Man Threatens Cops With His Banana

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado man is facing a felony menacing charge after two western Colorado sheriff's deputies say he pointed a banana at them and they thought it was a gun. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/1rqFiVE ) 27-year-old Nathan Rolf Channing, of Fruitvale, was arrested Sunday. According to an arrest affidavit, Mesa County deputies Joshua Bunch and Donald Love said they feared for their lives even though they saw that the object was yellow. Bunch wrote in the affidavit that he has seen handguns in many shapes and colors. He wrote that Love was drawing his service weapon when Channing yelled, "It's a banana!" The deputies say Channing told them he was doing a trial run for a planned YouTube video and he thought it would "lighten the holiday spirit."

Nude Dude Pursues Quest

LONDON (AP) — A British man who spurns clothes has lost a legal bid to have public nudity declared a human right. The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that Stephen Gough's rights were not violated by repeated arrests and convictions for being naked in public. The court said Gough's legal woes were the result of conduct that could be "alarming and morally and otherwise offensive" to others. Gough, a 55-year-old former Royal Marine nicknamed the "Naked Rambler," has twice walked the length of Britain, with frequent interruptions for arrests, court appearances and jail time. He has served multiple sentences for appearing nude in places including courts and an airplane. He was arrested more than 30 times in Scotland between 2003 and 2012, the court noted, and he spent more than seven years in detention there between May 2006 and October 2012. "His imprisonment was the consequence of his repeated violation of the criminal law, in full knowledge of the consequences, through conduct which went against the standards of accepted public behavior in any modern democratic society," the court said. There is no law in Britain against public nudity. However, there are laws against indecent exposure or behavior likely to cause "harassment, alarm or distress." Gough called the judgment a disappointment but added: "I have no choice but to continue."

Florida Nabs "Stupid" Title Again

Oct.15,2014 Daytona Beach News Herald Mark and Brenda Voss of Missouri recently completed construction on their gorgeous 5,300-square-foot beach house in a gated community in Hammock Dunes in Florida. The only problem with their palatial new digs? It was built on the wrong lot. Contractors built the $680,000, 5-bedroom house on property that technically belongs to a couple from North Carolina. The couple purchased the lot in 2003 but never developed it. According to Keystone Homes, which built the house, the mistake is traced to a survey conducted last year that pointed out the wrong stretch of land on which to build the Voss's home. Renters had been living in the house for months until the slip-up was noticed in September. So what happens now? Keystone Vice President Robbie Richmond says the company is looking for a way to negotiate a settlement. "We are 100 percent committed to finding a resolution that is fair," he said. "I have built about 600 homes in Flagler County, and this has never happened to me before. It does happen, but it's rare."

The Moving Dead Now Gone

Florida drive-through funeral home demolished October 10, 2014 07:04PM EDT OCALA, Fla. (AP) — A former drive-through funeral home in Florida has been razed. The building in Ocala sat empty for years, but in the early '80s it was set up to permit mourners to see departed loved ones without ever leaving the car. The Ocala Star-Banner (http://tinyurl.com/ojn9b7t ) reports a large drive-through bank teller window was added to the Westside Serenity Funeral Home after the city denied a request for additional parking. The deceased lay in state next to the window behind closed drapes that opened when the front tires of a car passed over a rubber cable on the ground. Mourners signed in at a register kept in a deposit drawer. When the car's back tires drove over the cable again, the drapes closed and the lights and music that mourners heard shut off. ___ Information from: Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner, http://www.starbanner.com/

Danger to Opposite Sex Couples

9th Circ. DESTROYS Idaho/Nevada re same sex marriage: http://t.co/U36seboteg Footnotes kick-ass/take names. pic.twitter.com/NvtITCi33b

— T Karney (@pecunium) October 7, 2014

Wyoming Trucker Steals More Chicken Than He Can Run With

MARTIN KIDSTON/Missoulian September 24, 2014 Missoula health officers are working to deal with tens of thousands of pounds of rotting chickens inside a stolen semi that was abandoned at the Missoula Wye. Missoula health officer: No easy fix for semi full of rotten chicken The roughly 37,000 pounds of rotting chicken in a semi trailer at the Wye may be a little harder to get rid of than originally hoped. WYE – A big white trailer parked at a truck stop isn’t likely to turn heads, unless it’s been sitting there for days, dripping the juices of rotting chickens and attracting flies. Missoula County sheriff’s deputies discovered the 53-foot trailer at Town Pump’s Flying J truck stop Tuesday. Owned by Dixie River Freight in Nampa, Idaho, the trailer is loaded with 35,000 pounds of raw chicken valued at $80,000. And the chicken is turning rancid. On Wednesday, Paige Pavalone, public information officer for the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, said the truck and trailer were reported stolen within the past few days by Dixie River Freight. The trucker, a Dixie River employee, had texted his company saying he’d return the chicken in exchange for ransom money. When the company declined, the suspect abandoned the trailer at the Flying J and left in the rig. The truck was reported stolen, but the trailer wasn’t entered into the national database, leaving deputies to discover it by happenstance this week. Pavalone said the local sheriff’s office is acting as the recovering agency, so does not know if the suspect had been located. Calls to the Nampa Police Department weren’t returned Wednesday. “I noticed (the trailer) sitting there when I came out Saturday,” said Crystal Friede, manager of the truck stop. “I keep an eye on how long trucks have been sitting there. You need to know if someone’s in the truck. In this case, it’s chicken.” The truck was abandoned on the asphalt pad north of Flying J. There, the chicken juice dripped from the container, staining the ground with a gooey red and translucent liquid. The flies had gathered around the juices in the 90-degree heat and a faint odor of rotting meat wafted in the air. Friede said county health officials visited the truck stop Wednesday searching for a way to discard the rotting carcasses. The trailer hasn’t been opened or moved since its discovery, and it’s unknown how the chickens are packaged. “They’re dripping all over the ground,” Friede said. “It’s turning colors out there. I didn’t know chicken was red.” Shannon Therriault, environmental health supervisor with the Missoula City-County Health Department, said deputies notified her office of the problem Tuesday. A county sanitarian inspected the trailer as the Health Department contacted Dixie River’s insurance company, along with Republic Services of Missoula, to find a solution. “We’re typically involved in truck wrecks, making sure compromised food is discarded and doesn’t enter the food chain,” Therriault said. “Obviously, this chicken isn’t going to get used at this point, but the question is, what needs to happen to dispose of it safely?” Therriault said a number of issues need to be resolved before the trailer can be moved. The insurance company must decide if the trailer can be cleaned for future food transport, or if it’s a total loss. Sanitation officials will also decide if the truck can be wrapped and moved to the dump for unloading, or if the contents need to be unloaded into a leak-proof container on site. “It would be ideal to only have to deal with it once,” Therriault said. “We don’t want rotting chicken dripping from here to who knows where. If it’s leaking a little now, if you move it, more can happen.” Health Department employees wouldn’t unload the rotting chicken. Republic Services has an expert on staff to deal with rotten poultry, Therriault said. “We’ll try to figure out, between parties, the best way to have the least amount of contact with the contents,” Therriault said. “Whether the truck is cleanable and can be sanitized – if it’s going to carry food again – is up to the insurance company.” Chickens'Cousin Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 523-5260, or at martin.kidston@missoulian.com.

Man Uses Fake Banana to Rob Store

September 17, 2014 PHILADELPHIA (BP) — Police in Philadelphia say a man used what appeared to be a banana in his pocket to simulate a gun while he robbed a convenience store. A man entered a corner grocery store on Tuesday. He waited in line and then used his erect penis to simulate a gun in his pants pocket which he pointed at a young, inexperienced female clerk. Police say the man demanded money and cigarettes, and made off with an undetermined amount of cash. A video shows him riding off on a bicycle, carefully avoiding mashing the banana on the bike bar.