US News

WEIRD BUT TRUE

Roses are red, violets are blue, poets will die, sooner than you.

A new study reveals that poets die young – younger than novelists, playwrights and other writers, because they’re often tortured souls prone to self-destruction.

On average, poets live 62 years, playwrights 63, novelists 66 and nonfiction writers 68 years, says the Learning Research Institute at California State University at San Bernardino.

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Jane Keefer was tending her garden in Florida when she had a visitor – a 10-foot alligator that chomped on her arms and legs and dragged her kicking and screaming into a nearby lake.

Her husband, William, saw his 74-year-old wife about to be turned into gator food and dived in to help, successfully beating the beast off.

Authorities in Sanibel then lured the creature into a trap by tossing a cow’s lung attached to a cord into the lake.

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Fashion sense may be taking a hike in Louisiana, where a state politician wants to make wearing hip-huggers a crime.

Rep. Derrick Shepherd said he’s tired of catching glimpses of boxers and G-strings over the low-slung belt lines of young adults. His law would set $500 fines and six-month jail terms for violators.

And who decides what’s obscene? “It’s sort of like nudity. You know it when you see it,” Shepherd said.

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A sex-crazed rhino mistook a Renault for a mate and began humping it.

Sharka, a 2-ton male, got frisky as Dave Alsop cruised through the West Midlands Safari Park in England, climbing onto the vehicle, denting it and ripping off the side mirrors.

“He’s banging away at the car and it’s rocking like hell. ‘Mounted by rhino’ will have to go in the car’s service history,” Alsop joked.

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A Mexican cook killed his drinking buddy, chopped up his body and boiled him with some herbs. Cops think he was turning the victim into tamales.

When police in Morelia burst into the home of Carlos Machuca, a professional tamale-maker, they found the friend’s mutilated corpse in the living room and body parts simmering in saucepans.