Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

Antarctica base gets 16,500 condoms before darkness
One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported on Monday.
Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.
The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.
"Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable,"
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Crime Against A Child
A 4-year-old girl grabbed her grandmother's gun and shot herself at a Sam's Club store in Columbia, S.C., authorities said.
Police Department spokesman Brick Lewis said the child took the gun from her grandmother's purse Monday and shot herself in the chest.
He said the child's grandmother has a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon. She has not been charged with a crime.
Lewis said the child was rushed to a local hospital and was recovering after undergoing emergency surgery. Hospital officials wouldn't release her condition.
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Born Twice???
Baby With Rare Tumor Born Twice, Now Healthy 4-Week-Old
Little Macie McCartney was welcomed into the world not once — but twice.
Four months into Keri McCartney's pregnancy, doctors reportedly noticed a tumor growing on the baby's tail-bone.
Doctors discovered that the tumor was stealing blood from the fetus and weakening her heart. So, at 25 weeks, surgeons at Texas Children's Fetal Center cut into McCartney's abdomen in an effort to remove the life-threatening mass, according to a report.
"Prenatal surgery is still done in very few select areas in the United States," "And there are a limited number of medical conditions where prenatal surgery is indicated and this is one of them."
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On the Wrong Track...
A depressed man tried to end it all by getting run over by a train in Italy - but lay down on the wrong set of tracks.
Martin Rapos, 31, settled onto the rails at Deiva Marina waiting for the express train to Genoa to hit him at more than 100mph.
Instead he watched it tear past him at high speed on another set of tracks beside him.
The train driver spotted Slovakian-born Mr Rapos and called police who took him to hospital where he is being treated for depression.
A police spokesman said: "He had planned his suicide very carefully and knew exactly when the train was due - he just mixed up the tracks."
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Man Bites Cobra Back
In a case that has baffled Thai police, a 40-year-old man was found dead on Sunday with a badly bitten cobra carcass in his hands and a condom on his penis. Wiroj Banlen, 40, was found dead on the side of a dirt road near Lamsai village of Ayutthaya province at 07:00 on Sunday. A preliminary police autopsy revealed Wiroj had several snake bites on his right leg and cheeks.
The dead cobra found clenched in Wiroj's hands had also been bitten several times, and snake remnants were found in the dead man's teeth, suggesting a case of man-bites-snake in revenge. More puzzling for police investigating the case was the condom, which contained no semen, found on Wiroj's penis. Police speculated that Wiroj was removing his trousers when the cobra struck.