Watercooler Stories

British man digs up live grenade in yard

EXETER, England, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- A British man digging in his back yard with a spade turned up a live World War II anti-tank grenade, police said.

Paul Davis, 32, thought the 8-inch-wide device was an old lawnmower part and took it in to his Exeter home, the Mail on Sunday reported.

A friend took a photo of him holding it.

Later, curious about the device, Davis checked the Internet, realized he had a grenade and called the police.

A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said police told a dozen residents to leave their houses before experts detonated the grenade.

Davis said the grenade wasn't buried that deep in the earth.

"I've asked around, and apparently the guy who used to live here years ago had an air raid shelter," Davies said.

"It must have been buried then. I'm glad I didn't hit it with my spade when I dug it up. It could have been 'kaboom!"

Man tracks down long-lost Bible's owners

MEMPHIS, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Memphis resident Dynesa Coburn says she was shocked to hear from a New Mexico man who spent 15 years trying to return her family's long-lost Bible.

Coburn said engineer Pat Lynch contacted her in late August to tell her he had a Bible lost by a member of her family 15 years ago, The Memphis Commercial Appeal said Sunday.

"I was stunned," Coburn said of the news. "I didn't even know there was a Bible out there."

Lynch found the Bible inside a locomotive in New Mexico in 1994 and was determined to use the "Robert W. Childress '81" notation inside the religious text to find its rightful owner.

"I just wanted to make sure it got back to the family somehow. This is somebody's heritage. I just couldn't let that go," Lynch, 50, said.

Lynch was able to track down Coburn's family after being alerted to the obituary of Robert W. Childress, Coburn's brother.

"We are eternally grateful that he never gave up," Coburn's sister Pam Cummins told the Commercial Appeal of Lynch's efforts. "Pat called it the lost Childress family Bible. It's not lost anymore."

Baby alligator among items seized by TSA

NEW YORK, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The Transportation Security Administration says it has seized 123,189 items from passengers at three New York-area airports, including a baby alligator.

The New York Post said Sunday also among the tens of thousands of prohibited items seized since January at the three local airports was a 6-foot-long African spear and a gassed-up chainsaw.

The federal agency said other items that passengers were not allowed to board flights with include unwashed adult toys, 10-point deer antlers and even a kitchen sink.

The unidentified passenger caught attempting to travel from New York to Puerto Rico with a baby alligator had the live animal strapped to his thigh in an attempt to fool airport officials.

Meanwhile, a total of 122 passengers were stopped at Newark Liberty International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport since January for attempting to board flights with ammunition and gunpowder.

The Post said the three airports also account for nearly 450 pounds worth of abandoned goods each month.

Brits bristle at Google's ogling

BROUGHTON, England, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- Broughton, England, residents say they don't want detailed photos of their village on Google Street Finder, so they refuse to cooperate with photographers.

Street View, part of the Google Maps feature, allows Internet users close-up, 360-degree views of streets, houses and other buildings as well as yards, parks, schoolyards and pretty much any other public place that's outside.

Edward Butler-Ellis, 28, a Broughton resident, recalled fellow residents' reaction to the arrival of a Google photographer's vehicle.

"I don't think this guy anticipated how angry people would get," Butler-Ellis told the Los Angeles Times. "We didn't stand there with pitchforks or anything and block the road with bales of hay, but obviously people were agitated. . . . A car with a pole with a camera on top of it causes suspicions."

Other European locations also oppose having photos of their towns appear on the Internet.

Europe's generally strict laws on privacy have slowed Google's attempt to include photographs of European locations, the Times reported.

In Switzerland, people object to being caught on camera in compromising circumstances.

Some also fear that the Web photos might be used by strangers for burglary or blackmail, the newspaper said.

Google Inc. said it would work harder to scramble people's faces and automobile license plates in uploaded photos.

"The blurring technology is very effective and catches most faces and license plates in the millions of pictures we take," said Kay Oberbeck, chief spokeswoman for the Google's German, Swiss, and Austrian operations. "We give everybody the opportunity to inform us of any problematic image they might see, and usually it is taken down within hours,"

The company said it is working with a European data-protection task force to determine how long it will retain raw, unaltered data.

Google said it will also give residents better warning of when the cameras will roll into town, Oberbeck said.