Minnesota Rep. Lobbies for Tilt-A-Whirl

Mar 30, 5:38 AM (ET)

ST. PAUL (AP) - State Rep. Patti Fritz, DFL-Faribault, has introduced a bill designating the Tilt-A-Whirl the official amusement ride in Minnesota.

Fritz said she's taking up the cause of 52 kindergarten students from her district who say it deserves special attention because it was invented in their town.

"I represent children too," Fritz said, adding, "Minnesotans like to have fun, and it's a fun thing to do."

The Tilt-A-Whirl is a platform-type ride consisting of seven freely spinning cars holding up to four riders apiece. Herbert Sellner invented it in 1926 and the first one debuted at the Minnesota State Fair a year later. Sellner Manufacturing in Faribault still makes it.

Minnesota already has a state muffin (blueberry), a state gemstone (the Lake Superior agate), a state drink (milk), a state butterfly (monarch) and seven other official symbols.

9-1-1 Out for Donuts

Mar 29, 4:02 PM (ET)

EASTON, Pa. (AP) - A firefighter clicked on a link on the city's Web site and got a recording of a bogus dispatcher saying 911 was closed.

"Our offices are closed because everyone is at the doughnut shop," said the audio file. Stu Gallaher, city business administrator, said Wednesday the file was quickly removed when city officials learned about it.

Gallaher said it was accidentally left on the site by former Fire Chief Frank Chisesi, who had been hired to improve the city's Internet offerings. Chisesi said he had placed several audio files on the site but they did not work and he thought he had deleted them.

Firefighter Terrance Hand e-mailed the link to city officials and the media, saying it was "not flattering" to the 911 call center, police or firefighters and seeking an apology. He said his only reply was from Councilman Dan Corpora. Corpora said he intended to look into the posting, "and rectify any situation that would allow that to be put on the Web site."

Maine Couple Celebrates 80th Wedding Anniversary

Mar 29, 4:00 PM (ET)

LUBEC, Maine (AP) - Kathleen Tarbell "fell head over my stomach" for her husband Waldo when they met at a dance. They married in 1927, during Calvin Coolidge's presidency. This weekend, they'll celebrate their 80th anniversary.

Waldo is 101 and Kathleen will turn 100 in June. The anniversary party will be Saturday afternoon at Oceanview Nursing Home, where the couple shares a large room.

Maine's Office of Vital Records could not immediately determine if the Tarbells' marriage is the longest in the state. The 2007 Guinness Book of World Records lists a Rhode Island couple wed for 83 years as having the longest marriage among living people.

Another Stupid Crook Arrested

Mar 30, 4:20 AM (ET)

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - A scofflaw who came to be known as the gin and tonic bandit went to the same restaurant each Wednesday, ordered two drinks and a rib-eye steak, then skipped out on his $25.96 bill.

His dining, drinking and dashing days may be over.

Police arrested the man on preliminary charges of theft and resisting law enforcement. He was being held early Friday at the Monroe County Jail on $2,000 bond, authorities said.

Each Wednesday night for four weeks running, the same man came into the same O'Charley's restaurant and ordered the two drinks and the steak, restaurant manager Teresa Tolbert told police.

At the end of each meal, the wait staff would present him with his bill for $25.96, and he would excuse himself to use the restroom, then skip out without paying. The man appeared a fifth time Wednesday night, but the restaurant was ready for him, police said.

When his server presented the bill, he again claimed he needed to use the bathroom. But when he walked out of the restaurant, four employees were waiting for him. They confronted him about the unpaid bill, which he offered to pay with a check, police said.

After Tolbert told him the restaurant didn't accept checks, the man "got nervous and ran," according to the police report.

Officer Randy Gehlhausen caught up with the man as he was trying to open his car door. The diner struggled with Gehlhausen, who wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him.

Boy Finds North Pole Item 1800 Miles from Pole

Mar 29, 12:53 PM (ET)

By JAN M. OLSEN

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - A wristwatch buried in the ice at the North Pole three years ago was found by a boy more than 1,800 miles away after it floated ashore on the Faeroe Islands.

Niels Jakup Mortensen, 11, spotted a black box near his home on Suduroy, the Faeroes' southernmost island, his mother Anna Jacobsen said. Inside, she said, was a watch that had been buried at the North Pole by Joergen Amundsen, a descendant of Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

Jacobsen said the watch discovered by her son earlier this month was still working, and was accompanied by a letter from Joergen Amundsen. "It was so unbelievable," she said. "It had been buried in the North Pole."

Hjalmar Hatun, an oceanographer with the Faeroese Fisheries Laboratory, said the watch likely drifted south with one of the chunks of ice that frequently break away at the North Pole and are carried off by ocean currents.

The Faeroes, an 18-island Danish territory, are located halfway between Scotland and Iceland.

Hatun said the ice breaking off is not related to global warming, as the phenomenon was first observed more than 100 years ago. "So in that sense, the fact that objects from the North Pole can drift south is old news," he said.

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/479/drug_police_corruption

Two cops get busted, a jail guard pleads guilty, a Border Patrol agent is found guilty, and a sheriff's deputy is sent to prison. Just your typical week of drug prohibition-related law enforcement corruption. Let's get to it:

In Indianapolis, an Indianapolis Police reserve officer was arrested for stealing drugs and money from undercover officers. Reserve Officer Chris Spaulding is accused of stealing $7,000 from one undercover officer during a sting and failing to turn in the evidence. He is also charged with using a Hendricks County hotel room to sell drugs, especially marijuana. Spaulding is in jail pending a bail hearing. His trial date is set for May 14.

In Deerfield Beach, Florida, a patrol deputy was arrested Tuesday for taking cocaine and prescription drugs from what he thought was an abandoned automobile. Patrol Deputy Robert Delaney is charged with possession of cocaine and oxycodone. Delanay came to the attention of superiors when a confidential informant reported that he bought and used cocaine. That led the sheriff's office to set up a sting, leaving four grams of cocaine and six oxycodone tablets in a vehicle, then calling Delaney to investigate. As officers watched, Delaney took the drugs for himself. He also admitted snorting some of the cocaine while on duty.

In White Plains, New York, a Westchester County corrections officer pled guilty March 21 for his role in a drug distribution network. Jail guard Michael Gray, 43, pled guilty to attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance and promoting prison contraband for selling cocaine to another jail guard and bringing the drug into the jail in August 2005. He was part of a trafficking ring operating in the Bronx and Westchester County that was busted in a series of raids in December 2005. He will be sentenced in June.

In Tucson, a former Border Patrol agent has been found guilty of making off with a 22-pound brick of marijuana during a border bust. Former Agent Michael Carlos Gonzalez, 34, was convicted by a federal jury March 20 of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense. Gonzalez went down after a December 2005 traffic stop. An Arizona state trooper stopped a pickup, the passenger and driver fled into the desert, and the trooper pursued them. Gonzalez arrived on the scene, grabbed one of the numerous bricks of weed in the truck, moved the remaining bricks to cover up his theft, and put the brick in his vehicle. Unfortunately for him, the trooper's patrol car camera caught it all. Gonzalez is looking at up to 10 years in federal prison, five on each count.

In Winchester, Kentucky, a former Clark County deputy sheriff has been sentenced to prison on firearms and drug charges. Former Deputy Brad Myers was originally charged with two counts of trafficking in a controlled substance and two counts of carrying a firearm during the offense, but pled guilty to one count of distributing Lortab pills and one count of carrying a semiautomatic pistol. Myers' attorney argued that he developed an addiction to pain pills after being injured on the job, but he's still going to prison for three years.