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Patrons claim service was so bad, they had to get napkins and silverware for themselves. If you’re frustrated by poor service at a restaurant, think twice before you decide to not tip. You may be in for a bit more than just a dirty look from the waiter. "Nobody, nobody wants to be forced to pay a tip or be arrested for terrible service," Leslie Pope said when her happy hour ended in handcuffs. Pope and John Wagner were hauled away by police and charged with theft for not paying the mandatory 18 percent gratuity totaling $16 after eating at the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pa. with six friends. Pope claimed that they had to wait nearly an hour for their order and that she had to get napkins and silverware for the table herself. “At this point I became very annoyed because I had already gone up to the bar myself to have my soda refilled because the waitress never came back,” Pope said. After the $73 bill came, the group paid for food, drinks, and tax but refused to pay the tip. After explaining the bad service to the bartender in charge, Pope claimed he took their money and called police. The couple was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car. “I understand that, you know, we didn’t pay the gratuity, but it was a gratuity, it wasn’t something that was required,” said Wagner. The owner admitted that the group waited unusually long for their food, but said the pub was extremely busy that night. He said managers offered to comp the food, a claim the couple denies ever happened. “Obviously we would have liked for the patron and the establishment to have worked this out without getting the police involved,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Stuart Bedics. Police charged them with theft since the gratuity was part of the actual bill. However, it is doubtful that the charges will hold up in front of a judge. The couple is scheduled to appear in court next month. Source
An eminent rabbi was so exhausted after three days of constant cocaine-fuelled partying with escorts that his pimp grew worried and cancelled that day’s supply of girls, a jury was told. Rabbi Baruch Chalomish, 55, who has a £6 million fortune, was a scholarly academic, an accomplished businessman, a charity giver and a dutiful family man until his first wife died of cancer and his world fell apart. He turned to alcohol in his depression, then took refuge in cocaine, spending up to £1,000 a week. He lived in squalor, seeking comfort from prostitutes, Manchester Crown Court was told. The prosecution said that Chalomish was the financier in a commercial cocaine supply business while Nasir Abbas, 54, a convicted drug dealer, provided the drugs and the customers. The pair rented a luxury flat in Manchester and for ten days over the new year enjoyed a non-stop party. Mr Abbas admitted to police that he procured a supply of girls from an agency called Pure Class. They were also offered cocaine. The court was told that on the ninth day, and after the rabbi had stayed up for three straight days, Mr Abbas was so concerned about his health that he scrapped that day’s supply of prostitutes. In a text message to a woman called Clio he wrote: “Hi Clio, I have tried to wake Shel up but I don’t want to wake him. He was very tired because he had no sleep for three days, needed to rest, because he is going to his office to work on Monday at 8. Please cancel the party today.” Michael Goldwater, for the prosecution, said that at 9am on January 5 police raided the flat finding evidence of a substantial drugs operation including cocaine, cutting agents and scales. Officers found an equal amount of the drug at Chalomish’s home in Prestwich, in the heart of Manchester’s Orthodox Jewish community, as well as cutting agents and more than £15,000 in cash. Chalomish denies supplying the drug but admits having it. Mr Abbas, who said that he was too scared to attend the trial after the rabbi “sent around some heavies” to threaten him, faces charges of having cocaine with intent to supply. Jonathan Goldberg, QC, for the defence, said that the rabbi’s fall from grace was a tragedy. He said that his client never supplied the drug but hoarded large supplies of pure cocaine to evade “unscrupulous dealers” known to use rat poison and other dangerous mixing agents. The trial continues. Source
It is one of the few writing traditions that has not fallen by the wayside in the world of e-mailing and texting. But American children sending off letters to Santa Claus at the North Pole could be in for a disappointment this year - they are unlikely to get a reply. The US Postal Service is stopping its system that any letters addressed to Santa Claus, North Pole, get sent to the Alaskan town of North Pole where volunteer 'elves' write a personal reply on behalf of Father Christmas. The move comes after it emerged that a volunteer in the postal service's wider Operation Santa programme was a registered sex offender. The scare was serious enough for it to impose tighter restrictions. It is these which now make the North Pole service unfeasible, local officials said. The service said children could still write to Santa and get a reply, it is only letters sent specifically to Santa Claus, North Pole, which would be affected. The letter programme is a revered Yuletide tradition in North Pole, where light posts are curved and striped like sweet canes and streets have names such as Santa Claus Lane. The town's mayor, Doug Isaacson, said he recognised caution was necessary to protect children but added: 'It's Grinch-like that the postal service never informed all the little elves before the fact.' Source
LOS ANGELES - Customs officials say they got a surprise when they found 316,000 glass bongs disguised as Christmas ornaments at the Los Angeles harbor. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday that agents found the highly decorated drug pipes in 860 boxes shipped from China. The cargo, estimated to be worth more than $2.6 million, had been described as glass figures and Christmas ornaments. The bongs were seized Tuesday at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex. Customs spokeswoman Cristina Gamez says the importer remains under investigation and there have been no arrests. She says it is illegal to import or export drug paraphernalia in the United States. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
HAGERSTOWN, Md. — A woman quietly left $40,000 worth of rare U.S. coins near a Catholic shrine for safekeeping so the Virgin Mary could watch over her life savings while she was out of town, and apparently it worked: The money was returned to her when she got back a week later. Operators of the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes near Emmitsburg thought they had been blessed with a big donation when a groundskeeper found the two plastic freezer bags filled with gold and silver while raking leaves. But Shrine Director William Tronolone said the woman approached him after a noon Mass Sunday, six days after the discovery, to ask whether anyone had found some coins she had hidden beneath fallen leaves at the site on the campus of Mount St. Mary's University. "I said, 'Why did you leave it there?' And she said, 'Well, I had to go away and I was afraid to leave it and I wanted the Blessed Mother to watch over it for me — and evidently she did because you found it,'" Tronolone said. By then, university officials had had the coins appraised, notified police and placed the money in a safe while awaiting word from investigators. Tronolone refused to identify the woman. He said she had been out of town about a week. After the school's security director returned the coins Monday, he accompanied the woman to her bank and persuaded her to put them in her safe deposit box, Tronolone said. The shrine, about 50 miles northwest of Baltimore, features a replica of the grotto in Lourdes, France, where Catholics believe Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to a French schoolgirl named Bernadette several times, beginning in 1858. The Emmitsburg replica draws more than 200,000 visitors annually, Tronolone said. Grotto visitors often leave anonymous donations, including a $3,000 cash gift two weeks ago. "Up here at the grotto, you get a lot of people that are very, very faithful," Tronolone said, "and they do things you and I would never even attempt to do." Source
A Dorset couple have named their new baby daughter Kia - after she had to be delivered on the back seat of a Kia people carrier. Tony Richardson and Samantha Smyth were heading to Poole Hospital in Sam's mum's Kia when they realised they were not going to make it. Baby Kia was born at 4.30am in the back of the car - and the couple decided to ditch their original name of 'Tilley' to mark the unusual birth. And Kia has now offered the couple a new Kia Carens - the same model baby Kia was born in - worth £18,000. Miss Smyth, 23, said: "Wow! I was not expecting this. We're over the moon. We could do with it. Between me and my partner we have six kids. We can't fit them all in the car." Michael Cole, managing director of Kia Motors, said: "All of us at Kia are delighted for Tony and Samantha and flattered that they have called their new baby Kia after she was born in granny's Carens. "We would like to welcome Kia to the Kia family and wish her a wonderful life." Source
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OZARK, Ark. — A police officer in a small Arkansas town used a stun gun on an unruly 10-year-old girl after he said her mother gave him permission to do so. Now the town's mayor is calling for an investigation into whether the Taser use was appropriate. According to a report by Officer Dustin Bradshaw, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, police were called to the Ozark home Nov. 11 because of a domestic disturbance. When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, the report said. Bradshaw's report said the girl screamed, kicked and resisted any time her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed. "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to," Bradshaw wrote. The child was "violently kicking and verbally combative" when Bradshaw tried to take her into custody, and she kicked him in the groin. So he delivered "a very brief drive stun to her back," the report said. The names of the girl and her mother were redacted in the report. Ozark Mayor Vernon McDaniel said Wednesday that the girl wasn't injured and is now at the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil. But McDaniel said he wants Arkansas State Police — and if they decline, the FBI — to investigate the incident. The state police declined his request Tuesday. "People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation," McDaniel said. Police Chief Jim Noggle said Tasers are a safe way to subdue someone who's a danger to themself or others. No disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw, he said. "We didn't use the Taser to punish the child — just to bring the child under control so she wouldn't hurt herself or somebody else," Noggle said. If the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg, Noggle said. He said a touch of the stun gun — "less than a second" — stopped the girl from being unruly, and she was handcuffed, he said. "She got up immediately and they put her in the patrol car," McDaniel said. Noggle said the girl will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile in the incident. The girl's father, Anthony Medlock, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his daughter has emotional problems, but that she didn't have a weapon and shouldn't have been Tasered. "My daughter does not deserve to be tased and be treated like an animal," said Medlock, who is divorced from the girl's mother and does not have custody. Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser, said it's up to individual law enforcement agencies to decide when Taser use is appropriate. In some cases, a Taser "presents the safer response to resistance compared with the alternatives such as fists, kicks, baton strikes, bean bag guns, chemical agents, or canine response," Tuttle said in a statement. The police chief, who has been Tasered twice himself during training sessions, said his department has never had to Taser a child or elderly person before, but that in some instances, that could be necessary to ensure safety. "We don't want to do things like this," Noggle said. "This is something we have to do. We're required to maintain order and keep the peace." Source
A priest in Croatia has called on people not to accept the swine flu vaccine as they might be micro-chipped. Friar Miroslav Bustruc told believers in a church in the southern village of St. Martin close to Zadar that there was a mass plan to destroy mankind. "Part of that plan includes using illnesses. The swine-flu vaccine contains a micro chip, and they want to control us with it", the preacher said during Mass, news website Index has reported. He added the theory was his opinion, not the official opinion of the Catholic Church. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
A 1500-tonne boulder came within metres of crushing a sleeping family of four after breaking free from a large overhanging rock face on Black Friday. Jenny and Michael Day were asleep in their Wyberba home near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt in southern Queensland when they were jolted awake by an "almighty crash" about 3am. "We thought a jet had crashed at first. It was just such a loud noise accompanied by a sort of squealing," Mrs Day told the Courier-Mail. They had to wait until daylight to discover the offending object – and could barely believe what they saw. "My husband rushed back inside with his camera and showed me the pictures he took," Mrs Day said. "I said, 'Holy crap'!" The enormous boulder had broken off a large rock face overhanging their property and tumbled about 150m. "About 50m more and we would have been gone. It would have completely crushed the house," Mrs Day said. Neighbour Trevor Cooper said in 32 years of living in Wyberba he had never seen a rock of that size come adrift before. "If it had gone another roll, there would've been nothing to stop it. It would've gained momentum again and wiped out the house," Mr Cooper said. Queensland University of Technology geology expert David Murphy said the boulder was a time bomb. "The fracture along which the boulder broke must have originally started some time ago and has slowly spread from the top left to the bottom right until finally breaking completely," Dr Murphy said. "It was simply a matter of time." He said the Days would be well advised to get a geotechnical engineer to inspect the rest of the rock face. Mrs Day said they would just have to live with the rock, planted firmly next to the water tank. "It's not like we can move it," she laughed. Source
