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ODDITIES IN THE NEWS
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• Police: Man held after choking neighbor’s loud dog: PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire police say a man who broke into his neighbor’s apartment to silence a barking dog ended up getting bitten and arrested. They say a brawl erupted Friday morning when Roger Pelletier forced his way into the Portsmouth apartment because he was frustrated by the constant barking of her Shih Tzu, Oreo. Police say Pelletier tried to strangle Oreo, leading to a confrontation with the dog’s owner. They say Oreo bit Pelletier several times. The dog’s owner wasn’t injured. Oreo has been taken to a veterinarian for evaluation. Pelletier is charged with burglary, cruelty to animals and simple assault. 

• dinner puts wealthy and homeless at same tables: NEW YORK (AP) — Some well-off New York City residents have paid $100 each for the honor of eating a candlelit holiday dinner with homeless people at a church. The Rev. Edward Sunderland says he hopes Friday’s unusual mealtime coupling of haves and have-nots at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan will become a trend across America. About 500 people dined at large round tables beneath the church’s high ceiling. Chefs from The New York Palace and The Waldorf-Astoria hotels provided roasted turkey, buttered mashed potatoes, red velvet cake, pumpkin cheesecake and other delights. A piano played softly in the background. Sunderland says the dinner is a chance for people to get to know each other in a safe place and for donors to see who benefits from their charitable instincts.

• Payroll boss on vacation, Black Friday checks late: WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — About 1,200 government employees in a northeastern Pennsylvania county are getting their Black Friday paychecks late because the person in charge of payroll went on vacation and didn’t approve an electronic transfer. Luzerne County administration officials say they corrected the error by Friday afternoon. The Citizens’ Voice newspaper in Wilkes-Barre (WILKS’-ba-ree) reports some employees were paid in the early afternoon, while payments were in the works for others. County Manager Robert Lawton has apologized. Union official Paula Schnelly says she received calls and texts from employees missing their electronically deposited paychecks. County employee John Engleman posted a comment on the newspaper’s Facebook page saying he’d received five insufficient-funds charges tied to automatic bill payments he had set up.

• Cops: Beau who ate holiday meal early gets stabbed:   WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Police say a Pennsylvania woman chased her boyfriend around a dining room and stabbed him in the chest because he started eating Thanksgiving dinner while she slept off a bender. Authorities say Jacklyn Blake confessed to officers who responded to her Wilkes-Barre home Thursday. Officers found her boyfriend inside holding a towel over his chest. He was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. According to police, Blake’s boyfriend says she’d been drunk earlier in the day and attacked him after waking up from a nap. He says she stabbed him and then threw the knife, striking him just below the left eye.

• In Wisconsin, Black Friday shoppers come for beer: MILWAUKEE (AP) — Some people wait for hours in the cold to buy cheap televisions or video games. People in Wisconsin do it for beer. About 800 people were in line by 8 a.m. Friday — waiting in 15-degree, snowy weather — outside of Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee to buy a limited edition Black Friday brew. In less than four hours, the brewery was sold out of its 5,000 22-ounce bottles, each of which sold for $15. Along with snatching four bottles, the per-customer limit, 30-year-old analyst John Graham said he wanted to be part of the buzz and the festive atmosphere that included a DJ, tap beer and breakfast. “I’ve never been out for Black Friday before, never bought a TV or an X-box or anything,” he said. “But here I am drinking beer at 8 a.m.”

• Woman drops cocaine baggie in police station:  UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a woman being cited for public drunkenness in Pennsylvania accidentally dropped a baggie of crack cocaine on the police station floor.  Uniontown police say 23-year-old Savannah Turachak, of Lemont Furnace, was patted down for weapons but not otherwise searched when she was brought to the station Nov. 19. That’s because police were just citing and releasing her. 

But police say Turachak returned moments later to report being harassed by someone and, in the process, fluffed her shirt to straighten it out — and the drugs fell out.