Weird News Files

A bunch of Brooklyn bees have been coming home looking flushed.

New York City beekeeper Cerise (seh-REEZ’) Mayo was puzzled when her bees started showing up with mysterious red coloring. Their honey also turned as red as cough syrup. She tells The New York Times a friend joked that the bees were imbibing the runoff at Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company, in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Mayo — whose first name means “cherry” in French — raises bees in that neighborhood and across the water on Governor’s Island.

Tests confirmed the bees were riddled with Red Dye No. 40 — the same food coloring found in the cherry juice. Bee expert Andrew Cote tells the newspaper that bees had been creating a big nuisance at the factory.

The solution? Put up screens or provide a closer source of sweet nectar.

The Chia Obama, a Chia pet-style Obama sculpture on which people can cultivate a head of green hair, has been recalled from Walgreens’ and RiteAid stores throughout the US.
The Chia Obama is a tiny bust of the 44th president that you water until a mini green ’fro covers his head. Some say the product is downright racist, while others say at the very least it’s in very bad taste. Still, others say people are getting just a little too touchy when it comes to feelings about the nation’s first African-American president.

The complaints were enough to prompt some Walgreens and RiteAid stores to pull it off the shelves. Store officials say the product “is not appropriate for the company’s corporate image.”

TAIWAN – Chen Wei-yih has posed for a set of photos in a flowing white dress, enlisted a wedding planner and rented a banquet hall for a marriage celebration with 30 friends. But there is no groom. Chen will marry herself.

Uninspired by the men she’s met but facing social pressure to get married, the 30-year-old Taipei office worker will hold the reception next month in honor of just one person.

“Age thirty is a prime period for me. My work and experience are in good shape, but I haven’t found a partner, so what can I do?” Chen said. ”It’s not that I’m anti-marriage. I just hope that I can express a different idea within the bounds of a tradition.”

Her $5,675 wedding comes after online publicity that has netted 1,800 largely sympathetic comments.

“I think there will be more and more girls like this,” said “divagirl,” who did not elaborate.

Taiwanese women are marrying later and less often as their economic status advances, fuelling government concerns about a drop in the birth rate and its impact on productivity.

Only 40 percent of women surveyed earlier this year by the education ministry said they imagined married people could live better than singles, local media said.

“I was just hoping that more people would love themselves,” said Chen, who will go on a solo honeymoon to Australia.

Chen said her mother had insisted on a groom at first but later jumped aboard the solo marriage plan.

“If I had a steady boyfriend, I wouldn’t do this,” Chen said. “it would be offensive to him, anyway.”

Source: Reuters link

A California woman who befriended a homeless woman and let her sleep in her car told police she didn’t know where to turn when the woman unexpectedly died — so she drove the body around for months along with a box of baking soda to hide the smell, authorities said Thursday.

Officers with the Costa Mesa police found the unidentified body Monday after getting a call about a car partially blocking a driveway, Sgt. Ed Everett told The Associated Press. When officers arrived, they noticed a stench and saw a leg poking out from a blanket and some clothes, he said.

The partially mummified remains consisted of mostly skin and bones and weighed about 30 pounds, he said.

An autopsy showed no signs of foul play but police are still investigating the role of the car’s driver.

The woman driving the car told police she met a homeless woman in a park in nearby Fountain Valley and told her she could sleep in her car, Everett said. But when the woman died in her car 10 months ago, she was afraid to go to the police, he said.

The woman who drives the car, a 57-year-old who herself had fallen on hard times and was living with friends, told officers she had last seen the woman alive in December. It wasn’t clear when she discovered the body in the car, he said.

“She felt she would be accused of something and with everything going on in her life, she didn’t want to deal with that,” Everett said.

Police also found a box of baking soda in the car, which the driver had used to try to cover up the smell, Everett said.

The dead woman is believed to be in her 50s or 60s, with a first name of Signe.
source: SFGate  link

BELLEVILLE, CANADA —The charges against the colonel took 36 minutes to be read out to a silent courtroom.

David Russell Williams stood facing the clerk listing his crimes, his head bowed as if the weight of his deeds were crushing him.

To the first count of murdering Marie-France Comeau, a flight attendant who worked at his air force base, he pleaded in a clear voice: “Guilty, your honour.” To the second count of killing Jessica Elizabeth Lloyd, his guilty plea was barely audible.

Crown attorneys then took turns revealing the full extent of Williams’ depravity, evidence that left family members of victims covering their eyes and gasping — “He’s sick,” one said. In an overflow courtroom, some members of the public got up and left. “Oh, my god,” said one woman. “Disgusting,” said one man.

By day, Russell Williams was the commander of Canada’s biggest air force base, CFB Trenton. By night, he broke into homes, taking pictures of himself modeling the bras and panties of little girls.

He escalated quickly, from fetish break-ins, to sex assaults with no penetration to rape and murder. He logged his crimes, kept track of police reports of his crimes and left notes and messages for his victims. “Merci,” he thanked a 12-year-old in a typed message on her computer.

“Merci beaucoup,” he captioned a souvenir photo he took of his penis strapped to a sex toy he stole from a 24-year-old Ottawa victim in June 2008.

We learned that Williams made a video of his brutal beating and asphyxiation of Comeau after breaking into her home Nov. 24, 2009. He also made sex tapes of Lloyd after kidnapping her the night of Jan. 28, taking her to his cottage in Tweed, raping and torturing her for at least a day before dumping her corpse in a field.

Lloyd’s mother, Roxanne, sat in the front row, cradling a framed portrait of her daughter.

We learned that Williams, 47, had pedophile tendencies, stealing underwear of girls as young as 9 years old during the 82 fetish home invasions and attempted break-ins between Sept. 2007 and November 2009. He broke into 48 different homes in the Belleville-Tweed area and Ottawa. One, he hit nine separate times. And he was good at it.

Williams took “thousands” of pictures of his crimes, Crown attorney Robert Morrison said, all of which he kept on his computer. The court saw numerous pictures of Williams dressed in the panties and bras he stole, often lying on the beds of his victims.

Source: Toronto Star  link

more photos: here

Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco has his own cereal line, but it turns out the Pro Bowler is promoting more than just a breakfast snack.

The phone number printed on Ochocinco’s cereal boxes directs callers to a phone sex line that offers “the sluttiest girls your nasty imagination can dream.” The voice who answers the call promises that “me and my ultra-hot girlfriends will do whatever it takes to pleasure you,” and the woman does not spare detail when mentioning multiple sexual positions.

Ochocinco says the erotic number is all a big mistake.

The Bengal’s cereal promotes Feed the Children, which has the number 888-HELP-FTC. The cereal box, however, displays a slightly different toll-free area code: 800-HELP-FTC.

Due to the error, callers looking to help hungry kids are instead directed to a “nasty girl who will do anything you want.”

Source: HuffingtonPost link