Reuters Odd News Summary
Following is a summary of current odd news briefs.
Craps: Dice roll sinks Arkansas candidate who twice missed voting for himself
An Arkansas city council candidate who twice showed up too late to vote for himself in a contest that ended in a tie wound up losing the race on Thursday in a dice roll to decide the winner. Becky Linebaugh, an incumbent alderman in the small town of Hoxie, rolled a "six" to hold on to her seat for a third term, defeating challenger Cliff Farmer who came up short with a "four."
Firefighters to the rescue after German chocolate factory spill
Firefighters in the town of Werl in western Germany tackled an unusual emergency late on Monday when a tank at a local firm making liquid chocolate overflowed and poured out onto a street. "About a ton of chocolate ran out into the yard and from there onto the street," a spokesman for the Werl fire department said in a statement.
Curry signals willingness to meet with NASA over Moon landing doubts
Three-time NBA champion Stephen Curry on Tuesday signaled that he is willing to take NASA up on its offer to tour its lunar lab in Houston after his pronouncement this week that he does not believe humans ever walked on the Moon. During the "Winging It" podcast released on Monday, the Golden State Warriors guard asked fellow players Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore whether they believed humans had ever been to the Moon.
Bug business: Cockroaches corralled by the millions in China to crunch waste
In the near pitch-dark, you can hear them before you see them - millions of cockroaches scuttling and fluttering across stacks of wooden boards as they devour food scraps by the tonne in a novel form of urban waste disposal. The air is warm and humid - just as cockroaches like it - to ensure the colonies keep their health and voracious appetites.
Chirp perp: Finches found in luggage at NY airport
A man was caught at New York's JFK airport last weekend trying to smuggle dozens of South American finches into the country, a bird that Guyanese immigrants covet for chirping but officials fear could spread disease, officials said on Thursday. About 70 finches were found hidden inside a shipment of hair rollers at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialist inspected the unidentified male passenger's luggage. Some of the birds had died enroute.
'Benny the Beluga' facing Christmas in the Thames far from home
A beluga whale that was first spotted nearly three months ago in the River Thames is still feeding healthily east of the British capital and facing a lone Christmas hundreds of miles from its normal Arctic habitat. The white cetacean, which feeds on fish, squid and crabs, was first spotted in September and surfaced near Gravesend, Kent on the southern side of the estuary.
