth Vader proud. Nick Meyer…

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Police say a central Wyoming man they arrested for public intoxication claimed he had traveled back in time to warn of…

DENVER (AP) — A lacy, cloud-like pattern drifting across a Denver-area radar screen turned out to be a 70-mile-wide (110-kilometer) wave of butterflies, forecasters say….

PITTSBURGH (AP) — On John Plischke’s laptop, a video feed from his microscope came into focus and showed round, floating spores, along with some tube-like…

BOSTON (AP) — Scientists who discovered that old men really do have big ears, that playing the didgeridoo helps relieve sleep apnea and that handling…

LITITZ, Pa. (AP) — Police officers in a small Pennsylvania town are evidently afraid of a certain homicidal clown. The Lititz police department on Tuesday…

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Tests show that the remains in a suburban Philadelphia grave are indeed those of a 19th century serial killer, quelling rumors that…

LONDON (AP) — Scientists have named a prehistoric crocodile described as “one of the nastiest sea creatures to have ever inhabited the earth” after late…

HOLLIS, Maine (AP) — A man accused of drunkenly strolling down a road in Maine wearing a black-hooded sweatshirt and a clown mask and brandishing…