Jellybean guess is good for $25,000

Cristina Boyle
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, April 10th 2009, 4:00 AM

Theodorakis/News

Jessica Silverman wins $25,000 dollars after guessing how man jellybeans are in a jar, this is the second time she has guessed jellybeans in a jar correct.

A Harlem woman took home $25,000 Thursday for guessing the exact number of jelly beans in a jar - for the second time in her life.

The first time Jessica Silverman struck it lucky was 21 years ago, when she was a 5-year-old kindergarten student and the trophy was a stuffed toy dragon.

This time, the prize will help her put a deposit on a new home after she correctly guessed there were 7,954 treats on display at a stand in the Hilton hotel on Sixth Ave. Tuesday.

"I'm a lucky girl, and I was in the right place at the right time," Silverman said. "This is going to the 'Get Jessica a first apartment' fund."

Silverman was randomly passing the stand, set up by insurance firm DeWitt Stern at the annual Co-op and Condo Expo, when she was convinced to try her luck.

"I just walked by the booth because I was meeting friends for coffee," she said. "Someone manning the booth told me to take a stab at $25,000 - it was a very good stab."

Silverman, the director of development for fashion designer Norma Kamali, said she was in disbelief when she got a call saying she had won.

"I'm never entering another contest again," she said. "I want to end my guessing career on a good note."

        6-year-old sentenced to traffic school

    Kid refused to buckle up

Updated: Thursday, 09 Apr 2009, 10:18 AM EDT
Published : Thursday, 09 Apr 2009, 10:17 AM EDT

• Reporter: Maria Medina
• Web Producer: Bill Diven

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/strange/offbeat_krqe_los_lunas_6_year_old_sentenced_to_traffic_school_2009040823452303827

NEW YORK, April 9 (UPI) -- Police in New York said a man shot himself in the ankle while firing his .45-caliber pistol at his girlfriend's ex-beau.

Investigators said the victim, Derick Jordan, 25, stopped at the home of his ex-girlfriend, Jasmine Ortiz, 22, at 11:50 a.m. Tuesday to drop off some clothes for their 4-year-old daughter, the New York Post reported Thursday.

Jordan began arguing with Ortiz's new boyfriend, Lance Williams Jr., 30, and the second man eventually pulled out his gun and shot Jordan in the left leg, police said. The suspect continued firing, but managed only to shoot himself in the ankle, investigators said.

"He's obviously not a very good shot," a law-enforcement source says.

Jordan identified Williams as the shooter while they were both being wheeled into Lincoln Hospital on gurneys and police handcuffed the suspect.

This woman found out her boyfriend was cheating on her with her best friend and took out her anger on his new car.

http://www.break.com/index/angry-girlfriend-gets-revenge.html

Smell of booze turns court trip into jail time

Doug Nurse

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Calif. Woman Finds Cashiers Check For $357,959.55 On The Ground And Returns It

LOS ANGELES, Apr. 8, 2009

(AP) - As she walked from a post office, Talon Curtis thought she'd found one of those gimmicky sweepstakes offers on the ground that scream something like "$357,959.55" in big bold letters and "This is not a real check" in much smaller type. But just as she was about to do her part for a cleaner planet and deliver the paper from the parking lot to a trash can, she noticed it was a real cashier's check with a real signature.

"I couldn't believe it. I almost passed out," Curtis, who works as a loan negotiator, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I have never seen a check that big. Not in my possession, anyway."

She immediately set out to find its rightful recipient, but it was Saturday afternoon and the banks were closing. On Monday, with help from KCAL-TV reporter Dave Malkoff, she located the check's owner, who had arrived at her bank in a panic.

"I think she had walked in at the same time the bank manager called me back," Curtis said. "I could hear her walking up to him. and I could hear all this commotion in the background."

Curtis said she spoke briefly with the woman on the phone about a possible meeting, but Pacific Mercantile Bank instructed her to mail the check to them instead.

Not willing to take a chance on the mail, Curtis delivered it personally. A bank employee confirmed it had arrived.

Curtis said she never thought of keeping the check for herself, and she declined the woman's offer of a reward. Still, she's just a little disappointed.

"I just wanted to see her face," Curtis said, laughing. "I just wanted to let her know that there are honest people left in this world."

25 things vanishing in America, part 2: Butcher shops

When was the last time you went to a butcher? Not the person stashed at the back of the grocery store, far from the light of day, but an honest-to-goodness butcher in his own storefront, who shoots the breeze and can gauge with his hand the exact weight of a cut before it hits the scale? If you're living in America, chances are you've never been to one at all. They've become as antiquated as five-and-dimes and general stores.

There's an old-fashioned butcher, Anthony, near my house, and I know full well that I'm lucky to have him. I make a point of patronizing places that I want to see stick around. I know I could get my meat cheaper at the supermarket, but I also know that every dollar I spend with my butcher makes it possible for him to be my butcher.

Stepping into Anthony's shop is like stepping into another world, and he's the only food seller I frequent who will actually ask me how I plan to cook what I buy from him. He asks because he knows his trade well, and he does it because he has time to listen to the answer and help me out, the way neighbors do. He keeps an extra chair by the window for elderly neighbors who want to come in and chat. It's usually occupied.

In generations past, butchers stocked kitchen tables around the neighborhood, and because families were the main market, butchers did their most brisk trade in cheaper cuts of meats, like kidneys. Once meat started showing up cling-wrapped at the supermarket, people started looking to professional butchers as artisans. That brought volume down and wiped most of them off the map.

Now, much of a butcher's business has shifted from family fare to high-quality, expensive cuts like racks of lamb and prime rib. You'll pick up chuck when you're at the Kroger, but you turn to a butcher for special occasions. Ultimately, that makes him a fringe vendor or a party caterer, not a guy who delivers your staples, and it means his days are numbered.

When I cook something from my supermarket, I simply eat it. When I cook something from my butcher shop, I can't shake the feeling that I could never do it justice. Recently, I went in my butcher shop for bacon. Before my eyes, he pulled out a whole side of pig, literally yanked the skin off the slab of meat, and sliced off the freshest stuff imaginable. (It was delicious. It also made me feel a little guilty--when we buy stuff on a foam tray from the Safeway, we don't have to deal with the connection that it actually came from a living thing.)

My butcher has been working with meat since he was 9 years old. His grandfather ran a butcher shop, and the tradition was passed down. His place -- gleaming white counters, a chopping block the size of a table, an old-fashioned clanging cash register -- has been running for more than 50 years. His own kids, though, aren't interested in continuing with such a blue-collar trade. When Anthony retires, the trade will die with him.

I'm hoping that the recession will help butchers. More Americans are scaling back our restaurant patronage and cooking instead, so more of us are starting to realize the true quality of some of the over-preserved stuff we've been putting in our shopping carts. Maybe we'll turn to butchers because we'll be able to trust the quality and freshness of what we're eating. I know I'm probably fooling myself.

It's a good thing Alice found Sam the Butcher when she did. Do you think they'd have hooked up if he was punching the clock in the hind end of Wal-Mart? He'd probably have been fired for chatting her up.

Former Staten Island pastor charged with stealing more than $84,000 from his church

by Staten Island Advance

The former pastor of a prominent North Shore Episcopal church stands accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his parish to pay for plastic surgery and Botox injections, as well as prescription drugs.

The Rev. William Blasingame, 66, who resigned in January as pastor of historic St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church, Stapleton, stole a total of $84,537 over the three years starting in January 2005, authorities contend.

He could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted at trial of the two felonies with which he is charged, second-degree grand larceny and second-degree criminal possession of stolen property.

Father Blasingame manipulated the church's bank accounts to pocket money from two funds, authorities allege -- the Friends of St. Paul's foundation, which was established to fund the maintenance, upkeep and beautification of the church grounds, and a discretionary fund he oversaw that was meant to provide small stipends to parishioners in need.

The priest would never let anyone else access those two accounts, said Richard Mingoia, the church's senior warden and treasurer, and with good reason -- he allegedly was writing checks to himself from the upkeep account, and using the discretionary fund as a personal piggy bank.

Father Blasingame used the money to pay for club memberships, plastic surgery, Botox injections, car insurance for his personal vehicle and expensive clothes, a law enforcement source said yesterday.

Much of the money, which was separate from the salary he drew from the church, went for prescription drugs from an online pharmacy, Mingoia said.

RECTORY SQUALOR
And despite the obsession with his appearance, including a $245 pair of shoes imported from London, the priest led a squalid existence in the rectory, Mingoia said.

"We had to have five 40-yard Dumpsters to take out the debris. Animal feces, liquor bottles, you name it. I can't even describe the horror scene," he said.

Mingoia said he first realized something was amiss with the bookkeeping when he was updating the church's bank information online and stumbled across the upkeep account, which showed Father Blasingame had written checks to himself.

He appealed to the Episcopal Diocese of New York to have Father Blasingame reveal the contents of the two accounts, but the discretionary fund the priest allowed access to had been created only in March 2008 and contained but $200.

Father Blasingame resigned for medical reasons, effective Jan. 1, and went on a disability pension. Mingoia said the priest initially was treated at Richmond University Medical Center and then transferred to Summit Oaks Hospital in New Jersey, which specializes in the treatment of chemical abuse and mental illness.

When the church officers cleared out the rectory, they found documents with the account number of his original discretionary account, and found the records of his payments to plastic surgeons and details of other transactions.

After consulting with the diocese, Mingoia gave the books to Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan's office.

A forensic investigation into the church's accounting followed, and Father Blasingame surrendered to the district attorney's NYPD detective squad on Friday morning, according to Donovan spokesman William J. Smith.

Father Blasingame was arraigned in Stapleton Criminal Court Friday, and is slated to return May 12.

Although the priest's car was parked outside the house on the 200 block of Vanderbilt Avenue where authorities say he has been staying of late, he did not answer the door and did not return phone calls seeking comment.

VENDETTA ALLEGED
Father Blasingame's lawyer, James Hasson, called the allegations against him a "bad mistake," and suggested Mingoia has it in for his former pastor.

"I think this Mingoia made a big mistake in accusing him of stealing money," Hasson said. "It's crazy. There's some kind of a vendetta out there, and there's more than meets the eye."

Hasson pointed to Father Blasingame's 31 years as the church's pastor, and said he "lives a very simple life and drives a heap of the car."

The back seat of his car -- a beat-up 1987 Volvo 760 Turbo with a sticker for the Palm Beach Yacht Club on one window and a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on the back -- was littered with books and papers.

A large, faded poster for the church covered much of the back seat, surrounded by books, including a hardcover Bible and several paperback mysteries by Lillian Jackson Braun.

Mingoia flatly rejected Hasson's claim of a vendetta, saying the church at this point is interested in restitution.

"There's no vendetta, believe me. Everybody in the church was heartbroken," he said.

Father Blasingame has been a notable presence in Staten Island social circles and was a member of the music committee at Manhattan's National Arts Club.

For 15 years, excluding last year, he hosted the church's signature fundraiser, "Victorian Christmas Festival of Lessons and Carols."

Two weeks before his arrest, Father Blasingame took out a quarter-page ad in the Advance offering a "very large" reward for the return of his dog, Andrew.

The dog was "illegally surrendered" to the Staten Island Center for Animal Care and Control, then adopted, while he was hospitalized, he said. "The reward is very large. Surely the adopter has a heart," the ad read.

Mingoia said Andrew was discovered in the rectory, flea-ridden and undernourished. A neighbor brought the dog to a veterinarian and later had it put up for adoption, he said.

The ad did not include the priest's name, and Father Blasingame was reluctant to talk publicly about the dog when contacted by a reporter last month.

"I don't want any personal publicity," he said. "I have reasons for that."

-- Contributed by John Annese

Apr 6, 2009 10:37 pm US/Central

Pilot Of Stolen Flight School Plane Arrested

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP)

                                                                                   http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=15849@cbslocal.dayport.com

The suspected pilot of a plane stolen from Canada and flown into the U.S. trailed by fighter jets was captured Monday night near the rural stretch of road in Missouri where he landed.

The single-engine, four-seat Cessna was intercepted by U.S. fighter jets over Wisconsin, where it prompted the evacuation of the state capitol, but kept flying south after the pilot failed to respond to radio calls and other signals.

Mike Kucharek, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado, said the Cessna 172 was stolen from Thunder Bay, Ontario, about 2:30 p.m. Monday. The pilot was flying erratically and didn't communicate with the fighter pilots from the Wisconsin Air National Guard who intercepted the plane at the Michigan-Wisconsin border, he said.

The pilot had acknowledged seeing the F-16s but he didn't obey their nonverbal commands to follow them, Kucharek said.

The pilot finally landed the plane on a road at Ellsinore near Poplar Bluff in far southeastern Missouri, said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

A man named Adam Dylan Leon, 31, was taken into custody about 9:30 p.m. in the same area, said Sgt. Marty Elmore, a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol.

Brown said the plane came from the Confederation College Flight School at Thunder Bay International Airport.

The plane landed about six hours after the reported theft, and had enough fuel for about eight hours of flight, NAADC officials said.

"We tailed it all the way," Maj. Brian Markin said. "Once it landed our aircraft returned to base."

In Madison, Department of Justice spokesman Bill Cosh said the state Capitol was evacuated shortly after 5 p.m. as a precaution because of the airplane.

Many workers had already left for the day. Gov. Jim Doyle was not in the building. He had been in Chicago Monday.

Capitol police ordered everyone out of the building and told them to go at least a block away. Police cars with sirens on drove on the sidewalks by the doors of the Capitol. Others drove on the streets of the Capitol square, telling people to move away.

People were allowed back in the building about an hour later.