Authorities in North Texas say a 48-year-old woman called 911 to have a deputy deliver cigarettes to her home.
Hood County sheriff’s Lt. Kathy Jividen says the woman, a Granbury resident, called 911 on Feb. 11 asking for the cigarettes. Jividen says the woman instead received a visit from two deputies and was arrested.
She was charged with a misdemeanor count of abuse of 911. She was later released from the Hood County jail on a $1,000 bond.
Jividen says the caller was “very intoxicated” when she dialed 911.
Gunmen torched more than two dozen tankers carrying fuel to NATO troops and killed a driver Wednesday, the sixth attack on convoys taking supplies to Afghanistan since Pakistan closed a key border crossing almost a week ago.
Islamabad shut down the Torkham crossing along the fabled Khyber Pass last Thursday after a NATO helicopter attack in the border area killed three Pakistani troops. The closure has left hundreds of trucks stranded alongside the country’s highways and bottlenecked traffic heading to the one route into Afghanistan from the south that has remained open.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said an investigation of the helicopter attack was expected to be concluded later Wednesday, and that he expected the spat between allies could be resolved soon.
Tension between the two countries has also been fueled by a record number of U.S. drone strikes in recent weeks, including one Wednesday that killed six militants in the North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border.
The U.S. has played down the impact of Pakistan closing the Torkham crossing, saying it has supply routes through other countries into Afghanistan and the closure has not caused fuel problems for NATO troops.
“We don’t suspect it will, even if this were to last into the future,” said Morrell Tuesday at the Pentagon. “But we really do have a sense we’re making progress and this can be resolved soon.”
Hundreds of supply trucks still cross into landlocked Afghanistan each day through the Chaman crossing in southwestern Pakistan and via Central Asian states.
Still, Pakistan is the fastest and cheapest way to get goods to Afghanistan, and trouble with other routes in the past makes it even more vital. Uzbekistan evicted U.S. troops from a base that was used to ferry supplies into Afghanistan, and last year Kyrgyzstan threatened to do the same, though it has since backed down.
The tanker attack early Wednesday morning came on trucks on their way to the Chaman crossing.
An unidentified number of gunmen in two vehicles attacked the trucks as they sat in the parking lot of a roadside hotel on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. At least 25 trucks were destroyed by fire that spread quickly from vehicle to vehicle, senior police official Hamid Shakil said.
Of the six attacks on convoys bringing supplies in from the port city of Karachi since the Torkham closure, four were on trucks heading to that crossing and two were on their way to Chaman.
Middle-class Americans made their deepest spending cuts in more than two decades, slashing spending on such discretionary items as restaurant meals and alcohol during the recession.
Households in the middle fifth of the population sliced their average annual spending to $41,150 in 2009, the Labor Department said Tuesday in its annual spending breakdown.
Gene Cranick and his family lost all of their possessions, and watched their family pets die as their home was engulfed in flames last Wednesday September 29th.
Orbion County Firefighters refused to respond to the scene because the homeowner hadn’t paid a required $75 annual fee. The fire began when the Cranick’s grandson was burning trash near the home.
After the record heat wave this summer, Russia’s weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme. Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in recent years. Scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic.
Today, 3M becomes just the latest company to announce that it will be forced to drop insured retirees from its medical plan starting in 2013. The move comes in response to ObamaCare.
Retirees previously covered by the private sector will be forced onto the overloaded Medicare-backed insurance programs, shifting people from private sector coverage to government-based coverage.
About 21,000 Iowans received notice last week that their insurers would no longer provide their Medicare Advantage plans in 2011, a state agency said.
With Medicare Advantage, Iowa seniors get their health insurance through a private company, instead of directly through the government Medicare program. The plans often provide coverage such as prescription drugs.
Five insurance companies including Minnetonka-based Medica next year will stop providing a particular type of Medicare health plan in much of Minnesota, a state official said Thursday.
That means some 44,000 beneficiaries will need to shop for new coverage. The insurers compete in the market for Medicare Advantage health plans, where some 350,000 state residents buy their coverage.
Joe Garcia, Democrat candidate for Congress in Florida’s 25th district, has been accepting thousands of dollars in donations from John Cabanas, friend and partner of Fidel Castro.
Reported contributions from April through August, 2010: John Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010 – John Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010 – Adalgiza Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010 – Adalgiza Cabanas $2,400 5/19/2010.
A drunken brawl broke out among a group of women at a Vancouver Island bar over the weekend after one woman blocked another woman’s view of a male stripper.
More than 100 woman were at a fundraiser on Friday night watching a man dressed as a police officer peel off his uniform when a women who was standing on a chair refused to get down after another argued she didn’t have a clear view.
A British burglar who stole his neighbor’s curtains was caught after he put them up in his own windows. Jason Williams broke into a neighbor’s home and allegedly stole tools, two ashtrays, lamb steaks and the curtains before hanging them up in his home.
The 38-year-old at first denied the crime when the victims came to his door to ask why their curtains were in his house.
Kenneth E. Bonds, 45, was jailed Saturday after he allegedly shot a teen in his buttocks because the boy refused to pull up his pants.
According to Shelby County Police, two teens, ages 16 and 17, were walking to a candy store around 7:30 p.m. when Bonds started yelling at them to pull up their pants. He then shouted profanities at them, ordering them to “do what he told them to do.”
Police who were called to a report of a prowler over the weekend at a motor home in Centralia found a “superhero” inside.
Commander Jim Rich told KITI the man in a Green Power Ranger costume appeared lost and disoriented and apparently had been drinking. Rich says the 28-year-old Centralia man apparently was dropped off by some friends at the wrong house after a party.
