The best of the tabloids in 2009

Colorado man coughs up 1-inch nail

A Colorado man who was having an MRI suddenly felt a sharp pain in his nose, and coughed up a 1-inch nail that had been embedded in his head for 30 years. Prax Sanchez, 72, a retired carpenter, had no idea the nail was there, but felt something move inside his head when the magnetic imaging device exerted a pull on the metal. Minutes later, he coughed, and the nail popped into his hand. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Sanchez. “I never had any idea there was any metal in my face.”

Burglar scared off by Thor

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A burglar in Scotland was frightened off when he was interrupted by a home­owner dressed as Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Torvald Alexander, 39, had attended a costume party dressed as the hammer-wielding deity, complete with red cape, breastplate, and horned helmet. Encountering the burglar, Alexander/Thor instinctively charged at the man, causing him to leap from a window and flee in terror. “I think I would be quite scared if someone

looking like a gladiator ran at me,” said Alexander.

Solving Rubik’s Cube after 26 years

A British man finally solved the Rubik’s Cube after 26 years of trying. Construction worker Graham Parker, now 45, first picked up the puzzle in 1983 at the peak of its global popularity, and though it stymied him, he kept at it obsessively after the world moved on. “I have had wrist and back problems from spending hours on it,” said Parker, “but it was all worth it. When I clicked that last bit into place and each face was a solid color, I wept.”

Woman says pool impregnated 13-year-old daughter

A Polish woman is suing an Egyptian hotel, claiming that its swimming pool made her teenage daughter pregnant. The suit, filed in Warsaw by Magdalena Kwiatkowska, says that stray sperm in the pool must have impregnated her 13-year-old daughter while the family was there on vacation. “The mother is adamant that her daughter didn’t meet any boys while she was there,” said a Polish travel industry official.