xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
According to a November Washington Post profile of federal examiner Russell Stormer, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has, since 1790, granted about 30,000 patents to people who have imagined unique ways to reinvent the wheel (or at least improve upon it).
Most Convenient Ambulance Chase: In November, according to an Indianapolis Star report of a local accident, an SUV driver collided with another car, causing the SUV to crash into an office building, partially smashing through a wall. Among the building’s tenants: the personal-injury law firm Mitchell Hurst Jacobs & Dick, which specializes in automobile accidents.
Mr. Rayfran das Neves Sales was convicted in Belem, Brazil, in December of the widely reported murder of an American rain forest-activist nun, who was gunned down as she argued with Sales over who owned the land he was working. Sales claimed self-defense, in that, according to him, the nun reached into her bag as she was proclaiming that “the weapon I have (for fighting for preservation of the rain forest) is this,” and Sales, sensing that she was about to pull a gun, shot her. The nun’s “weapon,” was, of course, her copy of what countless preachers refer to as a primary “weapon” against sin: the Bible.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD