xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

Tony Alleyne, 50, recently placed his small Leicestershire, England, apartment on the market for the equivalent of US$1.7 million, a price he said was realistic because he has spent nearly 10 years crafting the premises as a finely detailed model of the “Star Trek” starship Enterprise. Included, according to an April report in Australia’s Herald Sun, are a life-size transporter control, a gigantic warp core drive, voice-activated lighting and security, and an infinity mirror. “If you’re going to do something,” he said, “you have to go all the way.” Alleyne said he started the project as therapy when his wife walked out on him.

Connecticut’s Supreme Court heard arguments in April on a rather fine point in “Miranda warning” law: whether the police can use a drug suspect’s vomit against him (or at least use the eight bags of heroin that came up with the vomit). Arresting officers apparently asked suspect Vincent Betances if he had just swallowed heroin, and Betances (without a Miranda warning) said that he had, leading officers to summon medical help. Betances now says the officers’ question was unconstitutional “interrogation,” even though without immediate treatment, he could have died.

Pro wrestler The Great Sasuke won a seat in Japan’s Iwate Prefectural Assembly, and said he would continue to wear his trademark mask to work (“This is my face,” he said.) (April).

Many members of India’s lower house of parliament, opposed to the finance minister’s attempt to raise the price of fertilizer, did the Indian equivalent of a U.S. filibuster by screaming raucously for more than four straight hours on March 15 until the minister withdrew the proposal.

Also in March, India’s prime minister came under vicious attack from members of the opposition Congress party, who played Indian political hardball by accusing him of eating beef.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd

NEWS OF THE WEIRD