A 66-year-old grandmother and pet shop owner from Britain is being penalized by law enforcement for selling a goldfish to a 14-year-old boy, violating Britain’s animal protection laws.

After a teenager to whom she sold a gerbil previously dropped the animal in a cup of coffee, British investigators set up a ‘sting’ operation targeting Joan Higgins to catch her in the act. A 14-year-old boy was sent to the shop to buy the fish, and the woman completed the sale without asking the teenager his age or how he planned to care for the fish.

After pleading guilty to selling an animal to a person under the age of 16, Higgins was ordered to follow a curfew of 6pm to 7am, pay a fine of £1000 ($1640 USD), and was tagged with a tracking bracelet to monitor her whereabouts and enforce the curfew.

Via News.com.au >

Some cooks like to fire their ovens with apple wood. Some prefer hickory. Others, apparently, like wood from previously buried caskets — it really helps that dead-people flavor set in.

Italian prosecutors suspect that pizza shops and restaurants in Naples are firing their ovens with with wood from dug-up coffins in order to cut down on costs.

According to Italian newspaper Il Giornale, “a gang might have set up a market for coffins sold to hard-hearted owners of bakeries and pizzerias looking to save money on wood.”

The investigation is currently ongoing and prosecutors are still building their case, but if you’d like a taste of cannibalism without directly consuming human flesh, head over to Naples today!

Via AFP >
Photo via Flickr / Sebastian Mary >

Police are searching for a woman who was mistakenly given a bag containing $2,000 dollars at a Taco Bell drive through instead of her lunch.

The manager at the Dayton, Ohio restaurant said it was store policy to keep the daily bank deposit in a Taco Bell bag and pass it along to the manager via the drive through window. An employee had accidentally grabbed the bag with the cash and gave it to the woman instead of the bag with her order.

Security footage shows the woman receiving the bag in her SUV, but it doesn’t show the license plate. Another customer at the drive through described the recipient as a woman in her 20’s with black or brown hair. Police initiated a search of the neighborhood but could not find the woman or her car.

They’re still looking.

Via Dayton Daily News >

A man from Washington State is standing trial for allegedly branding his children like cattle, leaving them with permanent scars on their arms, legs, and chest.

Mark Seamands is accused of branding his two sons, ages 13 and 15, and his daughter, 18, with a hot custom-made branding iron.  He will stand trial for abuse of his two sons, but not his daughter, who the court has ruled was old enough to consent to the branding.

He marked his children with the letters “SK,” which stands for Seamands’ Kids. Pam Davis, his ex-wife, was horrified when she discovered the marks 18 months ago. “I don’t know if you have seen an animal being branded, but I have. They squeal; they yell; they scream. It’s nothing pretty.”

As for the kids, they are proud of the brands, and plan to defend their dad when they testify at his trial.

Via kirotv.com >