CHICAGO (AFP) - A pack of hunting dogs shot an Iowa man as he went to retrieve a fallen pheasant, authorities said.

James Harris, 37, was shot in the leg while hunting with some friends on Saturday afternoon.

The group shot a bird which landed on the other side of a fence, the Iowa Department of Natural Resource said in a press release.

“Harris reportedly went to retrieve the bird, placed his gun on the ground and crossed the fence near the muzzle end,” the press release said.

“When he crossed the fence, hunting dogs stepped on the gun, which discharged and struck Harris in the left calf at a distance of roughly three feet.”

Harris was treated at a regional medical center and later transported by helicopter to an Iowa City hospital.

jay: they don’t say whether or not the dogs were arrested. inept french press.

AP - CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A man was arrested after a government agent allegedly found him in an office building restroom lying next to an inflatable, anatomically correct doll with his pants down. Craig S. McCullough, 47, was charged Wednesday with indecent exposure, a misdemeanor.

[…]

McCullough was arrested, and Cedar Rapids police took him to the Linn County jail. His arraignment was scheduled later Friday, police spokeswoman Cristy Hamblin said.

[…]

McCullough’s criminal record includes a 2004 conviction for burglarizing Just For Me bridal boutique. Shortly after the burglary, police officers found McCullough in a nearby alley, carrying a mannequin wearing a bridal dress.

jay: are you sure it wasn’t andrew mccarthy? i haven’t seen him since the original mannequin. oh wait, yes i have. he was in weekend at bernie’s 2. also, nice headline pun and good choice of jail euphemism by the AP.

AP - DENNIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A second-grader’s drawing of a stick figure shooting a gun earned him a one-day school suspension.

Kyle Walker, 7, was suspended last week for violating Dennis Township Primary School’s zero-tolerance policy on guns, the boy’s mother, Shirley McDevitt, told The Press of Atlantic City.

Kyle gave the picture to another child on the school bus, and that child’s parents complained about it to school officials, McDevitt said. Her son told her the drawing was of a water gun, she said.

A photocopy of the picture provided by McDevitt showed two stick figures with one pointing a crude-looking gun at the other, the newspaper said. What appeared to be the word “me” was written above the shooter, with another name scribbled above the other figure.

School officials declined to comment Friday. A message left at the superintendent’s office Saturday was not returned.

jay: things like this help my if-we-have-kids-they-will-be-home-schooled argument. thanks, new jersey!

AP - SCRANTON, Pa. - Talk about a potty mouth. A Scranton woman who allegedly shouted profanities at her overflowing toilet within earshot of a neighbor was cited for disorderly conduct, authorities said.

Dawn Herb could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $300.

“It doesn’t make any sense. I was in my house. It’s not like I was outside or drunk,” Herb told The Times-Tribune of Scranton. “The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop.”

Herb doesn’t recall exactly what she said, but she admitted letting more than a few choice words fly near an open bathroom window Thursday night.

Her next-door neighbor, a city police officer who was off-duty at the time, asked her to keep it down, police said. When she continued, the officer called police.

Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Philadelphia, took issue with the citation.

“You can’t prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet,” she said.

jay: cop or a toilet! good one, aclu. also, i’d like to draw your attention to the worst first line ever. potty mouth? *groan* bad one, ap.

Jill Tucker, SF Chronicle Staff Writer

SFGate.com — Hayward — Authorities say they may have trouble identifying a body found on Interstate 880 before dawn Thursday because it was repeatedly struck by passing cars for about an hour during the morning commute.

The first call to the California Highway Patrol that something was amiss came before 6 a.m. The caller reported a dead dog. Officers arrived at southbound I-880 in Hayward nearly an hour later and made the gruesome discovery.

On the ground was a human ear. The CHP immediately called for the freeway to be closed. It was 6:50 a.m., less than a half hour before sunrise.

The remains of the man were strewn across five lanes and 1,000 feet of highway, CHP Officer Mike Davis said. It appeared the body was first hit at about A Street.

There was so little recognizable from the body that identifying him is likely to require someone coming forward to report a missing friend or relative, investigating officers said.

“It looked like something that comes out of a horror movie,” Davis said.

It took authorities hours to process the scene, and the highway was reopened by 10 a.m.

Davis said the man was wearing jeans, white tennis shoes and a shirt, which was difficult to identify in the condition officers found it. They found no identification and no vehicle nearby that could have belonged to him.

The victim appeared to be between ages 30 and 50 with a crew cut. His ethnicity was unknown.

His clothes did not appear to be that of a homeless man or a vagrant, Davis said. He also carried money in his pocket.

Davis said, based on preliminary evidence, it appeared the man was alive before he was hit.

Since the incident, the CHP has received about 80 phone calls from witnesses or drivers reporting hair or blood on their cars, Davis said.

jay: eesh. 80?

dan: they say someone is hit by a car at a rate of 80 times per hour on that stretch of 880…

AP - PITTSBURGH - Change for a million? That’s what a man was seeking Saturday when he handed a $1 million bill to a cashier at a Pittsburgh supermarket. But when the Giant Eagle employee refused and a manager confiscated the bogus bill, the man flew into a rage, police said.

The man slammed an electronic funds-transfer machine into the counter and reached for a scanner gun, police said.

Police arrested the man, who was not carrying identification and has refused to give his name to authorities. He is being held in the Allegheny County Jail.

Since 1969, the $100 bill is the largest note in circulation.

Police believe the $1 million note seized at the supermarket may have originated at a Dallas-based ministry. Last year, the ministry distributed thousands of religious pamphlets with a picture of President Grover Cleveland on a $1 million bill.

jay: there are too many angles on this story, so i’ll stick with a single question: grover cleveland? really? also, i like that there was rage.

AP - LAKELAND, Fla. - A man who allegedly threatened to make the deadly Virginia Tech shootings look like a “birthday party” at his high school reunion was arrested and deputies found hundreds of homemade explosives at his house, officials said Thursday.

Timothy Joseph Vaughn, 39, mentioned the Virginia Tech shootings in an e-mail to the coordinator of the reunion for Lakeland High School’s class of 1987, Polk County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers said.

After getting electronically generated e-mailed reunion reminders from Classmates.com, Vaughn sent four e-mails to the coordinator, Rodgers said.

In the first three e-mails, Vaughn asked to be left alone. He made the Virginia Tech threat in the fourth e-mail on Sept. 10, Rodgers said. Someone else involved with the reunion brought it to the attention of law enforcement.

“Nobody talked to me back then, so stop talking to me now … I can make Virginia Tech look like a f—— birthday party,” the sheriff’s office said he wrote in the email.

Vaughn, who is unemployed and lives with his parents, told deputies he never planned to use the explosives. It was not clear if he had a lawyer.

jay: after multiple harassing emails from classmates.com, this doesn’t seem like an wholly unreasonable response to me. while his threats (and his arsenal) are a little strong for my taste, i get his sentiment — i don’t do high school reunions either. it always just seemed a little easier to me to just delete the emails. then again, i don’t live in florida, i don’t live with my parents, and i’m not an amateur bomb-maker. there but for the grace of g-d go i.

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

NYTIMES - Iowa, Oct. 3 — Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred D. Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”

Then he stood face to face with a silent audience.

“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter.

“Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.

[…]

Voters who came out to see Mr. Thompson as he traveled through Iowa, even while expressing admiration for his views and intense interest in his candidacy, said they were struck by how little energy or passion he appeared to bring into a room.

“I hope his campaign strategy works for him, but I’m not sure it will,” said Kay Odell, a retired child-abuse worker, who talked to Mr. Thompson as he campaigned at a coffee shop in Iowa Falls. “He comes across as very low-key.”

She added, “I’m sure he’ll make a good president.”

(full article)

rob: man, we’re like whipped dogs now. just about anyone seems like they’d make a good president. when you’re talking about the u.s. presidency, it seems “good” has been redefined as “not outwardly horrific.”

jay: frankly, i’m having a hard time finding a candidate who isn’t outwardly horrific. other than kucinich, i mean. vote vegan.