Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news

A freshly new one in the Netherlands: A kid found a pregnant scorpion from China in their new bag.

The usual Google Translate:

A 10-year-old girl from Tilburg found a scorpion in a new school bag ordered from a Chinese webshop. The scorpion is being cared for at a nearby zoo, where the older boy received it.

The package from China arrived in Tilburg on Wednesday. When the girl opened the bag, she shouted, "Mama, a little animal!" her mother told Omroep Brabant. "They dropped the bag and watched from a distance, which startled them," said Jacqueline van Rooij.

Thrown out the door
"I grabbed the bag and threw the little animal out the front door, out of sheer terror." She came to her senses later, the woman said. "I live in a neighborhood with lots of children, there are lots of dogs here, and that poisonous scorpion is now outside." The woman then put the scorpion in a plastic container and called for help.

The scorpion was admitted to De Oliemeulen Zoo that same day. The next morning, the woman and her daughter received a call from the zoo: the scorpion had given birth. Scorpions can reach enormous numbers. This caused Van Rooij to panic slightly. "Do I have more scorpions in my house now? Yeah, I don't know."

Postpartum Visit
According to the zoo keepers, the woman has nothing to worry about. However, the woman and her daughter have been invited to visit "their" scorpion and its young.

The scorpion was able to survive the long journey from China because they can survive for up to a year without food or water.

I am the world champion of ‘doing nothing’

Woopsyang started the Space-Out competition in Seoul in 2014. It was a performance-art piece that involved people competing to effectively do nothing and “space out” for 90 minutes. There have since been competitions all over the world, held several times a year.

Criminal Charges Filed Against Man Who Cut Down Neighbor's Trees To Create Ocean Views

The island resident who allegedly cut down 16 trees that were decades old in a neighbor’s yard to create an ocean view at his residence out in the Cisco area had probable cause found on three charges by Nantucket District Court clerk magistrate Brian Kearney and will now appear for an arraignment session on September 15th.
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Jacoby made national headlines after a lawsuit was filed by his neighbor, Patricia Belford, in June, accusing him of trespassing into their yard at 1 Tautemo Way earlier this year and cutting down a stand of 50-year-old trees in order to create an ocean view for himself from the abutting property at 3 Tautemo Way. Jacoby then subsequently listed his property for sale for nearly $10 million while touting its “sweeping ocean views” in the property description.

Tree law is so surprisingly entertaining. This one seems like a pretty clear-cut case (no pun intended), especially because of this bit:

In an email to the Boston Globe, Jacoby stated, “I wasn't trespassing, I was clearing out her crappy trees.”

The Guardian: Indian police arrest man accused of running fake embassy

Indian police have arrested a man accused of running a bogus embassy from a rented residential building near Delhi and recovered cars with fake diplomatic plates.

The suspect impersonated an ambassador and allegedly duped people for money by promising overseas employment, said the senior police officer Sushil Ghule of Uttar Pradesh state’s special taskforce in northern India.