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MORRISVILLE, Vt. (AP) - What possesses a man to steal his ex-employer's bus, take it for a three-state joy ride and then post a video of the lark on YouTube? "It was inspired," Jacob Rehm, 38, said outside court Tuesday. "I felt inspired." The vehicle's owner, Lamoille Valley Transportation, was not amused. Neither were authorities, who charged Rehm with theft of services, operating a vehicle without owner consent and trespassing. Neither was a judge, who ordered a competency evaluation for him. Rehm, a former bus driver for Lamoille Valley, took the bus from the company's depot Nov. 2. Accompanied by friend Natalie Page, 38, he headed south toward Allentown, Pa., but turned around somewhere in Connecticut after he realized the $200 worth of diesel he had bought wouldn't get them to Pennsylvania and back. Police caught up with him in the northern Vermont town of St. Johnsbury after the company's owners were told he had been seen driving through a schoolyard waving at children. The $583,000 vehicle, which was normally used for New England fall foliage tours and national park tours, wasn't damaged. Rehm later posted a four-minute video titled "The Fabulous Bus Ride" on the video-sharing site. "Vid by Jake 'Rolls Royce' Swift," it says in the opening credits, which Rehm said Tuesday is his nom de plume. The video mostly shows the bus parked by a roadside, but Rehm is also seen in the driver's seat as it travels down a road. A woman sitting in the otherwise-empty bus is seen hiding herself behind a jacket when the camera turns to her. "It was not premeditated," Rehm said after his arraignment Tuesday in Vermont District Court in Hyde Park. "I did not mean any form of mischief, not at all, or attention seeking, I didn't even do it for that." Speaking to reporters in front of the courthouse, Rehm shooed away his lawyer, public defender Rory Malone, as Malone tried to get him to stop talking to the press. Malone wouldn't comment on the case against Rehm. "At this point, my client has spoken," he said later. "I'm bowing out of it." Joel Prive, general manager of Lamoille Valley Transportation, said Rehm behaved erratically but was never involved in an accident or traffic violation during his three weeks working for the company in 2006. Customers complained about him acting oddly and out of character from what his bosses expected, though, according to Prive. He told his employers he lived with friends, but they learned that he was actually homeless and living in a car, Prive said. If convicted on all three charges, Rehm could get 15 years in prison. "It's not every day that someone documents their crime and posts it on YouTube," said prosecutor Todd Shove. Source
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A 27-year-old Anchorage man has been convicted of robbing his mother at gunpoint because she didn't give him money to help pay a $430 parking ticket. The Anchorage district attorney said Friday that Cheng Saelee was also convicted of illegally contacting his mother from jail and trying to get her to drop the charges. Prosecutor Gustaf Olson said Saelee was arrested in November 2008 after he became angry during an argument with his parents, got a handgun from his room and pointed the weapon at his mother's head. He was scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 19 and faces up to 12 years in prison. Olson said Saelee might also be deported to Thailand after he serves his sentence. The ticket was for abandoning a vehicle. Source
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A CNN correspondent said Monday she was detained by Chinese security guards in Shanghai for two hours for displaying a T-shirt on camera depicting US President Barack Obama as Mao Zedong. Emily Chang, a Beijing-based correspondent for the US television network, said in a blog post on CNN.com that she hunted down the shirt after hearing they had been banned amid fears they "may offend the American president." The shirt shows Obama, who is making his first visit to China as president, in a Red Army uniform staring into the distance in a pose made famous by the former Chinese leader. The front of the shirt says "Serve the People" in Chinese, Chang said. "Oba-Mao" is written on the back in English. Chang said she held the shirt up to the camera while filming a story in a Shanghai market. "Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: 'This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about,'" she said. "And that was it. They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands," Chang said. "I didn't give in. "There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle," she said, adding that CNN "had everything on tape." "We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold, maze of a market," she said. "A crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up. "They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt," she said. "Finally, they let us go. Phew!" Chang refused to surrender the offending shirt and joked that a number of jealous White House and CNN colleagues had tried to "bribe" her for it. Source
HERMANTOWN, Minn. -- Police in Minnesota said a man struck an employee with a backhoe because he did not believe the worker was performing his duties properly. Investigators said Michael Billman, co-owner of Billman's Home Center in Hermantown, Minn., was in the excavator at a construction site Wednesday and began arguing with an employee who was working in a trench, KQDS-TV, Duluth, Minn., reported. "Mr. Billman was not believing that the victim was doing his job properly, basically," Hermantown Police Sgt. Mark Gunderson said. Gunderson Billman swung the backhoe and struck the worker, who was taken to St. Mary's Hospital with several bruises but no broken bones. Billman, who was charged with second-degree assault, told police he had only intended to "nudge" the worker with the backhoe to get his attention. Investigators said Billman admitted he believed his actions were stupid. Source
ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. -- Police in Tennessee said a woman arrested on a charge of driving under the influence apparently mistook an officer for a server at a Sonic Drive-In. Investigators said a 911 caller Saturday reported a woman slumped over a steering wheel was driving out of Ingle's Market in Elizabethton and nearly striking several vehicles, the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press reported Friday. An officer approached the car after it pulled into a parking space at the nearby Sonic Drive-In and found the driver asleep, police said. The woman woke up and attempted to hand the officer a $20 bill and continued to attempt to hand over the money despite the officer's protests that she was not a Sonic employee. The officer said the woman did not seem to realize she was being addressed by a police officer. The officer arrested the woman and discovered a used syringe, a spoon with white powdery residue and numerous bottles of prescription medicine in the car, police said. Veletta Cuba Newman, 31, was charged with second offense driving under the influence and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. She was jailed on $1,000 bond. Source
The lion may have appeared wild, but it had clearly learnt one or two things about cars after years of watching curious visitors drive past. As the white Toyota came to a halt in the Lion Safari Park in Johannesburg, it slowly padded over while the family inside watched in excitement, unaware of what was about to happen. Their glee turned to horror as the 300lb lion firmly took the rear door handle with his teeth and pulled it open in one deft movement. For several seconds the car remained still while the occupants digested the shock of what had happened before finally hitting the accelerator and driving off. As they fled, the lion followed in pursuit until it reached the gates of the enclosure. There it was finally held back by a warden who hurled stones to shoo it back. Richard Holden, a British tourist, was behind the family in the Toyota and managed to capture the action on his camera. All the visitors were told to take off all removable items, like windscreen wipers and aerials, and lock their windows and doors. But Mr Holden, 32, an engineer, who was on holiday with wife Candice, 32, a teacher, and their two-year-old daughter Faye, said the car in front had obviously left the doors unlocked. However, even then if the animals managed to get inside they are well fed by park keepers and would be unlikely to attack any tourists. "But they must have been panicking because they didn't drive off straight away," said Mr Holden, from Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. "If that had been me, I would have hit the gas." Source
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A British woman who trapped her pedophile husband by posing as a teenage girl on the internet has been praised by a children's charity, Sky News reported. David Anthony Roberts, 69, asked a girl he believed to be aged 14 to have sex with him, not realizing he was having an online conversation with his wife Cheryl. Cheryl Roberts was so shocked she called in the police and The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, who discovered indecent images of children on his computer. Her husband admitted to police he would have been prepared to have sex with the 14-year-old from the internet chatroom if she had agreed to meet up with him. David Roberts, of Bridgend, south Wales, was sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday and ordered to attend a program for sex offenders as part of a three-year community order. He must also register as a sex offender for five years and is banned indefinitely from having contact in person or online with children under the age of 18. Source, Source
Lorry driver Jason Ripley was almost killed when he was impaled on a pole which came within inches of piercing his heart. The pole smashed through the windscreen of his truck and continued through his chest. The father-of-two remained conscious long enough to telephone his disbelieving boss to say: "I've had a bit of an accident." Mr Ripley, 39, said he owed his life to paramedics who airlifted him to hospital. The delivery man was taking timber to engineering firm Henry Williams, in his home town, Darlington, when he collided with a steel horizontal barrier in August last year. He told The Sunday Sun in Newcastle: "I just didn't see it at all. It went straight through my chest and out the back. There was seven or eight feet of pole sticking out. "I just thought it was pinning me. I thought it was digging into my flesh but that was it. When I looked down I realised it had gone straight through I was very shocked. It was only two or three inches away from my heart. I was just staring up at the sky, thinking that's it, I'm going to die, I'm not going to see anyone again." As Jason resigned himself to dying, his thoughts turned to his partner Helen Todd, 38, and sons Joshua, 19, and Jay, 11. Fire crews cut a section of the pole away, before a helicopter from the Great North Air Ambulance arrived to take him to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough. Within minutes, he was put into the hands of doctors who put him into an induced 24-hour coma. Surgeons cut into his ribs and slid the barrier out from the side, under his arm. He had to have one rib removed and another two bound together. Within months of the accident, he had returned to work. Source
