Weird News

MESA, Ariz. — Police tactical units usually don’t engage in a lot of monkey business, but one SWAT team wants to add a capuchin monkey to its staff.

‘‘Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it,’’ said Sean Truelove, an officer with the Mesa Police Department who builds and operates tactical robots for the unit in suburban Phoenix.

Truelove said the department is trying to obtain a capuchin, considered the second smartest primate behind the chimpanzee, with about $100,000 in grant money.

Truelove says the monkey, which alone would cost $15,000, could become the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool. Capuchins are small, weighing between 3 and 8 pounds, have tiny humanl) 1/2eA‘ands and puzzle-solving skills. He said the monkey could be trained to unlock doors and search buildings.

Is it like getting

shot 160 times?

FAIRMONT, W.Va. — A part-time stuntman has set an explosive new Guinness world record — the most ‘‘squibs’’ detonated on a human body.

Mike Daugherty donned a wet suit with 160 of the explosive charges attached and had them detonated. Squibs, similar to blasting caps, are used to simulate gunshots in movies.

‘‘I was scared to death when we were doing it,’’ said Daugherty, who set the record on April 11, his 35th birthday. ‘‘But it wasn’t that bad.’’

Daugherty, a part-time stuntman, set the record at Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, N.C., where the stunt was filmed for a documentary called ‘‘Shooting the Record.’’ The behind-the-scenes film will include interviews and the stunt itself.

Let’s hope they had their coats and hats

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — As armed guards stood watch for polar bears, villagers of tiny Little Diomede Island in the Bering Sea hosted races for young skiers.

It was the first home athletic event in a generation for Diomede, the only village on the island, which is walking distance from the International Dateline just east of Russia’s Chukotsk Peninsula.

About 50 first- through fifth-grade students from Wales, Teller and other tiny villages in the Bering Strait School District bundled up against subzero cold and walked over the dateline into tomorrow to participate in the weekend competition. Besides ski races, Eskimo dancing and a scavenger hunt for polar bear fur and king crab legs were held. ‘‘All in all, a successful meet,’’ said Diomede teacher, ski coach and event organizer Ben Seymour.