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LOS ANGELES - Customs officials say they got a surprise when they found 316,000 glass bongs disguised as Christmas ornaments at the Los Angeles harbor. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday that agents found the highly decorated drug pipes in 860 boxes shipped from China. The cargo, estimated to be worth more than $2.6 million, had been described as glass figures and Christmas ornaments. The bongs were seized Tuesday at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex. Customs spokeswoman Cristina Gamez says the importer remains under investigation and there have been no arrests. She says it is illegal to import or export drug paraphernalia in the United States. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
HAGERSTOWN, Md. — A woman quietly left $40,000 worth of rare U.S. coins near a Catholic shrine for safekeeping so the Virgin Mary could watch over her life savings while she was out of town, and apparently it worked: The money was returned to her when she got back a week later. Operators of the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes near Emmitsburg thought they had been blessed with a big donation when a groundskeeper found the two plastic freezer bags filled with gold and silver while raking leaves. But Shrine Director William Tronolone said the woman approached him after a noon Mass Sunday, six days after the discovery, to ask whether anyone had found some coins she had hidden beneath fallen leaves at the site on the campus of Mount St. Mary's University. "I said, 'Why did you leave it there?' And she said, 'Well, I had to go away and I was afraid to leave it and I wanted the Blessed Mother to watch over it for me — and evidently she did because you found it,'" Tronolone said. By then, university officials had had the coins appraised, notified police and placed the money in a safe while awaiting word from investigators. Tronolone refused to identify the woman. He said she had been out of town about a week. After the school's security director returned the coins Monday, he accompanied the woman to her bank and persuaded her to put them in her safe deposit box, Tronolone said. The shrine, about 50 miles northwest of Baltimore, features a replica of the grotto in Lourdes, France, where Catholics believe Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to a French schoolgirl named Bernadette several times, beginning in 1858. The Emmitsburg replica draws more than 200,000 visitors annually, Tronolone said. Grotto visitors often leave anonymous donations, including a $3,000 cash gift two weeks ago. "Up here at the grotto, you get a lot of people that are very, very faithful," Tronolone said, "and they do things you and I would never even attempt to do." Source
A Dorset couple have named their new baby daughter Kia - after she had to be delivered on the back seat of a Kia people carrier. Tony Richardson and Samantha Smyth were heading to Poole Hospital in Sam's mum's Kia when they realised they were not going to make it. Baby Kia was born at 4.30am in the back of the car - and the couple decided to ditch their original name of 'Tilley' to mark the unusual birth. And Kia has now offered the couple a new Kia Carens - the same model baby Kia was born in - worth £18,000. Miss Smyth, 23, said: "Wow! I was not expecting this. We're over the moon. We could do with it. Between me and my partner we have six kids. We can't fit them all in the car." Michael Cole, managing director of Kia Motors, said: "All of us at Kia are delighted for Tony and Samantha and flattered that they have called their new baby Kia after she was born in granny's Carens. "We would like to welcome Kia to the Kia family and wish her a wonderful life." Source
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OZARK, Ark. — A police officer in a small Arkansas town used a stun gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl after he said her mother gave him permission to do so. Now the town's mayor is calling for an investigation into whether the Taser use was appropriate. According to a report by Officer Dustin Bradshaw, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, police were called to the Ozark home Nov. 11 because of a domestic disturbance. When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, the report said. Bradshaw's report said the girl screamed, kicked and resisted any time her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed. "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to," Bradshaw wrote. The child was "violently kicking and verbally combative" when Bradshaw tried to take her into custody, and she kicked him in the groin. So he delivered "a very brief drive stun to her back," the report said. The names of the girl and her mother were redacted in the report. Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel said Wednesday that the girl wasn't injured and is now at the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil. But McDaniel said he wants Arkansas State Police — and if they decline, the FBI — to investigate the incident. The state police declined his request Tuesday. "People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation," McDaniel said. Police Chief Jim Noggle said Tasers are a safe way to subdue someone who's a danger to themself or others. No disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw, he said. "We didn't use the Taser to punish the child — just to bring the child under control so she wouldn't hurt herself or somebody else," Noggle said. If the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg, Noggle said. He said a touch of the stun gun — "less than a second" — stopped the girl from being unruly, and she was handcuffed, he said. "She got up immediately and they put her in the patrol car," McDaniel said. Noggle said the girl will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile in the incident. The girl's father, Anthony Medlock, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his daughter has emotional problems, but that she didn't have a weapon and shouldn't have been Tasered. "My daughter does not deserve to be tased and be treated like an animal," said Medlock, who is divorced from the girl's mother and does not have custody. Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser, said it's up to individual law enforcement agencies to decide when Taser use is appropriate. In some cases, a Taser "presents the safer response to resistance compared with the alternatives such as fists, kicks, baton strikes, bean bag guns, chemical agents, or canine response," Tuttle said in a statement. The police chief, who has been Tasered twice himself during training sessions, said his department has never had to Taser a child or elderly person before, but that in some instances, that could be necessary to ensure safety. "We don't want to do things like this," Noggle said. "This is something we have to do. We're required to maintain order and keep the peace." Source
A priest in Croatia has called on people not to accept the swine flu vaccine as they might be micro-chipped. Friar Miroslav Bustruc told believers in a church in the southern village of St. Martin close to Zadar that there was a mass plan to destroy mankind. "Part of that plan includes using illnesses. The swine-flu vaccine contains a micro chip, and they want to control us with it", the preacher said during Mass, news website Index has reported. He added the theory was his opinion, not the official opinion of the Catholic Church. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
A 1500-tonne boulder came within metres of crushing a sleeping family of four after breaking free from a large overhanging rock face on Black Friday. Jenny and Michael Day were asleep in their Wyberba home near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt in southern Queensland when they were jolted awake by an "almighty crash" about 3am. "We thought a jet had crashed at first. It was just such a loud noise accompanied by a sort of squealing," Mrs Day told the Courier-Mail. They had to wait until daylight to discover the offending object – and could barely believe what they saw. "My husband rushed back inside with his camera and showed me the pictures he took," Mrs Day said. "I said, 'Holy crap'!" The enormous boulder had broken off a large rock face overhanging their property and tumbled about 150m. "About 50m more and we would have been gone. It would have completely crushed the house," Mrs Day said. Neighbour Trevor Cooper said in 32 years of living in Wyberba he had never seen a rock of that size come adrift before. "If it had gone another roll, there would've been nothing to stop it. It would've gained momentum again and wiped out the house," Mr Cooper said. Queensland University of Technology geology expert David Murphy said the boulder was a time bomb. "The fracture along which the boulder broke must have originally started some time ago and has slowly spread from the top left to the bottom right until finally breaking completely," Dr Murphy said. "It was simply a matter of time." He said the Days would be well advised to get a geotechnical engineer to inspect the rest of the rock face. Mrs Day said they would just have to live with the rock, planted firmly next to the water tank. "It's not like we can move it," she laughed. Source
IL - A 15-year-old boy told Buffalo Grove police that his parents had taken away his video game system and asked whether they were within their rights. They were, police told him. The teen called 911 about 12:50 p.m. Sunday but then hung up, said Cmdr. Steve Husak. Officers went to the house, and after hearing the story, told the youth that his parents have the authority to take away his Xbox as punishment. He also was advised to listen to his parents, Husak said. Husak did not know why the boy was being punished. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. (AP) -- A 2-year-old in north Mississippi has done something few toddlers can: He helped his mother give birth to his brother. Bobbye Favazza told The Commercial Appeal she went into labor this past Friday and gave birth on the family's living room couch in Olive Branch. She said her toddler, Jeremiha Taylor, got her a towel and caught the baby before firefighters arrived to cut the umbilical cord. Favazza gave birth to a 7-pound, 4-ounce baby boy, Kamron Taylor. She had been scheduled for a cesarian section on Dec. 6. City emergency services supervisor, Greg Mynatt, said the 911 call about Favazza was probably the third this year about a woman in labor, but usually the mother makes it to the hospital before delivery. Source
Zoo-keepers in China say their tigers have grown so tame that they're frightened of the chickens they're supposed to eat. The Chongqing Wild Animal Park has five rare adult white tigers which were originally trained to perform tricks for visitors, reports the Chongqing Morning Post. Keepers have been trying to encourage them to follow their natural instincts by throwing them live chickens - but without success. Feeder Shi Ruqiang said: They're supposed to be wild and scary, but due to their soft lifestyles and human care they have gradually lost their wild nature. "I have been trying to interest them with live chickens but it was quite a funny scene. The tigers were so scared that they wouldn't go near them. "One chicken passed out and the tigers did eventually approach it - but then it woke up again and squawked and they ran for their lives!" Shi says the keepers are now forcing the tigers to stay outside their cages for at least 12 hours a day to toughen them up. And they are planning to introduce a wild tiger to show the domesticated big cats the ropes. "If all else fails, we will simply cut down their rations until they are so hungry that they are forced to hunt for themselves," he added. Source
