Oddities

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin woman accidentally shot a friend while using the laser sight on a handgun to play with a cat, authorities said.

A criminal complaint charging the 19-year-old woman with negligent use of a weapon said she was visiting a Kenosha apartment on Tuesday afternoon where a 21-year-old man had brought a handgun.

BOSTON (AP) — Boston's famous Skinny House is on sale again for a whopping $1.2 million.

The vertically rectangular-shaped house was listed Monday, the first time it's been on the market since 2017.

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese mayor apologized Thursday for biting the Olympic gold medal of a softball player who had paid a courtesy visit after Japan beat the United States in the final.

Nagoya mayor Takashi Kawamura had praised pitcher Miu Goto during the Aug.

MENDON, Mass. (AP) — The Southwick Zoo's newest addition is a pretty big baby.

Dolly the giraffe was born two weeks ago, and at 6 feet tall and 150 pounds, she's the largest of her species ever to be born in the history of the Mendon zoo.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Northrop Grumman's latest space station delivery includes pizza for seven.

The company's Cygnus cargo ship rocketed away from Virginia’s eastern shore Tuesday. It should reach the International Space Station on Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — A royal fan has bought a slice of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cake for 1,850 pounds ($2,565) at auction, more than 40 years after the couple tied the knot.

The large piece of cake icing and marzipan base features a detailed, sugared design of the royal coat of arms in gold, red, blue and silver.

BEIJING (AP) — An elephant herd that fascinated locals and people around the world by making a yearlong journey into urbanized southwest China, raiding farms and even a retirement home for food, appears finally to be headed home.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A 14-year-old California boy has become the youngest person to swim the entire 21.3-mile (34-kilometer) length of Lake Tahoe and complete the alpine lake’s coveted Triple Crown.

James Savage of Los Banos completed the trip across the scenic lake, which straddles the California-Nevada line, in 12 hours on Aug.

MOAB, Utah (AP) — A woman who fainted and hit her head on a rock after stopping to rest in Utah's Arches National Park woke up to hear a familiar voice and wondered if she might be watching television.

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Nearly 50 years after skyjacker D.B. Cooper vanished out the back of a Boeing 727 into freezing Northwest rain — wearing a business suit, a parachute and a pack with $200,000 in cash — a crime historian is conducting a dig on the banks of the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, in search of evidence.

Want to find your inner Matt Damon and spend a year pretending you are isolated on Mars? NASA has a job for you.

To prepare for eventually sending astronauts to Mars, NASA began taking applications Friday for four people to live for a year in Mars Dune Alpha.

TOKYO (AP) — A sumo wrestler that may have spooked the horses was knocked out of the Olympic equestrian ring Friday night, but the course designer is defending his decision to include the lifelike fighter in the first place.

PLYMOUTH, Pa. (AP) — A book checked out a half-century ago has been anonymously returned to a library in northeastern Pennsylvania, officials said.

The Wilkes-Barre Citizens' Voice reports that the 1967 copy of “Coins You Can Collect" by Burton Hobson arrived last month at the Plymouth Public Library in Luzerne County along with a $20 bill.

KAMIYOGA, Japan (AP) — Equestrian jumpers aren't keen on surprises. Neither are the horses, and it takes years of training to keep them from getting spooked.

Of course, no horse in Tuesday night's Olympic jumping qualifier had ever seen anything like obstacle No.

BERLIN (AP) — A German court on Tuesday convicted an 84-year-old man of illegal weapons possession for having a personal arsenal that included a tank, a flak cannon and multiple other items of World War II-era military equipment.

PARIS (AP) — A giant panda on loan to France from China gave birth to female twin cubs early Monday, a French zoo announced, declaring “they are very lively, pink and plump.”

The Beauval Zoo, south of Paris, said the twins were born shortly after 1 a.m.

BERLIN (AP) — A German federal court ruled Thursday that the golden shade of the foil wrap on Lindt & Spruengli's Gold Bunny, a popular chocolate Easter bunny, enjoys protected status.

The Federal Court of Justice delivered its verdict in a battle between Switzerland's Lindt and a German company, Heilemann, which in 2018 also marketed a chocolate bunny in a gold foil wrap.

LONDON (AP) — London’s latest tourist attraction aimed for the heights. It has fallen a bit flat.

The Marble Arch Mound, an artificial hill beside one of the city’s busiest intersections, opened this week — and is already offering refunds to disappointed visitors and admitting “teething problems.”

Let's try that again, triathlon.

The Olympic men's triathlon needed a do-over Monday when a bizarre start sent dozens of competitors into the water only to have others stuck on the dock, helplessly blocked by a boat containing cameras that got in the way.

NOME, Alaska (AP) — A miner who said he was harassed by a bear for seven straight nights in the tundra near Nome was rescued when a passing Coast Guard helicopter spotted the SOS, an internationally recognized sign for help, on top of his cabin.

MASTIC, N.Y. (AP) — An escaped bull has eluded capture for several days on Long Island despite searchers employing a helicopter and night-vision equipment along with attempts to lure the roaming animal with grain and a cow.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A few years ago, a Sydney scientist noticed a sulfur-crested cockatoo opening his trash bin. Not every resident would be thrilled, but ornithologist Richard Major was impressed by the ingenuity.

TERNATE, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian man with the coronavirus has boarded a domestic flight disguised as his wife, wearing a niqab covering his face and carrying fake IDs and a negative PCR test result.

A New York man and a Maine woman are facing charges over cocaine disguised as a cake that was seized from their vehicle, the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency said Wednesday.

Acting on a tip, police stopped the car on Interstate 295 in Gardiner on Tuesday, and a drug-sniffing dog found 4 pounds (2 kilograms) of cocaine worth $200,000 on the street, the MDEA said.

SALINE, Mich. (AP) — Bird lovers with cameras and binoculars are traveling to a stream in southeastern Michigan to see a rare creature with pink feathers and a long bill.

The roseate spoonbill was found in Saline in the Koch Warner Drain, the first to be seen in Michigan, said Molly Keenan of Michigan Audubon.

Moderating a Facebook gardening group in western New York is not without challenges. There are complaints of wooly bugs, inclement weather and the novice members who insist on using dish detergent on their plants.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Dutch Queen Maxima teamed up with a small robot Thursday to unveil a steel 3D-printed pedestrian bridge over a canal in the heart of Amsterdam's red light district.

Maxima pushed a green button that set the robot's arm in motion to cut a ribbon across the bridge with a pair of scissors.

BANGKOK (AP) — Bangkok parkgoers looking for relief from renewed coronavirus restrictions got a slithering surprise Thursday when a python as long as two of the Thai capital’s ubiquitous motorbikes was spotted in one of the city's most popular green spaces.

Twitter is disappearing its disappearing tweets, called fleets, after they didn't catch on.

The company began testing tweets that vanish after 24 hours last March in Brazil.

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (AP) — Officials in Minnesota said they’re finding more giant goldfish in waterways, prompting a plea to citizens to stop illegally dumping their unwanted fish into ponds and lakes.

DALLAS (AP) — An unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 has sold at auction for $1.56 million.

Heritage Auctions in Dallas said that the 1996 game sold Sunday, breaking its previous record price for the sale of a single video game.