Lead Stories
British Antarctic Survey personnel brought two Lynx helicopters to the Falkland Islands in November specifically to study whether or not penguins topple over when following the path of an aircraft overhead. A team of researchers from the At-Bristol center found that 20 of 25 Parliament members surveyed were more physically aroused by the sight of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher than by the sight of British celebrity Denise Van Outen in a skimpy dress. And commenting in November on a German study of gambling as an addiction, British psychologist Mark Griffiths and British gardening expert Alan Titchmarsh agreed that some of the findings could apply to gardening as well. Said Titchmarsh, “Once you’ve discovered the thrill of making things grow, you can’t stop.”
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According to his campaign manager, U.S. Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida did not retain illegal campaign contributions but issued immediate refunds as legally required, despite appearances to the contrary. Jose A. Riesco told the Miami Daily Business Review in December that all 45 refund checks (totaling nearly $30,000) were mailed out in February 2000, and that the reason none of the 45 recipients cashed them over the next eight months was that somehow they were all lost in the mail, “poorly addressed, things like that,” thus allowing Diaz-Balart full use of the money during his recent campaign. Riesco denied any wrongdoing.
In January police in Gainesville, Florida, charged James Anthony Harmon, 39, with fraud after finding his house filled from floor to ceiling with as much as $200,000 worth of merchandise from the Home Shopping Network, most of it still in unopened cartons. Said Harmon, who made the purchases using several different credit cards under different names, “I just shop a lot.”
Least Competent Criminals
