Animal Help Now, a group that assists in "animal emergencies," has gathered almost 160,000 signatures on a petition to repeal legislation allowing "Possum Drops" in North Carolina. In a number of communities in the state, the custom of putting an opossum in a transparent box, suspending it in the air and then slowly lowering it to the ground is a feature of New Year's Eve celebrations. Organizers in Brasstown told the Raleigh News & Observer they ended its Possum Drop after the 2018 event because it's "a hard job to do, and it's time to move on," but they maintained that the tradition does "absolutely nothing to harm" the animal. Animal Help Now, however, is continuing its campaign against the state statute that makes it legal for people to treat opossums however they wish between the dates of Dec. 29 and Jan. 2. [Raleigh News & Observer, 11/18/2019]

Bright Ideas

-- Maybe they're betting no woman will reveal what she weighs in public, but the Fusion Club in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is offering women free drink credits based on their weight. For example, a woman who weighs 150 pounds would receive about $18.50 in free cocktails. Anil Kumar, spokesman for the club, told Insider that while they have a scale behind the bar, they will also accept a woman's word about what she weighs. "They can just write the weight on a paper and give it to the bartender discreetly," he said. "Very simple, no strings attached. We wanted the ladies to surprise their partners and friends that it's good to gain weight!" [Insider, 11/15/2019]

-- A 16-year-old boy was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Nov. 17 after an agent saw him hiding in brush about a mile north of the Otay Mesa Point of Entry near San Diego. Authorities said the teenager had a remote-control car with him, along with two large duffel bags stuffed with 50 packages of methamphetamines, weighing more than 55 pounds and worth more than $106,000. Border Patrol spokesman Theron Francisco told The San Diego Union-Tribune that authorities believe the car was used to carry the bundles across the border, making many trips through the bollard-style fence from the south side and driving to the teen on the north side. The boy was charged with drug smuggling and held in Juvenile Hall. [San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/19/2019]

Yeah, No

If you're passing through the seaside city of Fukuoka, Japan, here's a tip for a cheap hotel: A night in room No. 8 at the Asahi Ryokan will cost you just $1. And your privacy. In return for the low rate, your entire stay in your room will be livestreamed on YouTube. Hotel manager Tetsuya Inoue told CNN on Nov. 20 that while the world can watch the room's guests, there is no audio, so conversations and phone calls can remain private. Also, the bathroom is out of camera range. And, of course, guests can turn out the lights. "Our hotel is on the cheaper side," Inoue said, "so we need some added value, something special that everyone will talk about." [CNN, 11/20/2019]

Crime Report

When Martin Skelly, 41, was arrested on Nov. 16 in a Clearwater, Florida, McDonald's for possession of methamphetamines, he told officers he did not have any other contraband. But during his intake at the Pinellas County Jail, a deputy found a "small bag of crystal powder substance wedged deep within (his) belly button cavity," Fox News reported, which later tested positive for meth. Skelly, who is 5-foot-9 and weighs 380 pounds, received two additional charges for introducing contraband into a correctional facility and narcotics possession. [Fox News, 11/20/2019]

People Different From Us

Bodybuilder Kirill Tereshin, 23, a former Russian soldier also known as Popeye, underwent surgery in Moscow in mid-November after doctors told him that the petroleum jelly he had been injecting into his biceps to increase their size might result in the amputation of his arms. Surgeon Dmitry Melnikov told Metro News: "The problem is that this is petroleum jelly. (Tereshin) injected this so thoroughly that it spread in the muscle and killed it." In this first of four surgeries, doctors removed 3 pounds of dead muscle and 3 liters of jelly that had formed into a solid lump. The injections were causing Tereshin high fevers, pain and weakness. Following the operations, doctors have told Tereshin, he will have arm movement but his arm muscles will be diminished. [Metro News, 11/20/2019]

Awesome!

Over the past five years, 12 separate bundles of cash, totaling nearly $45,000, have turned up on sidewalks in the quiet, beachside English village of Blackhall Colliery, posing a mystery for local Detective Constable John Forster. "These bundles are always ... discovered by random members of the public who have handed them in," Forster told 9News, although he did admit he suspects some bundles have not been turned over to police. Officials have no evidence of a crime committed related to the bundles, usually containing about 2,000 pounds apiece. After a period of time, if no one claims them, the folks who discovered the bundles will get to keep them. [9News, 11/19/2019]

Compelling Explanation

Police and firefighters in Liberty, Ohio, were called to the Liberty Walmart on the afternoon of Nov. 16 to find a car on fire in the parking lot, reported WFMJ. Owner Stephanie Carlson, 40, told them there was a can of gas in the trunk and she had lighted a candle to get rid of the smell, but she later admitted she had poured gas on the seats and started the fire with a lighter because the car was dirty and there was a problem with the front wheel. The car belonged to her husband, who said he had been looking for her all day, and also told officers she had allegedly been found huffing mothballs and paint thinner recently. Police took her into custody and found a lighter and mothballs in her purse; she was charged with arson, inducing panic and criminal damaging. [WFMJ, 11/20/2019]

Suspicions Confirmed

After the death of their uncle, Sifiso Justice Mhlongo, in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, Thandaza Mtshali and Thobeka Mhlongo ran into trouble trying to settle a claim on his life insurance. According to The Daily Star, Old Mutual required confirmation the man had passed away and delayed payment because they were waiting for "additional assessments." So on Nov. 19, the women went to the funeral home, retrieved their uncle's body and took it to the company's local office. "They said they had paid the money into our bank account and we wanted to be sure," Mtshali said, "so we left the body at their office and went to check at the bank." When they had their money, they returned the body to the funeral home, and Mr. Mhlongo now rests in a family burial plot. Old Mutual pronounced the incident "most unsettling," and promised a full investigation, but Muzi Hlengwa, spokesman for the National Funeral Practitioners Association of South Africa, said the matter was far from over: "The rituals that were supposed to be done to move the body from one place to another were not done. The soul of that man is still left at the Old Mutual, so they will have to cover the costs of performing these rituals." [Daily Star, 11/20/2019]

About a year ago, Les and Paula Ansley of Mossel Bay, South Africa, stumbled upon a novel idea for a new type of spirit, which they call Indlovu Gin, the Associated Press reports. During a safari, they learned that elephants eat a wide variety of fruits and flowers, but digest less than a third of it. "As a consequence, in the elephant dung, you get the most amazing variety of these botanicals," Les Ansley said. "Why don't we let the elephants do the hard work of collecting all these botanicals and we will make gin from it?" Why, indeed? They collect the dung themselves, by hand, and describe their gin's flavor as "lovely, wooded, almost spicy, earthy." ("Indlovu" means elephant in the Zulu language.) Each bottle's label notes where the dung was gathered and when. "Most people are very keen to actually taste it," Ansley said. A bottle sells for about $32. [Associated Press, 11/12/2019]

Fine Points of the Law

After losing in district court, convicted killer Benjamin Schreiber took an unusual claim to the Iowa Court of Appeals, but was shut down again on Nov. 6, according to The Washington Post. Schreiber, 66, was sentenced to a life term in 1997, but in March 2015, he suffered a medical emergency in his prison cell that caused doctors to have to restart his heart five times. Schreiber thus claimed he had briefly "died," and therefore he had served out his life sentence and should be released. The district judge didn't buy it, though, saying the filing proved he was still alive, and the appeals court agreed, saying, "Schreiber is either alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is dead, in which case this appeal is moot." [Washington Post, 11/8/2019]

Higher Education

A Dutch university now offers students a turn in the "purification grave," a hole dug in the ground where students can lie down and reflect on their lives for up to three hours. The student chaplaincy at Radboud University initially offered the experience in 2009 as a temporary experiment, but due to increased demand, it's back this year, according to Vice. Students are not allowed to bring their phones or a book with them into the grave. "You can see it as a special place of meditation: below you the earth, above you the sky," the university website explains. "You will then automatically notice what is going through your mind." If you're skittish about entering the grave, you can sit on the bench nearby. Radboud also offers a finals-season "crying room" and nap pods. [Vice, 10/24/2019]

The Continuing Crisis

Female employees in Japan who wear eyeglasses are seeing red after some companies there have reportedly banned eyewear for their women workers, according to the BBC. While some retailers have said women in glasses give a "cold impression," the hashtag #glassesareforbidden has been trending, and Kumiko Nemoto, professor of sociology at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, spoke out against the "outdated" policies: "It's all about gender. It's pretty discriminatory. ... The company values the women's appearance as being feminine and that's the opposite to someone who wears glasses." Japanese women have also rebelled against policies that require them to wear high heels. [BBC, 11/8/2019]

Bright Idea

Subhash Yadav, 42, of Jaunpur, India, visited a market to eat eggs with a friend, News18 reported on Nov. 4, but the two fell into an argument. To settle the dispute, police said, Yadav accepted a challenge to eat 50 eggs in exchange for 2,000 rupees. He ate 41 eggs, but just as he began to eat the 42nd, he collapsed, unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital but died a few hours later. Doctors claimed Yadav died of overeating, but family members would not comment. [News18, 11/4/2019]

Least Competent Criminal

On Oct. 30, Hudson, Florida, resident Michael Psilakis, 21, lost $1,000 in a card game to an unnamed man, which a witness told police upset Psilakis, reported the Tampa Bay Times. When the man was reported missing, Pasco County Sheriff's deputies started their investigation with Psilakis, who told them the victim had dropped him off at his mother's house after the card game, so when the man turned up dead in a burned-out Ford Taurus, police visited Psilakis' mother. During her interview, Psilakis called his mother, according to court documents, and officers recorded the conversation. In it he told his mom he had burned his legs throwing gas on the car and they needed to coordinate their stories so he was coming right over. When he arrived, police found a stolen handgun in his car along with a cellphone containing internet searches for "can u shoot through a seat" and "how to treat burns." Deputies arrested him on weapons charges on Nov. 2 and later added first-degree murder, grand theft of a motor vehicle and resisting arrest. [Tampa Bay Times, 11/12/2019]

Oops!

The Northern Echo, a newspaper in northeast England, is catching it from an area family after it ran an obituary on Nov. 10 for Charlie Donaghy, a local sports enthusiast and teacher -- who is not dead yet. In fact, his son, Ian, reports that Charlie is "alive and well," according to Fox News. The Echo published an apology the next day, but Ian posted on Facebook that "you can't UNHEAR or UNREAD that your Dad's dead! ... Northern Echo website arseclownery!" A statement from the Donaghy family said the mistake has "caused immeasurable distress" and is "unforgivable." [Fox News, 11/13/2019]

Government in Action

Residents of a small Canadian island off the coast of Maine are up in arms and demanding that the province of New Brunswick either establish a year-round ferry service or build a bridge to the mainland because their mail keeps getting opened by U.S. Customs. Mail to Campobello Island has to cross the border by sealed truck into Maine before it reaches the island, which rarely caused problems, reports Fox News, until last year, when Canada legalized recreational cannabis. Since then, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been searching for marijuana ordered from Cannabis NB, the only authorized seller of cannabis in the province. Cannabis NB has now stopped shipping packages to the island, but U.S. customs officials continue to search the mail, and the island's residents are fed up. "Expectations of privacy that the rest of Canada has just don't exist on Campobello," said Justin Tinker, a local engineer. Politicians are said to be open to the idea of the ferry, but there are no plans in place to fund the project. [Fox News, 11/14/2019]

Cold

Hot Springs, Arkansas, paramedic Lisa Darlene Glaze, 50, was arrested on Nov. 11 after she allegedly cut a 1.7-carat diamond ring off the finger of a dead woman and sold it to a local pawn shop. The patient, Gloria Robinson, had been transported to a medical facility on Oct. 16, where she later died. When her personal items were returned to her family, they noticed three of her rings were missing, according to arrest documents. KTHV reports two of the rings were found, but investigators say Glaze sold the third ring at Hot Springs Classic Gun and Pawn for $45, and the band had been cut. Robinson's sister retrieved the ring from the pawn shop and had it appraised, revealing it was worth almost $8,000. Glaze was charged with felony theft and misdemeanor unlawful transfer of stolen property. [KTHV, 11/13/2019]

Awesome!

For the person on your gift list this year who can't get enough ranch dressing, Hidden Valley comes to the rescue with a decorative plastic stocking full of its creamy nectar. FanSided reports the Hidden Valley Ranch Custom Holiday Stocking measures 105 square inches festooned in red and green and filled with 52 ounces of Original Ranch. It comes with its own mantle holder and has a handy pouring spout at the toe. All that ranchy fun costs just $35. Time to get dippin'! [FanSided, 11/13/2019]

Doctors at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, Australia, documented a case in the British Medical Journal's Case Reports that has at least one nose out of joint. A 48-year-old former prison inmate had been suffering from sinus infections, nasal congestion and headaches for years, United Press International reported. Doctors treating the man performed a CT scan and discovered a rhinolith -- a stone made of calcium -- in his nasal cavity, which, when removed, was found to have formed around a small balloon with cannabis inside. The patient then recalled that when he was in prison about 18 years earlier, his girlfriend had smuggled in the balloon during a visit, and he had inserted it in his nose to hide it. But he pushed it too far in and assumed he had swallowed it. The unnamed man is surely breathing easier these days. [United Press International, 10/31/2019]

His Patriotic Duty

Astronaut and Neshannock Township, Pennsylvania, resident Andrew Morgan, who is currently aboard the International Space Station, cast his absentee ballot this Election Day from his perch 250 miles above the planet, the New Castle News reported. Ed Allison, Lawrence County's director of voter services, received Morgan's application for an absentee ballot and went the extra mile for the spaceman, coordinating with IT for a fillable, secure PDF file that Morgan could use to register his selections. "Astronaut Morgan got the ballot, voted it and sent it back," Allison said. "No problem at all. In the 11 years I have been here, it is certainly unique." [New Castle News, 11/4/2019]

Bright Idea

Brice Kendell Williams, 32, was hoping to avoid getting a DWI early on Nov. 3, CNN reported, so rather than driving his car from one bar to another in Houma, Louisiana, Williams stole a motorized shopping cart from Walmart and toddled more than a half-mile to his destination, according to authorities. He carefully parked the scooter between two cars in the lot and went inside, where officers from the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's Office found him and arrested him for felony unauthorized use of a moveable. Williams' bond was set at $2,500. [CNN, 11/5/2019]

Rules We Didn't Know We Needed

North Carolina's Madison County Public Library system has had a loosely enforced rule against bringing pets into its branches. But on Oct. 8, Interim Director Peggy Goforth appeared before the county's board of commissioners to request a new policy that tightly restricts animals to only service dogs. Goforth felt she had to advocate for stricter rules after a man brought a bag full of snakes into the library, reported the Citizen Times. "He said, 'My pets are harmless. Here, let me show you,'" Goforth said. "And he poured them out on the front desk. They just wriggled everywhere." When told pets weren't allowed in the library, "He was really nice about it. He just bagged up all the snakes and left," she added. She said another man brought in an ant farm and took the top off to feed them, then forgot to put it back on. "The ants got everywhere." The library's new policy excludes all animal species except dogs that are trained to help a person with a disability. [Citizen Times, 10/22/2019]

Ironic

-- A passenger on New York's MTA train system noticed a couple of suspicious packages at the Metro-North New Rochelle station on the afternoon of Oct. 28 and did what any conscientious rider would do: alerted authorities, using the new Help Point intercom system in the station. It turned out the boxes contained more of the MTA's Help Point devices -- they just hadn't been installed yet. The alert only briefly shut down the station, WNBC reported, as police quickly removed the boxes. [WNBC, 10/29/2019]

-- In Crystal City, Missouri, police are on the lookout for a man who broke into a vending machine at the Twin City Coin Laundry on Oct. 22, pocketing about $600 in change. KSDK reported that he ought to be easy to find: He committed his crime in full view of security cameras, and he was wearing a T-shirt with the motto, "It's not a crime unless you get caught." [KSDK, 10/30/2019]

Dang

Talk about bringing down the room. Late on Nov. 2 in Hattingen, Germany, about 300 patrons of a swingers' club were interrupted mid-party when carbon monoxide alarms sounded and several began to feel unwell. Firefighters escorted the swingers, many clad only in bathrobes, to safety, with about 10 people requiring treatment, reported the Associated Press. However, firefighters could not detect any dangerous level of carbon monoxide once they arrived on the scene. [Associated Press, 11/3/2019]

Entrepreneurial Spirit

-- Belinda Gail Fondren, 52, of Evans, Louisiana, was charged with filing or maintaining false public records on Oct. 23 after it was discovered that she was writing fake doctor's notes for high school students so they could get out of class. Fondren, who worked at a medical clinic, charged $20 for each excuse, Vernon Parish Sheriff Sam Craft told WTAP. He also said it was common knowledge among students that the excuses were for sale. Two students obtained excuses on 14 occasions, he said. Fondren's fraud came to light when someone from the Vernon Parish School Board called a doctor about the notes, which he denied having authorized. Her bond was set at $15,000. [WTAP, 10/30/2019]

-- Workers at a branch of Pinnacle Bank in Lincoln, Nebraska, were stymied on Oct. 28 when a man arrived hoping to open a checking account with a $1 million bill, the Lincoln Journal Star reported. Bank employees argued with him that it couldn't possibly be real (the largest denomination bill ever minted was for $100,000), and eventually he left, with his bill but without an account. Lincoln police are hoping to identify him from surveillance video so they can check on his welfare. [Lincoln Journal Star, 10/31/2019]

Awesome!

When Coco the shiba inu was hit by a car on Oct. 28 in Schenectady, New York, the driver stopped and noticed some damage to her car, but couldn't see what she had hit, so she drove on. About an hour later, Rotterdam Police Lieutenant Jeffrey Collins told WNYT, the driver stopped again when she heard noises. This time, she saw Coco, who was lodged in the car's bumper. "It was like the perfect fit," said Noella LaFreniere of the Hernas Veterinary Clinic where Coco was treated. "She ... came out alive, and it's shocking to us." Coco suffered a broken elbow but no other serious injuries. Police have located her owners. [WNYT, 10/31/2019]

Weird Weather

-- CNN reported on Nov. 6 that thousands of smooth, egg-shaped ice balls have accumulated on a long stretch of beach in Hailuoto, Finland, on the Baltic Sea. The icy balls form when turbulent water near the shore breaks up a layer of slushy ice. The ice sticks together, and as waves crash the shore, they spin the clumps of ice, smoothing them into balls. Sirpa Tero, a visitor to the beach, told CNN she's seen the phenomenon before, but never covering so much area. [CNN via CTV 11/6/2019]

-- Residents of Kansas City were puzzled by a foul smell in the air, similar to funky feet or manure, on the evening of Nov. 6, according to KSHB. Meteorologists at the National Weather Service came to the rescue with an explanation: A cold front that moved into the area from the north included a shallow mixing layer that had trapped the odors in Minnesota and Iowa. As they put it: "Strong winds ... transported in an 'agriculture' smell from farms north of here." [KSHB, 11/6/2019]