The Odd Truth, March 3, 2005

The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Joey Arak.

Breaking In Is Just As Hard

UNION SPRINGS, Ala. - Dreaming of ways to break out of jail is pretty normal. But for the second time in less than a month, police have arrested a man for trying to break into the Bullock County Jail.

Police said Ellis Hudson, 40, of Union Springs was arrested and charged with third-degree criminal trespassing after he was caught inside the fence of the jail on Feb. 21.

Union Springs Police Chief Jake Wheeler said he suspects Hudson was trying to smuggle tobacco to an inmate, since Hudson had pipe tobacco, three packs of cigarettes and rolling papers in his possession.

"There's no smoking in the jail," Wheeler said. "Someone could probably get $2 for a cigarette in there."

In early February, police arrested another man for attempting to break into the jail. Officers suspected he was trying to smuggle in marijuana.

Hudson was released on $500 bail after spending the night in the jail.

New York Tests Trash Technology

NEW YORK - The city is testing a high-tech trash can that uses solar power to sense when it is full and then automatically compact the garbage inside.

The BigBelly can's tryout began Feb. 14 in Chinatown and then was moved to Tribeca on Feb. 28, city sanitation department spokeswoman Taryn Duckett said Wednesday.

Duckett said it's too early to tell whether it functions as advertised. The city decided to try out BigBelly because manufacturer Westborough, Mass.-based Seahorse Power Co. Inc. offered it.

The company claims that when garbage inside the BigBelly reaches a certain level, it is automatically compacted, making room for more. When BigBelly is full, a red indicator light goes on and it can even send out a wireless call for a pickup, the company claims.

BigBelly can reduce trash to a quarter of its original size, according to the company's Web site.

Officials say the can could reduce the number of pickups needed, cutting down on the diesel fuel used by collection trucks.

Goat Whacked For Crack

MOUNT PLEASANT, Pa. - Four men stole, killed and butchered a goat so they could trade its meat for crack cocaine, police said.

Authorities charged the four men with theft, receiving stolen property, cruelty to animals, and criminal conspiracy on Tuesday for the Dec. 24 incident in Bullskin Township, about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

James Walter Albright, 37, dragged the 4-year-old pygmy goat from its pen with a rope and tied the animal to a shrub, where he and Charles W. Smith Jr., 20, killed the animal by beating its head with a hammer or a steel pipe, police said.

The men then took the goat to Smith's residence, where his father, Charles W. Smith, 48, and Gilbert Wesley Fisch, 38, skinned the animal and cut it up, police said.

ACLU Defends Naked She-Devils

SANTA FE, N.M. - The ACLU is going to court over a case of sticker shock. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is coming to the defense of Dean Young, who was busted for having cartoon stickers of topless female devils on his car. He was accused of distributing sexually oriented materials to minors because of the stickers. The ACLU is suing the southeastern New Mexico D.A. who brought the case against Young. The civil liberties group says Young's bare-breasted stickers are a protected form of free speech. The criminal case against Young was dismissed on a technicality. But prosecutors may decide to refile.

The South Shall Rise (From The Dead) Again

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Hundreds of re-enactors will march into a Charleston, South Carolina, cemetery Saturday for the funeral of 21 Confederate soldiers.

Their remains were recovered last summer from beneath The Citadel's football stadium.

The remains have not been identified, although historical records indicate that soldiers from the 21st North Carolina Infantry were buried at the stadium site.

It will be the fourth Confederate funeral in six years in this city where the opening shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861.

The largest was last April when thousands of re-enactors took part in the funeral for the third crew of the Confederate submarine "H.L. Hunley," which was recovered off Charleston in 2000.

Who Will Be Our Next Fake President?

UTICA, N.Y. - It's Jimmy Smits over Alan Alda in a landslide.

Pollster John Zogby surveyed viewers of "The West Wing" and asked them which candidate they prefer for the show's next president -- Democratic Congressman Matt Santos of Texas, played by Smits, or Republican Senator Arnold Vinick of California, played by Alda.

Martin Sheen portrays the Democratic incumbent, Josiah Bartlet, on the NBC series, but his second term in office is running out.

Zogby International's interactive poll found the Smits character leading Alda's 44 percent to 28 percent.

Zogby says female viewers are the difference. The younger Santos outpolls his elder statesman opponent by 53 percent to 22 percent among women.

Working For Scale

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - The "Borgata Babes" aren't getting a break on their weight. The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey, won't budge on its new weight requirements. The babes have to squeeze into skimpy costumes. And now, the casino has rejected a union grievance challenging mandatory weight requirements for cocktail waitresses and male bartenders. It says they are performers whose personal appearance and grooming are a key part of Borgata's image. Last month casino officials announced that the Borgata Babes and bartenders would have to weigh-in. Anyone who gained more than seven percent of their body weight would be subject to suspension or firing. Officials of the waitress and bartenders union say they'll now take the weighty issue to arbitration.

Bubba, R.I.P.

PITTSBURGH - We end today on a sad note. Bubba the 22-pound leviathan lobster, who won over the hearts of his captors and was later spared a hot-buttered bath, has passed away at the estimated age of 100.

Bubba died in a quarantine area of the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium, where he was being checked out to see if he was healthy enough to make a trip to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Bubba will be examined to try to figure out why he died, although the educated guess right now is that it may have been the stress of being moved.

We'll miss you, pal.