Police Investigate Theft Of Sex Toys At Downtown Hotel

POSTED: 12:02 pm EST March 15, 2006

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Police want to know how sex toys and romantic goods were stolen during a weekend convention.

Southeastern Erotic Cultural ConferenceInvestigators said that over $1,500 worth of items were taken from a conference room of the Radisson Riverfront Hotel during the Southeastern Erotic Cultural Conference.

Three women vendors told police that someone took two pairs of leather and metal bondage suspension cuffs, a 28-inch-long leather whip, bath salts, rainbow pot holders and an electrical stimulation device.

Police said the theft happened between 6 p.m. Saturday and just after 2 a.m. Sunday.

The theft was discovered when a security guard found the conference room open and a broken key in its lock.

The conference, which ended Sunday, included an erotic art show, classes, a performance art show and a leather pride party.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Voters return dead city councilman to office

Associated Press
Mar. 15, 2006 09:20 AM

SIERRA VISTA - Voters in Bisbee refused to recall a city councilman Tuesday, even though he died nine days before the election.

Incumbent Bob Kasun easily defeated Jeff Harris by a margin of 246 to 83. The 79-year-old four-term councilman died March 6 of lymphoma and renal failure. His funeral was Monday.

Bisbee voters also rejected a recall targeting Councilwoman Luche Giacomino, voting 257 to 70 to keep her in office.
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A group calling itself the Warren Citizens for Recall had accused Kasun and Giacomino of violating the city charter, fiscal irresponsibility and failing to represent and be accountable to constituents.

Giacomino said she had been confident she would survive the recall attempt, but was especially pleased that Kasun was not voted from office.

"I am just tickled to death that Bob won," she said.

Kasun was a Bisbee native and football star at Bisbee High School. He had a scholarship to attend Notre Dame, but was drafted after graduating from high school in 1945 and served as an Army medic. After being discharged, he returned to Bisbee and went back to work for Phelps Dodge, where he had started as a stock clerk in the company store at age 15.

He retired as an electrician in 1975, and later worked more than a decade as Bisbee's building inspector.

Teacher Fired After Allegedly Biting Pupil
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Mar 14, 11:25 PM (ET)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - School officials on Tuesday fired a middle school teacher charged with biting a student who would not spit out a piece of candy.

Caroline Kolb has pleaded not guilty to an aggravated assault charge for allegedly biting 14-year-old Garrick Hudson on the back during a classroom scuffle Jan. 11.

School officials conducted a probe and fired Kolb for insubordination and conduct unbecoming a teacher, The Courier-Journal reported, citing a copy of her termination letter.

Administrators had previously warned Kolb to avoid being physically confrontational with students, according to the letter.

A call Tuesday to Kolb's attorney was not immediately returned.

The student's mother said Kolb told her son to stand in the hallway after he disobeyed her order to spit out the candy. When the boy tried to retrieve his books, they got into the scuffle.

According to court records, the boy was treated for a bite wound.

Man offers himself and town house in ad

Associated Press
Mar. 14, 2006 08:00 AM

GREENSBURG, Pa. - Mark R. Miller hopes some female homebuyer is looking for a unique feature: him.

The 47-year-old says he's been too busy to get married. He helps parents find missing children through his charity, the American Association for Lost Children.

Miller has been running ads in newspapers and on the Web site http://www.townhousewithgroom.com for his two-bedroom town house, which includes a wooden deck, air conditioning and gas log fireplace. The asking price is $95,000.
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"I'd like to be married, and I was going to sell (the town house) on my own, so I thought, why not put the two together?" Miller said.

"Townhouse With Groom will provide assistance and encouragement to parents of missing children and aid me in finding the Love of my life," the ad states.

Miller came up with the idea after reading about a woman who sold her home through a "house with bride" marketing campaign. Any deal is subject to compatibility, his ad says.

Miller said he will donate to his charity any profit after satisfying the mortgage.

3-Year-Old Boy Shoots Mom in the Knee
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Mar 13, 4:47 PM (ET)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - A 3-year-old boy shot his mother in the knee with a 9mm handgun he had found under a couch cushion over the weekend, police said.

It was the second time the boy had handled the gun on Sunday. The mother had taken the gun away from the child and removed the bullets - apparently overlooking one in the chamber - and put the weapon back on the couch.

When the boy picked the gun up a second time, it fired. "It appears to be accidental," said St. Paul police spokesman Pete Crum.

The woman was taken to Regions Hospital, with non-life-threatening injuries. "It could have been much more tragic had the child shot himself or hit the woman in a more vital area," Crum said.

The boy was put in the care of his father.

Authorities removed several guns from the home. Crum said they were all legal.

Police said they would forward the case to the Ramsey County Attorney's office for possible child-endangerment charges.

"There are two lessons to learn: Don't let your children play with guns. Always treat a gun as though it's loaded," Crum said.

CIA personnel, offices easily found on Internet

Mon Mar 13, 12:53 PM ET

CHICAGO (AFP) - The names of
CIA personnel, including covert operatives, internal telephone numbers and locations of two dozen CIA installations can be found through Internet searches, a US newspaper reported.
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Through online services that provide public, legally obtained information for a fee, a reporter netted a directory of 2,600
Central Intelligence Agency employees and 50 internal phone numbers, according to a Chicago Tribune investigation.

The Chicago daily also discovered the identities of CIA operatives assigned to US embassies in Europe.

At the request of the CIA, the newspaper did not release the names of the operatives. It did quote an unnamed source saying CIA director Porter Goss was "horrified" at the discovery.

"Cover is a complex issue that is more complex in the Internet age," chief CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Dyck told the Tribune.

"There are things that worked previously that no longer work. Director Goss is committed to modernizing the way the agency does cover in order to protect our officers who are doing dangerous work."

She did not tell the daily what those remedies would be "since we don't want the bad guys to know what we're fixing".

The discoveries included some of the so-called front companies set up for CIA operatives and the airplanes they use to secretly take terror suspects to countries where torture is used, a method called "renditions".

Several of the listings of those front companies have disappeared from their Internet since the CIA found out about the security leaks, the newspaper said.

Woman Gets Beer From Her Kitchen Faucet
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Mar 13, 11:03 AM (ET)

OSLO, Norway (AP) - It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer.

Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.

By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar in Kristiandsund, western Norway, had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for Gundersen's apartment.

"We had settled down for a cozy Saturday evening, had a nice dinner, and I was just going to clean up a little," Gundersen, 50, told The Associated Press by telephone Monday. "I turned on the kitchen faucet and beer came out."

However, Gundersen said the beer was flat and not tempting, even in a country where a half-liter (pint) can cost about 25 kroner ($3.75) in grocery stores.

Per Egil Myrvang, of the local beer distributor, said he helped bartenders reconnect the pipes by telephone.

"The water and beer pipes do touch each other, but you have to be really creative to connect them together," he told local newspapers.

Gundersen joked about having the pub send up free beer for her next party.

"But maybe it would be easier if they just invited me down for a beer," she said.

Surveillance cameras catch thieves stealing surveillance cameras

Canadian Press
Mar. 16, 2006 07:20 AM

PRINCE GEORGE, Canada - It didn't take authorities long to find two suspects who stole the outdoor surveillance cameras at a museum. They had crystal clear pictures from the cameras' tapes.

"It was the ultimate of ironies," said Exploration Place executive director Tracy Calogheros. "I'm not sure what they thought the cameras were doing up there, but they looked up at them so we could get a really good look at their faces.

"They are very clear, good-quality pictures. You can see the detail of their faces, the logos on their clothing, their dog was even in the video," Calogheros said.
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The tape shows a male suspect hitting three of the museum's four video cameras Monday with a large board until they are dislodged.

The museum installed the surveillance cameras last month to deal with vandalism.

"People just decided we were an easy mark. Now we are not. Now we have cameras," Calogheros said last month when the museum got the cameras.

A museum staff member who was driving downtown spotted the suspects and their dog about six hours after the incident and called police.

"If it wasn't for the fact it is going to cost me a couple thousand dollars, it would be really funny," Calogheros said.

One man is now in custody, but the three missing cameras have not been recovered.

The incident took place at about 1 a.m. Monday, with one of the thieves returning at about 6 a.m. to go after a fourth camera before being scared off by a staff member.

Originally posted by Partagas:
Cou;d this be our lovely Lavinia??? No can't be she is only 29 , but aging quickly as she has a new birthday every 3 months

Originally posted by Partagas:
At the time, Conservative opponents accused Blair of having Humphrey put down because the new prime minister's wife Cherie didn't like the cat.

Alligator Knocks on Fla. Woman's Door
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Mar 23, 6:15 PM (ET)

By The Associated Press

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) - So now the alligators are going door to door. When Lori Pachelli heard someone knocking at the door of her home in a gated community in this southwest Florida community earlier this week, she looked out to see an unwelcome visitor on her front stoop: an 8-foot alligator.

The bull gator, which had wandered up from the pond behind the house, had a bloody lip from banging its head against the door.

"He was pretty big, pretty aggressive," Pachelli said, adding that the gator may have followed her home from walking her cocker spaniel, Trooper.

Pachelli's husband, Mike, said he sped home after his wife called him in hysterics. The animal remained at the Pachellis' door for about an hour before going back into the lake, where trapper John French captured it later.

French said it's not unusual to find male alligators in some pretty interesting places this time of year.

"You're starting into what's called the crawl season, the breeding season," he said. "We get them out of front porches, out of garages, out of swimming pools."

The Pachellis said they never dreamed an alligator would venture that close to the house.

"I've never seen them walking around (the neighborhood), let alone banging on my front door," Lori Pachelli said.

Man Catches Train, Forgets Baby in Car
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Mar 23, 5:37 PM (ET)

By MICHAEL W. KAHN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Commuters racing to catch the train typically forget things in the car - keys, wallets, briefcases. But a baby daughter?

That's what happened Thursday just north of Washington, police say.

"Dad forgot baby was in the car, parked the car, got on the Metro," said Lucille Baur, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department.

"I don't know exactly when he got the memory flash, but he was in D.C. when it was the horrible defining moment, 'Oh my goodness, I think I've left my child back in my car,'" Baur said.

At that point, she said, Jonathan Sander got off the southbound train and onto a northbound one, returning to the Shady Grove Metrorail station about 12 miles north of Washington.

By that time, other commuters had noticed the 7 1/2-month-old girl in the back seat of the car, firefighters had opened the locked door and the child had been taken to a hospital as a precaution.

She was reunited there with her mother.

"Child Protective Services was comfortable with releasing the child back to the mom," said Baur. "We all believe that the child was not intentionally left in the car."

Sander, described as "terrified, embarrassed," was charged with leaving a child under 8 unattended in a car or building. He could face a fine of up to $500 and 30 days in jail.

Soccer Ball Theft Puzzles Wash. Police
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Mar 23, 5:46 PM (ET)

SAMMAMISH, Wash. (AP) - Whoever bounced off with 54 new soccer balls and other paraphernalia from a high school ticket booth took a lot of time so as not "to make a big mess," puzzled investigators say.

A quarter-inch-thick glass pane weighing about 30 pounds was carefully removed and placed against the outside of the booth near Eastlake High School sometime between March 4 and 6, when the burglary was discovered, said King County sheriff's Deputy Stanley J. Chapin, a school resource officer.

"They removed the entire window to the ticket booth. It took some time," Chapin said.

"It wasn't a smash and grab, it was kind of like a 'nice' burglar - not to make a big mess," he said. "You wouldn't have noticed it because the window was missing."

Besides the balls, new Brine Phantoms with a list price of $54.99 each, six black nylon bags, 16 reversible Brine vests known in soccer as "pinnies" and 100 squat cones of various colors for use as field markers, Chapin said. He gave the total value at $3,562.

The burglary was discovered March 6, a Monday, when a coach opened the booth and found the equipment gone.

Chapin said this week that investigators obtained a set of latent fingerprints but have been unable to pinpoint who might be responsible.

St. Paul City Office Boots Easter Bunny
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Mar 23, 9:31 AM (ET)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Easter Bunny has been sent packing at St. Paul City Hall.

A toy rabbit, pastel-colored eggs and a sign with the words "Happy Easter" were removed from the lobby of the City Council offices, because of concerns they might offend non-Christians.

A council secretary had put up the decorations. They were not bought with city money.

St. Paul's human rights director, Tyrone Terrill, asked that the decorations be removed, saying they could be offensive to non-Christians.

But City Council member Dave Thune says removing the decorations went too far, and he wonders why they can't celebrate spring with "bunnies and fake grass."