Megachurch Hopes To Win Super Bowl Ad Contest

A Los Angeles church called Mosaic is among the six finalists in the Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” commercial contest. If the church’s entry makes the top three in online voting, it will be aired during the Super Bowl. The tongue-in-cheek ad, titled “Casket,” spoofs the “resurrection” power of Doritos. Lead pastor Erwin McManus says he hopes the humorous ad shows that it’s OK to laugh in the face of death. You can see all six finalists at http://www.crashthesuperbowl.com/#/finalists

Twinkies Thieves Leave Tracks In Snow

Thieves with the munchies stole Zingers, Twinkies and other snacks from the Merita Bread Company in Kingsport, Tennessee. Deputies say 34-year-old James Denoon and 18-year-old Anthony Stout were found hiding under a truck at the bakery late Friday night. Officers found about $300 worth of stolen snacks stacked on the ground nearby. Finding the accused thieves was easy – the deputies only had to follow their footprints in the fresh snow. Denoon and Stout were charged with theft under $500 and two counts of auto burglary.

Fountain Coin Thief

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Memphis police say a security officer at a downtown mall found a man in the mall’s fountain stealing coins. The 47-year-old was charged with stealing about $33 from the fountain at the Peabody Place. He was jailed on $100 bond. The money has since been returned to the pond.

Woman Gets 6 Months To Divorce

There are matchmakers – and then there are match breakers, such as the Huron County judge in Bad Axe, Michigan, who sent a woman to jail for polygamy and gave her six months to divorce one of her husbands. Lorri Freesland of Kinde, Michigan, pleaded guilty to the charge in December. Authorities have said she wasn’t divorced from the man she married in 2000 in Macomb County’s Clinton Township when she married he second husband on August 3, 2007. Her first husband moved to Alaska in 2006. The woman was also sentenced to 15 days in jail and one year of probation.

Gas Pump Rage

A man in Pinson, Alabama, was charged with attempted murder after authorities said he drove his truck through the window of a service station. Deputies say Roger Mayes, 49, pulled into a BP station on Alabama 75 Sunday morning and got into a dispute with the clerk because the pump was turned off. Meyers went back to his Ford Explorer and drove through the plate glass window and into the counter, barely missing the clerk. Deputies say Mayes tried to charge them before he was subdued with a stun-gun.

Pursuing Peacocks In Washington

Officials in Sultan, Washington, said a wildlife specialist hired to trap a group of nine peacocks is having trouble catching up with the final two birds. The specialist was hired after residents complained about the peacocks and peahens roosting on porches, leaving their peapoo on sidewalks and attempting to fight with cars. Local resident Ed Boucher said the peafowl are believed to be descendants from a mated pair he purchased 30 years ago. He said a wild dog broke the cage holding the ancestors of the birds five years ago and set several of them free.

Blade Runner

An Austin, Texas, man who called 911 to complain about bank fraud was arrested after he was found with a machete and 20 other knives or blades. Douglas Dockery, 50, remained in jail Monday on charges with unlawful carrying of a weapon and having prohibited weapons such as a switchblade or brass knuckles. He was also wanted on an outstanding warrant. Dockery was arrested Saturday night outside a convenience store. Officers found the machete, with a 16-inch blade, strapped to his right leg.

Alaska Celebrates Marmot Day

Without having any groundhogs, Alaska now has its own version of Groundhog Day. Then-Gov. Sarah Palin signed a bill last year to make every February 2nd Marmot Day in Alaska. The bill was introduced by Sen. Linda Menard, a Wasilla Republican. Because groundhogs are not common in Alaska, Menard says it made sense for the marmot to become Alaska’s version of Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog famed for his winter weather forecasts. Menard’s bill didn’t give marmots any weather forecasting duties, but she hopes the state will created educational activities around the animal.

Utah Ice Castle

An ice sculptor says his massive outdoor ice castle has grown to include 18 towers, each of which measures 30 to 35 feet high. Brent Christiansen said he uses 20 sprinkler heads to expand the structure by 10-12 tons of ice each day on the golf course of the Zermatt Resort and Spa in Midway, Utah. He plans to continue expanding the project through the end of February. Christiansen said the resort allows him to keep the $2 entrance fee visitors must pay to enter the castle, and he and his wife were given a room at the hotel for the season. The self-taught sculptor said the main tower of the structure is expected to reach three to four stories high by the time it’s completed.

TV Fight

Police in Ft. Pierce, Florida, arrested a knife-wielding man who allegedly chased a relative around the house for turning off the TV. Deputies said Fransisco Yanez-Mejia, 30, grabbed a knife after a male family member turned off his TV and chased the other man around the house while threatening to kill him. The relative told police he used a small trash can to block the knife and locked himself in a bathroom before calling 911. Police arrested Yanez-Mejia early Saturday morning. He told investigators he was using the knife to cut lemons – likely for the tequila they were consuming – and was not trying to hurt anyone. Yanez-Mejia remained in jail Sunday with a $5,000 bail.

Reindeer Fitted With Prosthetic Leg

An Ohio woman who makes prosthetic limbs has outfitted a reindeer who lost his leg due to an infection with an artificial limb. Kathy Simmons said she thought someone was playing a joke on her when a Granville woman called her office near Reynoldsburg and asked if she was able to make a prosthetic leg for a reindeer. Simmons made an appointment and was shocked when the woman showed up with a three-legged deer. The owner said the reindeer had a bone infection when she purchased him in December and had to have the lower part of his front left leg amputated. Simmons said she and co-worker Joe Nye created a 20-inch-long prosthetic leg with a hoof-like round bottom and fitted the artificial limb to the deer on Sunday.

Hunter Shot By Own Dog

Authorities in Merced County, California, said a hunter was shot by his own dog. Officials said the 53-year-old hunter was hunting near Los Banos with his Labrador retriever and a partner on Saturday when he set his shotgun down and walked about 15 feet to retrieve some decoy ducks. The dog stepped on the gun, which set off the shotgun and riddled the owner with buckshot in the upper left part of his back. The man was treated and released from a local hospital.

Poker Playing Grannies

Mary Dattilo turned 100 in December, but she still meets her lady friends every weekend for their Saturday Night Poker Club in West Virginia. The average age is 91 and the kid of the group is 84. The stakes aren’t very high, but winning a couple of bucks is a big deal. Dattilo has plenty of poker-playing experience. She says she started playing cards with her dad when she was 7 or 8.

Too Cold For Polar Bear Plunge

It was so cold in Maryland over the weekend that even the human polar bears were shivering. The Maryland Special Olympics had planned its 14th annual Polar Bear Plunge for Saturday. After the first dip, doctors advised the second one scheduled for a couple of hours later be canceled. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco was one of about 15,000 people who went in for a dip. He says the frigid water took his “breath away.” The air temperature was 23 degrees and the Chesapeake Bay was 36 degrees Fahrenheit.

Chicken-Playing Chicken

A black hen has been playing a game of chicken on a busy Glendale, California, road, dodging cars, captors and coyotes for more than two months. Officials say the bird has been darting into traffic outside Glendale Community College since it was first reported November 20th. The chicken has drawn a growing crowd of photographers and journalists as animal control officers struggle to catch it. A spokeswoman for the Pasadena Humane Society said the bird either runs into the street or flies into a tree when officers approach. Hillary Gatlin said a humane trap has not worked because the chicken doesn’t weigh enough to trigger it or she isn’t interested in the feed used as bait. Gatlin said the standoff could continue for a long time.

Crash Leads To 238-Pound Pot Bust

Tracks in the snow leading from a crashed car to a nearby bridge overpass on New Mexico’s I-40 led officers to a monster pot bust. State police say officers patrolling the stretch near Tucumcari Saturday discovered 40-year-old Henry Alan Lowe of El Paso, Texas, had lost control of his sedan and crashed into a snow pile. Then they noticed tracks leading back and forth from the trunk of his car to the bridge. Digging a little deeper, officers found large plastic wrapped bundles that totaled 238 pounds of marijuana with an estimated street value of more than $642,000.

Update: Shoe Freak Busted

A Delaware man arrested Friday is suspected of stealing thousands of pairs of men’s shoes and photos of men during the past 20 years. Walter J. Rubincon, 46, of Newark, allegedly targeted student housing during vacations. He was linked to a long string of burglaries after a man was spotted dumping three bags of shoes in a creek in Maryland and then driving away in a yellow Mitsubishi Eclipse. Police said three truckloads of what were believed to be stolen goods were removed from Rubincon’s house. In addition to 150 boxes of shoes and photographs, investigators found a mandolin, eight guitars, eight snowboards and a surfboard.

Robber Calls Cops

An alleged robber in San Diego called police when a man punched him in the face in a bid to stop the crime. Police responded to the scene Saturday near a trolley station after a 43-year-old man called them to report he had been assaulted. But when they got there, the officers determined the caller had been punched because a bystander had stepped in to break up an alleged attempt by the complainant to rob an 83-year-old victim. The 43-year-old was arrested for suspected elder abuse and robbery.

Inflatable Gorilla Causes Fire

The fire department is blaming an out-of-control inflatable gorilla for a rooftop blaze at a Houston shopping center last Thursday. No one was hurt. District Chief Fred Hooker says the blowup gorilla deflated and landed on some lights, leading to the fire. Bits of the plastic ape were scattered around the site.

Chili Chokin’ Trucker Crashes Into Home

Police in Lowell, Massachusetts, said a lumber truck crashed into a home after the driver was knocked unconscious by a small chili from Wendy’s. Eric Gremm, 59, said he choked on the chili when the truck hit a bump, causing him to pass out as his rig veered off the road and slammed into the home. Gremm said emergency workers at the scene told him that he had passed out, but he couldn’t remember losing consciousness. Gremm was taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Police said he could be cited for eating while driving.