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It's supposed to be a carat, but don't eat it

By TIMES WIRES
Published February 15, 2007

Fresh on the heels of the story of the dog who ate the $5,000 diamond ring comes one of a house painter in Hollis, N.H., who is accused of using his stomach to make off with a $7,000 ring. After it was realized the ring was missing, police brought the painter in for questioning. When detectives left the room, a security camera caught him swallowing the evidence. Doctors had to remove the 1.2-carat ring during emergency surgery. "I'm not sure what goes through people's minds when you're in public and there's cameras everywhere, but yeah, it is on tape," Lt. James Sartell said.

Bring the cash, but leave the stash

Nakia Davis, 32, of Danbury, Conn., needed the cash in his vault at home to bail himself out of jail. He had been arrested when police pulled him over for speeding and found 48 grams of cocaine when they decided to pat him down. So Davis called his aunt and asked her to bring the safe down to the police station. She did, and opened the safe to get the $5,000 needed to get him out. Thing was, police noticed some other stuff in the safe. Like 16 more grams of coke. That added some more charges, and jacked up the bail to more than was left in the safe. Another relative, who got the money out before going to the station, later bailed him out.

Cleopatra may have had great personality

If you've bought into all the hype about how hot Egyptian queen Cleopatra was, a 2,000-year-old Roman coin isn't so kind to her. The small silver denarius found by Newcastle University shows her with a pointed chin, thin lips and a sharp nose. Flip the coin, and her Roman general fabled-hunk of a lover Mark Antony isn't all that much cuter. His eyes bulge and his nose hooks. (No one seems to consider the possibility that Roman coinmakers weren't great artists.) The coin isn't a recent find: It had been in a vault at the university for years when it was dug up. It was put on display Wednesday at the university's museum.

Doings in D.C.

- The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a voluntary recall of Thunderstick Rockets sold at Phantom Fireworks locations from December 2005 through June 2006. Seems too much explosive powder was put in them, and the recall notes the possibility that "these fireworks could explode with a greater force than expected." The commission is not knowledgeable, it would appear, in the psychology of people who buy fireworks.

- The U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality had a hearing scheduled for Wednesday called "Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?" It was postponed due to inclement weather in Washington, which included freezing rain and ice accumulation. So they'll instead reschedule the global warming hearing for sometime when it's ... well ... warmer.

[Last modified February 15, 2007, 01:38:00]