Record 1,201 couples renew wedding vows in Kalamazoo
A record 1,201 couples have renewed their wedding vows at a ceremony on the campus of Western Michigan University. The Kalamazoo Gazette reports a Guinness World Record official on site certified the record event last Saturday. It broke the previous mark of 1,087 couples renewing their vows at Miami University in Ohio in 2009.
Couples dressed in Western Michigan gear and even donned veils, white dresses and tuxes to celebrate their marriages. Western Michigan University President John Dunn and his wife, linda, were among the couples who renewed their vows.
The group included couples from the United States, Canada and Japan and a couple from the Western Michigan University class of 1943, university officials said. The ceremony was officiated by Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell.
(AP)
Civil War cannonballs found on beach after hurricane
Cannonballs from the Civil War were found on a beach in South Carolina after Hurricane Matthew passed over the State, according to officials. The Charleston County Sheriff’s Office and the US Air Force Explosive Team confirmed the finding of an “old Civil War Ordnance” at Folly Beach in South Carolina, detonating some and taking others to the nearby Naval Base, authorities reported.
Former Folly Beach Mayor Richard Beck found the cannonballs — there were 15, welded together by rust — during a walk on the beach investigating the storm’s effects. Beck called police to investigate the cannonballs, which were identified as such by an officer who is a Civil War reenactor. “I knew they were cannonballs,” Beck said. “One of them had a very distinct hole in it that went directly into it. Just knowing a little bit about the Civil War, I know that they put fuses in cannonballs for them to explode when they desired them to.”
Officers started investigating the scene around 12.30 pm last Sunday, confirming they were cannonballs,
they could not detonate them until around 7 pm because of the tide.
Officials at Joint Base Charleson were expected to receive and destroy the remaining cannonballs on Sunday night, according to Eric Watson, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.
(UPI)
Doughnut heist leads to capture of wanted man
Authorities say a fugitive’s sweet tooth helped police capture a wanted New Mexico man after he tried to take a doughnut without paying for it.
The Hobbs News-Sun reports that Gregory Mendoza was arrested last Monday outside a bakery after police received a report he stole a doughnut. Police then discovered the 35-year-old Mendoza was wanted on a number of charges, including cruelty to animals and traffic violations.
New Mexico court records show Mendoza has 10 pending charges out of Carlsbad Magistrate Court from July. Mendoza also has charges pending in las Vegas Magistrate Court, including aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer. It was not known if Mendoza had an attorney.
(AP)
Norwegian pM caught playing Pokemon Go in parliament
The Prime Minister of Norway was caught on camera playing Pokemon Go in Parliament — and the current Speaker had previously been caught doing the same thing. Prime Minister Erna Solberg was captured by a photographer for newspaper Klassekampen playing the popular augmented reality game on her smartphone last Tuesday during a debate in the country’s Parliament known as the Storting.
Solberg, leader of the Conservative Party, was seen playing during remarks from liberal Party leader Trine Skei Grande. The Prime Minister told TV2 news she didn’t think Grande would mind, seeing as how she was caught on video playing Pokemon Go during a parliamentary Storting committee hearing in August. “I think that Trine will like that I opened the game while she was at the pulpit,” Solberg said.
Grande confirmed as much with an aisle-crossing tweet in support of the Prime Minister’s game-playing habits. “She heard what I said, we ladies can do two things at the same time you know,” she tweeted with a winking emoji.
Grande defended her own game-playing in August, saying: “Some of us have heads that listen better when we can do something brain-dead on the side.”
(UPI)
Clinton’s cookies clean up in magazine’s online poll
The sweet teeth have spoken and it’s Hillary Clinton in a landslide. The Clinton family’s chocolate chip cookie recipe handily defeated a recipe for star-shaped sugar cookies submitted by Melania Trump in the annual Family Circle candidate cookie recipe poll — a tongue-in-cheek presidential survey that has correctly predicted the winner of the presidential poll in five of the last six campaigns.
In a Facebook poll, Clinton’s chocolate chip cookies garnered more than 1,600 votes, while Melania’s sugar cookies got 535. Family Circle started the cookie poll in 1992, after a remark by Clinton, responding to criticism of her decision to be a working mother. “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession,” she said. Family Circle then held a cookie poll, soliciting competing recipes from each of the 1992 candidate’s spouses. Clinton’s chocolate chip recipe was submitted that year as well.
(UPI)