Two demolition contracts were recently awarded to DW Zinser for $674,330 to demolish 39 residential and 12 commercial structures, with five adjoining parking lots, during the time period from April 1 to May 31.

The exact timing of these demolitions will be determined by availability of equipment and weather conditions, officials said in a news release. The demolitions will be funded by Community Disaster Block Grant (CDBG) funds and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funds.

To date, the city has demolished 1,088 residential structures, 539 accessory structures and 93 commercial structures.

To learn more about the city’s demolition process, call 319-286-5185 or visit www.CRProgress.com.

Radio station WTOP reports that Dantley started working as a crossing guard in September. He works an hour a day at Eastern Middle School and New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Ths 6-foot-5 (1.96 meter) Dantley grew up in the area and says he took the job for the health care benefits and to have something to do. Montgomery County civil service records show he gets paid $14,685.50 a year. Dantley says he doesn’t need the money.

Dantley is a Basketball Hall of Fame member and former star for the Buffalo Braves, Utah Jazz and Detroit Pistons.

He says he enjoys encouraging the young children.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

Related articles

• NBA Legend Adrian Dantley Now Works as a Crossing Guard

here kitty, kitty, kitty (Photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker)

DENVER (AP) – Silly rabbits.

The furry creatures are wreaking havoc on cars parked at Denver International Airport by eating spark plug cables and other wiring.

To stop the problem, federal wildlife workers are removing at least 100 bunnies a month while parking companies install better fences and build perches for predator hawks and eagles.

KCNC-TV reported Thursday there’s another way to stop the damage that can cost thousands of dollars to repair.

Mechanics say coating the wires with fox or coyote urine can rob the rabbits of their appetite. Fox urine can be purchased at many hunting shops.

.

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Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Small maple syrup jug with non-functional loop handle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ANNA, Ill. (AP) – A southern Illinois family is finding their homemade maple syrup operation anything but sweet after investigators swarmed their property, mistaking their sap collection for a meth lab.

Laura Benson tells KFVS-TV that drug agents showed up at her home near Anna on Wednesday morning saying they fielded a report that a meth-making operation was on the Union County property.

When investigators pointed to buckets near some trees, 49-year-old Benson says she quickly explained the containers were collecting sap for the family’s production of syrup.

The law enforcers quickly moved on, taking with them some homemade syrup the Bensons gave them.

Benson thanks her neighbors for being alert and notifying police, even if it was a misunderstanding. She’s extending an open invitation to those locals to come by for pancakes.

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Information from: KFVS-TV, http://www.kfvs12.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

In this Nov. 29, 2012 photo, cheetah keepers Shannon Smith, left, Kim Hanley, second from left, walk Shiley, a male cheetah 3-and-half-years -old, while Larissa Combs, lead cheetah keeper, walks Yeti, a female Anatolian shepherd, along a pathway back to their enclosures at Safari Park, in Escondido, Calif. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)

SUE MANNING
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) – It may sound like a West Side Story-style love story, but some dogs love big cats.

Cheetahs are the fastest mammals in the world, but they also are the world’s biggest scaredy-cats – so much so that they don’t breed easily and are in danger of going extinct.

Some zoos are introducing dogs to calm the skittish cats and bring attention to their plight. They’re pairing “companion dogs” with some cheetahs to serve as playmates and to provide the cats with guidance.

“It’s a love story of one species helping another species survive,” said Jack Grisham, vice president of animal collections at the St. Louis Zoo and species survival plan coordinator for cheetahs in North America.

Or, to quote Stephen Stills, it’s a matter of loving the one you’re with, he said.

“It is all about comforting and reassuring the cheetah,” said Janet Rose-Hinostroza, animal training supervisor at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park – the top U.S. breeder of cheetahs in captivity. In the past 40 years, 135 cheetahs have been born at the park’s breeding facility.

The cheetahs most often found at zoos and wildlife parks are not considered good breeding candidates, they don’t relate well to other cheetahs, or they are abandoned by their mothers, Rose-Hinostroza said. But they seem to take easily to companion dogs and look to the dogs for play and example.

Of the 19 cheetahs at Safari Park, four have dogs. Four of the zoo’s cheetahs also have dogs.

The dogs, usually from animal shelters, and cheetah pups generally are introduced when they are about 3 months old.

“In this relationship, the dog is dominant, but we look for dogs that want to be a buddy,” Rose-Hinostroza said. “The dog always has the cat’s back, but it’s never the other way around. Dogs worry about their cats. They protect their cats.”

One of the most popular draws at Safari Park is the 100-meter cheetah run where the public gets to see firsthand the speed of “nature’s perfect sprinter.”

“Speed is incredibly important. It is their survival technique, in a nutshell,” Rose-Hinostroza said. “If they can’t run, they won’t survive. They are not equipped to be confrontational.”

A cheetah’s claws don’t retract, so they have footing that takes them from “zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds,” she said.

“That’s faster than every single car on the market, and it only takes three steps,” Rose-Hinostroza said.

Cheetahs use their tails like a rotor to balance while they are running. Their top speed is 60 to 70 mph, based on size, but they can run that fast only for 20 or 30 seconds. Extending that to a minute or more puts the animal in serious jeopardy of death.

“Overexertion, heat exhaustion can literally cook their organs at that speed,” Rose-Hinostroza said. She added the average cheetah chase in the wild is 200 to 300 meters.

Safari Park’s cheetahs chase a lure for 100 meters, a sprint that seldom exceeds 6 seconds.

A century ago there were 100,000 cheetahs in the wild, Grisham said. Today there are fewer than 12,000. The species has become extinct in at least 13 countries. There are about 280 captive cheetahs in zoos across the United States.

As captive efforts to save the species continue, Grisham worries there is no wild to send them home to because habitat is being swallowed up by developers and poachers are killing the cats for their fur.

Cheetahs live 12 to 15 years in captivity. Males weigh 120 to 150 pounds, and females 100 to 120 pounds.

The dogs come in all sizes. At Safari Park, the smallest and sweetest is Hopper, a male mutt who weighs 40 pounds. He’s teamed with Amara, the toughest female cheetah on the team, Rose-Hinostroza said.

Cheetah females don’t go into heat like other cats. Instead, they have to be brought into estrus by a male cheetah, the experts explained. That’s why breeding is so hard – because they aren’t social animals, they live independently, and they seldom hang out with one another.

Although the dogs and cats live together, they are not always with one another. Dogs have play dates with other dogs and humans. Mealtimes always are spent apart. The dogs eat kibble, and the cheetahs eat steak.

“The dogs are the bosses in these relationships,” Rose-Hinostroza said. “If they ate together there would be one really fat dog and a really skinny cheetah.”

One of Safari Park’s dogs – the only non-shelter dog – is Yeti, an Anatolian shepherd. She works with two cheetahs – Johari and her brother Shiley.

No one is sure when the idea of cheetah dogs started, but Anatolian shepherds helped advance it. The San Diego Zoo was given a pair of cheetahs in 1981 on the condition they be given dogs because they were used to them.

A few decades ago, Dr. Laurie Marker, founder and executive director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in the southern African nation of Namibia, brought Anatolian shepherds from Turkey and raised them to protect area goat herds.

“The Anatolian shepherd weighs up to 150 pounds and isn’t afraid of anything,” Grisham said. “They’ll square off against lions and leopards. They don’t always win, but they are very protective.

“Marker gave the dogs to farmers to protect their herds,” Grisham said. When cheetahs came looking for dinner, the dogs scared the cats away and saved the farmer’s goats. At the same time, the dogs saved the cats from being killed by the farmers. There was plenty of other food in the wild for the cats, including gazelles, impalas, springhares, birds, warthogs, kudu and hartebeest.

The dogs have helped cheetah conservation in Africa. “For the first time in 30 years, the cheetah population in the wild is on the rise because ranchers don’t have to shoot them anymore. They don’t need to shoot them. The dog is that effective at keeping the cheetah away from the herd,” Rose-Hinostroza said.

Not every zoo that breeds cheetahs uses dogs. The St. Louis Zoo, where Grisham is based, has seven cheetahs but does not use dogs. More than 30 cubs have been born at that zoo.

Visitors can still watch the skittish cats and learn what all the fuss is about, Grisham said.

“It helps us understand the plight of animals in nature. In Africa, cheetahs were treated as vermin for years, like people in the United States treat coyotes,” Grisham said.

___

Online:

- http://www.sdzsafaripark.org

- http://www.stlzoo.org

- http://www.cheetah.org

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Author: Bagande (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NEW YORK (AP) – Lovers of the unusual are getting another chance to impress their Valentines this year in New York City.

The Department of Environmental Protection is again offering Valentine’s Day tours of the Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section.

The DEP says it’s offering three tours this year due to “overwhelming demand.”

The 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. tours were quickly filled. So another was added at 11 a.m. Thursday.

Highlights include the plant’s giant egg-shaped digesters, which break down noxious waste into harmless sludge and gas.

During last year’s tour, the plant’s gung-ho superintendent warned the visitors a digester egg was about to emit a foul odor. It didn’t disappoint.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

An ocular prosthesis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An assault trial over a fight that cost a man his left eye ended in a mistrial Wednesday when his prosthetic eye popped out as he was testifying, startling jurors.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2010 file photo, an unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

PETE YOST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An unclassified Justice Department memo reveals that the Obama administration has had more lenient rules than publicly known for when drone attacks can be launched to kill U.S. citizens working abroad with terrorists.

The government does not need evidence that a specific attack is imminent, the newly disclosed Justice Department white paper says, only that the targeted suspect is involved in ongoing plotting against the United States.

“The threat posed by al-Qaida and its associated forces demands a broader concept of imminence in judging when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat,” the document says.

The undated document surfaced as Obama administration official John Brennan, who helped manage the drone program, heads to Capitol Hill on Thursday for his confirmation hearing to become CIA director. The hearing will take place as a growing number of senators are asking to see a still-classified Justice Department legal opinion that justifies the administration’s position on drones and is binding on the entire executive branch.

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined Tuesday to discuss details, saying only that President Barack Obama takes seriously his responsibility to protect the United States and its citizens from al-Qaida terrorists.

“He also takes his responsibility in conducting the war against al-Qaida as authorized by Congress in a way that is fully consistent with our Constitution and all the applicable laws,” Carney said.

Carney said care is taken to execute the strikes with precision and avoid the loss of innocent life.

“These strikes are legal, they are ethical and they are wise,” Carney said.

Controversy over U.S. policy for drone attacks mushroomed after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens.

In a speech last March, Attorney General Eric Holder said that in assessing when a targeted killing against a U.S. citizen is legal, the government must determine after careful review that a citizen poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the U.S. Brennan had made a similar speech justifying the strikes as self-defense against imminent threat of attack.

Asked Tuesday about the definition of “imminent threat” at a news conference on an unrelated topic, Holder said that “so many of these things are fact-based” and that “you can’t examine the terms without reference to the facts.” He said such details can be discussed only in a classified setting.

“Our primary concern is to keep the American people safe, but do so in a way that is consistent with our law and our values,” Holder said.

The Justice memo says that delaying action against U.S. citizens who are linked to al-Qaida would create an unacceptably high risk because some al-Qaida leaders are continually plotting attacks on the U.S. and the U.S. may not always be aware of each specific plot as they develop.

This week, a bipartisan group of 11 senators asked President Barack Obama for all legal opinions underlying the authority to kill American citizens. The newly disclosed Justice Department document, first reported by NBC News on Monday night, represents an unclassified summary of those legal opinions and may have been prepared to deflect demands to see the actual classified legal opinions.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that her panel received the unclassified document, and others, from the administration in June 2012 on a confidential basis. She said this document, coupled with other documents and closed briefings, “has allowed the Intelligence Committee to conduct appropriate and probing oversight into the use of lethal force.”

Noting that she had been calling for public release of the legal basis for using lethal force, particularly against U.S. citizens, for more than a year, Feinstein said with disclosure of the white paper “the American people can review and judge the legality of these operations.”

She added, however, that the committee continues to seek the actual legal opinions that provide details not contained in the white paper.

The Justice memo does require that capture of a terrorist suspect not be feasible and that any such lethal operation by the United States targeting a person comply with fundamental law-of-war principles.

“A decision maker determining whether an al-Qaida operational leader presents an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States must take into account that certain members of Al-Qaida … are continually plotting attacks against the United States” and that “al-Qaida would engage in such attacks regularly to the extent it were able to do so,” says the document.

The document also says that a decision maker must take into account that “the U.S. government may not be aware of all al-Qaida plots as they are developing and thus cannot be confident that none is about to occur; and that … the nation may have a limited window of opportunity within which to strike in a manner that both has a high likelihood of success and reduces the probability of American casualties.”

With this understanding, the document added, a high-level official could conclude, for example, that an individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States where he is an operational leader of al-Qaida or an associated force and is personally and continually involved in planning terrorist attacks against the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the document is “profoundly disturbing.”

“It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances,” the ACLU said.

The document says that the use of lethal force would not violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution when a targeted person is an operational leader of an enemy force and an informed, high-level government official has determined that he poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the U.S.

The document said the courts have no role to play in the matter.

“Under the circumstances described in this paper, there exists no appropriate judicial forum to evaluate these constitutional considerations. It is well established that ‘matters intimately related to foreign policy, and national security are rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention,’” the document said.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Undated photo made available by the University of Leicester, England, Monday Feb. 4 2013 of the remains found underneath a car park last September at the Grey Friars excavation in Leicester, which have been declared Monday "beyond reasonable doubt" to be the long lost remains of England's King Richard III, missing for 500 years. Richard was immortalized in a play by Shakespeare as a hunchbacked usurper who left a trail of bodies — including those of his two young nephews, murdered in the Tower of London — on his way to the throne. (AP Photo/ University of Leicester)

JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press

LEICESTER, England (AP) — He was king of England, but for centuries he lay without shroud or coffin in an unknown grave, and his name became a byword for villainy.

On Monday, scientists announced they had rescued the remains of Richard III from anonymity — and the monarch’s fans hope a revival of his reputation will soon follow.

In a dramatically orchestrated news conference, a team of archaeologists, geneticists, genealogists and other scientists from the University of Leicester announced that tests had proven what they scarcely dared to hope — a scarred and broken skeleton unearthed under a drab municipal parking lot was that of the 15th-century king, the last English monarch to die in battle.

Lead archaeologist Richard Butler said that a battery of tests proved “beyond reasonable doubt” that the remains were the king’s.

Lin Foxhall, head of the university’s school of archaeology, said the discovery “could end up rewriting a little bit of history in a big way.”

Few monarchs have seen their reputations decline as much after death as Richard III. He ruled England between 1483 and 1485, during the decades-long battle over the throne known as the Wars of the Roses, which pitted two wings of the ruling Plantagenet dynasty — York and Lancaster — against one another.

His brief reign saw liberal reforms, including the introduction of the right to bail and the lifting of restrictions on books and printing presses.

But his rule was challenged, and he was defeated and killed by the army of Henry Tudor, who took the throne as King Henry VII and ended the Plantagenet line. Britain’s current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is distantly related to Richard, but is not a descendant.

After his death, historians writing under the victorious Tudors comprehensively trashed Richard’s reputation, accusing him of myriad crimes — most famously, the murder of his two nephews, the “Princes in the Tower.”

William Shakespeare indelibly depicted Richard as a hunchbacked usurper who left a trail of bodies on his way to the throne before dying in battle, shouting “My kingdom for a horse.”

That view was repeated by many historians, and Richard remains a villain in the popular imagination. But others say Richard’s reputation was unjustly smeared by his Tudor successors.

Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society — which seeks to restore the late king’s reputation and backed the search for his grave— said that for centuries Richard’s story has been told by others, many of them hostile.

She hopes a new surge of interest, along with evidence from the skeleton about how the king lived and died — and how he was mistreated after death — will help restore his reputation.

“A wind of change is blowing, one that will seek out the truth about the real Richard III,” she said.

Langley, who helped launch the search for the king, said she could scarcely believe her quest had paid off.

“Everyone thought that I was mad,” she said. “It’s not the easiest pitch in the world, to look for a king under a council car park.”

The location of Richard’s body was unknown for centuries. He died in August 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field in the English Midlands, and records say he was buried by the Franciscan monks of Grey Friars at their church in Leicester, 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London.

The church was closed and dismantled after King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1538, and its location eventually was forgotten by most local residents.

There were tales that the king’s bones had been dug up and thrown in a nearby river in the 16th century.

Then last year a team led by University of Leicester archaeologist Richard Buckley identified a possible location of the grave through map regression analysis, starting with a current map of the general area of the former church and analyzing earlier maps to discover what had changed and not changed. Ground-penetrating radar was used to find the best places to start digging.

The team began excavating in a parking lot last August. Within a week they had located thick walls and the remains of tiled floors. Soon after, they found human remains — the skeleton of an adult male who appeared to have died in battle.

He had been buried unceremoniously, with no coffin or shroud — plausible for a despised and defeated enemy.

Increasingly excited, the researchers set out to conduct a battery of scientific tests, including radiocarbon dating to determine the skeleton’s age, to see whether, against the odds, they really had found the king.

They found the skeleton belonged to a man in his late 20s to late 30s who died between 1455 and 1540. Richard was 32 when he died in 1485.

Archaeological bone specialist Jo Appleby, a lecturer in human bioarchaeology at Leicester, said study of the bones provided “a highly convincing case for identification of Richard III.”

Appleby said the 10 injuries to the body were inflicted by weapons such as swords, daggers and halberds and were consistent with accounts of Richard being struck down in battle — his helmet knocked from his head — before his body was stripped naked and flung over the back of a horse in disgrace.

Undated photo made available by the University of Leicester, England, Monday Feb. 4 2013 of the skull found at the Grey Friars excavation in Leicester, potentially the long lost remains of England's King Richard III, ahead of an announcement about the identity of the skeleton found underneath a car park last September. (AP Photo/ University of Leicester)

Appleby said two of the blows to the head could have been fatal. Other scars, including a knife wound to the buttock, bore the hallmarks of “humiliation injuries” inflicted after death.

The remains also displayed signs of scoliosis, a form of spinal curvature, consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance, though not the withered arm Shakespeare describes.

DNA from the skeleton matched a sample taken from Michael Ibsen, a distant living relative of Richard’s sister. The project’s lead geneticist, Turi King, said Ibsen, a Canadian carpenter living in London, shares with the skeleton a rare strain of mitochondrial DNA. The same DNA group also matches a second living descendant, who wants to remain anonymous.

King said that between 1 and 2 percent of the population belongs to this genetic sub-group, so the DNA evidence is not definitive proof in itself of the skeleton’s identity. But combined with the archaeological evidence, it left little doubt the skeleton belonged to Richard.

Ibsen, a 17th great-grand-nephew of Richard’s older sister, said he was “stunned” by the discovery.

“It’s difficult to digest,” he said.

Some scientists felt qualms about the haste with which the Leicester team announced its results. The findings have not been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, though the university said they soon would be.

“It’s a bizarre way of going about things,” said Mark Horton, a professor of archaeology at the University of Bristol — although he said “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” identified the skeleton as Richard’s.

Archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine, also said he found the evidence persuasive.

“I don’t think there is any question. It is Richard III,” said Pitts, who was not affiliated with the research team.

The discovery is a boon for the city of Leicester, which has bought a building next to the parking lot to serve as a visitor center and museum.

On Monday, the king’s skeleton lay in a glass box in a meeting room within the university library. It was a browned, fragile-looking thing, its skull pocked with injuries, missing its feet — which scientists say were disturbed sometime after burial — and with a pronounced s-shape to the spine.

Soon the remains will be moved to an undisclosed secure location, and next year Richard will, at last, get a king’s burial, interred with pomp and ceremony in Leicester Cathedral.

It is a day Langley, of the Richard III Society, has dreamed of seeing.

“We have searched for him, we have found him — it is now time to honor him,” she said.

_____

Online:

The Search for Richard III: http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/greyfriars

Richard III Society: http://www.richardiii.net/

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Volunteer Jeff Branch, top, and inmates from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, work on the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, in Saranac Lake, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. (AP) — It’s a far cry from breaking rocks in the hot sun on a chain gang. In New York’s Adirondack Mountains, inmates break ice on a frozen lake to make a giant winter palace.

A work crew from an area “shock” prison camp once again this year helped local volunteers create this mountain village’s lakeside ice palace — the shimmering centerpiece of the annual Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, starting Friday.

Under snowy skies this week, inmates marched onto the frozen lake in military formation in winter-weight prison greens and hard hats. Working alongside the volunteers, they were handed poles to break off blocks or head-high saws to cut through the ice. Others in the boot camp-style incarceration program were dispatched to the tall walls of the palace with buckets of slush to fit between blocks like mortar.

“Sir, yes sir! This is an experience of a lifetime, sir,” said inmate Patrick O’Donnell. The 24-year-old from Long Island, like all inmates at Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility, answers questions like a new military recruit.

“Sir, where I live there’s not much snow, so to see something like this is an experience, sir.”

Moriah, about 45 miles from Saranac Lake through twisting mountain roads, houses a six-month shock program designed to build character and self-esteem.

Prisoners convicted of nonviolent offenses like burglary, forgery or drug sales can shave months or years off their sentences by successfully completing a shock program — but it’s tough. Inmates wake up at 5:30 a.m. for intense days of exercise, academics and substance abuse treatment.

And they work. Moriah began sending crews to help build the ice palace in 2009, after the closing of a prison closer to Saranac Lake that had sent workers since 1984.

The inmates move about the snow and ice without shackles, but under the watch of corrections officers. Officer Mike Maloney said the labor on the lake helps inmates get ready to go back to “the real world” when they graduate from the program.

“It’s actually great, sir. It makes the day go by fast — get away for a little while, get a little peace of mind, sir,” said Norman Bloom, who is from Rochester. Bloom, 25, worked with a heavy metal pole to break ice blocks into the frozen water.

Ice palaces have been a winter feature of Saranac Lake since 1898, fitting for a quaint mountain village where winter temperatures can plunge to minus 30 during cold snaps. Festival organizers say the palace tradition stems from the days when ice from local lakes was harvested for refrigeration.

An inmate from the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility cuts ice blocks from Lake Flower that will be used to construct the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace on Monday, Jan. 28, 2013, in Saranac Lake, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Volunteers were out on the village-side lake the weekend before the festival, cutting out big ice blocks. The footlocker-size ice cubes are plucked from the water by crane and fitted into the walk-in palace on the shore.

This year’s palace is about 70 feet wide and 50 feet deep inside and requires as many as 2,000 blocks, said ice palace committee chairman Dean Baker. So every hand helps.

“We could do it without them, but it would be a lot more work,” Baker said. “We’re glad they’re here.”

Warm weather and rain complicated palace construction this week, and work was suspended for a couple of days. Volunteers were back to work Friday to fix up damaged parts of the palace. Baker said they would work through the weekend if needed.

The festival’s theme this year is “under the sea,” and the organizers planned nautical touches to the palace, such as an octopus ice sculpture and a throne shaped like a scallop shell. The palace is lit up at night with multi-colored lights.

Moriah inmates do other outdoor work, such as clearing trees at state campsites, but like this job in particular.

“Sir, we’ve done everything from work on Fort Ticonderoga, built campsites, but this job is probably the most exciting just because it’s part of something bigger, sir,” O’Donnell said.

Jared Ridner, of Albany, said “this inmate loves it, sir.” Ridner, 22, is scheduled to graduate from the shock program Thursday, so he plans to visit the festival before it ends Feb. 10.

“This inmate, his parents are coming up,” Ridner said, “and we’re going to take a ride down here to show this inmate’s parents what he did, sir.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Map of Florida highlighting Volusia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

ORANGE CITY, Fla. (AP) – A conversation with two passengers landed a Florida tow truck driver in jail after his cell phone pocket-dialed 911 and dispatchers listened in.

Authorities say 19-year-old Matthew Dollarhide of Orange City was surprised when a Volusia County Sheriff’s deputy pulled him over on Tuesday and asked why they had been talking about selling drugs.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports deputies were alerted at 9:42 p.m. Tuesday and sent to a location where dispatchers said the phone signal was coming from. From the conversation, dispatchers learned that they were driving a tow truck and heard the name Harry. Deputies pulled over a Harry’s Towing truck moments later.

Authorities said deputies found a crack pipe on Dollarhide, who was arrested and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.

___

Information from: Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal, http://www.news-journalonline.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Shop owner Brian Brick tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that his store sells merchandise, including bumper stickers bearing the shop’s name. A bomb squad official says the “timebomb” label appeared to be a bumper sticker.

The bag was found on the front steps of an apartment building Thursday, prompting the bomb squad response before the bag was found to be harmless about 10 a.m.

Brick says this isn’t the first time the store’s name has alarmed authorities. He says postal officials asked him to stop mailing items in plain brown wrappers because the “Timebomb” label caused such parcels to be inspected for threats.

___

Information from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, http://www.post-gazette.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

A hand painted portrait of a gnome is shown on a utility pole near Lake Merritt Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013 in Oakland, Calif. Small paintings of gnomes that have popped up on utility poles have become a community sensation in Oakland, prompting Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to say Tuesday that it will keep them in place for now. The portraits on 6-inch blocks of wood began going up last year in an apparent effort to brighten up the blue-collar California city. There are currently more than 2,000 of the images on utility poles, with many screwed to the bases. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Small paintings of gnomes that have popped up on utility poles have become a community sensation in Oakland, prompting Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to say Tuesday that it will keep them in place for now.

The hand-painted portraits on 6-inch blocks of wood began going up last year in an apparent effort to brighten up the blue-collar California city. There are currently more than 2,000 of the images on utility poles, with many screwed to the bases.

The gnomes have red hats, white beards and brown shoes. Some of the images contain a mushroom.

Word that PG&E planned to remove the paintings sparked an outpouring of support from residents who said the gnomes add character to the city.

PG&E spokesman Jason King planned to meet Tuesday with the artist, who requested to remain anonymous, and a member of the City Council. The utility hopes to eventually relocate the gnome paintings from the poles to other spots in the same neighborhoods.

“We’ve received a lot of feedback from residents who love the gnomes,” King told The Associated Press. “We’re looking for solutions. We’ll keep them where people can enjoy them.”

King said PG&E did not want to encourage such installations, explaining a proliferation of such images could cause damage or make it difficult for crews to access the poles.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Current "blue crescent" logo (July 1, 1999–present) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

YORK, Pa. (AP) – Mourners at a Pennsylvania fast-food fan’s funeral wanted him to have it his way, so they arranged for his hearse – and the rest of the procession – to make one last drive-thru visit before reaching the cemetery.

David Kime Jr. “lived by his own rules,” daughter Linda Phiel said. He considered the lettuce on a burger his version of healthy eating, she said.

To give him a whopper of a send-off Saturday, the funeral procession stopped at a Burger King where each mourner got a sandwich for the road.

Kime got one last burger too, the York Daily Record reported. It was placed atop his flag-draped coffin at the cemetery.

Phiel said the display wasn’t a joke, rather a happy way of honoring her father and the things that brought him joy.

“He lived a wonderful life and on his own terms,” she said.

Kime, 88, a World War II veteran, died Jan. 20.

Restaurant manager Margaret Hess said she knew his face and his order. She and her crew made 40 burgers for the funeral procession.

“It’s nice to know he was a loyal customer up until the end – the very end,” she said.

___

Information from: York Daily Record, http://www.ydr.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

costco tide (Photo credit: bnilsen)

DENVER (AP) – Authorities are hoping suspects come clean following a rash of thefts of laundry detergent and expensive face lotion across Colorado.

KCNC-TV reported on Wednesday that supermarkets are installing more surveillance cameras to combat the rising tide of thefts. They are also hiring undercover agents.

Authorities believe thieves are targeting those products because of high prices.

Police have surveillance video of a suspect in Ft. Lupton getting away with more than $8,000 of detergent from six different stores.

Detergent thefts have also been reported in other parts of the country. Tide in particular has been used as currency for drugs. Experts say it is well-suited for resale on the black market.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

This 2012 photo provided by Colorado State University, shows a golden retriever, Louie Mesinger, in his backyard during the summer in Boulder, Colo. The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study will be the largest and longest study of dogs ever conducted. For Louie and 2,999 other purebred golden retreivers who are chosen over the next two years, their lives, usually a 10-to-14-year life span, will be tracked for genetic, nutritional and environmental risks to help scientists and veterinarians find ways to prevent canine cancer. (AP Photo/Colorado State University, Josh Mesinger)

SUE MANNING
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) – When Jay Mesinger heard about a study seeking golden retrievers to help fight canine cancer, he immediately signed up 2-year-old Louie.

He and his wife know firsthand the toll of canine cancer: Louie is their fourth golden retriever. The first three died of cancer.

“They all had long lives but were taken by complications from one kind of cancer or another,” said the businessman from Boulder, Colo.

For Louie and 2,999 other purebred goldens, it will be the study of a lifetime. Their lives – usually a 10-to-14-year span – will be tracked for genetic, nutritional and environmental risks to help scientists and veterinarians find ways to prevent canine cancer, widely considered the No. 1 cause of death in older dogs, said Dr. Rodney Page.

The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study will be the largest and longest dog study ever conducted, said Page, the study’s principal investigator, a professor of veterinary oncology and the director of the Flint Animal Cancer Center at Colorado State University.

The study will focus on three cancers that can be fatal to the dogs, including bone cancer, lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes) and a cancer in the blood vessels called hemangiosarcoma, Page said. He also expects the data to yield information about other dog diseases, like arthritis, hip dysplasia, hormonal and skin disorders and epilepsy, he said.

The Morris Animal Foundation, a 64-year-old group based in Denver, is providing much of the $25 million needed for the study. The rest will be funded through online public donations that allow people to sponsor one of the 3,000 canine volunteers.

The study is recruiting purebred golden retrievers under the age of 2 whose pedigree can be traced back at least three generations. The breed was chosen because “they are very common. They are the fourth- or fifth-most common dog recognized by the American Kennel Club. They are wonderful companions for people and found in every walk of human endeavor,” Page said.

Researchers were seeking young dogs because “knowing the history of their lives provides huge advantages,” Page said. Those involved in the study compared the work to the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked a group of humans and their descendants from Framingham, Mass., since 1948.

Dr. Nancy Bureau, Mesinger’s veterinarian at the Alpine Animal Hospital in Boulder, said that given the condensed lifespan of a dog, it might not take a decade to see results from the study.

“Before this group of volunteer dogs has left this world, hopefully we will have data to help even them,” she said.

A pilot study of 50 dogs started in August 2012, and Page said preliminary results from that first group should be ready soon and reportable results could be possible in a year.

Work on the study started about four years ago. After funding was approved, scientific and research teams were formed, the database was set up, a bio-lab found to store the samples and a questionnaire was written.

The recruitment of volunteer dogs was expected to be done in two years, with most of it spent on verifying eligibility and participation. Page said it takes about four weeks to verify pedigree and health, and make sure a dog’s owner and veterinarian will participate. So far, 200 dogs have accepted the invitation, and 600 others are on a waiting list.

Bureau, who also has a golden retriever client on the waiting list, said it’s a privilege to be part of a groundbreaking study. Aside from researchers, participating veterinarians probably have the most work – they have to submit samples of blood, urine and hair during annual exams and report whenever they treat a volunteer dog for any reason.

Study leaders will not intervene or recommend any treatment, Page said. “We will work with the vets working with the pets. We will catalog all the things that happen, the medical history, the diet, environment and exposures.”

The vets hope the study eventually will benefit humans. Researchers will pay particular attention to early onset obesity in dogs to see how it is related to diabetes, Page said.

Dog-years are a benefit to researching ailments found in both dogs and humans, because studying a dog for 10 years is akin to studying a human for 60 or 70 years, said Dr. Wayne Jensen, the Morris Animal Foundation’s chief scientific officer and executive director.

“There are many examples where risk factors in dogs have also been found in people,” said Jensen.

The study will also try to measure factors in a dog’s life, such as how fun and an owner’s love affect the animal’s health and longevity. That will be attempted through questions about the number of children or other pets in the owner’s family, the amount of time spent together – and the dog’s sleeping spot.

Mesinger knows the answer to that one off the top of his head: “In bed, with my wife and I.”

___

Online:

http://www.CanineLifetimeHealth.org

http://www.csuanimalcancercenter.org

http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Map of Wisconsin highlighting Fond du Lac County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) – A Fond du Lac woman is accused of throwing herself to the ground and trying to hurt herself so an ambulance would give her a free ride home.

A Reporter of Fond du Lac report says a man called police saying the 36-year-old woman wouldn’t stop hassling him for money.

The woman said the man owed her $100. Police told her to take up the matter in court and leave the property. She said she had no money for cab fare and asked police to drive her home.

When the officer refused she asked for an ambulance. The officer said she had to be injured, so she threw herself down and said she hurt her knee.

Police called the ambulance but told the woman she’d be billed.

___

Information from: The Reporter, http://www.fdlreporter.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

This undated photo provided by the Virginia Zoo shows the zoo's executive director Greg Brockheim with Charles the Monarch, a Labradoodle with a cut resembling the shaggy mane and tawny coat of a Lion, in Norfolk Va. A lion reported on the loose in Norfolk Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013 was actually Charles, whose coif owner Daniel Painter says is intended to look like the mascot of Old Dominion University. (AP Photo/Virginia Zoo)

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A lion reported on the loose in Norfolk is actually a Labradoodle with a cut resembling the shaggy mane and tawny coat of a big cat.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

llama (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

MORGANTON, Ga. (AP) – Health officials say four people in northwest Georgia have been exposed to rabies by a pet llama.

Officials say a veterinarian was called to a house in Morganton on Dec. 28 because a llama was showing signs of aggression – biting at itself, at others and spitting at one of its caretakers. The llama was euthanized and sent to a lab.

Officials say the caretaker the llama spat on is receiving treatment. Authorities say one person who came into contact with the animal experienced very little exposure and will not need treatment. Officials are waiting to hear from the other two people who were exposed to the virus.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

The good news was he had fixed her heating ducts after she reported her furnace was failing to heat the house.

The bad news: Someone was living in a crawlspace under the home and had diverted the heat to keep warm.

The repairman said he found beer cans and a liquor bottle beneath the house.

Kellen told KOMO-TV on Monday that she had no idea how long the unwanted visitor had been climbing into her crawlspace, which has an opening to her backyard.

Kellen thinks the person also might have smoked marijuana, because she often smelled smoke. The squatter somehow fooled her three dogs that never barked.

___

Information from: KOMO-TV, http://www.komotv.com/

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Eggs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NEWTON, Mass. (AP) – Massachusetts police responding to reports of teenagers tossing eggs at a house last month got quite a surprise when they tracked down the suspects.

A department spokesman tells The MetroWest Daily News the three people who egged the house in Framingham early Dec. 11 were fellow law enforcement officers serving with the Newton police. They were off duty at the time.

They told Framingham police the egging incident was “a prank, a joke between friends.”

The homeowner is a Newton police sergeant and their superior officer. He says is handling the matter internally.

No charges were filed, and the Newton officers were not publicly identified.

___

Information from: MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, Mass.), http://www.metrowestdailynews.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Gary Robert Haines / Charlotte County Sheriff's Office

LABELLE, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a Florida man flying home from North Carolina caught a man stealing a trailer while piloting his plane over his own home.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Twin mothers Aimee, left, and Ashlee Nelson hold their newborn sons Donavyn Bratten, left, and Aiden Lee Alan Dilts at Summa Akron City Hospital on Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, in Akron, Ohio. The mothers, 19, gave birth about two hours apart. (AP Photo/Akron Beacon Journal, Michael Chritton)

AKRON, Ohio (AP) – Aiden and Donavyn didn’t wait until New Year’s Day to come screaming into the world, but the circumstances of their births are still pretty special: The babies were born about two hours apart to Ohio mothers who are identical twins.

The Akron Beacon Journal reports that the 19-year-old mothers – Aimee and Ashlee Nelson weren’t raised to do things alike and did not plan the births to come at the same time. In fact, their due dates were about a week apart.

But Donavyn Scott Bratten was born just after noon on the last day of 2012. Aiden Lee Alan Dilts made his appearance at about 2 p.m.

They were delivered by the same doctor at Summa Akron City Hospital.

___

Information from: Akron Beacon Journal, http://www.ohio.com

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

This July 15, 2012, image provided by Coty Creighton shows the "goat man," in white at center, right, near Ogden, Utah. This man spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats in the mountains of northern Utah has wildlife officials worried he could be in danger as hunting season approaches. Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said Friday July 20, 2012, the person is doing nothing illegal, but he worries the so-called "goat man" is unaware of the dangers. (AP Photo/Coty Creighton)

10. Police: Woman left crash scene because she didn’t want her ice cream to melt (ShareThis 95, Tweet 4)

9. Police: Drunk woman’s car gets stuck in sand trap (ShareThis 39, Tweet 2)

8. New Zealand woman’s Coca-Cola habit cited in death (ShareThis 54, Tweet 2)

7. NM woman finds euthanized dog alive with new owner (ShareThis 36, Tweet 5)

6. Softball-sized eyeball washes up on Florida beach (ShareThis 383, Tweet 1)

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1. ‘Goat man’ spotted in mountains of northern Utah (ShareThis 3282, Tweet 77)

The ‘goat man’ story ended up ranked #8 for all content at thegazette.com last year.

Thanks for reading and sharing with your friends what you liked in 2012. Have a great 2013!

Edwin Cota, Michigan Dept. of Corrections photo

MUSKEGON, Mich. (AP) – A Michigan inmate who tried to escape by burying himself in a prison garden has been sentenced to an additional two years behind bars.

Authorities say Edwin Cota was found buried in August at the Brooks prison in Muskegon. He had a sheet tied in knots that he had hoped to use to get over the fence.

The Muskegon Chronicle saysCota was sentenced to at least two years in prison Thursday after earlier pleading no contest to the attempted escape. The punishment will be added to the sentence he’s serving for home invasion in the Detroit area. His earliest release date for that crime is in 2018.

In August, officials said Cota’s scheme fell apart when guards interviewed his cellmate, who had appeared nervous.

___

Information from: The Muskegon Chronicle, http://www.mlive.com/muskegon

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

American Black Vulture at Royal Palm in the Everglades National Park in Miami-Dade County, Florida, U.S.A. (Image via Wikipedia)

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) – Visitors to parts of Everglades National Park are getting tarps and bungee cords to make their vehicles less delectable to vultures.

Migrating vultures have developed a habit of ripping off windshield wipers, sunroof seals, and other rubber and vinyl vehicle parts. Visitors to the park’s Homestead and Flamingo entrances are loaned “anti-vulture kits” to protect their vehicles.

Park wildlife biologist Skip Snow tells The Miami Herald that the vultures are migrating as normal. It’s just not clear why the birds are picking at parked cars and trucks. Park employees have tried to scare away the vultures, but nothing has worked.

Park Superintendent Dan Kimball says complaints about the vultures have declined since employees began distributing the tarps and bungee cords last year.

___

Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

In this photo provided by Barb Murray, Brad Krueger of Alma Center, Wis., holds his neighbors’ chicken, Cluck Cluck, on Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. The chicken, which the neighbors kept as a pet, is being credited for saving that family from an early-morning fire Thursday by waking the couple with its vocal clucking. (AP Photo/Courtesy Barb Murray)

CARRIE ANTLFINGER
Associated Press

MILWAUKEE (AP) – A Wisconsin couple says clucks, not fire trucks, helped them escape a blaze at their home.

Dennis Murawska, 59, said a pet chicken named Cluck Cluck woke his wife Susan Cotey, 52, with loud clucking from its cage in the basement two floors below about 6:15 a.m. Thursday. The couple’s two cats also were running around the main floor.

Murawska said he had been half awake but didn’t know about the fire because the smoke alarms hadn’t gone off. He realized something was wrong when his wife got up.

“The chicken gets quite vocal when she gets excited,” he said.

Cluck Cluck came from a nearby farm in Alma Center, about 135 miles east of Minneapolis, Murawska said. When the chicken began wandering over to his house, his neighbor said he could kill it because it wasn’t producing any eggs. But Murawska felt sorry for Cluck Cluck because she had a mutated foot and decided to keep her. He fed the bird and built a coop, and then his wife let Cluck Cluck into the basement on cold nights.

“I spent way more money than I ever should’ve,” Murawska said by telephone. “I guess it paid off.”

The couple escaped, and firefighters found the chicken in its cage and one of the cats alive in the basement. Another cat hasn’t been found and is presumed dead, Murawska said. The couple and their surviving cat checked into a Black River Falls hotel, while Cluck Cluck is staying with the neighbor who used to own her.

Alma Center Fire Chief Jeff Gaede said the fire started in the attic of the attached garage and was not suspicious. The house was a total loss, but it could have been worse – if not for the chicken.

“We are used to hearing about a dog or cat or something, but we never heard of a chicken waking up a resident for a fire,” Gaede said. “That’s pretty amazing.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello:

Deutsch: Nordmanntannen (Abies nordmanniana) in Weihnachtsbaumkultur (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BERLIN (AP) – The hunt for the perfect Christmas tree may soon become a lot easier: just pick a nice clone.

That’s what German scientists are now working on: They are searching a way to ensure that the sensitive saplings of the popular Nordmann fir species grow into impressive specimens.

The fir is native to the Caucasus, but is often cultivated on massive plantations in Germany.

Biologist Kurt Zoglauer of Berlin’s Humboldt University said Friday 40 percent of trees don’t make the cut when they mature after 10 to 14 years. Some are stunted by frost, while others turn out the wrong shade of green.

Zoglauer’s team therefore hopes to refine a method to clone particularly hardy and beautiful trees by 2016.

The project is supported by a German government grant.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Students leave Grand Blanc High School following an alleged gun threat that turned out to be a hoax on Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012 in Grand Blanc, Mich. Despite officials claims that rumors of gunshots at Grand Blanc High School were all a hoax, a steady stream of students were being pulled out of school Wednesday afternoon. (AP Photo/Flint Journal, Griffin Moores)

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — The Connecticut school massacre and doomsday scenarios based on the Mayan calendar have prompted the closing of dozens of Michigan schools for the rest of the year.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

English: Cheetahs at Houston Zoo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

HOUSTON (AP) – Two cheetahs from the Houston Zoo usually confined to cages have been allowed to run through part of a horse track when the regular racers weren’t around.

The 5-year-old male siblings name Kito and Kiburi were allowed to roam this month at a grassy fenced part of Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.

The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that the zoo officials, starting in August, took the big cats to the park twice on leashes. Curator Beth Schaefer says the cheetahs were calm and with their regular trainers.

The cheetahs in early November were allowed off their leashes at the race park, with no problems. The second off-leash excursion was Dec. 11 but will be the last for a while.

Horses return to Sam Houston Race Park next week.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

To pause the animated travel in map, press pause/play button or hover over popup windows as they appear. Below, listen to scanner audio for this pursuit.

Go 12 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

JOE MANDAK
Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) – It’ll be 100 years before another 12-12-12 date rolls around, so a soon-to-be-wed federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh is making the most of it.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Johnson has announced her wedding on that date – Wednesday – to Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Allen.

A federal judge will marry the couple at 12:12 p.m., and they will exchange 12-word vows: “Do you, Brian/Amy, take this woman/man to be your lawfully wedded wife/husband?”

Margaret Philbin, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, got into the spirit with a news release Tuesday that contained sentences of 12 words each and – counting her first-name salutation of “Margaret” – also contains 12 lines.

The post-script on the release underscored the point: “Headline and sentences each contain 12 words to further attract your attention.”

Duly noted.

Johnson, 34, said the couple had been planning a small ceremony in the courtroom of Senior U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose, attended by Allen’s 16-year-old son, their infant son, and her mother, who was to watch over the baby.

But as friends learned of their numerically unique plans, the couple decided to spread the word – it’s not every day that the U.S. attorney’s office issues a news release announcing the nuptials of a staffer.

“We initially started this out as kind of being low-key,” Johnson said. “But as word kind of filtered around, a lot of people started thinking it was interesting and intriguing that we chose this day. Prior to that, it was going to be a very small venture, but it’s kind of spiraled into something.”

Because both have friends and co-workers elsewhere in the federal courthouse downtown, the couple expects many last-minute guests will wander in on their lunch hour to witness the event.

The couple thought of the idea when Allen proposed last December and Johnson said both realized, “This is really the last opportunity in our lifetimes that we’ll have a chance to get married on a day when the month, day and year will all be the same.”

The date has other perks, too.

“First and foremost, Brian will never have an excuse for not remember our anniversary,” Johnson quipped. “So that’s a bonus.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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