FROM KING FEATURES WEEKLY SERVICE, 300 W. 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019 
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STRANGE BUT TRUE #12345_20260713  
FOR RELEASE July 13, 2026
BYLINE: By Lucie Winborne  
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* The "Escape from Alcatraz Marathon," created in 1980, is an annual event designed to show that it is indeed possible to survive an escape from Alcatraz, and includes a 1.5-mile swim to San Francisco, an 18-mile bike ride and an 8-mile run.
* In the seventh century B.C., the North African Berbers played a soccer-like game as a fertility rite.
* Iceland had a cat reality show called -- wait for it -- "Keeping Up With the Kattarshians," in which four lucky kittens lived together in a furnished house and were filmed around the clock.
* Minority children make up 65% of all non-family abductions.
* Some police forces purposely assign at least one woman to their SWAT teams so their male counterparts will have a "den mother" to counteract some of the men's more violent tendencies.
* The first arrest resulting from an emergency call occurred on July 8, 1937, at 4:20 a.m., when the wife of John Stanley Beard dialed 999 to report a burglar, Thomas Duffy, outside her home in England. 
* It is illegal to ride an ugly horse in Wilbur, Washington.
* Of the roughly 300 million tons of plastic produced each year, half consists of single-use items.
* In France, citizens are automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 years old.
* Over the course of several decades, African American blues musician Daryl Davis made a point of befriending KKK members and questioning them about their beliefs. As of 2017, 200 of those Klansmen had given up their robes as a result.
* People who worked at soda fountains were called soda jerks due to the classic jerking motion they used to pump soda water.
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Thought for the Day: "It takes a moment to tell someone you love them, but it takes a lifetime to prove it." -- Erich Fromm
(c) 2026 King Features Synd., Inc.
