oddly enough

oddly enough

Man accused of dragging horse behind truck

MOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo.

A Missouri man has been arrested on suspicion of driving drunk while dragging a horse behind his pickup truck in southern Missouri.

KYTV reports that Sasha Martinez says the horse was trotting behind the truck Saturday when she saw it the first time outside her Wright County home. She says it seemed “odd” but thought the driver would stop soon. But when the truck returned about two hours later, her 12-year-old daughter screamed that the horse had dropped. Martinez then got in front of the truck, saying the driver “wouldn’t stop.”

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeff Kinder says the driver was cited with driving while intoxicated and incarcerated for 12 hours before he was released. An animal-abuse charge is pending. The injured horse was taken to a veterinarian.

Man accused of putting girl in game machine, stealing prizes

SALEM, N.H.

A Massachusetts teacher has been charged with putting his toddler into a game machine at a New Hampshire shopping mall and using her to steal prizes.

Police in Salem say 34-year-old Anthony Helinski, of Lawrence, Mass., turned himself in Wednesday, five days after witnesses at the Mall at Rockingham Park recorded video of a man encouraging the girl to hand out prizes from within the KeyMaster game. The video then shows the toddler climbing out of the machine.

Andover Public Schools tells WCVB-TV that Helinski has been placed on leave from his job as a middle-school teacher.

Cocaine found in bananas given to Texas prison

HOUSTON

Authorities say bananas donated to a Texas prison turned out to have nearly $18 million worth of cocaine hidden inside the boxes.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says in a Facebook post that the drugs were found in two pallets of bananas that were donated because they were already ripe. The donation arrived Friday.

The department says sergeants who picked up the boxes found a bundle of a white powdery substance under the bananas. U.S. customs officials were called to the scene, and authorities say 540 packages of cocaine were found in 45 boxes of bananas.

The department says federal officials and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are investigating.

Associated Press