Odd & Interesting

A Florida man with no flying experience who kept his cool while landing a small plane says “the hand of God” was with him after the pilot collapsed at the controls.

Over the past three decades Ara Mirzaian has fitted braces for everyone from Paralympians to children with scoliosis. But Msituni was a patient like none other — a newborn giraffe.

A Nepali Sherpa broke her own record as the most successful female climber of Mount Everest by reaching the summit of the world's highest peak Thursday.

A passenger in a small plane off Florida's Atlantic coast used the cockpit radio to make an urgent plea for help after he realized that the pilot was too sick to handle the controls.

Swiss police say an investigation is underway after workers at a Nespresso warehouse in western Switzerland found over 1,100 pounds of cocaine, with a street value of $50 million, as they unloaded coffee beans that had arrived by train.

Zookeepers at the National Zoo made a macabre discovery this week, when they entered the outdoor enclosure that housed 74 flamingos.

A marble bust that a Texas woman bought for about $35 from a Goodwill store is temporarily on display at a San Antonio museum after experts determined it was a centuries-old sculpture missing from Germany since World War II.

A man opened an emergency exit of a United Airlines jet, walked onto a wing as the plane taxied at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and jumped onto the tarmac early Thursday, May 5, police said.

As Forrest Gump in the Oscar-winning 1994 film of the same name, lead actor Tom Hanks abruptly trots to a halt after more than three years of nonstop running and tells his followers: "I'm pretty tired — I think I'll go home now."

Research confirms what dog lovers know — every pup is truly an individual. Many of the popular stereotypes about the behavior of golden retrievers, poodles or schnauzers, for example, aren't supported by science, according to a new study.

Honey Bunch, the wallaby who went missing at the Memphis Zoo after storms passed through Tennessee this week, has been found hiding — nearly in plain sight.

Volunteers picked up a record amount of trash from New Jersey’s beaches last year, with plastic items dominating the haul, and bizarre castoffs including male enhancement pills, a set of braces, a glow-in-the-dark condom and a Turkish Airlines hygiene kit found on the sand as well.

The nation’s oldest active park ranger is hanging up her Smokey hat at the age of 100.

Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood.

A Massachusetts man says he has the answer for those singing the blues about stratospheric gas prices.

A particularly prized copy of the first-ever Marvel comic book fetched more than $2.4 million in an online auction, the auctioneer said Friday.

The aroma of sizzling meat in melted butter wafts from a cast iron pan while Jaden Bales shows his favorite way to cook up the best steak cuts from a big game animal.

An annual rattlesnake roundup in south Georgia recently changed the format of this month's event to celebrate living snakes without skinning and butchering them, earning plaudits from animal rights activists.

A man who tried to slither past U.S. border agents in California had 52 lizards and snakes hidden in his clothing, authorities said Tuesday.

An Aroostook County courthouse is poised to be the first in Maine to have a dedicated therapy dog to provide emotional support for people dealing with traumatic experiences.

A gemstone, billed as one of the largest gem-quality opals in existence, was sold for $143,750 at auction in Alaska.

A treehouse is causing trouble on New Hampshire’s Seacoast.

A Michigan woman soon will celebrate a milestone birthday. How old? Look at her decorative upper arm.

Would you willingly live like a prisoner for a day or two — or four? Hundreds of people have jumped at just such a chance in the Swiss city of Zurich, volunteering to take part in an open house of sorts for a new jail before the facility accepts its first inmates.

A man has been arrested for allegedly stealing a fossilized dinosaur claw valued at $25,000 from a vendor in Tucson last month and then trying to resell it.