News of the Weird newspapers illustration
Frozen Funds
Police in Tooele, Utah, conducting a welfare check on 75-year-old Jeanne Souron-Mathers on Friday, Nov. 22, found the woman dead of natural causes in her apartment. As they searched further, they came upon the body of her husband, Paul Edward Mathers, in a large freezer chest. With his body was a notarized letter, signed by Mathers and dated Dec. 2, 2008, stating that his wife didn’t kill him. “We believe he had a terminal illness,” police Sgt. Jeremy Hansen told Fox13. Paul was last seen alive on Feb. 4, 2009, at a doctor’s appointment at the Veterans Affairs hospital. Apparently, the couple made this plan so that Jeanne would continue to receive her husband’s government benefits, in addition to her own, after his death. A neighbor, Evan Kline, said: “The story was her husband walked out on her.” Officials believe she received at least $177,000 in benefits over 10 years.
What a Fruitcake!
It may not be the oldest fruitcake still (mostly) uneaten, but it could be the most beloved. The Detroit News reported that the Ford family of Tecumseh, Mich., has been cherishing Fidelia Ford’s fruitcake since 1878—more than five generations. Julie Ruttinger, great-great-granddaughter to Fidelia, inherited the confection from her father, Morgan Ford, who kept it in an antique glass compote dish in his china cabinet until his death in 2013. It doesn’t much look or smell like fruitcake anymore (“Smells like old people,” Morgan once said), but Ruttinger is determined to keep Fidelia’s legacy alive. Each year, Fidelia made a cake that was meant to age until the next holiday season, but in 1878, she died before her cake could be enjoyed. When Morgan was buried, the family tucked a piece of the cake into his jacket pocket. “He took care of it to the day he died,” Ruttinger said. “We knew it meant a lot to him.”
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Slip-Sliding Away
Two workers with the Chicago Park District were spreading salt on an icy lakefront bike path on Wednesday, Dec. 11, when their pickup truck hit a slick spot and slipped into Lake Michigan, the Associated Press reported. It was halfway into the water before it got stuck on a breakwall. The workers were able to escape the truck and move to the shore uninjured. Park District spokesperson Michelle Lemons reminded Chicago residents that the path slopes toward the water, and lake levels are high. “It might not look like it’s dangerous, but it could still be a sheet of glass,” she said.
Wakanda Country Is That?
A sharp-eyed Twitter user spotted an unexpected country on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Tariff Tracker list: Wakanda—the fictional country from the movie Black Panther, which the USDA had added to its list of free-trade agreement partner nations. USDA spokesperson Mike Illenberg tersely told NBC News on Wednesday, Dec. 18, that “the Wakanda information has now been taken down.”
Juddering Jalopy
A driver in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, caused an “enormous bang,” according to witnesses, on Saturday, Dec. 14, when he lit a cigarette in his closed car right after spraying air freshener. Nearby buildings shook from the impact, and the car’s front windshield was blown out, along with several windows of nearby businesses, the Manchester Evening News reported. The driver survived but sustained serious injuries. West Yorkshire Police said the situation could have been worse and reminded people to open their windows when using aerosol cans and open flames.
All That Glitters…
Last year during the holiday season, former NASA engineer Mark Rober of Santa Clarita, Calif., created a glitter bomb exploding package in response to having a package stolen from his front porch. This year, Rober has a new and improved version: When it is touched, the BBC reported on Tuesday, Dec. 17, the box explodes in glitter and emits an unpleasant odor along with a soundtrack of police chatter. As a coup de grace, it also takes a video of the thief and uploads it to the Cloud. One of the sponsors for Rober’s project is Home Alone actor Macaulay Culkin. Rober calls it a labor of love: “I have literally spent the last 10 months designing, building and testing a new and improved design for 2019,” he said.
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