UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

Former judge renews 'lost pants' lawsuit

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Former Judge Roy Pearson has renewed his $54 million lawsuit against a Washington dry cleaners over a pair of lost pants.

Pearson told a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that the cleaners had a sign promising "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and he wasn't satisfied, accusing Custom Cleaners of fraud, The Washington Post reported.

An attorney for Soo and Jin Chung, the owners of Custom Cleaners, argued that Pearson was "entitled to nothing," that his trousers weren't lost and had been offered to him several times. Pearson said the pair he was offered weren't his pants.

Town nixes 'swastika' floral arrangement

ANEBY, Sweden, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Officials in Aneby, Sweden, say a flower bed in front of the town hall has been rearranged after complaints it looked like a swastika.

Aneby Council spokesman Bo Davidsson said the council's head gardener rearranged the flowers Wednesday after residents complained that the original display resembled the Nazi symbol, Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra reported Thursday.

"We got reactions at lunchtime yesterday and immediately went out and changed it," Davidsson said. "People thought it looked like a swastika but I didn't really think it did. It was more like a wheel with twisted arms."

The gardener told TT the nixed arrangement had been inspired by an arrangement at a similar traffic roundabout in the city of Helsingborg but the design took on the swastika-like appearance after he scaled it down to suit the smaller area.

Mobsters tried to bribe guard for food

TRAPANI, Italy, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Police said four mobsters imprisoned in Trapani, Italy, tried to bribe a guard to take them culinary delicacies including lobsters and caviar.

Investigators said the guard informed his superiors after the four jailed Camorra bosses attempted to convince him to deliver lobsters, caviar, champagne, buffalo-milk mozzarella and baba, a sweet delicacy from Naples, to lighten the load of their life-in-prison sentences, ANSA reported Thursday.

Jail officials filmed the mobsters giving the guard cash -- an offered monthly payment of nearly $2,000 -- and handed the video over to police.

Police said they are looking into whether the four attempted to bribe any guards to get luxury items.

Aquarium finger coral wearing wedding ring

BOSTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- A wedding ring lost this year in a display tank at the New England Aquarium in Boston has been found on some finger coral, an aquarium worker says.

Aquarium worker Michael Whyte said after advertising official Bob Pirrmann lost his wedding ring while diving in the tourist site's 200,000-gallon Giant Ocean Tank, the beloved item became a veritable "needle in a haystack," The Boston Globe said Thursday.

"It was one of those things where I thought, 'It's got to be here someplace,'" Whyte said.

Despite the odds of finding the tiny piece of jewelry in the large display tank, Whyte located Pirrmann's ring on a piece of finger coral Sunday.

Whyte said the ring was returned to Pirrmann, who lost it in July while diving in the four-story tank.

Though unusual, it was not the oddest discovery in the open-topped tank to date.

"We have drawerfuls of sunglasses," he told the Globe. "One time, a baby spit a pacifier, and when I went down to get it, a porcupine fish had it in its mouth."