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WI-- A love-struck buck ran out of luck a week ago. The seven-point buck was killed when it rammed a 640-pound concrete statue of an elk in the backyard of Mark and Carol Brye's home in rural Viroqua. Bucks often fight during the breeding season, commonly called the rut. Dominant bucks defend breeding territories and female deer by sparring with subordinate bucks. Antler battles sometimes result in the death of one or both deer, but usually end with the biggest buck winning and the smaller buck high-tailing it out to another area. Mark Brye, who owns Brye Plumbing in Viroqua, was still laughing about the suicidal buck he found near his elk statue last week. Brye said his morning ritual is to rise early and look out at the life-like statue about 40 yards from his home. "Our son and daughter gave it to us for Christmas four years ago because we like to hunt elk," Brye said. "The elk is a nice thing to see every morning. It looks pretty cool, especially on a foggy morning." Brye said he knew exactly what happened when he saw the statue tipped over. Although they were about the same height, the statue weighed at least three times more than the 180-pound deer. He didn't realize the buck lay dead a short distance away. "I could tell the buck poked the statue a couple of times by the chipped paint on it," Brye said, adding that the buck eventually rammed it like a mountain goat. The buck apparently staggered about 20 feet and fell. Brye claimed the buck with a tag from the Vernon County conservation warden. He laughed at the warden's tag note: "lawn ornament fight - lost." Brye said the deer shattered its skull. The antlers were still on its head but were dangling. "The statue is OK, but the antlers broke off when it tipped over," Brye said. "One side of the antlers is in one piece, but the other side is in five pieces." Brye, 58, is considering removing the antlers from the unlucky buck and gluing them on the elk statue as a remembrance of the strange but true story. The deer is butchered and in Brye's freezer. The elk remains on its side. "I can't tip it back up until I get a whole bunch of guys to help me," he said. Source
GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) - A middle school in North Carolina is selling test scores to students in a bid to raise money. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Wednesday that a parent advisory council at Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro come up with the fundraiser plan after last year's chocolate sale flopped. The school will sell 20 test points to students for $20. Students can add 10 extra points to each of two tests of their choice. The extra points could take a student from a "B'' to an "A'' on those tests or from a failing grade to a passing grade. Principal Susie Shepherd says it's not enough of an impact to change a student's overall grades. Officials at the state Department of Public Instruction say exchanging grades for money teaches children the wrong lessons.\ Source
ROME (Reuters) - An Italian inventor has combined faith and ingenuity to come up with a way to keep church traditions alive for the faithful without the fear of contracting swine flu -- an electronic holy water dispenser. The terracotta dispenser, used in the northern town of Fornaci di Briosco, functions like an automatic soap dispenser in public washrooms -- a churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water. "It has been a bit of a novelty. People initially were a bit shocked by this technological innovation but then they welcomed it with great enthusiasm and joy. The members of this parish have got used to it," said Father Pierangelo Motta. Catholics entering and leaving churches usually dip their hands into fonts full of holy water -- which has been blessed by a priest -- and make the sign of the cross. But fear of contracting the H1N1 virus has led many in Italy -- where some 15 people have died of swine flu -- not to dip their hands in the communal water font. "It's great," said worshipper Marta Caimm as she entered the church. "Thanks to this we are not worried about catching swine flu. It is the right thing for the times," she said. Luciano Marabese, who invented the dispenser, said he did so out of concern that fear of swine flu was eroding traditions. And he is now blessing himself all the way to the bank. "After all the news that some churches, like Milan's cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars. I have received orders from all over the world," he said. Source
MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee Army reservist's military identification earned him some street cred Tuesday, when he says four men who mugged him at gunpoint returned his belongings and thanked him for his service after finding the ID. The 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student said he was walking home from work about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday when he was pulled into an alley and told to lay face down and with a gun to his neck. Four men took his wallet, $16, keys, his cell phone and even a PowerBar wrapper from his pants pockets, he said. But the hostile tone quickly changed when one of the robbers, whom the reservist presumed was the leader, saw an Army ID in the wallet. The robber told the others to return the items and they put most of his belongings on the ground next to him, including the wrapper, the reservist said. "The guy continued to say throughout the situation that he respects what I do and at one point he actually thanked me and he actually apologized," said the reservist, who asked not to be identified Tuesday because the robbers still had his keys. The reservist said he asked the men, who all had hoods or hats covering their faces, if he could get up and they said he could before starting to walk away. "The leader of the group actually walked back, gave me a quick fist bump, which was very strange," he said. Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said the reservist is credible and that officers still were looking for the suspects Tuesday. The reservist didn't realize until later that his keys were not with him and he doesn't know if the robbers intended to keep those, he said. Still, he said he feels lucky. "I'm just kind of awe struck that everything was given back to me due to just being in the military, " he said. "I realize in pretty much every other situation that wouldn't happen." He said he's never been deployed, only having signed up for the Army Reserves about a year ago. He said he is the first person in his immediate family to join the military. Source
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St. Paul, Minn. — A Golden Valley day care provider used pajamas as straitjackets and pinned young children in her care to mattresses as a form of punishment, authorities said in charges filed in Hennepin County District Court. The charges filed Monday against Arvilla Marie Lilly Meinhardt, 70, said police found pajamas with large safety pins in them and a mattress that appeared to have pin holes in it at the home day care center Meinhardt runs for children under age 4. Police found out about Meinhardt's alleged punishment tactic from a 7-year-old girl who used to attend the day care. Meinhardt was charged with malicious punishment of a child and false imprisonment, which are both gross misdemeanors. According to the criminal complaint, Meinhardt told a police detective she had been using the practice to control children for about eight years on children who were 2 and 3 years old. A straitjacket was created by taking a child's arms out of the pajama sleeves and pinning the sleeves behind their backs, Meinhardt said, according to court documents. The pajama legs would be pinned together at the children's calves. The pajama zipper would also be pinned so that the children could not get out of the pajamas, she told police. Meinhardt did not tell children's parents about the practice, authorities said. Meinhardt, along with her husband and daughter, were arrested Friday but have since been released. Meinhardt's husband and daughter have not been charged with any crimes. Meinhardt's attorney, John Leunig, said Tuesday that he's unhappy prosecutors and reports in the news media are making it look like his client is some kind of monster. Leunig said Meinhardt has a clean criminal record. "The truth is she has dozens and dozens of happy clients," Leunig said. "She's a nice lady and she's never done anything wrong in her life." Source
CHARLESTON, W.Va.--Police say a 9-year-old boy tried to fight off a Charleston man who attempted to steal his family's car at a West Side convenience store. Charleston police said Jonathan Martin, 32, of Sissonville Drive approached a 2001 Buick LeSabre in parking lot of the One Stop convenience store, located in the 100 block of Lee Street West. Lt. Kim West said Stephanie Medford of Charleston had left the Buick in the lot Wednesday night with the keys in the ignition and the engine running while she went into the store. Waiting inside the vehicle were her four children: a 9-year-old boy in the front passenger seat and three younger boys, aged 3 years, 19 months and 4 months, in safety seats in the back, police said. Martin allegedly got into the vehicle and tried to shift it into drive, according to a complaint filed in Kanawha Magistrate Court. At that point, the oldest of Medford's children, who had been sitting in the front passenger's seat, grabbed the car keys and pulled them out of the ignition, the complaint said. Martin reached for the keys, trying to take them away from the boy, but was unable to, police wrote in the complaint. Martin, who stands about 6 feet tall and weighs 280 pounds, then punched the child in the face, causing the boy to fall out of the vehicle, the complaint said. Police said Martin then got out of the car and tried to run across Lee Street to get away from the scene. He didn't get very far before tripping in the middle of the road, the complaint said. Officers said they found Martin lying in a parking lot across the street from the convenience store and that the man talked to them as he was being arrested. He said, according to the complaint, "I was trying to take the car. I know I'm stupid. I knew the kids were in there, sorry." West, the lieutenant, said Thursday that the children, including the 9-year-old, were not injured. She said Medford, the mother, got a stern lecture from officers about leaving her children in the car, but she said the woman was just happy that her children were safe. Source
A Canadian teenager has been rescued after he got trapped on a floating piece of ice - with three polar bears. The 17-year-old had been on a hunting trip with his uncle when he became stuck on the ice pan, reports the Daily Telegraph. He shot one of the bears in self defense and was suffering from hypothermia when he was eventually rescued. It happened after a snowmobile the teen and his 67-year-old uncle were riding broke down on Southampton Island in the northern part of Hudson Bay. As they walked toward the tiny community of Coral Harbour - 11 miles away - to get help, they became separated. A large chunk of ice broke off, setting the teen adrift. While the teenager was lost in the wilderness he encountered three polar bears, an adult and two older cubs, on the same large ice pan. Ed Zebedee, director of the Government of Nunavut's protection services branch, said: "He did have to shoot the polar bear to protect himself. "There were two other bears on the ice pan but they stayed away from him so he didn't shoot at them at all." The uncle was picked up by searchers on snowmobiles and the teenager was spotted by a search plane later that day. It dropped him a container of chocolate bars. The following day, two search-and-rescue technicians parachuted to a larger ice floe a short distance away to mount their successful rescue attempt. Source
HOLLAND, Mich., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Authorities in Michigan said a 79-year-old man suffered cuts, abrasions and burns when he attempted to destroy old fireworks in a backyard fire pit. Ottawa County sheriff's deputies responding to a report of a fire on a roof in the area said they spotted the man near a fire pit late Sunday morning and a huge explosion followed that left the man injured, WWMT-TV, Kalamazoo, Mich., reported Monday. The man told investigators he was trying to destroy fireworks in the pit. Deputies told the Holland (Mich.) Sentinel the Michigan Bomb Squad was called in dispose of the remaining fireworks. Source Have any interesting articles you'd like to share? Article Request Thread.
LONDON (Reuters) - London commuters listening out for the latest news about train services got a broadcast with a difference when the noise of a couple apparently having sex was blasted out over a station's loudspeaker system. Instead of the usual messages about delays, passengers at West Ham station in east London heard a couple's love-making antics being relayed over platform loudspeakers during the evening rush hour on Thursday. "The noises heard by passengers were not from within our station. We believe they were a result of some sort of interference with our public address system," a Transport for London spokesman said on Friday. "It certainly wasn't coming from our staff." He said the station's public address system worked on radio waves and somebody must have been broadcasting on the same wavelength. He said staff had turned off the loudspeakers as soon as they realised what was going on. "It was definitely a couple doing it there and then," passenger Laura O'Connor told the London Evening Standard newspaper. "He was grunting loudly and she sounded like she was having a great time. The driver must have heard it, too, as the doors stayed open longer than usual." Source
