Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

2 Men accused of pawning stolen items for bail cash
Two Bozeman men have been arrested on probation violations after police said they tried to pawn a truckload of stolen items to bail a friend out of jail. Helena Police Chief Troy McGee said the two 21-year-old men arrived at a pawn shop Saturday morning with about $20,000 worth of goods including bikes, televisions and tools.
The store's clerk was suspicious and called police. Officers questioned the men, who said they were trying to raise bail money for a friend. A check with Bozeman police produced no reports of burglaries matching the items.
The officers did get the cell phone number from one of the men.
Less than an hour later, McGee said Bozeman police called to said they had started receiving theft reports.
Officers called the men and told them to turn themselves in. The men did and were arrested.
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Woman ordered to pay back half of $30,000 mistake
An ex-University of Notre Dame catering employee has agreed to pay the Indiana school back for half of a $30,000 tip mistakenly deposited in her bank account.
Sara Gaspar, who received a $29,387 deposit in her bank account due to an April 17 error for a deposit that should have been $29.87, said she spent the money on bills and a new car,.
Gasper agreed to pay the university back $16,859.79, about half of the original sum, in $50 monthly payments for about 28 years, court documents said. As part of the deal, the school agreed to drop its pending lawsuit to get the full sum back.
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Man flees in his boxers
Police say a burglar broke into an Adrian Michigan home before fleeing in only his boxer shorts and a pink baseball cap. The Daily Telegram reported the 25-year-old Detroit man broke into the home through a front window and removed valuables from the woman's bedroom.
Police said he was surprised by the home's residents and fled on foot wearing the woman's baseball cap and his boxer shorts.
He was arrested a short distance away and told an officer his clothes were taken by several girls, whom he was chasing. His clothes were found nearby.
He was charged with home invasion, larceny in a building and cocaine possession.
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Woman Calls Cops on Herself for Drunk Driving
911 dispatchers often get calls from people observing an impaired driver on the road. What makes the call Mary Strey of Clark County, Wisconsin, made unique, is that she called 911 on herself.
"Somebody's really drunk driving down Granton Road," she told the 911 dispatcher.
The dispatcher asked if the Strey was behind the drunk driver, to which she replied "No, I am then." The dispatcher asked, "Okay, so you're calling to report you're driving drunk?" "Yes," Strey said.
The dispatcher told Strey to pull her vehicle over, and she complied. She waited for a deputy to arrive with her hazard lights flashing. According to the police report, Strey failed field sobriety tests, and a preliminary breath test showed she had a blood alcohol content of .19, more than twice the legal limit to drive.
She was given a citation for operating a vehicle with a prohibited alcohol content of .10 or more. She's due in court in December, facing charges of first offence operating under the influence.
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Mistakenly Trashed Cell Found at Dump with Ringtone
A determined Aspen, Colorado man found his missing cell phone at a trash dump after dialing the number and listening for the ring.
Billy Boyd says he dropped the phone Tuesday while raking his yard outside Aspen and unknowingly scooped it into a bag of leaves.
He says he didn't realize his mistake until after he left the leaves at a city recycling center.
Boyd says he could hear the phone ringing but couldn't reach it because of the grate across the recycling bin. By the time he reached city officials, the bin had been emptied onto a massive leaf pile at the dump.
After a half hour of dialing, listening and sifting at the dump, Boyd found his phone.
Landfill manager Chris Hoofnagle says it's the first time he can remember anyone finding a lost item at the dump.
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"Sorry mom, I've gone and lost my arm. I didn't mean to."
A shocked mother woke her son up for school yesterday - and discovered his arm had been severed in the night.
The boy's limb was ripped off in a horrific accident on Wednesday night.
But amazingly the four-year-old boy - helped by his older brother - went to bed with his stump wrapped in a towel.
When his mother woke him up in the morning he said: "Sorry mom, I've gone and lost my arm. I didn't mean to." it.
An ambulance raced the boy to a local hospital with the severed limb.
But it was too late for surgeons to reattach
The boy is now recovering in hospital but is lucky to be alive.
Police spokesman Wolfgang Juergens said: "It is nothing short of a miracle that he didn't bleed to death in the night."
The accident happened when the boy and his 11-year-old brother played with an old washing machine in the kitchen at their home in the city of Ulm, southern Germany.
The appliance had been stripped down so the drum was exposed.
The pair switched it on and the boy's arm was caught between the revolving drum and the frame — before being ripped off.
But the older brother picked up the severed limb and put it in the family freezer.
Afraid to tell their mum what had happened, the boy astonishingly went to bed.
Police say an electrical defect meant that a sensor which should have not allowed the drum to spin while the front-load door was open was not working.
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Mechanic disabled parked cars for repairs
Johnson City, Tennessee police said a mechanic was drumming up business by tampering with parked cars, then charging to help start them. Police arrested 41-year-old Christopher Walls of Johnson City on Thursday night.
Investigators said Walls disabled cars parked at restaurants, waited for the owners to try to start them and then offered his services as a mechanic. Police said Walls charged between $40 and $200 to get the vehicles running again.
He's charged with two counts of theft under $500, but police suspect there are other victims. They're urging anyone else who thinks they were scammed to call them.
Walls was held at the Washington County Jail where a jailer said there was no record of him yet having an attorney.
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