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Young Love
A judge sentenced William Wagner, 26, to serve one to four years in prison after he admitted he rode his bicycle 180 miles from Maryland to Scranton, Pa., to have sex with a 15-year-old girl he met through the social networking web site MySpace.
A Seattle bar announced it had hired Mary Kay Letourneau to greet patrons at its third “Hot for Teacher” night. The former teacher served seven years in prison for having sex with a sixth-grader when she was a 34-year-old married mother of four. Now 47, she married the victim, Vili Fualaau, now 26, and they have two daughters together. Mike Morris, the owner of Fuel Sports Eats & Beats, said he hired Letourneau because she served her sentence, and it’s OK for the couple to have some fun.
Federal authorities dropped its case against retired Air Force Maj. Reinaldo Canton, 45, even though he had agreed to a plea bargain to settle charges that he arranged over the Internet to meet a 15-year-old girl for sex. Canton’s attorney was granted a dismissal after citing his client’s heart condition and arguing that the stress of the case could kill him. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Canton denied intending to have sex with the girl, who was actually an adult undercover agent, but insisted he planned to ask her why she was sneaking around behind her parent’s back and warn her that the Internet is a “scary” place.
Heads Up
Sikh police officers in Britain want the government to develop bulletproof turbans so they can carry firearms while on duty without having to remove their religious headwear. Sikh officers are exempt from legal obligations to wear crash helmets because their religion requires them to wear a turban, but doing so means they cannot wear the protective headgear of firearms officers. “We would like to follow any opportunity where we could manufacture a ballistic product, made out of a synthetic fiber, that would ensure a certain degree of protection, so Sikh police officers could take part in these roles,” Inspector Gian Singh Chahal, vice chairman of the newly formed British Police Sikh Association, told the journal Police Review.
Give Us the Money
The city of Akron, Ohio, is seeking $762,000 in federal stimulus money so it can cut down 1,075 healthy ash trees in city rights-of-way and plant other trees to take their place. City arborist Bill Hahn told The Akron Beacon-Journal the project is intended to prevent an infestation by the emerald ash borer, which has not yet appeared in the city or surrounding Summit County, although Hahn insisted the tree-killing beetle is on the way. “It’s not a question of if,” he said. “It’s when.”
Can’t We Just
Twitter Them?
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is spending $600 million to spend 3 1/2 years scanning the galaxy for planets like ours. NASA said the newly launched Kepler spacecraft would train its telescope at 100,000 stars hoping to discover hundreds of Earth-size planets in or near their habitable zones.
Modern Times
Police on the lookout for rowdy Amish teenagers charged Chris D. Slabaugh, 17, with underage possession of alcohol after catching him drinking Busch beer while traveling in his horse-drawn buggy in Cattaraugus County, N.Y. “It’s not a motor vehicle,” sheriff’s Capt. Robert Buchhardt told The Buffalo News, explaining the youth couldn’t be charged with DWI even if he’d been intoxicated while driving. “The only thing you could charge him with was the possession of alcohol.”
Problem Solved
Encouraging people to die at home rather than in a hospital could solve Canada’s impending shortage of hospital beds, according to University of Alberta researcher Donna Wilson. Sixty-one percent of Canadians now die in hospitals, down from 80 percent in 1994, but Wilson suggested the number drop to 40 percent because baby boomers could double the death rate in the next 20 years, tying up beds for those needing life-saving treatment or surgery.
