Money to move

Work from home? Vermont may have a deal for you: Move to Vermont and the state will pay you up to $10,000. Gov. Phil Scott signed the initiative into law May 30 hoping to lure young professionals to move to the Green Mountain State. Though the law is designed to cover moving and a few miscellaneous costs, there are a few catches. The state has allocated just $125,000 for the program in 2019. Another catch: Program participants will have to live in Vermont year-round, including the frigid winters that can bring an average of 60 to 100 inches of snowfall yearly.

Fan interference

A women’s soccer match in Deakin, Australia, had an unexpected delay of game on June 24, when a high kicker refused to leave the field. The male eastern gray kangaroo first showed up at halftime, but then returned during the second half of the match between Canberra Football Club and Belconnen United and hung around for 32 minutes. It even reportedly deflected balls kicked at it. “A few people came close to it to see if they could maybe get it to move on,” said Canberra FC official Amber Harvey. “It stood up pretty tall. I think it was just over 6 feet, so they backed off pretty quickly.” Harvey said the kangaroo stayed on the field until a coach in a pickup truck finally drove it away: “It was just a real menace.”

Sitting it out

While poring through passenger data for a recent long-haul flight, researchers at the University of Sydney discovered what could be described as the best business traveler ever. When Qantas Airways opened its nonstop London to Perth route in March, scientists with a medical research arm of the University of Sydney began asking passengers to wear devices that monitored health-related activity. That’s when the team of researchers discovered a passenger who apparently did not get up from his seat for the entirety of the 17-hour flight—not even to use the restroom. “Zero steps,” said Stephen Simpson, who is heading up the study. According to Simpson, the volunteer was seated in business class and said he simply reclined his seat and slept.

Piled high

Some residents of Las Cruces, N.M., were delighted to discover a mound of free food apparently abandoned in the desert outside of town. They were only slightly less delighted to discover that the mound of free food was just a mound of onions measuring 5-feet high. The onions, left alongside a dirt road near the Las Cruces airport, were purchased by a rancher from local onion farmer Brandon Barker. According to Barker, the rancher just wanted some food to feed his starving cattle. Locals spotted purloining the seemingly abandoned bulbs told KFOX they believed the onions were free for the taking. Barker told the El Paso, Texas, television station that if locals want some fresh onions, just to stop by his farm.

Slow going

A Chinese woman drew attention from fellow motorists and police alike after pulling onto a busy roadway in Guiyang, China, while driving a pink bumper car. A video of the May 24 drive showed the 50-year-old woman ambling down a major road while cars sped past. According to Chinese media, the woman owns a bumper car business and made the decision to commute in the tiny pink vehicle out of convenience. Police in the Guizhou province city stopped the woman and confiscated the bumper car, saying they had warned her many times in the past

Take a hike

Some clerks hit a silent alarm. Some fight back with weapons. But a clerk at Glenn’s E-Z Stop convenience store in Larimore, N.D., found a unique way to stop an armed robbery attempt: snark. Officials with the Grand Forks County Sheriff’s Office say the alleged perpetrator walked into the store and handed the clerk a note reading, “Stay calm, give me all the money out of the till.” According to authorities, the would-be thief then flashed a handgun. Rather than comply, the employee replied, “Why don’t you stay calm and leave?” Police say the suspect heeded the advice, walking out the door empty-handed.

What’s in a name?

The name on the credit card looked familiar to waitress Flora Lunsford when a customer tried to pay for his meal on June 19 in Jefferson County, Ark. That’s because the name—and the recently stolen credit card—belonged to her. Lunsford, who said she had “no desire to pay for the fellow’s meal,” promptly called authorities. They identified the customer as Shamon West, 21, whom they say also had Lunsford’s driver’s license and Social Security card among other items belonging to the waitress. Lunsford’s purse had been stolen from her car at a nearby gas station two days earlier.

Avocado gold

When a department store in Chile opted to begin listing avocados as a possible method of payment, many assumed it was joking. But Chilean Camilo Briceño took the offer seriously, marching into a Ripley’s store and picking up a new Moto X4 with a list price of just over $400 with sacks of avocados weighing in at 127 pounds. After a year of soaring avocado prices in 2017, a return to normal growing conditions has returned prices to a more normal level in 2018.

Catfish catch

All that Jeffrey Dill needed to break a Virginia state fishing record was good timing, a cheap rod from Walmart, and 15 minutes to reel the monster in. Dill dragged a 68.12-pound flathead catfish out of Lake Smith on May 26. “I put him on the dock, held him down for a minute,” Dill told WAVY. “He was so big.” After catching his breath, Dill took the catfish to a bait and tackle shop in nearby Virginia Beach and waited for a biologist from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to inspect the catch he calls Big Earle. The biologist, Chad Boyce, said the state stocked Lake Smith with catfish in the late 1990s. “I would almost bet that fish was one of the original fish that was stocked,” Boyce said. The previous record, set in 1994, for a flathead catfish was 66.4 pounds.