MAINE LOBSTERMAN CATCHES RARE BLUE LOBSTER: SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — A Maine lobsterman says he and his 14-year-old daughter caught a one-in-two-million crustacean: a blue lobster.
Jay LaPlante of the Miss Meghan Lobster Catch company caught the curious creature in Scarborough around 10:45 a.m. Saturday. LaPlante and daughter Meghan were hauling traps when she discovered the bright blue critter.
The story has a happy ending for the lobster. Meghan says she is naming it Skyler and donating it to the Maine State Aquarium, far from any dinner rolls or pats of butter. The aquarium says it has three other blue lobsters and an orange one.
VAN FORCES HORSE-DRAWN BUGGY TO STOP IN ROBBERY: LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Police say someone forced an Amish horse and buggy off a central Pennsylvania road to pull an armed robbery.
Lancaster Newspapers (bit.ly/1zuKqLJ) reports the buggy was carrying three people early Monday morning when a white minivan pulled into its path and forced it to stop.
East Lampeter police say a masked man demanded money, after which the three threw their wallets to him.
The buggy driver then drove into a field to get away. No one was injured.
DRUG-TAINTED DOLLAR BILLS SPARK BANK INVESTIGATION: MONTE VISTA, Colo. (AP) — A Monte Vista bank teller who reported tingly, numb fingers after accepting some wet dollar bills has prompted a federal investigation.
San Luis Valley Federal Bank reported a possible hazardous material on Friday. A bank teller reported tingly fingers after touching dollar bills that were being exchanged for larger notes by 24-year-old Michael Gutierrez of Del Norte. The bills reportedly had a strange odor and appeared to have been wet.
Monte Vista Police Chief Jim Grayson says field tests for hazardous materials were negative, but a sample of the bills tested positive for cocaine.
Gutierrez was booked into the Rio Grande County Jail on several outstanding misdemeanor failure-to-appear warrants. Police and the U.S. Secret Service office in Denver are investigating the dollar bills.
BLADE FROM POWER SAW IMPALES HOUSTON WORKER: HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston construction worker has been hospitalized after he was impaled in the chest by a circular blade that became detached from a power saw.
Houston fire spokesman Kenyatta Parker says the man was still conscious Monday morning when he was transported to a hospital with at least part of the blade still embedded in his body.
Parker says firefighters responded to an emergency call that a man had been hurt while working atop a building near The Galleria, a popular shopping center.
Parker says the unidentified man was using a saw that construction workers often use to cut through metal or concrete. He says such a blade can become dislodged if it is not tightly secured while cutting a hard material
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WOUNDED SAN BERNARDINO OFFICER IN INDUCED COMA: SAN BERNARDINO (AP) — A veteran San Bernardino police officer who was shot in the head last week remains in critical condition in an induced coma.
Police Lt. Rich Lawhead said Monday that there’s been no change in the status of 31-year-old Officer Gabriel Garcia, who was shot as he and a partner approached a group of people early Friday.
Garcia’s partner returned fire and hit the suspect, 28-year-old Alex Alvarado, who died at a hospital.
Alvarado was a fugitive who had violated his probation in a DUI case. He also had prior convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and grand theft
SONY NETWORK HACKED, EXEC’S FLIGHT DIVERTED: DALLAS (AP) — Hackers attacked Sony’s PlayStation Network and apparently disrupted the travel plans of a top company executive by going on Twitter to suggest that there was a bomb on his American Airlines plane.
American cut short the Sony Corp. executive’s flight on Sunday and made an unplanned landing in Phoenix.
The plane with 179 passengers and a crew of six was scheduled to fly from Dallas to San Diego but stopped for what the FBI termed a security threat. American Airlines declined to comment on the threat.
A Twitter account called Lizard Squad tweeted to American Airlines that there might be explosives on the plane carrying John Smedley, the president of Sony Online Entertainment, which makes video games.
San Diego airport spokeswoman Rebecca Bloomfield said that as the plane was being re-routed, the Transportation Security Administration told airport officials that the FBI was investigating a tweet about possible explosives on the plane.
SUSPECT HELD IN DEADLY CALIFORNIA SHOOTING SPREE: LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who was detained late Sunday as a person of interest in a series of apparently random shootings that claimed three lives in suburban Los Angeles was booked on animal-cruelty charges Monday as detectives worked to link him to the three homicides, a police spokesman said.
Alexander Hernandez, 34, of Sylmar, was being held on $1 million bail on the animal-cruelty case, but he has not been charged with the shootings that killed two women and one man on Sunday and injured four others, Los Angeles police spokesman Bruce Borihanh said.
The dogs were killed Saturday, and the person who shot them drove a vehicle similar to the one witnesses described at two of the three crime scenes on Sunday, a tan or gold-colored SUV with tinted windows. The weapon used — a shotgun — was also the same, police Commander Andrew Smith said.
