xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
A February Boston Globe dispatch from Guangzhou, China, reported that a recent favorite tactic of employees who are owed back pay is not to sue but rather to make serious attempts to commit suicide in public; said one construction worker who dangled from a high-rise, “There was no other way to get what the company owed us.”
A 22-year-old man robbed a bank in Cleveland on March 12 by walking up to a teller and sticking a gun in his own mouth, threatening to kill himself if he didn’t get the money. (Five days later the man was shot to death after he pulled a gun on an Akron, Ohio, police officer.)
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry officially declared that the country had no weapons of mass destruction and did not even believe in “any form” of them, except for its nuclear weapons.
Firefighters in training, erroneously believing they had permission, set fire to a vacant house that belonged to the police chief, who was planning to fix it up for his parents (Elma, Wash.).
Rev. William Keller (an evangelical Christian), who has led the Muncie, Ind., May 1 National Day of Prayer program for 10 years, said priests from other religions were welcome to attend but could not use the microphone to pray because he doesn’t believe “in other gods.”
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
