Weird & Wacky News (35th Edition)

From around the corner, down the street, and up your alley, here are some stories that hitting the headlines…and they’re all TRUE!!

Dateline: Spain

Sit down and shut up! Police arrested a group of criminals for stealing. . .more than 1,100 chairs! The thieves, six men and a woman who did the pilfering under cover of darkness, had stolen the chairs from the outdoor seating areas of 18 different restaurants and bars throughout Madrid and a nearby municipality. Why just chairs? Well, police said the chairs were resold in Spain, Morocco and Romania with an estimated value of about 60,000 euros ($69,000 in U.S. dollars). The gang will face charges of theft, but no word if they were seated when that happened.

Dateline: Germany

Sounds batty to me! Researchers in Germany have captured some amazing video. Brown Norway rats were shown to actually hunt bats! The freaky footage shows the rats stationing themselves at the openings of hibernation sites in the towns of Segeburg and Luneberg-Kalkberg, waiting for their prey. The hungry rats, who are blind at night while hunting, pounced on bats when they flew into the sanctuaries, nabbing their prey in midair! Does Batman know about this?

Dateline: Eureka, California

Can Boo-Boo come out and play? The Sequoia Park Zoo were surprised by the presence of an unexpected visitor–a wild American black bear, who had wandered into the zoo and was hanging out at the park’s bear habitat! The wild bear was described as “a very polite visitor” that was observed interacting non-aggressively with the caged resident bears. The zoo called the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who escorted the bear out of the park and back into the nearby woods. Visiting hours were then posted for other bears.