■ UNITED STATES
Man fakes heart attack
A 52-year-old Milwaukee-area man has been accused of faking heart attacks to avoid paying restaurant bills and cab fares. Police say the Waukesha, Wisconsin, man took a cab to a mall on Monday and pretended to have a heart attack. The cab driver left unpaid. Authorities say the man then ran up a US$23 bill when he had a steak dinner at a restaurant. He again pretended to have a heart attack. This time the fire department took him to a hospital. A doctor there recognized the man as having pulled the same stunt in the past few weeks.
■ UNITED STATES
Cheese at Times Square
A sculpture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence made from a 1-tonne block of cheddar cheese glistened on the sidewalk of Times Square in New York on Thursday as an artist’s tribute to the Fourth of July. “It’s very patriotic, using the signing of the Declaration of Independence, bringing Americans together for the Fourth,” said Troy Landwehr, who carved the sculpture for cracker company Cheez-It to celebrate Independence Day. He worked eight hours a day for a week in a 4.4˚C cooler carving the block of Wisconsin cheddar.
■ UNITED STATES
Man fires into crowd
At least one person fired a gun into a crowd in a street in Milwaukee early on Friday, killing four people and sending panicked revelers running for cover, police said. Two women and two men were killed at about 2:30am, police spokeswoman Anne Schwartz said. Two people were injured, including Sylvia Ware, who was returning home from celebrating her 35th birthday at a nightclub. She pulled up in front of her house and saw 10 to 20 people outside. She heard gunshots and ducked in her car. The window shattered and she felt something hit her upper back. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God. My back is burning. I’m hit! I’m hit!’” she said.
■ UNITED STATES
Teens pelted with rocks
Two teenagers who drove to Oniontown, New York, after a series of YouTube videos portrayed the hamlet as a run-down, backwoods dump were pelted with rocks by an angry group of young residents, authorities said. The two 17-year-olds from Mahopac, about 48km south of Oniontown, suffered head and face injuries. Troopers arrested a 17-year-old from Oniontown on Thursday and charged him with criminal mischief. Additional arrests were expected, police said. State police investigator Eric Schaefer said it was not the first time out-of-towners were attacked by local residents. “The biggest recommendation at this point is for everybody to stay out of there,” Schaefer said.
■ CANADA
Poutine offends group
The US embassy in Ottawa apologized on Thursday for a party invitation that featured a prominent figure in Canadian history brandishing a large plate of French fries covered in cheese curds and gravy. The dish — known as poutine — is often looked down on as a kind of staple fast food in the French-speaking province of Quebec, where some nationalists are quick to take offense at what they see as unfair treatment by the country’s English-speaking majority. The e-mailed invitation to a Canada Day party on Friday showed Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer who founded Quebec City on July 3, 1608, holding a plate of poutine.
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