Chicken stuffed with cocaine
Customs inspectors at Dulles International Airport said a man from Guatemala was detained after he tried to carry a cooked chicken stuffed with more than US$4,000 worth of cocaine. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Steve Sapp said agents decided the fully cooked chicken that 32-year-old Wagner Mauricio Linares Aragon brought with him on a flight yesterday from El Salvador warranted closer inspection. Inside the chicken’s cavity they said they found two small, clear bags that contained about 60g of powder cocaine.
■UNITED STATES
Tweet interrupts wedding
A groom who loves social networking as much as his bride pulled out a cellphone during their wedding to “tweet” and update his Facebook page. YouTube footage shows Dana Hanna, from Maryland, whip out a telephone from his suit, interrupting the minister. Thoughtfully, he then produces a second phone and hands that to the bride. “Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where a second ago she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride,” Hanna wrote on his Twitter account from the altar steps. He also updated his status on Facebook to “married.”
■VENEZUELA
Mafia captain extradited
Caracas on Friday deported an Italian citizen wanted in Rome on charges of trafficking heroin and accused of working with the Sicilian mafia to smuggle drugs to Europe and Africa. The accused, Walter Carapacchi, has been a fugitive since 2001 and had lived undocumented in Venezuela for nine years, police said. Arrested last month, Carapacchi, 54, is the 14th person deported by Venezuela this year on drugs charges. Many of the alleged mafia captains were sent to Colombia or the US. Venezuela is a major transit country for Colombian cocaine to Europe and to a lesser extent the US. It has stepped up its drugs fight after a surge in trafficking a few years ago.
■UNITED STATES
White House crashers sued
A Maryland county is suing the couple who got into last week’s state dinner at the White House without an invitation after it said they bounced a nearly US$24,000 check for a liquor purchase. The Montgomery County government, which conducts all the wholesale liquor sales on its territory, filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Michaele and Tareq Salahi in Montgomery County District Court. The Salahis purchased wine and beer for a charity polo event they held in Montgomery County in May. Court documents state the couple returned more than US$10,000 in merchandise, but they still owed more than US$13,000 from the bounced check.
■UNITED STATES
Crist in sex-line blunder
Oops! In an embarrassing blunder, Florida Governor Charlie Crist directed parents of uninsured children to call a toll-free sex line. People calling the governor’s office heard an on-hold recording of Crist promoting the toll-free Florida KidCare line. Except two numbers were transposed. Anyone calling the number Crist gave out was told to call another number. The recording on that second phone number begins, “Hey there sexy guys” and says the caller can have a more graphic conversation with a woman for US$2.99 a minute. The Palm Beach Post discovered the mistake. Crist quickly fixed it.
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