Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Digest

The skinny

By TIMES WIRES
Published June 26, 2007

Runners with Hops

Beer makes this fun run even more fun

In Suamico, Wis., they raise money for charity by drinking beer. Well, technically, they do it with a two-mile fundraising run, but instead of having stops for water, they have stops for beer. "This way the wife allows me to have a couple of beers because you're doing something, " said Beer Belly Two veteran Mike Marin. "A little exercise, you kill two birds with one stone." The race has raised $350, 000 for charity over 19 years.

Injury report

Hot dog king may miss ingestion fest

Sounds a little suspicious, but just three weeks after some American kid broke his record, Takeru Kobayashi, above, is all of a sudden talking about an injury that may cause him to miss the big Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. Kobayashi has won the title on Coney Island every year since 2001, when he shattered the record by eating 50 dogs in 12 minutes. He improved that record to 53 last year, but Joey Chestnut of San Jose downed 59 in a qualifying match this month to take the record. Kobayashi says he can only open his mouth the size of a fingertip due to jaw arthritis. "My jaw refused to fight any more, " he said in his blog.

Imperfect crime

Scooters are a bad getaway plan

Two men tried to rob a bank in Rungis, France, on Tuesday. They weren't very good at it. One worker got away and called police, according to the Mirror newspaper in London. Then they let three others go, on the condition that they promise not to tell police anything. Then they tried to get away on scooters. That was perhaps the worst part of the plan. Most cops are outfitted with vehicles that can outrun a scooter, even in France. "They weren't the most professional bank robbers we've ever been up against, " said one of the officers.

Update

Rusty car

- The city of Tulsa really meant well with the whole bury-a-car-for-posterity thing 50 years ago. But first it was all rusted out and now it learns that the guy who won the car died 18 years ago. In 1957, Raymond Humbertson guessed that Tulsa's population in 2007 would be 384, 742, making him closest to the U.S. Census count of 382, 457. For that, he wins the rusted out hulk of a Plymouth Belvedere. But he died in 1979. His wife died in 1988. They had no kids. The committee plans to talk to Humbertson's elderly sisters and nephew about what to do with the car. They also get a $100 savings bond, now worth about $1, 200.

- The unearthing was not a total waste of time. Scientists at the University of Oklahoma have taken the gas and oil recovered with the vehicle and plan to compare it to new gas in an effort to determine how to determine the age of fuel. The work could help them determine the age of fuel spills.

Compiled by staff writer Jim Webster from Times wire services and other sources.

[Last modified June 26, 2007, 00:23:47]