Post insane / odd / unique news releases here

[Adondo]

BLAINE, Wash. - A Washington State Patrol trooper says the driver of a FedEx tractor-trailer rig choked on some spicy pork rinds, lost control of his truck on an interstate and jackknifed it before coming to a stop in a muddy ditch.

Trooper Keith Leary says Edward Sutherland was driving his rig southbound from Blaine near the Canadian border Monday when he began choking and veered from the southbound lanes across the median into northbound lanes of Interstate 5.

The trooper says the truck didn't hit any vehicles. Leary says the 42-year-old driver suffered minor injuries and will be cited for driving with wheels off the roadway.

[Adondo]

From here: (with a video also) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ng-donkey.html

Russian investigation into paragliding donkey
Russian police have opened a criminal investigation into a group of entrepreneurs who tied a donkey to a parachute before sending the animal on a bizarre flight high above a popular Russian holiday resort.


Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 5:40PM BST 20 Jul 2010

The tourism touts, in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, carried out the stunt in an attempt to get beachgoers to follow in the donkey's footsteps and pay to enjoy a similar parachute ride.

However, the publicity gimmick, which lasted half an hour, turned sour when the donkey began screaming in distress. Children watching from the beach started to cry, and news of the tasteless incident reached local police. To make matters worse, the donkey had less than a soft landing and was dragged several feet over the surface of the Sea of Azov before being hauled on to the beach half-alive.

"The donkey was screaming, and children were crying yet nobody had the brains to call the police," said Larisa Tuchkova, a local police spokeswoman. Instead, most beachgoers filmed the bizarre flight on their mobile phones and later tried to sell the footage to local newspapers. Some beach goers did try to intervene. As the donkey soared more than 100ft above their heads, several people told the touts to "stop torturing" the animal but their requests were ignored.

According to local reports, children watching the spectacle asked their parents "Why did they tie a doggy to a parachute."

Police say they are now investigating whether the group of entrepreneurs responsible for the prank were guilty of animal cruelty. They could be jailed for up to two years if found guilty of such charges. It is not known whether the donkey survived its ordeal.

[LWM]

Fla. deputy shoots himself in leg during training (July 29th, 2010 @ 12:18pm)

CRESTVIEW, Fla. (AP) - An Okaloosa Sheriff's deputy is on leave after shooting himself in the leg during a training exercise at a firing range. Miguel Rojas accidentally hit himself Tuesday when deputies were forced to use their less-dominant hand to shoot. The 35-year-old caught his finger in the trigger guard while trying to holster his gun. The bullet broke a small bone in Rojas' leg, but the injury didn't require surgery.

The department's chief deputy said Rojas is in good spirits, but won't get any relief from his co-workers for a while.

He is an eight-year sheriff's department veteran and a member of its Special Response Team.

[LWM]

Churchill's choppers sold at auction in England (July 29th, 2010 @ 8:48am)

LONDON (AP) - A partial set of dentures used by former British leader Winston Churchill- described as the teeth that saved the world- sold at auction Thursday for 15,200 pounds ($23,723.)

The upper dentures, one of several sets specially made for the wartime prime minister, were crucial for maintaining his distinctively slurred speaking style famous from World War II-era radio broadcasts.

"From childhood, Churchill had a very distinctive natural lisp; he had trouble with his S's," said Jane Hughes, who is head of learning at London's Hunterian Museum, a medical museum run by the Royal College of Surgeons.

"He wanted to maintain (the lisp) because he was already so well known for it," she said. "The dentures wouldn't quite connect with the top of the mouth, but that was on purpose."

The museum displays a duplicate set of Churchill's dentures, with the caption "the teeth that saved the world." They are on show in a glass cabinet alongside other famous teeth- including dentures worn by Queen Caroline, the estranged wife of King George IV.

Churchill had many problems with his teeth as a child and probably lost some of them quite early. He regarded the skill of his dentist, Wilfred Fish, so highly that he nominated him for a knighthood.

Fish's technician, a young man called Derek Cudlipp, started making sets of identical dentures for Churchill before the war- when the politician was in his 60s. Three sets were made and worn on a rotational basis because Churchill often broke them, and Cudlipp was frequently called to Downing Street to provide a spare set.

The state of the dentures often hinted at how well the war effort was going, said Nigel Cudlipp, the son of the technician and the seller of the set of teeth at Thursday's auction.

"Churchill was not a man who was gifted with a lot of patience, and when things were going badly he would put his thumb behind the teeth and flick them across the room," he said.

"My father was in his early 20s, very shy. He probably found him quite overwhelming," he said, adding that Churchill even prevented his father from joining the military so that he could be on standby.

The false teeth were bought by a British collector of Churchill memorabilia at an auction in England at three times the estimated price. Keys Auctioneers said the man previously bought a microphone said to have been used by Churchill to announce the end of the war.

Meanwhile, a British publisher announced it would release a complete digitized archive of papers documenting his life.

Bloomsbury Publishing announced Thursday about 1 million pages of the papers, including everything from childhood school reports to private letters and notes, can be accessed online through libraries and schools starting in 2012.

The vast collection is currently housed in 2,500 boxes in a dedicated archive center in Cambridge, England.

Churchill served as prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and then from 1951 to 1955.

[LWM]

500-pound alligator rounded up in SC lagoon (July 29th, 2010 @ 1:26pm)

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) - As gators go, the one found in a South Carolina lagoon was downright gargantuan. The Island Packet of Hilton Head reported that an 11-foot-long, 500 pound alligator was removed from a lagoon on the resort island on Wednesday. It took three gator wrestlers from the Critter Management company and a truck to pull the gator from the lagoon near a church.

A worker said the gator was so big, it was a like a frog in a puddle.

Critter Management owner Joe Maffo said most encounters with gators occur during the spring and early summer. He said the gator probably just found a lagoon where he felt comfortable.

[LWM]

Saggy pants foolish but legal, NYC judge rules (July 29th, 2010 @ 6:36am)

NEW YORK (AP) - Wearing saggy pants is not a crime, just foolish.

That's how a New York City judge ruled in throwing out a summons issued to a man wearing low-slung pants that exposed his underwear.

Judge Ruben Franco said that the summons appeared to be an attempt by one police officer to show his displeasure with the style.

The Bronx man, Julio Martinez, was issued the ticket on April 20.

The judge writes that many may find the low-slung trouser trend distasteful and foolish. But he says people can dress how they want as long as they do not offend public order and decency.

Franco's decision was issued last month. Martinez and his Legal Aid attorney could not be reached for comment.

[LWM]

Man listed as Tokyo's oldest had been dead decades (July 29th, 2010 @ 5:49am)

TOKYO (AP) - A man listed as the oldest living male in Tokyo in fact died some 30 years ago, city officials said after his body was found mummified in his bed.

Police visited the home of Sogen Kato at the request of ward officials updating their list of centenarians ahead of Respect for the Elderly Day in September. Kato was born July 22, 1899.

Welfare officials have tried to meet Kato since earlier this year, but his family members repeatedly chased them away, saying Kato was well but didn't want to see anyone, said Tomoko Iwamatsu, an official at Tokyo's downtown Adachi Ward, where Kato lived.

Officials grew suspicious and sought an investigation by police, who forced their way into the house Wednesday. Police said the mummified body believed to be Kato was lying in his bed, wearing underwear and pajamas, covered with a blanket.

His granddaughter told investigators Kato holed up in his room about 30 years ago after declaring he wanted to be a living Buddha, police and Tokyo officials said. They believe Kato died soon after that.

Tokyo police were investigating possible crimes on suspicion Kato's family received pension money of the man and his dead wife.

"His family must have known he has been dead all these years and acted as if nothing happened," said Tokyo metropolitan welfare official Yutaka Muroi. "It's so eerie."

[LWM]

Package for 'grandma' contains 6 lbs. of drugs (July 29th, 2010 @ 4:39am)

TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) - A package addressed from "Grandpa Henderson" in San Diego to "Grandma Henderson" in Talladega, Ala., wasn't ordinary mail, and it wasn't picked up by any grandmother.

The package aroused suspicions among Talladega postal inspectors, who contacted the Talladega County drug task force. Task force commander Jason Murray said a trained drug-detection dog singled out the package, and law enforcement officers waited for someone to pick it up.

Three men did that Saturday. They were stopped after they left the post office, and officers found more than 6 pounds of marijuana in the package.

Murray said the three have been charged with trafficking in marijuana.

[LWM]

Md. man sentenced for stealing library's tarantula (July 29th, 2010 @ 4:37am)

WESTMINSTER, Md. (AP) - A Maryland man has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for stealing a spider from a public library.

Carroll County Circuit Judge J. Barry Hughes sentenced 27-year-old Randy Humple of Westminster on Monday.

Staff at the Westminster library called police May 19 after they discovered Chili Rose, a Chilean Rose tarantula at the information desk, had disappeared. Witnesses told authorities they saw Humple with the spider and that he bragged about swiping it.

Hughes also sentenced Humple to four years in prison for violating his probation in a 2007 assault case. Humple told the judge he knows he's done some stupid things and he wants to serve his sentence.

The judge said that while what Humple did may have been "stupid on one level," it was also "criminal on another level."

[LWM]

Prodigal gun: Man reunited with stolen revolver (July 29th, 2010 @ 4:34pm)

TERRELL, Texas (AP) - A rural east Texas man has been reunited with his long-lost gun more than two decades after it was stolen. Kauffman County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Pat Laney says Bruce Garner received his H&R nine-shot revolver at an upbeat property hearing Thursday morning.

According to the Sheriff's Office, burglars took the gun from Garner's home in Terrell soon after he moved there in June 1989. Terrell is about 30 miles east of Dallas.

The thieves were never caught. But deputies found the firearm at a pawn shop and traced it to Garner.

Garner says he's astounded that he was able to get his favorite dispatch gun back. The 59-year-old leathersmith says he once used it to hunt and trap to make money.