Pair of paintings of dogs playing poker fetches $590,000 in auction
By: Associated Press | ∞
NEW YORK -- A pair of paintings from the famed series depicting dogs playing poker fetched nearly $600,000 at auction Tuesday. The two works -- "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo" -- were among 16 paintings that artist Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was commissioned to create for a Minnesota-based advertising company in 1903. Of the 16, nine are of dogs playing poker.
The two works that sold Tuesday for $590,400 capture moments in a poker game played by five dogs, among them a St. Bernard that ends up collecting the pot on a bluff.
The winning bid set a new auction record for Coolidge, whose previous top sale was $74,000, said Alan Fausel, director of paintings at Doyle New York, which handled Tuesday's sale.
The winning bidder was a private collector from New York.
Doyle had estimated that the two paintings would bring in between $30,000 and $50,000.
The sale was part of Doyle's annual "Dogs in Art" auction, which coincides with the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.
On the Net:
Doyle New York: http://www.doylenewyork.com
Police chief wakes up to find man playing Beethoven in his home
Associated Press
NEW RIEGEL, Ohio -- The police chief woke up in the middle of the night to discover a man playing Beethoven on his piano. Chief Steve Swartzmiller grabbed his gun and went to investigate the noise. He found 19-year-old Shawn Chadwell drunk at the keyboard.
Swartzmiller said Chadwell had been looking for a friend's house when he mistakenly wandered in. He was charged with underage drinking and burglary.
The chief added that Chadwell played perfect Beethoven.
Last call: Alabama's official state whiskey banned in state
Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's official state whiskey was banned from sale in the state Tuesday.
The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board notified Conecuh Ridge Distillery that its state license had been revoked because of liquor law violations by its founder. The Legislature is in the process of repealing Conecuh Ridge's designation as the official state whiskey.
"Conecuh Ridge is out of business in Alabama," board administrator Emory Folmar said.
The Troy-based company has been in turmoil since founder Kenny May pleaded guilty two weeks ago to misdemeanor charges involving illegal sales, including selling a case of whiskey to an 18-year-old girl. Alabama's legal drinking age is 21.
Temporary manager Alva Lambert said May is no longer associated with Conecuh Ridge, his stock has been put in a trust, and the company's production is on hold. Lambert said the company is looking for investors and pursuing a possible joint venture with a liquor production firm.
"We just want to save the company and make sure everyone's money is not at risk," he said.
The Alabama Legislature voted last year, over Gov. Bob Riley's veto, to make Conecuh Ridge Alabama's "official state spirit." The product is made in Kentucky, but May asserted that it was based on a recipe created by his father, Clyde May, a famous Alabama bootlegger. He also talked about one day building a distillery in Alabama to create jobs.
State liquor stores -- which promoted Conecuh Ridge with displays in old-fashioned-looking wooden cases -- will sell the Conecuh Ridge they have on their shelves, but won't stock any more, Folmar said.
Alabama has been the whiskey's biggest market, but it's also sold in Georgia and Tennessee, Lambert said.
Passengers count their blessings after minivan plunges 400 feet down Colorado mountain pass
Associated Press
DENVER -- Six people in a minivan survived a 400-foot plunge down a slope in the Colorado Rockies, apparently because they were wearing seat belts.
"I just remember as we were sliding, it seemed slow," Terry Holman said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "I kept hoping it would grab and come back the other way. When it didn't and started to fall, I just thought we were done for."
Holman and the others were on 11,018-foot Red Mountain Pass in southwestern Colorado on Saturday when Joe Sullivan's minivan slid on a patch of ice. The van carried Sullivan, his wife, son and daughter as well as Holman and Holman's daughter, Stacia.
Sullivan recalls shouting as the vehicle tumbled down the 60-degree slope. It rolled twice, maybe more, before coming to rest with the driver's side facing down.
"As we first started down, we thought that was the end," Sullivan told "Today." "As we kept going further and further and realized nothing got us, nothing got us, there was a lot of hope and we just wanted to stop."
Sullivan's wife, Linda, had a head injury, but it was not life-threatening. Still, everyone was worried about getting help at the bottom of a hill on one the state's most treacherous passes.
Skip and Terri Garcia had been following the minivan in their SUV and pieced together what happened.
"We rounded a corner and the minivan was no longer in front of us," Skip Garcia told The Denver Post. "I glanced down and noticed tire tracks in the fresh, slushy snow headed over the embankment."
Terri Garcia used the Onstar feature of their SUV to call for help while her husband peered over the edge. "To our amazement people started to exit the vehicle," Skip Garcia said. "I yelled down for them to stay put, that help was on its way."
"Those folks are incredibly lucky that they survived," he said. "Amazing things happen."
Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Lawrence Oletski said the fact that all six people in the van were wearing seat belts was key.
"This is the first time I can remember something like this where someone wasn't hurt badly or didn't die," Oletski said. "It truly is a miracle."
Peru mayor tries to kill himself in court rather than face homicide sentence
Associated Press
LIMA, Peru -- Faced with a guilty verdict for masterminding a double homicide, a mayor of a remote Andean village swallowed a flask of poison in open court rather than face a 20-year sentence.
Canal N television broadcast images Tuesday of Florencio Valverde making the failed suicide attempt a day earlier in a courtroom in the provincial capital of Huanuco, 155 miles northeast of Lima.
Reportedly proclaiming that he could not receive justice, Valverde reached into his pants pocket, pulled a small bottle of an unidentified liquid and swallowed it before guards could get to him.
He was also shown struggling with guards and writhing on the ground before he was taken to a jail hospital, where his stomach was pumped. Prison officials couldn't be reached with questions about his condition.
Canal N reported that Valverde was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for allegedly masterminding the killing of two people in the nearby village of Choras, where he was elected mayor in 2002.
Media reports said Valverde had accused the judges hearing his case of finding him guilty after he refused to pay them a $5,000 bribe.
Lawsuit claims video game violence led to police deaths in Alabama
Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- A lawsuit claims the video game "Grand Theft Auto" led a teenager to shoot two police officers and a dispatcher to death in 2003, mirroring violent acts depicted in the popular game.
The suit announced Tuesday seeks damages from the game's manufacturers and two stores that allegedly sold it to Devin Thompson, now 18.
An attorney for relatives of two of the victims said Thompson, who is charged with murder, had played the video game repeatedly.
Thompson is accused of killing the three men in June 2003 after being brought to the Fayette police station on suspicion of driving a stolen car. Thompson allegedly grabbed one of the officer's guns, shot him and the other two, then fled in a patrol car.
The suit alleges Thompson purchased "Grand Theft Auto III" at the Gamestop in Jasper and "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" at the Jasper Wal-Mart when he was under 17. The games, which depict police killings and other acts of violence, are rated M, meaning they are appropriate for those 17 or older.
"What has happened in Alabama is that four companies participated in the training of Devin ... to kill three men," attorney Jack Thompson told The Tuscaloosa News, which reported the suit's filing.
Named in the suit are Wal-Mart Stores and Gamestop along with Take-Two Interactive Software, the manufacturer of the games, and Sony Computer Entertainment, the maker of the PlayStation 2.
Messages left for officials of three of the companies were not immediately returned. There was no answer at the listing for Gamestop in Grapevine, Texas.
At a December hearing, authorities said Devin Thompson, when he was apprehended, told officers, "Life is a video game. You've got to die sometime."
'Frank the Tumor' is gone -- boy's brain cancer removed
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- A 9-year-old boy who nicknamed his brain tumor "Frank" -- that's short for Frankenstein -- is celebrating the intruder's departure.
"Frank is now dead and gone and never to return," David Dingman-Grover said Tuesday. He was wearing a black T-shirt that read, "Cancer is not who I am."
Frank the Tumor gained national attention when David's mother created "Frank Must Die" bumper stickers, which the family auctioned on eBay to defray the costs of surgery.
Biopsy results Tuesday showed the tumor was no longer cancerous.
When the boy from Sterling, Va., outside Washington was diagnosed with a grapefruit-sized tumor in 2003, the family was told the size and location in the center of his skull made it difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to remove.
Doctors used chemotherapy and radiation to shrink the tumor to the size of a peach pit. That alleviated the child's headaches and temporary blindness, but doctors still needed to remove the tumor.
Traditional brain surgery, called craniotomy, involves cutting through the patient's face and skull. The parents agreed to the operation, but it never occurred -- too risky. The tumor was surrounded by three arteries responsible for supplying blood flow to the brain.
David's mother used the Internet to find out about an alternative procedure.
Dr. Hrayr Shahinian of the Skull Base Institute in Los Angeles used fiber-optic instruments to remove the tumor through the child's nose in a 1.5-hour operation Feb. 2 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
"There were no cuts on his face," Shahinian said.
"David would have most likely died if we had done the surgery the other way," said Tiffani Dingman-Grover. "I'm just so grateful that I have the chance to continue to be David's mother."
David will be 10 on March 1 and said he had no doubts he would see this birthday.
"I knew the Lord would guide me through this," he said. "I'm very happy. I just want to go home and live a normal life again." He will spend the coming months recovering from chemotherapy and radiation which has left his immune system low and his muscles weak.
The surgeon did not charge for the procedure, which normally would cost about $100,000 including hospital fees and anesthesiologists. The family has donated $20,000 they received to a charity to help other children with pediatric cancers.
Asked why he did the surgery for free, the doctor showed reporters a pebble the boy gave him which he now carries in his wallet. On it is the word "courage."
St. Louis girl, 12, accused of strangling 9-year-old sister over a hamburger
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS -- A 12-year-old girl has been charged with murder under juvenile law for allegedly killing her 9-year-old sister, apparently in a dispute over a hamburger.
A Family Court judge will determine if the girl should be tried as an adult, but no date has been set for that proceeding, said Kathryn Herman, assistant administrator for the St. Louis Family Court. A detention hearing is set for Wednesday.
The older girl reported finding her sister lifeless on the floor of their home near downtown Dec. 22.
Medical Examiner Michael Graham said Tuesday that the 9-year-old girl had minor injuries to her neck, but an autopsy did not initially determine the cause of death.
On Feb. 1, a social worker told police the 12-year-old was in a hospital psychiatric unit, suffering visions and nightmares, and had told the staff she strangled her sister during a quarrel over a hamburger, police told the Post-Dispatch.
Graham said those statements and the injuries led him to determine the cause of death was strangulation. "No other condition reasonably explains her death," he said.
Police did not immediately respond to calls seeking additional details Tuesday.
Charges against the 12-year-old were filed Thursday, Herman said. She remained hospitalized but was expected to be moved to a juvenile center. If convicted as a juvenile, the maximum penalty would be confinement until her 21st birthday.
Ballet production featuring dancing czar upsets churchgoers
Associated Press
MOSCOW -- A ballet depicting Czar Nicholas II dancing in tights opened Tuesday night despite protests from members of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has declared him a saint.
The ballet, "Rasputin," opened in Yekaterinburg, the city 900 miles east of Moscow where the czar and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
About 100 believers from the Church of Spilled Blood, which was built on the execution site, urged the Kosmos Theater to cancel the production, the newspaper Kommersant reported.
"Orthodox Christians are offended by the fact that Emperor Nicholas II will be shown dancing in the production," said Maksim Menyailo, a priest from the church, according to Kommersant. "In Czarist Russia, it was not permitted even to show the images of saints on the stage."
Menyailo and at least one other priest went to the theater before the performance and talked to the ballet troupe. "We ... told them that this is evil, what they have thought up today," Menyailo said on NTV television.
Dimity Baibakov, an official of the Yekaterinburg synod, was quoted as saying: "Czar Nicholas was a martyr. He is not dancing in a czar's costume but in tights. Is it necessary to make fun of saints?"
Galina Pisulina, director of the theater, countered: "If people don't like this, they don't have to watch," according to the paper.
A Yekaterinburg theater critic, Yulia Matafonova, said on NTV that she suspected petitions criticizing the ballet were an organized campaign rather than a spontaneous reaction.
NTV said a few Russian Orthodox believers handed in their tickets for Tuesday's performance.
The initial production of "Rasputin" was shown in a St. Petersburg conservatory last year.
Grigory Rasputin was a monk whom the royal family believed to have healing powers and who exerted a strong influence on the family. He was murdered in 1916, about three months before the czar abdicated.
The dominant Russian Orthodox Church has experienced a revival since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its officially atheist Communist system, and has sought to increase its influence on Russian society and culture.
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