Odd News Posting

[Muramasa]

U.S. man suing over trousers aims to fund more cases

By Andy Sullivan Thu Jun 14, 10:43 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The judge who sued his dry cleaning shop for $54 million over a lost pair of trousers said as the trial wrapped up on Wednesday that he would use any winnings he might get to encourage others to follow suit.

Roy L. Pearson, an administrative judge for the District of Columbia, said he only needed $2.5 million for himself to cover the emotional distress he suffered after Custom Cleaners misplaced a pair of pants he brought in for alteration.

The remainder, he said, would be used "as an incentive for other attorneys in private practice to take on these kinds of cases."

District of Columbia Judge Judith Bartnoff said she would issue a written decision within a week in the case.

Pearson's lawsuit has drawn international ridicule. It also drew plenty of chuckles from spectators who crowded into the stuffy municipal courtroom.

Even Bartnoff had a hard time keeping a straight face as Pearson, wearing a gray pinstripe suit and a stained lavender tie, wielded a 6-inch-thick (15-cm-thick) binder of laws and court decisions that he said bolstered his case.

Shop owner Soo Chung, an immigrant from
South Korea, was not so amused.

"Economically, emotionally, and health-wise as well, it's been extremely hard for us," Chung said through an interpreter as she broke down crying. It has cost tens of thousands of dollars to defend against the lawsuit, with a quarter of that covered by donations, a spokeswoman said.

Pearson claims a "satisfaction guaranteed" sign at the dry cleaning shop violates a consumer-protection law because he was unsatisfied with the response of Chung and her husband and son when they misplaced his pants in 2005.

The Chungs say they located the pants a few days later, but Pearson said they were not his.

The pants in question -- gray, with cuffs -- hung by the witness stand as the Chungs' attorney questioned whether Pearson's interpretation of the sign was reasonable.

"Does the sign read: 'If you are not satisfied with our service, you the customer can ask for whatever you want, including $67 million, and you will receive it'?" attorney Chris Manning asked.

Pearson, who reduced an original demand for $67 million to $54 million last month, arrived at the figured based on fines accruing for the four years allowed under the statute of limitations and other costs, such as $15,000 to rent a car to use another dry cleaning shop.

Bartnoff seemed skeptical as well, poking holes in Pearson's legal reasoning on many occasions.

"This is a very important statute to protect consumers of the District of Columbia. It's also very important that statutes like this are not misused," Bartnoff said.

[Muramasa]

Not everyone happy lost dog is back

Thu Jun 14, 10:23 PM ET

FULLERTON, Calif. - There was no puppy love when Jewel met Jade. Jewel, the Correy family pet, disappeared seven years ago. Misty Correy and her children hoped the microchip in the dog's back would help find the Siberian husky.

"After three months, we figured we would never see Jewel again," Correy said. So they got Jade, a yellow Labrador.

Last month, the family got a call from a humane society in Yuma. An animal control officer had found Jewel wandering down an empty road and they had traced her through the chip.

It's unclear how Jewel got to Arizona and became lost again.

Correy's daughter, Breezy, 16, and her older brother drove for 14 hours to retrieve Jewel.

"I hugged her all the way home," Breezy said.

When she got home, Jewel acted like she had never left, heading straight for Breezy's room and scratching at the door like she used to, the teenager said.

However, Jade appears to be a happiness holdout.

Correy said the two dogs "have been fighting since they met."

[Muramasa]

Doctors find 6 sewing needles in baby

7 minutes ago

BEIJING - Doctors in southern China were planning to perform surgery on a 1-year-old boy whose parents took him to a hospital because he had been unusually fussy and learned he had six sewing needles in his body, newspapers reported Monday.

The child's parents, migrant workers from southwest China, said they had no idea how the needles ended up in their son, nicknamed Xiao Yu.

The Beijing Youth Daily ran a color photo of an X-ray showing five needles throughout the boy's torso. The Beijing Morning Post printed close-ups of the X-ray, plus another that showed a needle that had apparently been pushed through the top of the child's head.

The photographs showed the needles completely embedded inside the boy.

"We have to perform the surgery as soon as possible, but we cannot promise that we can remove all the needles," the doctor, Gu Yong, was quoted as saying.

The parents said they took Xiao Yu to a hospital on June 2 after he cried for three or four nights in a row and ate less than usual.

An X-ray taken there revealed two needles inside the boy's chest. He was sent for surgery at another hospital, where a second X-ray revealed four more needles — two in his scrotum, one in his head and another in his abdomen.

The parents, who work at a bag factory in southern China's Guangzhou city, said no strangers have come into contact with the boy.

[Muramasa]

1 car, 2 thefts, 2 arrests in 1 day

Sun Jun 17, 7:07 AM ET

YAKIMA, Wash. - This is one Honda Accord thieves may want to avoid. The car was stolen twice in one day in Yakima County, and authorities quickly arrested suspects both times.

The car was stolen near Tieton early Friday, according to the sheriff's office. A detective in an unmarked car spotted it around 10:45 a.m. in Terrace Heights as it raced another Accord. The detective gave chase, losing one of the Hondas when the pair split up.

He followed the other until the driver abandoned it. Then, the detective chased the driver on foot until he kicked in a door at a nearby residence and went inside, sheriff's officials said.

Officers found a 21-year-old Yakima man in the home and arrested him for investigation of possessing the stolen car, attempting to elude police and burglary.

Meanwhile, another man got behind the wheel of the freshly abandoned Accord and stole it. That man, a 22-year-old from Sunnyside, also abandoned the vehicle a short distance away after realizing it had a flat tire, sheriff's officials said. He also was arrested.

Authorities were looking for the other Accord involved in the racing incident. They had a license plate number and said it, too, was reported stolen.

[Muramasa]

Woman wins $29,000 for topless stroll

Mon Jun 18, 5:47 AM ET

NEW YORK - A woman arrested for exposing her breasts has accepted a $29,000 settlement from the city, her lawyer said.

Jill Coccaro, 27, was arrested on a topless stroll two years ago, despite a 1992 state appeals court ruling that concluded women should have the same right as men to take off their shirts.

Coccaro, who now goes by the name Phoenix Feeley, remained in custody for 12 hours before she was told prosecutors were not going to pursue charges.

Her attorney, Jeffrey Rothman, told the Daily News that his client won the civil rights settlement from the city, which did not admit or deny wrongdoing.

"We hope the police learn a lesson and respect the rights of women to go topless," Rothman said.

Feeley told the New York Post that she was not treated well after her Aug. 4, 2005, arrest in Manhattan's Lower East Side section. She claimed in an October lawsuit that a police officer yanked her out of a patrol car by her hair and police took her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

She told the newspaper she had gone bare-breasted after running the 2004 city marathon without police bothering her.

"I've always just felt that was something natural," Feeley said of going topless. "I've kind of always done it out of practicality."

[Muramasa]

Milan airport blocked by hare hunt

Sun Jun 17, 12:59 PM ET

MILAN (Reuters) - Flights to and from Milan's Linate airport were suspended for three hours on Sunday while staff and volunteers tried to capture hares and rabbits which have been overrunning the runways.

The hunt succeeded in herding 57 hares and four rabbits into fenced off areas of the airport where they were captured to be taken to nearby nature reserves.

Airport authorities, more used to flight disruption due to wildcat strikes among staff of ailing national carrier Alitalia, said the operation had been a full success.

"It was necessary because animals passing in front of ground radar were creating false alarms in the control towers," said Marco Alberti, a director of SEA, the company which manages Milan's airports.

[Muramasa]

Rooftop statues prompt suicide fear calls

Mon Jun 18, 12:25 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Statues scattered across central London rooftops as part of artist Antony Gormley's latest exhibition are proving a serious headache for police.

Since the 31 life-sized replicas of Gormley's naked body went up in early May, police have been bombarded with telephone calls from members of the public reporting that they had spotted a would-be suicide jumper.

"We had several calls a day in the early stages and are now receiving two or three a day," a police spokeswoman said.

"In most cases, callers are questioned specifically about what they have seen and we are able to reassure them that they have seen one of the statues."

But suggesting that police have better things to do, she asked: "How long will the statues be in place?"

Gormley's exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery runs to August 19

[Muramasa]

China censors "Pirates" for "vilifying Chinese"

Fri Jun 15, 11:22 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has censored part of the latest installment of hit Hollywood movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" for "vilifying and defacing the Chinese," the official Xinhua news agency said Friday.

The role of Hong Kong star Chow Yun-Fat, who plays pirate lord Captain Sao Feng, had been slashed in half to just about 10 minutes of screen time, the report said.

It cited local magazine The Popular Cinema as saying: "The captain played by Chow is bald, his face heavily scarred. He also has a long beard and long nails, whose image is still in line with Hollywood's old tradition of demonizing the Chinese."

"Chinese censors also cut Chow's line in which he states 'Welcome to Singapore' because it hints Singapore is a land of pirates ...," Xinhua added.

It quoted Zhang Pimin, deputy head of the film bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, as saying the cuts had been made "according to the country's relevant regulations on film censorship" and "China's actual conditions."

The cuts "will not impair either the continuity of plot or the image of characters," said Zhang, declining to provide more details.

Still, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," has already performed well at the Chinese box office, Xinhua added, earning 1.18 million yuan ($154,800) on its first day in Shanghai alone.

This is not the first time a Hollywood film has angered the Chinese censor.

Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning "The Departed" ran into trouble due to its mention of a Chinese plan to buy military equipment, government sources told Reuters earlier this year.

But censorship on the big screen has little impact in China, where pirated, uncut versions of the latest movies can easily be bought on the street for around $1.

($1=7.624 Yuan)

[Muramasa]

Reptiles smuggled in garden gnomes

Tue Jun 19, 4:44 AM ET

SYDNEY, Australia - What's in a gnome? For surprised Australian customs officials, the answer was snakes and lizards.

During a routine check of international mail on June 10, an officer discovered two snakes and three lizards stuffed inside three of the diminutive garden figurines in a shipment from Britain.

"When the package was opened, the officer spotted several snakes moving about. The package was immediately resealed," Australian customs said Tuesday in a statement.

A day later, officials at the same facility X-rayed another package from Britain and found five snakes and five lizards stuffed inside pottery figures and other ornaments.

Both packages had been had been declared as gifts.

It was not immediately clear what types of snakes and lizards were in the shipments.

It is illegal to bring live reptiles into Australia without a license. No one was arrested over the incident, but customs said its investigation was continuing.

Wildlife smuggling carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and fines of up to $92,000 if convicted.

The reptiles had to be euthanized due to quarantine regulations.

[Muramasa]

Geese get revenge: Pate may cause rare disease

2 hours, 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Geese force-fed and then slaughtered for their livers may get their final revenge on people who favor the delicacy known as foie gras: It may transmit a little-known disease known as amyloidosis, researchers reported on Monday.

Tests on mice suggest the liver, popular in French cuisine which uses it to make pate de foie gras and other dishes, may cause the condition in animals that have a genetic susceptibility to such diseases, Alan Solomon of the University of Tennessee and colleagues reported.

That would suggest that amyloidosis can be transmitted via food in a way akin to brain diseases such as
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, which can cause a rare version of mad cow disease in some people who eat affected meat products or brains.

Amyloidosis can affect various organ systems in the body, which accumulate damaging deposits of abnormal proteins known as amyloid. The heart, kidneys, nervous system and gastrointestinal tract are most often affected but amyloidosis can also cause a blood condition.

The researchers used mice genetically engineered to be susceptible to amyloidosis, which can be inherited.

"When such mice were injected with or fed amyloid extracted from foie gras, the animals developed extensive systemic pathological deposits," Solomon's team reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

Sometimes Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is described as a type of amyloidosis as well.

Symptoms are often vague and range from fatigue and weight loss to swelling and kidney damage.

Like CJD, mad cow disease, scrapie and related diseases, amyloidosis is marked by abnormal protein fragments. In the case of CJD, the proteins are called prions.

"On this basis, we posit that this and perhaps other forms of amyloidosis may be transmissible, akin to the infectious nature of prion-related illnesses," the researchers added.

"In addition to foie gras, meat derived from sheep and seemingly healthy cattle may represent other dietary sources of this material."

[Muramasa]

Saddam's golden gun goes on display

Mon Jun 18, 10:22 AM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) -
Saddam Hussein was truly the man with the golden gun. And to prove it, Australia has put the weapon on display at its war museum.

Australia went to war in
Iraq to remove Saddam's weapons and still maintains forces in and around the Middle Eastern country.

On Monday, the Australian War Memorial accepted a golden Tabuk rifle -- the Iraqi equivalent of the AK-47 -- from the Australian military, which in turn received it from allied U.S. troops in thanks for taking part in the Iraq war.

"This weapon is an example of the excesses of the former Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein," the Memorial's Assistant Director Nola Anderson said.

The rifle was found by American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during the clearance of buildings around Kirkuk, in northern Iraq.

[Muramasa]

Vatican issues "10 Commandments" for motorists

By Philip Pullella Tue Jun 19, 8:23 AM ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not drive under the influence of alcohol. Thou shall respect speed limits. Thou shall not consider a car an object of personal glorification or use it as a place of sin.

The
Vatican took a break from strictly theological matters on Tuesday to issue its own rules of the road, a compendium of do's and don'ts on the moral aspects of driving and motoring.

A 36-page document called "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" contains 10 Commandments covering everything from road rage, respecting pedestrians, keeping a car in good shape and avoiding rude gestures while behind the wheel.

"Cars tend to bring out the 'primitive' side of human beings, thereby producing rather unpleasant results," the document said.

It appealed to what it called the "noble tendencies" of the human spirit, urging responsibility and self-control to prevent the "psychological regression" often associated with driving.

The document's Fifth Commandment reads: "Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin".

Asked at a news conference when a car became an occasion of sin, Cardinal Renato Martino said "when a car is used as a place for sin".

One part of the document, under the section "Vanity and personal glorification", will not go down well with owners of Ferraris in motor-mad Italy.

"Cars particularly lend themselves to being used by their owners to show off, and as a means for outshining other people and arousing a feeling of envy," it said.

It urged readers not to behave in an "unsatisfactory and even barely human manner" when driving and to avoid what it called "unbalanced behaviour ... impoliteness, rude gestures, cursing, blasphemy ..."

Praying while driving was encouraged.

Vatican City, the world's smallest sovereign state, doesn't have many of the problems listed in the document.

It has about 1,000 cars, the speed limit is 30 kph and one Vatican official said the last accident inside Vatican City's walls was about 1-1/2 years ago, resulting in minor damage.

[Muramasa]

Mugger, from robber to robbed

Tue Jun 19, 8:23 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A would-be German thief went from predator to victim when he tried to mug a taxi driver but ended up having his own wallet snatched instead.

After the 20-year-old stole the driver's wallet, a scuffle broke out between the two, in which the cabbie not only recovered his property but also took his attacker's wallet, police in the western town of Aldenhoven said on Tuesday.

The driver then locked himself in his taxi and called the police, who were amazed to find the mugger waiting patiently for them on the kerb next to the vehicle when they arrived.

"He wanted his wallet back," a police spokesman said.

After taking the man in for questioning, police released him and returned his wallet. He faces charges for attempted robbery.

[Muramasa]

Licence plates pricier than small car

Tue Jun 19, 3:25 AM ET

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Number plates in Shanghai now cost more than a small car in China.

Over the weekend, about 9,000 people bid for 6,000 car plate numbers, which were snapped up at an average price of 47,711 yuan (3,150 pounds), according to Xinhua news agency.

That's more than the 39,800 yuan price tag for Chery Automobile Co.'s 1.1 litre-engine QQ subcompact, one of China's hottest-selling compact cars.

It is also more than twice the per-capita disposable annual income in the city, China's richest, and the highest average price since Shanghai started the monthly auction in 2002 to limit traffic in the congested city.

Xinhua did not give the highest price in the licence plate auction but said the lowest was 47,200 yuan.

Other Chinese cities auction off auspicious plate numbers such as those featuring the number "8", which sounds similar to the expression "to get rich".

On Sunday, a man bought the number A000A1 for 420,000 yuan for his Mercedes-Benz in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, local media said. The initial bidding price was 5,000 yuan.

A pilot scheme for customised numbers in four cities, including the capital Beijing, was scrapped days after its launch in 2002, however, after Chinese drivers created such inventive combinations as FBI001, SEX001 and IAM007 for their licence plates.

[Muramasa]

Court nixes bid to sell 'World Cup air'

Wed Jun 20, 7:39 AM ET

BEIJING - A Chinese company that once tried to sell land on the Moon has lost an appeal against a court ruling that stopped it from selling bags of "World Cup air," state media reported Wednesday.

Xinhua News Agency said that Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technology Co. lost a suit against the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce, which refused its application to sell "special air from a special place."

Last December, the Chaoyang District People's Court ruled against the company's proposal to sell green plastic bags full of air from stadiums that hosted matches in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Li Jie, the company's chief executive officer, had planned to sell the bags to soccer fans for 50 yuan ($6.60) each.

Xinhua said the Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court ruled against the company's appeal, saying "air is too vague and unstable a concept to be covered by commercial classifications."

Li first registered his company in September 2005, offering to sell individuals ownership of an acre of lunar land for 298 yuan ($38).

But a month later the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce revoked the firm's business license on the grounds a company cannot sell things it does not own, Xinhua said.

Li sued the authority, but the suit was rejected in November 2006 by the Haidian District Court. An appeal to the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court was rejected in March.

[Muramasa]

China's "professional noses" sniff out polluters

Wed Jun 20, 1:52 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - An environmental monitoring station in southern China is recruiting people with keen noses to sniff out foul gases in the atmosphere and provide more accurate readings of air quality.

A team of 11 "professional noses" at a monitoring station in Panyu, an industrial town in the Pearl River delta in Gaungdong province, had been trained by air pollution experts, Wednesday's China Daily quoted a senior official at the station as saying.

"Now we can differentiate between hundreds of smells that may make people ill, before making an assessment on their density," vice-director Liu Jingcai said.

"The work is quite unpleasant. We have to stay in a lab smelling those awful gases repeatedly," he added.

Liu said the team would complement the station's scientific equipment with the aim of helping bring pollution violators -- including chemical producers and rubbish processing sites -- to account.

But long-term career prospects were hazy.

The professional noses' accreditation would need to be renewed every three years, "as one's sense of smell diminishes with age", the paper said.

[Muramasa]

Grapes of wrath symbolise fight with Mafia

By Nicola Scevola Wed Jun 20, 3:15 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - A new Italian white wine has become a symbol of the fight against organised crime, incurring the wrath of gangsters from Naples because it was produced from grapes grown on land confiscated from a Mafia godfather.

Campo Libero, which means "Free Field", was presented this month as the first wine made in Lazio region with grapes grown on land taken from an important member of the Camorra -- as the Naples version of the Mafia is known.

The lightly sparkling white wine is made from Trebbiano grapes cultivated by Il Gabbiano ("The Seagull"), a charity that employs people with troubled backgrounds, such as drug addicts and former detainees.

"The fact that we could turn a land bought with illegal earnings into something totally clean is the most important message we could send," said Dario Campagna, chairman of Il Gabbiano.

Campagna, a 50-year-old with silver hair, had no previous expertise in wine-making. At the beginning he had to rely on the knowledge of local farmers and he is modest about Campo Libero's bouquet, calling it a "farmer's wine".

But he hopes it will symbolise to consumers the value of fighting organised crime.

Thanks to a law passed in 1996 by the Italian parliament, property belonging to convicted Mafiosi can be used for social purposes. In 2003, Il Gabbiano was given 10 hectares of land that had been abandoned for years.

It once belonged to Francesco Schiavone, head of the most powerful and violent Camorra family of Naples, whose empire spread from Naples to the farmland only 60 km (37 miles) from Rome.

DIRTY MONEY

Roberto Saviano, a Camorra expert, wrote in his bestseller "Gomorra" that the Schiavone clan ran illegal drugs and arms but also had semi-legal businesses such as cement production and property developing, a shady empire worth some 5 billion euros ($7 billion).

The land on which Campo Libero grows was confiscated after Schiavone was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The gangster had already devoted part of this land to growing grapes that were illegally sold on the market.

There is evidence that the rest of the land was used for shadier activities. When Campagna first started digging to build a dirt road inside the property, he found old Italian lira banknotes, shredded and buried less than a metre underground.

The lira was replaced with the euro in Italy in 2001 and the old notes were supposed to be disposed of safely, to avoid their toxic lead content seeping into farmland. But the Camorra is infamous for taking money to get rid of waste illegally.

"I think Schiavone got paid to dispose of the banknotes and simply decided to hide them here," said Campagna. "When we got the land, it was like a rubbish dump. It took us three years and a lot of work to change it."

This year Il Gabbiano produced 10,000 bottles of wine, but it hasn't been an easy job. Campagna, a teetotaller, first asked local farmers for practical help and advice.

But every time they made an appointment to start working, the farmers mysteriously failed to show up.

"Finally someone told us that one of Schiavone's relatives lived in the area and the people were afraid he would find out they were cooperating with us," said Campagna.

He called the police and got them to drop by twice a day on patrol. He also asked an agronomist from another town to help. Soon, when local farmers saw nothing bad had happened, they agreed to come and lend the charity workers a hand.

SABOTAGE

"This was our first real success," recalled Campagna, who has applied for public funding to renovate an old building on the property and adapt it to receive primary school students.

His dream is to create an educational farm to show youngsters how wine, flour and other natural products are made and, at the same time, teach them the value and importance of staying on the right side of the law.

But his success appears to have displeased the former owners.

One night last September, just before the first harvest was due, unidentified saboteurs destroyed half the crop by cutting the metal wire supporting the vines, which collapsed under the weight of the ripe fruit.

"We woke up and saw we had lost around 50,000 kilos of grapes out of 140,000," said Campagna. "It was a real blow."

Police are investigating but Campagna has his suspicions.

"I think the Camorra are to blame. They want the law letting their assets be confiscated to fail. It's in their interests for this land to stay untouched. It's a sign of power."

That is why Campagna and his workers did not give up and last March replanted the vines from scratch.

"It will take years for the vines to grow again, but it's worth it," he said. "The more we fight for this wine, the better it will taste in the end."

[Muramasa]

Firefighters flush cat from storm drain

Tue Jun 19, 10:17 PM ET

PARKERSBURG, West Virginia - It took two fire trucks, five firefighters, several animal rescuers and about 250 gallons of water to rescue a kitten that refused to come out of a West Virginia storm sewer drain.

Animal control officers tried coaxing the gray tabby with encouraging words and food Monday afternoon before giving up after about an hour and a half.

Parkersburg firefighters tried banging tools on one end of the pipe and flashing lights Monday night near the Parkersburg-Belpre Bridge in hopes of driving him out the other end, but that failed.

Only when firefighters flushed about 250 gallons of water_ enough to wet the kitten's paws — through the pipe that the feline rushed into the hands of Firefighter Kevin Siers, who was standing inside a manhole.

"We had about an hour and a half of fun," Siers said Tuesday. "Everybody was pretty tickled" when the cat emerged.

After a very frightening day and night, the kitten seemed more relaxed on Tuesday and was warming up to humans, said Dan Hendrickson with the Humane Society of Parkersburg. A visitor to the shelter was signing adoption papers Tuesday afternoon.

Siers and state Fire Marshal Sterling Lewis said it is not uncommon for fire departments to attempt such rescues.

Firefighters have rescued iguanas off of telephone poles, snakes out of sewer pipes and cats out of trees, Siers said.

"Firefighters will go try to save anything," Lewis said.

[Muramasa]

Ala. man's finger gets stuck in gas tank

1 hour, 16 minutes ago

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - A man felt the pain of the gas tank, and he wasn't even at a pump. Dwight Clark's dilemma occurred Wednesday afternoon in the parking lot of a pharmacy when he apparently tried to clear some gunk from around the opening of the gas tank. His finger got stuck in his gas tank's opening.

"His finger went in past the knuckle and was stuck," Huntsville Fire & Rescue Capt. Nolen Locke said. "People had sprayed WD40 all over, but that didn't work."

Locke said rescue workers tried several ways to free Clark without cutting the metal because he didn't want them to damage his truck. But they eventually had to cut through.

"We started with a Sawzall, but the vibrations made it too painful for him," Locke told The Huntsville Times. "Then we used tin snips to finish it."

He said it took about 25 minutes to get the fuel valve out, with Clark still stuck. He was then taken to Huntsville Hospital, where doctors worked to free his finger.

"I've been a firefighter for 16 years and I've never seen anything like it before," Locke said.

[Muramasa]

Feces parking ticket proves costly

1 hour, 44 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Minn. - A man has been ordered to pay nearly $3,000 to the woman who became seriously ill in April after opening a parking ticket envelope in which he had placed dog feces.

Joshua Steven Solberg, 22, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct Friday in Mower District Court.

According to court documents, Judge Fred Wellmann ordered Solberg to pay $2,921.70 to the woman, who worked in the Austin Police Department office.

City prosecutor Lee Bjorndal said restitution will go toward paying the victim's medical costs not covered by insurance. Her medical bills totaled more than $5,000, he said.

Solberg also must write an apology letter to the victim and pay a $300 fine, with another $200 and a 90-day jail sentence stayed for one year.

The complaint says Solberg was ticketed for overtime parking April 18 for leaving his vehicle parked in front of his residence. He placed the ticket envelopment with his payment — and the dog feces — in a drop box for citations at the Law Enforcement Center.

When the office employee opened envelopes from the drop box, she noticed a brown fluid leaking from one envelope. The complaint says the fluid got onto her hands, which she washed, and also contaminated her desk. She awoke the next day with a headache and vomited repeatedly and was hospitalized for about two days with an undetermined illness.

Solberg said he was upset about the ticket and denied targeting any particular person.