A Detroit suburb has agreed to a $3.25 million settlement with the family of a young woman who had been declared dead at home but then gasped for air and opened her eyes when her body bag was unzipped at a funeral home. Southfield paramedics were accused of gross negligence in how they responded to […]
WESTERLY, R.I. (AP) — A yellow Labrador out for a walk with his owner in Rhode Island had to be rescued by firefighters on New Year’s Day after he wandered onto a thin layer of ice covering a pond and fell through the center. According to the Misquamicut Fire Department, volunteer firefighters and other emergency […]
Christmas came early for someone who purchased a Powerball ticket at a gas station outside Little Rock, Arkansas, worth more than $1.8 billion. The lone winner in Wednesday’s Christmas Eve drawing matched all five winning numbers and the Powerball to capture the second-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, ending the game’s three-month stretch without a […]
MCCOMB, Miss. (AP) — Over the course of a steaming-hot Southern lunch, served family-style on a giant lazy Susan, restaurant owner Andre Davis has watched people go from perfect strangers to lifelong friends. His restaurant, The Dinner Bell in McComb, Mississippi, consists of just four tables. Large and circular, they seat upward of 15 people. […]
A former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue in Boston was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts “as if they were baubles.” Authorities said Cedric Lodge was at the center of a ghoulish scheme in which he shipped brains, skin, hands and faces to buyers in Pennsylvania and […]
To those who argue that the U.S. penny had no value: some coin collectors beg to differ. In fact, they doled out millions for the final pennies circulated in the U.S. before the government ended the cent’s production back in November. The U.S. Mint sold 232 three-cent sets for a whopping sum of $16.76 million […]
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A stray comet from another star swings past Earth this week in one last hurrah before racing back toward interstellar space. Discovered over the summer, the comet known as 3I/Atlas will pass within 167 million miles (269 million kilometers) of our planet on Friday, the closest it gets on its […]
BALTIMORE (AP) — Cyclist Barnaby Wickham has collected more than 700 lost hubcaps, mostly on bike rides around Baltimore. They have inspired a quest to turn litter into art, including Christmas wreaths, a giant fish and a large head of Snoopy. It is a hobby that developed nearly two years ago from his love of […]
Getting trapped in quicksand is a corny peril of old movies and TV shows, but it really did happen to one unfortunate hiker in Utah’s Arches National Park. The park famous for dozens of natural, sandstone arches gets over 1 million visitors a year, and accidents ranging from falls to heat stroke are common. Quicksand? […]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Self-driving Waymo taxis have gone viral for negative reasons involving the death of a beloved San Francisco bodega cat and pulling an illegal U-turn in front of police who were unable to issue a ticket to a nonexistent driver. But this week, the self-driving taxis are the bearer of happier news […]
BISHOPVILLE, S.C. (AP) — ’Twas three weeks before Christmas, and in the prison yard, a drone-dropped package was found by a guard. With steak, weed and crab legs, and cigarettes for days. And to season it all, a tin of Old Bay. The illicit meal was dropped into the Lee Correctional Institution prison yard by […]
BRIGHTON, Mich. (AP) — Ed Bambas will soon ring up his last can of corn. The 88-year-old Michigan grocery worker was handed an oversized check for $1.7 million Friday, the result of a remarkable fundraising campaign by a young Australian man with an extraordinary following on social media. “No, no,” Bambas said, wiping tears and […]
CHRISTIANA, Tenn. (AP) — At the start of a busy holiday week filled with hours of travel, Jordan Gullotta went to a place that has given her comfort and a sense of peace. At The Gentle Barn, an animal rescue organization in Tennessee that offers animal-based therapy, she can brush a friendly cow or give […]
A copy of the first Superman issue, unearthed by three brothers cleaning out their late mother’s attic, netted $9.12 million this month at a Texas auction house which says it is the most expensive comic book ever sold. The brothers discovered the comic book in a cardboard box beneath layers of brittle newspapers, dust and […]
A Michigan veterinarian was sentenced to 10 days in jail Monday for refusing to return a dog to a homeless man after finding the ailing pit bull mix tied to a truck. Amanda Hergenreder’s lawyer asked for 120 hours of community service for the misdemeanor larceny conviction. But Grand Rapids Judge Angela Ross said jail […]
CHICAGO (AP) — A pair of snowy owls spotted along a Lake Michigan beach has drawn curious crowds and sparked happy speculation about how long the Arctic birds of prey will call Chicago home. Word of the two owls has circulated on birder forums in the nation’s third-largest city for about a week, according to […]
A Missouri judge who wore an Elvis Presley wig in his courtroom and played the singer’s music from his phone during court proceedings has agreed to a deal that would cut his career on the bench short. Judge Matthew Thornhill in suburban St. Louis faces a six-month unpaid suspension under the deal he reached with […]
BRYSON CITY, N.C. (AP) — A motorist in western North Carolina escaped injury when the carcass of a cat crashed into the passenger side of her front windshield along a highway near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In a call to 911, the unidentified driver on U.S. Route 74 in Swain County, near Bryson […]
HOUSTON (AP) — A group of Buddhist monks in the middle of a 2,300-mile (3,700-kilometer) walk across the U.S. to promote peace planned to resume their journey after two of them were injured during a traffic accident near Houston, a spokesperson for the group said Thursday. The collection of about two dozen monks began their […]
ISLANDIA, N.Y. (AP) — Have a complaint about potholes or trash? Take it up at village hall. Just don’t email. Or call. A village in the New York City suburbs is no longer allowing people to make complaints electronically after town officials say they’ve been besieged by online grievances that have turned out to be […]
It was a foggy October afternoon on the central California coast when the Marine Mammal Center got a call on their public hotline: there were distressed cries coming from the frigid waters in Morro Bay. The center’s experts were able to determine that the calls — which sounded almost like a human baby screeching — […]
The first major blast of wintry weather in the U.S. this week brought snow, frigid temperatures and in some places something a little more magical: Frost flowers. Made of thin ribbons of ice that extend out in intricate patterns when frozen water breaks through the slits of certain types of plant stems, the icy blooms […]
BOSTON (AP) — It wasn’t a croc — there really was an alligator on the loose in Boston. And the story of the city’s slithering saurian appears to have a happy ending. The small alligator, spotted along the Charles River in Boston multiple times this week, has been rescued and delivered to safety, wildlife officials […]
DETROIT (AP) — The state of Michigan is giving up ownership of a rare relic from the famous Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck, just weeks after it strangely obtained it through a settlement in a lawsuit that was completely unrelated to the doomed freighter. Larry Orr is getting one of the ship’s life rings back — and […]
