News of the Weird: Critics have a bone to pick with court

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled on July 25 that bones are a natural part of a chicken, so the presence of bones in “boneless chicken wings” does not constitute a breach of duty on the part of a restaurant. The Columbus Dispatch reported that the 4-3 decision was derided by critics who contended that the question was one for a jury, not an appeals court. “The result in this case is another nail in the coffin of the American jury system,” said Justice Michael Donnelly. The case originated with an April 2016 incident in which Michael Berkheimer felt “something go down the wrong pipe.”

Social media boasts took down a foursome of 20-something criminals in Los Angeles County on July 23, KTLA-TV reported. Jordan Leonard, 25, couldn’t resist bragging after he and Charles Christopher, 24, D’Angelo Spencer, 26, and Tazjar Rouse, 22, went on a crime spree involving 7-Eleven stores. Leonard posted on Instagram, “love my bros” with a photo of stacks of cash, and he helpfully tagged his co-defendants. All four face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each count — hardly justifying the $7,600 they netted.

In China, the highly competitive practice of mukbang — eating large quantities of food for viewers’ enjoyment — is a wildly popular streaming subject, Oddity Central reported. Successful mukbang streamers make good money and are showered with gifts from their followers. The trend took a sad turn on July 14, however, when 24-year-old Pan Xiaoting, a former waitress, lost her life during her mukbang livestream. As Pan’s following grew, she took her overeating to greater extremes, pushing her weight to around 650 pounds. An autopsy reportedly showed that her stomach was full of undigested food and her abdomen was severely deformed.

The Welsh town of Ruthin, Denbighshire, is struggling to embrace a 43-foot-tall inflatable figure of a laughing man squatting on a ball. Wales Online reported that the installation is related to the Ruthin International Arts Festival and was created by Chinese artist Yue Minjun. Locals aren’t impressed; some say the “sickly pink color of the piece” is frightening children, and one woman said, “Oh, please. He looks constipated. Monstrosity!”

Brothers fishing off the coast of Rye, N.H., on July 23 caught a once-in-a-lifetime experience on video: A 30-foot-long humpback whale breached nearby, throwing itself onto the back of a boat where Ryland Kenney, 44, and Greg Paquette, 54, were fishing. As the front of the boat rose into the air, Kenney and Paquette were thrown into the water. “As it collapsed onto the boat, the mouth closed and smashed the top of the motor and I heard a big crunch,” Kenney told the New York Times. “I had three seconds to act. I wasn’t scared, I didn’t have time to be scared.” Colin Yager, 16, who took the video, and his brother, Wyatt, rushed over to pull the men, who were unhurt, out of the water. Kenney said he’ll take some time away from the water to work on his boat, which will include a radar system that can detect nearby whales.

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