Odd Stories: Police: Attempt to Use Stolen Credit Card Was 'Comedy of Errors'

By Jennifer Todd

Manor Township - An employee at an area convenience store immediately recognized the credit card that a young man handed to her early Tuesday.

The clerk was familiar with the name on the card, and for good reason: It was her mother's.

She also recognized the young man. The two had attended the same school, she would later tell police.

Thus began a "comedy of errors" that would lead to charges against the teenage store patron.

After trying unsuccessfully to use a credit card to pump gas at the Turkey Hill at 1503 Columbia Ave. around 1 a.m., the young man was instructed to see the store's clerk, according to Manor Township police.

Examining the card, the clerk quickly determined it was her mother's, according to police.

Police said the employee confronted the man, who tried to give her an excuse about why he had the card. The clerk called police as the man fled.

Investigators said the employee told them that she had attended school with the man, and she identified him as Joshua Devonshire.

Soon after, officers responded to the home of the clerk's mother in the Pheasant Ridge development, which is about a quarter-mile away from the Turkey Hill.

The woman told police that, after her daughter notified her about the stolen card, she went to check her vehicle and saw a man near her car. She said the man, later identified as Devonshire, fled in a vehicle when she yelled at him. The woman told police that several bank cards were missing from her car.

Manor Township police Sgt. Jim Alexander said investigators believe Devonshire was attempting to put back items he had earlier stolen.

Around 7:30 a.m., another resident of Pheasant Ridge called police to report the theft of a diamond ring and $2,000 worth of professional hair-cutting tools from her vehicle.

And an hour later, officers returned to the development for a report of a male and a female sleeping in a vehicle. Police determined the male to be Devonshire.

Investigators said they observed several suspected stolen items in the vehicle.

Devonshire, 19, who has a last known address in Elizabethtown, was taken into custody and subsequently admitted to stealing the items from the vehicles, according to police. He also admitted to trying to use the stolen credit card at the Turkey Hill, they said.

He was charged with two counts of theft and one count of access device fraud and committed to Lancaster County Prison in lieu of $3,000 bail. The female in the vehicle was released without charges, police said.

"Not to make light of this, but, really, this entire incident was a comedy of errors," Alexander said. "Some people just aren't cut out to be criminals."

Voter ID Becomes Law in Pennsylvania, Opponents Vow Legal Fight

By David Warner

Pennsylvania - A requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls became law in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, the latest in a spate of Republican-led efforts to impose stricter controls at the ballot box.


Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed the act into law, saying it set a "simple and clear standard to protect the integrity of our elections."

"I am signing this bill because it protects a sacred principle, one shared by every citizen of this nation," the Republican governor said. "That principle is one person, one vote."

Opponents, who say the measure seeks to suppress voter turnout, vowed to challenge it in court.

Pennsylvania joined several Republican-governed states, including Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin, that have adopted stricter voter identification laws, arguing they were needed to prevent ballot box fraud.

Supporters say the laws are no different from needing identification to board an airplane or obtain a library card.

But some civil rights groups say such laws discriminate against the poor who may not be able to pay fees for copies of legal documents such as birth certificates, and that they could suppress minority votes.

Democrats say voter identification measures are aimed at squeezing out university students and senior citizens who tend to vote for Democrats.

Andy Hoover, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union's Pennsylvania branch, said there was no evidence of voter impersonation fraud in the state.

Other states have encountered setbacks trying to impose voter identification requirements. A judge issued an injunction earlier this week against Wisconsin's law, and the U.S. Justice Department blocked a new voter identification law in Texas.

The Justice Department, which also blocked a voter identification law in South Carolina from taking effect, said the Texas law could harm Hispanic voters who lack identification documents.

"Our legal team is currently mapping a strategy for overturning this voter suppression bill," ACLU of Pennsylvania Executive Director Reggie Shuford said in a statement. "The evidence is clear. Some citizens will lose the vote if this becomes law."

Corbett said 99 percent of Pennsylvanians already had valid identification, and those who did not could get one for free at state Department of Transportation driver license centers.

Under the Pennsylvania law, photo identification will not be required for the state's April 24 primary, but will be required for the November 6 general election.

Rare Movie Posters Found in Pa. Attic are for Sale

By Johann Loviglio

Philadelphia - A rowdy band of bloodsuckers, gunslingers, wily wise guys, jaded private eyes, hardboiled reporters and good girls gone bad, stuck in an attic together for 80 years, is going its separate ways.

Nearly three dozen movie theater posters from the Golden Age of Hollywood found in a Pennsylvania attic are expected to fetch $250,000 at auction in Texas this month. They were stuck together with wallpaper glue when they were purchased for around $30,000 at a country auction last fall in Berwick, near Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The buyer, who chose to remain anonymous, consigned them to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, where the stack of 33 Depression-era posters were painstakingly steamed and gingerly separated over the course of several weeks.

"As we started to peel them apart, it was one of the greatest treasure troves from a beautiful period of poster printing," said Grey Smith of Heritage Auctions, where the posters go on the block March 23.

The separated posters underwent minor touch-ups and were backed with linen at a restoration house, he said.

"A number of them were in very, very nice shape. ... The colors had not seen the light of day in 80 years," Smith said. They were glued, one atop the other, apparently as each new release came to town. The find most likely came from one of the three big movie houses in Berwick during that era, Smith said.

From what the auction buyer was able to ascertain, the valuable stack of Hollywood history was inside a home whose contents were being liquidated as part of an estate sale, he said.

The trove includes extraordinarily rare original posters from the 1931 films "The Public Enemy," ''Cimarron," ''The Front Page" and "Little Caesar." Some are versions never before seen, while others are among only one or two other known copies. All measure roughly 27 by 41 inches, known in movie parlance as a one-sheet.

James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Barbara Stanwyck are among the matinee idols gracing several posters but Bela Lugosi, bug-eyed and menacing in the 1931 ad for horror classic "Dracula," counts as the star of the auction with a starting bid of $200,000.

An identical poster owned by actor Nicholas Cage sold at auction in 2009 for $310,000.

The films in the posters date from 1930 and 1931, a uniquely permissive time for filmmaking that came after the adoption of sound but before the enforcement of stringent moral guidelines popularly known as the Hays Code. Movies from the "pre-Code" era of roughly 1929 to 1934 include sex, violence and social commentary that vanished as the Hays Code censored everything from religious criticism to "suggestive postures."

The Humphrey Bogart-John Huston version of "The Maltese Falcon," for example, was a remake of the 1931 original, which was later deemed lewd under the Hays Code for nudity and sexual references and banned from re-release. A poster for the earlier "Falcon," featuring smooching leads Bebe Daniels and Ricardo Cortez, is also part of the sale and the auctioneers say it's the only one known to exist.

"They were purely a product to be disposed of. ... They're not something anyone would have thought to save," Smith said in explaining the scarcity of movie ephemera of the era. Berwick had three large movie houses in the early 1930s and the posters likely came from one of them, he said.

For collectors, a find like the Berwick posters is "like a dream come true," said Bob King, editor of Classic Images, an Ohio-based periodical devoted to pre-1960s film and television.

"When (a discovery like) this happens, it's a big deal because you never know when or if it'll happen again," he said. "Are they ever going to find another one like this? Maybe not."

Odd Stories: The Gorilla and the Rabbit: A Tale of Friendship at the Erie Zoo

By Erica Erwin

Erie, Pennsylvania - They're an odd pair.

The female half is quiet and aloof, imposing even as she approaches a half-century of life.

The other is just a boy still, tiny with a twitchy nose and a propensity to hop around like young boys do.

Samantha and Panda.

The gorilla and the Dutch rabbit.

Erie Zoo officials introduced the two in mid-February after deciding that Samantha, a 47-year-old western lowland gorilla, ought to have a companion.

She's been without any other presence in her exhibit since Rudy, a male gorilla, died in 2005 at the age of 49. Those two never did interact much; Sam was hand-raised and relates more to humans than to other gorillas.

She's too old and fragile to be paired with another gorilla now, zoo officials said. But she needs the same thing any human does: a friend.

Panda is safe and small, no threat to the gorilla. He's something for her to watch and touch.

"To have something sharing their space that they can observe and interact with is always going to be beneficial," zoo Director Cindy Kreider said.

Zookeepers started slowly. Panda was moved to an area close to Samantha's night quarters. Then keepers held her up to Samantha for inspection. Panda was let into the exhibit by herself to get the lay of the land. Finally, he was let in while Sam was in there, too -- with an escape hatch for the rabbit, just in case.

"Right off the bat, they hit it off," Kreider said.

Scott Mitchell, the zoo's chief executive, recalled a time shortly after the two were introduced when Panda hopped up to Samantha's beloved Baby, a stuffed toy gorilla. Know this: No one messes with Baby.

Samantha "pushed the baby out of the way so Panda could go by," Mitchell said.

Another time, she scratched underneath Panda's chin. She shares her food. She reaches down to touch Panda, gently.

"It was amazing to see," Mitchell said. "And the reaction from the public has been amazing, too. People are intrigued by it. They like the fact that she has a companion."

Samantha has never been aggressive toward Panda. A younger gorilla might have been a different story, but keepers spend a lot of time with Sam and know her personality.

Still, Mitchell admits to having been a little nervous when the two were first introduced. He needn't have worried.

"He's fearless," Mitchell said of Panda. "He's not threatened by her. More often they're closer together than they are farther apart."

On Thursday, Panda nibbled and dug through hay while Samantha munched on kale and stolen rabbit food pellets. Samantha sat in one corner as Panda hopped along the exhibit's edge, near the window.

Finally, he hopped next to her, and they sat, together, the aging gorilla and the tiny rabbit with the pale pink nose.

Supreme Court Rejects Emergency Carp Measures

By John Flesher

Traverse City, Michigan - The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to order emergency measures that might prevent Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, despite a warning that the exotic fish pose a "dire threat" to the region's environment and economy.

Michigan and four neighboring states wanted the Army Corps of Engineers to install nets in two 

Chicago-area rivers and to expedite a study of permanent steps to head off an invasion by bighead and silver carp, which have advanced up the Mississippi River and its tributaries to within 55 miles of Lake Michigan. Scientists say if the large, prolific carp spread widely in the lakes, they could starve out native species and devastate the $7 billion fishing industry.

The justices' ruling, which was issued without comment, was their fourth rejection of pleas by the states for interim steps — including closure of navigational locks in the Chicago waterways — while their lawsuit against the corps is pending in a federal district court.

"It is our duty to aggressively fight to protect the Great Lakes from invasive species," Michigan Attorney Bill Schuette said. "So while I'm disappointed, we will continue forward on all fronts."

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania have joined Michigan in demanding faster action against the carp, which eat vast amounts of tiny plants and animals at the base of the food chain.

The Corps of Engineers says it will complete in 2015 a study of ways to prevent migration of fish and other species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds. The five states and environmental groups say that's not quick enough, because it could take many additional years to carry out the study's recommendations.

They advocate placing barriers in Chicago-area waterways to cut a link between the watersheds created more than a century ago when engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River to flush the city's sewage toward the Mississippi. A recent report by groups representing Great Lakes states and cities proposed three methods for doing so, with estimated costs as high as $9.5 billion.

Because permanent separation could take nearly two decades to complete, the states are suing for short-term actions. Their petition to the high court requested installation of block nets in the Little Calumet and Grand Calumet rivers along with quicker completion of the corps study.

Federal officials say the nets would do more harm than good and the study timetable is necessary because of its complexity.

The Obama administration has devoted more than $100 million to shielding the lakes from the carp and recently announced plans to spend $51.5 million this year. Plans include operating and monitoring an electric fish barrier near Chicago, stepped-up commercial fishing in the area, and field testing new strategies such as high-pressure underwater guns and pheromones that could lure carp into lethal traps.

Chicago business interests oppose separating the watersheds and closing the locks, which they say would disrupt commercial barge and pleasure boat traffic.

"Thankfully, the Supreme Court came down on the right side of this issue," said Mark Biel, spokesman for a group called UnLock Our Jobs. "Suitable and effective steps are being taken to ensure we protect the lakes. Unfortunately, those who have used this issue for their own political agendas will continue to push for devastating actions that prevent the Great Lakes region from working together on a comprehensive solution."

Joel Brammeier, president of the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes, said the court ruling was "not so much a setback as a way station on the road to separation. We've got to keep our eye on a long-term outcome."

Odd Stories: From Winner to Prison in Under 12 Hours

Altoona, Pennsylvania - A man went from winning $2,500 in a casino to ending up in jail without ever leaving the building.

Mateen Johnson won the money from playing blackjack but things turned for the worst when he tried to cash out.

Detective Sargent Troy Johannides police were notified "When they swiped his ID [and] it came back that he had a warrant." Johnson was wanted by the Blair County Drug Task Force and the Attorney General's Bureau of Narcotics Investigation for his part in a cocaine ring which operated out of a bar.

Johnson said he was at the casino to raise money which he could use to make his bail after turning himself in to the authorities.  It isn't enough however; a judge set his bail at $200,000.

University Allows Birth Control Pill in Vending Machines

Shippensburg, Pennsylvania - Students at Shippensburg University are now available to buy the “morning-after” pill for $25 from a vending machine thanks to their student government.

The Pennsylvania school's health center provides the pill, as well as condoms, decongestants, and pregnancy tests, to its students, all of whom are at least 17 years old.

For those who worry about someone underage or don't go to the school getting the Plan B pill, there are precautions in place.

“The machine is in a private room in our health center, and the health center is only accessible by students,” said school spokesman Peter Gigliotti. “In addition, no one can walk in off the street and go into the health center. Students proceed to a check-in desk located in the lobby and after checking in are granted access to the treatment area.”

Odd Stories: Pennyslvanian Elk May Not Return to Owners

Pennsylvania/West Virginia - A family that's been searching for a pet elk has found out what happened to him, but can't get him back.

Although West Virginia officials want to return the elk to the Richter family, but Pennsylvania officials, fearful the three-year-old elk has chronic wasting disease, say it can't be returned because it may have chronic wasting disease.

"We told them, no, they couldn't bring the animal back," said Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Samantha Krepps.

Gerald Feaser of the Pennsylvania Game Commission added “Similar to mad cow disease, animals with the chronic wasting disease act lethargic, have droopy eyes, salivate excessively and are often found near water. The injuries may also mimic rabies, so most people couldn't recognize CWD specifically.”

The worry is due to the fact Pennsylvania's neighbor states of West Virginia, Maryland, and New York have the disease in its population. While it's not known to affect people, it is capable of remaining after an animal leaves a population. Krepper states the state is “CWD-free and we really want to keep it that way,”

The elk escaped when a family friend accidentally left the gate to the pen open after recording sheep that were on the Richter's property.

Two other elk escaped, too, but one returned and the other has yet to be found.

Odd Stories: Cat Urine Responsible for Smoke in House

New Castle, Pennsylvania — One western Pennsylvania fire department learned that there's not necessarily fire wherever there's smoke.

New Castle's assistant fire chief Jim Donston tells The Associated Press that firefighters were called when an electrical outlet on a floor was smoking, only to find that happened because the family's cat urinated into the outlet.

The New Castle News first reported the incident Friday and Donston supplied more details to the AP.

The assistant chief says a Columbia Gas worker was at the house checking for a possible leak when he noticed the smoking outlet and called the fire department Wednesday about 7:30 p.m.

Donston says firefighters "found the receptacle wet from cat urine" and shut off the electrical supply to that circuit.

Honeybee problem nearing a ‘critical point’

By Clare Thompson

Anyone who's been stung by a bee knows they can inflict an outsized pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then, that their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system by placing the more than 70 crops they pollinate -- from almonds to apples to blueberries -- in peril.


Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide Action Network. Towers was one of the organizers of a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental groups this week to tackle the challenges facing the beekeeping industry and the agricultural economy by proxy.

"We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point," said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and a beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he'll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In addition to continued reports of CCD -- a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind -- bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.

"In the industry we believe pesticides play an important role in what's going on," said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of the NHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they're absorbed by the plant's vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen. Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don't like to collect corn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.

The Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. It also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.

Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, "The insects start taking [the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from." These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees' habitats only strengthen the case against using the insecticides.

The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects essential to their crops' production -- a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks to the fact that "we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry." In addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, and even when crop analysts recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill an aphid population, for example, he knows that "if I spray, I'm going to kill all the beneficial insects." But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg's awareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser -- who, these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another independent entity.

Beekeepers have already teamed up with groups representing the almond and blueberry industries -- both of which depend on honey bee pollination -- to tackle the need for education among farmers. "A lot of [farm groups] are recognizing that we need more resources devoted to pollinator protection," Ellis said. "We need that same level of commitment on a national basis, from our USDA and EPA and the agricultural chemical industry."

Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-lit clothianidin and other neonics for commercial use, despite its own scientists' clear warnings about the chemicals' effects on bees and other pollinators. That doesn't bode well for the chances of getting neonics off the market now, even in light of the Purdue study's findings.
"The agency has, in most cases, sided with pesticide manufacturers and worked to fast-track the approval of new products, and failed in cases when there's clear evidence of harm to take those products off the market," Towers said.

Since this is an election year -- a time when no one wants to make Big Ag (and its money) mad -- beekeepers may have to suffer another season of losses before there's any hope of action on the EPA's part. But when one out of every three bites of food on Americans' plates results directly from honey bee pollination, there's no question that the fate of these insects will determine our own as eaters.

Ellis, for his part, thinks that figuring out a way to solve the bee crisis could be a catalyst for larger reform within our agriculture system. "If we can protect that pollinator base, it's going to have ripple effects ... for wildlife, for human health," he said. "It will bring up subjects that need to be looked at, of groundwater and surface water -- all the connected subjects associated [with] chemical use and agriculture."

EPA Backpedals on Water Delivery to Dimock

Dimock, Pennsylvania - The Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to ship out water to the residents of Dimock after all despite the fact at least 18 wells were ruined by fracking facilities.

The news hit the town just a day after the EPA announced they would give the townspeople water, but failed to give a reason for the change.  Instead EPA spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara stated in an email "We are actively filling information gaps and determining next steps in Dimock. We have made no decision at this time to provide water."

Thankfully not all hope is lost, at least not at the moment.  Actor Mark Ruffalo, though his environmentalist group Water Defense, is planning to sent a tanker filled with water to the town.

The best questions asked, and yet to be answered, come from Wendy Seymour, one of residents and an organic garlic farmer.

"What happened? Who had the power here? Who had the power to change their minds? Was it the governor? Was it somebody from Washington? Was it Cabot? What happened? We don't know. We're really confused."

Someone definitely needs to be held accountable.  This is bigger than profits,, power, or politics.  It's about the lives of an entire town of people.

Dimock Water to Be Checked By EPA

Stating the residents of Dimock, Pennsylvania are claiming their wells have been polluted by a nearby fracking facility, federal regulators are considering the option of shipping fresh water to the townspeople.

This treatment is taking place after just a month after the Environmental Protection Agency deemed the water to be safe for consumption after they presented hundreds of pages of data linking their water's pollution to fracking.

If the EPA does go along with it, it's sure to be one of the strongest blows against the fracking industry. For years fracking has been theorized to be the reason water supplies across the country have become polluted or able to be set on fire. Along with the water damage, which has unknown short- and long-term effects, is the direct link between fracking and earthquakes. Some of the earthquakes are in areas which hardly ever happen to them.

The EPA said January 5^th they will conduct their own tests on the area's water. It is already aware of the effects the gas extraction process had on the Wyoming town of Pavilion. In that case the agency's report expressed the concluding chemicals related to fracking were present in the town's aquifer.

Previous to this development the company Cabot Oil & Gas was providing water to about a dozen homes for three years until state regulators said it could stop if they wish. Now that their water supplies have stopped, some are showering in pond-water.

The residents started complaining about the foul-smelling cloudy water they were getting from their faucets in 2008.

Avoiding Fracking Earthquakes: Expensive Venture By Edward McAllister

United States - With mounting evidence linking hundreds of small earthquakes from Oklahoma to Ohio to the energy industry's growing use of fracking technology, scientists say there is one way to minimize risks of even minor temblors.

Only, it costs about $10 million a pop.

A thorough seismic survey to assess tracts of rock below where oil and gas drilling fluid is disposed of could help detect quake prone areas.

But that would be far more costly than the traditional method of drilling a bore hole, which takes a limited sample of a rock formation but gives no hint of faults lines or plates.

The more expensive method will be a hard sell as long as irrefutable proof of the link between fracking and earthquakes remains elusive.

"If we knew what was in the earth we could perfectly mitigate the risk of earthquakes," said Austin Holland, seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey. "That is something that we don't have enough science to establish yet."

A 4.0 New Year's Eve quake in Ohio prompted officials to shut down five wells used to dispose of fluid used in the hydraulic fracturing process. That comes less than a year after Arkansas declared a moratorium due to a surge in earthquakes as companies developed the Fayetteville Shale reserve.

Experts say the quakes do not necessarily appear to be caused during the process of fracking, a controversial extraction technique that involves injecting chemical-laced water and sand into shale rock to release oil and gas.

Instead, it's the need to dispose of millions of gallons of contaminated fluid extracted from each drilling site, either to be recycled or trucked to a separate location to be pumped deep underground.

The pressure caused by water pushed far below the surface for a long period has been linked to an increase in seismic activity, as water enters fissures and lubricates fault lines which can cause earthquakes in places otherwise free of them.

"It basically greases the wheels of the earthquake process that is there naturally and causes the earthquakes to occur at lower stress levels than they might normally have needed to occur," said Larry Brown who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Precautions can be taken to mitigate risks of earthquakes near disposal wells, such as lowering injection pressure and avoiding areas with a history of seismic activity, though none of these guarantee total safety.

QUESTIONED LINK
On paper, the link between fracking and quakes is compelling. As the oil and gas industry embarked on a massive expansion of hydraulic fracturing across Arkansas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, the number of earthquakes in areas where wastewater was injected back underground surged tenfold.

Data from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which had seismographs set up in Youngstown on Saturday, concluded that the earthquake occurred at the same depth as the well, about 2 miles below the surface.

"There is a relationship between when they started to inject into the well and the earthquakes started near the bottom of the well so it is unlikely to be coincidental," said John Armbruster at Lamont-Doherty.
But some researchers say the link has not been proven.

In Oklahoma, which saw a tenfold increase in earthquakes since 2009 to over 1,000, officials at the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OKGS) say more proof of a link to fracking is needed.

"The strong correlation in time and space as well as a reasonable fit to a physical model suggest that there is a possibility these earthquakes were induced by hydraulic fracturing," according to a OKGS report released in August. "However, the uncertainties in the data make it impossible to say with a high degree of certainty."

Odd Stories: Turkey Killed By Restaurant

Penn Hills, Pennsylvania – A restaurant named Eat'n Park got a free turkey but nobody ordered it. In fact nobody was there.

Police officer Bernard Sestili says a wild turkey weighing 15 pounds crashed through a window of the establishment Thursday afternoon, setting off its security alarm.

It's theorized by Sestili the turkey was roosting when it “got up this morning and went for his morning flight and flew into the window.”

Unfortunately it died.

Odd Stories: Really? Stealing That Much Shellfish?

Newport, Pennsylvania – Pennsylvania State Department say someone stole more than 16 tons of shellfish during the weekend from a truck stop.

According to Patriot-News, the tractor-trailer was stolen late Friday or early Saturday morning. The truck is the property of Western Star Transport, a California company.

Odd Stories: Man Punches Dog

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania – After trying to start a fight with his grandmother's 15-year-old dog, Nicholas Wooddell was arrested for cruelty to animals and disorderly conduct.

After he recently was asked to leave his grandmother's house, Wooddell appeared at the home banging on the door. After he entered the house he punched the dog for seemingly no reason and then left.