POLICE: ANGRY CUSTOMER HITS TACO BELL WITH TRUCK: HUBER HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) — Police in southwest Ohio say a customer angry over not getting a taco he ordered struck a Taco Bell restaurant's glass entrance with his truck. No one was injured.
Huber Heights police say 23-year-old Michael S. Smith ordered at a drive-up window in the Dayton suburb on Tuesday and later realized he was missing the taco. Officer Brandon Sucher says Smith returned to the restaurant and had angry words with employees before striking the building.
Police tracked the truck's fluid trail to Smith's house a few miles away and arrested him on a vandalism charge.
Sucher says Smith told police he hit the building accidentally after driving off fast and losing control of the truck.
There was no telephone listing for Smith, and he could not immediately be reached for comment.
FIREWORK LODGES IN MAN'S CHEST; BOMB SQUAD CALLED: ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota man is in critical condition after surgeons removed an unexploded firework from his chest after taking advice from the bomb squad.
Anoka County Sheriff's Detective Mike Lapham says 31-year-old Nick Beheng was launching fireworks from a hand-held mortar tube Saturday when one misfired. Lapham says the firework blew out of the bottom of the tube, directly into the 31-year-old man's chest.
Beheng was rushed to St. Paul's Regions Hospital where surgeons summoned the bomb squad to the operating room. Lapham says the doctors wanted advice on minimizing the risk as they removed the explosive.
IND. MAN SHOOTS 4, 1 FATALLY, BEFORE SHOOTING SELF : INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A gunman opened fire at an Indianapolis apartment complex Wednesday, fatally shooting a woman and critically wounding three other people before turning the gun on himself as officers confronted him, police said.
The woman who died in the Villa Paree's leasing office was an employee of the apartment complex in the city's northeast side, Indianapolis police spokesman Officer Kendale Adams said. Two other women and a maintenance man also were shot. All were in critical condition at local hospitals, Adams said.
Police have no information about a possible motive but believe the gunman lived at the complex.
Adams said officers confronted the gunman near the apartment complex's pool before the man shot himself.
FAA GRANTS EXPERIMENTAL PERMIT TO VIRGIN GALACTIC: MOJAVE (AP) — Virgin Galactic says it expects to make rocket-powered test flights of its passenger spaceship later this year.
The company said Wednesday its spaceship builder partner has been granted an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration — a move that will allow it to proceed with powered flights.
No timetable has been set for the first launches carrying paying customers, but that'll come after the test program is complete. More than 500 people including actor Ashton Kutcher have signed up with Virgin Galactic for a chance to experience weightlessness during suborbital flights.
Virgin Galactic and Mojave, Calif.-based Scaled Composites have been glide-testing their six-passenger vehicle SpaceShipTwo, which is air-launched from a twin-fuselage carrier airplane.
Work is under way to integrate the rocket motor into SpaceShipTwo
30 INDICTED IN ALLEGED POT TRAFFICKING SCHEME: SACRAMENTO (AP) — A federal grand jury has indicted the owners of two Northern California indoor gardening stores for allegedly operating a drug trafficking ring that grew and sold large amounts of marijuana.
The U.S. Attorney's office said the indictment handed up on Thursday charges Steven Ortega Sr. and his wife, Marla Ortega, of Byron, furnishing growers with equipment and sometimes start-up funds from their Growers Choice Hydroponics stores in return for a share of the pot proceeds.
Also implicated by the grand jury were the couple's two adult sons, Steven Ortega Jr. and Matt Ortega, and 28 other people who allegedly grew or sold marijuana.
