Woman bites into finger at San Jose Wendy's

By: Associated Press | Wednesday, March 23, 2005 10:15 PM PST ∞

SAN JOSE -- A woman's meal at a Wendy's restaurant brought a whole new meaning to the term "finger food."

The woman bit into a portion of a human finger while eating a bowl of chili Tuesday night at the San Jose restaurant, Santa Clara County health officials said Wednesday.

The woman, who asked officials not to identify her, immediately spit out the finger and warned other diners to stop eating, witnesses said.

"Initially she did put this object in her mouth and did bite down on it and wasn't sure exactly what it was," Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Martin Fenstersheib said at a news conference. "She's doing OK. Initially she was a bit grossed out it was described to me, and vomited a number of times."

Fenstersheib said the finger had been cooked at a high enough temperature to kill any viruses.

Officials said the fingertip was approximately 1 3-8-inches long and a half-inch piece of fingernail was also found. They believe it belongs to a woman because of the long, manicured nail.

Health investigators seized all of the ingredients at the restaurant and are tracing them back to their manufacturer. They believe the finger got into the chili at an earlier stage.

"We have no evidence of any accident within the employees at the facility itself," said Ben Gale of the Santa Clara County Health Department. "We asked everybody to show us they have 10 fingers and everything is OK there."

The restaurant has had only one minor health violation stemming from a leaky vent, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Food safety is of utmost importance to us," Wendy's spokesman Joe Desmond said in a statement. "We are cooperating fully with the local police and health departments with their investigation. It's important not to jump to conclusions. Here at Wendy's we plan to do right by our customers."

Nazi-clinic doctor accused of killing children deemed too ill for trial

Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria -- A doctor who worked at a clinic where the Nazis killed thousands of children deemed "unworthy" will not be put on trial because he suffers from severe dementia, Austria's justice minister said.

Dr. Heinrich Gross, who faced charges in the deaths of nine children, is not mentally capable of following court proceedings, Justice Minister Karin Miklautsch said in a document released Tuesday. Three previous cases against Gross dating to the 1950s have been dismissed.

Experts found that Gross, 89, had a limited ability "to understand and analyze new information and to participate in complex communication processes with several participants -- such as a court hearing," Miklautsch said.

Miklautsch cited a court's decision in November 2003 that Gross was unfit to stand trial and said no further evaluation was needed.

The charges against Gross will remain pending, said Viktor Eggert, head of the Justice Ministry's political and war crimes department.

"The process is only suspended. It will end at some point with the suspect's death," he said.

Gross was a leading doctor in Vienna's notorious Am Spiegelgrund clinic. Historians and survivors of the clinic have accused him of participating in clinic experiments on thousands of children deemed by the Nazis to be physically, mentally or otherwise unfit. The Nazis called such children "unworthy lives."

Gross became a prominent neurologist after World War II and was awarded the prestigious Austrian Honorary Cross for Science and Art in 1975. He was stripped of the medal in 2003.

Gross has been put on trial three times, but all the cases were dismissed. In a trial in the 1950s, the case was thrown out because of legal technicalities. A second case in the 1980s was dismissed because the 30-year statute of limitations on manslaughter had expired.

A third trial in 2000, in which Gross was accused of complicity in the deaths of nine handicapped children from abuse, was suspended after a psychiatrist testified he was unfit for trial because of advanced dementia.

Immediately after the suspension, Gross gave lively interviews in a local coffeehouse.

The minister's statement Tuesday was a response to Green Party parliamentarian Karl Oellinger's request for information on the status of the case.

Oellinger said he found the answer to be an "undignified end" to a "decade-long justice scandal." He said he would ask Miklautsch more questions in an attempt to establish whether more evaluations of Gross' health might be needed.

Agency revokes certifications of polygamist police officers

Associated Press

HILDALE, Utah -- The law-enforcement certifications of the police chief and an officer in polygamous twin cities on the Utah-Arizona border have been revoked because they are breaking the law by having multiple wives.

The Utah Peace Officers Standards and Training Council voted Tuesday to immediately revoke the certifications of Colorado City, Ariz., Police Chief Sam Roundy and officer Vance Barlow.

Roundy and Barlow are each believed to have three wives, according to a report compiled by an investigator for the Utah attorney general's office.

Roundy, who graduated in 1989 from the Arizona police academy and became Colorado City police chief in 1994, declined comment, but has previously said his officers were being targeted because of their religion.

"Every cop has a religion, but religion doesn't run my job," Roundy said last week. "It's religious persecution going after polygamy, that's all it is."

Dave Zitting, the mayor in the adjoining community of Hildale, Utah, said the decertifications were regrettable.

"It's sad that they (Utah) will find cause to take such excellent and dedicated people out of service," he said.

Arizona POST Executive Director Tom Hammarstrom said the two officers likely would face the same sanctions in that state.

The Colorado City Police Department is contracted each year to provide law enforcement services to Hildale.

Most of the 10,000 residents of the two towns are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which preaches polygamy as a central tenet.

Bobby Fischer freed from Japanese detention cell, heads for Iceland

Associated Press

USHIKU, Japan -- Chess legend Bobby Fischer was freed Thursday from a Japanese detention center and immediately headed for flight to Iceland, bringing to a halt efforts to deport him to the United States.

Fischer, sporting a long, gray beard, jeans and a baseball cap pulled down low to cover his face, left the immigration detention center in this city on Tokyo's outskirts early Thursday morning.

The eccentric chess icon was taken into custody by Japanese immigration officials in July when he tried to leave the country using an invalid U.S. passport.

As he was taken away in a black limousine provided by the Icelandic Embassy, his vehicle was mobbed by a few dozen photographers and reporters. Fischer did not emerge from the car or make any comment.

Fischer was accompanied by his fiancee, Miyoko Watai, the head of Japan's chess association, and an official from the Icelandic Embassy. They were headed for the airport to try and catch an afternoon flight to Denmark en route to Iceland, where he has been granted citizenship.

Fischer was characteristically defiant as he arrived at the airport.

"I won't be free until I get out of Japan. This was not an arrest. It was a kidnapping cooked up by Bush and Koizumi," he said referring to President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Fischer, who has been held in detention since his arrest, claims his U.S. passport was revoked illegally and sued to block a deportation order to the United States, where he is wanted for violating sanctions imposed on the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match against Russian Boris Spassky in 1992.

This week, Iceland's Parliament stepped in to break the standoff, awarding citizenship to Fischer. Iceland is where Fischer won the world championship in 1972, defeating Spassky in a classic Cold War showdown that propelled Fischer to international stardom.

Fischer, 62, could still face extradition to the United States -- Iceland, like Japan, has an extradition treaty with Washington.

Thordur Oskarsson, Iceland's ambassador to Japan, said before Fischer's release that Washington sent a "message of disappointment" to the Icelandic government over its vote to grant Fischer citizenship.

"Despite the message, the decision was put through Parliament on humanitarian grounds," Oskarsson said.

In Washington on Tuesday, the State Department said it had officially asked Japan to hand over Fischer because of the charges against him.

"That's what we've asked for," said Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman for the State Department. "Mr. Fischer is a fugitive from justice. There is a federal warrant for his arrest."

Japan's Foreign Ministry, which has denied that there has been any pressure from Washington, had no immediate comment. The U.S. Embassy also declined to comment.

Tokyo initially refused Fischer's request to go to Iceland, saying Japanese law only allows for Fischer's deportation to the country of his origin. But following Iceland's decision Monday, Japanese Justice Minister Chieko Nono said officials would consider the possibility of allowing Fischer to go there.

Fischer became an icon in 1972 when he dethroned Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik to claim America's first world chess championship in more than a century.

But a few years later he forfeited the title to another Soviet, Anatoly Karpov, when he refused to defend it. He then fell into obscurity before resurfacing to play the exhibition rematch against Spassky in the former Yugoslavia in 1992.

Fischer won the rematch on the resort island of Sveti Stefan. But the game was played in violation of U.S. sanctions imposed to punish then-President Slobodan Milosevic. If convicted, Fischer, who hasn't been to the United States since then, could face 10 years in prison and a fine of US$250,000.

Fischer also has emerged from silence in radio broadcasts and on his Web page to express anti-Semitic views and rail against the United States.

Monaco's ailing 81-year-old prince on a respirator in intensive care

Associated Press

MONACO -- Prince Rainier III was suffering from heart and kidney failure and breathing through a respirator Wednesday as residents of this Riviera enclave braced for what many feared could be his final days.

A medical update from the palace described the 81-year-old prince's condition as stable a day after he was moved into intensive care at Monaco's Cardio-Thoracic Center.

The prince, whose actress wife, Grace Kelly, died in a 1982 car crash, was hospitalized more than two weeks ago with a chest infection. After a marked improvement, his health suddenly worsened.

A palace statement Wednesday said Rainier was transferred to the intensive care unit after developing a sudden respiratory infection "with cardiac and kidney failure."

"Breathing difficulties made the installation of artificial respiration indispensable," the statement said.

Outside the hospital, life continued as normal in this tiny principality wedged between the mountains and the Mediterranean. Some residents watched the palace -- and its flagpole -- for signs.

"While the flag is still up, we know he's still alive and all is well," said Sandrine Negre, 22, out strolling with friends near Rainier's seaside hospital. "All Monegasques are watching that flag."

Rainier, who assumed the throne in 1949, is revered by his subjects for having transformed Monaco -- which is smaller than New York City's Central Park -- into a modern and elegant resort that is a magnet for jetsetters.

"This country is Prince Rainier," said Patricia Vermeulen, a 53-year-old retired teacher who lives near the palace. "This fabulous adventure that is Monaco, he created it."

Speaking his name brought tears to her eyes.

"We've known about his bad health for a long time. But each new time I feel the deepest sadness, as if it were my father," said Vermeulen, setting down grocery bags to dab her eyes. "It's like a knife in my heart each time."

"He's not gone," she paused. "Not yet."

Crown Prince Albert, 47 -- Rainier's heir -- returned from abroad Tuesday to visit his father, as did Princess Caroline, 48. Princess Stephanie, 40, was seen entering and leaving the hospital.

In 2002, the constitution was revised to allow Albert to succeed his father, despite his lack of heirs. According to Article 10 of the constitution, Princess Caroline would succeed Albert should he die without children. She, in turn, would be succeeded by her oldest son, Andrea Albert Pierre, now 20.

Archbishop Bernard Barsi of Monaco visited the hospital Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, the Rev. Philippe Blanc was seen entering the clinic.

The visits were a somber note to what has been a high-flying lifestyle for the Grimaldi family and their playground for the rich that has become synonymous with casinos, Formula One races and tax breaks.

Rainier's two daughters for years have been the focus of paparazzi, who fed off their rocky love lives. Stephanie, known as the wild child, had three children out of wedlock, then married a circus acrobat.

Rainier has a history of heart problems and has recently been plagued with recurring ailments linked to his respiratory tract.

Infections can bring on congestive heart failure, which can lower blood pressure and ultimately lead to kidney failure. Heart failure also depresses the respiratory system, making breathing difficult.

Doctors often use respirators and dialysis machines to lighten the workload of the body while healing from an infection. Once the infection is cleared, the machines can be disconnected and the body can resume its normal function, said Dr. James Underberg of the New York University Medical Center.

However, respiratory infections in the elderly can be dangerous and deadly, Underberg noted.

"It could go either way. This could be a temporary thing where they just support his body while they aggressively treat the infection with antibiotics and he recovers or it could be the beginning of a downward spiral," he said.

Rainier spent a week at the same Monaco hospital in October because of a chest infection. He also was admitted to the clinic in February 2004 for a coronary lesion and a damaged blood vessel, and spent three weeks there the month before for what was described as general fatigue.

Massachusetts fugitive arrested in Chicago 20 years after prison escape

Associated Press

BOSTON -- In Massachusetts, he is a twice-convicted murderer who vanished after escaping from prison. In Illinois, he is a poet and anti-war protester devoted to his local Unitarian church.

The two lives of Norman Porter crumbled in Chicago on Tuesday, when undercover police investigators arrested the man who 20 years ago fled from justice here and built a new life in Chicago.

"He had us all fooled," said C.J. Laity, who knew Porter from poetry readings. "I've known him for many, many years. Obviously, I didn't know him as well as I thought."

Porter waived extradition at a hearing Wednesday morning in Cook County Circuit Court and was returned to Massachusetts Wednesday night.

Porter's whereabouts have been a mystery to police since he walked away from a prerelease center in Walpole in December 1985. Ever since his escape, he has been at the top of the Massachusetts State Police's "Most Wanted" list.

In 1960, at age 21, Porter shot and killed John Pigott, a 22-year-old store clerk, during a robbery of a clothing store.

While he was awaiting trial, Porter and another inmate escaped from jail. They overpowered the jail master, David S. Robinson, then shot and killed him with a smuggled gun.

Porter, who wasn't accused of pulling the trigger in Robinson's killing, eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in both cases and was sentenced to consecutive life terms. However, in 1975, then-Gov. Michael Dukakis commuted one of those sentences.

During his 26 years behind bars, Porter earned his high school diploma and was working toward a college degree. He escaped in 1985 after he was transferred to a minimum security prison.

Porter's friends in Chicago said Jacob "J.J." Jameson -- as they know him -- has been living in the city for the past 20 years. Porter, 65, was arrested in the Third Unitarian Church.

"I've always known him to be a perfect gentleman, quite active in the community," said Charles Paidock, who met Porter more than a decade ago at a forum on free speech and other social issues.

Paidock, who was working on a play with Porter, said he never saw anything in his friend to suggest a violent past. "This is absolutely a complete and total shock," he said.

About a month ago, a tipster reportedly told Massachusetts police that Porter was living in the Chicago area. Investigators matched Porter's fingerprints to his 1993 arrest on theft charges in Chicago, in which he used the Jameson alias.

Porter acknowledged his real identity when police arrested him, saying, "I had a good 20 years," according to Detective Lt. Kevin Horton of the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension unit.

Bolshoi faces protests over 'pornographer's opera'

Associated Press

MOSCOW -- The prestigious Bolshoi Theater was embroiled in protests as a pro-Kremlin youth group picketed Wednesday night's premiere of "Children of Rosenthal," an opera written by a Russian writer whom demonstrators branded a pornographer.

Moving Together, a youth movement devoted to President Vladimir Putin, has previously burned books by Vladimir Sorokin, who was commissioned to write the libretto of the new opera.

"We are protesting that a man who is a pornographer and uses foul language is being given a platform in the Russian State Bolshoi Theater, with state funds," the group's leader, Vasily Yakemenko, told The Associated Press.

Several dozen Moving Together activists, who have been holding daily demonstrations outside the central Moscow theater, gathered again at its entrance just before Wednesday night's curtain.

"Protect Russia's main theater stage from a pornographer," one banner read.

They were briefly confronted by a handful of members of a radical youth group, Red Youth, who gathered in a show of support for Sorokin.

"Moving Together, you are not to judge!" they chanted under red flags. Red Youth left quickly afterward, and Moving Together continued its protest.

After the opera began with a 20-minute delay, an anonymous caller warned of a bomb planted in the theater, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Security guards and dogs checked the building without interrupting the performance, finding no explosives, and the opera ended peacefully.

ITAR-Tass quoted police as saying the fake bomb threat appeared to be an attempt to thwart the performance.

"Children of Rosenthal," whose music is by avant-garde composer Leonid Desyantnikov, is about a meeting of clones created by a Russian scientist of five great classical composers -- Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Wagner, Mussorgsky and Verdi.

In 2002, prosecutors opened a criminal case against Sorokin acting on a complaint from the pro-Putin group, but later dropped the investigation. Sorokin's novel "Goluboye Salo," which can be translated as "Blue Lard" or "Gay Lard," depicts sex between former Soviet leaders Josef Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev, among other material.

The investigation alarmed free-speech advocates, who fear a return to Soviet-style censorship under Putin, a former KGB officer elected in part on the strength of promises to restore order to society.

Four nationalist lawmakers who went to the dress-rehearsal Tuesday walked out before the end.

"I don't understand why there was a choir of prostitutes on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater," Irina Savelyova of the Rodina party told the Gazeta.ru news Web site.

But the head of Russia's federal culture agency, Mikhail Shvydkoi, defended the opera.

"The music is fantastic, and it is a social work about a difficult relationship between the artist and the state. The same heroes exist in 'Carmen' and 'Madam Butterfly,"' he said.

The Bolshoi's director, Anatoly Iksanov, said the theater wanted to expand its repertoire beyond classical opera.

"We commissioned it two years ago as we want to stage new works of opera. If I listen to Moving Together, and tomorrow the Communists, then what performances could the Bolshoi stage?" he told Ekho Moskvy radio.



Court: Marine can't be forced to sell home in flag pole flap

Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A retired Marine who has waged a five-year fight with his homeowners' association over a flag pole won a battle Wednesday when an appeals court ruled his home can't be sold for lawyers' fees.

In a 3-0 decision, the appeals court agreed with George Andres, and his wife, Anna, that the Florida Constitution protects homes from forced sales except in very limited circumstances -- and attorneys' fees are not on the list.

"I'm glad to see we were able to get the laws to do what they were supposed to," Andres said.

A trial judge had scheduled a foreclosure sale to allow the homeowners' association to collect more than $20,000 in legal fees.

The underlying dispute over the flagpole is still in trial court but Andres, 68, has been flying his flag for the last three years under a temporary injunction.

And he's got a bigger flagpole now than when he began -- 20 feet instead of 13.

"My flag still flies and it will never come down," Andres said.

The homeowners' association permits flags flown only from brackets attached to house walls; Andres objected because the flag would have touched bushes in his yard. So he put up the flagpole.

Andres' attorney, Barry Silver, said the ruling should encourage owners who are afraid to challenge their homeowners' associations because of the belief they could lose their homes.

Attorney Steven Selz, who represents the homeowners' association, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

On Flag Day in 2002, Gov. Jeb Bush presented Andres a flag that had flown over the state Capitol and helped him raise it on his flagpole.

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