oddly enough
oddly enough
9-year-old boy summoned to jury duty in Massachusetts
YARMOUTH, Mass.
Like many people who get summoned to jury duty, Jacob Clark didn’t want to go.
But unlike most people, he had a legitimate excuse — he’s 9 years old.
“I was like, ‘What’s a jury duty?’” Jacob told the Cape Cod Times in response to his summons to appear in Orleans District Court in Massachusetts on April 18.
His grandmother told him it was a good excuse to miss a day of school.
His dad called the jury commission office to find out what happened. It turns out that someone apparently had typed 1982 for the Yarmouth third-grader’s birth year instead of 2002.
The mistake was quickly corrected.
Massachusetts Jury Commissioner Pamela Wood says a child gets called for jury duty once or twice a year.
Deaths barred in Italian village
ROME
Since the start of the month, it has been illegal to die in Falciano del Massico, a village of 3,700 people some 30 miles from Naples in southern Italy.
Mayor Giulio Cesare Fava issued the tongue-in-cheek decree because the village has no cemetery and it is feuding with a nearby town that has one — creating a logistical problem about what to do with the deceased. The mayor told newspapers that villagers are content.
“The ordinance has brought happiness,” he was quoted as saying. “Unfortunately, two elderly citizens disobeyed.”
Test-tube kitten born in US
NEW ORLEANS
Several endangered black-footed cats have been born recently in the U.S., and researchers say Crystal’s birth is the rarest — the first born from an embryo fertilized in a lab dish, frozen, and later implanted in a house-cat’s womb.
The black-footed cat is Africa’s smallest wildcat and one of the world’s smallest felines — smaller even than a domestic cat.
Earle Pope, interim director of the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species, says Crystal was born Feb. 6 at the New Orleans complex. He says Crystal is proof that embryos of this dwindling species can be successfully implanted into domestic cats.
Thief grabs deli’s fancy meat and skips on the cheap cuts
SALT LAKE CITY
Police in Salt Lake City are trying to find a thief with a discriminating palate who broke into a deli and stole its finest meats and cheeses.
Caputo’s owner, Troy Petersen, says five or six legs of prosciutto, artisan salami and the fanciest imported cheeses were gone when the burglary was discovered. The less-expensive cuts of meat were untouched.
Associated Press