UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

Runaway tortoise back after 4 years

BRENTWOOD, N.H., July 12 (UPI) -- A New Hampshire couple said a 25-pound tortoise that escaped from their gardening business has been found by a neighbor nearly four years later.

Mike and Christine Wellington, owners of Wellington Gardens in Brentwood, said Lucy the African Spur Thigh tortoise dug her way to freedom from her pen four years ago and they had given up hope of ever seeing the animal again until a neighbor called Friday night, WMUR-TV, Manchester, N.H., reported Monday.

Mike Wellington said he has a theory about how the tortoise survived the winters on her own.

"When it's really dry, those tortoises will dig a hole (several) feet deep and sit for a year and wait for it to rain," he said. "And when it rains they come out and eat grass, so she must have dug a hole and sat there through the winters."

The Wellingtons said the tortoise, now 10 years old and 35 pounds heavier than when she escaped, was hungry enough to down two heads of lettuce, some summer squash and some kale right after she was found.

Siblings reunite with long-lost brothers

NEW YORK, July 12 (UPI) -- A New York state woman said she is planning a reunion with her seven siblings, including two brothers the family hasn't seen in more than 35 years.

Linda Cook-Cole, 56, of Buffalo, said she hasn't seen youngest brothers Dwayne and Perry Finch since they were 5 and 4 years old in early 1975, when their foster families cut off communication with the boys' original family following the death of their mother, The Buffalo News reported Monday.

Cook-Cole said she and her five local siblings spent years searching for the boys, but they were unsuccessful until a Facebook search Tuesday brought her Perry Finch's account and he told her he was still in contact with Dwayne.

Cook-Cole, the eldest child in the family, said she and her siblings are planning to fly Perry in from Virginia and Dwayne from Alabama for a full reunion.

"I just want to touch them and hold them," Cook-Cole said. "It's so precious that we found them after all these years. My mother would be ecstatic. She'd be so happy that we'll be together."

Clerk's ruse foils robbery

SAN DIEGO, July 12 (UPI) -- San Diego police said an attempted robber fled the crime scene when a convenience store clerk pretended she couldn't speak English.

Investigators said the suspect, who was not described in detail by police, walked into a 7-Eleven store in the Webster neighborhood about 4:30 p.m. Sunday and pointed a gun at the clerk, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Monday.

Police said the clerk pretended she could not understand English and the intruder, frustrated, fled with no money in a late-model green Ford sedan.

Coast Guard selling 11 lighthouses

FRANKFURT, Mich., July 12 (UPI) -- The U.S. Coast Guard said it is seeking buyers for 11 no-longer-needed lighthouses, including three historic Great Lakes locations in Michigan.

Officials said they are first shopping the lighthouses, including Michigan's Frankfort North Breakwater Lighthouse, Middle Island Lighthouse and South Haven South Pierhead Lighthouse, around to communities, museums and non-profits with the means to restore and maintain the properties, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.

The Coast Guard said the remaining lighthouses will then be auctioned as early as next spring.

"These lighthouses are still an important part of our heritage," said Jennifer Radcliff, president of the Michigan Lighthouse Fund. "These lighthouses will tell us to remember that the lakes are still an important part of our economy."