Odds and Ends – May 18, 2018 – May 24, 2018

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Charleston Chew (Sharla Wilson via AP)
Charleston Chew (Sharla Wilson via AP)

Blind, howling pug’s apology to neighbor makes noise online

Pittsburgh (AP) — A Pittsburgh pug’s apology for his separation anxiety-induced howling is making some noise.

The 11-year-old dog named Charleston Chew and his owner Sharla Wilson just moved into a new apartment. Sharla said Charleston is nearly blind and since his vision started going, his separation anxiety ramped up. Since the move, he’s been bumping into walls and will meander into a corner and start howling until she rescues him.

So Wilson wrote up an apology from Charleston and taped it to a neighbor’s door. It explains he’s old and very sorry for his howling. Neighbor Megan Jones snapped a photo of the note and posted it on Twitter saying “You can howl all you want Charleston, honey!’” The tweet has received nearly 450,000 likes and launched his internet fame.

Drunken man’s choice of bed causes
Munich commuter chaos

Berlin (AP) — An intoxicated man’s ill-advised decision to spend the night on a freight train caused commuter chaos in Munich as police had to shut down all traffic at a busy station to look for him. Munich police said they received an emergency call at 5:20 a.m. from a man who said he’d woken up in a container on a train near the Pasing station, Munich’s third largest, and couldn’t get out.

But police say the 25-year-old city man was so drunk when he entered the container he wasn’t sure where it was. Police shut down all rail traffic and went train-to-train, eventually finding him at 6:20 a.m.

In total, 86 trains were affected with 1,280 minutes of delays, 37 cancellations and 21 partial cancellations. The man faces trespassing-related charges.

New way to see art? Paris museum
welcomes naked visitors

Paris (AP) — Visitors at a leading contemporary art museum in Paris didn’t leave only their coats in the cloakroom — they left all their clothes.  The Palais du Tokyo museum opened its doors to nudists for a special visit earlier this month. It’s part of growing efforts by France’s tiny nudist community to encourage acceptance of clothes-free activities, after a nudist restaurant and nudist park opened in the French capital.

The museum visit was arranged before regular opening hours so the nudists wouldn’t mingle with other visitors. They viewed an exhibit of contemporary works focused on “Discord.” Organizers said they are hoping to attract younger members and get rid of “complexes” around their nudist practices, which they don’t wanted “limited to beaches, summertime or a certain category of the population.”

A sticky mess: liquid chocolate spills onto Polish highway

Warsaw, Poland (AP) — A tractor-trailer overturned on a Polish highway, spilling tons of liquid chocolate that solidified into a huge sticky mess.

The private broadcaster TVN24 showed images of an overturned truck surrounded by brown chocolate covering six lanes on the A2 motorway, blocking traffic in both directions.

Rescue officials said the liquid chocolate was solidified as it cooled and would require large amounts of hot water to clear away.  Senior brigadier Bogdan Kowalski with the fire brigade of Slupca, a town in western Poland, said, “the cooling chocolate is worse than snow.”

Fruit’s pungent smell mistaken for gas leak, prompts panic

Melbourne, Australia (AP) — The pungent smell of the rotten durian fruit at an Australian university library was been mistaken for a gas leak, prompting an evacuation of the building.  Specialist crews wearing masks searched the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology university campus library, but all they found was rotting durian in a cupboard.

About 600 staff and students had cleared the building.

A Metropolitan Fire Brigade spokesman said the smell alarmed staff and students as it permeated the air-conditioning system.  Durian, a tropical fruit known for its strong smell, is commonly banned from hotel rooms and public transport across Southeast Asia.