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    Simon McCormack

    Simon McCormack

    Crime and Weird News editor, The Huffington Post

  • Fishermen Aid Struggling Whale Who Came To Them For Help

    All's whale that ends whale.

  • Beauty Queen Arrested For Allegedly Faking Cancer For Cash

    One fundraising event brought in $14,000, authorities said.

  • Teen Gets Her Senior Photos Taken At Taco Bell

    These are the Cheesy Gordita Crunch of senior pictures.

  • Trophy Hunter Defends Herself Against Critics In Wake Of Cecil Killing

    "How can you fault somebody because of their hobbies?"

  • Sisters' 1975 Murder Case Finally Solved: Cops

    Forty years after two young sisters vanished from a suburban Maryland mall, an imprisoned sex offender has been charged with murder, authorities said Wednesday, bringing some clarity to a baffling case that made parents afraid to let their children out of the house. Lloyd Michael Welch Jr., 58, told authorities he was with the girls when they were abducted in March 1975 but denied any role in their deaths. Sheila Lyon, 12, and Katharine Lyon, 10, had walked a few blocks from their house to the Wheaton Plaza Mall to shop for Easter decorations and eat lunch.

  • Huge Fish Found In Drainage Ditch

    A suburban Kansas City animal control officer says she was skeptical when a man called to report a 4-foot-long carp in a drainage ditch. This July 10, 2015 photo provided by the Olathe, Kansas, Police Department shows Officer Jamie Schmidt with a big grass carp she found in a drainage ditch near a lake in an Olathe subdivision.

  • Toddler Missing After Wandering Away From Family's Campsite

    Deorr Kunz Jr.'s parents thought his grandfather was watching him. Deorr disappeared from the Timber Creek Campground in Leadore, Idaho, on Friday afternoon, according to KTVB. He hasn't been seen since. "We haven't found a thread," Lemhi County Sheriff's Incident Commander Dave Morelli told KTVB.

  • This Man Grew His Beard For A Year. Watch The Time-Lapse Video Of The Process

    What a difference a year -- and a beard -- makes. On June 22, 2014, Justin Basl started growing his facial hair into what would become an epic beard. He took a video each day to show its progress.

  • Harvard Law Graduate Arrested In Kidnapping Cops Said Was Hoax

    Matthew Muller, of Orangevale, California, was charged last month after he was arrested in a home-invasion robbery in the San Francisco Bay Area that had similarities to the kidnapping, the FBI said. The kidnapping case began when the Denise Huskins' boyfriend, Aaron Quinn, reported kidnappers broke into the couple's Vallejo home on March 23, abducted her and demanded $8,500 in ransom. Huskins, 29, turned up safe two days later in her hometown of Huntington Beach, where she says she was dropped off.

  • Man Dies After Getting Pepper Sprayed By Police

    A man in Alabama collapsed and died after officers sprayed him with pepper spray while arresting him after a chase, Tuscaloosa police said Saturday. Anthony Dewayne Ware, 35, was pronounced dead on Friday at a Tuscaloosa hospital, according to police. Tuscaloosa Police Sgt. Brent Blankeley said Saturday that officers responded to a call that a suspect wanted on charges of attempting to elude police was on the front porch of an apartment.

  • Mysterious Beach Explosion Knocks Woman Into Rocks

    Authorities are investigating a sudden explosion that rocked a Rhode Island beach before noon on Saturday. The explosion at Salty Brine Beach in Narragansett sent a 50-year-old woman into a rock wall, according to the Providence Journal. She landed on a rock and was transported to a local hospital.

  • Toronto Residents Create Memorial For Dead Raccoon

    He/she will be missed. On Thursday, people in Toronto decided to pay tribute to a dead raccoon on the sidewalk by creating a memorial for the fallen critter. It all started with a tweet: The city responded: But Animal Services didn't get there before a memorial and a hashtag (#DeadRaccoonTO) emerged.

  • US Marshals Employee Caught Having Sex On Roof Of Federal Building

    The U.S. Marshals Service says one of its employees was photographed having sex on the roof of a federal courthouse in Pennsylvania. p> A resident of a nearby apartment building who was concerned that there was a security breach snapped the pictures this week and sent them to WHTM-TV in Harrisburg, which alerted authorities. p> U.S. Marshal Martin J. Pane issued a statement Thursday confirming the employee's involvement.

  • Sheriff Defends Releasing Immigrant Accused Of Murder

    San Francisco's sheriff on Friday staunchly defended the release of a Mexican immigrant who later was accused of randomly killing a young woman, saying federal authorities failed to provide legal basis to continue to hold him. San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi told reporters at a news conference that his department followed procedure and local laws when they released Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez in April after a years-old arrest warrant on marijuana charges against him was dismissed. It also became clear that the San Francisco Sheriff's Department citing city policy on immigrants with no violent criminal background, had released Sanchez despite a federal immigration request asking them to hold him until U.S. authorities could take him into custody for deportation proceedings.

  • Story Casts Big Doubts On Cops' Version Of Police Killing

    Charly Keunang was killed by Los Angeles Police Department cops on March 1. The LAPD is still investigating the incident, but Police Chief Charlie Beck defended Keunang's killing at a press conference shortly afterward. What the currently available footage does not show, Sharlet said, is that before Keunang threw a punch, Officer Francisco Martinez tried to hit him with a Taser.

  • Bush Charged $100,000 Speaking Fee For Veteran Fundraiser

    Former president George W. Bush charged a veterans' charity $100,000 to speak at a fundraiser in 2012. The former commander in chief was also provided with a private plane to fly to the event, which cost another $20,000, ABC News reports. Bush spoke at a benefit for Helping a Hero, a nonprofit group that aids "severely wounded veterans returning from service in the War on Terror, primarily by partnering with the wounded hero to provide specially adapted homes to reintegrate them into their community," according to the charity's site.

  • Three Missing Sisters Found Hungry But Safe

    Searchers have found three Midwestern sisters who were missing for days in a northwest Wyoming wilderness area. Search spokeswoman Lori Iverson said Thursday that the three are cold and hungry but otherwise healthy. Officials have said they are experienced trekkers who were well-prepared for a backcountry trip.

  • Train Kills 2 People On Tracks

    div> Two people were struck by a train and killed in Queens, New York, Thursday morning. p> A man and a woman were hit by a Long Island Railroad train at Hollis Station at 2:47 a.m. a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/2-Killed-Struck-LIRR-Train-Hollis-Queens-MTA-312795441.html" target="_hplink">according to NBC New York.

  • 12-Year-Old Charged With Murder In Shooting

    A 12-year-old boy has been charged with first degree murder in the fatal shooting of a man in Omaha, Nebraska. The boy is one of three suspects charged in the June 29 shooting near Miller Park that killed 31-year-old Jamymell Ray. Tipped off by investigators in Omaha, the U.S. Marshal's office in Minneapolis conducted surveillance at several homes in the city, and eventually spotted the 12-year-old boy walking on a street around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Omaha police said in a statement.

  • Huge Spikes In Heroin Use And Deaths: Report

    Heroin abuse and deaths linked to heroin have surged over the past decade, according to a report released Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.. Between 2002 and 2013, heroin abuse or dependence in the U.S. increased by 90 percent, the report found. During that time period, the number of people who said they had used heroin at least once in the last 12 months rose by 65 percent, an increase of 300,000 people.