Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S

Bizarro Earth

New Jersey, US: Men Dressed Like Ninjas Targeted Drug Dealers

Clifton police said they arrested two men dressed liked ninjas and armed with Asian martial arts weapons who said they were sending a warning to drug users.

Calling themselves "Shinobi warriors," the men wore black SWAT-type vests and carried knives, throwing stars, swords, nunchucks and a bow and arrows.

After being arrested early Wednesday in a car on Route 46, the men said they were delivering warning letters to drug dealers and drug users urging them to stop their "impure" activities.

Bizarro Earth

US: Angel Pantoja Medina is Dead Man Standing



Angel Pantoja Medina
©Unknown

The body of Angel Pantoja Medina stands leaning against a wall during his wake in his mother's home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The last wish of Medina was to be standing at his own wake. Thankfully, he was embalmed for the occasion.

File this one under "insanely creepy." A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake.

Question

Serbs unveil statue to Bob Marley

A Serbian village unveiled what it said was Europe's first statue to the late Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley on Saturday, to promote tolerance in a region still recovering from war.

Two Balkan musicians, one from Croatia and one from Serbia, unveiled the monument in the village of Banatski Sokolac at midnight during a gathering of rock bands from the Balkans.

Serbian Bob Marley Statue
©Reuters/Nebojsa Markovic
Fireworks explode in the sky above a statue of late Jamaican reggae music legend Bob Marley during the opening ceremony of a rock festival in the Serbian village of Banatski Sokolac.

Cult

Priest to hold nun beauty pageant

An Italian priest says he is organising the world's first beauty pageant for nuns to erase a stereotype of them as being old and dour. Antonio Rungi says The Miss Sister Italy online contest will start on his blog in September.

"Nuns are above all women and beauty is a gift from God," he told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper. He is asking nuns to send their photos to him, saying that internet users will then choose the winner.

Eye 1

Satire? 6-Year-Old Stares Down Bottomless Abyss Of Formal Schooling

CARPENTERSVILLE, IL - Local first-grader Connor Bolduc, 6, experienced the first inkling of a coming lifetime of existential dread Monday upon recognizing his cruel destiny to participate in compulsory education for the better part of the next two decades, sources reported.

Sheeple

Mysterious Packages In Pennsylvania Turn Out To Be Gifts

YORK - Police were called to investigate a mysterious gift-wrapped object with wires coming out of it -- and discovered a remote control car that was left anonymously as a genuine present.

Einstein

Bear wins 2nd place in art contest

RAPID CITY, South Dakota - You have to wonder if the paint brushes were coated with honey.

Bear Painting
©Unknown

Better Earth

Japanese team on yeti quest in Nepal

A team of Japanese adventurers hope to prove the existence of the mysterious yeti in Nepal's mountains, focusing on an area they are convinced is home to the legendary creature.

Tales of a huge half-man-half-ape roaming the high Himalayas are as old as the hills, and local Sherpa stories about the hairy giant have gripped the imaginations of Western adventurers and mountaineers for decades.

Takahashi Yoshiteru, 65, and six other Japanese team members are trekking to Dhaulagiri IV, a 7,661-metre (25,135-foot) peak where they say they have seen traces of the beast on past trips in 1994 and 2003.

Pistol

Florida Deputies Taser Run Away Emu



Emu
©Unknown

Plop-plop was raised right, as a beloved pet emu in a good home. But a hard storm and a low fence tossed her into the mean world, where she was lead astray, fought the law, and, well, we all know how that ends.

Sheriff's deputies and animal control officers spent a few days responding to sightings of the bird. Plop-plop even was reported chasing cars along U.S. 231. But on Monday, the bird found itself stuck in a pasture with the law close behind.

Question

Pair sentenced after correcting grammar on Canyon sign

Two self-described "grammar vigilantes" from the East Coast are being banned from national parks for a year and fined $3,035 after altering a historic sign at the Grand Canyon.