ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Police on the lookout for little Bigfoot stolen in W. Pa.

BEAVER FALLS, Pa.

Police in one western Pennsylvania community are searching for Bigfoot — but this quest has a better chance of success than most.

That’s because the Bigfoot being sought by the North Sewickley Township police actually exists — though police say the 28-inch statue of the Yeti has been missing from the planting bed in front of Mary Fabian’s home since at least last Monday.

Fabian told the Beaver County Times she bought the statue online four years ago and named him Harry after the 1987 film “Harry and the Hendersons,” in which a family befriends a Sasquatch.

Acting police Chief Jeff Becze says investigators haven’t found any footprints — human or Yeti — or other clues as to who might have taken the statue.

Man settles old restaurant bill in New Mexico after 16 years

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

A man who couldn’t pay a Valentine’s Day date restaurant bill as a teen has return to pay his debt — sixteen years later.

KOB-TV reported that Matt Sanchez repaid owner Claus Hjortkjaer this month after the owner recently reopened his French restaurant Le Cafe Miche in Albuquerque.

The 30-year-old Sanchez says he took a date to the older restaurant as a 14-year-old to impress his girlfriend. But then he realized he didn’t have enough money.

Sanchez says Hjortkjaer came in and lent the young Sanchez the money from his own pocket and promised that he wouldn’t tell Sanchez’s date.

When Sanchez got older and was able to repay, the restaurant closed.

Sanchez says when the restaurant reopened near his office this month, he found Hjortkjaer and gave him $100 — more than what was owed.

Author Brown is hounded for calling Manila ‘gates of hell’

MANILA, Philippines

Dan Brown’s description of Manila as “the gates of hell” in the American novelist’s latest book has not gone down well with officials in the Philippine capital.

The book “Inferno,” which is being sold in the Philippines, includes a character who is visiting the city and taken aback by poverty, crime and the sex trade.

The chairman of metropolitan Manila, Francis Tolentino, wrote an open letter to Brown on Thursday, saying that though “Inferno” is fiction, “we are greatly disappointed by your inaccurate portrayal of our beloved metropolis.”

Tolentino objects to the “gates of hell” description, and to Manila being defined by what he calls terrible descriptions of poverty and pollution.

He says the novel fails to acknowledge Filipinos’ good character and compassion.

Associated Press