Airport bans sale of pot-themed souvenirs

January 29, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

DENVER

Tourists who fly to Colorado, home of legal pot, can forget about buying souvenir boxer shorts, socks or sandals with a marijuana leaf on them when passing through the Denver airport.

The airport has banned pot-themed souvenirs, fearing the kitsch could taint the state’s image.

Marijuana possession and any pot-related advertising already were forbidden. Airport executives extended the ban this month after a retailer sought a free-standing kiosk to sell the boxer shorts and similar items that played off Colorado’s place as the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales.

Treasure hunter is caught after 2 years

COLUMBUS

A treasure hunter accused of cheating his investors out of their share of one of the richest hauls in U.S. history — $50 million in gold bars and coins from a 19th-century shipwreck — was captured at an upscale Florida hotel after more than two years on the lam.

Federal marshals tracked Tommy Thompson to a Hilton in West Boca Raton and arrested him Tuesday. A warrant had been issued for him in 2012 in Columbus after he failed to show up for a hearing on a lawsuit brought by some of his backers.

Thompson, 62, made history in 1988 when he discovered the sunken SS Central America, also known as the Ship of Gold.

Census: 1 in 5 kids on food stamps in 2014

WASHINGTON

Sixteen million children were on food stamps as of last year, the highest number since the nation’s economy tumbled in 2008.

Numbers released by the Census Bureau on Wednesday as part of its annual look at children and families show that 1 in 5 children were on food-stamp assistance in 2014. The survey was taken last spring.

The number of people receiving food stamps — now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — spiked through the recession and has stayed at a higher level since.

Laser co-creator dies

BERKELEY, CALIF.

Charles H. Townes, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who helped create the laser that would revolutionize everything from medicine to manufacturing, has died. He was 99.

Townes had been in poor health before his death on the way to an Oakland hospital Tuesday, officials at the University of California, Berkeley, said.

The invention he’s known for paved the way for other scientific discoveries, but also has a huge array of applications today: DVD players, gun sights, printers, computer networks, metal cutters, tattoo removal and vision correction are just some of the tools and technologies that rely on lasers.

Electrical fire ignited Christmas tree

MILLERSVILLE, Md.

An electrical fire that spread to a 15-foot Christmas tree prompted a blaze that reduced a 16,000-square-foot riverfront mansion near Maryland’s capital to ruins, killing a couple and four of their young grandchildren, investigators said Wednesday.

The fire ignited combustible material, probably a tree skirt, and tore through the massive, castlelike structure in the early hours of Jan. 19.

Anne Arundel County Fire Chief Allan Graves said the tree had been cut more than 60 days before the blaze and was in a “great room” of the house with 19-foot ceilings.

Investigators on Wednesday identified the victims as Don and Sandra Pyle and their grandchildren: Charlotte Boone, 8; Wes Boone, 6; Lexi Boone, 8, and Katie Boone, 7. Don Pyle, 56, was chief operating officer of ScienceLogic in Reston, Va.

Associated Press