The 10-foot-tall artificial Christmas tree that the town council installed in the Grimsby town center in England left people underwhelmed, Grimsby Live reported. Snarky comments included one from a resident who said he had a bigger tree in his house, and another called it "an insult to Grimsby." The council replaced it with the traditional live tree from a nearby farm on Nov. 25. The fake tree will be reinstalled for a Christmas market.
His own worst enemy
Jerry McDonald of Chattanooga, Tenn., was with an acquaintance when he passed out from drinking. His friend, trying to help out, took McDonald's phone to text his boss that he wouldn't be in to work that afternoon. But instead, the friend found alarming texts in which McDonald detailed a plan to kill an unnamed woman and take her money: "Please kill her babe, please. I'm begging you. There's over a million in her dad's safe. I'm saying I won't get caught," McDonald had texted, according to NewsChannel9-TV. But, of course, he did get caught, and now is being held in the Hamilton County jail on a $75,000 bond.
Lost and found, part 1
A lost ring will soon find its way home — after 70 years. Kelly Stewart of Richfield, Utah, found the ring while using his metal detector in the yard of an abandoned home. It's a 10-karat gold ring from the 1943 class of the Colorado School of Mines, inscribed with the initials "R.W.D." Kelly found a 1948 yearbook from the school on eBay, which revealed the ring's likely owner: Richard William Deneke. He tracked down Deneke, who is nearing his 100th birthday, at a nursing home in Georgia. "I think it's amazing," Deneke told Stewart in a phone call.
Part 2
A special bear is back home. Stuffed bear Teddy was the first gift Ben and Addie Pascal of Jackson Hole, Wyo., sent to their daughter Naomi before adopting her in 2016. Naomi, now 6, brought Teddy on a family trip to Glacier National Park in Montana last fall. By the time the family realized Teddy was lost, snowfall had closed the higher elevations of the park for the season. Ranger Tom Mazzarisi found Teddy on a trail and couldn't bring himself to throw out the toy, instead keeping it as a mascot on his dashboard all winter. Nearly a year later, the Pascals' family friend Terri Hayden visited Glacier and spotted the stuffed bear in Mazzarisi's truck. After confirming it was Teddy, Mazzarisi returned the bear — along with a junior park ranger badge and ranger hat.
Get down
Cable network BET broke a Guinness World Record by recruiting 536 people to dance in the world's longest soul train line. The line included original dancers from the "Soul Train" TV show, as well as a marching band and hundreds of local residents. A Guinness official was on the site in New York City to make sure participants followed the rules, including dancing "in pairs for at least 40 feet to qualify as a soul train." The group took the record from Goodyear Ballpark in Arizona, which gathered a 426-person soul train line in 2014.
Send your weird news items with subject line Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.
