Poop-filled letters, lucky lottery tickets, Pringles spiders: This week's heartwarming, offbeat headlines
From a federal crime involving poop-filled letters to a worker who disappeared after being paid more than 300 times his salary, there was no shortage of unusual and intriguing tales this week. Here are some of our favorite heartwarming and offbeat stories from July 2-8 that have helped make our days a little brighter - or at least, more interesting:
1. Virginia man wins $250K lottery prize with numbers he saw in dream: Alonzo Coleman picked the unusual sequence of numbers 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18, that he said came to him while he was sleeping.
Alonzo Coleman is pictured in a provided image after winning $250,000 in Virginia’s Bank a Million game. (Credit: Virginia Lottery)
2. ‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ catch: Tennessee teen reels in rare white catfish: "Most anglers fish their entire lives and never see one. I am 67 years old, have boated literally tens of thousands of catfish over the years and it was the first I'd ever seen in person," the boat's captain said.
FILE - Edwards Tarumianz with the rare leucistic (albino) blue catfish next to a common blue catfish. (Scenic City Fishing Charters, Inc.)
3. Feces-filled letters sent to all of Ohio's Republican state senators: The U.S. Postal Service's law enforcement arm is investigating the matter as a federal crime. It wouldn't comment about the ongoing investigation, including whether the waste was human or animal.
File: Columbus police are seen outside of the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio on April 20, 2020. (Photo by Brad Lee/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
4. 'It's worth it': Georgia gas station loses nearly $12K selling discounted gas: The Georgia gas station dropped the price to less than $2 a gallon for customers on the Fourth of July. The owner says he lost nearly $12,000 in just three hours, but it was worth it to see the smiles on his customers' faces.
5. Worker disappears after he was accidentally paid more than 300 times his salary: A worker in Chile submitted his resignation and could not be found after his job accidentally paid him about 330 times his salary because of a payroll error, according to reports.
(Photo by Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)
6. Un'can'ny resemblance: See why Pringles wants this spider renamed: One look at this "un’can’ny" little-known Araneus mitificus, commonly known as the kidney garden spider or pale orb weaver, you might think, "Is that real? No, it can’t be?"
Meet the world’s first branded spider (Pringles)
7. 99% of world's population under sunlight Friday morning: At 7:15 a.m. EST, on July 8, 2022, 99% of the world's population was experiencing daylight or twilight at the same time.
This artist concept shows K2-138, the first multi-planet system discovered by citizen scientists. The central star is slightly smaller and cooler than our Sun. NASA/JPL-Caltech
8. 'City Girls Who Walk': Phoenix-area group organizes weekly hikes, walks for women: A group called "City Girls Who Walk" on TikTok has inspired hundreds of Phoenix-area women to get together and start walking.
9. Man loses 156 lbs. in 9 months with diet and exercise: ‘If I can do it, anybody can’: At his heaviest, Jeff Brinker, who travels frequently for his sales job and has "lived on expense accounts" for decades, weighed about 540 pounds. Coupled with his other former business — a catering company that also competed in BBQ contests — Brinker said it became "really easy to eat too much."
10. Dramatic photos show tree burning from inside after lightning strike in Ohio: Photos of the tree in a rural Ohio town showed glowing, red-hot flames spiraling up the trunk, while the outer branches appeared green and seemingly unaffected.
The tree is pictured burning on July 5, 2022, in Ridgeville Township, Ohio. (Credit: Ridgeville Township Volunteer Fire Department)
