And other stories from the stranger side of life
Hawaii will be “utterly destroyed” on Sunday, said the Westboro Baptist Church. The controversial church, based in Kansas, said that “the churches of Hawaii have doomed the inhabitants with lies about the eternal God”, adding that “the watchers must (and will) publicly pronounce the warning on Sunday”. It “was not immediately clear” how the church believes Hawaii will be destroyed, said UPI.
Elderly woman feeds teenage intruder
An 87-year-old woman who woke up to find a stranger standing over her bed fought him off and then fed him because he told her he was “awfully hungry”. Marjorie Perkins discovered the teenage intruder in her home in the town of Brunswick, Maine, in the early hours of 26 July. He told her he was going to cut her. “I thought to myself, ‘If’s he’s going to cut, then I’m going to kick’, so I jumped into my shoes,” she told Brunswick Times Record. The teenager faces charges of burglary, criminal threatening, assault and underage drinking.
Can aromatherapy boost memory?
“Drifting off to sleep amid the scent of lavender, peppermint or rosemary” may “help to keep the mind sharp in later life”, said The Times. A study has found that people aged 65 to 80 who were exposed to pleasant smells each night often increased their scores in tests that involved learning and recalling lists of words. The study, of 43 people, was led by Cynthia Woo, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine.
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