RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina woman who was given the wrong lottery game ticket is celebrating that mistake.
The N.C. Education Lottery said in a news release that Zerineia Carmichael of Goldsboro wanted to buy the Carolina Panthers lottery game ticket Sunday, but the store clerk gave her a “777” ticket instead.
Carmichael said she normally would have asked the clerk to give her what she asked for, but she decided instead to keep it. When she began scratching off the card in her car, she thought she had only won $7. She said she kept scratching and seeing more 7′s.
When she was done, Carmichael had won $277,777. After state and federal taxes, she took home $195,837, part of which she said she plans to use to get a new car.
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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A commercial pilot is under investigation after falling asleep in the cockpit of a freight plane and overflying his Australian island destination by 46 kilometers (29 miles), officials said Tuesday.
The pilot, who has not been identified, was the only person aboard the twin-propeller Piper PA-31 Navajo Chieftain and was flying on autopilot during the early morning flight on Nov. 8 from Devonport city on Tasmania 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest to King Island in Bass Strait, his employer, Vortex Air, said in a statement.
The pilot "unintentionally fell asleep while in command of the aircraft," the Melbourne-based airline said.
"The issue became apparent when air traffic control was unable to contact the pilot in-flight, and the aircraft traveled past the intended destination point while operating on autopilot," the statement said.
Air traffic control recordings showed several radio calls were made to the unresponsive pilot, The Australian newspaper reported.
The pilot landed safely on King Island, Vortex Air said.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, a crash and risk investigator, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, the aviation industry regulator, are investigating the incident and the company's management of pilot fatigue.
The bureau confirmed that the plane had overflown the King Island Airport by 46 kilometers (29 miles) due to the pilot sleeping. It said it would interview the pilot and review Vortex Air's operational procedures before a report on the incident is made public.
Vortex Air said the 6:20 a.m. flight had been the first on the pilot's first day back at work after taking leave. He continued flying that day.
The newspaper said the pilot reported for duty despite having had little or no sleep the previous night due to a personal crisis.
"Vortex Air takes the safety of our passengers, crew and pilots extremely seriously and always abide by all safety procedures," the airline said.
"This is an extremely rare occurrence, as demonstrated by the company's excellent safety track record," it added.
The company said it was assisting the pilot to "safely return to full duties."
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OSSINING, N.Y. (AP) — A police officer who saved a chicken from becoming a roaster is taking a ribbing from his fellow officers.
Body cam video released by the Ossining, New York, police shows the officer responding to a shed fire on Saturday. He removed some propane tanks when he discovered the chicken. The bird clucks as the officer carries the bird to safety. He told the owner, "I got your chicken."
The police department wrote on Facebook, "Somewhere around the first day of field training some salty cop usually hits you with, 'Kid, you wouldn't believe what goes on around here if I told you.'"
The department says if you ever wanted to get a hard time from your co-workers, "be a hero...to a chicken."
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HOUSTON (AP) — An ATM in the Houston area has been shut down and was temporarily guarded by law officers after mistakenly dispensing $100 bills instead of $10s and word of the glitch got out on social media.
Some Harris County sheriff's deputies protected the outdoor ATM after Sunday night's incident and notified Bank of America.
A bank statement Monday says a vendor incorrectly loaded $100 bills in place of $10 bills. Bank of America also says customers will be able to keep the additional dispensed money.
Officials with North Carolina-based Bank of America didn't say how much cash was wrongly dispensed.
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SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A city council in northwest Iowa has banned people from carrying some types of "toy" firearms.
The Sioux City Council voted Monday for a third time to adopt an ordinance that bans pellet and BB guns. The ordinance doesn't ban Nerf or squirt guns, or guns that shoot suction-cup darts.
Sioux City Police Capt. Mark Kirkpatrick has said officers have had multiple encounters with replica weapons and faced the question of whether to use deadly force. He has said people carrying toy firearms tend to be teenagers or young adults seeking personal protection or street credibility.
The Sioux City Police Department says no one in the city has died from a police encounter while carrying a toy firearm, but that there are more than 50 such deaths nationwide each year.
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BRANDON, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota man has his lost wallet back with some extra cash thanks to a stranger.
Hunter Shamatt thought he'd never seen the wallet again when he lost it on a flight to Las Vegas for his sister's wedding. Inside was $60 cash and a check for about $400.
Shamatt tells KSFY-TV he received a package a few days later along with the wallet and a letter. The stranger wrote he found the wallet wedged between a seat and a wall on a flight from Omaha, Nebraska, to Denver. He added $40 so Shamatt would have "an even $100" to celebrate the wallet's return. The stranger only signed the letter with initials.
Shamatt's was able to thank the man after tracking down his return address in Omaha.
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WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man who says he was wrongly cited for distracted driving after police mistook a McDonald's hash brown for a cellphone is continuing his legal fight.
The Hour reports that Westport police gave Jason Stiber a $300 distracted driving ticket in April. The Westport man challenged the charge and lost in court.
He was granted a retrial that's scheduled to start Dec. 7.
Stiber says the officer thought a hash brown he was eating while driving was a cellphone. Stiber says phone records show he didn't make any calls around the time he was pulled over, plus he has Bluetooth so has no reason to hold a phone while driving.
Lt. Jillian Cabana says the department stands by its story but couldn't comment further due to pending litigation.
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(ABC15) CHANDLER, AZ - A California man caught driving the wrong way on the Loop 202 says Arizona law doesn't apply to him.
DPS says that just after midnight on November 16 they received multiple calls regarding a wrong-way driver on the Loop 202 San Tan Freeway near Kyrene Road.
Officials at ADOT reportedly saw a vehicle traveling eastbound in the westbound lanes in the area, utilizing freeway cameras.
DPS troopers and Chandler police officers stopped the car, driven by 37-year-old Steven Michael Telles, in the HOV lane of the freeway, near Dobson Road.
Officers say they found two open containers of beer in the vehicle.
Telles allegedly refused to have his blood tested, saying "Arizona laws don't apply to him because he is a California driver."
Officers say Telles was also wearing an ankle monitor at the time but refused to say which agency placed it on him.
A witness told investigators that a truck in front of her suddenly swerved and then she saw headlights. She avoided a head-on collision with the vehicle by swerving into the rocks.
Telles has been arrested on an aggravated DUI charge.
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If your GPS told you to drive onto train tracks, would you do it?
One woman in Pennsylvania said she did.
Around 10 p.m. last Wednesday, the Duquesne Police Department responded to a call about "a vehicle on the railroad tracks" off State Route 837, the department wrote in a Facebook post.
Officers said a woman from Sewickley, roughly 15 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, had driven onto the tracks because "her GPS advised her to go this way."
"The female was 100% sober and had no medical conditions affecting her decision-making," police said.
The woman's vehicle was towed from the tracks and she was cited for careless driving.
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A curious and seemingly hungry bear recently found its way into a California Highway Patrol facility, where it snooped around before heading off, as seen in surprising video.
The "unexpected visitor" was spotted by the patrol's Donner Pass division in Northern California, which caught the bear on surveillance footage inside its Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Facility in Truckee on Nov. 17.
The bear — in a video posted to Facebook by officials on Nov. 18 — was seen through a window outside the building, standing on its hind legs, before it opened the door and walked through on all fours.
First stop for the bear was the office's vending machines. The bear then strolled around before returning to the door and exiting. Moments later, two armed officers followed the animal out the door.
In a follow-up video posted Saturday, authorities at Donner Pass wrote their "bear friend made a return visit" as he was spotted in the parking lot of their facility last week.
