Odd News

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Efforts to turn two looming cell towers in Ohio into faux pine trees to help them blend in with their surroundings are getting mixed reviews from residents. The Blade reports (http://bit.ly/2uihs7w) some residents in Springfield Township have derisively dubbed the towers “frankenpines.” Adding branches to the towers in the Toledo suburb […]

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Even rescuers get stuck, too, sometimes. That happened in the marshes of Hilton Head Island when a rescue airboat tried to help two kayakers who had gotten stuck during low tide. The Island Packet reports that authorities were called Thursday afternoon. David Refosco is second mate with Beaufort Water […]

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A professional gambler dropped some pounds and gained some wealth after betters wagered $1 million he couldn’t reduce his body fat to less than 10 percent. Walter Fisher tells the New York Post he began overeating while on a losing streak and gained 40 to 50 pounds in a month. The […]

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York woman has found a World War I artillery shell in her basement. Buffalo resident Judith Sobresky says she was pulling up tiles in her basement Thursday when she saw an odd object in the corner. Lodged between the floor and wall was the old artillery shell. Sobresky […]

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia police say a 65-year-old woman stole a taxi and picked up a fare. They say Betty Thomas caught the cab around midnight Thursday and asked to be taken to the SugarHouse Casino. On the way, she asked the driver to make a stop at a gas station. It was at the […]

CARLISLE, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts librarian on her first day on the job has come across live military shells from the Civil War inside a closet in her new office. Gleason Public Library director Abby Noland tells The Boston Globe she found the shells Thursday morning inside a box with a label explaining they […]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Meat falling from the sky is weird, even by Florida standards. But that’s what happened at 4 a.m. Saturday when a 15-pound (6.8-kilogram) bag of frozen pork landed on the Deerfield Beach home of Travis Adair and his family. Adair said Thursday that the package hit his roof with a […]

RYE, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire state trooper reeled in a big fish — a massive 650-pound (295-kilogram) tuna. Nick Cyr says he was reading a book on his boat with two lines out Tuesday in Rye when he got a bite. He tells WBZ-TV (http://cbsloc.al/2gNhuRS ) he could immediately tell it was a […]

LONDON (AP) — Traffic on a major highway in England has been disrupted for hours after a truck laden with chocolate bars burst into flames. Drivers faced long delays after parts of the highway in Kent, southern England, were closed Thursday as fire crews put out the blaze and road workers tried to clear the […]

BILOXI, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi police say a freight train hit a car trying to beat it across the tracks, knocking it into a police SUV and a car that had been pulled over for a traffic stop. Biloxi (bih-LUX-ee) Police Lt. Christopher De Back says the car hit by the train rolled over, injuring […]