Friday, November 13, 2009
Balloon Bust
The Colorado father of a 6-year-old dubbed "balloon boy" pleaded guilty Friday to attempting to influence a public servant, a felony, in what authorities say was an elaborate hoax for publicity. His wife also entered a guilty plea.
Richard and Mayumi Heene are accused of concocting a spectacular ruse by reporting their son was aboard a runaway balloon.
Mayumi was pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of false reporting.
They will avoid more spectacle — and a trial — Friday by entering the pleas to charges that could bring some jail time and probation. Sentencing was set for a later date.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Respek!
A Milwaukee Army reservist's military identification earned him some street cred Tuesday, when he says four men who mugged him at gunpoint returned his belongings and thanked him for his service after finding the ID.The 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student said he was walking home from work about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday when he was pulled into an alley and told to lay face down and with a gun to his neck. Four men took his wallet, $16, keys, his cell phone and even a PowerBar from his pants pockets, he said.
But the hostile tone quickly changed when one of the robbers, whom the reservist presumed was the leader, saw an Army ID in the wallet. The robber told the others to return the items and they put most of his belongings on the ground next to him, including the PowerBar, the reservist said.
"The guy continued to say throughout the situation that he respects what I do and at one point he actually thanked me and he actually apologized," said the reservist, who asked not to be identified Tuesday because the robbers still had his keys.
The reservist said he asked the men, who all had hoods or hats covering their faces, if he could get up and they said he could before starting to walk away.
"The leader of the group actually walked back, gave me a quick fist bump, which was very strange," he said.
"I Don't Know How They Found Me...Libyans!"
Michele "Mikey" Carlson Squires was brushing her teeth Friday night when a TV news report about a Volkswagen microbus caught her attention. Stolen 35 years ago in her hometown of Spokane, Wash., the van was discovered by customs officers at the port of Los Angeles during a routine search of a container bound for Europe."It looks like my car," she thought at the sight of the 1965 blue-and-white VW with an accordion sunroof. She had one just like it that was stolen back in 1974. "Wouldn't it be funny if that was my van," she told her boyfriend, Earl Roethle.
On Monday, a call to the insurance company confirmed the 44-year-old bus was indeed hers. It was running perfectly and in pristine condition with 70,000 miles on the odometer.
Now, Ms. Squires, 58 years old, says she's hoping to be reunited with her "beloved hippie mobile," which disappeared from a repair shop during the 1974 World's Fair in Spokane.
Back then, she was a "wannabe hippie" who wore bandanas, bell bottoms and halter tops. Ms. Squires was 21 when she bought the bus in 1972 from a local car lot. She recalls being told it had only one previous owner. "I paid $600 to $1,000," she says. "I'm not sure."
Have A Nice Death...
John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks in October 2002.The 48-year-old Muhammad looked calm and stoic, but was twitching and blinking, tapping his left foot as the injections began and refusing to utter any final words.
The terror ended on Oct. 24, 2002, when police captured Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, while they slept at a Maryland rest stop in a car they had outfitted for a shooter to perch in its trunk without being detected.
Malvo, who was 17 when carrying out the attacks, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing Linda Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst who was shot as she and her husband loaded supplies at a Home Depot in Falls Church, Virginia.
The Machine
The photographer, Scott Rovak, says in 26 years of shooting baseball, he's been able to get a photo of the ball "embedded" in the bat only three times. This one happened because he knows Pujols' swing well enough to fire a shot as Pujols moves his lead shoulder.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
