Teen uses banana to rob bank, eats it while waiting for cops

A teenager in North Carolina tried to rob a bank with a banana and then ate the evidence while waiting for the cops to arrive.

Winston-Salem authorities say 17-year-old John Szwalla held the banana under his shirt when he entered the store Thursday, saying he had a gun and demanded money.

Owner Bobby Ray Mabe says he and a customer jumped Szwalla, holding him until deputies arrived. While they waited, Mabe says the teen ate the banana.

Mabe says deputies took pictures of the banana peel. Forsyth County Sheriff's office spokesman Maj. Brad Stanley says deputies joked about charging Szwalla with destroying evidence.

I'm surprised he didn't split when the cops arrived.

Men urinate on Old Faithful, get fired

Two yellowstone workers were fired after they were caught (by a live webcam) peeing on Old Faithful.

Park spokesman Al Nash said a 23-year-old man on Tuesday was fined $750 and placed on three years of unsupervised probation for urinating, being off trail in a restricted area and taking items from the area. The man also was banned from Yellowstone for two years.

The second employee's case is pending.

The park's dispatch center was called after someone watching a webcam on the geyser saw six employees leaving the trail and walking on Old Faithful on May 4.

Note to employees: if you work someplace where there is a live webcam you should assume that you're always being watched.

Stripper spots counterfit cash

A New York man was reported to police when a stripper turned him in for giving her fake ten dollar bills.

Authorities said Michael Harris, 40, was arrested in the early hours May 5 after a stripper at the Gotham City peep-show parlor determined that his $10 bills were counterfeit and told a manager, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

Harris threw 21 of the fake bills on the floor of the establishment and attempted to flee, but he was caught by the manager and held until officers arrived, police said.

Investigators found a few more of the bogus bills stashed in Harris' boot. They said he walked into the business with 28 of the fake notes, which appeared to have been made on an Ink Jet printer.

He said he got the money from a "friend." Yeah, ok and he didn't notice that the bills looked nothing like real money?

Judge orders dads to watch the Maury show

A Detroit judge has ordered his deadbeat dads to watch the Maury Povich show to show them how absurd deadbeat dads look.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Wade McCree, who is scheduled to appear on Thursday's episode of "Maury," said he got the idea to force delinquent dads to watch the show, which frequently features paternity issues, after watching a few episodes, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday.

McCree said the men are ordered to watch the syndicated talk show at least once a month and discuss it with their probation officers.

"Some of these men in my court watch the show and see how ridiculous some of the deadbeats look, and then they realize it's them," McCree said.

Povich said he was impressed by McCree's creative sentencing.

"That is being very creative, and sometimes you have to be creative when you have a lot of social issues," Povich said Tuesday. "I'm going to be very interested to find out how this plays out."

Very strange, but if it gets the guys to pay child support (or start using a condom) then I'm all for it.

Airline refuses to allow teddy bear on flight

A girl flying out of Scotland was told that her teddy bear (pictured on the left) was too big to fly on the plane with her.

Amparo Peris-Bordes, 38, said she was told by the easyJet check-in clerk at the Glasgow, Scotland, airport that she would have to pay $14 to have the bear belonging to her daughter, Alba, stored with the checked luggage, The Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

Peris-Bordes said she decided to mail the bear back to her Willingham, England, home after a heated discussion with the female clerk.

"I was totally stunned when they said Alba couldn't have the bear in the cabin with her," she said. "I was carrying a big waterproof coat that was much bigger than the teddy and was allowed to take that on -- it was just a complete lack of common sense."

A spokesman for the airline said the company is offering to pay Peris-Bordes' postage costs.

"We have a strict baggage allowance on all our flights and this bear was not a small bear -- it could not fit into their hand baggage," he said. "However we do see that a common sense approach should have been taken and so this time we are offering to reimburse the parent concerned for postage."

The bear was not that big. At least the girl was six, can you imagine if they did that to a two year old, it would have scarred them for life.

Deer runs into airport terminal

A deer was put down after it was injured during a run through the Kansas City Airport.

Airport spokesman Joe McBride said the yearling doe went through automatic doors into Terminal A at 5:45 a.m. Monday. He said the deer ran about 100 yards from near the Midwest Airlines section to US Airways gates.

There she ran through a line of about 50 bewildered passengers waiting at a US Airways gate, jumped over a ticket counter, onto a baggage belt and into an office. A worker was able to lock the office door.

McBride said officers from Kansas City Animal Control and the Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services were called. But after they tranquilized the deer, they decided to euthanize her due to severe injuries suffered running through the terminal.

I wonder if they had to evacuate the terminal because of the breech of security. If a deer can get through security then what's to prevent a terrorist.

Orangutan builds ladder , escapes from zoo enclosure

An Orangutan in an Australian zoo shorted out her electric fence and then built a ladder to escape from her enclosure.

Karta, a 27-year-old female, jammed a stick into wires connected to the barrier, then piled up shrubs, roots and debris to create a platform. Using it as a stepladder, she climbed up onto the concrete and glass wall surrounding her enclosure, where she was spotted by a member of the public who raised the alarm.

The zoo was cleared of Mother's Day crowds and vets stood by with tranquiliser guns, as a precaution. But, with freedom beckoning, Karta seemed to change her mind about the Great Escape, perching on the wall for about half an hour before climbing back into her enclosure.

Although she came within a few yards of visitors, one of the zoo's curators, Peter Whitehead, said the great ape had never displayed aggressive behaviour. "You're talking about an animal that's highly intelligent," he said. "We've had issues with her before in normal day- to-day operations where she tries to outsmart the keepers. She's an ingenious animal.

"So in this case she's decided to make a ladder and try to get out of her exhibit. I think when she actually got out and realised where she was, she's realised she shouldn't be there, so she's actually hung onto the wall and dropped back into the exhibit."

With Karta banished to her indoor night quarters for the rest of the day, zoo staff began a post-mortem into her Houdini-like exploits and said they would probably clear vegetation that could be used in a future escape attempt.

An 11-year-old boy, Ryan Johnston, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he saw Karta scale the wall. "It was amazing how he did it, because he actually got a branch, pulled it over the electric fence and then got over," he said.

That's a smart animal. Sounds like they need to give her some entertainment.

Woman kept dead mothers body to recieve benefits

A Florida woman has been charged with keeping her mothers dead body in a bedroom so that she could collect her social security and retirement benefits.

Penelope Sharon Jordan of Sebastian, Florida, was charged by a federal grand jury last week with Social Security fraud and theft, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said.

Police found the decaying body of her mother, Timmie Jordan, on a bed in a spare bedroom at the mother's home in late March, when they were called to investigate a report of nuisance cats.

Penelope Jordan told police her mother had died in 2003.

The indictment alleged Jordan concealed her mother's death in order to receive both her U.S. Social Security benefits and her military survivor's benefit.

Jordan collected $61,415 from Social Security and $176,461 from the military pension during the six years, prosecutors said.

She could face up to 15 years in prison.

Local media reported that the 61-year-old woman told police her mother died of old age and she kept the remains because she couldn't afford burial expenses. An autopsy found no signs of foul play.

According to a local paper, police found many cats on Jordan's property but she denied they were hers.

Yeah, she couldn't afford burial expenses because that would cause her to loose her mothers money.