Santa Ana, California - A man accused of throwing his 7-year-old son overboard during a sightseeing cruise around California’s Newport Harbor says he and the boy were just horse playing and talked about jumping in the water together. “I was not trying to kill my son. We were playing in the shallows,” Sloane Briles said. “I discussed it with him. We’d jump in together and just thought it would be funny, ha ha.” Two of 85 people who were on the tour saw things differently. The passengers expressed shock and disgust after seeing Briles toss the boy into the water. “I’m on a boat tour called the Queen and there’s a man who just threw his son overboard,” a woman told an Orange County sheriff’s dispatcher. More
Syracuse, New York - A 15-year-old Syracuse boy will now spend the next two to six years in juvenile detention and the rest of his life as a felon. It was all for a robbery that earned him only pocket change. Anthony Stewart was found guilty of first-degree robbery earlier this month for beating and kicking a 73-year-old man and robbing him of seven cents. Prosecutors say the victim was on his way to a store when the two teenagers ran up from behind, knocked him into a snow bank, then kicked and punched him. The two teens had handguns, which Stewart later admitted were BB guns, prosecutors said. Onondaga County Judge William Walsh rejected a defense lawyer’s request to treat Anthony Stewart as a youthful offender. More
Washington DC - The risk of an unprecedented evacuation of the International Space Station will spike if Russian craft cannot resume their missions and return by November, a senior NASA official has warned. “There is a greater risk of losing the ISS when it’s unmanned than if it were manned,” Michael Suffredini, the ISS program manager for the US space agency, said in a conference call with Russian officials. “The risk increase is not insignificant,” he added. Russia delayed its next manned mission to the ISS by at least a month after an unmanned cargo vessel crashed into Siberia instead of reaching orbit. The head of Russia’s manned spaceflight program also warned that a significantly longer delay would force the six people on board the station to abandon the orbiter due to fatigue and supply problems. Russia had become the sole nation capable of taking humans to the ISS after Obama’s withdrawal of the US space shuttle. More
Kentucky - Two elderly siblings were injured and a third was charged with attempted murder after a high-speed chase in Rockcastle County. Clyde White, 78, of Corbin drove a white van that hit a blue van multiple times during the chase, which reached more than 100 mph, state police said. White’s brother and sister were in the blue van. An off-duty state trooper reported seeing a high-speed chase as the vans traveled south on Interstate 75 at 9:21 a.m. The vans exited onto Ky. 461, and after White hit his siblings’ vehicle multiple times He forced their van off the road, and it hit a Direct TV van. Lawrence White, 82, of Lexington, who was driving, and his sister, Dorothy Whitaker, 83, of Richmond, were flown to the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital. More
Australia - The photo, briefly run on the Qantas Twitter site, was the result of a competition asking Australian fans to tell how they would show their support for the team and depicted two fans impersonating Fiji-born Australian team player Radike Samo at an international game. “We apologize that the photo of two Radike fans offended some of our followers,” Qantas said in a statement. “We’ve spoken with Radike and whilst he is not offended we decided to remove the image.” The Twitter community was divided, but many were angered. “What that image represents to most people is appalling,” said one commenter. Others said the whole issue had been blown out of proportion. More
Pennsylvania - A Harrisburg man who was camping out in East Hanover Township with 19 other people was killed when a tree fell on his tent and on top of him, according to Trooper Tom Pinkerton, state police spokesman. Pinkerton said that the 59-year old man, part of a group camping out on McLean Road off of state Route 443, was in his tent with an unidentified female when the tree fell. “This is believed to have been the cause of his death,” Pinkerton said. “The female suffered head injuries and is at Hershey Medical Center.” Pinkerton said that the tree remained on top of the man because the rainy, windy weather and the remote location of the incident makes tree removal difficult. More
Tennessee - Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle. The question seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests. More
New York - A 416-pound robbery suspect caught a super-sized break - an appeals court is granting him a new trial because there were too many lightweights in his lineup. The Appellate Division ruled that Eric Kenley should have been surrounded by men of similar heft when witnesses picked him out of a rogue’s gallery. The 6-foot-4 Manhattan man is serving a 12-to-15-year sentence after he was convicted of being a gun-toting heavy during a pair of lower Manhattan robberies. “Although the fillers were large men, there was a very noticeable weight difference between defendant and the fillers,” the judges wrote. More
Elmhurst, Illinois - Elmhurst College put a question on its admissions application that won’t appear on any other school’s application. “Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community?” That optional question makes Elmhurst the first school in the country to ask applicants about their sexual orientation or gender identity. Prospective freshmen and transfer students applying for the 2012 fall semester will become the first group of applicants to check “yes,” “no” or “prefer not to answer.” A “yes” answer could put students in line to qualify for a scholarship worth one-third of tuition at the private, liberal arts school affiliated with the United Church of Christ. More
Greenwich, Connecticut - Officials in one well-to-do Connecticut town are asking an ABC hidden-camera show to hit the road. Greenwich officials said that the filming of the show “What Would You Do?” is disruptive. They say they asked the film crew to choose another location for filming. “We told them, ‘You can’t film here,’” Dustin Anderson, the executive assistant to First Selectman Peter Tesei said. The show sets up morally difficult situations and secretly films people’s reactions. Town officials say having the show set up in front of stores has a negative impact on business. More
Thessaloniki, Greece - It took an undercover operation, but Greek police have blown a hole in a ring of alleged crooks who had cornered the doughnut market in a beach resort. It started with complaints that two Bulgarian men and a former Greek wrestling champion were using violence to choke off the trade by other doughnut vendors on Paliouri beach in the Halkidiki peninsula near Thessaloniki. So an undercover officer posed as a doughnut seller, police said, and he was attacked, leading to the arrest of the three aggressive doughnut sellers. As a result, they have been charged with blackmail and fraud. More
New Jersey - A New Jersey school district has apologized to parents after requiring high school students to read books that include graphic depictions of lesbian sex and a homosexual orgy. “Some of the language is inappropriate,” said Chuck Earling, superintendent of Monroe Township Schools in Williamstown, N.J. “We were not trying to create controversy. We were just trying to get students to read.” The books were on a required summer reading list for middle school and high school students. The district decided to pull the book off the list, with the start of school just days away. Peter Sprigg, with the Family Research Council, said he’s not surprised. “Here we see the intersection of parental values being offended, the hyper-sexualization of our youth and the homosexual agenda being pushed.” “This just illustrates why a lot of American parents are not willing to entrust their children to the public schools anymore.” More
Today's food holiday is worth absorbing - August 23 is National Sponge Cake Day!Whipping up a storm of egg whites produces this lighter-than-air cake that will have you singing the Hallelujah ..
Nashville, Tennessee - Canisters of bull semen caused quite a scare on the on-ramp to Interstate 65 South. The canisters fell off a Greyhound bus just before 6 a.m. as the bus traveled around the curve of the ramp just south of downtown Nashville. Fire and emergency crews were called to the scene amid reports of a foul odor. When they discovered four unmarked canisters with steam and an unpleasant odor coming from them, they shut down the on-ramp and called HAZMAT crews. Officials traced the containers to Greyhound after finding bus tickets on the ground. The bus did not know it lost its load and had continued on. Authorities called Greyhound, who, after speaking with the driver the bus, determined the canisters to be filled with vials of frozen sperm packed in dry ice. More
California - For nearly a year, officials have been trying to figure out what to do with Charles Douglas. The 59-year-old owner of Precise Roofing Co. in Burbank has been feeding flocks of pigeons since September 2010, officials say, which - beyond violating municipal code - has created a major safety hazard for jet airplanes using the nearby Bob Hope Airport as the birds’ numbers have grown into the hundreds. After two court citations and a bench warrant for feeding the pigeons, Burbank police arrested Douglas at his business on Hollywood Way and Tulare Avenue. Airport police Cmdr. Allen Schmitt said a plane strikes a bird at the airport once every two months on average. But the rate of strikes has increased recently. More
Ladson, South Carolina - Dale Richardson for the past year, had served as pastor at Freedom Free Will Baptist Church, a modest red brick structure on a South Carolina side road running along a railroad track. Now he’s in jail, charged with kidnapping and raping three women at gunpoint — two of them in a trailer behind the church — and kidnapping a fourth who was not sexually assaulted. Richardson picked up a woman and gave her a ride. When the 20-year-old tried to get out of the car, Richardson allegedly pulled a gun, bound her hands, covered her head and took her to the gray-blue trailer home behind the church. The report said he later dropped the woman in a wooded area, threatening to shoot her if she turned around. Police said the woman was able to identify Richardson from his picture on the church website, which also displays a short biography detailing how he became a Christian and then a pastor. More
A red-faced restaurant owner in southern Germany admitted on Sunday she had turned away Sweden's king and queen when they asked for a table after failing to recognise ...King, queen opt for pizza after lockout
Australia - Two men are fighting for their lives following an explosion in a backyard in Melbourne’s south-east. A police spokeswoman said the men, both aged in their 20s, were burying a cylinder or metal container of mixed chemicals when the explosion occurred. An Ambulance Victoria spokesman described the scene as horrific. Both men had to be placed into an induced coma at the scene because of critical injuries before being flown to Melbourne. Both remained in a critical condition. Police say the men were mixing the chemicals in their backyard in front of family and friends at the time of the explosion. The chemicals were brake fluid and chlorine. Neighbour Judy Gibbs said the explosion shook her house. I’d gone to bed and next minute there was this great, big, loud explosion - the windows in my house shook, the whole house shook. More
Florence, Italy - A group of Franciscan monks furious at the theft of bibles from their church in Florence have taken the unusual step of praying for the thief to be struck down by diarrhea. Monks at the 15th century church of San Salvatore al Monte, which was a favourite of Michelangelo, were irritated when a rare and expensive bible disappeared from the lectern, and they flew off the handle when a replacement bible donated by a worshipper also went missing and within a few hours. In a note, pinned up in full view of worshippers, the monks say they hope the thief sees the error of his ways. But in case he does not, they add: “We pray to God that the thief is struck by a strong bout of the shits.” This turn of events will, they hope, “encourage him to carry out no further thefts”. More
Casa Grande, Arizona - Susanne Eman eats more than 20,000 calories a day in a bid to become the fattest woman of all time. She weighs 728 pounds - and is aiming to hit 1,610. The single mother of two has already passed the previous living record holder - 700-pound Donna Simpson, 43, who lives in New Jersey. “The bigger I get, the better I feel. I feel confident and sexy,” said Eman, 32. “Why not see how fat I can get? I want to break the stigma that being fat is a bad thing.” Eman spends eight hours filling six carts with food during her monthly supermarket shop. If Eman can reach her goal, she would beat Carol Yager, of Flint, Mich., believed to have peaked at 1,156 pounds. She died in 1994 aged 34. More
Waterbury, Connecticut - Firefighters are used to dealing with threats from smoke and flames, dangerous footing or beams falling from above. But Waterbury firefighters checking an abandoned building recently encountered a smaller but potentially deadly hazard. Fleas. Chief David Martin says Waterbury firefighters routinely check abandoned buildings for fire hazards, and when four fighters left after a check at 48 Taylor Street, they didn’t realize until they came out and got back on the engine that they were literally coated in fleas. One of the guys described it as they had thousands of them, crawling on them. The firefighters were taken to Waterbury hospital to be undressed, scrubbed down and checked for flea-borne diseases, and the fire truck was professionally fumigated. More
FORNEY, Texas, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- An 11-year-old girl acting as mayor for a day in a Texas town renamed a local street after Canadian teen pop sensation Justin Bieber.
The shots of Soya Keaveney outraged parents, who blasted her mother Janis for fuelling the youngster’s obsession with a modelling career. But now that dream is on hold after Soya got pregnant by a 17-year-old boyfriend who is allowed by Janis to stay overnight at the family home. Jobless single mother Janis, 48, said she was delighted because the council will now have to give her a bigger house. She added: “Our three-bedroom place was already overcrowded with her sisters Coco and Ritzy, her brother Tarot, Soya’s boyfriend Jake and one of her sister’s babies. “Once the new baby comes the council will have to find us a place with four or five bedrooms. Soya’s dream of being a model is taking a back seat. Now she wants to be a midwife. More
Delaware - The Delaware American Civil Liberties Union has filed court papers to stop sex offenders from being evicted from a safe house that is located near a new day care center. The ACLU, along with an attorney representing the safe house and three sex offenders, has asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from evicting the residents. Wolcott is representing the owner of the safe house and three sex offenders. “The safe house has been there for a number of years and has been accepting registered sex offenders who are prohibited from living within 500 feet of a school,” he said. More
Chicago, Illinois - A Woodridge man faces first-degree murder charges for allegedly striking his father in the head multiple times with a weed trimmer. Yashesh S. Desai, 21, of 3 Plover Court in Woodridge was charged in connection with the death of Sanjiv J. Desai, 47, according to DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin and Woodridge Police Chief Steve Herron. A judge ordered him held on $2 million bail in the slaying. Prosecutors allege Yashesh Desai struck his father several times earlier that morning with a weed wacker while the man was asleep on the futon. Woodridge police arrested Desai on the scene. More
Baltimore, Maryland - Baltimore county police are investigating the fatal stabbing death of a beloved family pet. A family in Essex says someone killed their dog in the middle of the day, and now they’re trying to find out who and why. The owners of 3-year-old Princess are heartbroken. Their dog was stabbed in their own backyard behind their fence. “The only place we see blood is right here, and up on the steps to this part of the porch where she was basically up on the porch, came down and shook her head,” said David O’Steen, the dog’s owner. They had just returned home to find Princess with a deep stab wound to her neck. They rushed her to the vet, and at first it looked like Princess would survive but she did not. More
Titusville, Florida - A Florida defense lawyer was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill his girlfriend while challenging her to a naked sword duel. Terry Lee Locy, 36, of Titusville was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence battery. The police report says Locy and his girlfriend had been arguing about the man’s drinking habits. Locy then allegedly took a mirror off a door and raised it up as if he was attempting to strike the woman, who grabbed the hook the mirror was hanging from and threw it at Locy, cutting his head. Then, after showering, Locy, who was still naked, handed a sword to his girlfriend and said, “You’re going to need this,” unsheathed a larger sword and said, “I’m going to kill you.” More
