The nominees for the "weirdest" news story of the year keep streaming in to "This is True", a leading online source of weird-but-true news items. This is True has been covering weird but true news since 1994, and has more than 100,000 online readers in over 200 countries.
In recent months, several particularly weird stories have been added to the nominee pool:
- A policeman in Greece arrested 17 British men wearing nun's habits, and lifting them up to show they were wearing thongs underneath. But charges had to be dropped no one showed up in court to testify they were offended by the sight.
- A man called police because he could no longer handle his son. Not particularly weird, until you find out that "Andrew [Jr.] is 270 pounds and he can't fight him, that they do everything for Andrew and he doesn't even pay rent" and, police say, "was crying uncontrollably." The "boy" is 28 years old -- and is a member of the local School Board.
- A elderly woman in Colorado refused to listen when friends and family (and wildlife officials!) urged her to quit feeding bears at her house. Sure enough, one got aggressive enough to kill her.
Each month, two stories are chosen as the "weirdest" out of the 7-9 stories in the site's weekly lineup. At the end of the year, This is True's readers vote on "the" strangest true news story of the year.
To read the stories nominated so far, see http://www.thisistrue.com/weirdest.html.
