Mid-Daily Item: Boy is a human pin cushion

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The Associated Press

December 17, 2009

Anonymous The Daily Item Thu Dec 17, 2009, 12:35 PM EST

A 2-year-old boy with more than 40 sewing needles stuck in him is being airlifted to another hospital in northeastern Brazil because two of the needles are close to his heart, an official said Thursday. A police official, meanwhile, told The Associated Press the boy's stepfather had been arrested, that he had confessed to sticking the needles into the boy with the help of a woman and that authorities were investigating whether black magic was involved. Surgeons at a hospital in the town of Barreiras in Bahia state decided not to try to remove any needles after discovering that two were very near the boy's heart, said an official at Hospital do Oeste. She said that doctors had located 42 needles in the boy -- eight fewer than they had reported finding Wednesday. The boy was in intensive care but was in stable condition before being airlifted 240 miles (390 kilometers) to a hospital in the coastal city of Salvador with a special heart unit.

An 11-year-old North Carolina boy has found and returned a stolen purse with nearly $2,000 inside. The News & Record of Greensboro reported Wednesday that Edward Myers and his siblings were helping neighbors plant trees in a Greensboro park when he spotted a purse on the creek bank. The Boy Scout and his mother called the police, and the purse's owner showed up to collect. The owner told police her car was broken into on Thanksgiving. Police said the thief took $30 out of the main billfold but missed $1,900 in another compartment before flinging the purse into the creek. The owner rewarded Edward with one of the $100 bills. He gave $40 of it to his mother and spent the other $60 on a Carolina Panthers jersey.

A New Zealand teen who was flashing her breasts at passing cars has been found guilty of disorderly behavior for the prank, which ended with her in a hospital after a distracted driver ran into her. Cherelle May Dudfield, 18, pleaded guilty to the charge when she appeared in Invercargill District Court, the Southland Times newspaper reported Wednesday. Dudfield, egged on by her friends, was flashing passing motorists from a traffic island in the middle of a four-lane road in the southern city of Invercargill on Sept. 27. The alcohol-fueled prank went awry when one of the vehicles crashed into her as she tried to run to the side of the road, police Inspector Olaf Jensen said. Dudfield was fined $198.

A couple were charged in federal court in Sioux Falls, S.D., with faking the husband's death to collect on life insurance. A woman, 39, and her 45-year-old husband pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The wife was free on bond while the husband was being held without bond. Authorities said the woman claimed that her husband had died after eating bad oysters during a family vacation in Malaysia in 2003. She eventually settled the insurance case with two insurance companies for $2 million. FBI agents informed Sioux Falls-based Midland National Life about a year ago that the husband walked into the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, and asked to renew his passport. The man was arrested in Guam last month.

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Mid-Daily Items Blog

Mid-Daily Item: Boy is a human pin cushion A 2-year-old boy with more than 40 sewing needles stuck in him is being airlifted to another hospital in northeastern Brazil because two of the needles are close to his heart, an official said Thursday.
December 17, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: Book 99 years overdue returned The book returned to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts this week wasn't overdue by a week, a month or even a year. It was nearly a century overdue, and the fine came to $361.35.
December 16, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: Daughter replacing mom at rodeo Eight times, Jordon Peterson watched her mom, Kristie, compete in the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. On Thursday, the second Peterson generation will hit the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas dirt as the 51st NFR starts its annual 10-day run to crown the season's champions.
December 1, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: Image of Jesus appears on iron A Methuen, Mass., mother who recently separated from her husband and had her hours cut at work says an image of Jesus Christ she sees on her iron has reassured her that "life is going to be good." Mary Jo Coady first noticed the image on Nov. 22 when she walked into her daughter's room.
December 1, 2009 2 Photos
Mid-Daily Items: Pabst is World’s Ugliest Dog A prominent under-bite, scrunched face and floppy ears are the hallmarks of a winner. That is the winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog contest.

— Naked time got a little too public for a former Georgia mayor.

— Parents are proud of their children when they excel. But in the case of a high school secretary, her daughter did not excel as she expected.

— Police say a California man donning a bustier and watching porn on a computer in an apartment complex gym was arrested after officers found drugs in his backpack.
June 29, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: Dog gets ‘stoned’ at park A dog that ran off from its owner in Seattle’s Seward Park found and ate some marijuana and got high. Owner Jen Nestor Waddell told KING-TV in Seattle the 11-year-old black Lab mix named Jack was “just stoned” May 12 after they returned home from the park. The dog’s eyes glossed over and he had trouble walking.
June 12, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: It’s an international mystery In October, the Smith family in O’Fallon, Mo., had a photograph taken for a Christmas card. Danielle Smith said Wednesday that the photo taken of her family last year was sent to family and friends, and was posted on her blog and a few social networking sites.

— When you have to go, you don’t do it at a crowded festival. A 31-year-old Detroit man faces a misdemeanor assault and battery charge after allegedly urinating on several people during an annual gay pride event.

— A Spain bakery is in trouble for allegedly throwing away an employee’s severed arm. A Spanish trade union is suing the Rovira bakery in the eastern Valencia region that allegedly threw the severed arm of an employee into a bin after it was amputated in an accident with a kneading machine.

— A 27-year-old man apparently did not like it when a judge increased his bond on drug charges and placed him under house arrest Tuesday.
June 11, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: Old almanac pays off for society We published a front page story today in the newspaper and online about a rare find in Berwick. Members of the historical society found a dusty, long-ignored copy of Benjamin Franklin’s 18th-century “Poor Richard” almanac on their shelves a few months ago, they decided to find out whether it could be real.
June 10, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items; ‘Piece be with you’ When Pastor Ken Pagano tells his congregation “Piece be with you,” he means it. The Louisville, Ky., pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment. New Bethel Church is welcoming “responsible handgun owners” to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday.

— If you lose your driver’s license and run out of beer don’t think you can go get more beer on a riding lawn mower.

— When teaching your child to drive, you better sit in the car with them. Police said a 17-year-old girl who was practicing how to drive broke her mother’s legs after stepping on the gas pedal instead of the brake.

— Robert and Catharine Pierce, of Boulder, Colo., have been accused by their landlord of being a nuisance by gardening wearing only thong underwear, plus pasties for Catharine Pierce. Neighbors complained to police about the Pierces’ scanty clothing.
June 9, 2009 1 Photo
Mid-Daily Items: Fire destroys topless coffee shop Donald Crabtree, of Vassalboro, Maine, went to local official last Wednesday about making his coffee shop more like a strip club. A deliberately set fire destroyed his home and business — a topless coffee shop — just hours after he made his pitch to the local officials.

— If you plan on robbing a bank make sure your getaway car has enough gas. Authorities say they’ve arrested two suspected bank robbers after their getaway vehicle ran out of gas.

— Moms if you don’t want your daughter dating someone try to be tactful about it. Authorities in Adelanto, Calif., arrested a woman for allegedly trying to kidnap her daughter’s boyfriend and haul him away to Northern California.

— It is never to late to graduate. A 90-year-old suburban Chicago woman who dropped out of school to help her family during the Great Depression now has her high school diploma. Eleanor Benz left Chicago Public Schools’ Lake View High in 1936 during her senior year to take a job.

June 8, 2009 1 Photo
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