WOMAN TOO DRUNK TO GET OUT OF CAR CALLS 911: BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A woman is charged with felony drunken driving after police in Billings, Mont., say she called 911 and said she was too drunk to get out of her vehicle.
The Billings Gazette reports 55-year-old Carol Frances Omeara made an initial appearance in Yellowstone County Justice Court on Wednesday. She remained jailed Thursday on $3,000 bond.
Omeara was arrested Tuesday night after a woman called dispatchers and said she couldn't get out of her vehicle.
The dispatcher asked if she was having medical or mechanical issues. Court records say the caller replied that she was too drunk.
Prosecutors say Omeara's blood-alcohol level was 0.311 percent, nearly four times the limit at which a driver is considered legally intoxicated. The Billings woman had the keys to the vehicle in her pocket.
Court records say Omeara has three previous DUI convictions.
WIS. COMPANY HOLDS ANNUAL 'RUNNING OF THE ROACHES': NEW BERLIN, Wis. (AP) — Cockroaches are the subject of nightmares for some people. But for one Wisconsin company, they're a sport.
Batzner Pest Management held its 13th annual "Running of the Roaches" on Thursday in New Berlin.
Nine Madagascar hissing cockroaches ran three heats on the custom-built 8-foot-long track. Each roach had an employee guide it with a straw.
Training manager Karl Rowell joked that they separated the roaches at dawn to train so they didn't "pull a leg." He says they're fed dog food and lettuce.
The company is donating $500 to the Fisher House Foundation on behalf of the winning team. The foundation helps families of patients at military and veterans medical centers.
Rowell says the winning team also gets bragging rights, which include putting pictures of roaches on the losers' desks.
SCOTT CARPENTER, 2ND US ASTRONAUT IN ORBIT, DIES: DENVER (AP) — Scott Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth, was guided by two instincts: overcoming fear and quenching his insatiable curiosity. He pioneered his way into the heights of space and the depths of the ocean floor.
"Conquering of fear is one of life's greatest pleasures and it can be done a lot of different places," he said.
His wife, Patty Barrett, said Carpenter died Thursday in a Denver hospice of complications from a September stroke. He lived in Vail.
Carpenter followed John Glenn into orbit, and it was Carpenter who gave him the historic sendoff: "Godspeed John Glenn." The two were the last survivors of the famed original Mercury 7 astronauts from the "Right Stuff" days of the early 1960s. Glenn is the only one left alive.
In his one flight, Carpenter missed his landing by 288 miles, leaving a nation on edge for an hour as it watched live and putting Carpenter on the outs with his NASA bosses.
He was the only person who was both an astronaut and an aquanaut, exploring the old ocean and what President John F. Kennedy called "the new ocean" — space.
PA. CHIEF'S HEARING HALTED WHEN GUN FALLS ON FLOOR: GILBERTON, Pa. (AP) — A hearing for a Pennsylvania police chief who made profanity-laced Internet videos about liberals and the Second Amendment was halted suddenly Thursday night after a handgun belonging to one of his supporters slid out of its holster and crashed onto the concrete floor.
The loaded semi-automatic handgun landed inches away from Gilberton Chief Mark Kessler and his attorney. It did not go off, but attorney Joseph Nahas said that he and other officials were concerned about the safety of everyone in the tiny, crowded meeting room at borough hall.
Nahas said the hearing will be continued at a nearby courthouse, where weapons are prohibited.
