Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Chicago-Bound Airliner Grounded by Geese


NEW YORK (AP) - An American Airlines flight bound for Chicago was forced to land within minutes of takeoff Thursday morning when several geese were caught in its engine, authorities said.

The two-engine F-100 was leaving LaGuardia Airport when it apparently struck the geese, damaging the plane and the right-side engine, said American spokesman Todd Burke.

The pilot reported an engine failure and landed at nearby Kennedy International Airport about 20 minutes after takeoff, said Port Authority spokesman Dan Maynard.

The crew of four and the 34 passengers were uninjured, Burke said.


The flight was headed for Midway Airport in Chicago when the incident occurred. Passengers were bused back to LaGuardia and directed to other flights, Burke said.


Also Thursday, the nose gear of a Delta Connection flight collapsed shortly after the jet landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.


Officials were investigating the cause of the malfunction on the flight, which originated in Colorado Springs, Colo.


All the 21 passengers and three crew exited safely.



09/04/03 21:17

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[Jolie Rouge]

Mormon Church OKs Firing Squad Change


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Hoping to clear the way for eliminating the firing squad as a means of execution, a Utah commission asked for and received a statement from the Mormon church saying it does not oppose the change.

In a one-sentence statement provided Wednesday to the Utah Sentencing Commission, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it ``has no objection to the elimination of the firing squad in Utah.''

The clarification was needed, according to one commission member, because of a purported church doctrine that held that justice was not done unless a murderer's blood was shed.

The Mormon statement removes a significant obstacle in Utah's effort to do away with firing-squad executions.


Commission member Paul Boyden said recent letters to the editor to newspapers indicate some in Mormon-dominated Utah still believe the firing squad is necessary for religious reasons. Commission members feared that belief could hurt the chances of the proposed change in the Legislature.


``If we hadn't (asked for the church's position), this probably would have been a question among some legislators and it may have not made it out of committee,'' Boyden said.


The commission is studying the issue and plans to formally recommend eliminating the firing squad, leaving injection as Utah's only method of execution. Commission members want to make the change quickly to stop the ``media circus'' that surrounds firing squad executions, Boyden said.


Utah is the only state that uses the firing squad method, although Idaho and Oklahoma retain it as an option if other methods are not viable.


Utah's last execution by firing squad took place in 1996. Two death row inmates who had chosen that method had been scheduled to die in June, but those executions were delayed.



09/04/03 23:37

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GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) - Deryl Miles is accused of cat nabbing.

Miles, 55, allegedly kidnapped his neighbor's cat and held it hostage for $50 after the animal wandered into his yard.

He was arrested Tuesday on misdemeanor larceny charges for allegedly trapping the cat, named Brunswick, in a wooden shed behind his mobile home, according to court documents.

Surrounded by police, Miles called a local newspaper from his trailer and said "I've taken (the cat) legally because it was trespassing on my property."

Miles refused to release the cat, and was arrested after leading police on a brief chase around his yard, court documents stated.

The cat's owner, Leah Vader, said she called police after hearing her pet howling from the shed next door.

"You have the right to call animal control if you have an unwanted animal in your yard," she said. "You don't have the right to hold him for ransom."

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CADDO VALLEY, Ark. (AP) - A man's skimpy swimsuit was too much - or too little - for Taco Bell workers.

Employees at Taco Bell called police Sunday when the man walked into the restaurant wearing only a tiny black Speedo swimsuit and a cut-off T-shirt during the Labor Day weekend.

Caddo Valley Police Chief Hiram Latin said his attire, or lack thereof, was a little too revealing.

"He was inappropriately dressed for a restaurant," said Latin. He said the man had left his clothes at a lake.

The man faces a $750 fine and possible jail time if convicted of indecent exposure.

According to Arkansas law, a person can be charged with indecent exposure if "he knows his conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm."

Police ticketed the man and took photos of him in the Speedo, for use in court.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Staff at a popular teenage disco were stunned to find an 80-year-old having a celebratory drink and strutting her stuff on the dance floor among thousands of young people, German police say.
"The disco told police there was an old lady drinking cola and schnapps at the bar who seemed a bit confused," said a spokesman in the western town of Oberhausen. "She was apparently shaking her hips and rocking out a bit on the dance floor too."

Officers visited the 7,000 capacity disco in the early hours and made sure she was okay.

"She was dressed up smart, celebrating her birthday by herself and everyone thought she was very friendly," the spokesman said Wednesday. "There's no upper age limit there. You don't have to show identification when you're 80."

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SEOUL (Reuters) - Two South Koreans have been detained on suspicion of digging a tunnel to smuggle more than $1.5 million worth of beer and wine out of a U.S. military base in central Seoul, customs officials said on Thursday.
They said the two men opened a cafe -- called the "U-Turn Espresso Coffee Shop" -- as a front. A tunnel led from there to a cargo container inside the base 20 yards away.

"An anonymous caller notified police of the smuggling ring operations two months ago, and the two leaders were detained on Monday," customs spokesman Cho Min-ho told Reuters.

He said the suspects removed 58,000 boxes of beer and 4,000 cases of wine worth about $1.7 million. The alcohol was sold on the black market.

"No American soldiers were found to be involved in the operations yet," said Ji Gwang-ho, an official at the South Korean Customs Service, by telephone.

Cho said the tunnel had been built with a slight incline and equipped with rollers so the boxes of drink could be easily removed.

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ROME (Reuters) - When in Rome, watch where you step. The streets of the Italian capital are a minefield of dog droppings and the mayor, Walter Veltroni, has had enough.
Accompanied by city officials he descended on the capital to nab dog walkers who turn a blind eye to their pet's bathroom habits, Italian media reported Wednesday.

The penalty: a hefty $108 fine for those who fail to carry the necessary poop scooping kit when walking their dog -- and 100 should they forget to use it.

"Having a dog automatically means having a spade and rubbish bags too...Hopefully, the more we insist on this the more Romans will start to get the message," daily La Repubblica quoted Veltroni as saying.

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ROME (Reuters) - A 67-year-old Capuchin monk was a prisoner of his own parishioners on Thursday after faithful in a small central Italian town bricked him up inside his monastery to protest at plans to close it.
When locals heard Franciscan leaders wanted to close the monastery because of a shortage of priests, they rebelled, bricking up one entrance and barricading the others.

"I consider myself a prisoner of love," Father Emilio Cucciella told Reuters by telephone from inside the monastery in the small down of Trasacco, in the mountains about 60 miles east of Rome.

"I can see outside but I can't go outside. There's some loud talk outside about what the future should hold for me and for this church," he said.

Cucciella's church, known as the Madonna of Perpetual Succor, is one of only two parishes serving the town of 6,000 residents.

Parishioners began their protests three days ago, and although some of the bricks were removed on Thursday morning, locals remained on guard outside.

"We Capuchins have been here since at least 1570. St Francis himself passed through here in the early 13th century. I have to obey orders but I can understand why they are upset," he said.

Cucciella said he has enough food for a while but was ready to go on a "hunger strike" in solidarity with the townspeople.

He said he was passing the time praying and reading.

"And luckily I don't suffer from claustrophobia."

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BERLIN (Reuters) - A German businessman sent 100,000 euros ($109,000) blowing across a highway, forgetting he had left the banknotes on the car roof before speeding off, police said on Thursday.
"The money was in a leather case, and when he hit the slip road, the case fell off the roof and the cash dispersed all over the motorway," said a police spokesman in the western city of Bochum.

Police closed the motorway temporarily and recovered scattered notes worth 3,000 euros. Two days later a man handed in some 29,500 euros to police he said he had picked up himself. The briefcase and remaining cash are still missing.

Press reports said the man had put down the briefcase to answer a phone call as he was setting off.

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SHELBYVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Stymied by mysterious sights and sounds in their own headquarters, cops in Shelbyville called in the ghostbusters.

In the still of night, doors rattled and stairwells creaked in the city's police department. In the light of day, a secretary's desk drawer opened on its own. A city worker who toured the building late one night even reported feeling something grab her leg.

So the police took the probe to another dimension.

"The way I treat it is not that there is a ghost, there's just things that I can't explain," said Officer John Wilson, who contacted the Scientific Investigative Ghost Hunting Team, based in Louisville.

The team of professional paranormal investigators gave the brick building a preliminary review and will return this fall for a thorough probe. The group will set up cameras and tape recorders as well as infrared thermometers to capture any temperature variations.

The goal is to try to prove the strange occurrences aren't caused by paranormal forces, said Kay Owen, vice president of the nonprofit ghost hunting team, which doesn't charge for its services.

"We'll go in and try to recreate everything that they are experiencing," she said. "If they can recreate it, it's not paranormal. It can be explained. It's a process of elimination."

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A Putnam County sheriff's deputy's house has become a crime scene.

But the deputy's not to blame. Authorities are looking for a man they say constructed a methamphetamine lab at the deputy's house while the officer was on vacation. The declined to identify the deputy.

Chief Deputy John Dailey said Wednesday that officers learned that the deputy's relative staying in the house was producing the drug. The deputy, vacationing out of state, allowed authorities to search the house.

"I guess the relative thought 'What better place than this to have a meth lab?'" Dailey said. "He made a victim out of one of our officers."

Dailey declined to release the relative's name but said no arrests have been made.