Watercooler Stories

2,012 couples wed in Tijuana

TIJUANA, Mexico, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Officials in Tijuana, Mexico, said 2,012 couples participated in a mass wedding presided over by Mayor Carlos Bustamante.

The municipal government said the couples gathered in Friendship Park Tuesday and married in a ceremony that has become an annual tradition in the city to encourage couples to take advantage of the free marriages offered by local officials, SanDiegoRed.com reported Wednesday.

"When they say that families are disintegrating in Mexico, I tell them that in Tijuana they are coming together," Bustamante said at the ceremony. "Proof of this is the 2,012 couples who are marrying today."

Officials said the mass wedding was one of the largest in the city's history but far from a record for the country. A recent mass wedding in Juarez, located just across the border from El Paso, Texas, involved 6,242 couples.

School replaces student's homemade lunch

RAEFORD, N.C., Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A North Carolina woman said her preschool daughter was given school-made chicken nuggets after a state employee decided her homemade lunch was not nutritious.

The woman, who asked not to be identified to protect her daughter from retaliation, told the Carolina Journal an agent from the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the state Department of Health and Human Services was inspecting West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford and determined her daughter's lunch was not nutritious. She said the lunch -- a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice -- was deemed to be not in compliance with USDA guidelines requiring one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain and two servings of fruit or vegetables.

She said she was charged $1.25 for the school-supplied meal of chicken nuggets.

Jani Kozlowski of the Division of Child Development said the homemade lunch appears to have met the guidelines and she does not know why the agent had the meal replaced.

The mother said she wrote to state Rep. G.L. Pridgen, whose office said the matter is being investigated.

The Carolina Journal is a publication of the conservative non-profit John Locke Foundation, based in Raleigh N.C.

Neighborhood wants peafowl gone

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla., Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A Florida homeowners association said it is considering a plan to pay $6,000 to have half of the neighborhood's 400 peafowl rounded up and killed.

The Fox Hollow homeowners association in Boynton Beach said a trapper who has assessed the situation estimated the population of the nuisance birds at about 400 and would charge $6,000 to capture and destroy 200 of them, The Palm Beach Post reported Wednesday.

"Our management company, Southern Shores, has spent much time and effort trying to relocate some of the peacocks to other locations throughout Palm Beach County," the association said in a letter to residents. "They have contacted county government and private organizations (i.e. zoos, etc.) for help with this project, with no interest shown by the public or private sector."

The homeowners association is scheduled to vote on the matter Monday.

"I want every one of them out of here," resident Dorothy Laswell said. "They bang on my French doors, throw themselves at my windows and wake me up every morning, jumping on my roof at 6 o'clock. And during mating season, they scream and holler."

However, some neighbors said they do not want to see the birds harmed.

"They're loud and they make a mess, but they're beautiful," said Cheryl Bickley. "I'm one of those people in the neighborhood who feeds them, even though I know I shouldn't.

"It's horrible that they would even think of killing them. I have a 3-year-old daughter, and my fear is that I'll be driving down the block and she'll see somebody strangling a peacock."

Alleged counterfeiter is homeless

OCALA, Fla., Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A Florida man arrested on counterfeiting charges told investigators he used a printer to create fake $20 and $50 bills, authorities said.

The Ocala Police Department said investigators believe a man who attempted to use a fake $20 bill Monday at the Dollar General store on State Road 40 to be William Kyle LaRose, 28, who had an arrest warrant out for uttering a forged bill in a separate case, the Ocala Star-Banner reported Wednesday.

LaRose was picked up by a detective a short while later and admitted to attempting to use the $20 bill. He was found to be carrying 18 counterfeit $20 bills, each bearing the same serial number as the bill from the Dollar General store, and he told police he had been using counterfeit bills at an Aldi store, where police recovered three identical counterfeit $50 bills.

Police said LaRose, who described himself as homeless and a drug addict, told them he used a printer to create the faux bills, but he did not say where the printer was located.

LaRose was jailed on charges of uttering counterfeit bills and possession of more than 10 counterfeit bills.