Odds and Ends

Police find 2 calves crammed inside car

BEAUMONT, CALIF. >> It was one of the more unusual calls the California Highway Patrol has received: Someone reported seeing a cow trying to climb out of a small car parked alongside an interstate.

Officers responding Saturday along a mountain pass in Southern California’s Riverside County discovered a calf trying to escape from a Honda Civic’s open trunk.

Another calf was crammed into the floor of the backseat. Both calves’ hooves were tied.

Investigators say the driver was nowhere to be found. The car is registered to an address in Tulare County, more than 250 miles away.

Authorities said Monday that the vehicle had not been reported stolen. It’s been impounded as evidence.

The calves will be cared for at a ranch while officials try to determine who owns them.

Juggling act caught on police cameras

CONWAY, ARK. >> An Arkansas college student who moonlights as a magician showed off his juggling skills after he was pulled over for a broken brake light, and the act was captured on an officer’s body camera and police cruiser video.

University of Central Arkansas police pulled over 21-year- old Blayk Puckett last week in Conway, about 25 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Police say Puckett was driving slowly and officers suspected that he may have been under the influence. UCA police spokesman Michael Hopper says the officers quickly saw that Puckett was sober and they agreed to give him a warning before Puckett revealed he was a magician.

Puckett, whose license plate read JUGGLER, volunteered to juggle some bowling pins. He quipped: “This is the new sobriety test in Conway.”

Gelato leads police to burglary suspect

CHARLESTON, S.C. >> Police in South Carolina were able to nab a burglary sus- pect when they linked gelato in his possession to the same Italian-style ice cream that had been stolen from a store.

The Post and Courier of Charleston reports that Charleston police responded to a report of a string of vandalisms at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. Officers found shattered glass at eight buildings on the street and four more on a street nearby.

Around 1 a.m., police found 20-year-old Robert Corbit Hodges nearby. He was drunk, bleeding and carrying a container of gelato.

Investigators determined the gelato had been taken from Burbages Grocery, one of the targeted businesses.

Hodges was arrested on charges of second-degree burglary and public intoxication. It’s unclear if he has an attorney.

Dead shark found in Walmart parking lot

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA. >> Authorities are mystified as to why a 5-foot-long dead shark was left in the parking lot of a northeast Florida Wal-Mart just days before another dead shark was found nearby.

The St. Augustine Record reports St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the store parking lot last week after the shark was found in a shopping cart.

Deputies talked to the owner of an RV parked nearby and learned that the RV owner had woken to find the shark on his vehicle’s hood. The owner said he then put it in the cart.

The sheriff’s office says days later they were called to driveway in Vilano Beach and found another dead shark.

The deputies called in the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission to dispose of the sharks.

More than 300 do the mannequin challenge

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. >> More than 300 people have struck a pose, all in the name of laughter.

They performed a mannequin challenge outdoors Thursday at Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids to celebrate the start of Gil- da’s LaughFest. It’s a 10day festival of comedy to raise money for families dealing with cancer. It’s named for late comedian Gilda Radner.

The participants held their pose for nearly four minutes while a video crew recorded it.

LaughFest 2017 has free and ticketed events featuring more than 100 performers in Grand Rapids, Lowell and Holland.

High winds lift young girl into the air

LYNDHURST, OHIO >> High winds that blew through the Cleveland area knocked a little girl off her feet, literally.

Br ittany Gardner, posted a video on Facebook of her 4-year- old daughter, Madison, opening the storm door to a home on Wednesday only to be blown off the steps. She is seen desperately clinging to the door handle while her mom runs to her rescue.

Gardner tells WJW-TV that Madison held on to the door handle until she came to take her down. She says her little girl “is totally OK.”

The mom had some fun with it, setting her Facebook video to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me.” It had been viewedmore than 300,000 times as of early Friday.

Florida city’s old website used for porn

SPRINGFIELD, FLA. >> Officials in a Florida Panhandle city say their former website has been taken over by someone hosting pornographic content.

The Panama City News Herald reports that the city of Springfield began receiving complaints last week from citizens who were visiting the city’s old website.

Mayor Ralph Hammond said the city apparently let the old domain name expire, and the site now contains pornography.

Springfield switched its website to a .gov domain about three years ago. The city’s information technology department is seeking to buy back the old domain and any domains names similar to the city’s current website, springfield. fl.gov.