xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Andrew Thurnheer, 45, was elected in January as the highway superintendent in Danby, N.Y., even though he still lives with his parents. He doesn’t sleep in his old bedroom, though; he sleeps in his tree house, 40 feet up, which he built nearly 20 years ago, and which has a generator-powered elevator, a shower and a propane heater, according to a January Associated Press dispatch. (Mr. Kapila Pradhan, also 45, has also been living in a tree, for the past 15 years, but that is in a village in Orissa state in India. He sought solitude after a fight with his wife, according to a January BBC News dispatch.)
When the U.S. Department of the Interior was ordered to reimburse lawyers for American Indians $7 million for their successful lawsuit over missing royalty payments on Indian land, the department decided that budget considerations would force it to raise almost half of that $7 million by cutting back programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Life Imitates a GEICO Commercial:
A teenager lost control of his car in Kettering, Ohio, in March, and smashed into a house, causing major damage. According to police, he had swerved to avoid hitting an albino squirrel (which, unlike in the commercial, did not survive).
Another squirrel caused a four-car collision in March in Mount Pleasant Township, Pa., but no injuries were reported. Neither human was cited by police.
(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