"It's just a biohazard issue," the pilot told air traffic control. And indeed, the Delta Airlines Airbus A350 was forced to return to Atlanta after two hours in the air on Sept. 1 after a passenger suffered an "onboard medical emergency": uncontrollable diarrhea that left the entire length of the aisle covered in fecal matter. The Guardian reported that passengers said the flight crew did everything they could to clean up the mess, including spraying it with scented disinfectant. But that merely made the cabin "smell of vanilla s--t," one traveler said. Back in Atlanta, passengers, including the afflicted traveler, waited eight hours for the plane to be cleaned up and the aisle carpet to be replaced, then reboarded and were on their way to Barcelona -- again. [Guardian, 9/6/2023]

Bright Idea

A 38-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman have been arrested in the central Shanxi province of China, China Daily reported, for digging a shortcut through the Great Wall of China. Local police were alerted to the damage on Aug. 24 and followed tracks from an excavator back to the suspects, who explained that they needed the shortcut to get back and forth to their construction jobs. The Great Wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has reportedly been "damaged beyond repair." The two were charged with destroying a cultural relic. [China Daily, 9/4/2023]

Awesome!

Tennessean Tami Manis is going to see her name in the 2024 edition of the "Guinness World Records" book after 34 years of hard work ... not getting haircuts. United Press International reported on Aug. 31 that Manis' mullet, measured at 5 feet, 8 inches long, earned her the prize in the female competitive mullet category. She had not cut the "party in the back" section of her hair since Feb. 9, 1990. "I've had people recognize me from 20 years ago because I've kept the same hairstyle," she said. "This is amazing." [UPI, 8/31/2023]

What Could Go Wrong?

Frick and Riverview Parks in Pittsburgh have a problem: The deer population has grown to the point that the animals are dangerous to themselves and humans, Fox News reported. "With no natural predators, we are seeing an increase in car-deer collisions, relentless damage to our ecosystem and unnatural aggression toward pets and people," the city's website reads. What to do? The city is going to randomly pick 30 archers to participate in "a pilot program with archery-controlled hunts ... during the 2023-2024 deer archery season," the city announced. Hopeful hunters will be part of a lottery system, and final participants must have a clean background check and a deer permit. In addition, "the selected archers will be required to attend an accuracy test" and will be confined to a specific area of the park to hunt. Those who kill more than two deer in their area will be given preference for subsequent seasons, according to the city. Keep that orange vest handy. [Fox News, 9/5/2023]

Least Competent Criminal

Nicholas Coffey, 23, couldn't resist bragging on social media about his "new" Mercedes-Benz on Sept. 2, which made it easier for cops to track him down, Fox News reported. Coffey and an accomplice used the stolen car to break into other vehicles on Deltona, Florida, residential streets during the early morning hours, then stopped at a gas station, where Coffey was captured on surveillance video. Volusia County detectives caught up with him the following morning and arrested him on multiple charges. [Fox News, 9/4/2023]

Clothing Optional

The Chicago Park District just couldn't let the city's nudists have a little fun on Labor Day. Early that morning, someone posted a sign at Loyola Beach along Lake Michigan declaring "Nude Beach Past This Sign," WLS-TV reported. But, alderman Maria Hadden scolded, the sign was unofficial and "cheeky," and workers had it removed by that evening. Hadden did share that in 1932, alderman George A. Williston proposed a resolution to create a nude sunbathing beach in the same location. Great minds ... [WLS, 9/5/2023]

Inexplicable

Patrick Spina IV, 45, of Absecon, New Jersey, is facing criminal mischief charges after a bizarre series of stunts starting in June, WPVI-TV reported. After the Quality Inn in Galloway Township was targeted about a dozen times with a bright green dye launched into its outdoor pool by a drone, Sandra Woolston, the general manager, said she "had a meltdown" because the pool was largely unusable. In August, police got a call about a similar incident from a resident who was swimming in his pool when the dye was cast. The sea dye, normally used in search and rescue efforts, is damaging to swimming pools. Police got in touch with the FAA and learned the drone was operated by Spina. Detectives could not supply a motive but said they believed he was "pranking people." "He was getting too happy with doing it," Woolston said. [WPVI, 9/5/2023]

That's One Way To Do It

A woman in China's Fuzhou City is facing a prison sentence of three years and a $27,000 fine after she chewed her way to a new iPhone at an Apple store. According to the South China Morning Post, the woman, surnamed Qiu, entered the store and made a beeline to the phone display. She was seen on surveillance video examining an iPhone 14 (worth about $950), then looking around to make sure no one was watching. Then she put the anti-theft cable in her mouth and chewed through it, secured the phone in her bag and left the store. Store employees noticed the severed cable and contacted police, who were able to track Qiu and arrest her at her home. She told them she planned to buy an iPhone but balked at the price and decided to steal one instead. [SCMP, 9/2/2023]

Crime Report

Xuming Li, 36, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of South Florida's chemistry department, has been charged with multiple counts of battery, aggravated stalking and possession of a controlled substance after he targeted his neighbors, The New York Times reported on Aug. 27. Umar Abdullah, who lived above Li in a Tampa Bay condominium building, first started smelling a chemical odor in May. He believed it caused his family to experience breathing difficulties and burning eyes. For nearly a year, Li had "complained about footsteps. He complained about door closing sounds," Abdullah said. The chemical odor came back in June, so Abdullah installed a hidden camera pointed at his front door, which captured Li on June 27 "injecting something" at the entrance. Preliminary testing showed the substances to be methadone and hydrocodone. Li was released on bond and will appear in court in December. [NYTimes, 8/27/2023]

Saw That Coming

A 20-year-old unnamed Swiss man was taken to the hospital on Aug. 21 after trying not once, but twice, to put his face on the water nozzle at Geneva, Switzerland's Jet d'Eau, the BBC reported. The attraction projects 110 gallons of water per second, reaching a height of 459 feet. His first attempt resulted in him being thrown backward; on his second try, he was thrown into the air and landed on a nearby cement walkway. He then dived into Lake Geneva, where officers found him and sought medical care for him. The company that operates the fountain intends to file a complaint against him for trespassing. [BBC, 8/23/2023]

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Officials in New Delhi, India, are preparing for the G20 summit next week, and no detail has been left unaddressed, Reuters reported. For example: Rhesus monkeys are a menace on many of the city's streets, often attacking pedestrians. The monkeys cannot be harmed or removed by law, so the government has installed life-size cutouts of langurs -- bigger primates with black faces -- around the city to scare the monkeys away. The New Delhi Municipal Council has also employed "30 to 40" people who mock the langurs' sounds so that the monkeys will believe they are real. "We ... are already seeing a positive impact," said Satish Upadhyay, the vice-chairman of the NDMC. [Reuters, 8/31/2023]

It's Come to This

New Yorkers have become accustomed (some grudgingly) to the ubiquitous odor of cannabis on city streets and in parks, the Associated Press reported. In fact, as spectator Diane Patrizio of Southampton, New York, stood in line at Court 17 at the U.S. Open, she remarked, "It's everywhere. But what are you going to do?" Court 17, which is situated on the periphery of the Flushing Meadows complex, lies right next to Corona Park, and on Aug. 29, the court "definitely (smelled) like Snoop Dogg's living room," said player Alexander Zverev. "The whole court smells like weed." In fact, eighth-seeded Maria Sakkari complained to the chair umpire. However, the USTA found no evidence that anyone inside the facility was smoking, and Sakkari said the odor didn't affect her loss to Rebeka Masarova. "I mean, it's something we cannot control because we're in an open space," Sakkari said. [AP, 8/29/2023]

News That Sounds Like a Joke

Barbara Haverly, 62, of Mount Dora, Florida, was running a routine errand this summer when things suddenly got out of hand, The Washington Post reported on Aug. 23. Haverly had stopped at the city library to return a book, but the line was rather long, so she dropped it into a drop box as she'd done many times before. But as she pulled out her hand, she felt a sharp pain in her left middle finger. The top of the finger, starting just below her fingernail, had been torn off. "I was in shock," she said. Library staff called 911, and one employee got into the book box to retrieve the top of her finger. Doctors performed surgery but were unable to reattach the fingertip. Haverly is still dealing with the aftermath of the incident; she said she is depressed and can no longer do yoga or play the ukulele. Meanwhile, the library has placed a sign over the box that reads, "Please do not place your hand inside this book drop." [Washington Post, 8/23/2023]

Irony

Two employees of television outlet Univision Chicago who were filming a piece about armed robberies in the Windy City were robbed at gunpoint around 5 a.m. on Aug. 28, The Washington Post reported. The reporter and photographer were in the Wicker Park neighborhood when an SUV and a sedan pulled up and three suspects "wearing ski masks and displaying firearms" jumped out. They took the photography equipment and personal items, returned to their cars and fled. The suspects are still at large; no injuries were reported. [Washington Post, 8/29/2023]

Unmanaged Expectations

Officials at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point hyped an event scheduled for Aug. 28, tweeting the night before and livestreaming the festivities a la Geraldo Rivera: the opening of a time capsule from the late 1820s. The Washington Post reported that the box was installed at the base of a monument to a Polish military engineer who aided the U.S. during the Revolutionary War. But when archaeologist Paul Hudson lifted the lid, his high hopes flew away like dust in the wind. "The box didn't quite meet expectations," he said. Hudson found ... silt. However, upon further examination, Hudson uncovered a small and puzzling treasure: six silver American coins dated between 1795 and 1828 and one Erie Canal commemorative medal. "When I first found these, I thought ... it would have been great to have found these on stage," he said. Hudson said he would analyze the remaining sediment to find out whether other items inside had been destroyed by moisture. [Washington Post, 8/31/2023]

Build the Wall!

No, not that wall. In Norway's Arctic region, workers are rebuilding a reindeer fence along the country's border with Russia because the animals keep wandering over the line to find better pastures for grazing. The barrier is 93 miles long; only about 4 miles require repair, the Associated Press reported. But the work is challenging because workers cannot step into Russian territory lest they be charged with illegal entry. Russia has charged Norway huge fines for the days the reindeer grazed in a natural reserve. The work is expected to be completed by Oct. 1. [AP, 8/24/2023]

News You Can Use

Back off that accelerator if you're driving through Coffee City, Texas, about three hours north of Houston. Why? The town, with about 250 residents, has 50 full- and part-time police officers, KHOU-TV reported on Aug. 30. The town's budget reveals that it collected more than $1 million in court fines in 2022, which were the result of more than 5,100 citations the officers wrote. And there's a tantalizing twist: Most of Coffee City's officers had been suspended, demoted, terminated or discharged from previous law enforcement jobs, for reasons including excessive force, public drunkenness and association with known criminals. "I've never seen anything like that in my professional career, and I've seen a lot," said Greg Fremin, a retired Houston Police Department captain. But Coffee City's police chief, JohnJay Portillo, disagrees: "There's more to just what's on paper," he said. "I try to look at the good in everybody and I believe everybody deserves an opportunity." Even so, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement has an open investigation into the tiny community's big law presence. [KHOU, 8/30/2023]

The Passing Parade

Lee Meyer of Neligh, Nebraska, altered his Ford sedan a few years back, cutting out half the roof and the passenger-side door and adding a farm gate, so that he could drive his Watusi bull in the Kolach Days Parade in Verdigre. (A Watusi bull, for you non-Nebraskans, has large, long horns, similar to a Texas Longhorn.) The bull, Howdy Doody, hitched another ride with Meyer on Aug. 30 on U.S. 275, but the Norfolk police weren't having it, People reported: "The officer performed a traffic stop and addressed some traffic violations that were occurring with that particular situation," Capt. Chad Reiman said. "I don't know why he was doing it that day. I can honestly say that I haven't seen anything like that before." Meyer was asked to leave the city and return home with Howdy Doody. [People, 8/31/2023]

Don't Mind Them

-- In Fairfax County, Virginia, on Aug. 22, a man entered a 7-Eleven store and displayed a knife, which was the least interesting part of the robbery, Fox5DC-TV reported. The man, who was described as Hispanic, was wearing a black cowboy hat upon which perched two parrots. Another parrot was riding on the man's shoulder. The suspect escaped in a blue SUV with an undisclosed amount of money, police said. [Fox5DC, 8/24/2023]

-- And in northern England, an unnamed driver was issued a traffic offense report by police after he was observed motoring along the M62 with an African gray parrot on his shoulder, The Guardian reported on Aug. 30. "Animals should be in suitable carriers/restraints so that they don't interfere with your ability to drive safely," police posted on X. [Guardian, 8/30/2023]

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Seattle police were called to a home on Aug. 18 for a reported burglary, KOMO-TV reported. A young woman inside the home said someone was trying to break in with a stick. Officers went into the home and found the victim hiding upstairs. The suspect, who was identified only as a 40-year-old male, was discovered in the garage, in one of the homeowner's vehicles, where he was guzzling gasoline from a jerrycan. He refused to leave the car, so police broke the driver's side window and took him out. He was charged with attempted burglary. [KOMO, 8/24/2023]

It's Come to This

United Airlines pilot Kenneth Henderson Jones, 63, told police that he had "hit his breaking point" on Aug. 2 after he took an ax to an employee parking lot gate at Denver International Airport, Denver7-TV reported. Video of the incident showed Jones hacking away at the gate with little effect, until he realized the sheath was still on the blade. With about 15 more seconds of striking it with the sharp blade, the gate broke. Jones then returned to the parking lot with a security guard in pursuit. After a brief struggle, Jones was detained in a nearby field by police officers. He was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and later released; United said he was "removed from the schedule." Jones told deputies was "trying to get rid of issues for everyone waiting" in the exit lines. [Denver7, 8/21/2023]

Crime Report

Porch pirates, meet your leader. Robin Swanger of Arnco, Georgia, was charged with felony theft after he allegedly stole an entire porch from a neighbor's yard, Fox News reported on Aug. 22. The 8-by-10-foot wooden porch was left on the property when the house was moved away, but investigators said Swanger ignored "no trespassing" signs and removed the "very well-constructed" structure. "Some people may shrug their shoulders and say it's not a big deal," said county investigator Chris Stapler, "but when you take someone's property without their consent and the value of this porch is $3,000, you can't just go and take stuff off someone's property." Well said. [Fox News, 8/22/2023]

Bad Dog

Magda Mazri and Donato Frattaroli of Boston are set to tie the knot on Aug. 31 in Lake Garda, Italy, Fox News reported, with almost 100 guests in attendance. But on Aug. 17, as the couple dined out to celebrate getting their wedding license, their golden retriever, Chickie, chewed up Frattaroli's passport. "I can't be mad at Chickie because I'm the idiot who left the passport out where she could get it," Frattaroli said, adding that he can't sleep. Mazri jumped into action, contacting local officials and the passport agency. "It's been a complete whirlwind," she said. While they're hopeful that a new passport can be issued in time, Frattaroli is prepared for the worst. "Tell everybody that's going to have a great time enjoying the beautiful event that Magda spent the last 18 months planning. I'll see everybody when they get back," he said. [Fox News, 8/22/2023]

News That Sounds Like a Joke

Dog ownership in Iran is frowned upon in many circles (dogs are considered "unclean"), but authorities took their biases to another level after a couple transferred the title to their apartment to their little white dog, Chester. The couple have no heirs, and Chester "signed" with an ink-covered paw. Yahoo! News reported that on Aug. 19, Iranian police "arrested the head of the real estate agency and shuttered the firm," according to deputy prosecutor general Reza Tabar. The sale "seeks to normalize the violation of the society's moral values" and "has no legal basis." [Yahoo! News, 8/20/2023]

News You Can Use

Along with all the other natural oddities going on this summer, people are reporting exploding watermelons, NBC New York reported. What? "My melon was on the counter and it must have already been bad when I got it and the next day I came down to an awful smell and rotten melon everywhere," one person commented on a Facebook post about the phenomenon. Keith Schneider, professor in the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at the University of Florida, said the explosions are "probably due to the heat. The fruit, if slightly damaged, can begin fermenting. If enough fermentation occurs, which produces gas, enough internal pressure may build up for the watermelon to crack or pop." And don't eat it! "The watermelon is undergoing decay, so it's best to bring it back to the store and get a replacement or just toss it," Schneider added. Put that melon in the refrigerator before and after cutting it, experts advise. [NBC New York, 8/18/2023]

Ewwwww

Thomas Howie of Madison Heights, Michigan, has become "increasingly depressed" and "paranoid about food served by others" since a March incident at a Detroit Olive Garden restaurant, The Detroit News reported. Howie filed a lawsuit on Aug. 18 against the restaurant for "tangible and intangible harm" to the tune of $25,000 in Macomb Circuit Court, claiming that he ate a spoonful of minestrone soup with a foreign object in it. When he felt a "stab," he spit out the offending object, which appeared to be the foot of a rat with fur and claws. "My stomach just heaved; I threw up right in the restaurant," Howie said. "Until this happened, this was my favorite restaurant. I still can't believe it." Olive Garden isn't buying it: "We have no reason to believe there is any validity to this claim," a representative said. Howie had a tetanus shot to treat the cut in his mouth and took the foot to police. [Detroit News, 8/22/2023]

It's Come to This

Suffolk (England) police have issued a special request to the town council as it considers its "Turning Our Town Around" project, the BBC reported. The area of focus, Arras Square, includes St. Stephen's Church and graveyard, which police say is a site with "high levels of crime" and antisocial behavior. In particular, the tombstones are being used "as tables to consume alcohol and drugs ... (and) sometimes the site of sexual activity." Police recommended that individual tombstones be enclosed or surrounded by small railings along the top edge to deter such activity. The council said the recommendation is under consideration. [BBC, 8/21/2023]

Recent Alarming Headline

Sheila Ortega, 72, hadn't been heard from for about a month before her family requested a welfare check on Aug. 15 in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Sheriff Tony Mancuso told KPLC-TV that his officers "went to the house. No car in the driveway, no signs of foul play." Five days later, Ortega's family reported her missing, and that day, Christopher T. Cater, 41, was pulled over as he drove Ortega's SUV. The deputy asked Cater if he knew Ortega's whereabouts, and he said he had dropped her in Arkansas to visit some friends and was due to pick her up in a few days. On the following day, Ortega's van was seen in the parking lot of Prien Lake Mall, and deputies took a closer look, "finding her body in the car," Mancuso said. When they confronted Cater, he admitted to killing Cater about a month ago and getting several loans using her information. He said he was unsure what to do with her body. "We have never seen someone drive around with a dead body in the SUV for 30 days," Mancuso said. Cater's bond is pending. [KPLC, 8/22/2023]

Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.