Ocean journey

If all goes according to plan, Ben Lecomte will wash up on the shores of San Francisco in late 2018. Lecomte, a French native and Texas resident, set off near Choshi, Japan, on May 20 in a quest to become the first person to swim across the Pacific Ocean. His monthslong voyage promises to take him through swirling trash accumulations, shark-infested waters, and a lot of boredom on his 5,500-mile trek. Now 50, Lecomte swam from Cape Cod, Mass., to France in 1998. During the attempt, Lecomte braved ocean swells for eight hours every day and spent the rest of his time in an anchored boat.

Curbside shell

Walking out of his home for a doctor’s appointment on May 15, Canadian Danny Vellow got quite a scare. What he stumbled upon in the curbside bulk trash pile was a World War I artillery shell filled with more than 22 pounds of high explosives. “Lo and behold, I almost stepped on the bomb,” Vellow, a London, Ontario, native told the CBC. “I was like, ‘Holy heck, eh?’” Vellow phoned police who in turn called in a Canadian Forces Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. Police believe a local landlord placed the live shell there after cleaning out an apartment.

Tiny treasure?

It has one bedroom and one bathroom and a total of 595 square feet. And it can be yours for $998,900. That’s the listing price of a small house that was built in 1941 and that sits about five blocks from the Pacific Ocean in high-priced Laguna Beach, Calif. “It is completely ready to be lived in,” listing agent Gary Boisen told the Orange County Register. “However, I would assume most buyers would do upgrades and modernize it to a degree.”

Going the distance

Call it a providential wrong turn. Despite his intentions to run a half-marathon, North Dakota resident Mike Kohler, 26, accidentally joined in with the full marathon runners at the May 19 Sanford Fargo Marathon. Groggy from his early wake-up call, Kohler said he missed the instructions and simply moved to the starting line with a herd of runners. Kohler told the Grand Forks Herald he realized his mistake by mile 8. By mile 13.1—the distance of a half-marathon—he decided to keep going. “I’m just going to go for it, because why not? I’m already here, I’m already running, I’m already tired. Might as well try to finish it,” Kohler said. He did finish, with a respectable time of 5:54:26. “This just kind of proves you can do a lot more than what you think you can sometimes.”

Praying by proxy

Some Alexa users, besides asking for movie times or the weather, now can ask the smart home device from Amazon to say grace. The Church of England has launched a new application through Amazon that allows the voice-activated computer to say a daily prayer, answer questions about God, or even find a nearby church. According to Church of England Head of Digital Adrian Harris, the church plans to release similar apps on Google and Apple platforms soon. “Platforms such as Alexa give the church the ability to connect people with God and to weave faith into daily lives, whether for daily prayers or exploring Christianity.”

A fluffy mess

Traffic was backed up for 11 miles on Interstate 5 in Federal Way, Wash., on May 23. The problem: Forty thousand pounds of chicken feathers. The driver of the tractor-trailer carrying the feathers reportedly told authorities that he fell asleep at the wheel, causing the truck to hit a guardrail and overturn. The truck was en route to a company in Vancouver, British Columbia, that uses the feathers as an ingredient in soap and other consumer goods.

Stamps to sniff

Beginning this month, mailing letters could become a bit more pleasant. The U.S. Postal Service announced May 21 that it would debut a first-of-its-kind line of scratch-and-sniff postage stamps. According to the agency, the first scratch-and-sniff stamps will bear watercolor illustrations of ice pops by Margaret Berg and will smell like “the sweet scent of summer.”

This is for the birds

Frustrated by dive-bombing seagulls, a restaurant in Perth, Australia, has begun arming its customers with water guns. 3Sheets restaurant owner Toby Evans chained water guns to every outdoor table at his Perth eatery in May after the birds became more and more aggressive in their quest to eat dropped french fries. “[The seagulls] are getting cheekier and cheekier,” Evans told the Reuters news service. He hopes the water guns will help customers fend off the pesky birds.

Angry swine

North Ridgeville, Ohio, police officers were dispatched early on May 19 to apprehend what they thought would be a hallucinating man walking home from a bar drunk or high. The unidentified man’s complaint: He said a pig was chasing him. But the caller’s story checked out. The man, who was walking home from an Amtrak Station in Elyria, Ohio, was in fact being harassed and chased by a pig. Police wrestled the pig into a squad car and later that day were able to reunite the pig with its owner.