Man Arrested With Maijuana Claims He Was Going To Use It For Compost, Not Smoke It

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Police in Iowa say a man caught with a large quantity of marijuana claimed all he had in mind was recycling.

A complaint by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office says the 30-year-old man told police in Iowa City that he planned to turn several large bags of marijuana into compost.

Officers report the bags he had when he was arrested early Saturday held a "gallon" or more of marijuana each.

The complaint says officers didn't buy the compost story. The suspect remained in jail Sunday without posting $14,000 bail on a charge of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute.

Man Uses Hedgehog As A Weapon

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A New Zealand man has been accused of assault with prickly weapon - a hedgehog.
Police allege that William Singalargh picked up the hedgehog and threw it several yards to hit a 15-year-old boy in the North Island east coast town of Whakatane on Feb. 9.
It hit the boy in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," police Senior Sgt. Bruce Jenkins said Monday. The teen did not need medical treatment, he added.
The Herald on Sunday newspaper reported that it was not known whether the hedgehog was dead or alive at the time of the attack, but that it was dead when collected as evidence.
Jenkins said Singalargh, 27, was arrested shortly after the incident on a charge of assault with a weapon. He is expected to appear in court again on April 17.
His lawyer, Rebecca Plunket, said Singalargh intends to plead innocent. The maximum penalty for the charge is five years in prison.
While using a hedgehog as a weapon in an assault is uncommon, Jenkins said, "People often get charged with assault for throwing things at other people."

Racing in Womens High Heels Trips Man on Workers Comp

HARTFORD, Conn. - Prosecutors say a video shows a Connecticut correction officer running a 40-yard-dash in women's clothing and high heels - at a time he had claimed he was too injured to work.
Garrett A. Dalton of Naugatuck has been charged with workers compensation fraud. He's accused of taking part in a radio station's contest for Hannah Montana concert tickets last year. Not only did he have to dress in drag but he had to carry an egg on a spoon.

Authorities were alerted after someone saw Dalton in a TV news report. Prosecutors say the 41-year-old collected more than $5,000 in workers' compensation after he reported a work-related injury in June.
Court documents do not list an attorney for Dalton, and his phone number is unlisted. And no, he didn't win the contest.

Woman sits on boyfriend’s toilet for two years, Authorities considering charges.

Deputies said a woman in western Kansas sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years, and they are investigating whether she was mistreated.
Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said a man called his office last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend.
Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat. At first, she refused emergency medical treatment but ended up going to the hospital after responders and her boyfriend convinced her.
“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”
Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.
“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”
He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.
“And her reply would be, ‘Maybe tomorrow,”’ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”
The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report, “there was something wrong with his girlfriend,” Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.
Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was “somewhat disoriented,” and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.
“She said that she didn’t need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave,” he said.
She was taken to a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.
Authorities said they did not know if she was physically or mentally disabled.
Police have declined to release the couple’s names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren. No one answered his home phone number.

Law Would Ban Serving Obese Diners

JACKSON, Miss. A state lawmaker wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers - but please, don't be offended. He says he never even expected his plan to become law.

"I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi," said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier.. More than 30 percent of adults in Mississippi are considered it obese, according to a 2007 study by the Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.

The state House Public Health Committee chairman, Democrat Steve Holland of Plantersville, said he is going to "shred" the bill. "It is too oppressive for government to require a restaurant owner to police another human being from their own indiscretions," Holland said Monday.

The bill had no specifics about how obesity would be defined, or how restaurants were supposed to determine if a customer was obese.

Al Stamps, who owns a restaurant in Jackson, said it is "absurd" for the state to consider telling him which customers he can't serve. He and his wife, Kim, do a bustling lunch business at Cool Al's, which serves big burgers - beef or veggie - and specialty foods like "Sassy Momma Sweet Potato Fries."

"There is a better way to deal with health issues than to impose those kind of regulations," Al Stamps said. "I'm sorry - you can't do it by treating adults like children and telling them what they can and cannot eat."



Source: AP

Women Conned her way into Harvard

A high school dropout who stole the identity of a missing South Carolina woman and used it to gain admission to two Ivy League colleges has been arrested, police said Sunday.
A fugitive for more than a year, Esther Reed was arrested Saturday by U.S. Marshals in suburban Chicago, said Clark Brazier, a spokesman for the police department in Traveler's Rest, South Carolina.
Reed is scheduled to have a bond hearing this week in Illinois. South Carolina authorities are seeking to extradite her on charges of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud.
Reed assumed the identity of Brooke Henson, who was 20 years old when she disappeared more than eight years ago from Travelers Rest, investigators say.
It's unclear how Reed obtained Henson's personal information, but Reed used Henson's identity to take the SAT and GED, and then applied to the schools, said Jon Campbell, a Travelers Rest Police Department investigator who spoke to CNN last year.
Officials at Harvard University and Columbia University have acknowledged that a Brooke Henson was enrolled at their schools, but said privacy laws prevent them from discussing details.
"There's a little relief that goes with [the news of Reed's arrest]," Brooke's aunt Lisa Henson told CNN Sunday. "But [Brooke] is still missing. I'd like to have some answers. I would love to see [Reed] and look her in the eye and say, 'You're a horrible person.' "
Police say they're confident Reed was not involved in Henson's disappearance.
Authorities believe Henson was killed by someone who knew her. However, no body has been found and no arrests have been made.
Henson's family had heard nothing about their missing relative for years until the summer of 2006, when New York City authorities told police in Travelers Rest that they had found her, alive and well, in Manhattan.
The police relayed that message to Henson's family. "I was jumping for joy," said Lisa Henson. "It was incredible."
But the family's joy was short-lived when it was revealed that the woman found was actually Reed.
An ex-boyfriend told CNN that Reed -- posing as Henson -- often bragged about being a world-class chess player who earned a living playing the game competitively.
The man told CNN that he believed her until he challenged her to a game and beat her.
Originally from the tiny town of Townsend, Montana, Reed had been reported missing by her family in 1999, around the same time that Henson disappeared.

Source: AP

Robber shoots self in groin!

KOKOMO, Ind. -- A man accidentally shot himself in the groin as he was robbing a convenience store Tuesday, police said.

The store clerk told police a man carrying a semiautomatic handgun came into the Village Pantry demanding cash and a pack of cigarettes. The clerk put the cash in a bag and as she turned to get the cigarettes, she heard the gun discharge.

Police say surveillance video shows the man shooting himself as he placed the gun in the waistband of his pants. The clerk wasn’t injured.

A short time later, police found 25-year-old Derrick Kosch at a home with a gunshot wound to his right testicle and lower left leg.

Kosch was released from the hospital Tuesday and booked into the Howard County jail on a charge of armed robbery, criminal recklessness and battery. He’s being held on a $100,000 cash bail.

MAN WITH POPCORN LUNG FILES LAWSUIT: Man ate 2 bags of popcorn a day

A Denver man, Wayne Watson, has filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming injury from microwave popcorn. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court names The Kroger Co. and two of its divisions: grocery stores King Soopers’ parent company, Dillon Companies Inc., and food distributor Inter-American Products Inc.Wayne Watson has filed a lawsuit against The Kroger Company and two of its divisions, claiming the butter flavoring on their microwave popcorn made him sick.

Watson says he developed "popcorn lung" after eating two bags of popcorn a day his case of “popcorn lung” and his two-bags-a-day diet gained national attention last year when doctors at National Jewish Hospital diagnosed him with the rare lung condition that has been linked to the flavor chemical diacetyl.

Popcorn lung, officially called bronchiolitis obliterans, generally has been associated with people who worked in microwave popcorn plants mixing large vats of flavors. Hundreds of workers have said they have severe lung disease or other respiratory illnesses from inhaling diacetyl vapors. The chemical has been the subject of hundreds of lawsuits against the companies that that produce or use the butter flavoring.

Diacetyl is a naturally occurring chemical compound that gives butter its flavor. It is also found in cheese and some wines, according to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and health. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a flavor ingredient

Judge Orders Woman's Frozen Cats Returned

A Boston Judge said that a woman who had 60 frozen cats in her apartment can keep two that were seized by the city. Cat breeder Heidi Erickson was charged with animal cruelty after officials found five malnourished cats, one malnourished dog and more than 60 dead cats in her apartment in 2003. While the criminal case against her was pending, a judge ordered that four live cats and two dead cats that had been seized by the city be returned to Erickson.