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By TIMES WIRES
Published June 29, 2007

Terrorists 1, trumpet 0

Salt Lake City just hates trumpets

There was something suspicious about the trumpet case sitting outside a fast rood restaurant in Salt Lake City. What could be in it? Probably something terroristic. So after closing off a section of the city for a couple of hours, they sent a robot in with explosives to blow up the case. And everyone immediately felt better, if only for the fact that for a brief moment it was like they were in the middle of an action movie. Safely destroyed, the offending package was checked to see what had been in it. "It was just a trumpet, " said Detective Gary Trost.

Common sense in court

Feds share house, but won't move in

The federal government wanted to seize a house in Branford, Conn., after a 2001 raid turned up 65 pots of pot, and a bunch of other stuff that someone would have no need for unless they were doing something nefarious. Harold Von Hofe, owner of - and this next word is critical - half the house, was arrested. So a court has ruled that the Feds can seize his half of the house. But the ruling said there is no evidence that his wife, Kathleen, had any idea what was going on in the basement, so she gets to keep her share. Her lawyer says she'll probably see if the government is interested in selling.

She didn't play, but still wants to win

Helene de Gier lives in the small Dutch town of Heusden, where a bunch of people recently won the big Postcode Lottery in which, if you buy a ticket and your ZIP code is picked, you win! But she didn't buy a ticket. Even though seven of her neighbors did, and they each won $18.6-million. So de Gier did the only natural thing: She sued. She claimed she was confronted with grief every time she saw her neighbors' new cars, every time she wrote her ZIP code, every time she saw lottery ads. A group of judges thought long and hard about it, and didn't laugh right at her, but politely denied her claim. Then they probably laughed.

No bubble gum

Trade the cards, not the diseases

If teachers hear a student offering to give another student Ebola in return for two Staph Infections, there is no reason for alarm. They're probably just wheeling and dealing the new trading cards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, featuring all sorts of global maladies, including the rookie card for Recreational Water Illness. Some of the cards are not for the squeamish, and that's after the CDC toned them down. For instance: Think the picture of the dead zebra on the Anthrax card is a little grim? "The picture before the zebra was a woman who had anthrax on her eye, " the CDC's Judy Gantt told WSB-TV in Atlanta. "It was pretty gory." The cards are available for download at www.cdc.gov/gcc/ exhibit/cards.htm.

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster, who can be reached at jwebster@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 29, 2007, 00:35:50]