 I'm Darren Marlar and this is your Daily Dose of Weird Dark News. The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner. The team of scientists led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects. Torigumbio Pharma is slated to begin clinical trials in July of next year after it succeeded in growing new teeth in mice five years ago. Dr. Katsu Takahashi, a lead researcher on the project and head of the Dentistry and Oral Surgeon Department at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital, says the idea of growing new teeth is every dentist's dream. Really, you could have fooled me. I thought their dream was just to get me to start flossing. The Florida man was feeding ducks and geese at a pond near his yard when suddenly all the birds flew away. Joseph Scaglione was confused, seeing no hawk in the area, but then he noticed an otter in the pond. He backed away toward the gate to his yard, but as he lifted his hand to shut it, the otter attacked. In a mauling that lasted several minutes, the man received 41 bites on his legs, arms and hands. After Scaglione got away, the otter attacked a dog that was walking with a family in the neighborhood. Nearby residents eventually managed to trap the otter under a recycling bin and a Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Officer was then able to capture it. It tested positive for rabies and was euthanized, according to the Florida Department of Health. Fortunately, the dog will be okay, but Mr. Scaglione's euthanization is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Cher has been accused of hiring men to kidnap her son from a hotel where he was staying with his wife last year. Court documents filed by Elijah Blue Allman's wife, Mary Angela King, alleged that four men removed him from a New York hotel room on their anniversary in November 2022. The pair had reportedly been in a hotel attempting to save their marriage after filing for divorce in 2021. Cher was quoted as saying Mary Angela was a gypsy tramp and thief and that if she could turn back time, she wouldn't let the dark lady say, I got you, babe, to her son. And yes, I know how much of a stretch that punchline was. When Jan Erik Asvik's mother lost an earring in the garden of their home on Norway's Genfruland Island, he decided to pull out a metal detector and scour the yard for the missing jewelry. But when the device started beeping near a tree, he dug up two 1200-year-old Viking relics instead. Asvik had stumbled upon two bronze brooches, one large oval brooch and one smaller circular brooch. According to Live Science, the brooches were characteristic of the 9th century and were decorated with engravings of animals and other elaborate patterns. Because they also have traces of gold, archaeologists believe that the brooches were once gilded. The jewelry is so old, they believe it might have actually once belonged to Cher. Is that punchline better? I'm trying here, people. Residents in a New York town are being asked to keep an eye out for a wallaby that escaped from its owner's property. Yep, a kangaroo is loose in New York. Kelly Thornton, owner of Small Town Shelter in Sherman, said on the Shelter's Facebook page that the wallaby escaped from Charlie Source's property in the Mina area. Thornton said the runaway wallaby is one of three owned by Source. Multiple local residents reported seeing the wallaby in the Route 430 area this week. Wallabies and other marsupials are legal to keep as exotic pets in New York state. We do not suggest trying to grab the wallaby unless you know what you're doing, they said, they can cause serious damage with those back legs. I'd also recommend being sure you have headgear and boxing gloves on at the time. Here is a horrifying story. A 14-year-old in Pike County, Alabama is accused of killing his own brother and planning to do the same to others in his family. Pike County Sheriff Russell Thomas said the 17-year-old victim was found dead outside the family home Tuesday afternoon. Deputies said the unnamed teen's father said he'd been missing since Monday, but they had not reported it. Thomas said he interviewed several people, but when they spoke with the victim's 14-year-old brother, the teen confessed to shooting him from the porch. The sheriff said the teen told them his brother staggered out of the house before falling to the bottom of the back steps. He said the young suspect told them that he dragged his brother about 60 yards to the back of the property. Thomas said no one else was home when this happened. He said their father returned home a few hours later and questioned where the victim was. According to the sheriff, the school had the father pick up his 14-year-old son early the next day because he was acting upset over his brother's disappearance. They searched for him when they returned home and that's when the father found his son's body out back and called law enforcement. Thomas said they learned the 14-year-old confided to a friend at school that he had killed his brother. The news release said he then asked his friend to help him murder the rest of his family and help him bury their bodies. The friend also stated the 14-year-old had a hit list in his book bag of family members he wanted to kill and made statements about wanting to shoot up the school. The sheriff said they searched his bag and found that list. The suspect was taken into custody and charged with murder. October is the anniversary of Weird Darkness and we celebrate by raising funds through our Overcoming the Darkness campaign to help people who suffer from depression. Jamie gave to the Overcoming the Darkness campaign a few years ago and when she did she left a message saying, I live in the smallest of small towns and Weird Darkness makes me smile, sometimes uncontrollably. I suffered from depression for the first time after my father passed away in 2013. It was awful. I didn't understand it first when I was feeling it's debilitating. Also, my child suffers from extreme depression and I didn't know how to help. It makes you feel useless. Well, of course, he loves your podcast too since I shared it with him. Thanks for all you do. To other listeners, come on people, more donations. We should be able to surpass the goal. Donate, donate, donate. Well, I can't really add anything to what Jamie just said except to say that you can donate, donate, donate by visiting WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. After launching a generative AI tool for corporate employees in August, Walmart is bringing the technology to its customers. During a demo with TechCrunch, a company spokesperson outlined how the retail giant is experimenting with generative AI to help shoppers in all stages of the shopping experience, from the search and discovery phase to making a purchase. Three features coming down the pipeline include a shopping assistant, generative AI-powered search and an interior design feature. If the AI is really smart, it'll act as a door greeter too and suggest you shop somewhere other than Walmart. And that shopping in your pajamas is tacky. A Missouri woman mistakenly added to the Social Security Administration's Master Death List in 2007 has been trying to prove she is very much alive for the past 16 years. Madeline Michelle Carthen, now 52 years old, first found out about the accounting error when she was a business technology student applying for financial aid to attend an intern exchange program at Ghana. At first she laughed, but her questions began to stack up quickly. I said, what do you mean? I'm sitting right here. I've been at school for over a year and a half. How am I dead? School officials told Carthen she had to withdraw from her program until the matter was sorted out and advised her to contact the Social Security Administration and the SSA recognized the error and provided her with a death erroneous letter to show creditors. But Carthen's problems only started to snowball from there. Once a person is added to the Master Death List, groups like the IRS, Medicare and banks are notified. This makes getting a new job turn into a game of whack-a-mole. Sometimes I get a job and then within so many months there's going to be a problem, Carthen said. So it's like I can get it and then it's yanked back from me, but I don't know when it's going to be yanked back. Being declared dead has cost Carthen jobs after HR couldn't add her to payroll, vehicles that were repossessed and housing. She now lives with her sister, saying, It messed up my whole life. Ironically, being dead all these years has not once stopped her from being able to vote in a presidential election. Meanwhile, someone who truly was dead was pretended not to be. Doctors at an Ohio hospital propped up a dead patient in a fake, alive pose before she was seen by her family, even though she had died during a routine surgery two hours earlier, according to the lawsuit. The patient, an unidentified 65-year-old woman, was in good health when she walked into Adina Health System in Chillicothe for what should have been a routine heart catheterization. The woman's family has claimed discrepancies between hospital records and the death certificate regarding her time of death. While the medical records indicated a 1 p.m. time of death, the woman's death certificate says 305 p.m., which is the time her family was brought into the room and, quote, urged to take her off life support, unquote. Her family is demanding the truth behind what happened leading up to her death and why she had been propped up to look fake, alive for her family when she had been declared dead two hours before. The woman received surgery from Dr. Jared Betts, a cardiologist who has faced previous questions over his credentials. Betts has performed at least three trans-catheter aortic valve replacement procedures despite not being qualified to perform the specialized operation the outlet previously reported in May. Why is this guy still employed there? Betts allegedly cut into an artery during this procedure and while he thought he'd gotten the situation under control, the woman was still bleeding later in the ICU. The surgery was taken over by a second cardiologist, Dr. Atik Reham. The patient later died under his care, medical records show. At least 31 people have come forward now accusing Betts of faking his credentials. An independent autopsy was requested by the family because they found out that Ben Trotter, the Ross County Coroner, is also an employee of Adina. Adina Health System has, not surprisingly, not commented on the matter. Except maybe to say, I have no Adina what went wrong. From the dawn of civilization, people with no formal education have been dispensing medical advice. Whether it's Dr. Laura, who's probably the last person you'd want to perform open-heart surgery, to Dr. Phil, who couldn't even put a band-aid on a paper cut. There's big cash to be made by adding that abbreviation to the beginning of your moniker. So how can people at home become doctors like Dr. Jay and Dr. Dre? Well, there are millions of different ways. For example, Dr. John Gray, who wrote all those men are from Mars books, got his degree over the internet. And funny man Bill Cosby once received an honorary PhD from a prestigious university to become Dr. William H. Cosby Jr. And if you're a musician, just add a DR and you're a star, like Dr. Dre, Dr. Hook, Dr. Winston Obugi and Dr. Severnson. So what's everybody waiting for? Go out there and make yourself a doctor today. You could be the next Dr. Henry Kissinger or Dr. Ruth. Right after I read my kids a Dr. Seuss book. A Texas family says they were terrorized by a very large pig and it kept coming back. Kingsland resident Wendy Goldstein said a black and white-spotted pig attacked her parents and daughter last Monday. The animal, which Goldstein estimated weighed about 300 pounds, had somehow entered their house. My grandma was being attacked by a random pig, a child said in a 911 call during the incident. Now my grandpa is being attacked. The Texas mom explained the pig was foaming at the mouth and had barreled inside the house after attacking her daughter outside. My mom tried to lay on top of him to crunch him down until the cops got here to get him, but he overpowered her and got on top of her, Goldstein explained. He had her flattened like an accordion. Goldstein says the owner of the pig approached her family while searching for the animal. She claimed the pig's owner threatened to shoot them if they harmed his pig. What's he expected us to do? To sit there and let his pig maul us? She said. The pig was shot with a non-lethal pepper ball by animal control officials on Monday, but it ran away and did approach the family again Tuesday. I'm standing inside my parents' house with a hammer and knife trying to defend myself and defend my family at any cost. My whole family is scared. They feel like they're prisoners in their own home, Goldstein said. Model County Sheriff's Office is actively investigating the incident, so if a dog were to attack this family, animal control would immediately have that thing put down, but because it's a pig, it just gets pepper sprayed and is allowed to come back and do it all over again the next day. There is an easy solution to this problem. Slaughter the pig, give the processed meat to the family who was attacked as reparations, the family is no longer terrorized, the pig owner will know to control his livestock more responsibly in the future, and finally, bacon. On a hill in Shelby County in the heart of Tennessee comes the taste of prairie home country sausage. We take pride in what we do and the quality shines through as we bring that country flavor home to you. First we round up all our filthy pigs, take them all out back, grab an old sledge hammer and give them all a whack. Then we cut off all their body parts which doesn't sound appealing. It's a pretty decent job you know if you don't mind the squealing. Prairie home sausage brings the prairie home to you. More Weird Dark News is coming up. The only thing more spooky than Halloween in October is Spooky Empire. Join me October 27th through the 29th in Orlando, Florida to meet horror celebrities like a nightmare on Elm Street's Freddie Krueger Robert England and co-star Heather Langenkamp. Hellraiser's Doug Pinhead Bradley will be there with other casts from the film. Candyman's Tony Todd, an American werewolf in London's David Motton, the Crypt Keeper John Kassier, Rose McGowan from Charmed in Death Proof, Kane Hodder from the Friday the 13th films, Harry Hamlin from Clash of the Titans and so many more including Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Get autographs, take photos and hear Q&A sessions with your favorite horror celebs. They've even asked me to moderate a few celebrity Q&As too. You'll also find horror-themed workshops like making movie props and makeup, horror writing and more. Get all the details, see a full list of the celebrities and grab your tickets at SpookyEmpire.com. That's SpookyEmpire.com and I hope to see you there October 27th through the 29th in Orlando, Florida. An Australian man reportedly made his girlfriend believe that he'd been kidnapped so he could spend New Year's Eve with his mistress. 35-year-old Paul Ayera narrowly avoided jail time after he admitted before a judge that he had concocted an elaborate lie to hide his infidelity from his girlfriend, wasting tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars in the process. On December 31st of last year, the Australian man from Wollongong called his girlfriend to tell her that he was meeting his finance guy, when in reality he was going to see his mistress. At one point, in order to buy themselves some time, the couple messaged Ayera's girlfriend again this time pretending to be a kidnapper who promised to deliver him safe and sound the next day. Thank you for sending Paul to me. Now a payback is a blank. Bye-bye. We will keep him with us until the morning when he gives us his bike, we call it Square. The one thing Paul and his mistress apparently didn't count on was his girlfriend's panic after reading the message. Fearing for his life, the woman immediately notified the police to report his kidnapping and a strike force was immediately established to locate and rescue the victim. So while Paul Ayera and his mistress were spending some quality time together, the Lake Illawarra Police District was spending 200 hours of police work, equivalent to more than $25,000 of taxpayer money on trying to find him. On the morning of January 1st, during a high-risk vehicle stop, the police pulled over Ayera's van and found him safe and sound in the company of his mistress. He then tried to lie to the officers, saying that he had been indeed kidnapped by some Middle Eastern fellows who eventually let him go. But his story had all kinds of inconsistencies and 12 days later, he was arrested and charged with making a false accusation with the intent to subject another person to investigation. Paul Ayera faced up to seven years behind bars for his despicable deception, but after admitting to making up the story of his kidnapping to hide his infidelity from his girlfriend in court of law, he dodged a bullet and was ordered to pay $16,218.11 local money to the New South Wales government in compensation for the work done by police. Ayera was also sentenced to 350 hours of community service. Magistrate Michael Ong described the accused actions as abhorrent, adding that he had seriously considered giving him jail time. So you don't expect the girlfriend to do something after getting a kidnapping text? You're surprised when she calls the cops seriously? And another question, the supposed kidnapping ransom was for Paul to give the kidnappers his bike? That's it? If that's as much as even Paul thinks that he's worth in a kidnapping situation, his ex-girlfriend is so much better now without him. And his mistress obviously has horrible taste in men who have no value of self. Either that or it is a really nice bike. The Washington State Patrol stopped the driver in the high-occupancy vehicle lanes of a highway when the sole passenger was found to be a Halloween mask. Trooper Rick Johnson, public information officer for the Washington State Patrol District, said the vehicle was pulled over in the northbound HOV lanes of State Road 167 near State Road 18 in the Auburn area. Johnson shared a photo of the driver's only passenger, a Halloween mask affixed to the passenger seat along with a vest and scarf. Scary but still doesn't count, Johnson wrote. The driver was cited for an HOV violation. But he did come away with honorable mention at the DMV's annual costume contest. A moose that was found wandering down the tracks of the Stockholm subway and causing havoc was shot dead by a wildlife ranger on Wednesday after the service on the southern part of a busy line had to be suspended. The moose somehow managed to enter the enclosure that surrounds the tracks and roamed the southwestern part of the so-called red line with above-ground stations. At 1.7 stations had to be closed. Swedish news agency TT reports the moose wandered for several hours and the number of stations that were shut down gradually increased. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the moose kept stopping at each station asking people if they wanted to see him pull a rabbit out of a hat. And I'll end tonight's Weird Dark News report with a scary one. For the past five months, the people of Pravia, a town in Spain's austereous region have been under constant siege from flocks of crows who mindlessly attack their homes and vehicles. The town of Pravia has no less than six crows proudly displayed on its historic coat of arms, so it's safe to say that people here have been living in harmony with the birds for centuries. That's not the case anymore, as large flocks of black birds are now attacking the homes and vehicles of human residents for some unknown reason. The people of Pravia started reporting groups of birds mindlessly flying into their windows repeatedly until the impact caused them to bleed in May of this year and things have been getting worse ever since. No one knows exactly why the crows are targeting people's homes and vehicles, but they are relentless in their attacks, pecking at and flying into windows until they start to bleed. It looks like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, a Pravia woman told local reporters. Today, 17 of them were grouped together in front of the same window and nothing was going to scare them away. The neighbor had to paint his car completely because of the amount of scratches he had and the pieces of paint that were missing, another man said. When the attacks first began to occur around Pravia, many people claimed that it did something to do with the crows being very protective of their young and keeping humans away through their behavior. But that period has long passed, but the birds remained just as aggressive, if not more so. Now some are saying that the lack of food and the constant destruction of the crows' natural habitat have pushed the birds to this extreme behavior. In the last few months, the people of Pravia have reported flocks of crows attacking homes and vehicles, often throwing themselves at windows in order to break them. They mostly hurt themselves in the process, but they are relentless. Blood-stained windows across the Spanish town stand as evidence of the crows' relentlessness, but no one seems to have a solution to the problem. The Pravia local council and mayor have received hundreds of complaints about the crows' behavior, but they are powerless to stop them, despite several attempts. They tried catching them with traps, staring them away with balloons, and now they want to use nets to keep them in bay. It is very peculiar, it has to have some explanation because they crash very violently, Pravia Mayor David Alvarez said, admitting that his administration cannot currently keep the birds at bay. Find the links to all of the stories I've covered in this episode in the show notes. If I'm more strange, disturbing, and sometimes humorous news, then the weird news and blog at WeirdDarkness.com