Lead Stories
Another distinguishing characteristic: According to an October Reuters news report, a man who was fined about $357 for mooning German chancellor Helmut Kohl in a political protest two years ago near Vienna, Austria, has decided to appeal. The man has asked a court to require Kohl to come back to Vienna, take a look at the protester’s bare bottom, and certify that he was not among the mooners.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
A recently completed work by well-known sculptor John Waddell commemorating the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing that killed four little girls has been offered for free to several museums and churches in the area but has so far been turned down by all of them. Waddell’s piece shows four nude black women in a fountain, representing the adulthood the girls were never allowed to achieve. A committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church says the sculpture resembles a “slave auction.” However, the mayor of Birmingham and the father of one of the bomb victims say they like Waddell’s piece.
In June Kenyon Bowe was picked up by the coast guard after drifting for 15 hours in the Atlantic Ocean on his Jet Ski, which he had intended to ride from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Freeport, Bahamas, about 100 miles away. He said he lacked the patience to wait for the next cruise ship. And in August Lawrence Tervit was picked up in the English Channel after he had set out on the 30-mile trip to England from Calais, France, on a three-by-three-foot wooden pallet. He said he ran out of money in France and couldn’t afford a ferry back.
David Ash, 21, was arrested in August in Northport, Alabama, and charged with holding up a convenience store. As David entered the store with a knife, he didn’t notice that he passed right by his father, Frankie Ash, who was walking out after making a purchase. Frankie told his wife, waiting in the car, that David was probably in a hurry to use the bathroom, but the couple watched as their son carried out the robbery. When David’s car broke down during his getaway, he called his parents for help. They urged him to surrender, which he did.
John and Margaret Ruppel’s new $3.5 million mansion near Tampa, Florida, burned to the ground in May after a maid accidentally closed a kitchen cabinet door in such a way that a toaster was activated. The Ruppels had recently made a decision not to insure the house.
