News of the Weird: Week of April 7, 2022

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What do you get when you cross spring picture day, a green screen background and St. Patrick's Day? Completely memorable elementary school photos, of course! At Sugar Grove Elementary School in Center Grove, Indiana, picture day happened to fall on St. Patrick's Day, United Press International reported. And no kid wants to get pinched on the saint's special day, so many kids were dressed in green. One problem: Inter-State Photography used green screens, like those used on TV weather broadcasts, behind the kids, so many of them "disappeared" in the initial proofs. Amanda Snow said her son's green hoodie turned into a fence, and "he had a green mohawk, but that is completely gone. ... It ended up being just a hilarious fiasco," she said. The photo company said the issues will be fixed on the final photos, but Snow hopes not: "I might reach out to the company and see if I can get the unedited ones, because honestly, they've brought me so much joy and laughter over the last day," she said.

Animal Antics

Step aside, Punxsutawney Phil. Mojave Max, a 33-year-old desert tortoise, sees your predictions of spring and calls them with a dramatic yearly emergence from his burrow in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to KSNV-TV, Max lives at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, where he is the official mascot for the Clark County Desert Conservation Program. Every year, he marks the beginning of spring by making his way out of his burrow when his internal clock and the longer daylight hours tell him to do so. This year, Max peered out on March 26 at 12:21 p.m. Of course, Max's interpretation of "spring" is hyper-local: It was 93 degrees in Las Vegas on March 26.

Recurring Themes

At least this wannabe traveler didn't need help with his luggage. On March 29, an unidentified man scaled the barbed-wire fence at Midway Airport in Chicago and approached a private jet that had been cleared for takeoff, CBS News reported. As he tried to stall the plane, he removed his shirt, shoes, jacket and pants. Police said he appeared to be intoxicated. He jumped up on a wing of the plane; the pilot, in contact with air traffic control, said, "He's right here at the front of the jet. He's trying to get in. Our door is open here." Chicago police apprehended him and took him to a local hospital for a mental evaluation. The plane eventually took off.

Least Mature Criminal

In Warren, Ohio, police responded to robbery call with a twist straight out of elementary school. As a 22-year-old man walked along a road late on March 27, a man wearing a ski mask approached him and asked if he was a drug dealer. When the victim said he was not, the robber allegedly pulled out a knife and demanded money, WKBN-TV reported. After the thief got about $80 from him, he made the victim "pinkie promise" that he wouldn't call the cops, then rode off on a bicycle. The police have not located the pinkie promise perp.

The Continuing Crisis

Christopher Whetstone, 41, was arrested March 29 after authorities carrying out a search warrant at his home in Temecula, California, found two rocket launchers and a practice grenade in a trash can, National Public Radio reported. He was charged with grand theft, although it's unclear whether the charges are related to the discarded heavy artillery items. Riverside County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Edward Soto said narcotics and a bazooka also were found in the home, which is adjacent to a middle school.

Sweet (or Savory?) Revenge

When Alisha Moy, 20, and Jordan Cobbold, 21, broke it off after just a few weeks of dating, Moy was ready to move on. But Cobbold, apparently, was not, Metro News reported on March 31. A couple of weeks after they met, Cobbold suggested he take a key to her flat in Suffolk, England, which raised red flags for her. "I remember calling my mum because I was worried about it," she said. After she messaged him to break it off, she returned home from work to find "something wrong" in her apartment. "He'd pulled my shoes out of the little cloakroom and poured beans and spaghetti in there. There were condiments splattered all over the walls and cooking sauce poured all over my vacuum cleaner," she said. Cobbold had cut the cords to all her brand-new electrical appliances. Damage was estimated at about $2,000; police arrested him a few days later and he was fined, given community service and a restraining order.

Inappropriate Behavior

An unidentified crane driver in Dublin, Ireland, lost his job after he recorded himself dropping a bag of his own excrement from the crane cab onto a rooftop on March 30, DublinLive reported. While flinging the sick sack overboard, the man joked about "the joys of being a crane driver" and laughed, much to the horror of social media viewers who saw the video. The construction company said the driver had been removed immediately and would "not work on any of our other sites in the future." They also asked social media platforms to remove the video.

Compelling Explanation

Kitty Deering of Edmond, Oklahoma, was surprised to learn that students at her daughter's high school were selling "white privilege" cards for $10 around Valentine's Day, KFOR-TV reported on March 31. The white cards read "Trumps Everything" on the front and, on the back, "This card grants its bearers happiness because it's the color of your skin and not the choices that you make that determines your ability to be successful." But Joel Patrick, the creator of the cards (who is Black), said the cards were "created as a joke. If they're saying this in seriousness, that's a personal problem with them. You don't go around telling someone you're better than them." Deering isn't buying it. "There's been years of ongoing issues of segregation here ... between staff, between students, between the community," she said. "We have to change it. That's not how I raise my children."

Unclear on the Concept

The owner of a tree-removal service in Dearborn, Michigan, has been arrested after several warnings about dumping debris in Detroit city limits, Fox2-TV reported. Police said Mahmoud Saad already had more than $14,000 in fines before his arrest on March 25, which he had paid. "Vehicles that have been registered to this person we have caught eight different times on our dumping cameras," said Officer Jeremy Woods. "Every time we talk to him, he acts like he's remorseful and then he does it again." Cmdr. Eric Decker called it a "slap in the face." Saad was held on a misdemeanor charge, which may result in more fines and having to pay for cleanup at multiple locations.

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