News of the Weird newspapers illustration
Patron Saint of the Weird
Police officers in Indialantic, Fla., responded to at least seven calls about a man disturbing the peace on April 7. Patrons of Starbucks and Sassy Granny’s Smoothies, among others, were startled when 61-year-old Thomas Devaney Lane started yelling, calling himself “the saint” and threatening to unleash an “army of turtles” upon the community. According to WKMG, when Lane was taken by an officer to the police station, he screamed at the dispatcher and pounded on the walls, but then ran out of the building and couldn’t be located. He was then found at a 7-Eleven, verbally assaulting customers. As officers stood by, Lane called 911 and told the dispatcher, “I need to leave now, or you will all be sorry you fucked with the saint.” The saint has been charged with disturbing the peace, resisting arrest without violence and misusing 911.
Perhaps It Was an Inside Job
The Lankenau Medical Center in suburban Philadelphia, Penn., was the site of a break-in on the morning of April 20, but it was the stolen loot that leaves us scratching our heads. Two men and a woman stuffed several colonoscopes worth $450,000 into three backpacks. The scopes are used to examine colons during colonoscopies. “This is not something that a typical pawn shop might accept,” said Lower Merion Police Det. Sgt. Michael Vice. “My feeling would be that it was some type of black-market sales.”
For Tater-lovin’ Travelers
Idahoans embraced the Big Idaho Potato, a 28-foot-long, steel-and-plaster potato constructed in 2012 to mark the Idaho Potato Commission’s 75th anniversary. It’s been traveling the country ever since, promoting Idaho’s biggest crop, and the plan was for it to be retired this year, when Big Idaho Potato 2.0 arrives. But Kristie Wolfe had better idea. The house builder has converted the sculpture into a single-room hotel (aptly called the Big Idaho Potato Hotel), reported USA Today. It features a queen bed, two chairs and a bathroom with a whirlpool and skylight for stargazing; Wolfe lists it on Airbnb for $200 per night. “It’s a way of inviting people to experience Idaho in a unique way,” remarked Frank Muir, CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission.
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That Spa Sucks!
A “vampire facial” is a procedure during which blood is drawn with a needle and then “spun” to separate the plasma, which is then injected into the face. For customers of a spa in Albuquerque, N.M., however, the most lasting effects may come after a blood test. The state’s Department of Health is urging customers of VIP Spa, which closed in September 2018, to undergo HIV testing after two people were infected following treatment there. Dr. Dean Bair of the Bair Medical Spa said people should always make sure they’re going to a licensed facility for such procedures. “This is just the worst example of what can go wrong,” he told KOAT. The spa closed after inspectors found the spa’s practices could potentially spread blood-borne infections, including hepatitis B and C as well as HIV.
Flushed Forebears
A 33-year-old man from Pittsburgh, Penn., was arraigned April 29 on two counts of abuse of a corpse and one count of criminal mischief after he flushed his grandparents’ ashes down the toilet. The Tribune-Review reported that Thomas Wells was living at his mother’s house when she became fed up with his drinking and marijuana use and asked him to leave last September. Denise Porter told police she learned from a relative in February that Wells had disposed of her parents’ remains, which had been stored in a box as part of a memorial in her bedroom, before leaving. Wells denied flushing the ashes, but he later texted his mother that he would flush her remains, too, after she died.
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