WhiteBoard News for Friday, August 16, 2002

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (AP):

It wasn't your typical stolen vehicle and it definitely wasn't a textbook police pursuit. 

An officer on his way to work at 6:30 a.m. Monday was startled to see a 30-year-old man cruising down the shoulder of the street on a child's Fisher Price Power Wheels car. 

The 180-pound rider was about 10 times the recommended age for the battery-operated car, which nonetheless held up under his weight, plugging along at 3 mph, police said. 

Police eventually stopped the man after perhaps the slowest chase on record. 

The officer sounded his car horn and showed his badge to the driver, who ignored him. So the officer got out on foot and walked up to the culprit. 

Police said the driver smelled of alcohol and stumbled as he tried to get up. He told police he was going to his uncle's home, but didn't say why he was using a toy to get there. 

The officer took the man to police headquarters and released him after he sobered up, police said. A woman who called police to report that her son's toy car had been stolen opted not to press charges, but police charged the man with public drunkenness. 
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East Yorkshire, England (Ananova):

A pensioner in an East Yorkshire nursing home almost missed out on celebrating her 100th birthday today because of a mix-up over her age.

Staff at the Grange Nursing Home in Stamford Bridge thought Lillian Boggitt was 96 until a visit from a pensions official.

The official told staff Mrs Boggitt was 100 and the visit was to check if she was in good enough health to receive a letter from the Queen.

The York Evening Press says Mrs Boggitt has been at the home since 1999 and is a widow with no other family.

Matron manager Judith Seagust believes her date of birth had been incorrectly logged at some point leading to the confusion.

The home threw a surprise 100th birthday party after discovering the error.

"Lillian is an absolute joy and we all love her to bits. She used to play a lot of golf - it is golf and cups of tea which are her recipe for a long life, " said Judith.
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Istanbul, Turkey (Ananova):

A Turkish man with four wives has announced he doesn't want any more children after fathering 50.

Sirin Yavuz fathered 14 children with his first wife, 12 with the second, 14 with the third and ten with his fourth.

But now the Istanbul tobacco farmer says he has had enough.

"In the end you realise that all of your children have to be fed," he said.
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Gillingham, England (Independent Online):

It took 27 hours for four British 17-year-olds to discover they could open a door to the loft they were trapped in by pulling rather than pushing it, The Times reported on Friday.

Ali Wood of Gillingham in south-east England invited three friends to help organise a party, taking advantage of the absence of his mother, who was on holiday, The Times said.

All four went up to the attic to fetch the food and alcohol they had secretly put away, but got stuck when they couldn't open the trap door. Their guests arrived, but left when there was no answer at the front door.

The boys' frantic cries for help went unheard, and loft insulation ensured their mobile phones could not get a signal. But, with plentiful supplies of snacks and beer, their fate was not as bad as it might have been.

Wood acknowledged that panic had set in and described their hysterical relief at discovering their elementary error.

"We couldn't believe we had been stuck there so long when we could have been out in five minutes," he said.

His mother saw the funny side. "I didn't want them to have a party but I thought it was funny when I realised what had happened," said Christine Wood. 
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Calgary, Alberta, Canada (Reuters):

A bald eagle that was left for dead after its beak was shot off is alive and tearing its prey to shreds again thanks to a Canadian dentist who fashioned an artificial bill out of acrylic denture material. 

Now Dr. Brian Andrews is working to improve on the prototype, which is pinned to the tiny bit of beak left after the gun shot, so the 4-1/2-year-old bird of prey can one day return to the wild. 

"Because this is new ground for us, and I'm new at this, we expect to make three or four or five or a even dozen until we get it right," Andrews said on Friday from his dental practice in Nanaimo, British Columbia. 

"As a matter of fact, tomorrow I'm going up to fit the Mark II model, and we hope to make it even more successful." 

He based the design, complete with breathing holes, on a picture of an eagle on a recent cover of National Geographic ( news - web sites) magazine as well as a dried beak specimen. 

The director of the Vancouver Island wildlife preserve where the eagle is being cared for has named it Brian in the 62-year-old dentist's honor. 

Two people found the injured bird on the roadside two months ago near the town of Tofino on the western coast of the island. Wildlife officials determined it had been shot out of a low tree limb that day with a high-powered rifle. It is not known why the eagle was targeted. 

"It's not an unusual occurrence out here. We've got quite a number of eagles, and we have birds with legs gone and wings gone," Andrews said. "While we've been treating Brian there's been three others brought in with gunshot injuries." 

The director of the preserve nursed the 18-pound (8- kilogram) bird back to health, but the soft, remaining nub of its bill prevented it from eating anything but small morsels. 

Andrews formed a plaster impression of the remaining beak and took it to a dental technician, who made a replica out of orthodontic acrylic, the same material used to make some false teeth and mouth guards for hockey players, he said. 

He stained the device yellow, to make it look realistic. The bird took to it immediately. 

"He's tearing at his prey. When we first put it on, he gave us this nice, great big yawn and squawk, and we were quite thrilled that it stayed together," Andrews said. 

The eagle can eat an entire fish, although concerns remain about food becoming lodged between the artificial beak and the skull, prompting the need for improved models. 

Andrews is doing all the work free of charge. 

"I'm fond of wildlife. I'm a carver and I make duck decoys as a hobby. I figured: I can carve a wooden beak, maybe I can make a plastic one for this guy," he said. 
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Rockford, Michigan (AP):

If this happens again, maybe the street should be renamed Sunshine Drive. 

A small tornado that touched down Tuesday evening near Whirlwind Street uprooted trees, damaged several buildings and tipped over a delivery truck. 

The National Weather Service confirmed that a twister packing winds estimated at 70 mph caused the damage, The Grand Rapids Press reported Thursday. 

The tornado was ranked as an F-0, the least-powerful category of twisters on a scale that goes up to F-5, said Bob Dukesherer, a weather service meteorologist. In an F-5 tornado, winds can reach up to 318 mph. 

The tornado that struck about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday near the intersection of Whirlwind and Summit Avenue was so weak, Doppler radar failed to detect it. 

"There weren't any warnings out with this one, not a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning," Dukesherer said. 

Still, the twister was strong enough to leave a path of damage 300 feet wide and a mile long. 
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Koblenz, Germany (Ananova):

An armed robber in Germany demanded to see a bank's empty safes when staff told him it had stopped doing business.

Staff at the bank in Koblenz say they were completing administrative work when the robber entered the building.

He ordered staff to fill his bag with cash, but they told him the building contained no money.

Bild newspaper says the would-be robber didn't believe their story.

He demanded to see the safes and only fled after staff had shown him they were empty.
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