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Animal park owner bunks with giraffe

NEW CASTLE, Pa., June 26 (UPI) -- The owner of a private zoo in Pennsylvania says he is the first person he knows of to become roommates with a giraffe.

Adam Guiher, owner of the Living Treasures Animal Park near New Castle, said he had a special structure built at the facility to house himself and Levi, a 7-month-old giraffe he obtained from a small zoo when his mother rejected him at 3 weeks old, The Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator reported Monday.

Guiher said Levi, who currently stands at 9 feet tall and will grow to be about 18 feet tall, can walk in and out of his 24-foot-high room whenever he wants to escape from weather. He said the house also includes the typical rooms needed by humans, including an office, a master bedroom, a kitchen and a spare bedroom.

The park owner said the 350 animals in the private zoo are like "immediate family" to him, "but [Levi] especially, because when I wake up, he's the first one I see."

Nuclear plant war games postponed

BUCHANAN, N.Y., June 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it has postponed war games at a New York state power plant due to the fake ammunition causing people to pass out.

The NRC said the high-tech war games, which use blank rounds and lasers to simulate gun battles, were postponed at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan after a security officer at New Hampshire's Seabrook nuclear power complained of light-headedness resulting from the mock assault, The Journal News, White Plains, N.Y., reported Monday.

"The issue is that carbon monoxide is emitted from the firing of multiple rounds in a security enclosure, where ventilation is limited," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. "This is the first force-on-force exercise that has been postponed due to this issue."

The equipment manufacturer, Florida-based Saab Training USA, said it is working to resolve the issue.

Wedding party falls into lake

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 26 (UPI) -- A Michigan bride whose entire wedding party plunged into a lake when a dock collapsed said the incident "makes for a good story."

Eric and Maegan Walber said their wedding party gathered on the dock at the Bay Pointe Inn in Grand Rapids to take pictures after the ceremony Saturday and the dock began to wobble after about 30 seconds, Mlive.com reported Monday.

"I saw the thing starting to tilt, and I'm like, 'Oh, yup, this is going to happen,'" Eric Walber told WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids. "We went right under."

"Everyone was laughing," he said. "It was one of those things that it just happens and you roll with it."

Maegan Walber said the plunge made her wedding day all the more memorable.

"It makes for a good story," she said. "We'll be telling our grandkids."

Great-grandmas sky dive for Blue Star moms

LIMA, Ohio, June 26 (UPI) -- A pair of Ohio great-grandmothers parachuted with seven retired Army Ranger paratroopers to raise funds for their Blue Star Mothers chapter and its food pantry.

Marjorie Bryan, 83, and Marianna Sherman, 82, joined retired Sgt. 1st Class Michael "Big Mike" Elliott and his team for a round of sky diving Saturday afternoon in Lima, Ohio, to raise money for their chapter of Blue Star Mothers, an organization for women whose children have served in the military, and its Lima Veterans Food Pantry, The Lima News reported Monday.

Elliott, 44, who has previously done tandem jumps with former President George H.W. Bush for his 83rd and 85th birthdays, said Bryan and Sherman were impressive first-timers.

"These Blue Star Mothers are so sweet, so special," Elliott said. "We came up here two months ago, and they said they had this plan, and we said here's what you have to do. It was challenging, but they did it. They didn't quit."

The sky divers were also accompanied by other first-timers including Bryan's grandsons, Alan and Matthew High; Sherman's son, Fred; and Robin McCarthy, 47, national president of the Blue Star Mothers of America.