Appalling:

A Georgia couple was arrested this week on charges of child cruelty and false imprisonment after their 15-year-old daughter told authorities that she was forced to live in a chicken coop and wear a remote-controlled shock collar.

The 15-year-old, who was home schooled, reportedly said that her adopted parents, Samuel and Diana Franklin, punished her for not finishing school work by spending up to six days at a time in the chicken coop behind their house in Butler over the past two years.

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“(NEWSER) – A West Virginia Pentecostal pastor who used poisonous snakes during religious services has died of a rattlesnake bite. Mack Wolford, who just turned 44, was killed by a snake he had owned for years, reports theWashington Post. He was bitten during an outdoor service at a state park he had hoped would be a ‘homecoming like the old days,’ filled with people speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a ‘great time,’ he said on his Facebook page.”

“And before you say ‘Well that’s going to make it hard to get into college when you graduate with a background in basic science that has built-in air quotes’, the law applies to universities and colleges in Missouri too, defined as ‘any introductory science course taught at any public institution of higher education in this state’ having to meet [certain] criteria ….” [Balloon Juice]

Bill in Exile:

A West Virginia man found wearing women’s underwear and standing over a neighbor’s goat’s carcass told police he was high on “bath salts” when he stabbed the animal to death.  The grandmother of the 4-year-old owner of the pygmy goat found 19-year-old Mark Thompson in his bedroom wearing a bra and panties, and standing over the goat’s body and a porn magazine. He was arrested and charged with animal cruelty.

[NYDN]

For some reason, this video has gone viral:

First they award a Peace Prize to some dude who isn’t George W. Bush. Then when we’re not looking, they steal the Monopoly championship from us. And now, this:

Norwegian authorities have arrested a 22-year-old man for smuggling pythons by taping them to his body.

The Norwegian man, who was arrested in Oslo yesterday, smuggled the reptiles in underneath his clothes.

Customs officials became suspicious when the man, who arrived on a passenger ferry from Denmark, was stopped for a spot check.

When they found a tarantula in his bag, they decided to search further.

And that’s when they discovered the 14 baby pythons and 10 albino gecko lizards strapped to his person.

Which brings us to the best photo caption we’ve seen all year: “Real-life ‘trousersnake’.”

Snakes smuggled on a plane: Customs officials catch man with 24 illegal pythons and geckos taped to his body [Daily Mail, via Raw Story]