Weird news - Burglars rob a house, kill the witnesses (goldfish)

It is one of the most common conceptions, that goldfish have one of the shortest memories of all animals, with the memory level supposed to be that of a second. This is apparently a misconception, with the scientific belief being that goldfish can remember things for 3 months. However, when you combine this with the strongly held belief by some burglars that they need to get rid of all witnesses, the consequences were tragic for the goldfish.
Some teenagers robbed a house, and being young and enthusiastic, and having probably seen too many episodes of CSI, they were worried about being identified and caught, and hence decided to eliminate any possible witnesses to the crime, which in this case, were only some poor goldfish in the tank (link to article):

An Illinois teenager is facing residential burglary and cruelty to animals raps after killing a trio of potential witnesses to an Arlington Heights burglary - three goldfish. On 24 January, the unnamed 16-year-old and two accomplices, aged 15 and 17, targeted an apartment in a block which had been evacuated following a fire on 19 January. Police say they "pried open a door and stole a video game system, CD player, 30 video games, 30 DVDs, a BB gun, jewelry and a safe".
When the residents returned, they discovered "hot sauce, mustard, ketchup and spices had been poured into their fish tank and three goldfish floating at the top", the local Daily Herald reports.

Weird news - Chinese man originally sentenced to life for evading tolls, overturned after protests

China has a judiciary that is under the control of the ruling Communist party, and this can result in a number of cases where the sentencing can seem very strange. So, for example, when somebody is corrupt and is convicted of corruption, they can even be given a death sentence and the sentence has been carried out in the past. In other cases, people who protest against corruption and other malpractices can be convicted of acting against order and sentenced.
At the same time, the spread of modern technology has enabled the airing of views even in a society such as China where the articulation of dissent can be very quickly shut down. So, when a person was convicted and sentenced for a life sentence for evading tolls, it seemed so weird (especially when Chinese citizens claimed that people committing serious crimes were being sentenced for lower sentences, and also that tolls were very high) (link to article):

A Chinese farmer and gravel dealer who was sentenced to life in prison for evading more than $560,000 in highway cargo tolls by using fake military license plates has now avoided the harsh punishment as well.
After a public outcry about what was deemed harsh treatment of Shi Jianfeng and widespread grumpiness over high tolls in general, state media said Wednesday that authorities have overturned Shi's life sentence.
Shi was sentenced last week for fraud. Fake military license plates on two of his trucks that carried gravel allowed them to avoid tolls more than 2,300 times because military vehicles are exempt.

Weird news - Couple crash into a church, blame their car navigation system

The use of satellite navigation systems for finding your way around when driving a car has increased tremendously. It is now perfectly acceptable to just know the destination, plug this address into the system, and then follow the voice commands given by the system. It works for a huge amount of cases and this success rate has contributed to the increased use of such technologies. However, there happen cases when the technology has led people into trouble; such as the case of lorry drivers who reached destinations different from where intended, or went the wrong way on 1 way streets. Consider this case when this couple claims that the car navigation system told them to turn right into the church instead of taking them the right way (could be that their system came under the control of the devil) (link to article):

The unnamed couple were driving in freezing conditions from Austria to France on Friday when the car's satnav said, "turn right", The Times reports.
The 76-year-old driver did as he was told, immediately smashing into a 19th Century chapel near Freundpolz, Bavaria. The prang is said to have caused £23,000 worth of damage.
A motorist who stopped to help claimed the confused man blamed the machine for the error. The stunned driver said: "It told me to turn this way, but I suddenly ran out of road."

Weird news - Cat called for jury duty, owner tries to get exemption

In the United States, the jury system is the backbone of the judicial system, whereby people are governed by a jury made of their peers; so, for a trial, a jury is selected out of all the eligible population, with very few people exempt. So, people are called for jury duty, and are then selected by the lawyers for both sides; it is not easy to get an exemption from this jury duty, and the law looks unfavorably at any attempts to try to evade this duty.
But, sometimes, the officialdom that make up any system can get trapped into their red tape and processes, and lead to some hilarious situations, which get reported as weird situations. What can you call a situations where a cat is called for jury duty and the owner is running around trying to make the judicial system understand that this is an animal, not a human being (link to article):

Mrs Esposito had included a letter from her vet confirming that the cat was "a domestic short-haired neutered feline".
Tabby Sal had been entered by Mrs Esposito under the 'pets' section of the last census. "When they ask him guilty or not guilty? What's he supposed to say - miaow?" She said.
"Sal is a member of the family so I listed him on the last Census form under pets but there has clearly been a mix-up."

Weird news - Man faces huge problem, his car totally freezes in New York

When you are in a city such as New York, the problem of parking is so bad that people literally fight for a parking space. So when somebody sees a parking space, there is a great sense of triumph and people are willing to leave their car for days altogether in that space. However, problems happen only to a minuscule percentage of those users.
What do you say about this case where a person found a parking space, and left his car over there. However, he left it there for a matter of days, and a combination of cold weather, a burst water main (and passing cars splashing the water onto the car) left the car literally frozen. He tried to thaw the car by turning on the engine, but this only ended up breaking the glass of one window. Further, his boss was somewhat incredulous about this story and he had to provide proofs for this story (link to article):

Helfer told the TODAY hosts he found himself a good spot, parked, and–as New Yorkers do–didn’t worry about the car for days. In the meantime, factor in sub-zero temperatures and a broken water main, and the result was a German car transformed into a block of ice. When Helfer got to it, he tried to run the engine to warm the car, and succeeded only in changing the temperature enough to shatter the windshield.

Weird news - Man jumps out of 9th floor in a New York building, rubbish saves his life

Most people bemoan a situation when rubbish is not being collected on time, since that seems to contribute to a lowered opinion of the locality, leads to an issue where there are health implications, and also draws the attention of scavengers and animals (including smaller insects) and so on. However, in the case of emergencies, the collection of garbage can be affected, since garbage collection is at a lower priority than other municipal activities. So, for example, when there was a lot of snow during recent storms in New York, garbage collection was badly affected and piles of rubbish were piled up in many localities. But they also saved a life (link to article):

A man who leapt from his ninth-floor New York apartment in a apparent suicide bid survived after landing on piles of rubbish left uncollected in the recent snow storm. Vangelis Icapatos, 26, plunged 100ft from his building on West 45th Street wearing just his pajamas and landed on his back, according to police.
He was taken to Bellvue Hospital, where his condition is said to be stable, after the rubbish broke his fall. A police spokesman added: 'He landed on a garbage pile - that’s the only reason he’s alive.'

Weird research - ATM's as dirty as public loos

We normally believe a lot in what we can see, so when you look at public convenience, even if it seems totally clean and sparkling, you will always consider it dirty and a place to quickly go, do your thing, and leave. But other places seem clean, look clean, and so we consider those places as clean. Obviously, we cannot look at the places at a much deeper level, and truly determine whether these places are also clean, or do they also contain a lot of germs that can cause public illness. Would you be surprised if you knew that there are many places as clean as a public toilet, even the seemingly clean ATM (link to article):

The next time you take out money from an automated teller machine (ATM), make sure you either wear gloves or wash your hands. Cleanliness tests have revealed that cash machines are as dirty and carry the same germs as public toilets.
Health experts took swabs from the numeric key pads on a string of ATMs around Britain that are used by thousands of shoppers every day. They then took similar swabs from the seats of nearby public toilets and compared the bacteria under microscopes in a lab. The swabs were left to grow overnight and samples from both locations were found to contain pseudomonads and bacillus - bacteria known to cause sickness and diarrhoea, according to the Daily Mail.