Weird - Man in California buries son, learns son alive later

It's like a horror story, although the horror is more in terms of the psychological impact it has on the people. One of the worst experiences that they say that a parent can have is to witness or be told about the death of their children, and this is what this father had to experience.
One of their children (a man aged 57) had been suffering from mental illness and was living on the streets. Then his father got a call that their son had been found dead and that the police department had done verification of identity using fingerprints. In their shock, the family gathered together and did the burial for their son, and went through their grief. However, to their shock and relief, 11 days later, they got a call in which his son told the father that he was indeed alive, and the family learnt that the coroner had made a mistake in identification and that the son was alive (link to article):

Eleven days after laying his son to rest, Frank J. Kerrigan got a call from a friend. "Your son is alive," he said. "Bill (Shinker) put my son on the phone," Kerrigan said. "He said 'Hi Dad.' " Orange County coroner's officials had misidentified the body, the Orange County Register reported Friday. "When somebody tells me my son is dead, when they have fingerprints, I believe them," Kerrigan said. "If he wasn't identified by fingerprints I would been there in heartbeat."

Weird news - Boys wearing skirts to school in Britain

Seems a bit strange to call this out - school going boys wearing skirts to school (somebody might even call this statement out to be sexist and not politically correct - after all, why can't boys wear skirts and girls wear trousers). However, there is a definite reason for them wearing skirts - a matter of protest. It is getting hot and the uniform of mandatory trousers (and jackets for senior students) would be making them hot and sweaty. When they asked in the school for being able to wear shorts, the administration refused, but said in jest that they could wear skirts.
So next day a small group of boys came wearing skirts (and even had razors after complaints that their legs were too hairy), and this spread to more students (once they were reconciled with wearing skirts, it was cool and breezy for them as opposed to wearing trousers) (link to article):

Another said it was “quite refreshing”, pointing out that if even Royal Ascot had allowed racegoers in the royal enclosure to remove their jackets then the school ought to relax its dress code. One mother said: “My 14-year-old son wanted to wear shorts. The headteacher told them: ‘Well, you can wear a skirt if you like’ – but I think she was being sarcastic. “However, children tend to take you literally, and because she told them it was OK, there was nothing she could do as long as they are school skirts.” Another mother said: “Children also don’t like injustice. The boys see the women teachers in sandals and nice cool skirts and tops while they are wearing long trousers and shoes and the older boys have to wear blazers. They just think it’s unfair that they can’t wear shorts in this heat.”

Weird news - Man dangles baby from window for Facebook likes

Fun and games for somebody can seem like endangering the life of somebody else. Especially when a baby is involved. It may seem like a prank, but can lead to massive outrage by others when they see somebody apparently being uncaring for the life of a baby (who after all, is incapable of taking care of itself and only survives due to the care of others around it, mostly parents). And when it seems that such a prank is being done to become popular or 'viral' on social media, it can become even more problematic and lead to more outrage.
In this case, a photo showing a man holding a toddler by the T-shirt and dangling the baby out of the window, apparently demanding 1000 Facebook likes to let the baby back into safety cost the man dearly. It may have been a prank, it may have been a Photoshopped image, but the image cost the man dearly. He was sentenced to 2 years in jail for endangering a child (link to article):

An Algerian man has been sent to prison for two years for dangling a toddler out of a window of a high-rise building in the capital Algiers while asking for 1000 Facebook likes. The unnamed man shared a picture of himself holding the baby by his t-shirt with a caption ‘1000 Fb likes or I will drop him’, according to news site Al Arabiya. Social media erupted with anger and shock after the post went viral, leading to his arrest on Sunday. He has, however, defended himself, saying the image was photoshopped by Facebook users, reports said.

Weird news - Bear breaks into a house when owners are away

There are numerous incidents where bears and other animals are learning from human proximity. Many locations in natural parks are places where bears have learned that proximity to humans means food and other comforts and since bears learn fast, there are frequent encounters with bears at camp sites. And bears tend to be large and fierce, so these encounters can be dangerous. Bears are also inquisitive animals, such as the below article makes clear.
A family came home and find their house in a state of disorder, something that they suspected was because of a burglar. But they had a camera installed, and checking the camera feed would have given them a big shock. They found a big bear roaming around the house, wandering through the kitchen and even striking a few chords on the piano. It must have been shocking, since it meant that a bear could enter their house easily, and this entry could have been also because the bear could have entered the house when they were in the house (link to article):

A family in US state Colorado came home to find a trashed kitchen. They thought it was a burglar who had entered their house, so they called the police. But when the security cameras installed in the house were checked, they saw a black bear roaming around the living room. In a straight-out-of-a-Disney movie scene, the bear was seen roaming around the house as if it was the animal's territory. The bear even got up on its hind legs to reach up to the piano to play a few notes and then went to discover the rest of the rooms.

Weird news - Sea Lion pulls girl into the water in Canada

No matter how cute some animals look, they are still wild animals, and unpredictable in terms of their actions, different from how humans tend to think of in terms of predictable actions. Sometimes the antics of wild animals seem very cute, but one has to remember that they are in fact wild animals and one has to be careful. Consider the following case where people flocked to see a sea lion which was very close to land. Children are even more attracted to them, having seen them in cute videos and performances where their performances are scripted and the audience is far away. However, in this case, the sea lion actually grabbed the girl and pulled her into the water and it was quick action which got her back to the land with some bite marks but otherwise safe (link to article):

At one point, the sea lion lunges within inches of the little girl's face. It seems like a friendly move, and the girl cackles with delight. That glee turns to terror a few seconds later, when the seal lunges again -- grabbing the girl and yanking her backwards into the water. A man, who Fujiwara thinks was a relative, jumps in after her and bystanders pull them to safety. "After being pulled back onto the dock, the family quickly walked away from the area without saying much," Fujiwara said. "They were probably very shaken up and just wanted to get away from the sea lion as fast as possible."

Weird news - Tattoo, and then contamination leads to death

Sometimes death can come in circumstances that seem weird. A person dies in a situation where so many others see no impact; these circumstances making the entire situation seem so weird. Consider the below case. When somebody gets a tattoo, it is essentially a case involving a needle piercing the human body many times, and like any other wound, it needs some treatment and some days rest before the person gets healed. Now, even when somebody gets a wound, just because they are exposing their skin to pathogens or germs, does not mean that they will get infected.
In the below case, the person got a tattoo and would have been advised to ensure that it is cleaned and disinfected on a regular basis until the wound is fully healed. And like many other people, the person would have done so for a few days until he decided to disregard any such advice and decided to go for a swim in the ocean water. Ocean water contains many bacteria, and even though people go for swims on a regular basis and many of them may be having some open wounds, in this case, the person got infected, and in such a serious way that complications set in and he died in a matter of days (with high additional risk factors because of regular alcohol consumption that had caused weakness in the liver). (Link to article):

ive days after getting his tattoo, the man decided to go for a swim in the Gulf of Mexico. Just three days after that, he was admitted to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas with severe pain in both of his legs and feet. His symptoms included a fever, chills and redness around his tattoo and elsewhere on his legs. "A lot of our patients, when they come to our institution, come in sick -- and he was certainly among the sicker of the patients that we've had come in," said Dr. Nicholas Hendren, an internal medicine resident at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and lead author of the report. "He said he had a lot of pain in [his right leg]. That, of course, drew our attention right away. "Within a few hours, things had progressed pretty quickly," he said. "There's darkening skin changes, more bruising, more discoloration, what we call bullae -- or mounds of fluid that were starting to collect in his legs -- which, of course, is very alarming to anyone, as it was to us. . 

Now, the warnings would have been there, but so many people would be disregarding the warnings and yet nothing happening. It was just unlucky in the case of this person that the infection took such a serious turn.

Weird news - Teen wakes up on the way to his funeral

One reads of stories like this from time to time, but the emotional impact of such a story is incredible on the person involved and the family members. Imagine if this recovery had happened just a few hours later, when it would have been too late and the person would have had a cremation.
The youth had been bitten by a stray dog and because of the high fever and complications that followed, he was hospitalized with a severe problem and at the end, the doctors said that they were unable to provide any further help and that he was beyond help. So the family decided to take him away When they felt no movement or other signs of life, they took him to be dead and decided to take him to the funeral.
However, he got up on the way to the funeral, which would be a shock to his family, but also a big relief (link to article):

A 17-year-old boy woke up on the way to his funeral in Dharwad's Managundi village, surprising his relatives and villagers who had presumed him dead. He was rushed to a private hospital where his condition is critical. Bitten by a stray dog one month ago, Kumar Marewad, 17, had high fever last week following which he was admitted to a Dharwad hospital. As his condition deteriorated, the teenager was put on ventilator. The doctors told Kumar's relatives that he was critical and that he would not survive if life support was removed. Informing them that infection had spread in Kumar's body, the doctors left the family to decide if they wanted to continue treatment. Later, the family decided to shift him home.

Weird news - Kid driving a car in New Zealand, training !

The age of driving varies in different geographies and countries, with it being 16 in some places and 18 in some places. The idea is that driving means you are risking both yours and other people's lives, and hence some amount of maturity is required. This rule can be implemented quite strictly with strict fines in the more developed countries, while less developed countries struggle to check this problem and enforce the necessary penalties. But in a country such as New Zealand, one would expect that this is a very strict rule and there would be few people willing to experiment with breaking this rule.
So consider the surprise of this driver when he saw that the car ahead of him was being driven by what seemed like a 8 year old, and with a goat in the car. And it was not just some kid who had stolen the keys for a joy-ride, in fact, there was an adult in the backseat who was fine with the kid driving (link to article):

Video has emerged of a child driving a car packed with other children - and a goat. The footage, filmed in Whitianga by Auckland's Gaz Walden, shows several children in a red Ford Falcon with a boy, about 8 years old, at the wheel. Walden then realises there is a goat in the back seat. "You're f***ing kidding me. What the f*** is going on. This is insane. Look at him, he can only just see over the steering wheel," he says. He pulls up next to the car and tells the boy he shouldn't be driving - but then a middle-aged man climbs out of the back seat to reassure him, saying the boy is "actually training". "I don't care mate - that is ridiculous," Walden tells him.

Weird news - Snake falls through ceiling and remains unseen for a couple of days

Seems a bit weird, that a large hole is there in the ceiling, which means some animal or something must have dropped through; and yet nobody detected a snake there for a few days. The hole had been detected, but it was assumed that this was because a possum had fallen through (and they have had possum problems before). It was only after the cleaner saw this large snake (and if you see the image, it is a pretty large snake); of course, the snake had eaten a large animal and hence was not likely to move much (snakes tend to become slower after they have eaten, they are slowly digesting what they have eaten). Hence, it became easy for them to evict the snake from its resting place (link to article):

On Tuesday, Chantal Vaughan walked into her gym and discovered a hole in the ceiling. The owner of Bokwa CQ gym in Rockhampton, Australia, she initially thought that a possum had probably fallen through the ceiling and didn't think much of it - the gym has a possum problem. Two days later, however, she received a terrifying text from her cleaner, informing her that a massive snake had been found inside the gym. The hole in the ceiling, it turns out, was made by a huge snake falling through it.

Weird news - Robbing missionary, getting beaten up

This is the kind of behavior that police forces are always in 2 minds upon. If you are set upon by 2 robbers who have a gun, fighting them can be dangerous since one does not know their state of mind. They could be desperate and liable to use the gun on the person they are robbing, and a simple robbery could turn into a tragedy, a murder.
However, when something like the below case happens, people are liable to applaud the person who defeats the robbers, such as the missionary in this case. He was picked on by 2 armed robbers in Brazil, and fought back, disarming them and sending them on their way (link to article):

A newly released dramatic video captures two would-be robbers in the streets of Brazil being undone by a Mormon missionary from the United States, who disarms one man and pummels another with punches. In the end, the apparent attackers flee on foot, leaving behind their motorcycle. “The missionary feared for his life and reacted,” Eric Hawkins, spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, told The Washington Post late Wednesday. No police report was filed, he said.

Weird news - Young boys kill flamingo in zoo

The law says that young children cannot be penalized for their actions, although some countries do allow prosecution if the crime committed is particularly heinous, say for example, when they kill somebody or rape, or something similar. It gets more tricky when they indulge in behavior that is a portend of future bad behavior, but when they are so young, how does one penalize them ? It is a similar situation when a 6 year old kills a younger boy; at that young age, one cannot treat them as an adult and punish them, but at the same time, the crime can be horrendous.
In the present case, these 3 young boys, who obviously has thought about what they were planning on doing, climbed into a zoo and broke into the flamingo enclosure and started pelting them with stones and killed one of these beautiful and graceful birds. And probably the only thing that can be done is that the zoo can charge their parents for the damage that has happened, which should be atleast some kind of indicator to their parents that something needs to be done (link to article):

It was here that the pink-feathered bird was stoned and beaten to death Friday by a trio of young boys, zoo officials told The Washington Post, marking the latest in a string of attacks around the world on zoo animals. The boys, ages 5, 6 and 8, broke into the zoo and scaled a fence to reach the indoor flamingo exhibit. Then they attacked the 60-bird flock, throwing rocks and sticks at them. “First, they pelted them with stones and then one of them kicked it,” resident zoologist Jan Vašák told the Prague Morning. One of the birds, the 16-year-old father of eight, bled to death after suffering a broken leg bone and severed arteries. Another bird is recovering from serious but not life-threatening injuries, according to a zoo statement obtained by The Washington Post.

It was also lucky for the boys that they did not get into an animal enclosure which was not dangerous, else they would have been at the receiving end.

Weird news - Boy pulls out snake from car

Most people treat snakes with a lot of caution, given the fearful danger that poisonous snakes pose to the unsuspecting person who comes close to a snake and gets bitten. Even those snakes that are not poisonous can be dangerous in terms of causing a bite and being painful, and even the site of such snakes can scare people.
It is thus that makes people wonder at those people who can play around with snakes, such people can be very popular. It is even more incredible when somebody young is able to do this, such as in this case where a boy is shown pulling a snake out a vehicle before heading to school. The video of the Australian boy shows him under the car, pulling the snake out and was finally done (link to article):

Uploaded by Yogi McDougall from Queensland, Australia, the video shows the teen lying under a vehicle. You can clearly see him trying to pull the snake out from it. Another man can be seen holding the snake's tail. "I've got the head," he says as he tugs at the snake to get it out. He eventually succeeds at the job and puts the snake in a bag held up by an older man. The video makes for quite an interesting watch.

Weird news - Rent a house and pay to use the toilet

How interesting. You rent a house and move in, and get a great surprise. The bathroom is one of the most essential rooms in a house, a need that cannot be ignored especially when it is urgent. How big a shock can you get when discover that the toilet is a pay per flush operation, something installed by the landlord. How big a shock can this be ? Imagine what happened to the renter of this Melbourne house who discovered that the landlord had installed such an arrangement in the house. It would have been a big shock, something that the renter would be wondering whether it was legal or illegal, or whether the rental arrangement could be revoked (link to article):

Think you have it bad with a nosy landlord or one who doesn't provide enough services in your accommodation? Chances are your situation may not be as dire as this Melbourne resident whose landlord installed a coin-operated flush in his toilet. Can you imagine paying a dollar per flush? In a Reddit post, shared four days ago, the tenant shared his plight with netizens, asking if this arrangement was in fact legal. "Is it legal for my landlord to have installed a dollar coin operated flusher on my toilet?" he says on the social networking site. He further explains that the landlord's reason for this was 'a government incentive to save water'.

Weird news - 31 February as per the Government

Sometimes a Government or an official may act in such a way that it all seems funny. Especially when it comes to regular action by a Government where it can seem that the Governments are bloated messes, just sucking in the money of regular tax payers and not providing the required quality of services in turn. Consider the following case, which was a regular government action of extending a passport, which botched it up. This was the Pakistani Government consulate in Dubai, which broke the calendar and extended the passport to Feb 31, a date which can never exist (link to article):

An official at the Pakistani consulate in Dubai extended the date of a passport till February 31 without realising that the second month of the year has 28 days (February 29 is leap day). And the Internet just can't get over it. The photo shows that the passport was granted an extension on January 31.

Weird news - Breaking the car window to rescue a mannequin

Sometimes things appear funny in retrospect. After all, if you consider the current case, where the police got a report about a woman frozen inside a car, the natural move would be to get her out of the car and then get the proper medical aid. There is very little to fault the actions of the police in this regard. In normal times, it might be easy for a skilled police personnel to be able to distinguish between a crude mannequin and a person, but when you take into account an emergency situation, a life like mannequin wearing an oxygen mask, it would have been difficult to do so. And so it happened in this case where the car was broken into, and then to everyone's surprise, the mannequin was detected rather than a person who needed emergency medical care (link to article):

The Times Union of Albany reports that a caller told police there was an elderly woman "frozen to death" in a parked car. Officers rushed to the scene and found what appeared to be a woman sitting in a car's front passenger seat wearing an oxygen mask. A sergeant busted a rear window, opened the door and discovered that the woman was a realistic mannequin. The car owner arrived and said he uses the dummy for his job selling medical training aids.

Weird news - Cockroach up the nose and into the skull

It is the stuff of horror movies, where an insect or a giant invasion of insects, or an 'alien' in space gets inside the human body (or in movies such as the 'Mummy' where an Egyptian insect gets inside the skin and cause huge damage); but it apparently happens from time to time. So, for example, doctors have had to do delicate extractions of insects and small creatures from inside the nostrils or the ears where these creatures have climbed inside (typically when the subjects have been sleeping). Now, inside, these creatures are still alive, and movie, giving rise to dreadful feelings in the patient; and it is only in hospital that such conditions are medically cured and the invading insect or creature is removed.
Consider the following case where a cockroach climbed in through the nose, and the lady afflicted, could feel the cockroach moving inside her. She went to one hospital, referred to a second and then a third and finally when a scan was done and then an endoscopic examination, could doctors determine the source of her discomfort. There was something inside her head, and it was moving. Finally the doctors managed to fish inside her head and retrieve the insect (link to article):

She was soon referred to a second hospital, where doctors suspected she might be suffering from a nasal growth. At a third hospital, doctors recommended a scan, and told her the discomfort may be coming from "a foreign body that seemed to be mobile," The Times of India reported. Finally, in her fourth doctor visit - at Stanley Medical College Hospital - doctors used an endoscope to find the culprit: a blob with a pair of antennae. "It was a full grown cockroach," M.N. Shankar, the head of the ear, nose and throat department, told the Times of India. "It was alive. And it didn't seem to want to come out."

Weird news - Punishing a father since his son not granting divorce

It seems like a weird case. After all, in cases of a divorce, legal matters are typically between the husband and wife, and parents are mostly not included; unless there is some kind of harassment that is also part of the overall separation and divorce proceedings However this divorce proceeding in Israel is different, since the divorce law over there (which in turn is based on religious laws) ensures that the husband gets a veto over the divorce. Unless the divorce is granted by the husband, it will not happen. Over a period of time, the rabbinical courts have been granted powers to 'persuade' the husband in case he is not willing.
However, in this case, the husband was not present in Israel, instead spending time in the United States, primarily due his rich father who provides his son a stipend and a job. So when the father came to Israel for a visit, he was prevented from leaving and his passport taken away. The father is protesting about the court doing a kind of extortion attempt on him to ensure that his son comes to Israel and grants the divorce, and it would seem that the rabbinical courts have no other leverage (link to article):

According to the court documents, the wife suffered the stroke on a visit to Israel with her husband in 2005. Shortly after, the husband returned to the U.S., where he remains. His wife and their two children stayed in Israel and she became an Israeli citizen. The court says the husband has ignored her request and a court ruling for a divorce as well as another ruling demanding he pay alimony. The father is in his late 60s and according to court documents is a wealthy member of New York's Hasidic community who runs a real estate company. He was in Israel last year on a family visit when he was summoned to the court, told to hand in his and his wife's passports and barred from leaving the country. He was later sentenced to 30 days in prison for contempt of court. The rabbinical court argues that by providing his son with a job and stipend, the father is responsible for his son's intransigence. His lawyers argue he is being used as leverage to pressure his son and are appealing to the Supreme Court.