Dateline: United KingdomA woman played her violin while surgeons removed a brain tumor from her skull. According to CNN, doctors instructed violinist Dagmar Turner to play her instrument during brain surgery to ensure that they didn’t affect her ability to play music. Turner was suffering from a brain tumor located in her right frontal lobe—near areas of the brain that are responsible for coordinating delicate movements in the left hand. A team of medical experts mapped out Turner’s brain before the surgery to find out which areas were active while she played the violin. According to surgeons, some spots of the tumor were separated from crucial brain areas by only the width of a credit card, creating a potentially risky situation. But surgeons were able to successfully remove more than 90 percent of the tumor, and Turner was allowed to leave the hospital after only three days. Neurosurgeon Keyoumars Ashkan reportedly came up with the idea of having Turner play during surgery to monitor her status. “We perform around 400 resections (tumor removals) each year, which often involves rousing patients to carry out language tests, but this was the first time I’ve had a patient play an instrument,” he wrote in a press release. Turner told reporters that she hopes to be fully recovered soon and plans to return to playing violin with the Wight Symphony Orchestra.Dateline: KentuckyTwo newlywed police officers recently had to cut their chicken dinner short to stop a robbery in progress. According to NPR, Detective Chase McKeown and Officer Nicole McKeown of the Elizabethtown Police Department were enjoying a meal together at Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers in Louisville, Ky., on their night off. The couple has been married for six months. While sitting in a booth at the restaurant, the couple saw a man wearing a mask enter the building. Last week, at a news conference, Nicole told reporters that they knew there was a problem when the man approached the cashier. “I saw her hands go up like this and I’m like, ‘Is he doing what I think he’s doing?’” Nicole McKeown told reporters at a news conference last week. “There was literally no question,” said Chase McKeown. “We just looked at each other: ‘Is this what’s going on? Let’s go.’ We just did what we felt like we had to do.” Security camera footage from the restaurant shows the couple draw their firearms and circle around the center of the room before ordering the would-be robber to drop his weapon. He does so, and then runs out the door. The couple pursued the man and held him at gunpoint in a neighboring residents’ yard. The man was arrested when Louisville Metro Police Department officers arrived. When asked if they would be returning to the restaurant, Nicole McKeown assured reporters that they would. “I love Raising Cane’s,” she said.Dateline: CaliforniaResidents of Santa Monica, Calif., were outraged to find that a pornographic film had been produced at one of their public libraries during regular business hours. According to CBS Los Angeles, the video was shot at the Ocean Park Library branch and uploaded to PornHub. The more-than-10-minute film features a woman exposing herself while walking on the streets of Santa Monica—even committing a lewd act in front of an elementary school—before entering the public library. There, she undresses and performs sexual acts while discussing her fear of being caught. It is unclear when the video was shot. In a statement, the city called the video “deeply disturbing.” “Lewd acts in the public library are a violation of library rules and against the law,” it said. “Staff did not have knowledge of the incident when it took place.” But repercussions for making the video appear to be unlikely. Committing a lewd act on public property is reportedly only a misdemeanor crime, and police officers are required to witness the act themselves before arrests can be made. Santa Monica police are investigating, however. The film has reportedly been removed from PornHub.Dateline: United KingdomA former Irish drug dealer lost more than $59 million worth of bitcoin codes he hid in a fishing rod case. The Irish Times reports that Clifton Collins had collected around €55 million (more than $59 million) worth of bitcoin made from illicit drug sales. To hide the codes required to access the funds, he printed them out on a piece of paper in 2017 and hid it in the aluminium cap of a fishing rod case at his rented home. Soon after, police arrested Collins for drug possession. He was sentenced to five years in jail and subsequently never returned to his rented property. While he was incarcerated, his landlord had the house cleared and took Collins’ belongings to the dump—including the fishing rod case. Workers at the dump told police they remembered seeing discarded fishing gear, but waste from the dump is shipped to Germany and China, where it’s incinerated. Authorities were able to confiscate all 12 online accounts owned by Collins, but have so far been unable to access them. A number of witnesses—including Collins’ landlord and the people who helped him set up his bitcoin accounts—corroborated Collins’ story. Collins told police that losing the codes is his punishment for being stupid. Before becoming an illegal cannabis producer, he was a beekeeper. Authorities say they hope technological advancements will make it possible for them to access the money in the future.
Compiled by Joshua Lee. Email your weird news to josh@alibi.com.
