Post insane / odd / unique news releases here

[LWM]

Woman with broken leg calls 911; Suspect collapses (July 30th, 2010 @ 6:21pm)

WALKER, La. (AP) - Livingston Parish sheriff's deputies arrested a man who passed out while allegedly trying to break into a mobile home where an 82-year-old woman was calling 911, crowbar in hand. Deputies said 24-year-old Derrick Gauthreaux of Denham Springs was checked at a hospital Thursday, then booked into the parish jail on one count of attempted burglary.

Investigators said the woman reported an attempted break-in about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, and said she was recovering from a broken leg but had a crowbar for protection.

Chief of Operations Perry Rushing said Gauthreaux told deputies he had been released from the New Orleans jail around midnight, and records showed he'd received a summons for an open alcoholic drink about an hour before his arrest.

He remained jailed Friday in lieu of $50,000 bond. It was not clear whether he had an attorney.

[LWM]

Police: 2 men tried to sell wood blocks as laptops (July 31st, 2010 @ 11:54am)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Investigators in Mississippi say two men wrapped blocks of wood in duct tape and bubble wrap, attached Toshiba labels and tried to pass them off as laptops.

Hinds County authorities charged the men with trademark infringement and selling goods with counterfeit labels. WLBT-TV in Jackson reports the men were caught Thursday when they tried to sell the fake laptops to an off-duty state trooper.

Hinds County Sheriff's Lt. Jeffery Scott says authorities also found binders filled with paper being passed off as computers.

However, no one actually bought the fakes.

[LWM]

Arrests sought after burgers, fries tossed in pool (July 31st, 2010 @ 1:46pm)

DALE CITY, Va. (AP) - The hamburger patties, French fries and pretzels tossed into the pool were bad enough. But did a vandal really have to smear mozzarella cheese on the water slide?

Officials in northern Virginia's Prince William County said that mischief was done overnight at Waterworks Waterpark, plus more.

But it's no laughing matter: The park is closed until workers can drain, sanitize and refill the pool.

Prince William County Park Authority spokeswoman Dianne Cabot says the vandalism took place between 10 p.m. Friday, when the last lifeguard left, and 8 a.m. Saturday. A reward is being offered for tips leading to an arrest in the case.

Officials say in addition to the food, someone threw tables, chairs, lifeguard stands and cigarette butts in the water.

[LWM]

Brazilian men swapped at birth work, live together (July 31st, 2010 @ 12:33pm)

By STAN LEHMAN Associated Press Writer

SAO PAULO (AP) - Two years back, Dimas Aliprandi and Elton Plaster didn't know of each other's existence. Then they learned they had been accidentally switched at birth more than 20 years ago.

The discovery didn't bring bitterness or recrimination. Rather, it led to the creation of a bigger family.

Today, the two 25-year-olds are living and working together with both sets of parents growing vegetables and coffee on a small farm in southeastern Brazil.

The chain of events started with Aliprandi, who was always intrigued that he did not resemble the four sisters he grew up with.

"There was something different," he told The Associated Press by phone. "I had blonde hair and blue eyes and my sisters had dark hair and eyes.

"I had the typical features of a descendent of German immigrants, while my sisters and parents were of Italian stock. Something did not add up"

Aliprandi said he was 14 when his suspicions intensified after watching a TV news report on babies getting switched at birth because of mistakes at hospitals.

"I told my father of my doubts and that I wanted to do a DNA test. But it was too expensive" for the family, he said.

A decade later, Aliprandi did it on his own.

"In December 2008, when I was 24, I decided I needed an answer to my doubts and paid 300 reals ($166) for a DNA test that confirmed my suspicions that I was not the birth son of the man and woman who had raised me," he said.

It was a big shock for his parents, Zilda and Antonio Aliprandi. They at first refused to believe the results, but eventually decided to help him look for his biological parents.

The search began at the Madre Regina Protmann Hospital, where he was born.

"I showed the hospital the results of the DNA test and told them that they proved that I had been switched at birth," Aliprandi said.

But hospital officials were skeptical, he said, and asked him to have another DNA test, which he did three months later.

Repeated calls to the hospital for comment went unanswered.

The DNA results were the same as the first- Aliprandi had been given to the wrong mother as an infant.

He said the hospital then searched its records and found Elton Plaster was born there on the same day.

The records led Aliprandi to the 35-acre (14-hectare) farm where Plaster lived with his parents, Nilza and Adelson, in the town of Santa Maria de Jetiba, about 30 miles (45 kilometers) from the Aliprandi home in Joao Neiva.

The Plasters agreed to do DNA tests.

"They discovered that Elton was the biological son of the man and woman that I had been calling Mom and Dad for 24 years," Aliprandi said. "Meanwhile, Elton discovered that the couple he had always regarded as his biological parents were mine."

The discovery did not cause any upset, he said.

"Instead it sparked a desire to join our families," Aliprandi said. "Elton and I wanted to remain with those who raised us and with our birth parents. We wanted to expand our families."

So about a year ago, Aliprandi and the parents who raised him accepted an offer from the Plasters to move to their farm, where they built a home.

"This is the way it should be," Adelson Plaster recently told Globo TV. "We are all together and I now have two sons living and working here."

Aliprandi and Plaster both feel blessed by their new circumstances.

"It's not everyone who can say he has two fathers and two mothers living together with him," Aliprandi said.

[LWM]

Police: Wendy's robber complains about skimpy haul (August 1st, 2010 @ 1:47pm)

ATLANTA (AP) - Police say a man who robbed a fast-food restaurant with a gun was so mad about the amount of loot that he called back twice to complain.

The man walked up to the drive-through window of an Atlanta Wendy's late Saturday night, wearing a ski mask and holding a gun.

He demanded the cash drawer, grabbed it and ran away.

But police say he later called the fast food restaurant to complain about the amount of cash.

Police say in one call he said that "next time there better be more than $586."

He called again with a similar complaint.

[LWM]

Sharp curve in Maine nets another big fish spill (August 1st, 2010 @ 3:45pm)

WHITING, Maine (AP) - There's something fishy in Whiting, Maine.

For the third time, a fish truck has accidently dumped its load in Esther MacLaughlin's front yard, located on a sharp turn near the intersection of Route 189 and Route 1.

Maine State Police say a truck carrying at least 22,000 pounds of lobster-bait herring overturned on the curve Saturday, spilling its cargo and injuring the driver.

Trooper Andrew Foss tells the Bangor Daily News the driver blew a tire as he drove through the curve, causing the truck to flip on its side. The driver was hospitalized with leg injuries. The truck sustained $25,000 in damage.

Robin McPhail says her mother lives near a bad intersection, calling it "a really bad corner" with many accidents.

[LWM]

Ohio Red Cross giving away new car, or Amish buggy (August 2nd, 2010 @ 5:33am)

CLEVELAND (AP) - To spur blood donations, an Ohio Red Cross chapter is offering people who give a pint of blood the chance to win a car or a horse-drawn buggy.

Spokeswoman Christy Chapman in Cleveland says the Red Cross didn't want to leave its many Amish donors out of the giveaway. The organization's Northern Ohio blood services region includes three counties with one of the nation's largest Amish populations.

The Red Cross regional operation has a board member who is Amish and who is arranging to have a buggy custom made for the contest, which wraps up Sept. 6.

Blood donors who prefer a more modern mode of transportation can win a 2010 Nissan Versa.

[LWM]

Mystery as Tokyo loses track of centenarians (August 3rd, 2010 @ 8:20am)

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) - Japanese authorities admitted Tuesday they'd lost track of a 113-year-old woman listed as the Tokyo's oldest, days after police searched the home of the city's official oldest man- only to find his long-dead, mummified body.

Officials launched a search this week for Fusa Furuya, born in July 1897 and listed as Tokyo's oldest citizen, after it emerged her whereabouts are unknown.

Several other celebrated centenarians are also unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping and follow-up in a country that prides itself in its number of long-lived citizens but also frets about an unraveling of traditional family ties.

Officials updating their records ahead of a holiday next month honoring the elderly found that Furuya does not live at the address where she is registered, said Hiroshi Sugimoto, an official in Tokyo's Suginami ward.

Furuya's 79-year-old daughter, whose name was not disclosed, told officials she was not aware of her mother's registration at that address and said she thought her mother was just outside Tokyo with her younger brother, with whom she has lost touch. But that address turned out to be a vacant lot.

Police are also interviewing the brother and another daughter, but still have not been able to locate Furuya.

The disappearance follows last week's grisly discovery- also by officials updating the most-elderly list- that the man listed as Tokyo's oldest male, who would have been 111 years old, had actually been dead for some 30 years and his decayed body was still in his home.

Police are investigating the family of Sogen Kato for alleged abandonment and swindling his pension money. Kato is believed to have died around 1978 after he had retreated to his bedroom, saying he wanted to be a living Buddha.

Officials said that they had not personally contacted the city's two oldest people for decades.

Authorities are also looking for a 106-year-old man who is missing in Nagoya, central Japan, Kyodo News agency reported. The Asahi newspaper said three more centenarians were unaccounted for in Tokyo.

The missing elderly people could cast doubt on the exact number of centenarians in Japan, a figure that has been rising for decades.

Officially, Japan has 40,399 people aged 100 or older, including 4,800 in Tokyo, according to an annual health ministry report last year marking the Sept 21 holiday for the elderly.

Each centenarian receives a letter and a gift from a local government office- usually by mail. Officials in fewer than half of the country's 47 prefectures (states) routinely keep track of centenarians in person, Kyodo said, citing its own tally.

Health and Welfare Minister Akira Nagatsuma urged officials to find a better way to monitor the elderly.

"Many people have doubts whether the government properly keeps track of senior citizens' whereabouts," he said. "It is important for public offices to check up on them- where and how they are- and follow through all the way."

But local officials say it is hard to keep track because families are often reluctant to receive official visits.

Many also send their elderly relatives to nursing homes without doing the proper paperwork.

"It's shocking that even relatives don't know if their parents are alive or dead," Chiba University professor Yoshinori Hiroi, an expert on public welfare, told public broadcaster NHK. "These cases were typical examples of thinning relationship among families and neighbors in Japan today."

The rapidly graying population has also fueled concerns about Japan's overburdened public pension and medical care system.

[LWM]

Pa. city shames owners of blighted property on Web (August 3rd, 2010 @ 10:04am)

READING, Pa. (AP) - Property owners neglecting their homes in one eastern Pennsylvania city are getting an online shaming.

Reading (RED-ing') Mayor Tom McMahon on Monday announced a new online "Wall of Shame" featuring blighted properties.

McMahon says the property owners' names will be posted along with pictures and addresses. He says he's serving notice to property owners who fail to take action on eyesore properties.

Ten properties are already facing designation as blighted, which could lead to them being torn down. Fifty other properties are listed on the site, and McMahon says they're being targeted for blighted status by the city.

[LWM]

Michigan man says he's grateful dog chewed off toe (August 3rd, 2010 @ 11:34pm)

ROCKFORD, Mich. (AP) - A Michigan man says he's grateful his dog ate most of his toe while he was passed out drunk.

Jerry Douthett of Rockford says Kiko's action helped uncover an undiagnosed diabetic condition and led to treatment that could save his life.

The Grand Rapids Press reported that the 48-year-old musician knew for a while something was wrong with his foot. He resisted seeking care until giving in to his nurse wife's pressure one day last month.

Before going for an appointment, Douthett says he went out drinking, then came home and passed out. When he awoke, the terrier was beside him in bed and lots of blood was where his toe used to be.

His wife rushed him to Spectrum Health Blodgett Campus, where doctors found a bone infection and amputated the rest of the toe.