Watercooler Stories

91-year-old man takes on cops

CHICAGO, June 13 (UPI) -- A 91-year-old Chicago man faces felony weapons charges after allegedly threatening plainclothes police with a shotgun when they knocked on his door.

Police said Lawrence Brown supplemented his Social Security retirement income by selling liquor to area residents after local liquor stores closed. The alleged after-hours speakeasy drew so much foot traffic it attracted the interest of police, the Chicago Tribune said.

Brown refused to open his South Side kitchen to strangers and aimed his shotgun at the officers at the door ordering them to get off his property, police alleged.

He was arrested peacefully after a brief standoff with a SWAT team.

Brown was charged with unlawful use of a weapon.

Birds turn on the hand that feeds them

RALEIGH, N.C., June 13 (UPI) -- Shades of Alfred Hitchcock: the number of bird attacks on humans seems to be on the rise across the nation, a published report said.

U.S. postal carrier Keith Cooper in Raleigh, N.C., says he was a recent victim.

"I was ducking this way, then ducking that way, trying to get away," Cooper told the Christian Science Monitor.

A Houston lawyer was pecked in the face this spring. Bird attacks got so bad police closed down a Houston street in May after grackles attacked pedestrians, knocking some of them down.

In the nation's capital, bloggers last week reported on an aggressive hawk buzzing cars, while in upstate New York a high-strung woodpecker cracked dozens of car mirrors.

Ornithologists say the spread of tree-shaded and bird-friendly suburbs has added to friction between humans and birds during nesting season.

Mockingbirds, crows, bluejays, Arctic terns and seagulls are the most aggressive species.

Birds took over a coastal California town in Hitchcock's 1963 movie classic, "The Birds."

Fruit-flavored vinegar booming in Japan

TOKYO, June 13 (UPI) -- In Japan, there's been a boom in drinking fruit-flavored vinegar drinks.

"I feel refreshed when I drink vinegar, especially in summer," one woman told the Japan Times. "I've had apple vinegar for drinking purposes, but now I want to try other fruit vinegars, like litchi and cranberry."

Vinegar brewer Uchibori Vinegar Inc. has seen average monthly sales at each of its six vinegar shops jump by 10 percent in the last two years.

Many of the new vinegar shops offer more than 40 kinds of vinegar, made from mango, pears, raspberries, strawberries and other fruit. The vinegar should be drunk with water or milk, according to "Vinegar Sommelier" Mitsuyasu Uchibori, of Oaks Heart, a fruit vinegar shop in Tokyo.

"When we opened our first shop, our fruit vinegars were too sour to drink. So we made the taste mild and sweet by adding fruit juice taken from fruits used for making vinegar," he said. "I believe vinegar's sourness and strong aroma help relieve stress and make people feel relaxed."

Mystery 'gator puzzles Wisconsin police

KENOSHA, Wis., June 13 (UPI) -- Authorities in southern Wisconsin are searching for the owner of a "well-fed" 4 1/2-foot-long alligator found in a backyard of a home in the Town of Somers.

The subtropical lizard is more at home in Florida and Central America and Kenosha County Sheriff's deputies admit they don't know what to do with the critter.

"We don't know where it came from. The alligator is not talking," Sgt. Robert Crocker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The gator has been snacking on raw chicken and splashing around in a plastic swimming pool at the Kenosha Fire Department since animal control officers lassoed it Thursday afternoon.

Deputies speculate the gator was probably a pet that just grew too big and was set free by its owner.