A 42-year old man in Wichita, Kansas was shot in the hand by a gun someone had thrown in the trash. According to Sedwick County Sheriff's Captain Mike Oliver, the victim was helping unload garbage when he accidentally hit the trigger of the short-barreled pistol, which was floating loose in the trash and caked with mud.
Investigators say they would be interested to know how the gun came to be in the trash. They do not yet know whether it had been used in a crime.
(ABC)
Three thousand students had to wait for classes to start in at Carlsbad High School in California, thanks to someone gluing the school's doors shut. All of them.
"The locks are so small that all they'd have needed to do was put the point of the tube in and squeeze a little," the principal said. "It doesn't take much to stop you from putting your key in the lock."
The police are confident they'll find the culprit. As Police Lt. Kelly Cain puts it, "Someone's going to tell one of their friends sooner or later."
The custodial staff managed to unstick the lock on one building, freeing up 27 classrooms, but the rest of the students were forced to sit in the gym while their classrooms were unsealed, one at a time.
(Mainichi Daily News)
Adrian Davies, a taxi driver in Hastings, Australia, lost about $300AU when he left his cab to save an unconscious man from a burning car.
Mr. Davies was on duty when he spotted the car, which had ricocheted off a signpost, slammed into a tree and then flipped over. The driver, who had been knocked unconscious, was hanging upside-down, suspended by his seatbelt. Mr. Davies and two other men rushed to assist him, cutting the seatbelt away and dragging the victim out of the wreckage just before the car exploded. Meanwhile, the thief apparently rushed to help him (or her) self to Mr. Davies' money.
Mr. Davies is obviously upset about the loss of his cash, but it's clear he wouldn't have traded another man's life for it. "My parents brought me up that way, to help out each other," he said.
(Herald Sun)
An Italian film production company has been forced to delay the planned Easter release of its film, 7 km from Jerusalem, under threat of legal action from Coca-Cola. The film's main character, an advertising executive who makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem after losing his wife and his job, meets Jesus there, and offers him a can of Coke. Being an advertising executive, he thinks, "What a testimonial!"
Coca-Cola, apparently, didn't see it that way. According to a note on the film's Web site, the corporation sent a letter demanding that the scene be eliminated. The director, Claudio Malaponti, has indicated that if talks with Coca-Cola fail, he will indeed delete the scene.
(IOL)
When a Yellow Rose Carriage driver was knocked from her seat by a collision with a drunk driver and his van, her horse bolted, and took the carriage, and two passengers, with him.
William Basler, a 19-year-old Indianapolis teenager, saw the carriage careening away and sprang into action. He was chasing after it on foot when a cab driver saw what was happening and called to him to get in. The cab caught up to the carriage, and Basler bailed out, then climbed on board. He got hold of the reins and stopped the horse.
"It was just instinct," he said later. "I was just worried about the people inside of it."
The carriage driver was briefly unconscious, and the two passengers complained of pain and were taken to the hospital. None of the three suffered any major injuries.
The driver of the van has been charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, and misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence, public intoxication and operating a vehicle without a license.
The horse was not injured.
(cNews)
David Hughes doesn't like to pay fines. Or so one might assume, given his recent behavior.
In January, Hughes was convicted of disorderly conduct and ordered to pay a $281.50 fine. He paid $10 of it, and apparently thought that was enough. Beaver County, Pennsylvania District Judge Joseph L. Schafer issued an arrest warrant for Hughes, summoning him to the courthouse to explain why he hadn't paid the rest of the fine. Mr. Hughes offered to retrieve a gun from his van and shoot everyone in the office, then dashed out of the courthouse, jumped in his van, and drove away.
The police caught up with him quickly enough, and he pulled over. But rather than surrendering, he threw the van into reverse and backed into a police cruiser before taking off again. A second police car managed to pull him over a few blocks away, but he backed into that one, too. Finally, he turned onto a dead-end street and abandoned the van. The police chased him down on foot and took him into custody. At the police station, with one hand shackled, Hughes further endeared himself to law enforcement by punching an officer in the mouth with his free hand and trying to take the officer's pistol.
At some point during the chase, Hughes also flipped his middle finger at the pursuing officers. "He could have been killed," said Police Chief Barry Kramer. "He can thank his lucky stars it wasn't something shiny," that he waved at the cops.
Hughes has been charged with four counts of making terroristic threats, two counts of aggravated assault on police officers, and one count each of reckless endangerment, fleeing and eluding police, disarming a law enforcement officer, and careless driving.
And he still owes the county $271.50.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Johnny Snodgrass won't make that mistake again.
Snodgrass, 21, is a construction worker in Moundsville, West Virginia. Unfortunately for him, he may match the description of a man whose image was captured by security cameras in a store where an 89-year-old woman's purse was stolen, and in a nearby video poker establishment where her wallet was found, minus about $45. When the police arrived at the construction site where Snodgrass was working, he locked himself in the Port-A-Potty and refused to come out.
"A Port-A-Potty," said police Chief James Kudlak, "is not a good place to hide. There's only one way out." Snodgrass must have realized that, because after a short time, he opened the door and came out.
Snodgrass, who insists he is innocent, is being held on a $5,000 bond.
(WRAL-TV)
Walter Reckling, a truck driver from Germany, learned a lesson about food safety when he attempted to cook two sausages while he drove. He keeps a small gas stove in his truck, for roadside use, but he was running late for a delivery and thought he could use the stove in the cab. Of course it toppled over, and of course it set the seat on fire, and of course the fire spread to the rest of the cab.
Reckling was treated for smoke inhalation at a local hospital.
His poor judgment may be explained by his high blood alcohol content — more than three times the legal limit.
(IOL)
John Ferrell, of Clarksville, Tennessee, was badly burned when a hot grill in the bed of his pickup ignited a propane tank, which exploded. The 1978 Chevy was in flames when rescue crews arrived.
A spokesman for the Montgomery County Sheriff's office explained, "Apparently, when [Ferrell] loaded up the grill he still had hot charcoals, which somehow got too close to the propane tank, and it exploded. Obviously, we would urge people not to drive with burning grills in their vehicles."
Ferrell is reported to be in stable condition.
(Richmond Times-Dispatch)
The Oakland, California police department and California Highway Patrol have confirmed the death of an unidentified man who engaged in a struggle with police under an overpass. According to a police spokesman, two blasts of pepper spray and several blows with a wooden baton had no effect on the man, who was running naked down the street in front of Kaiser hospital, climbing poles, yelling to himself, and jumping on cars. Police say they never hit the man in the face, nor put any sort of hold on his neck. Sergeant Lou Cruz said that the man's "activity and demeanor were consistent with someone under the influence of some kind of narcotic."
(Oakland Tribune)
Marlie Coleman, a 6-year-old girl from Cairns, Queensland, has become the youngest person, and the first female, ever to receive the RSPCA Australia's Humane Award, for her bravery in snatching her kitten from the coils of a scrub python. The Humane Award is given to a person who has risked his or her personal safety to rescue an animal. Previous winners have been honored for such feats as dragging a dog from a burning house and being hit by a car while rescuing a koala.
Marlie was outside when a python slithered into the yard and attacked her kitten, Sooty. She grabbed the snake, and it let go of the kitten, but sank its teeth into Marlie's lip. Marlie's mother, Shakira, heard her daughter screaming and rushed outside to find the little girl standing by the barbeque with a snake attached to her face, sobbing, "Snake tried to eat Sooty." Shakira pulled the snake off and rushed Marlie to the hospital. Marlie still bears scars from the attack, but Sooty has recovered completely from her injuries. The snake was unharmed, and fled the scene.
RSPCA Queensland chief executive officer Mark Townend said, "The RSPCA does not want to see children place themselves in danger. However, this little girl, who was only five at the time, showed exceptional bravery. Marlie performed a selfless and courageous act on behalf of her kitten friend and she has captured the spirit of animal welfare."
Scrub pythons are non-venemous, but they can grow to nearly 10 feet, and have long, sharp teeth. They feed upon small, warm-blooded animals, and will bite if they feel threatened.
(news.com.au)
An infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite number number of typewriters, are supposed to be able to produce the works of Shakespeare. Mike Phillips, a media researcher at Plymouth University, has his doubts about that. Phillips and his team gave half a dozen monkeys a computer for a month. "They pressed a lot of S’s," he said Friday. "Obviously, English isn’t their first language."
The crested Sulawesi monkeys, denizens of Paignton Zoo in southwest England, failed to produce any great works of literature, in fact, although their writing skills eventually expanded to include the letters A, J, L and M. This does not mean, though, that they failed to interact with the machine. "The lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it," Phillips said. "Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."
Of course, not everything Shakespeare produced was a masterpiece, either.
(MSNBC)
An emergency room near Minneapolis, Minnesota had to be closed while the postal insectors and the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI investigated a suspiciously foul-smelling white envelope at a post office downtown. The hospital was treating a postal employee who was complaining of a "headache and burning sensation," which he believed was related to handling the envelope at work. The envelope, which was addressed to U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), turned out to contain a small slice of rotten potato and a note which read, "Have a french fry." "We assume it is a political statement having to do with the House changing French fries to Freedom Fries" said Postal Service spokesman Jim Ahlgren said. The note was not threatening, and there is no law against mailing rotten food; officials do not, therefore, plan to take any further action.
(Star Tribune)
