News from a Weird World - the Weekly Offbeat News

The latest edition of News From A Weird World (previously known as Offbeat News) is published, with a selection of the most bizarre, strangest, oddest and weirdest news stories from the past week, that have been pulled from news sites around the world.

The stories to be found on News From A Weird World are the kind that are just so bizarre, they make you realize that fact is often stranger than fiction, and make you wonder what on earth people were thinking to get into the news in this way.

This is a selection of weird news stories from the past week that I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please can you help spread the word by sharing the stories with your friends.

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Daytona Man Given Four Year Jail Sentence

A Florida judge sentenced Nicholas Barbati to spend the next four years in a federal prison, but can you guess what for?

Was it for:

(a) Making fake calls to the U.S Coast Guard
(b) Reporting a fake threat to the Space Shuttle
(c) Running a prostitution ring
(d) All of the above

Actually it was for all of the above!

One day in November 2008 while sitting at home in Daytona Beach, he made an emergency call to the Coast Guard, claiming that he was one of 10 people on board a yacht that was sinking off New York. The search for the non-existant yacht was a staggering $66,577.

The following day he called a secure federal line an hour before the Space Shuttle Endeavor was due to launch and reported a threat.

In all it seems that Barbati made over 500 fake calls, including threatening to kill a baby, and recreating the Virginia tech massacre.

The best however is when the IRS found that he had been using Craigslist to run a prostitution ring, and had been filing tax returns for the women. The IRS found that he had electronically filed 20 tax returns, two for himself and 18 others, all for women.

Federal prosecutors filed charges against him, and although the recommended sentence was two years in prison, the judge very rightly awarded him an extra two.

Barbati will have in addition three years of supervised release, 50 hours of community service, and to pay back more than $100,000 to the Coast Guard.

Justice as they say, is served.

Read the full story HERE .

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Indians Have A Bone To Pick About Burial Ground Move

The Miccosukee and Seminole tribes of Florida agreed to allow the remains of some Native Americans to be removed from a site south of Lake Okeechobee, so that the land could be used as part of a man-made wetland project, however when the dig had progressed they were not too happy.

It seems that in May 2008 when the agreement was made, that the remains were thought to have been just several bodies.

However, once the archaeologists began digging, they just kept on finding more and more bodies, and the final count is 56 men, women and children.

A find of this size is significant enough to appear on the National Registry of Historic Places, and the Seminole tribe are angry, saying that they ought to have been notified when it was realized that the archaeologists were working on a much larger site than anticipated. They are now demanding that the remains be returned to the original site, and as a result construction has been halted.

This is all part of a much larger project, aimed at helping to restore the Everglades and to improve water resurces and drainage in South Florida.

So now there is a legal battle going on between the conservationists and the Seminole Tribe. Let's hope that they can find an agreeable solution and bury the hatchet.

Read the full story HERE .

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Happy Thanksgiving - You've Got A Leak

A Florida family were celebrating Thanksgiving in Denver when they received a surprise call from their neighbor to say that they had a leak, and there was water coming out of their front door and garage.

While they were on the phone, the neighbor entered their house, and found the whole of the living room ceiling had collapsed, and there was a waterfall coming down the stairs.

Going upstairs, it seems that a toilet had a leaky valve, which had caused the room with the toilet to fill up with water, and the weight of this on the ceiling below had caused it to fully collapse.

The inside of the house is completely destroyed, with severe damage to the ceiling, carpets, furniture and personal items.

What a terrible way to ruin your Thanksgiving!

Read the full story HERE .

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The Ultimate Gift For The John F Kennedy Fanatic

Many thousands of people around the world have been fascinated by John F Kennedy, his life, assassination, family etc, and some people will pay a lot of money for anything that is related to him, alive or dead.

Now a really unique collectible is being auctioned in Los Angeles, Lee Harvey Oswald's Coffin.

The simple pine coffin that Lee Harvey Oswald, the "official" assassin of John F Kennedy was buried in for almost 20 years, is going on the auction block with a starting price of $1,000.

While it's unlikely that this will be purchased by a private individual, numerous museums and collectors of presidential memorabilia will no doubt be bidding on this unique item, and it is expected that it could reach a high price.

So how come Lee Harvey Oswald is no longer in his original casket? In 1981 his wife requested that his body be dug up to prove that it was actually him and not a look-alike Russian agent that had been buried. Once convinced that it was her husband, he was reburied in a new casket.

The original coffin has remained until now at the funeral home that handled the re-internment, and it has suffered extensive water damage.

Read the full story HERE .

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Spiderman Suffers A Few Sticky Moments On Broadway

The most expensive show ever to be help on Broadway had it's preview performance on Sunday night, and the audience had to wait while the show was halted no less than five times.

The show, "Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark", which cost $645 million, has a soundtrack created by Bono and The Edge from U2, and has a number of flying sequences. It was during these that some of the cast got stuck in midair, and had to be rescued.

A preview is normally where the bugs get worked out of a production, but for a show to have to be halted five times is rare. The Superman show opens on Broadway on 11^th January 2011, and will hopefully go without a hitch.

Read the full story HERE .

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Swedish Stomach Broadcast Sounds Bad

The Swedes are usually good for strange stories, and this is no exception.

A man in Sweden has invented a capsule that when swallowed will allow music to be played in the stomach and it to be broadcast for about three hours.

The capsule contains a miniature transmitter, and the sound can be heard using a stethoscope that is connected to an amplifier.

Apparently the sound quality was pretty awful, as might be expected, since the inside of a stomach is unlikely to have good acoustics, and it does beg the question "WHY?".

The man is hoping to sell his invention for around $17,400.

Read the full story HERE .

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You can now also find links to all of the News From A Weird World and Offbeat News editions at Squidoo , and if you do enjoy these weekly Offbeat News articles, please could you help share them with your friends etc. I am sure they could use a good laugh too.

For more fun at the expense of victims around the world, take a look at the previous editions of News From A Weird World:

3 November 2010 - 10 November 2010 - 17 November 2010 - 24 November 2010

6 October 2010 - 13 October 2010 - 20 October 2010 - 27 October 2010

1 September 2010 - 8 September 2010 - 15 September 2010 - 22 September 2010 - 29 September 2010

25 August 2010 - 18 August 2010 - 11 August 2010 - 4 August 2010

28 July 2010 - 21 July 2010 - 14 July 2010 - 7 July 2010

30 June 2010 - 23 June 2010 - 16 June 2010 - 9 June 2010 - 2 June 2010

26 May 2010 - 19 May 2010 - 12 May 2010 - 5 May 2010

28 April 2010 - 21 April 2010

31 March 2010 - 24 March 2010 - 17 March 2010 - 10 March 2010 - 3 March 2010

2 February 2010

As always, your comments on any of these news stories are appreciated, and if you enjoy News From A Weird World, please share this edition with your friends.

News Reports Taken From The Following Sources:

Digital Spy

ABC News Australia

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The Bournemouth Echo

The London Evening Standard

The Daily Telegraph

Courthouse News

The Daily Mail