Unusual News
Marine Corps Opens $170 Million Mock City in California Desert
To better prepare its troops for modern urban warfare, the U.S. Marine Corps has opened a training center in the Southern California desert that’s nearly the size of downtown San Diego.
Known as the Combined Arms Military Operations on Urban... read more
Michele Bachmann Wins Fake Facts Title
Michele Bachmann is in a class by herself, as far as political fact-checkers are concerned. The outspoken, and often inaccurate, Republican congresswoman from Minnesota has made more than a dozen assertions that either were false or really false, ... read more
Deported Russian Spy Gets Own TV Series
A flop as a spy, Anna Chapman, the daughter of diplomat Vasily Kushchyenko, is now seeking to reinvent herself as a television celebrity in Russia. Chapman was one of ten Russian spies arrested last July in the United States, after gathering lit... read more
Theatergoer Claims He Was Injured by Clown during Tony Award-Winning Show
The Tony-award winning “Slava’s Snowshow” is being sued by an audience member who claims a clown permanently injured him during an August 2008 performance at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. Mark Misleh says the clown jumped on his chest, cau... read more
Golfer Sues Resort after Alligator Eats His Arm
When playing golf, there are water hazards and then there are real water hazards.
James Wiencek probably had as bad a golf outing as possible, short of death, when he decided to play one of the courses at Fripp Island Resort in South Carolina ... read more
College Athletes Should be Allowed to Major in Football: Dan Treadway
As absurd as it might seem at first, the idea of allowing college athletes to major in football could make a lot of sense, argues Dan Treadway, a student at the University of Texas.
Sports like football and basketball dominate many college cam... read more
14 Notable Nicknames of Mobsters Arrested in FBI Sweep
On Thursday, federal authorities arrested more than 120 suspected mobsters and their associates in one of the largest organized crime sweeps in U.S. history. Although we are well into the 21st century, it is reassuring to know that many of these g... read more
More People Follow Lady Gaga on Twitter than Live in Israel
Nearly two billion people across the globe used the Internet last year, according to statistics compiled by Pingdom.
There were 107 trillion emails sent, at an average daily rate of 294 billion—of which 89% were believed to be spam (262 bill... read more
Courtney Love Trial Would Test Legality of Twitter Insults
Celebrity Courtney Love has gone too far this time, says fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir (a.k.a. Dawn Younger-Smith). The singer/provocateur is being sued for insulting remarks she posted via Twitter about Simorangkir, who is owed $4,000 for c... read more
Judge Orders Compensation to Loyal Minnesota Sioux Tribe after 148 Years
The Mdewakanton Sioux community is set to receive money it’s been owed for more than a century, for siding with the U.S. government when other Indians rose up against white settlers in the 1800s.
In a series of treaties between the Minnesota S... read more
Congressman’s Letter to Postmaster General Took 2 Weeks to Arrive
Republican Representative Tom Petri of Wisconsin wanted the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) last month to extend the deadline for public comments on the proposed closing of a mail processing facility in Oshkosh. Petri sent a letter from his Washingto... read more
17 Things that Fell from the Sky
The recent fall from the sky of thousands of dead birds in Arkansas and Louisiana appears to be a disturbing development. However, incidents of unexpected substances falling from the sky have a long, long history. Here is a sampling.
1. MEAT... read more
Romanian Witches Protest Taxes by Casting Spells against Government
The witches of Romania, a nation where people take their superstitions seriously, are ticked off at the government for making them pay taxes. And they intend to do something about it.
Under a new law, witches will now have to pay 16% income ... read more
SEC Censors Document on How It Censors Documents
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has refused to reveal how it decides which government documents to turn over to the public—in essence concealing how it goes about concealing.
The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibili... read more
History’s First Organ Donor Dies at 79
Ronald Herrick, 79, who became the first successful organ donor in medical history when he gave a kidney to his twin brother, Richard, died on December 27, 2010, while recovering from heart surgery.
The December 23, 1954, transplant surgery ... read more
Top Middle East Story of 2010? Israeli Readers Choose Stuxnet Virus over U.S. Pullout from Iraq
America’s long-anticipated withdrawal from Iraq was small news in 2010, as far as the readers of the Jerusalem Post were concerned. The pullout of U.S. soldiers received only 15% of the vote for story of the year, putting it a distant second to ... read more