News of the Weird: July 1, 2021

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Creepy

A TikTok user in New Jersey shared the unsettling scene that unfolded on June 10 as she pulled up carpet in her new home, the New York Post reported. "Ashley" showed followers the floorboards underneath the carpet, which appeared to show a bloodstained imprint of a human being and a chalk outline of a body, along with a 2018 date and a case number. "I wasn't bothered knowing someone died in my new house," Ashley said. Responding to comments on her video, Ashley tested the bloodstain by spraying hydrogen peroxide on it, which caused bubbling -- a sure sign that the substance was blood, some said. Still, Ashley isn't fazed: It "seems chill here. It's all good."

Inexplicable

The latest trend in plastic surgery in China, according to Gulf Today, is the pointy ear. The modified ears resemble those of animated characters or fairy tale creatures, and they give the face "a slender shape," the site reported on June 17. Doctors first insert cartilage or an implant in the back of the ear, then fill it in with hyaluronic acid. Plastic surgery clinics in China are experiencing such great demand that patients have to get on waiting lists.

Fine Points of the Law

In December 2016, Cletus Snay hit a patch of black ice while driving in Bellevue, Ohio, and slammed into Matthew Burr's mailbox. Doesn't seem all that dramatic, but postal service guidelines specify that mailbox poles be able to break away, which Burr's clearly did not do. Burr had installed an 8-inch metal pole, buried 3 feet in the ground and fortified with rocks and dry cement poured on top, News5Cleveland reported. This immoveable fixture caused Snay's truck to roll and left him a quadriplegic. Attorney Kathleen St. John argued on June 16 to the Ohio Supreme Court that a property owner "is not justified in inflicting, without warning, bodily harm upon the person of a trespasser," but Burr's attorney, Doug Leak, calls the USPS recommendations "just guidelines" and said Burr was justified in reinforcing his mailbox after years of accidents and vandalism. The court is expected to rule soon.

Awesome!

Julia Yonkowski of Largo, Florida, only needed a $20 bill when she visited the ATM at Chase Bank on June 19, but she decided to check her balance while she was there. What she saw on the paper slip surprised her: a balance of $995,985,856. "I was horrified," she told WFLA-TV. "I know most people would think they won the lottery, but I was horrified." She's tried several times to contact Chase, but she can't get through to anyone. "I get tied up with their automated system and I can't get a person," she said. "I don't know what to think."

Crime Report

As 34-year-old Paul Kiyan let himself into the home of Mat and Monica Sabz in Bel Air, California, on June 20, Monica watched on Ring video and alerted her husband, who was at home. Kiyan was naked, KTLA-TV reported, and as he wandered around the house, he helped himself to a shower and a pair of shorts. When Mat Sabz confronted him, Kiyan said the house was his. While he was there, Kiyan killed the couple's two pet birds with his hands; police arrested him on several felony charges.

Unclear on the Concept

Richard Turpin apparently just needed to borrow a truck, but he ended up with charges filed against him in Bratenhal, Ohio, on June 18. WJW-TV reported that a mail carrier parked his USPS van at the end of a driveway and walked up to the house to deliver the mail, giving Turpin a chance to jump in and take off. A witness saw the theft and called police, who caught up with Turpin a few miles away. When they asked him why he took the truck, he cryptically answered: "A U-Haul." The police officer responded, "I don't think that's a U-Haul" -- but surprise! Inside, they found a big-screen TV that hadn't been in the truck earlier, according to the mailman. And no mail was missing. The mail carrier admitted he'd left the keys in the ignition.

A 35-year-old man from Emmaus, Pennsylvania, was presumably having a good time on June 20, sitting in his Dodge Ram truck and lighting fireworks, then throwing them out the window ... until he was critically injured by one that didn't make it outside the cab. The exploding firework also did significant damage to the interior of the truck, lehighvalleylive.com reported, but didn't cause a fire, Emmaus Police Chief Troy Schantz said.

What's in a Name?

The Smoking Gun reported that on June 18, a woman in St. Petersburg, Florida, was arrested after allegedly drunkenly slamming her car into a tree, a Taco Bell sign and the store's water meter, and then leaving the scene. The appropriately named Kanisha Booze, 34, is an employee at the Taco Bell. Police said Booze had "bloodshot, watery eyes, a dazed and blank expression on her face and an odor of an alcoholic beverage on her breath."

Ewwwww

The Wellington Correctional Center in New South Wales, Australia, is being evacuated so that crews can clear the prison of dead and decaying mice and repair chewed electrical wiring, the Associated Press reported. Australia has been overrun with mice for months, which scientists say happens when rain follows several years of drought. Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin explained that "the mice have got into wall cavities, into roof spaces. They're dead, but then they start obviously decaying and then the next problem is mites."

Yeah, Science!

In a study published June 10 in the journal Green Chemistry, scientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland announced a breakthrough. They had genetically engineered bacteria to convert terephthalic acid -- a compound left over when plastic-eating bugs (discovered in Japan in 2016) do their thing -- to vanillin, the primary component of extracted vanilla beans that produces the taste and smell of vanilla. Global demand for the chemical is far outpacing the world's supply of natural vanilla beans. "Using microbes to turn waste plastics ... into an important commodity is a beautiful demonstration of green chemistry," said Ellis Crawford of the U.K.'s Royal Society of Chemistry.

Deja Vu

It started as a joke on April 2, 2020, but after a month of Zoom meetings during which "Jackie," a resident of Washington, D.C., wore the same Hawaiian shirt and received nary a comment from her oblivious co-workers, the prank became a social experiment with a momentum all its own. Jackie told the Daily Mail that on June 16, 2021, she celebrated her last day of work by confessing to having worn the shirt to 264 consecutive Zoom meetings during the pandemic. The reaction? "When I told my team that I had been wearing the same shirt, they didn't know what I was talking about. They hadn't noticed," she said. "The intern literally said, 'On purpose?' So, there's that."

Lost and Found

When a painting fell off the wall at their country home in Rome in 2016, the owners sent it to an art restorer for repairs. But during the cleaning and restoration process, it became clear that this wasn't just any painting: It was "The Adoration of the Magi" by Rembrandt, painted around 1632-1633 and long considered lost. Guido Talarico, president of the Italian Heritage Foundation, said the family that owns the painting has not expressed an interest in selling it, but that the work will eventually be made available to museums and galleries.

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