Wendy's finger folly — If you're eating, put the food down for a moment. And if you're planning to scam a business with one of those gross-out charges — sit back and take some notes. The — the woman who claimed she found a human finger-tip in a bowl of their chili — turned dramatically today when that woman was arrested for attempted grand theft. The fickle finger of fate, indeed. Police were vague about what Anna Ayala did or didn't do; If she supplied the body part in which she claimed after a meal at a Wendy's in San Jose a month ago today. Ayala planned a lawsuit, then suddenly backed out the other day. Last night, police in Las Vegas arrested her, charging her with grand theft in an un-related real estate deal and with a unique case of attempted grand theft of "stealing" millions of dollars of Wendy's reputation.
Moussaoui pleads guilty — There was no connection between Iraq and 9/11, but both that country, and this one, now share the blight of terror...As expected, Zacairias Moussaoui, the so-called " that he helped al-Qaida carry out the attacks. He did so in District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, even though that plea still leaves him liable to the death penalty. In court, he claimed he was being trained for a later plot in which he would have flown a jet into the White House if the U.S. would not release Sheik Omar Abdel Rakman — himself convicted in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Otherwise, Moussaoui said just fourteen words, six "guiltys" to each of the charges. And, about his later sentencing, "I don't expect any leniency from the Americans."
Sex offender legislation — It is a reminder that whatever is wrong, panic and blind anger never make it better and almost always make it worse. After nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford and 13-year-old Sarah Lundy were killed by registered sex offenders who admitted their crimes, . As legislators moved to tighten regulation of offenders a County Commissioner in Florida took matters into his own hands, and proposed that signs be posted in neighborhoods where registered offenders lived. On Monday of this week, an Ocala man named Clovis Claxton saw signs all over the block where he lived. They had his name and address. And at their bottom, in bold letters, were the words "Child Rapist." But Claxton wasn't a child rapist. He was mentally challenged and in a wheelchair. And 18 years ago when he was 20, he had pleaded guilty to sexual assault, in Washington State — his parents say he and a nine-year old girl "exposed" themselves to each other. He had never been in trouble with the law again. But the signs caused Claxton to phone the Sheriff's department and say he was afraid his neighbors were going to harm him. They took him into protective custody, and briefly to a mental health facility for evaluation. The signs were illegal. They'd been altered by somebody to include those words "Child Rapist." But they stayed up. And one was found beside the body of Clovis Claxton, when his parents, with whom he lived, discovered him, dead, of an overdose of alcohol and pills, an , Wednesday morning.
Five-year-old hand-cuffed — At first blush, it is inconceivable. Police were called to a school in St. Petersburg, Florida. And three . Hand-cuffs. On a five-year-old. And it's all on videotape — evidently because the Fairmount Park Elementary School felt it needed to preserve a record of how the little girl so disrupted her classroom that the teacher pulled all the other kids out of it. Later, she is sent to the assistant principal's office, proceeds to re-decorate it, and begins punching the assistant principal...To which Nicole DiBenedetto carefully avoids touching the girl, except to take back down from the tables and chairs on which she has climbed. Then, somebody calls the cops. In the interim, the girl was seemingly calmed down. That did not last. Book 'em Danno.
Smoking chimp — Most smokers start far younger than Charlie did. But, now, twenty years later, he still looks like any pre-teen who's picked up the addiction. When his friends try to convince him to quit, he nods and agrees. When they leave him, out comes the pack. When the authorities show up, Charlie tries to hide the smokes. And, though at age 38 his hair is already going gray, Charlie still manages the I'm-too-cool swagger of the kid who struts down the street, puffing away. The wild card in this equation: Charlie is not just a 38-year old smoker being urged to quit... he's a .
