News of the Weird: Putting the 'piggy' in bank

Arizona taxidermist Rachel Lewis, 38, has found her niche in the world of preserving dead animals: She makes piggy banks out of stillborn piglets. Metro News reported that Lewis, a former hairdresser who took a taxidermy class four years ago, came up with the piggy bank idea in May. "Most of my specimens I get from local farms," Lewis said. "I feel like they get to live a second life. ... It's kinda cool." She called her process "labor-intensive," involving hollowing out the insides and adding a cork plug. "I have a larger pig that I plan on doing as a piggy bank, too," she said.

The long lines at Wimbledon are legendary, but Jesse Besse, 28, from South London and her flatmates came up with a plan to make the wait ultra-comfy. The Mirror reported that the friends brought their living room sofa with them and set it up in the queue, enjoying Pimms and strawberries. "The queue is part of the tournament, so you have to sort of expect you're in for the long haul," Besse said. Even better, Snug, the company that made the sofa, heard about the arrangement and paid for the group's tickets.

Emma Tetewsky, 31, of Stoughton, Mass., went missing on June 26, WBZ-TV reported. On July 3, a group of hikers at Borderland State Park called police after hearing a woman "screaming for help in a swamplike area," officials said. Tetewsky was found in "thick brush and swamp" about 50 feet off the trail, where she said she'd been stuck for three days. "We did initially try to pick her up, but the weight of her on top of our body weight sunk us further," said Easton police officer Corey McLaughlin. Rescuers eventually freed her. She suffered from dehydration but otherwise was unharmed.

Alef Aeronautics announced that the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the startup's flying car, the Model A, to fly for purposes including research, development and exhibition, United Press International reported. The California company calls its invention a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or VTOL, which can drive and park like a car. While it is not certified (yet) for road travel, the company says the FAA's OK will place it closer to "bringing people an environmentally friendly and faster commute. This is one small step for planes, one giant step for cars," said CEO Jim Dukhovny.

Beirut Report journalist Habib Battah got his hands dirty on a recent flight from Paris to Toronto, Canoe reported. "An hour into the transatlantic flight ... I kept smelling something gross and couldn't figure it out," Battah wrote on Twitter. He finally discovered a large, "wet to touch" stain on the floor around his seat. A flight attendant gave him some wipes to clean it up before "casually (noting) a passenger had hemorrhaged on a flight before ours," Battah said. A crew had removed the seats after the previous flight's incident, but apparently hadn't cleaned the bloody carpet. "This is not a customer service issue — it's a BIOHAZARD," Battah wrote.

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