Does Abraham Lincoln’s ghost haunt the White House?

And other stories from the stranger side of life

Abraham Lincoln
(Image credit: Alexander Gardner/US Library of Congress via Getty Images)

A reporter has joked that the White House is haunted by ghosts after a creaking noise interrupted a daily press briefing. Press Secretary Jen Psaki was talking about Joe Biden’s response to the Covid pandemic when she was drowned out by the loud noise. After the journalist suggested it was the ghost of former President Abraham Lincoln, who served from 1861 until his assassination in 1865, Psaki said: “Okay, maybe it’s former President Lincoln’s ghost, I’m going to go with that.”

TikToker hospitalised after energy drink error

An influencer who swallowed eight scoops of pre-workout supplement had to seek emergency medical treatment after his brain began to swell up against his skull. The fitness TikToker was joining a new trend where people put the powder directly into their mouth without water to allow the body to digest it as soon as possible. However, it backfired when the blend of caffeine, creatine and other energy substances left him in hospital.

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Ice age bones found in Vegas

Bones dating back to the ice age have been found in a Las Vegas backyard. Matt Perkins and his husband, who recently moved from Washington to Nevada, found the police had arrived at their home after pool constructers discovered the bones about five feet below ground. Nevada Science Center said the bones are between 6,000 and 14,000 years old and belong to a horse or similar large mammal.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.