News of the Weird

Compiled and Ridiculed by Joel Frady

Shoes delay traffic
Florida state troopers are looking for a charity to donate thousands of shoes that were dumped on a Miami expressway on Friday morning. Lt. Pat Santangelo said he received a call to inform him that thousands of pairs of shoes were causing a traffic delay.

Santangelo said that he wasn't sure where the shoes came from, noting that there were no signs of a crash and that no one stopped to claim the shoes. Workers later used a front-end loader and a dump truck to clear the highway. Officials want to donate the shoes instead of sending them all to the dump.

Authorities don't have many leads in the case, but suspect that the shoes might have come from one or two individuals who believed it was cheaper to dump the shoes than expend the gas to get them to the dump.

Hickory birds stolen
The Catawba County Sheriff's Office is investigating a reported burglary in Hickory in which 200 birds valued at more than $6,000 were stolen from a home.

The report, filed by a resident who lives on Heartwood Lane, alleges that 125 parakeets and 75 cockatiels were stolen from the home between 6 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 26, and 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 29. The resident claimed that the birds were valued at $6,250.

No suspects were listed on the official report, but authorities are on the look-out for a long trail of feathers or the smell of the county's biggest barbecue.

Twins born in different years
Tariq and Tarrance Griffin of Rochester, Mich., were born 26 minutes apart at the Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, Mich. The 26 minutes looks much longer on official documents, however, since Tarrance was born at 11:51 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2008, while brother Tariq was born at 12:17 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2009.

Their father, Tarrance Griffin Sr., was also a twin, but noted that having twins born in separate years wasn't the best part.

"I just wanted kids born near Christmas," he said, "so I can cut their present budget in half and add the remainder to the presents budget for me!"

Man shot, jailed
21-year-old Michael Bass of Jacksonville, N.C., was having a bad enough night on Thursday, Jan. 1, after his 37-year-old stepfather Richard Hayes shot him. When police arrived to assess the scene, they arrested Hayes for shooting Bass - and then arrested Bass on outstanding warrants for failing to appear in court after he was treated at the hospital for his gunshot wounds.

According to Hayes, who claims to have a bad neck, he shot Bass because he thought Bass wanted to fight him.

Once arrested, Bass found himself in the same jail as Hayes. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, however, since the two men were held in different cells. Still, authorities heard Bass repeatedly say "You had pizza - I wanted a bite, not a fight, you jerk!"

Skier left hanging
A day on the slopes went sour for a skier at the Vail Resort in Vail, Colo., after an issue boarding the high-speed left him dangling underneath the chairlift - pantsless. The incident was caused because the chairlift's fold-down seat was not in the proper position, causing the man to fall through the gap. His right ski got jammed in the chairlift, however, preventing him from falling to a more painful - but less embarassing - fate.

Instead, he dangled below the lift for 15 minutes before resort personnel backed the lift up and dislodged the man from the chairlift.

The man said that, given the option, he would have preferred the fall - no matter how much damage it would have done.