“A 45-year-old Kannapolis man was arrested after police said he hid nearly $300 worth of smoked turkey, shrimp, ribeye steak and baby-back ribs in his pants. According to a Salisbury Police report, Ronald Eugene Broadway, 709 Evelyn Ave., was charged after police said Broadway was seen pulling the assorted packages from the fly of his pants and sliding them under vehicles in the Food Lion parking lot at 525 W. Jake Alexander Blvd. After taking Broadway into custody, police found he was wearing a pair of sweatpants under a pair of jeans and had taped the bottom of the sweatpants together with duct tape. Officers said they believe the man used the tape to keep the store’s products from falling through his pants legs.” w/ photo

“A man became trapped under an eight ton steamroller as he allegedly tried to steal it. The 25-year-old had to be rescued by fire crews after getting stuck under the roller on Johnnie Cope Road in Tranent at 3.45pm on Sunday. After an hour and a half he was freed and taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary under police escort with a serious leg injury. Three men, aged 25, 26 and 47, have been charged with the attempted theft of the steamroller.” w/ photo

“Here’s the good news for those who remember struggling through dictation in French class: French spelling has been simplified. Here’s the bad news: Few have noticed, and those who have don’t like it. An official body that includes government ministers and a representative of the Academie Francaise, the eminent French language institution, issued a new set of rules to simplify the spellings of many words, either to bring them in line with pronunciation or to eliminate exceptions. The changes were made in 1990 — but French media are just getting wind of them. For example, ‘aout’ (August) drops the pointy circumflex accent over the ‘u’. ‘Baby-sitter’ gets Frenchified into ‘babysitteur.’ Bonhomie, which has come into English with that spelling, becomes bonhommie — to reflect its root ‘homme’ (man). Both the new and old spellings remain acceptable, but the new ones are supposed to be taught in schools, so they will eventually — in theory — replace the old.” w/ photo

“For the rest of the semester, a Rutherford County elementary student has to eat lunch at the ‘silent table’ for allegedly waving around a slice of pizza some say resembled a gun. Nicholas Taylor attends David Youree Elementary School in Smyrna, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville. School leaders say the 10-year-old threatened other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza with bites out of it so it looked like a gun and when asked about it was initially not truthful. Nicholas’ mother LeAnn calls her son’s punishment ‘absolutely ridiculous’ saying he was just playing around and never said anything derogatory or anything about shooting anyone. ‘The kid across the table from him said it looked like a gun so he picked it up and started shooting it in the air,’ she told Nashville’s News 2 Investigates. Taylor said she learned of the incident when the school sent her a note saying her son was threatening other students.” w/ photos + video

“It may have been slightly scorched over the years but a letter to Santa written 100 years ago, which was later discovered in a Dublin fireplace, has the magic of Christmas written all over it. On Christmas Eve 1911, a brother and sister, who signed their names, ‘A or H Howard’, penned their personally designed letter to Santa with their requests for gifts and a good luck message at their home in Oaklands Terrace, Terenure in Dublin. They placed it in the chimney of the fireplace in the front bedroom so that Santa would see it as he made his way into the Howard household in the early hours of the morning. The letter was discovered by the house’s current occupant, John Byrne, when he was installing central heating in 1992. Since then, he has retained it as a souvenir of another time and place but with the stamp of childhood innocence which still exists today. The message to Santa was warm but explicit.” w/ photo

“Photography tuition company Red Cloud has launched the contest to find the country’s most inept snapper. Entrants have included blurred faces, missed animal shots and extreme close-ups that go so far they miss the subject. Organizers said they want to prove even the most hapless photographer can be turned into a budding pro.” w/ photos

“Since December 9, the man has robbed five bakeries in the western suburbs of the French capital, police said, each time using the same modus operandi. After placing an order, the man holds up what appears to be a fake revolver, points it at the person behind the cash register and takes his pastries without paying. No one has been injured in the robberies and in each case the value of the goods stolen has been low, at between $10 and $26. Meanwhile in Bordeaux, police arrested Father Christmas. The 53-year-old, who was employed as a Father Christmas at Bordeaux’s Christmas market, was arrested after brandishing a hunting rifle, which was unloaded, at his nephew, who was also his boss. The Sud Ouest newspaper suggested that Father Christmas was angry over unpaid hours and felt swindled.” w/ photo

“Inside a gated fence at Alexander’s Towing in Santaquin Tuesday, a Honda, Toyota, and a Ford waited to be fixed — as did a $380,000 Lamborghini Murcielago. ‘I couldn’t believe I won it,’ said David Dopp, a Santaquin resident who won the car in a Maverik ‘Joe Schmo to Lambo’ contest recently… The car was given to him by the nonprofit organization teamgive during a ceremony at a Santaquin Maverick gas station. ‘Yeah, I got it on Saturday and I wrecked it on Saturday,’ Dopp said, forcing a half smile… The crash happened only six hours later. “We were coming up a hill, going around a corner; and as soon as we came up the hill, we either hit some black ice or loose gravel or something, and all of a sudden we just started spinning,” Dopp recalled. ‘We ended up in a field, and I back-ended a couple of fence posts.’ The car also has a little front-end damage, a puncture in the wheel, and scratches all along the passenger side.” w/ photos + video

“A 19-year-old New York woman arriving in Houston on a flight from Jamaica has been arrested after a drug dog alerted authorities to narcotics in two pairs of shoes in her luggage. Tests showed the narcotics to be 3 pounds of cocaine. Brielle Latoi Orridge of the Bronx, N.Y., is awaiting a federal court appearance on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine. Orridge arrived Sunday at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on a Continental Airlines flight from Montego Bay, Jamaica. Federal authorities say she was en route to New York City.” w/ photo

“A Blue Springs woman said she wanted her family to remember the reason for the Christmas season but was surprised to get a divine reminder through Crayola crayons. The woman said her child’s crayons led her to an encounter with Jesus. Tara Gomez and her son melted the crayons in the oven as part of an activity they found on the internet. Once the crayons were melted they put the mixture into the freezer. When Gomez went to pull it out 15 minutes later, she said she noticed what looked like Jesus’s image in the frozen crayons.” w/ photo + video