Odds and Ends from the News Margins

SUGAR LAND, TEXAS— Sugar Land,Texas became a little sweeter Thursday July 17 when a tanker truck overturned on Texas Highway 6 spilling 5,000 gallons of molasses onto the major thoroughfare. Drivers heading to Sugar Land were rerouted Thursday after the afternoon accident shut down the highway for eight hours. City of Sugar Land spokeswoman Pat Pollicoff told The Houston Chronicle the road was closed until midnight Thursday because of the coating of "healthy, all natural molasses." The spilled molasses was supposed to be used in cattle food. Several navy bean producers are sending containment teams.


MENDOTA HEIGHTS, Minn. - Fire investigators said a fire that destroyed a Mendota Heights home last week was caused by a flowerpot. Fire Chief John Maczko said a flowerpot on the home's deck spontaneously combusted.
While rare, spontaneous combustion can happen to pots with the right mixture of soil, moisture and heat.
Homeowner Dan Stoven said it's hard to believe, but said he's just glad his 17-year-old daughter was able to escape when passers-by entered the home to wake her up. Investigators said the soil was in a plastic pot that had become hot after several days of high temperatures and humidity. It ignited July 8, and wind helped the fire grow and spread to the deck and then to the house.


Fireweed (E. angustifolium) is a perennial herbaceous plant in the willowherb family Onagraceae. It is native throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere and is the state flower of Alaska. Its name is derived from its ability to proliferate in burned over sites following forest fires.



MIAMI - A Miami man who held up a McDonald's at gunpoint in 1994 is now promoting the restaurant's signature sandwich in song. Tamien Bain is among five finalists in the fast food chain's contest for a new jingle promoting the Big Mac.
Bain was arrested on Memorial Day 1994 for the holdup. He served 12 years in prison, where he became interested in making music. The 29-year-old Bain says he was up front with contest officials about his past when applying for the MySpace.com/BigMacChant competition. No word on whether the competition included the Osborne Brothers’ “Steal Away and Pray.”


GORHAM, Maine - A woman got the shock of her life when she found an 8-foot snake mixed in with clothes in her washing machine. The snake, identified as a reticulated python, somehow got into the water pipes of Mara Ranger's 1800s-era farmhouse and slithered into the machine.
After Ranger took her blue jeans out of the machine Wednesday, she reached back into the load and felt something move. "I jumped back and all of sudden its head starts coming out of the washing machine and it looked huge," Ranger told WMTW-TV.