Dateline: PolandA mayor is offering a reward to any residents who produce a male baby while a scientist questions why his town has trouble producing them. Metro reports that it’s been 12 years since the last male was born in the village Miejsce Odrzańskie, in the south of Poland. The small village is home to fewer than 300 inhabitants, most of whom are female. Locals report that the phenomenon has been going on for decades. The mayor of the local council for the region, Rajmund Frischko, was curious about the issue and reportedly researched historical records to find an answer. “We looked into it further, reviewing birth certificates,” he said. “I think that what the older residents say is confirmed. Girls are constantly born and the birth of boys is rare. Explaining this puzzle will not be easy.” Professor Rafaeł Płoski, head of the medical genetics department at the Medical University of Warsaw, said the next step would be to confirm whether the parents are related in any way before looking into environmental factors. Frischko told reporters that he wants to find out why the phenomenon occurs and is offering a reward to any couple living there who can produce a male child. “I will not reveal exactly how, but I assure you that the gift will be attractive.”Dateline: NevadaNevada Highway Patrol are reminding motorists that a person must be alive to count as a passenger after issuing a warning to a hearse driver using the carpool lane. According to a tweet published by Nevada Highay Patrol-Southern Command, a hearse driver was pulled over earlier this month for riding in the HOV lane without a living passenger. Body cam footage of the incident shows the driver alerting the officer that he is transporting a deceased body in the vehicle and asking if it counts as a passenger. The officer is heard to laugh and say, “He’s not with us anymore.” The driver was let off with a warning. In the statement made by the department’s Twitter account, officials clarified that only “living, breathing people count for the HOV lane.” The fine for illegally driving in a carpool lane is reportedly $250. The lane is meant to cut down on traffic by consolidating drivers.Dateline: NebraskaAs much of the nation suffered through a heat wave earlier this month, weather officials in Nebraska baked biscuits using only the heat of the sun and a car. Earlier this month, officials at the National Weather Service in Omaha, Nebraska, decided to demonstrate the health dangers of high temperatures by placing a baking sheet with four biscuits on the dashboard of a car and leaving it to bake in the sun. The stunt was documented through a number of Twitter posts made by the agency. Within 45 minutes, the biscuits started to rise. After an hour, the baking sheet had reached 175.2 degrees and the tops of the biscuits began to cook. “This is a good time to remind everyone that your car does in fact get deadly hot,” the agency tweeted. “Look before you lock! On average 38 children die in hot cars each year. Don’t be a statistic!” The account also pointed out that the backseat of the car, which was shaded, had reached 120.4 degrees. By the five-hour mark, the tops of the biscuits were baked and the back seat temperature had reached 144.5 degrees. After eight hours in the sun, authorities called an end to the experiment, removing the biscuits from the car. “The outside of the biscuit is actually edible,” the agency tweeted. “The middle is still pretty doughy though. The max temp on the pan was 185! Also we made festive biscuit hats.” Much of the US was affected by the heatwave. Around 147 million people in the Central and Eastern US were under a heat advisory or excessive heat warning earlier this month.Dateline: IowaPolice say the body of a supermarket employee who went missing 10 years ago has been found behind the store’s coolers. According to CNN, Larry Murillo-Moncada’s body was discovered earlier this year by workers removing equipment from the abandoned No Frills supermarket in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which closed in 2016. The employee had been reported missing nearly 10 years ago, during a snowstorm. His parents said he had gone off his prescription medication at the time, and they believed that he was not in his normal frame of mind. The body discovered behind the supermarket’s coolers was badly decomposed, but police said its clothing matched descriptions of Murillo-Moncada at the time of his disappearance. After running a DNA test on the body, police confirmed that it belonged to the young man. Investigators say there were no signs of foul play and are treating the case as an accident. They believe the man tried to climb on top of the coolers and fell about 12 feet into the space behind the machines. It is believed that the units were loud enough to cover any cries for help Murillo-Moncada might have made. Authorities are still unsure how the smell of a decomposing body could have gone unnoticed for so long.
Compiled by Joshua Lee. Email your weird news to josh@alibi.com.
