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Bizarro Briefs: Bear Takes Joyride Into Mailbox

Bear Takes Joyride Into Mailbox In Durango, Colorado, bears frequently break into cars looking for food. This week was the first that one resident can recall a bear actually taking the car for a short...

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Bizarro Briefs: Getting High Off Trump

Getting High Off Trump Polizei Osnabruck photo German police, during a random traffic stop, seized a stash of Donald Trump-shaped drugs. The drugs were ecstasy pills pressed into the shape of Trump’s...

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Bizarro Briefs: Score One For The Peaceful Frog Dude

Score One For The Peaceful Frog Dude White supremacists love Pepe the Frog, and have been using the cartoon character to promote their racist ideals, including through a children’s book. But the...

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Bizarro Briefs: Urine Town

Urine Town Massachusetts is home to so many agricultural fairs, it can be difficult to stand out during fair season, which we’re in the midst of right now. Setting themselves apart from the pack is the...

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Bizarro Briefs: Grenade Launcher Donated to Florida Goodwill

One heck of an explosive donation Wikimedia commons photo In Bradenton, Florida, authorities say a grenade launcher, loaded with a live grenade, was left with other donated items at a Goodwill store....

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News of the Weird: Extreme Hobbies

John Weigel and Olaf Danielson are engaged in a frenzied battle of “extreme birdwatching,” each hoping to close out 2016 as the new North American champ of the American Birding Association, and a...

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News of the Weird: Pot for Pets

As nine states next month ask voters to approve some form of legalization of marijuana, a “new customer base” for the product — pets — was highlighted in an October New York Times report. Dogs and cats...

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News of the Weird: Religion Adapts to Technology

A network of freelance Buddhist priests in Japan last year began offering in-home, a la carte services for those adherents who shun temples through Amazon in Japan, quoting fixed fees and bypassing the...

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News of the Weird: Can’t Possibly Be True

Kids as young as 6 who live on a cliff top in China’s Atule’er village in Sichuan province will no longer have to use flexible vine-based ladders to climb down and up the 2,600-foot descent from their...

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News of the Weird: The Nanny State

New York City officially began licensing professional fire eaters earlier this year, and classes have sprung up to teach the art so that the city’s Fire Department Explosives Unit can test for...

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News of the Weird: Democracy in Action

While “democracy” in most of America means electing representatives to run government, on Nov. 8 in San Francisco it also expected voters to decide 43 often vague, densely worded “issues” that,...

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News of the Weird: The Future of Travel

Australian aviator David Mayman has promised investors that his personal jet packs will hit the market by mid-2017, though early adopters will pay about $250,000 for one, to fly a person at up to 60...

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News of the Weird: Even Baking Soda is Dangerous

Almost all law enforcement agencies in America use the Scott Reagent field test when they discover powder that looks like cocaine, but the several agencies that have actually conducted tests for false...

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News of the Weird: Ecret-Say Ode-Kay

American gangsters traditionally use euphemisms and nicknames (“Chin,” “The Nose”) to disguise criminal activities, but among details revealed at a November murder trial in Sydney, Australia, was that...

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Scene Here: Decorations Not Included

When Mike McCusker and Polly Anderson finished sawing down their Christmas tree, McCusker held the saw up to his nose. The heavy scent of fresh pine from the just-cut tree was just part of the appeal...

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News of the Weird: Radical Dentistry

Radical Dentistry Radical dentistry was on display in November in London’s Science Gallery, where installations offered “art-science collaborations” — including Taiwan artist Kuang-Yi Ku’s “Fellatio...

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News of the Weird: Holes Against Humanity 

The rebellion against the absurdities of Black Friday this year by the organization Cards Against Humanity came in the form of raising money to dig a pointless hole in the ground. During the last week...

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News of the Weird: Oh-So-Sweet Dreams

The Hastens workshop in Koping, Sweden, liberally using the phrase “master artisans” recently, unveiled its made-to-order $149,900 mattress. Bloomberg News reported in December on Hastens’ use of...

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News of the Weird: Too-Much-Reality TV

Russian producers are planning the so-far-ultimate survivors’ show — in the Siberian wilderness for nine months with temperatures as low as minus-40-degrees Fahrenheit, with 30 contestants selected...

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News of the Weird: Leading Economic Indicator

The salary the Golden State Warriors pay to basketball whiz Stephen Curry may be a bargain at $12 million a year, but the economics is weirder about the prices Curry’s fans pay on the street for one...

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News of the Weird: Post-Truth Society

In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals finally pulled the plug on Orange County, California, social workers who had been arguing in court for 16 years that they were not guilty of lying under oath...

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News of the Weird: Suspicions Confirmed

Schools’ standardized tests are often criticized as harmfully rigid, and in the latest version of the Texas Education Agency’s STAAR test, poet Sara Holbrook said she flubbed the “correct” answer for...

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News of the Weird: Work of a Researcher

Field work is always challenging, explained Courtney Marneweck of South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal in a recent journal article, but studying the sociology of a white rhino’s dung meant...

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News of the Weird: EWWWWW!

On Jan. 31, doctors at Stanley Medical College and Hospital in Chennai, India, removed a live, full-grown cockroach from the nasal cavity of a 42-year-old woman whose nose had been “itchy” earlier in...

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News of the Weird: The Man With the Golden Mop

San Francisco’s best-paid janitor earned more than a quarter-million dollars cleaning stations for Bay Area Rapid Transit in 2015, according to a recent investigation by Oakland’s KTVU. Liang Zhao...

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News of the Weird: U-S-A! U-S-A!

Although discouraging the marriage of children in developing nations has been U.S. foreign policy for years, a data-collecting watchdog group in America disclosed in February that 27 U.S. states have...

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News of the Weird: Suspicions Confirmed

Despite California’s 2015 law aimed at improving the fairness of its red-light cameras, the city of Fremont — population 214,000 — reported earning an additional $190,000 more each month last year by...

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News of the Weird: Exploiting Villains

In February, two teams of South Korean researchers announced cancer-fighting breakthroughs by taking lessons from how two of medicine’s most vexing, destructive organisms — diarrhea-causing salmonella...

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News of the Weird: Entrepreneurial Spirit

Perhaps there are parents who, according to the Cinepolis movie chain, long to watch movies in theaters while their children, aged 3 and up, frolic in front in a jungle-gym playground inside the same...

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News of the Weird: Location, Location, Location

A highlight of the recent upmarket surge in Brooklyn, New York, as a residential and retail favorite, was the asking price for an ordinary parking space in the garage at 845 Union St. in the Park...

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News of the Weird: TP Goes High Tech

China’s public-park restrooms have for years suffered toilet-paper theft by local residents who raid dispensers for their own homes — a cultural habit, wrote Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post,...

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News of the Weird: The Jetsons in Dubai

Recently, in Dubai — the largest city in the United Arab Emirates — Dubai Civil Defense started using water jetpacks that lift firefighters off the ground to hover in advantageous positions as they...

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News of the Weird: Swedish ‘Museum of Failures’ might succeed

If at first you don’t succeed… Samuel West announced in April that his Museum of Failure will open in Helsingborg, Sweden, in June, to commemorate innovation missteps that might serve as inspiration...

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News of the Weird: SWAT Called on Homeless Intruder

A June 2016 police raid on David Jessen’s Fresno County (California) farmhouse caused a $150,000 mess when sheriff’s deputies and Clovis Police Department officers “rescued” it from a trespassing...

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Vigilante ‘Apostrophizer’ Corrects Signs in Bristol, England

Mother of Invention Robotic models of living organisms are useful to scientists, who can study the effects of stimuli without risk to actual people. Northwestern University researchers announced in...

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News of the Weird: A Russian Monument to Flossing

Russian artist Mariana Shumkova is certainly doing her part for oral hygiene, publicly unveiling her St. Petersburg statuette of a frightening, malformed head displaying actual extracted human teeth,...

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News of the Weird: Hello, My Name is Isis Harambe

The word “Isis” arrived in Western dialogue only after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as an acronym for the Islamic State, and the Swahili word “Harambe” was known to almost no one until May 2016 when the...

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News of the Weird: Speed Bumps For Fast Walkers

Officials in charge of a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal heritage site recently installed “speed bumps,” similar to those familiar to Americans driving residential streets — but on a pedestrian walkway,...

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News Of The Weird: The Economics Of Asteroid Mining

Goldman Sachs analyst Noah Poponak’s 98-page paper (leaked to Business Insider in April) touted the wealth obtainable by capturing the platinum reputed to be in asteroids. The costs to mine the stone...

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News Of The Weird: Worshiping Hadley Grass

Reverence for the lineage of asparagus continues in epic yearly Anglican church festivities in Worcester, England, where in April celebrants obtained a special blessing for the vegetable by local...

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News Of The Weird: Creepy House For Sale

Brantford, Ontario, real estate agent Kyle Jansink, speaking for unidentified sellers, said he accepted the challenge of selling a meticulously maintained home “as is” — still packed with the sellers’...

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News of the Weird: Sipping Cappuccino With Rats

Already, trendy restaurants have offered customers dining experiences amidst roaming cats (and in one bold experiment, owls), but the art house San Francisco Dungeon has planned a two-day (July 1 and...

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News Of The Weird: Carrier Pigeons Carrying Drugs

Customs officials in Abdali, Kuwait, apprehended a pigeon in May with 178 ketamine pills inside a fabric pocket attached to its back. Update Three weeks ago, News of the Weird touted the “genderless,”...

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The News of the Weird Author is Retiring: Here’s a Retrospective

Editors Note: News of the Weird is ending, but we’ll be continuing the tradition at the Advocate, starting our own feature highlighting the oddities we find in the news. Watch for it next week! Weird...

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What’s Next for Weird (Zany) News: An Advocate Chat

The Advocate Chat is a recurring series where the Valley Advocate staff talks about a topic on their minds. The text below has been lightly edited. dave.eisen (Managing Editor Dave Eisenstadter): Last...

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Introducing … Bizarro Briefs

Last week we got the surprising news that longtime News of the Weird feature writer Chuck Shepherd is retiring! Like, very surprising, because we had no idea this was coming. BUT, the Advocate is all...

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Bizarro Briefs: Holy Handgun, Batman!

A man and woman dressed as Batman characters were shot by police while having sex in an Australian nightclub. The man, dressed as the Joker, was shot in the stomach after police mistook his fake gun...

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Bizarro Briefs: Robocop Becomes Self Terminator

A Suicidal Robot Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself. We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots. pic.twitter.com/rGLTAWZMjn — Bilal Farooqui...

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Bizarro Briefs: Perfectly Preserved Surrealist Stache

News of the Weird is no more, but fear not. The Advocate is continuing the tradition of delivering weird news, now as Bizarro Briefs. Perfectly Preserved Surrealist ‘Stache If you thought Salvador...

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Bizarro Briefs: Hipster Dogs Don’t Need Shots

Hipster Dogs Don’t Need Shots The anti-vaccination movement has expanded — to include additional species. Many pet owners in Brooklyn are refusing to vaccinate their beloved canines, in some cases for...

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