Odd-but-True Stories

poses,” he said.

In a Sunday statement, the Republican and Democrat senators who helped formulate the infrastructure bill said, “Over the last four days we have worked day and night to finalize historic legislation that will invest in our nation’s hard infrastructure and create good-paying jobs for working Americans in communities across the country without raising taxes.”

They added that they are looking forward to “moving this bill through the Senate and delivering for the American people.”

The bipartisan bill seems likely to make it through the Senate, but the House will be on break until September 20.

The package includes approximately $550 billion for roads, waterways, broadband, water systems, bridges, airports, and a new power grid.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised not to support the infrastructure bill unless a budget measure passes at the same time.

In D.C., Murders More than Corona Deaths

July 2021 saw 21 homicides in Washington, D.C., compared to eight deaths from coronavirus, FOX5 DC reported on Monday.

Ward 8 Councilman Trayon White said, “We’ve put a lot of resources and time into the COVID pandemic. We’re in a pandemic right now when it comes to crime in this community, and we got to start acting it.”

By July 10, Washington, D.C., had hit 100 homicides for the year. According to the D.C. Police Union, the city usually hits the triple digits around October, though according to WTOP News, in 2018 and 2019 the city reached that mark in August.

Data from the Metropolitan Police Department showed that as of July 30, there were 113 homicides in Washington, D.C., this year, compared to 108 last year.

Big Mouth

She’s a big mouth – and she’s proud of it.

Samantha Ramsdell used to feel uncomfortable about her unusually large mouth. This week, though, her mouth was something to talk about.

The Connecticut woman nabbed the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest mouth gape of a female.

Ramsdell’s mouth, capable of holding an entire large order of fries, measures 6.52 cm or about 2.5 inches wide.

“I never thought it would be possible to be this famous off my mouth, but it’s incredible,” she told Guinness.

The 31-year-old has amassed 1.7 million followers on TikTok after posting videos of stuffing three doughnuts in her mouth at one

Did you know?

If baby sea turtle eggs incubate in cooler sand, they produce males; eggs incubated in warmer sand produce females.

time and other feats requested by users.

According to Ramsdell, “the children of TikTok” convinced her to seek the world record.

She claimed the Guinness title after visiting a dentist with an official adjudicator present.

“You know getting a Guinness World Records title, it’s finally being almost able to show some of the bullies or people who doubted me or tormented me that hey – I have a big mouth, but at least I have the biggest one in the world!” Ramsdell said.

Ramsdell advised others with large body parts or different talents to not be afraid of their “biggest asset” and recognize it as a “superpower.”

“It is the thing that makes you special and different from everyone else walking around,” she said.

Now she’s the talk of the town.

A Homeless Hermit?

River Dave has been living on his own in the woods of New Hampshire for almost three decades.

David Lidstone built himself a small cabin near the Merrimack River. He grows his own food and cuts his own firewood. Now, though, the 81-year-old happy hermit may find himself homeless.

Lidstone has been camping on Leonard Giles’ land. Now, Giles seeks to tear down Lidstone’s cabin. Since July 15, Lidstone has been in jail on a civil contempt sanction.

“You came with your guns, you arrested me, brought me in here, you’ve got all my possessions. You keep ‘em,” he told a judge at a hearing this week. “I’ll sit here with your uniform on until I rot, sir.”

River Dave has many supporters who are working with him to get him out of jail and back to his place in the woods.

“He’s just a really, really, big caring guy, and just chooses to live off the grid,” Jodie Gedeon, a kayaker who befriended Lidstone 20 years ago, said. “It really is about humanity, it really is about compassion, empathy ... he’s not hurting anybody.”

Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman agrees but he notes that the law is on the property owner’s side.

“You’re doing your own thing in the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, so there’s a lot of sympathy to you for that,” he said. “But there’s a lot of weight on the other side of the balance sheet, and not just about what the (landowner) wants to do with the land, but the weight I feel to uphold the judgment of the court and the rule of law.”

Currently, Lidstone can be released if one of three things happen: he agrees to leave, the cabin is demolished by Giles, or 30 days have passed since he was jailed.

Lidstone’s decision to live in the woods is “exactly the lifestyle he wants,” said his brother, Vincent Lidstone, 77.

“What they’re doing to him isn’t right for anybody, whether he’s my brother or anybody’s brother,” Vincent said. “He’s 81 years old. Leave him alone.”

Live and let live.

Diamond Heist

Lulu Lakatos was convicted this week of a daring diamond heist.

The 60-year-old French woman posed as a diamond expert inspecting gems at a luxury London jeweler for a wealthy Russian investor back in March 2016. While looking at a bag of diamonds, staff noticed that she put the sack into her bag. When they pointed that out, Lakatos, pretending not to speak English, pulled out the bag of diamonds and gave it back to staff.

It was only after she left the store that the employees realized that she replaced the seven diamonds worth $5.8 million with a bag of pebbles.

Lakatos’ genius plan was brilliant – except that she and her associates got caught.

This week, Lakatos was found guilty of conspiracy to steal.

London’s jewelry quarter is a frequent target of planned heists – most notably a 2015 raid in which a group of men stole more than $20 million worth valuables from a vault.

“This was an audacious theft, carried out in plain view of experienced and professional staff at a renowned jewelers,” acting detective sergeant William Man of the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad said in a statement. “The meticulous planning and execution of this theft reveals to me that those involved were highly skilled criminals.”

Now, Lakatos is going to be spending a lot of time stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Seeing Triple

A New Jersey couple is going to have a hard time telling their kids apart. Mark Bodrog and Gabriela Mosquera were shocked when they found out a few months ago that they were expecting identical girl triplets.

“I kind of walked in circles for about 20 minutes. I mean, what do you do when you hear ‘triplets?’” Bodrog said.

The fact that they’re identical makes it a highly unusual situation.

“It’s so rare,” Bodrog said. “There are hardly any case studies on it.”

The odds of having identical triplets have been said by medical experts to be between one in 60,000 and one in 200 million.

The three cuties were born on July 8 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania at 34 weeks and 5 days. Each baby weighed a bit over 5 pounds.

Now, Anastasia, Olivia, and Nadia are home with their parents and their two older siblings.

Three cheers for this adorable family.

Sapphires in the Backyard

Most people find worms or rocks in their backyard if they do a little digging. A man in Sri Lanka, known by his last name Gamage, found something a little more sparkly on his property last year.

When workers toiled in his backyard to dig a well, they unearthed the world’s largest star sapphire cluster. Luckily, Gamage knew what to do with the giant gem; he is a gem trader.

The fabulous find has a pale blue color and an estimated value of up to $100 million in the international market.

The cluster weighs around 510 kilograms or 2.5 million carats and has been named the “Serendipity Sapphire.”

“The person who was digging the well alerted us about some rare stones. Later we stumbled upon this huge specimen,” Gamage said. The area where he lives in known to be filled with many gems, although none as big as this one.

It took more than a year to clean the stone of mud and other impurities before authorities could analyze and certify it.

During the cleaning process, Gamage said that some stones fell out of the cluster, and they were found to be high quality star sapphires.

Gamage lives in Ratnapura, which means city of gems in Sinhalese and is known as the gem capital of the South Asian country. Other valuable stones have been found there in the past.

Sri Lanka is a leading exporter of sapphires and other precious gems. Last year, the country earned around half a billion dollars through the export of gems, cut diamonds and jewelry.

Sounds like a gem of a find.