Police say a first date went from bad to worse when a man skipped out on the restaurant bill, then stole his date’s car. Police say 23-year-old Terrance Dejuan McCoy had dinner with a woman on April 24 at Buffalo Wild Wings in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. The woman says the two met a week earlier at a Detroit casino and she knew McCoy only as “Chris.” The woman told police that McCoy said he left his wallet in her car and asked for keys. He then sped away in the 2000 Chevrolet Impala. The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reports that police identified McCoy by a photo he’d sent to the woman’s cellphone, and his phone number.
■MEXICO
Mansion sports Rivera murals
A mansion on the market in the legendary beach resort of Acapulco has an unusual selling point — six murals by one of the country’s most renowned artists, Diego Rivera. Three of the murals are publicly unseen, late works by the world famous artist who died more than 50 years ago made and his name painting massive murals on buildings from Mexico City to New York. The mansion was built on a cliff in Acapulco’s heydey in the middle of the last century, and is on the market for a minimum of US$6 million. “There are [three] unknown murals inside. Only the ones that can be seen from the street are known,” said Carlos Phillips, son of the mansion’s original owner, Dolores Olmedo. Olmedo, a sophisticated art collector and friend of Rivera and his famous artist wife, Frida Kahlo, had the mansion built in 1940. Rivera created the murals between 1955 and 1957 — the year he died. One mural of naturally colored stones depicting a journey by leftist Rivera to the former Soviet Union decorates the artist’s former studio alongside the house, Phillips said. Another — on the outside of the house called Exekatlkalli or “House of the Winds” in the indigenous Nahuatl language — depicts an Aztec serpent god in a long stone mosaic.
■UNITED STATES
Stimulus leads to arrests
Police in a Florida city used the promise of economic stimulus checks to lure 76 people to their arrest on a variety of outstanding warrants. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department set up “Operation Show Me The Money” to round up people wanted on charges ranging from second-degree murder to guns and drug charges to failure to pay child support.
■UNITED STATES
Checks sent to inmates
The government sent checks by mistake to 1,700 inmates around the country as part of efforts to jump-start the crisis-hit economy, officials said on Thursday. The prisoners “received the economic recovery payment because our records did not accurately reflect that they were in prison,” said Social Security Administration spokesman Dan Moraski. The checks were for an average of about US$250, meaning the mistake cost the government around US$425,000.
■BRAZIL
Cologne closes bridge
Talk about making a stink. A grenade-shaped bottle left under a busy bridge closed a major thoroughfare and brought police to investigate — only to discover that it contained French cologne.The black bottle of Arsenal cologne by the design house of Gilles Cantuel looked realistic enough for police to halt rush-hour traffic on Thursday morning. The result was a 5km traffic jam in South America’s biggest city — already known for its congested streets.
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