■ UNITED STATES
Boys find live grenade
Eight-year-old Sidney Mathis and his friend found a live, World War II-era hand grenade while searching for buried treasure with a metal detector in Pace, Florida. The pair had found nails, bolts and a toy car by sweeping the detector over a field near their apartment complex when Sidney's father Chris Mathis arrived home on Thursday to find the boys about to put the grenade into a bucket of water. He grabbed the grenade and held it outside the window of his car as he drove away from the complex before having second thoughts. "I hit a bump and that's about the time I realized moving the grenade wasn't the brightest thing to do," he said. Two members of an Air Force explosives unit from a nearby air base took the grenade and destroyed it on Friday.
■ UNITED STATES
Wheelchair-tipper released
A Tampa, Florida, deputy who was videotaped dumping a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair onto a jailhouse floor has been released from jail after posting bail. Charlette Marshall-Jones was booked into the same jail where she worked early on Saturday after turning herself in. She is accused of tipping 32-year-old Brian Sterner out of his wheelchair. A videotape of the incident has been widely circulated by TV stations and over the Internet. She was charged with one count of felony abuse of a disabled person and released after posting US$3,500 bail.
■ UNITED STATES
Walken wins Hasty Pudding
Christopher Walken sang a song from Hairspray and spoofed a comedy skit to earn Harvard University' s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award. Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the nation's oldest undergraduate drama troupe, presented the actor with the award on Friday. Before the presentation, Walken, who serenaded John Travolta in the musical film version of Hairspray, sang to a Harvard student dressed in drag. Walken said he was ``amazed and thrilled'' by the honor.
■ UNITED STATES
Diplomat faces sex charges
Foreign Service officer Gons Nachman was charged in US District Court of using his status to pressure female visa applicants in Brazil for sex. Nachman, 42, was charged with misuse of his diplomatic passport, making false statements and possessing child pornography. He was ordered jailed pending a detention hearing scheduled for tomorrow. The affidavit said that Nachman had pursued sexual relationships with attractive female visa applicants while stationed in Rio de Janeiro and that he admitted to having sexual relationships with two women. Court records indicate that Nachman was ordered to stop performing his duties as a Foreign Service officer in September.
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