Mid-Daily Items: It’s an international mystery

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The Associated Press

June 11, 2009

Anonymous The Daily Item Thu Jun 11, 2009, 10:33 AM EDT

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. The photo shows her and her husband, Jeff, holding their two young children. About 10 days ago, one of Smith’s college friends was driving through Prague when he spotted their huge smiling faces in the window of a store specializing in European food. He snapped a few pictures and sent them to a flabbergasted Smith. “It’s a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague — my Christmas card photo!” said Smith, 36. Mario Bertuccio, who owns the Grazie store in Prague, said the photo was from the Internet. Details were sparse, but he said he thought it was computer-generated. When told it was a real photo - of a real family — he said he started taking steps to remove it. Smith has gotten 180,000 hits to her Web site since she recently posted the story about the well-traveled snapshot. She said the photo wasn’t used in an unseemly manner, it was just used to tell potential shoppers about the store’s delivery service. Smith said next time she posts a photo on the Internet, she’s going to lower the resolution or add an electronic watermark to make it hard to reproduce.

— 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. The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reported the man had been drinking and was upset that he was splashed with water aimed at street dancers Sunday during the Motor City Pride Festival. Police Lt. William Wilson said “he may have wanted to take revenge,” turned and urinated on the leg of a man standing next to him. The Detroit Free Press reports two other people were sprayed in the process. The man is to be arraigned June 23.

— 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. The Workers Commissions said in a statement Wednesday that Bolivian immigrant Franns Rilles lost his left arm May 28. The union said that while Rilles was being taken to a hospital someone tossed his arm into the garbage. It says the bakery then cleaned the machinery and continued production. Police found the arm the next day, the union said, but doctors were unable to reattach it. The union said Rilles had worked illegally at the factory for two years, earning euro23 ($32) a day, and had not been properly trained on the kneading machinery.

— 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. The unidentified man upset with how his case was going bolted from a Cincinnati courtroom and was chased by police officers on hand to testify in other cases. Deputies radioed to officers in the Hamilton County Courthouse to cover the exits while the man raced down two flights of stairs. He was caught and returned to the courtroom, where he cursed the judge, his attorney, the deputies and others. Judge Steve Martin ordered the man jailed on contempt for running and cursing. After the man serves the 30-day contempt sentence, he still faces the drug counts.

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Mid-Daily Items Blog

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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.
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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.
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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.
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— 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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