ODDLY ENOUGH
ODDLY ENOUGH
Tax owed by Ohio church in dispute over atheist ad
COLUMBUS
An Ohio church that got an atheist billboard removed from its property now has been told it must starting paying taxes on the ad space.
Rev. Waymon Malone of Christ Cathedral Church in Columbus complained earlier this summer about a billboard put up by the Freedom From Religion Foundation with the message, “I can be good without God.”
The Columbus Dispatch reports that the foundation tipped off the county auditor that the church wasn’t paying taxes on the land it rents out to the billboard company. A spokesman for the auditor says the church will have to pay a tax of about $185 a year.
Malone says he didn’t think he owed any tax because he had been donating the billboard income to the church.
Bear interrupts family’s outdoor Monopoly game
BEDFORD, N.H.
A Dutch family vacationing in New Hampshire has quite the story to tell when they return home.
Nine-year-old Cobi Jordan-Anker and 8-year-old Oliver Jordan-Anker were playing Monopoly with their grandmother on the back deck of her Bedford home Monday when they heard their mother inside screaming at them to “get in the house.”
They looked behind them and saw a black bear in the yard.
They ran inside and started taking pictures as the bear tore down a bird feeder and ate the seeds before taking off.
The mother, Lisa Jordan-Anker, tells WMUR-TV that a bear is something they’d never see in the wild in Holland.
Police say they have had three reports of bear sightings this summer. They warned residents to not leave food outside.
Bass estimated at 19 years old caught in Montana by boy
KALISPELL, Mont.
A 10-year-old Montana boy fishing with a rubber worm caught a largemouth bass that state wildlife officials say could be nearly twice as old as he is.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist Mark Deleray says the largemouth bass caught and released in a Flathead River slough by Garrett Frost could be as much as 19 years old. Deleray says that may be the oldest largemouth bass on record for Montana.
The Kalispell boy caught the fish July 16 in Rose Creek Slough. Deleray says the fish was 20 to 22 inches long and weighed about 3.5 pounds. Garrett removed a tag that had been placed on the fish in 1997 before releasing it.
Biologists estimate the fish was 5 years old when it was tagged, based on the fact that it was just over 14 inches long and weighed 1.5 pounds.
Associated Press