Man Flees Vigilantes After Fake 'Wanted' Posters

Poultry overruns building in a senior prank for the ages

(NEWSER) - Dozens of chickens making themselves at home in the halls of a Philadelphia high school forced it to close for the day, the Inquirer reports. Staff members arriving for work this morning were greeted by the birds, which apparently were set free last night. "They let them loose and spread chicken feed all over the place to keep them fat and happy, I guess," says a district spokesman. "They've created quite a mess." More»

Says hijacking note he put in pal's luggage was just a joke

(AP) - A 31-year-old man from Utah is facing a federal charge after he allegedly left an apparent prank note that included the words "hijack plane" and "kill Obama" in his co-worker's luggage. Jeremiah Douglas Hill, of Clinton, was charged yesterday with one misdemeanor count of making a false alarm for intentionally circulating a false warning of a plane hijacking. More»

She kept $2,300 after it fell out of another customer's pocket

(NEWSER) - Finder, keepers does not apply here. Police nabbed a Philadelphia woman who picked up $2,300 in cash off the floor in a convenience store and kept it. The problem, police say, is that she knew it fell out of the pocket of the customer in front of her and thus had a legal responsibility to return it. Instead, the 28-year-old quickly left the store with the loot, as surveillance video shows, and now faces misdemeanor charges of theft and receiving stolen property. (See the surveillance video at NBC10 in Philadelphia .) More»

Fake painting was smuggled in, hung on wall for a year

(NEWSER) - For almost a year, a portrait hung on the Pentagon wall commemorating Ensign Chuck Hord, "lost at sea" in 1908. Seems that no one noticed that the turn-of-the-century sailor had blow-dried hair, or that what appeared to be an oil painting was actually a stylized photograph. Indeed, "Chuck Hord" never even existed: The portrait was a snapshot of Capt. Tuck Hord, a 53-year-old Navy retiree living in Virginia, the Wall Street Journal reports. The formal photo was taken in 1982 at the request of Hord's parents. From there, it gets weird. More»

Justin Bieber punks Taylor Swift, and more

(NEWSER) - In honor of April Fools' Day, the Huffington Post found video of 10 awesome (or awesomely embarrassing) pranks pulled on and by famous people:

• Tom Cruise: Upon being squirted in the face with a water gun by a British reporter, Cruise's priceless response included the line, "You're a jerk."
• Justin Timberlake: When Ashton Kutcher and Dax Shepard pranked him for Punk'd, with Shepard posing as a government official seizing his property because of unpaid taxes, JT actually cried. He later blamed his behavior on being stoned.