Two men who resorted to robbery after they couldn’t talk a Virginia store clerk into selling them beer after hours were arrested before they could drink the first sip.
Read (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)
A 14-year-old Landover, MD boy was arrested and charged with robbing a bank in Bethesda, MD.
In Prince George’s County, MD, police are investigating two other incidents where teenagers were abducted and forced to rob three banks.
Read (WTOP)
Four armed men wearing hooded sweat shirts and ski masks stole an automated teller machine from the Annapolis, MD mall early Wednesday morning.
Read (AP via WTOP)
Australia is suffering a bed-bug epidemic with the tourism industry losing an estimated A$100 million (US$75 million) a year because of the blood-sucking insects, according to a new entomology study.
Read (Reuters via MSNBC)
Migrant workers in south China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday because they have no access to a toilet.
Read (Reuters)
An Illinois woman got a 30-day jail sentence for leaving her three children, who are all under the age of four, home alone for several hours, while she and her boyfriend attended a videotaping of The Jerry Springer Show.
Read (AP via CNN)
It sound like material for a future episode of the Jerry Springer Show – “Parents Who Leave Their Toddlers Home Alone So They Can Attend the Taping of the Jerry Springer Show.”
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that glow in the dark.
Read (BBC)
A new study finds that smoking during pregnancy may raise the risk of having a baby with extra, missing or webbed fingers and toes. The more the mother smokes, the higher the risk.
It’s estimated that about 1 in 600 infants are born with an extra finger or toe — an anomaly known as polydactyly. Webbed fingers or toes, called syndactyly, are less common, occurring in one in every 2,000 to 2,500 births. Adactyly refers to the absence of fingers or toes.
Read (Reuters)
Because of health concerns, a French court has ordered a man to cremate or bury the bodies of his parents that he has kept frozen at home for years.
Read (BBC)
Florida’s Lion Country Safari, which is near West Palm Beach, now has a fence to separate its African lions from visitors who broke rules and opened car windows and doors.
Read (New York Times)
I went to this Lion Country Safari in 1992, and what I remember most is an ostrich walking up to the car, stopping in front of the car, and pecking the hood.
The 40 giant beer fermenting tanks that have been sitting in a field in King George since the Fall will be trucked to Elkton in February and March. They will be trucked to Elkton via Routes 3, 29, and 33, and some traffic lights and electric lines will need to be raised because the tanks are so large. The tanks are 70 feet long, 19 feet in diameter (a standard lane is 8 – 9 feet wide), and weigh 39 tons each, and they will be key parts of Coors’ first East Coast brewery in Elkton.
Read (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)
Hunters have killed 30 of Culpeper’s herd of 50+ wild hogs.
[Read](http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/012006/01042006/157740 “Read the Article”) (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)
*Hopefully, somebody made some barbecue and hams out of them.*
Willie Nelson has his own brand of alternative fuel called BioWillie that can be made from any number of crops and run in a normal diesel engine.
Read (New York Times)
If he makes any money from his venture, let’s hope he pays his taxes.
Dives from tree stands hurt more people than bullets do.
Of the 10 hunting accidents in Maryland in the past six months, six have involved people falling out of trees. And over the last five years, more than half of all hunting accidents in the state, 65 out of 126 accidents through Dec. 15, were falls from tree stands, Maryland Natural Resources Police said. The rate is lower in Virginia, but tree stand falls are a consistent problem there, too.
Read (Washington Post)
Until recently, wild roosters had crowed, pecked, roosted, and pooped just beyond Bowling Green, VA’s Town Hall for years, prompting some residents to complain. An avid hunter, with a knack for catching fowl, captured the roosters and relocated them to a farm in Caroline County.
Read (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)