But don't tell anybody.

In our first study, the extent to which people described themselves as needing to feel unique corresponded to some extent with their endorsement of specific conspiracy theories. What’s more, people who were generally prone to accept a conspiracy theory were more likely to believe theories that were themselves accepted only by a very few people. In other words, those with a conspiracy mentality were more likely to believe less popular theories, perhaps suggesting that the ‘exclusivity’ of the belief is the very commodity they seek.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — As strong storms barreled through a Greensboro neighborhood on Sunday night, a young man on Phillips Avenue helped his sister and nephew stay safe despite being caught up in a video game.

"I was sitting at home and I was playing Fortnite, and all of sudden, I hear a bunch of noise," Anton Williams told WXII 12's Mallory Lane. "I look out the window and I started seeing the roof come off the houses in front of me."

Next door, strong winds blew a family's home away from its foundation.

Voters could get a chance to decide whether California should be split into three states this November.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper, who authored an initiative to break up the Golden State, says it has received enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Draper says the initiative, which he calls the “CAL 3” has more than 600,000 signatures and will be submitted to election officials next week.

The initiative needed signatures from 365,880 registered voters – 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2014 election – to qualify for the ballot.

... when a homeless man grabs your Glock in a public bathroom.

Sean Simpson is a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who had expressed an openness the idea of arming teachers to prevent school shootings.

On Sunday, he used a public bathroom on Deerfield Beach Pier and forgot his loaded pistol in the stall. He realized his mistake after leaving the bathroom, upon hearing his gun being discharged. He then raced back to the bathroom and discovered an apparently drunk homeless man holding his 9mm Glock.

Responsible!

In case Friday had lightened your mood...

The library clerk goes on to tell me that sovereign citizens don’t have to pay taxes because of the “straw man” theory. The explanation of this is convoluted and takes a while for my brain to process. But the idea is that all humans have two personas, a legal entity and their physical self, and the latter is not responsible for the debts or taxes of the former.

Yet the IRS is very aware of the “straw man” theory and will fine an individual who uses it $5,000 for filing a “frivolous tax return.”

I try to explain this, but to no avail.

“Just write the word Frank where the stamp goes,” I hear another inmate telling a friend in the library.

I have to ask what he is talking about. He tells me that it is common knowledge that a very wealthy man named Frank died and donated his millions of dollars to the U.S. Postal Service. Now all poor people have to do is write his name on an envelope in place of a stamp, and the mail will be delivered for free.

Many prisoners swear they have used this method, and that it works.

A 15-year effort to build a school in the city’s Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil.

The $70 million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the county’s insane asylum.

Is there a worse vegetable than eggplant?

We have seen and heard President Donald Trump take so many actions that unsettle the stability of our democracy that we are reaching a point where this is simply becoming the new normal. The danger is that when an alarm goes off that we really can't afford to ignore, we won't take it seriously. Too many people will say that it's just Trump being Trump. Everything will be ok -- until it is not.

The normalization of presidential instability has been stunning. In a week that saw the unprecedented shakeup of high level executive branch officials continue, and a "60 Minutes" interview with a porn star who claims the President's men threatened her to be silent about their alleged affair, many experts noted how quiet the week had been because Trump didn't tweet too much.

'Normalization' should be the word of the year.

(creator unknown)

And so is his attorney.

On TV, he said Cohen negotiated the Stormy Daniels agreement without telling Trump, which may invalidate the contract and be grounds for disbarment.