Small Bits of News

How Dumb Do You Think We Are
A Kirksville Mo. man faces a felony indictment after trying to purchase a LCD television for less than $3 by allegedly replacing its UPC code with that of a water bottle.
Reginald Newman, 44, was indicted Monday by the Adair County Grand Jury and has been charged with attempted stealing by deceit.According to documents filed in Adair County Circuit Court, Newman allegedly tried to purchase a 26-inch Viore LCD television from Wal-Mart, claiming the UPC code valued at $3.16 was the proper code the television, which normally sells for more than $517.
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Men attack tree over fatal car crash
Three drunken men carried out an axe attack on a tree they blamed for a car crash that killed a friend, a court was told yesterday.
Harry James Hayward Swain, 23, Paul James Ashby, 22, and Zac Lance Pearsey, 24, meat worker, pleaded guilty in Gore District Court yesterday to intentionally damaging the Gore District Council-owned tree on November 25 last year. Police prosecutor Sergeant Grant Gerken said the men hacked out a hole 20cm to 30cm wide and 10cm deep in the tree.
They told police they thought the tree was responsible for their friend's death.
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100,000 hoax calls prompt plea from Dublin Zoo
DUBLIN (AFP) — Dublin Zoo appealed to the public on Thursday not to be taken in by hoax text messages that have led to its switchboard being jammed by an estimated 100,000 calls in two weeks.
People are receiving text messages to their mobile phones asking them to ring the zoo's number for an "urgent message."
The texts are signed with names like G. Raffe, C. Lion, Rory Lyons and Anna Conda.
"This is proving to be a very serious waste of our time and resources," the zoo said.
The zoo's marketing manager Veronica Crisp told RTE state radio they had previously got hoax calls on a few days of the year like April Fool's Day but the current situation "was getting out of hand."
"It might be kind of funny the first few times but we have lost our sense of humour now with calls coming in at a rate of about 13 a minute. The system is pretty much choked," she said.
Crisp said the police and Ireland's communications watchdog had been unable to help.