UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

ST. LEONARD, New Brunswick, June 30 (UPI) -- The Royal Canadian Mounted Police needed help Monday to corral 12 million honey bees released when a truck carrying their hives overturned.

RCMP Sgt. Derek Strong said the load shifted on the transport truck carrying the bees back to Ontario, and it turned over, smashing hives and partially opening the trailer's back doors, the Canwest News Service reported.

No one was injured in the accident, and Strong said Agriculture Canada was asked to send bee experts to corral the insects back to hives.

He said rain in the area, outside St. Leonard, was helping, as "bees are not mobile," the report said.

"Right now we have hundred of thousands of bees on the pavement clinging to the back of the truck," he said.

The truck's manifest said there were 330 crates on board with approximately 35,000 bees inside each one.

The Ontario bees had been brought in to pollinate New Brunswick's blueberry crop of more than 9 million pounds each year, Canwest said.

CHICAGO, June 30 (UPI) -- A bank said a crew was prevented from changing a Chicago billboard to reflect the institution's new ownership by a hawk that had made the ad its home.

The Bank of America, which obtained LaSalle Bank in a sale last year, said it had aimed to have all signs and advertisements changed before May 5, when all LaSalle branches would be officially renamed but one lone LaSalle billboard remains off Interstate 57 near Kedzie Avenue, the Chicago SouthtownStar reported Monday.

"When the sign company representative went to change the sign, a hawk made it known he was the tenant on the catwalk," said Bank of America spokeswoman Diane Wagner.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prevents the bank and the billboard owner, Lamar Advertising, from removing the red-tail hawk's nest from its perch on the billboard.

Mike Mielke, director of operations for Lamar Advertising, said the hawk will be moved after her eggs hatch and then the sign can be changed.

LONDON, June 30 (UPI) -- An elderly British man said it is unfair he was given a nearly $200 ticket for having a for-sale sign in the window of his Ford Escort.

Victor Abrahams, 67, was issued a fine last Tuesday for "offering goods for sale in a parking place," the Daily Mail reported Monday.

Abrahams said city officials told him he was fined in accordance with a law put in place last year in north London's Barnet borough.

"I don't live in the area but I've had my office here for the last 25 years and I've never heard of anything like it," he told the newspaper.

Abrahams said he is waiting to fork over the cash until he finds out how Barnet Council reacts to a complaint he lodged.

"The council's position is currently that we do not encourage or support trading from the public highway, including offering vehicles for sale," a council spokesman said.

HELSINGOR, Denmark, June 30 (UPI) -- Danish authorities said a drunken elderly man stole a row boat and attempted to row more than two miles home to Sweden.

Authorities said the 78-year-old man stole the row boat after discovering he had left all of his money in a bar and had no funds left for ferry passage from Helsingor, Denmark, to Helsingborg, Sweden, Swedish news agency TT reported Monday.

Danish coast guard officials said they found the man passed out inside the row boat after they received reports of what appeared to be an abandoned dinghy adrift in the strait, which serves as a popular shipping lane.

Coast guard officials said the man was given passage on the next ferry back to Sweden after he sobered up.

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