Odds & Ends
Dateline: Ukraine
Chewbacca has been arrested for,uncharacteristically, supporting Darth Vader in his bid for political office. Witnesses in Odessa recorded a video of a man dressed in a Chewbacca costume being arrested for allegedly campaigning for Darth Vader. The Internet Party candidate, whose real name remains unknown, is running for mayor of Odessa. Unfortunately, Ukraine law prevents campaigning on voting day—which is why Chewbacca was arrested. The wookie was fined the equivalent of $8 and released. The eccentric Internet Party—whose slogan is “electronic government against bureaucracy”—has tried running Darth Vader for president of Ukraine as well as mayor of Kiev and Odessa. So far the candidate has been booted from most elections because his real identity could not be verified.
Dateline: England
The last surviving cracker from the Titanic was auctioned off on Oct. 24, fetching a staggering 15,000 pounds ($23,000). The Spillers and Bakers “Pilot” cracker, now dubbed the “world’s most valuable biscuit,” originally came from a survival kit aboard one of the Titanic’s lifeboats. The long-lived snack item was reportedly sold to a Greek collector by the Henry Aldridge & Son auction house in Devizes, England. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the historic baked good was saved by James and Mabel Fenwick, passengers on the Carpathia, a ship that picked up survivors after the Titanic’s 1912 sinking.
Dateline: Washington
State troopers in Tacoma pulled over a motorist who tried to use the Interstate 5’s multiple occupancy lane with a zombie baby in the passenger seat. Police weren’t fooled by the rubber Halloween decoration and handed the man a $136 ticket for an HOV lane violation. Washington State Police’s public information officer tweeted a picture of the driver’s zombie baby strapped into the passenger seat and said, “At least he’s in the [Halloween] spirit.” The officer who issued the ticket followed up on the initial tweet, saying things could have been worse for the motorist: “We gave him a break for not having a [child] car seat.”
Dateline: West Virginia
Chris White, an assistant prosecuting attorney in Logan County, has been suspended for pulling a real gun on some fake spiders. According to WCHS in Charleston, White suffers from arachnophobia and did not take well to his office’s Halloween decorations. “He said they had spiders everyplace and he said he told them it wasn’t funny, and he couldn’t stand them,” Logan County Prosecutor John Bennett told WCHS. White allegedly pulled out a handgun in the office on the morning of Oct. 5. Although witnesses say he didn’t wave it around or point it at anyone, he did threaten to “shoot all the spiders.” Bennett admitted White’s gun did not have a clip in it at the time. “Of course, they wouldn’t know that,” said Bennett. “I wouldn’t either if I looked at it, to tell you the truth.” Bennett told the station White has been suspended, but the prosecutor’s office does not intend to fire him over the incident. White has been with the attorney’s office for five years, reportedly without incident. Bennett said he sent out a memo after the incident banning firearms from the office.
Dateline: Indiana
Authorities say a dog “ironically and aptly named Trigger” shot his owner in the foot with a shotgun. According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, 25-year-old Allie Carter of Avilla was hunting waterfowl at Tri-County Fish and Wildlife Area on Saturday, Oct. 24, when she set her 12-gauge shotgun on the ground near her feet. Her 10-year-old chocolate Labrador, named Trigger, stepped on the gun, causing it to discharge. Carter was taken to a local hospital with injuries to her foot and toes. “It was just an accident that occurred and just to serve as a stark reminder of some of the safety measures we should take,” Indiana Conservation Officer Jonathon Boyd told WBND-TV.
Dateline: Washington
A man who failed a paternity test for his child just discovered that his unborn twin brother is the child’s genetic father. Barry Starr, a geneticist at California’ Stanford University, announced that he and his colleagues have been studying the 34-year-old man who failed a paternity test after he and his wife discovered their child did not share a blood type with either of them. The child was born in June of 2014 with the help of a fertility clinic. The clinic that helped the couple insisted the man’s semen sample was used. The man took a genetic ancestry test, which determined he was the child’s uncle. University researchers eventually figured out the man was a human chimera, a rare condition that results from absorbing cells from a deceased twin during the early stage of their mother’s pregnancy. Starr said the case is the first known incident of paternity tests being fooled by a human chimera. “Even geneticists are blown away by this,” he told BuzzFeed News.
-Devin D. O’Leary