What a Weird Week Show: The one without a title. Fri Aug 11th 2023.

Hi Friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week, a show where we count down the top ten Weird News stories of the Week. Like and subscribe to the podcast, see the shownotes blog and check us out on YouTube. Find everything at Shownotes.page.
This is Season 4, Episode 46 first published on Friday Aug 11, 2023:

... btw, here's the latest video episode...
Here's the Top Ten:
❿ Mayor Caught Cocaine (i know, usually it's 'Mayor Caught WITH Cocaine') ...
- Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa, Florida has made the news this week after her office confirmed that she was on a fishing trip in the Florida Keys the other day and reeled in a 70 pound ... bundle of cocaine...  
- estimated street value: 1.1 million!
- Question: What are the odds that a mayor of a city you've heard of goes fishing in cocaine-infested waters and reels in a big one? Followup: How much cocaine is in the water off Florida?? Are you just as likely to catch cocaine as you are to catch a fish?

❾ Bear Crashes Wedding...
- congratulations to Cailyn and Brandon who made the news after their Colorado wedding reception was crashed by a bear... 
- high school sweethearts got hitched... that's nice, right? But if you really want to get on the news... love isn't enough... it took a bear in the wedding reception tent, on top of the dessert table eating everything it wanted to eat. 
- nobody got to eat the delicious cannolis because of the lousy stinkin' bear. Selfish.
- no one was hurt, security asked the bear to leave.
- on the bright side, nobody got mauled which, trust me, can ruin a wedding so fast you guys... see video
 
❽ Headline from Guinness World Records is everything a headline is supposed to be... Indian martial artist headbutts hundreds of nuts to reclaim record... shout-out to writer Sanj Atwal, you should be teaching Headline Writing... 
- This is about walnuts... the fellow smashed a bunch of walnuts with his head...
- Do Not Attempt! Professional Head Smasher.
- Naveen Kumar of India is a 27-year-old martial artist who had the walnut smash record, then lost it, and has now reclaimed the world record for the "most walnuts cracked with the head in one minute."
- record is 273 walnuts smashed in a minute... more than four walnuts per second! How is that even possible?
❼ Snake Falls Out Of The Sky Onto Texas Woman, then Hawk Attacks Her, she exclaims “Help Me, Jesus!”
- Peggy was mowing the lawn on the tractor when the snake fell out of the blue...
- according to the article linked below, the snake struck at Peggy but only got her glasses...
- the hawk that dropped the snake wanted it back and a struggle ensued between snake, hawk, and Peggy.
- video link: https://youtu.be/_-OXh3VcXXs
❻ Driving Instructor Fail Makes News...
- Second day on the job at the driving school... crashes through building... no longer employed there.
- no one seriously harmed... several people had to make a dive for it to get out of the way...
See https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/instructor-crashes-car-into-lakewood-driving-school and video link https://youtu.be/3VrV8WngTqY

❺ Giant space umbrella to the rescue! 
- it'll block the sun and solve climate change... hopefully...
- so really it's a space parasol...
- this a legit idea from scientists*
as far as I can tell (not a scientist)
*not to scale

❹ One more shout-out to Guinness World Records for an incredible headline... we all need to take a lesson here... "Teenager turns the world of roller-skating on its head with epic record"
- Mia Peterson did a barani flip (sometimes called a front somersault half twist) over 12 of her friends to set a new world record.
- Mia from California was 15-years-old when she did this...
- official record is "most people barani flipped over from a quarter pipe on roller skates."
- the barani flip is described as "a gymnastic manoeuvre comprising a front flip with a half twist."
❸ Scientists might be changing our understanding of human history and there's gonna be trouble! 
- research is underway to confirm some initial theories on our past and the article we link to really kinda plays up how controversial it's gonna be...
- they believe that a smaller-brained ancestor of us developed a society that believed in an afterlife and had a 'sophisticated culture' 300,000 years ago... and went extinct..
- controversial takes (according to the article) include: smaller brains but still sophisticated? Scandalous! and also: ape people from 300,000 years ago had a human-like culture? Evolution is ruined! :/
*paraphrase 
- the article is waaay long and detailed and I ain't had much learning... I encourage you to check it out and then decide if your world view has really changed...
- also of note, they mention a Netflix documentary in the article. I really don't think the whole thing was an advertisement for the documentary but sometimes when there's a documentary associated with something like this it makes me a little more suspicious. 
*not to scale

❷ Australian lady fired after work from home discovery...
- long story short, she didn't. Some days she just didn't work from home.
- Lady worked in the insurance industry...
- her employer had some sort of monitoring software on the work from home computer and according to the data, some days she didn't type anything at all... zero work...
- from the article: "The review found she did not work her scheduled hours for 44 days, started late on 47 days, finished early on 29 days and performed zero hours of work on four days."
- I don't know what this lady had going on so I don't wanna judge... I respect the non-hustle though. 
work life balance (artist rendering)

❶ Nervous Flyer's Nightmare! A bear escaped from a crate in a plane's cargo hold!
- Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation... how did the bear escape its crate in the cargo hold of a  plane at Dubai International Airport? Investigation continues. 
- Iraqi Airways says it's not their fault.
- flight was waiting for takeoff when this happened... it was delayed while experts came in to tranquilize the bear...
- no maulings. 
See https://news.sky.com/story/bear-escapes-from-crate-on-a-plane-12935219
"recline your seat and find out"

If you scrolled this far, you're my favorite. Here's the Stream...

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