Odd & Interesting

A group of mountain bikers on a North Carolina trail spotted a dog trapped 30 feet (9 meters) down in a sinkhole — and it took a salty snack and some straps to lift him to safety.

When a shark attacked her husband during a snorkeling trip in the Florida Keys, his pregnant wife didn’t think twice, jumping out of a boat to pull him to safety, a sheriff’s deputy said.

A bank manager discovered a 9.07-carat diamond at a state park in southwestern Arkansas after thinking the precious gem was a piece of glass.

A tiny but playable Rubik’s Cube, so little it fits on your fingertip, has gone on sale in Japan for 198,000 yen, or about $1,900, for delivery starting in December.

Three railroad workers have been suspended for turning a storage room under New York’s Grand Central Terminal into an unauthorized “man cave” with a television, a refrigerator, a microwave and a futon couch, officials said last week.

Kataza already had a lengthy rap sheet with Cape Town authorities, so when he organized a band of others to raid a series of suburban homes, he was captured. Now he sleeps at a local prison, although there is a social media campaign for him to be returned to his old stomping grounds.

A prosecutor in Michigan has flushed a complaint about a toilet that was promoted as a place to drop absentee ballots.

A donkey sculpture on a front lawn in a Maine town was set on fire in what one lawmaker called an act of “political terrorism.”

A Massachusetts man tired of people stealing his Donald Trump campaign sign has come up with a shocking solution: an electrified fence around it.

Maybe this year’s Ig Nobels, the spoof prizes for dubious but humorous scientific achievement, should have been renamed the Ick Nobels.

A woman in Mississippi received a slithering surprise when she got home from work last week: a snake that had been lodged on top of her front door landed on her head.

A Pittsburgh museum decided a dramatic diorama that has been on display for more than a century should remain out of public view while it considers ethical issues about its accuracy and appropriateness.

He weighed at least 7 tons and had eyes the size of baseballs. His bite could have crushed a car. He bore scars from fierce prehistoric battles.

A Malaysian student whose cellphone was stolen while he was sleeping has tracked down the culprit: a monkey who took photo and video selfies with the device before abandoning it.

A suspect in Georgia left his good luck behind when he abandoned a winning lottery ticket while fleeing sheriff’s deputies.

Umpires hastily cleared the field during a game between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night when a small drone flew into Wrigley Field over the bleachers and landed on the grass in deep left center.

After 13 years, a South Florida city has overturned a ban on “saggy pants” — bottoms that reveal the wearer’s underwear.

Musicians have taken to the roofs of apartment blocs with alphorns in the German city of Dresden to perform a concert featuring distant harmonies at a time when cultural events have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

It was a tempest in a teapot — or, more accurately, a whiskey tumbler.

The grandson of U.S. President Warren G. Harding and his lover, Nan Britton, went to court in an effort to get the Republican’s remains exhumed from the presidential memorial where they have lain since 1927.

A drone carrying marijuana, cigarette lighters and cellphones got caught in a net above a Mississippi prison fence, resulting in the arrest of two men, state corrections officials said.

Experts at the St. Louis Zoo are trying to figure out how a 62-year-old ball python laid seven eggs despite not being near a male python for at least two decades.

President Donald Trump ... and “Spike?” Local election clerks in Michigan downloading absentee ballots for residents overseas were given ballots that listed Trump’s Republican running mate as Jeremy Cohen, who is the Libertarian Party candidate for vice president, the Michigan Secretary of State’s office said.

Peeps treats are going on hiatus for several months — another consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

A 40-pound (18-kilogram) African serval cat named Spartacus has been found safe and sound after escaping from his home and spending days in the New Hampshire wild.