US News

WEIRD BUT TRUE

Has The Blob attacked a New Jersey town?

It certainly looked that way when mysterious masses of a gelatin-like substance appeared on the sidewalks of Camden last week.

But health officials say the weird goop is nothing more than paraffin wax, which is used for making candles and poses no risk.

Resident Bonnie Sanders and other neighbors remain skeptical of the official word. “I believe they’re covering it up,” she said.

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A quaint summer cottage in Rockport, Mass., is literally in the news these days – because it’s made of newspapers.

The two-room house, now a museum, was built in the 1920s by Elis Stenman, who used 215 layers of newspaper to create the walls. He spent the next 18 years furnishing it with items made from tightly rolled newspaper logs.

Stenman’s grandniece Edna Beaudoin, curator of the “Paper House,” says: “Totally bizarre. Who would have thought it? [But] it’s a responsibility. It’s like, if you had your grandmother’s silver, would you throw it out? No. You’d take care of it.”

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It’s not an insult to say the city of San Marino, Calif., really stinks.

An exotic plant known as the “corpse flower” – it smells like garbage or rotting flesh – is due to bloom today at the city’s Huntington Botanical Gardens.

The Amorphophallus titanum has been seen in bloom only about 15 times since its first U.S. display in New York in 1937.

About 76,000 people flocked to the Huntington when the flower last bloomed there in 1999.

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A suspected jewel thief nabbed by cops thought he was in the clear – until he suddenly fell ill and was X-rayed.

In Mark Kennedy’s stomach was two loose 75-carat diamonds and a 16-inch gold necklace studded with 83 diamonds, cops in Boca Raton, Fla., said.

Kennedy later passed the necklace, valued at $115,000, and one of the loose diamonds. But cops were holding him until the last diamond comes out.

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Schmaltzy pop songs are being played more and more at British funerals, a new survey shows.

Among the most requested are “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler and “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion.

“Perhaps mourners want to recreate the emotion of their favorite films and ensure their loved ones receive a funeral worthy of a star,” said Lorinda Sheasby of the Co-operative Group’s Funeral Service in Britain, which funded the survey.

She added that some choices are quirky, including: “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen and Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”