#trending

Today, one after one, I’ve come across some weird news stories. I don’t know what it is about this particular Thursday …

• First on the agenda is a local story involving University of Tennessee president Joe DiPietro. At around 3 p.m. today, his Twitter account was apparently hacked. The offending statement read:

Tonight’s plans: troll Craigslist for biotches trying to pass off fake handbags as designers. #oldladyalready #igotchagirlz #ainthappenin

Well, OK. The Tweet was soon deleted, but we were able to at least grab a screen shot of the offense.

• Next is another one of those “the zombie apocalypse has begun” stories. (The first, of course, being the freak attack in Miami where a man was alleged to have “chewed” off the face of another man, setting in motion nationwide panic over the idea of real-life zombies.)
  
  The headline on today’s story? MMA fighter rips out friend’s heart and eyes while high on mushroom tea.
  
  Wow. And if that isn’t gruesome enough, the bizarre and gory details of the article set it over the edge. In this case, “weird news” is an extreme understatement.

• Then there’s a sort of comical weird-news story. The Al Jazeera documentary “Songs of War” is reporting that one of the torture techniques used at Guantanamo Bay is forcing detainees to listen to “Sesame Street” songs.
  
  Doesn’t sound all that terrible, but watching the documentary quickly changes that perception.

• And then I found another gem, albeit a fake-news story. It’s not real, but it is funny, so I figured I’d include it in this roundup for giggles.
  
  The faux-article: Local man arrested for merchandise tampering at Wal-Mart. But as the story says, “the details of his infractions are unique, to say the least.”