■ UNITED STATES
Tumbleweed takes over
Montana residents are used to digging themselves out after heavy snowstorms, but residents of one neighborhood had to put a snowplow to different use: clearing mounds of tumbleweed from their driveways. Winds flooded a neighborhood with tumbleweed on Tuesday, covering sheds, burying mailboxes and blocking a street and driveways. Residents of Shooting Star Lane in Springhill were forced to use snowplows and pitchforks to clear the debris. Tumbleweed can be pesky. The plants dry out after maturing, break off at ground level and then roll wherever the wind takes them, spreading their seeds in the process.
■ UNITED STATES
Marines ban large tattoos
Five tattooed skulls stretch from Marine Corporal Jeremy Slaton's right elbow to his wrist, spelling out the word "Death." Slaton, planned to add a tattoo spelling "Life" on his left arm, but that is on hold because of a Marine policy taking effect on Sunday. The Marines are banning any new, extra-large tattoos below the elbow or the knee, saying such body art is harmful to the Corps' spit-and-polish image. Slaton and other grunts are not pleased. For many Marines, getting a tattoo is a rite of passage. They commonly get their forearms inscribed to remember fallen comrades, combat tours or loved ones.
■ MEXICO
Nine officials on trial
A judge on Wednesday ordered five mine officials to stand trial for negligent homicide in the deaths of 65 coal miners killed in a gas explosion last year. Coahuila state Judge Sergio Tamez said lawyers for the five Industrial Minera Mexico employees will have 20 days to present evidence in their favor. He did not name the employees, who obtained an injunction from a separate court that keeps them from being jailed pending their trial. Coahuila state prosecutor Jorge Rios, who asked the judge to issue the arrest orders, said he had found that managers and inspectors at the Pasta de Conchos mine did not fix unsafe conditions detected eight months before the blast.
■ BOLIVIA
Beauty queen arrested
A former Miss Bolivia has been arrested on charges of carrying 806g of cocaine while boarding a flight to the Brazilian border, Bolivia's second former beauty queen to face legal trouble in less than a week. Police said on Wednesday that Roxana Arias Becerra, 32, was arrested with traveling companion Argentina Ardaya, 40, in Santa Cruz's El Trompillo Airport as they boarded a plane on Tuesday to Puerto Suarez on Bolivia's eastern border with Brazil. Becerra, Miss Bolivia 1993, was also traveling with her 11-month-old daughter, according to the Bolivian newspaper El Deber. Police discovered 806g of cocaine hidden in a false bottom of Becerra's nylon duffel bag.
RSS