Community Corner
That Moment Couple Learn Their Nash Won’t Make It As A Guard Dog: Weird News & Oddities
Turtle was born with two heads; state sends 8,200 people the same photo ID; people are still crawling out of NYC sewers.
Nash proved himself to be more suitable as a comfort dog than a guard dog.
The 4–year-old golden retriever was unfazed when a man climbed a ladder and entered an open second-story window at Dante Rowley and Stephanie Calderon’s San Diego home.
Nash made the intruder feel as if he belonged there, repeatedly bringing him toys to entice him to play. He took off his shoes and shirt, ate some yogurt, turkey and cheese from the refrigerator, and took a nap.
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The home security system recorded at all, and the couple watched it all unfold on their phones as they flew home from Chicago. From the plane, Rowley alerted San Diego police of a burglary in progress.
Guess what? Nash greeted officers with toys, too.
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“Nash is not the greatest guard dog,” Rowley told an NBC affiliate in San Diego. “We thought that he was going to be barking at people, and he did the exact opposite.”
Tiny Turtle Has 2 Heads
A tiny diamondback terrapin hatchling from a protected nesting site in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, arrived at the Cape Wildlife Center weighing just 5.2 grams, about as much as a teaspoon of water or a large paperclip.
It also arrived with two heads.
The condition, called bicephaly, is rare, but not as unusual as one might think. The Cape Wildlife Center has seen the phenomenon a couple of times in the last five years.
The two-headed hatchling was taken to the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary for observation. Diamondback terrapins, which hatch in the brackish waters along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, are a threatened species under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. Also, their conservation status is currently under federal review.
For now, members of the veterinary team at the wildlife sanctuary in Wellfleet are learning all they can about how the turtle’s two heads and body work together.
Center staff members are struggling with plurals, though.
“For now, our team is monitoring this little one’s (two’s?) appetite, growth, and behavior closely," according to a social media post.
- Read more: A Tiny 2-Headed Turtle Turns Up In Cape Cod
State Owns Photo ID Snafu
How does this happen?
That’s what about 8,200 Michiganders wondered after learning their renewed driver’s licenses or photo IDs had the same stock picture.
Lanita Nelson was one of them.
“I kept looking, and I was like, ‘That's a man in the bottom corner,’” Nelson told CBS Detroit. “And I keep looking, and he’s smiling. I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’”
State officials said the cards were misprinted due to a vendor error and that corrected cards had been mailed to everyone who received cards with the stock photo.
Manhole Mystery Deepens
The mystery beneath the streets of New York City continues to deepen.
A couple of hours before dawn Wednesday, three people climbed out of a manhole on the Upper East Side, got into two cars and drove north on Park Avenue, according to police.
They left behind the obvious question: What the heck were they doing down there?
Police have wondered that before. Are they scavenging for valuables and scrap metal, such as copper wires, or is something else entirely going on?
Three people in headlamps and overalls emerged from a Midtown manhole in August. In May, more than a dozen people entered Brooklyn’s sewer system through manholes at two locations, prompting a search of the underground network.
Police haven’t said whether the incidents are connected. No arrests have been made.
Beetle Mania
Someone labeled the package a children’s toy. Inside were three live beetles, three dead beetles and enough beetle parts to suggest a toy box with a very specific customer.
Customs officers in Philadelphia intercepted the parcel on its way from North Carolina to Germany. The live insects were female Chief Goliath beetles, a rainforest species that can grow more than 4 inches long. The dead ones were stag beetles; the package also held two shadow boxes for displaying specimens.
Collectors prize the exotic beetles for their size and striking patterns. Chief Goliaths are particularly difficult to breed, and exceptional preserved specimens can sell for thousands of dollars.
Shipping live beetles out of the country requires permits. Federal wildlife officials are investigating whether any laws were broken.
An Ice Age Puzzle
Brigid Lynch went to a San Mateo County creek to help improve habitat for threatened red-legged frogs. She came back with a mastodon tooth.
Lynch, a geomorphologist surveying the creek, spotted what looked like an odd rock in the streambed. Paleontologists identified it as an intact molar from an adult Pacific mastodon.
Paleontologist Wayne Thompson called it the most complete mastodon molar found in the area and “the most spectacular mastodon molar that I’ve ever seen.”
“I had chills and shivers up and down my spine,” Thompson said. “It’s another puzzle in the Ice Age saga that we can put into place.”
The tooth is now at Stanford University, where researchers plan to date it. For the moment, no one knows exactly how long it waited in that creek for someone looking for frogs.
What’s Up? The Cost.
For four days, the most expensive person at Lyons Township High School in Illinois wasn’t the superintendent. It was an elevator operator who didn’t ride the elevator.
The school was billed $24,460 — $6,115 a day, more than six times the superintendent’s daily pay. For a rate that high, you might expect an elevator operator in white gloves, calling out the floors.
This one wasn’t even in the elevator but “sitting in a room” as staff moved furniture upstairs before the start of school, the school’s architect told the school board. The presence of a certified elevator operator was required because the elevator had failed its first inspection.
The elevator passed inspection before school started. The furniture made it upstairs. The $24,460 bill gave the school board considerably more trouble.
A Venomous Surprise
Jackie Aguilar’s family spotted a sluggish snake on the sand at Crystal Cove State Beach and tried to help it back into the Pacific. Only afterward did they learn that their beach rescue may have involved one of the world’s more venomous sea snakes.
The snake’s species hasn’t been officially confirmed, but a marine naturalist told CBS Los Angeles it looked like a yellow-bellied sea snake, a rare sight in Southern California. “They are very venomous, but they are also very clumsy and sluggish out of water,” Capt. Chad Steffen said. “They are not inclined to bite. They aren’t aggressive.”
The snake swam back out. Aguilar said she plans to stay out of the water herself.
- Read more: Venomous Sea Snake Slithers Onto SoCal Beach
Emu Stretches Its Legs
An emu took to Florida’s Polk Parkway on foot on a recent morning. For a bird that can’t fly, it had picked an especially bad place to stretch its legs.
State troopers corralled the highway wanderer into the back of a Road Ranger vehicle, where it waited for its owners.
Nobody was hurt. The Florida Highway Patrol couldn’t resist the other emu in the room, saying, “No insurance policies were sold by LiMu.”
Gold-Plated Gun And Tiny Gator
The gold-plated .50-caliber pistol was on the kitchen counter. The alligator was somewhere inside a swanky downtown Los Angeles apartment. Neither was the most alarming thing federal agents say they found there.
Prosecutors said a search of the suspected stash house turned up nearly 94 pounds of fentanyl pills and powder, along with cocaine, heroin, drug-processing equipment and an AR-15. A man and woman were arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents took the small alligator.
Parting Shot
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Bear was at home when a stranger reached out to pet him. The 4-year-old golden retriever startled, bolted into a Plainfield, Illinois, street and was hit by a car. He kept running. A bystander later told his family he’d been hit again.
McKinley and Sebastian Sochacki searched into the night. By morning, Bear’s face was on flyers, and neighbors and local businesses were spreading the word. People came from nearby towns to help. Drone operators spotted him, but Bear, a rescue dog with a traumatic past, stayed out of reach as storms moved through the area.
On Sunday, McKinley’s father, firefighter Eric Underwood, heard barking near the DuPage River. He found Bear across the rising water, caught on a branch and cut off from shore.
Underwood swam to him. With help from McKinley’s brother and brother-in-law, he brought Bear to safety.
Bear came home covered in burs and ticks, with a fever and infections, but is expected to recover. The first person he lay down beside was Underwood.
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