News of the Weird

Lead Story

According to a November Boston Globestory, upper-crust restaurants in New York and Boston have taken to adding genuine gold flakes to some dishes, not merely as garnish but with the expectation that they be eaten. Boston's Riba restaurant recently offered "risotto of summer's golden squashes with leaf of 24-carat gold." Said the owner, "It's so thin and weightless that by the time you eat it, it's gonzo." She added, "There's a feeling of plenty around. People are feeling rich."

Latest Bra Technology

In July London art student Kursty Groves told reporters she had developed a prototype "Techno Bra," which houses in its lining a Global Positioning Satellite locator, heart-rate monitor and cell phone transmitter, to be activated if the wearer is attacked (which supposedly produces a heartbeat distinct from that produced by exercising or passion). Also in July a report of an American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery study indicated success with the battery-operated vacuum bra that removes air from its two domes so that breasts are sucked forward; 15 women testers grew by an average of one cup size after ten weeks.

Police Blotter

Police in Stockton, California, arrested Tina Watts, 28, in June and charged her with cruelty to an animal after she shot a neighbor's dog. She claimed the dog had just bitten her four-year-old son, but she later admitted that wasn't true after police discovered that the bloody dog-bite wound was just a bandage she had saturated with ketchup.

Two thieves abandoned their rental car in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in May and escaped, leaving a sheep and three goats in the car, allegedly rustled from a farmer. The sheep was wearing a dress, and the goats wore shirts, pants and hats. Police guessed the thieves had dressed the animals to avert suspicion, but with nightfall approaching, the driver actually created suspicion when he failed to turn on his headlights.

Least Competent Criminals

In September Roland Tough, 22, and five colleagues, convicted of theft in Greater Manchester, England, were given prison sentences of from three to six years. They had burglarized a Tesco's department store in Walkden, with Tough commemorating the heist as the gang's official photographer. However, he later dropped off the roll of film for processing at the very same store, and employees recognized some of the stolen items.

Also, in the Last Month...

A jail warden accidentally fell to his death from the ceiling on top of a conjugal-visit couple he was spying on (Tapachula, Mexico). The year-old investigation of a used-car salesman's murder was stalled when police discovered that the man was hated by so many people (Edmonton, Alberta). A woman serving a life sentence for stomping another woman to death broke down in tears as she told prison authorities how a fellow inmate had killed her two pet fish (Kingston, Ontario). A 270-pound University of Kansas football player got stuck in a Taco Bell drive-thru window when he climbed in after a clerk who had screwed up his chalupa order.