Dateline: ThailandDoctors in Bangkok used a colonoscope and a pair of medical pliers to remove a 6-carat diamond from the intestinal tract of a Chinese tourist. Police said the woman, identified as 39-year-old Jiang Xulian, and a Chinese man were arrested last week at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on their way out of Thailand. The couple are accused of stealing the 10 million baht ($278,000) gemstone from a jewelry fair by switching a fake stone for the real one. The couple denied any involvement in the crime, but an X-ray showed a diamond-shaped object in the woman’s intestine. When time and laxatives failed to dislodge the foreign object, doctors were called in to remove it. The diamond’s owner was able to identify the thieves. Once the evidence was produced, the woman allegedly confessed to the crime. The two Chinese visitors face up to three years in prison.Dateline: IndiaA 24-year-old man has quit his full-time job in order to “train” himself to become a record-breaking selfie taker. Until recently Bhanu Prakash was employed as a research assistant at a hospital in Hyderabad. “My work hours were 10am to 6pm, and that didn’t leave much time for practice,” Prakash told United Press International. Prakash says he was inspired to become a full-time record-breaking selfie taker by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who snapped 105 selfies in three minutes back in May. The current record holder for selfie taking is Arizona Cardinals player Patrick Peterson, who managed to take 1,449 selfies in one hour. Prakash, who has been keeping in shape with daily hand and wrist exercises, says his personal record is currently 1,700 in an hour. “As soon as I wake up, I click a selfie,” Prakash told The Times of India. Although they have been described in the press as “initially apprehensive,” Prakash’s family now supports his dream. He is expected to make a formal attempt at the world record sometime this month.Dateline: IndonesiaIn West Java, a province of Indonesia, teenagers are being warned: Respect curfew or wind up married. Starting Oct. 1, youths under the age of 17 will be banned from dating after 9pm. The decision was announced earlier this month by authorities in the Purwakarta district, about 60 miles east of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. According to Dedi Mulyadi, the regent of Purwakarta district, the new regulation is aimed at protecting morality, preventing unwanted pregnancy and maintaining the honor of families. “Back in the day, you could not visit a neighbor after 9pm because villagers would be in bed, preparing to wake up at dawn to till their [rice] paddy fields,” Mulyadi told AFP. New CCTV cameras and local patrols will help enforce the no late-night dating regulations. If a pair of teenagers are caught breaking the rules three times “the village council may ask the parents to marry them,” Mulyadi said. It is not clear how this would be enforced, as the legal age for marriage in Indonesia is 16 years old.Dateline: PennsylvaniaA 78-year-old homeowner has been ordered to shut off the spotlights he uses to protect his home from “aliens.” Neighbors of Arthur Brown in Hermitage, Pa., say he shines the spotlights at his foil-wrapped house day and night in order to keep space aliens from getting to him. One neighbor, 71-year-old Nancy Raich, told The Morehead News the lights are preventing her from selling her house. “I’ve had a lot of nice couples come and look at my house,” Raich told the newspaper. “You can’t get a second look until that’s cleaned up.” Earlier this year, a judge ordered Brown to take down the lights, imposing a $500-a-day fine if he continued to shine them at night. Local officials say the homeowner—whom some refer to as “the alien light guy on Virginia Road”—has not complied and now owes more than $20,000.Dateline: NebraskaA college graduate paid off his parking ticket fines at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—a mere 40 years after he left campus. Back in 1974, Kent Broyhill stopped off at the campus police station and tried to pay off his parking tickets. Unfortunately, the school could only accept cash. As he recently explained to the Lincoln Journal Star, Broyhill’s pockets were empty. The officer told him is was OK, so long as he paid off the fines as soon as he could. Broyhill promptly forgot about it until a recent conversation with a college friend caused him to recall the police promise. “I can’t remember how many tickets I had, or what I owed, so I got out my checkbook and sent [the university] $100,” said Broyhill. Parking staff checked through their old files but could not find Broyhill’s name. The college ended up sending Broyhill’s $100 back. “We were busy at graduation, and all this stuff was adding up, and it just kind of slipped my mind.” explained Broyhill. “But I paid them.”
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
