Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Mexican drug cartels post help-wanted ads EL PASO, Texas, April 4 (UPI) -- Mexican Consulate officials in El Paso, Texas, said Mexican drug cartels have been posting help-wanted ads in Juarez, Mexico, newspapers. Advertisement The officials said publications including P.M., El Diario de Juarez and El Norte have been printing vague help-wanted ads that are designed to trick young people into smuggling drugs over the border into the United States, the Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News reported Friday. Mexican Consulate spokeswoman Socorro Cordova said the issue came to the attention of officials nine months ago when the family of a driver stopped at the U.S. border showed the ad to Mexican officials. A Juarez woman who identified herself as Martha said her daughter was duped by one of the ads into accepting a job with a junkyard company that required her to drive twice a week to El Paso. Martha said her daughter was met at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. Advertisement "It was like they sent them a fax or something," she said. "Officers came out of everywhere and they let the other cars pass. This is what they are doing. They are tricking kids." Court orders couple to remove birdseed PROSPECT HEIGHTS, Ill., April 4 (UPI) -- An Illinois couple emptied their bird feeders after a judge ruled in favor of neighbors who said the birdseed attracted a surplus of wild animals. A Cook County judge ruled that Halina and Richard Rogulski are banned from filling outdoor bird feeders at their Prospect Heights home for six months, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday. "I was born in communist Russia, and in Russia, there was no freedom to pray ... but not the birds. We could feed the birds," said Halina Rogulski, 73. John and Alice Gornick claimed the Rogulskis' bird feeders were creating health risks by attracting a surplus of raccoons, birds and opossums. Judge Alfred Levinson decided Wednesday the Rogulskis went against city laws by fostering an unsanitary environment. He ruled the couple would have to either take down the feeders or pay a daily fine of $500. 'Flintstones' car beats court challenge TORONTO, April 4 (UPI) -- A Toronto judge dismissed charges of unsafe vehicle operation against an artist's car powered by Flintstone-like foot-paddling. Advertisement Last October, the driver of a hollowed-out Buick was fined by Toronto police for being behind the wheel of the "Shared Propulsion Car," which had no floor, engine, transmission or signal lights, the Toronto Star reported. Driver Dean Baldwin challenged the charges and won, the report said. The vehicle was originally a work of art by Montreal artist Michel de Broin, designed to be a four-seater bicycle or powered by passengers using their feet for propulsion, as in the classic Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon series "The Flintstones." One of the issue prosecutors argued unsuccessfully was that the car used tea candles as headlights, the Star said. Python stops traffic in Philippines QUEZON CITY, Philippines, April 4 (UPI) -- A 7-foot reticulated python stopped traffic in a Manila suburb when it crawled out from under a jeepney, a public transport vehicle. Inspector Erlito Renigin told the newspaper Tempo that the snake had apparently been riding on the jeepney, wrapping itself around a bar on the underside. Jeepneys are small passenger buses that got their name because the first were converted U.S. Army jeeps after World War II. Renigin, with help from three traffic officers and a number of passers-by in Quezon City, eventually captured the snake and put it in a bag, taking it to his office. Advertisement The snake appeared to be used to being handled, he said, suggesting that it is an escaped pet. Reticulated pythons, which can grow to be more than 30 feet long, are constrictors native to Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The snake is now in the hands of wildlife control officers who will hand it over to anyone who can prove ownership. If no one claims it, it may be released to the wild.
