Tuesday, September 9, 2008

In the News

Thief penny penance
A woman convicted of stealing a donation jar from a church in Ohio lowered her jail sentence by apologizing in pennies.
Painsville Judge Michael Cicconetti gave Anna Marie Cothrum the option of reducing her 90-day jail sentence to 10 days if she created a sign in pennies spelling out "I stole coins from this church" and stood outside the Central Congregational Church in Madison with it.
Members of the congregation stood with Cothrum during her unusual mea culpa.
"We're more interested in being loving and gracious and forgiving because we've all sinned in our lives and fallen short of the glory of God. We all make our mistakes," said Pastor David Brown.
Cothrum said she was grateful to church members for keeping her company.
"I greatly appreciate them standing out here with me. You know, nobody said they had to. They want to do it in their own free will, so I have no problem with that," Cothrum said.
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Woman fails driving test for puddle splash
A driving examiner failed a woman on her test after she splashed a pedestrian by driving through a puddle. Michelle Kelly, 31, from Blackley, Manchester, was told she should have stopped to exchange details with the man, who was waiting at a bus stop. The mother-of-two protested that if she had swerved to avoid the puddle she might have caused an accident.
But it pointed out that motorists should have consideration for others, including pedestrians, who can possibly be drenched by passing vehicles.
Its advice is that, where possible, a driver should avoid drenching pedestrians and a failure to do this would be sufficient grounds for failing a driving test.
The Road Traffic Act contains an offence of "careless, and inconsiderate, driving" and Crown Prosecution Service policy states that bad or inconsiderate driving includes driving through a puddle causing pedestrians to be splashed.
Courts may impose fines of up to £2,500 for such an offence.
Ms Kelly now faces taking her test again - for the fourth time.
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Pssst. The secret's out at KFC. Well, sort of.
Colonel Harland Sanders' handwritten recipe of 11 herbs and spices was to be removed Tuesday from safekeeping at KFC's corporate offices for the first time in decades. The temporary relocation is allowing KFC to revamp security around a yellowing sheet of paper that contains one of the country's most famous corporate secrets.
So important is the 68-year-old concoction that coats the chain's Original Recipe chicken that only two company executives at any time have access to it. The company refuses to release their name or title, and it uses multiple suppliers who produce and blend the ingredients but know only a part of the entire contents.
For more than 20 years, the recipe has been tucked away in a filing cabinet equipped with two combination locks in company headquarters. To reach the cabinet, the keepers of the recipe would first open up a vault and unlock three locks on a door that stood in front of the cabinet.