Strange but True

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — A candidate for Elizabethtown’s city council will have to wait until he’s out of jail to begin his campaign.

Louis Grider is serving a 1-year sentence for possession of drug paraphernalia. He’s due to be released on Sept. 9.

"Everybody’s got their problems. Unfortunately, mine’s here,” Grider said.

He formerly operated a novelty store in Elizabethtown. Police seized items from the store and charged Grider in June 2004, according to court documents. He said the store sold pipes he said were meant for smoking tobacco and legal herbs.

A jury convicted the 38-year-old Hardin County native in February 2005. He was sentenced to one year in jail and a $500 fine, the maximum penalty for the misdemeanor charge.

Grider received election paperwork through the mail and had someone drop it off at the county clerk’s office. Family members collected the 17 signatures listed on his nomination petition.

The city council elections are on Nov. 7.

Nuns to the rescue

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Two Dutch nuns, wearing habits and riding bikes, chased a suspected thief through Amsterdam, police said Monday.

On Saturday evening, one of the sisters believed she recognized a man walking past their chapel in southern Amsterdam as a thief who had snatched hundreds of euros in cash from the building two weeks earlier, Amsterdam police spokesman Rob van der Veen said.

She invited him inside for a drink and asked a fellow nun to alert police.

The man, apparently suspecting what was happening, fled the building and snatched a bicycle from a passer-by.

"The nuns then grabbed their bikes and gave chase. They tried to grab him, but he managed to escape into a residential neighborhood and they lost him,” Van der Veen said. Police hunted for the man in the neighborhood but could not find him.

Biker experience

SYDNEY, Australia — The Comanchero Motorcycle Club is auctioning off a day in the life of a biker, including a visit to the infamous site of a shootout with a rival gang that left six people dead.

The club has advertised the chance to spend eight hours with three or four Comancheros on their Harley Davidsons in Sydney on internet auction site eBay, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

The advertisement also promotes the chance to visit the scene of one of Australia’s bloodiest biker wars, known as the Milperra Massacre.

The Comancheros lost four members at the Viking Tavern on Father’s Day in 1984, while two members of the rival gang, the Bandidos, were killed. A teenage bystander was shot in the face.

The auction has a reserve price of 2,000 Australian dollars ($1,500 American), and the club has pledged to donate half the final bid to the cystic fibrosis unit of The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

"We could’ve done this as a business for ourselves, but one of our members’ 10-year-old daughter, Sarah, has cystic fibrosis and we thought, ‘Why not give half to a charity,’ " club spokesman Charlie Graham told the newspaper. "It’s for a good cause.”

Prized pig

CASPER, Wyo. — Lacey Washut’s prized porker fetched a pretty penny, but the price may not pan out lest it break the bank.

During an auction at the Central Wyoming Fair, C & Y Transportation bid $200 per pound for the 255-pound pig — a whopping $51,000.

But Lacey’s mother, Chaynee Washut, said the company didn’t realize it was bidding so much and is talking with 4-H officials about whether the price could be renegotiated.

"It’s kind of sad,” Chaynee Washut said. "There’s rumors floating around that C & Y are refusing to pay, and that’s just not the situation.”

On average, a pig will sell for $4 to $6 a pound.

Lacey, 9, originally intended to bring a different pig to the fair, but that pig died of pneumonia. That’s when her friends gave her a second pig, which she quickly fattened up for the fair.

Chaynee Washut said the only thing that mattered to Lacey was that she wanted to donate a portion of her sale toward the construction of a new swine barn at the fairgrounds.

"After Lacey found out she’d be getting less, she said, ’I can still donate some of my money, can’t I?” Chaynee Washut said.<