Wide World of Weird

A weekly roundup of unusual news stories from around the globe:

Planet of the Apes, 1998: Evidence of an international monkey conspiracy to overthrow humans continues to mount with a report from Malaysia that a pack of wild apes ransacked a health clinic, scaring patients and making off with medical equipment. This comes on the heels of baboons raiding a hospital in Africa, apes attacking people in Japan and snow monkeys breaking into reporters’ hotel rooms during the Olympics in Nagano.

Time Off From Not Working?: Germany’s unemployed want more vacation time. A lobby group for out-of-work Germans is now demanding six weeks of holiday pay each year--the same as Germans with jobs. “The unemployed are only allowed to be unreachable for three weeks each year,” the group complained. “There is no such thing as a holiday for those without a job.”

Fat Fee Falters: After being inundated with jeers, the City Council of Denton, Texas, has rescinded a planned $25 surcharge for anyone over 300 pounds needing ambulance service. Officials originally said the fee was needed to cover the increased risk of injury to paramedics who carry overweight patients but then decided it wasn’t worth the media attention and ridicule.

Music to Soothe the Savage Party Animal: Minneapolis police plan to blast late-night revelers with opera music in hopes of sending the young rowdies packing. Unruly crowds have been loitering downtown after nightclubs close at 1 a.m., and police think opera might calm things down.

Ranch Giveaway Update: An essay contest to win an Oregon ranch didn’t get enough entries, so the contest fees will be refunded, according to the ranch’s owner. Details are available at https://www.winaranch.com.

Cops Crack Down on Sex Park: Lusty lovers caught in the act at a Caracas, Venezuela, park could find their names in the newspaper the next morning. As part of “Operation Flashlight,” couples discovered in flagrante delicto will now be fingerprinted, photographed and have their names published in a local newspaper. “They are using the park like a hotel,” a police official said.

Young Venezuelan couples often carry out their courtship in public places because of the country’s housing crisis and because most live with their parents until they marry.

News McNuggets:

* A Zimbabwean man has been jailed for a month after pleading guilty to bottling his urine and selling it as perfume. Guess he took the phrase eau de toilette seriously.

* A San Francisco woman called animal-control officers Sunday to complain that an iguana was “staring” at her cat. But the lizard in question was actually a hissing, 3 1/2-foot-long crocodile, which was later captured without incident.

* The Army is offering $2,000 to anyone who can tell it where a 60-ton tank was taken after being stolen from a Fort Polk, La., firing range two weeks ago.

* At 110, Eliza Emerson hasn’t run out of ways to celebrate birthdays. She fired the opening pitch of a Nashua, N.H., Pride baseball game--and the ball made it to the catcher. The throw was the latest in a string of birthday adventures that includes a hot-air balloon ride and a helicopter tour.

* A German tourist who believed he could transcend death after visiting Egypt’s pyramids died after he jumped off a tower in Cairo.

* Nine months after a snowstorm knocked out power for 10 days in parts of eastern Nebraska, hospitals there are reporting a small baby boom. The same sort of boom was reported in Colorado where a hospital in Pueblo even garbed newborns in “I’m a Blizzard Baby” sleepers.

* Wide World of Weird is published every Friday. Off-Kilter appears Monday through Thursday.