WhiteBoard News for Wednesday, January 06, 1999

Amsterdam, Netherlands:

A Dutch clockmaker bequeathed 9.2 million guilders
($4.9 million) to the poor and needy in his home town
of Haarlem Tuesday -- almost two centuries after his
death.

Johannes Coelombie died in 1805 aged 73, leaving some
16,000 guilders to his loyal housekeeper. On her death
140 years ago, the inheritance passed to the trustees
of a Lutheran orphanage and two other religious
institutions.

In his will, Coelombie instructed the trustees to
invest the cash in stocks and bonds to gain a sum that
would go toward "eradicating shameless begging and
easing the suffering of the poor and needy by helping
them to find work."

Tuesday, the trustees in a statement revealed for the
first time how much the investments were worth -- 9.2
million guilders.

Under the clockmaker's will, the money is to be handed
over to the poor this year. There was no indication as
to why he chose 1999.

It was not immediately clear which charities in
Haarlem, a town outside Amsterdam, will benefit from
Coelombie's bequest.
==========

London, England:

Britons were offered a chance to make a string of
offbeat New Year bets -- from Queen Elizabeth
abdicating to a streaker enlivening parliament.

Bookmaker William Hill, pandering to the British
penchant for quirky bets, offered odds of 25-1 that the
monarch would step down. Her son Charles marrying
ex-nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke was a 100-1 shot.

A streaker in the House of Commons was rated a 16-1
probability while a divorce for President Clinton was
offered as a 10-1 wager.
==========

Tirgu Frumos, Romania:

A man taken to hospital in Tirgu Frumos, Romania, on
New Year's Eve and declared dead from alcoholic
poisoning was seeing in the New Year with his family a
few hours later, police reported.

A doctor who went to the morgue for a post-mortem
examination on Leon Iani, 25, found that the body had
disappeared. Police went to Mr Iani's home to find his
family toasting his return. Mr Iani said he had no
recollection of the incident except the horror of
waking up among the corpses
===========

Lake Jackson, Texas:

It's settled: President Clinton is all washed up - or
so say the customers at Ernie's Car Wash.

Two weeks ago, owner Ernie Davis decided to take his
own poll about what the common folk think of Clinton's
troubles. So he placed a sign in front of his two car
wash lanes: one for impeachment, the other against.

The results haven't been exactly muddy.

"The impeachment lane is by far the winner," Davis said
Monday. "It's more than two-to-one for impeachment. A
lot of people are very adamant. They will back out of
one lane to go to the other."

Officially, Davis said, it was 1,571 drivers for
impeachment, 749 against.

At first, Davis was concerned about offending customers
in this small town 50 miles south of Houston. But
business has been booming, he said.

He is also careful not to say which line he would drive
through.

"I'm afraid that would hurt my business," he said.
==========

Pasadena, California:

Bad weather in the Midwest has kept 140 members of
Ohio's Defiance High School band trapped in California.

Boohoo.

So far, they've had to endure nice weather,
complimentary tickets to Knott's Berry Farm amusement
park and free time at the Santa Monica pier and the
hotel pool.

"We have a lot of homesick kids, but it's good to be
homesick in California," band director Vince Polce said
Tuesday.

The band performed in last week's Tournament of Roses
Parade and got stuck Saturday when 2 feet of snow shut
down Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, from where
they were to connect with a flight home.

Offers of help soon arrived after the band's plight was
publicized.

A former Ohio couple now living in California sent
pizzas and another man gave a barbecue. "Party of Five"
star Jennifer Love Hewitt sent over Tuesday's dinner.

In addition to amusement park tickets, some band
members were given tickets to a college basketball
game, and the Tournament of Roses donated buses so the
band could get around town.

With a little luck, everyone should be back in the
frigid Ohio weather by Wednesday night.
==========

Springfield, Illinois:

Danny Crawford played tough guy when he robbed a rural
bank last summer, holding out a nylon bag to a teller
and demanding that she "fill it up, and I don't mean
maybe."

He was less fierce Monday. Crawford and his wife,
Carrie, were red-faced and teary-eyed as a judge told
them to apologize to their families.

U.S. District Judge Richard Mills sentenced the couple
to prison terms for stealing $14,000 from the tiny
State Bank of Eldred on June 2. Crawford, 21, got three
years and 10 months; his 22-year-old wife got two
years.

The couple didn't exactly plan the perfect crime.

They used a car with a personalized license plate and
then made their escape via a slow ferry across the
Illinois River rather than quickly disappearing on the
nearest interstate.

And when police told Danny Crawford's mother, Connie
Robinson, that her son was wanted in connection with
the robbery, she tracked the couple to a motel, ordered
them into the car and drove them to the sheriff's
office.

Crawford's mother also accompanied the pair back to the
bank so they could apologize.
==========

Edmonton, Canada:

Discriminating bandits are holding a $8,000 bottle of
rare single-malt scotch for ransom following a New
Year's Day heist at an Edmonton, Alberta liquor store.

Thieves broke into the Chateau Louis Liquor Store early
Jan. 1, smashed a display case and made off with the
prized bottle of 44-year-old Bowmore whiskey, one of
only 306 bottles produced at the Bowmore distillery on
the island of Islay in Scotland's Western Isles.

Store manager Don Koziak said Wednesday he first
suspected the amber nectar, which can sell for more
than $350 a nip, was pilfered by drunken New Year's Eve
revelers who had no idea of the bottle's value.

But late Sunday, an anonymous caller told Koziak the
robbers had been hired specifically to steal the
Bowmore and that the bottle was being offered for
auction at a local club. The bid on the table was
$4,530.

"He indicated to me that if I was interested, I could
have it for probably $4,025 or $4,600," Koziak told
Reuters Wednesday.

Only 294 bottles are in circulation outside the
distillery, which has been in existence since 1779. The
plant has another dozen bottles of the fine malt
because connoisseurs who buy it are entitled to stay
for a weekend at a nearby private cottage, take a
guided tour, then sample a dram from its stock.

"The bottle is serial numbered -- it's engraved with a
number 249 of 306, so whoever has it will have a tough
time. It's like a stolen piece of art," Koziak said.

So far, Edmonton police have few leads, except for a
hammer, broken glass, a fingerprint and some blood left
at the scene of the crime. The bottle is insured.
==========

Chow
SuperChef
WhiteBoard News Service Bureau Chef
www.joeha.com/whiteboard