Whales ignore siren songs

Whales ignore siren songs

A humpback whale, above, surfaces near a boat of the West Sacramento, Calif., Police Department in the Port of Sacramento. A mother-calf pair of humpbacks, which marine biologists say have injuries likely caused by boat propellers, were first spotted in the river Sunday. Biologists tried Thursday to use recorded siren songs of humpback whales to lure them from a shipping channel and back toward the Pacific Ocean 90 miles away. Researchers played the underwater recordings from two Coast Guard vessels. It could take weeks to get the whales back where they belong, scientists said. The procedure worked in 1985 with a humpback nicknamed Humphrey who wandered nearly a month in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta before heading to the ocean.

Mom sentenced in fraud

TACOMA, Wash. — A woman who coached her children to fake mental retardation to collect disability benefits was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday. Rosie Costello, 46, must also pay nearly $288,000 in restitution after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud. Last week, a judge sentenced her son, Pete Costello, to 13 months in prison.

The scheme was discovered after Pete Costello, now 28, was caught on surveillance video contesting a traffic ticket in a Vancouver, Wash., courtroom. Since he was 8, his mother had represented to state and federal officials that he was so severely retarded he could not perform simple tasks. Earlier, she had used the same scheme with her daughter, Marie, beginning when the girl was 4. Investigators have been unable to find the daughter.

The sentence imposed was longer than the federal guideline. U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton called Costello a “habitual offender” who “asked her children to do despicable things,” according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle.