Community ClicksCrisis continues
A team of anglers from Hatteras, N.C., had first place wrapped up in the prestigious Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament in June, salivating over their $1,231,575 prize money (including a bonus for single-largest catch), when judges discovered that one member of the Hatteras crew, Peter Wann, had not gotten a $30 North Carolina coastal recreational fishing license before their boat pushed off that day.
Under the rules, the entire team was disqualified, and the runner-up, from Cape Carteret, N.C., got the money.
<<< Widely feared Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke was arrested in June and extradited to New York City after being picked up wearing women’s clothes and a 1970s-style Afro wig too small for his head (with a pink wig on standby).
The Jamaica Observer reported that Coke wet his pants as he was arrested.
Never sunny in North Korea
North Korea’s World Cup adventure began auspiciously with a hard-fought 2-1 loss to a superior Brazil team, leading the government to release photographs of the North Korean coach supposedly receiving long-distance telepathic strategy signals during the game from Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il.
With the country’s hopes up, the team was embarrassed in two games and dispatched from the tournament.
Back home in July, the players were paraded into the People’s Palace of Culture in Pyongyang, where for six hours, they were publicly denounced and taunted.
Coach Kim Jong-huh is said to fear an eventual violent end.
<<< Just before the World Cup matches, North Korea issued a public demand for compensation, blaming the United States for almost every single misfortune suffered by the country in the last 65 years.
Its official news agency assigned the U.S. responsibility for 5 million people injured, kidnapped, missing or killed — as well as for economic damages resulting from U.S.-led trade sanctions.
According to the news agency, America can atone for the losses by sending North Korea $65 trillion.
Charmed life
<<< Recently while visiting her childhood home of Bishop, Texas, Joan Ginther won a Texas lottery drawing for the fourth time, taking home a $10 million first prize to lift her career Texas lottery winnings to $20.4 million.
By then, she had already moved to Las Vegas.
Say what?
<<< Northern Ireland farmer William Taylor introduced his prototype Livestock Power Mill recently and claimed that the world’s 1.3 billion cattle, using treadmills for eight hours a day, could produce 6 percent of the world’s electricity requirement.
The cow must keep walking to avoid sliding down an incline.
<<< Speaking to the city council of Crestview, Fla., in July, the founder of the local “Protect Our Children” citizens’ group said her son (whose age was not revealed) had “lost his mind” when he looked through the violent Japanese “manga” graphic novel he found on open stacks in the Crestview Public Library.
“Now,” she said, “he’s in a home for extensive therapy.”
Not crime ready
Justin Johnson, 21, was arrested in Bloomfield, Ind., in July after failing to get a Bloomfield State Bank branch to cash his bogus check for $1 million, which he presented to a teller in the bank’s drive-through window.
Optimistic, he had handed over his driver’s license for ID along with the check.
>>> Scot Davis, 52, was charged with robbing the All in the Family bar in Des Moines, Iowa, in March. Davis, a contractor who is friends with bartender Gladys York, had spent the evening at the bar passing out business cards before leaving.
Said York, when Davis re-appeared carrying a .22-caliber rifle and demanding money, “Scot, What the (expletive)?”
Said an officer, “This is not the hardest case our detectives have ever had to investigate.”
Classic news
Ron Kravitz, 22, filed a lawsuit in 1989 against Mickey Mantle Sports Productions Inc., for injuries he suffered the previous September while watching a company baseball video in his den to improve his base-stealing technique.
While attempting to “beat” Tom Seaver’s pickoff throw to “first base,” he crashed into a table, resulting in torn ligaments and a severed tendon, which he thought somehow was the production company’s fault.
<<< Denise and Jeffrey Lagrimas, who were hosting a neighborhood watch meeting in their Oroville, Calif., home in 1989 to discuss rising concerns about local crime, were arrested during the meeting after a neighbor spotted her recently stolen TV set in the house and then realized that Denise was wearing her stolen dress.
Police officers were already on hand at the meeting to give a presentation and subsequently found $9,000 worth of stolen goods.
