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Man Comes to Court in Bumblebee Costume

Posted on: Monday, 26 January 2004, 06:00 CST

A man who came to a court hearing wearing a bumblebee costume - to protest what he called a "sting" operation by prosecutors - left a judge buzzing.

Conrad J. Braun, 54, was in Johnson County District Court on Friday to hear a judge rule whether a blackmail case filed against him last summer should go to trial.

District Judge John Anderson III was not amused by Braun's getup, which included yellow stripes, cloth wings and a foot-long stinger.

Anderson told Braun that although there is no rule prohibiting the wearing of such a suit in court, the judge has a duty to uphold court decorum.

Braun assured the judge that he meant no contempt to the court and promised he would not do it again.

Anderson bound the case over for trial, which he scheduled for May 3.

The blackmail charge alleges that Braun made a threat against his former wife's husband.

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MOORETON, N.D. (AP) - Eric Koch certainly started life off in a hurry.

Unwilling to wait for a hospital, the fifth member of Rod and Sherry Koch's family was born Tuesday in an antique, cast-iron bathtub upstairs in their own home. Eric greeted his parents minutes before the Breckenridge, Minn., ambulance could get there, and Dad delivered him.

After waking with contractions, Sherry quietly walked downstairs unworried - she expected 12 hours of labor just as she had done for her other two children. Not Eric.

Fifteen minutes after Sherry woke him, Rod found himself on the phone with 911 dispatch, kneeling beside her as she was lying in the bathtub, about to deliver their second son.

"The 911 dispatcher said, 'Well, can you see how the baby's coming?' And I was a little flustered. I said, 'Well, it's coming out,'" Rod recalled.

Eric's head was already crowning, he said.

"I mean, this baby was really in a hurry ... It seems like once Sherry lay down in the tub, that her contractions never stopped," he said.

Eric weighed in at 7 pounds, 7 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long at birth.

Said Sherry: "I'll never look at our tub the same again."

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MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. (AP) - Page Long's faith in the Carolina Panthers could net him $10,000.

Last summer, while visiting Las Vegas, Long's sister-in-law, Lori Hunt placed a $100 bet for him that the Panthers would win the Super Bowl. Before the 2003 season started, the odds that Carolina would become NFL champions came in at 100-to-1.

"It's a sucker bet. You just don't think you're going to win when you make a bet like that," said Long, a gate supervisor for U.S. Airways for 18 years who lives in Mount Holly, just west of Charlotte. "But there's a lot I can do with that money."

Hunt placed her brother-in-law's bet with a sports book at the Luxor Hotel casino. The people who took the money tried to convince her to simply take Long's money and tell him she lost it on the roulette table, she said.

"I walked out of there feeling really dumb," Hunt said. "When I told them I wanted to put $100 on the Carolina Panthers to win the Super Bowl, they all just laughed at me. They said I'd be better off taking the money and putting it in my pocket."

After Hunt brought the voucher back with her, Long put it in a lock box and forgot about it, although he felt the Panthers had the talent to help him collect on his bet.

On Sunday, the Panthers play the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

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TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) - Cosmetic tattoo artist Teri Reid does not usually have to put her customers under general anesthesia when she is applying permanent eyeliner, eyebrows or lipstick.

Then again, her customers generally do not bite, kick or weigh 1,000 pounds.

Reid, a registered nurse who specializes in so-called permanent cosmetics, has expanded her clientele to include horses.

The tattoos she puts on American paint horses are not for cosmetic reasons, however. Unlike horses with dark coats, the dappled dark and light coloring of paint horses can leave little natural pigmentation around the eyes.

When the horse is exposed to sunlight, the resulting glare can lead to squinting, sunburns, cataracts and cancer, said Holly Akagi, Reid's assistant.

Akagi came to Reid in August with a request: Would Reid apply a permanent black eyeliner to her horse's eyes?

"My horse had a terrible time being out in the sun," Akagi said. "She'd squint all the time, and her eyes would drip."

The process of adding pigment to horses' eye areas began in the 1980s, Reid said. The American Paint Horse Association approves of the procedure, and Akagi said the permanent eyeliner can actually increase a horse's value.

Reid agreed to do the job, and the results were successful, Akagi said.

"It really makes the horse more comfortable," she said. "I liken it to sunglasses for her, or when football players put black under their eyes to deflect the glare."

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