In addition to flooding and mudslides, the storms that have been battering California have had another weird consequence, SFGate reported on Jan. 10. The storms are making the Golden Gate bridge eerily "sing." Nearby residents first noticed the phenomenon during summer storms in 2020, when they heard a "screeching." A Building and Operating Committee report from 2020 said the cause was the retrofit of 12,000 slats on the west side of the bridge. The cost to add clips that would stop the noise is $450,000; officials said installation is due in the coming months.

Break out the crab legs

Firefighters were called to the Associated Milk Producers Inc. plant in Portage, Wis., after a fire broke out on Jan. 2, WMTV reported. But they were hampered by melted butter that was running down the steps. "The hose line got so full of butter they couldn't hang onto it anymore," said fire Chief Troy Haase. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was called in after the fire was contained to assess the butter runoff. About 20 gallons ended up in a nearby canal; booms were used to contain the buttery mess. Officials said the environmental impact appears to be low.

An explosive situation

On Jan. 9 in Kyiv, Ukraine, a surgeon removed an unexploded grenade from the chest cavity of a 28-year-old Ukrainian soldier, The Guardian reported. The weapon lay just below the man's heart, and two engineering soldiers were on hand during the delicate operation to neutralize the device after it was removed. Doctors were unable to use electrocoagulation, a method that controls bleeding, because of fear that the grenade might detonate. "I think this case will go down in medical textbooks," said Anton Gerashchenko, Ukraine's internal affairs ministerial adviser. The soldier is undergoing rehab for the operation.

Open-door policy

Passengers aboard a charter flight on Jan. 8 from the Siberian city of Magan, Russia (where it was 41 degrees below zero), had to brave even more extreme temperatures when the rear door of the plane flew open in midflight, the New York Post reported. "People had their hats blown off," said Sergei Lidrik, 33, a passenger headed to Magadan on Russia's Pacific coast. One man had just unfastened his seatbelt when the door blew open, and he was nearly sucked out, along with luggage and other personal belongings. The pilot turned back to Magan and made an emergency landing, and there were no injuries.

Check twice, engrave once

The Washington, D.C., Korean War Wall of Remembrance pays tribute to more than 36,000 American service members who were killed in that conflict. But according to the New York Times, it's also rife with misspellings and omissions. Historians Hal Barker and Edward Barker Jr. of Texas said it has more than 1,000 spelling errors, and 500 names are missing altogether. The National Park Service passed the buck to the Defense Department, which supplied the names. "No one bothered to check it before they set it in stone," the Barkers said. "But now that it has been done, we need to get it right."

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