Dateline: EnglandTrains in a southwest London suburb were delayed last week when commuters forced the doors open and jumped onto the rails to escape a man reading aloud from the Bible. The train was forced to stop, and power was cut from the tracks. London police reported no injuries from the incident. Witnesses say a man began reading passages from the Bible pertaining to homosexuality and sex before marriage. According to reports, some of the commuters became frightened when the man said, “death is not the end.” The man allegedly stopped when a fellow passenger told him he was “scaring people.” Trains on the route were disrupted for nearly 12 hours, but are back to running normally. No arrests were made following the incident. Dateline: MassachusettsFederal officials are insisting that a bakery remove “love” from their list of granola ingredients. According to a letter posted last week on the US Food and Drug Administration website, the Nashoba Brook Bakery in Concord, Mass. is violating federal law by including the word “love” in their list of ingredients displayed on its Nashoba Granola label. “Ingredients required to be declared on the label or labeling of food must be listed by their common or usual name. ‘Love’ is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material …” The mislabeling of granola was only one of many infractions the bakery is alleged to have committed—including health violations and additional instances of improper labeling. The bakery’s CEO, John Gates, told the Associated Press the bakery will be “fully cooperative” with the FDA. Dateline: JapanA Tokyo man faces charges of criminal intimidation after allegedly placing a curse on a group of schoolchildren. Last month, a group of students were walking to Edogawa Elementary School when they came across a straw doll hanging from the railing of a pedestrian bridge. Attached to the doll was a note that said, “All you brats jump from here and die.” The doll is believed to be an example of a wara ningyo: an effigy used in Japan for the purposes of “black magic.” Takeshi Inaba—a 41-year-old man who lives near the school—was named by police as a suspect in the case after he reportedly confessed to the crime. According to police, he said the children who played in the park were too loud. The man is also suspected of sending 30 inflammatory letters to parents and staff at the elementary school and defacing benches and a restroom with graffiti which read “Kids are too noisy!” Inaba was arrested on charges of criminal intimidation.Dateline: SlovakiaDuring a marathon, one runner sprinted across the finish line while fully exposing himself to a crowd of people. Jozef Urban was nearing the end of the Kosice Peace Marathon in Slovakia when his penis and testicles fell out of his shorts. It’s unclear if Urban was aware of his exposure, but according to the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, he beat his previous record by 27 seconds. Canadian Running Magazine reported he finished in 2:21:51, in 10th place.Dateline: WyomingA man claiming to be a time-traveler from the future was arrested last week for public intoxication. Officers were responding to a call in Casper, WY concerning a disorderly man. According to police reports, they found suspect Bryant Johnson at a private residence, where he told them he was a traveler from the year 2048—sent by extraterrestrials to warn the town of an encroaching alien invasion. He was allegedly attempting to contact the “president” of the town. Officers on the scene noted his bloodshot eyes and slurred speech. A portable blood test showed he had a blood alcohol content of .136, according to reports. He told officers that the aliens filled him with alcohol as part of the preparatory process for traveling through time. Johnson said his trip was partially unsuccessful in that he was meant to be arriving in 2018. He was booked into the county jail on charges of public intoxication.Dateline: CambodiaFootage of mutated “hulk-like” pigs engineered by Cambodian farmers has led to backlash from animal rights activists. Videos and photos posted on the company Duroc Cambodia’s Facebook page depicting oversized muscular pigs—presumably bred by the farmers—locked in small cages. Footage shows that the animals are unable to walk normally as a result of the genetic engineering. The company’s Facebook page promotes a range of services from buying pigs to offering farm starter kits. They also offer prosthetic penises and boar semen for customers to create their own “hulk-like” pig by artificially inducing a sow. Spokespersons for PETA say the pigs are deliberately bred to grow larger to make the animals produce more meat. They condemned the practice in comments on Duroc Cambodia’s Facebook page along with a number of users.
Compiled by Joshua Lee. Email your weird news to josh@alibi.com.
