New York
Dunkin’ Donuts patron sounds monoxide alarm
CARLE PLACE, N.Y. (AP) — A Dunkin’ Donuts customer looking for a morning cup of coffee was in the right place at the right time with the right equipment.
Authorities say an ambulance technician wearing a carbon monoxide detector entered the store in Carle Place, New York, at around 4 a.m. Friday.
The tech's detector went off, indicating high levels of the poisonous gas.
The technician hustled the employees out of the fast-food joint and notified authorities. An investigation found a vent in one of the ovens was the problem.
Carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless, and prolonged exposure can be fatal.
Florida
Boater seeks class-action suit against Naples
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — A boater has filed a class-action lawsuit seeking refunds for fines after a judge struck down the idle-speed law in Naples.
The Naples Daily News reports that 67-year-old Kenneth Rodger of Marco Island filed the lawsuit in late May on behalf of some 500 boaters. He's asking for refund fines boaters paid before Collier County Judge Michael Provost tossed the city’s speed zone due to a 1994 law being invalid.
A panel of circuit judges agreed in February that the law couldn't be enforced.
Court records show Rodger was ticketed on July 16, 2003, and paid a $50 fine.
To proceed as a class-action lawsuit, a judge must certify other boaters as class members.
Mayor John Sorey says the city is researching the statute of limitations
Oregon
New setback for Portland man in torture lawsuit
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — A federal judge dismissed several claims from a former Portland resident who said he was tortured in the United Arab Emirates at the behest of the FBI and put on the U.S. government’s no-fly list.
The ruling Thursday from U.S. District Judge Anna Brown formalizes statements she made during a March hearing but gives Yonas Fikre until June 27 to rewrite his complaint, which names the FBI, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and others.
Fikre is a Muslim who lived in Portland before going overseas on business in 2011. He said Portland-based FBI agents demanded that he spy on a mosque in the city during an interview in Sudan. When he refused to cooperate, Fikre said they had him held for 106 days in a United Arab Emirates prison, where he was abused.
The FBI and State Department have declined to comment on the allegations, citing the ongoing litigation.
The State Department confirmed that Fikre was held in the capital of Abu Dhabi on unspecified charges but said officials visited him and he showed no signs of mistreatment.
Fikre now lives in Sweden, where he sought asylum after saying he was told by FBI agents that he was on a no-fly list.
Illinois
115-lb woman wins hot dog eating contest
BLOOMINGDALE, Ill. (AP) — Michelle Lesco is petite, but the 115-pound competitive eater still managed to gobble down more than 28 hot dogs — and buns — to win an eating contest in suburban Chicago.
The (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald reports the Arizona native won Saturday’s qualifiers for the July 4 hot dog-eating contest at New York's Coney Island.
The competition in Bloomingdale, about 20 miles from Chicago, was one more than a dozen preliminary rounds before the main event. Eight people faced off to see who could eat the most hot dogs in 10 minutes.
Lesco set a new Illinois record and beat Eric “Badlands” Booker, who gobbled more than 27 hot dogs. He weighs about four times that of Lesco.
After winning, Lesco said: “I can't wait to burp.”
Ohio
Very rare ‘mono mono’ twins may head home soon
CINCINNATI (AP) — The Ohio couple whose twins were born holding hands is getting a taste of what it’s like to be celebrity parents
The identical twins, born sharing the same amniotic sac and placenta, are making progress toward going home from the hospital, their parents say. A photo showing twins Jenna and Jillian holding hands taken shortly after birth May 9 at Akron General Medical Center went viral.
“It’s still been crazy,” father Bill Thistlethwaite said. “Everywhere we go, someone saw it. People are still talking about it.”
He said he and his wife, Sarah, were approached by people Saturday while having breakfast at a diner in their hometown of Orrville before going to visit the girls. They want to know how the twins are doing and express their good wishes, he said.
Both girls are taking full bottles and have gained weight, each now at 5 pounds or more.
Their rare birth condition is called monoamniotic, or “mono mono,” and doctors say they occur in about one of every 10,000 pregnancies. A second pair born at Akron General the following week also are doing well, hospital spokeswoman Amy Kilgore said.
Jenna was born first at 4 pounds, 2 ounces and 17 inches, with Jillian following 48 seconds later at 3 pounds, 13 ounces and 17.5 inches. They were born at 33 weeks and two days to their 32-year-old mother, a middle school math teacher.
They were moved to Akron Children’s Hospital after birth because they needed breathing assistance.
California
NASA set to test giant Mars chute in Earth setting
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The skies off the Hawaiian island of Kauai will be a stand-in for Mars as NASA prepares to launch a saucer-shaped vehicle in an experimental flight designed to land heavy loads on the red planet.
For decades, robotic landers and rovers have hitched a ride to Earth's planetary neighbor using the same parachute design. But NASA needs a bigger and stronger parachute if it wants to send astronauts there.
Weather permitting, the space agency will conduct a test flight Tuesday high in Earth's atmosphere that's supposed to simulate the thin Martian air.
Cameras rigged aboard the vehicle will capture the action as it accelerates to four times the speed of sound and falls back to Earth. Viewers with a web connection can follow along live.
With plans to land heavier spacecraft and eventually humans, NASA needed a heftier solution. So it designed a supersonic parachute that's 110 feet in diameter — twice as big as the one that carried the 1-ton Curiosity. It’s so gigantic that it can’t fit into the wind tunnels that NASA typically uses to test parachutes.
