By The Editors of WorldMag.com
April aliens
Residents of Jafr, Jordan, took an April Fool’s Day joke very seriously. The Al Ghad newspaper on April 1 reported that UFOs carrying 10-foot-tall aliens had landed near the town. “Students didn’t go to school, their parents were frightened, and I almost evacuated the town’s 13,000 residents,” Jafr Mayor Mohammed Mleihan told the Associated Press. “People were scared that aliens would attack them.” Mleihan, who reportedly sent security personnel out to search for the aliens, now says he may sue the paper. Moussa Barhoumeh, the paper’s managing editor, said the joke was never intended to go so far: “We meant to entertain, not scare people.”
Grand reopening
When one Italian snack bar re-opened in March after being closed down nearly two millennia ago, it’s fair to say it was under new management. Buried by volcanic ash and rubble when Mount Vesuvius erupted in a.d. 79, a thermopolium, or Roman snack shop, has been excavated and renovated and now will be opened to tourists visiting the site of Pompeii. Sightseers can try authentic Roman treats like baked cheese and honey at the L-shaped snack bar in front of a painting of Mercury, the god of commerce, and Bacchus, the god of wine.
Houston, we have a problem
Carly A. Houston may want her one phone call back. The 29-year-old Chicago woman was arrested in nearby Naperville, Ill., after getting into a heated dispute with a cab driver over a $6.60 fare. Police placed Houston in a squad car after they discovered her screaming at the driver and refusing to pay her fare. Once detained at the nearby police station, Houston was offered her one phone call. She dialed 911. The call was routed back to the Naperville Police Station where a hysterical Houston told a dispatcher she was being held against her will. For reporting her arrest to emergency dispatchers, police tacked on a single charge of making a false 911 report to a theft of services and disorderly conduct charge pending.
