hWill giant truffle bring in a hefty price?

hWill giant truffle
bring in a hefty price?

ROME — A white truffle weighing more than three pounds, dug up in Tuscany by a truffle-sniffing dog, will be auctioned this week in Florence for charity. Truffle hunter Cristiano Savini said Tuesday he was searching for truffles with his father last week in Palaia, about 25 miles from Pisa, when his dog, Rocco, started sniffing “like crazy.” With Rocco leashed to a tree to prevent him from digging too furiously, the Savinis carefully extracted a truffle they said weighed about 3.3 pounds, which they contended was a record. On Tuesday, Cristiano Savini brought the truffle to Rome to publicize the planned auction, to be held Saturday in a palace in Florence. Truffles can fetch $5,500 a pound in Rome, although they usually weigh from 1 to 2.8 ounces. Slivers of truffles, with their strong aroma, are prized in Italy to flavor pasta sauces and rice dishes.

Poultry fat leaks on road,
causing crashes, bad odor

ACCOMAC, Va. — A waste truck leaked poultry fat along 20 miles of road Tuesday, causing at least four crashes and making a stinky mess. Virginia State Police said a truck hauling a waste product of poultry grease from a Perdue Farms plant left a valve open, and the fat leaked onto U.S. Route 13 from the plant to the Maryland state line. At least four crashes and several spinouts were reported Tuesday morning on northbound Route 13, said Sgt. Joe Bunting. One injured person was taken to a hospital, he said. Bunting described the consistency of the grease on the road as a “glassy film” and said crews were sanding the road surface to help drivers get traction. However, the gunk was sticking to the tires and spreading onto secondary roads in the region. He added that the grease caused a “really funky” odor. The truck’s driver was stopped at a weigh-in station near the Virginia-Maryland state line, Bunting said.

Psychic charged in bilking

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A psychic and fortune teller known as “Miss Donna” has been charged with bilking $445,000 from a woman by telling her she was cursed and needed to pay up so she would be cleansed of evil, prosecutors said Tuesday. Santa Clara County prosecutors say Lola Miller, also known as Donna Miller and Miss Donna, read the San Jose woman’s fortune in August 2004 and, over the next seven months, extorted $350,000 in cash and another $95,000 in goods and services from her. Miller told the woman that she and several of her relatives were cursed and that she needed to pay the money to be purified of evil, said Deputy District Attorney Stan Voyles.

Surgery errors bring fine

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island Hospital has been fined $50,000 and reprimanded by the state Department of Health after its third instance this year of a doctor performing brain surgery in the wrong side of a patient’s head. The hospital issued a statement saying it was re-evaluating its training and policies, providing more oversight, giving nursing staff the power to ensure procedures are followed, among other steps. The most recent case happened Friday when the chief resident started operating on the wrong side of an 82-year-old patient’s brain, the health department said. The patient was OK, the health department and hospital said. In February, a different doctor performed neurosurgery on the wrong side of another patient’s head. That patient was also OK. In August, however, a patient died a few weeks after a third doctor operated on the wrong side of his brain.

Combined dispatches