Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
In the news
■ Jaequan Faulkner, 13, accused of operating a hot dog stand outside his Minneapolis house without a license, is open for business after getting help and advice from the Minnesota Department of Health and city health inspectors, who pitched in $87 to cover the stand’s food permit.
■ Amy Bright will be able to get a vanity plate reading “LSBNSNLV,” for “lesbians in love,” meant to honor her wife, after the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles reconsidered its initial denial in which it said the plate’s message was “offensive to good taste and decency.”
■ Patricia Polastri, a university professor, showed up at a Corpus Christi, Texas, City Council meeting dressed as a cockroach to draw attention to an influx of roaches and rodents that appeared after the city planted new palm trees and bushes along a busy street.
■ Carol Hafner, 64, who listed addresses in New Jersey and South Dakota in filing her paperwork, is on the Democratic primary ballot for an Alaska U.S. House seat even though she’s never been to the state, saying that while she’s serious about running, she doesn’t plan to campaign in person.
■ Marilyn Hartman, 70, dubbed a “serial stowaway” by prosecutors after repeatedly trying to sneak onto commercial jets without a ticket, has been released from jail, pending trial on orders that she stay away from airports, and train and bus stations.
■ Ellaine Durham, 35, an ice cream truck driver in Virginia Beach, Va., was charged with driving while intoxicated and three counts of hit-and-run after she crashed her truck into a car, injuring three people, on National Ice Cream Day, police said.
■ Kyle Burks, managing director of the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, said a jaguar that got loose and killed nine other animals before being recaptured likely escaped by biting through a steel-cable barrier that forms the roof of its habitat.
■ Nick Girone, the mayor of Mount Dora, Fla., apologized to a couple, and the City Council agreed to pay $15,000 to settle a dispute that began when city inspectors fined them for having their home’s exterior painted to emulate Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night.