Lead Stories
In February airport customs officials in Glasgow confiscated a woman’s snakeskin belt when they realized it was an actual snake (exotic and endangered, yet harmless)….Authorities in Orlando and here in Chicago recently confiscated shirts from Colombia and Thailand respectively that had been “starched” with heroin….And customs officials say that, because of the stricter security following the September 11 attacks, Mexican drug cartels have stepped up their efforts to tunnel beneath the U.S. border. Five new tunnels have been raided recently, including one that ended near the parking lot of the customs office in Nogales, Arizona.
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Two months ago police in Belleville, Ontario, arrested 40-year-old Shawn Eric Bird, who allegedly sent medical offices and other establishments more than 100 insulting notes that were stained with urine and smeared with cat feces. Police finally caught Bird after he called a station house to chide officers for their incompetence (referring to himself as “the Green Goblin,” a villain from the Spider-Man comic books) and they surmised his location from the background noise over the phone.
Last month in Shandong, China, at least ten people were killed after a huge mountain of garbage, waterlogged by heavy rains, toppled onto a workers’ dormitory….And in Junin, Argentina, budget cuts caused by the country’s economic recession have forced police to borrow citizens’ cars to patrol the streets.
