Odds and Ends

VERSAILLES, Ill. -- Convicted bank robber Gordon A. Bryant might have had a better shot at his last hold-up attempt if he'd shown his face.

The 70-year-old put a stocking over his head before he tried to enter the Farmer's State Bank of Versailles on Tuesday, police said.

The bank had installed a system to buzz in customers after a holdup in February. Suspicious employees refused to unlock the door because the man was wearing the stocking.

"When you're going into a bank, you usually don't wear those in there," Brown County Sheriff Jerry Kempf said. "It's not Halloween."

Bryant drove away, but a deputy caught up with him, authorities said.

Bryant was turned over to the FBI and charged with attempted bank robbery Wednesday, special agent Nathan Williams said. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The sheriff said Bryant had served prison time for bank robbery and ought to be more competent by now.

"He's 70 years old, you would hope he would have learned by now," Kempf said.

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HANSON, Mass. -- Dorinda McCann is hopping mad over a toad she found in her salad.

McCann, 34, found the two-inch long toad in a takeout salad bought at a McDonald's in Hanson on June 16.

Both the restaurant's owner and the town health department are investigating, but McCann said did not hear from the owner until Tuesday, and she is still awaiting word from the health department.

"I was sick - what if I had salmonella poisoning? Did anybody call?" she said.

Town health agent Vincent Flaherty said he is waiting to learn the origin of the toad, which is being tested by the California-based company that processes the lettuce used in McDonald's salads.

Restaurant owner Mark McBee tried to contact the McCanns on several occasions and never received a return call until Tuesday, said Tara Richards, a spokeswoman for McBee.

"The safety of our food is very important to us and we are taking this matter very seriously," she said. "We are working to gather all of the facts. The health department completed a thorough review of restaurant operations and gave the restaurant a clean bill of health."

Meanwhile, McCann, her husband, Thomas, and their two daughters, once regular McDonald's customers, have stopped going to the restaurant.

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MORRISTOWN, N.J. -- A man accused of job hunting at day care centers while clad in a soiled diaper and pink stretch pants will avoid jail time.

Authorities say William Rhode III, 53, unsuccessfully tried to get work at five different centers in four area communities on Feb. 12. He was arrested later that day and had been housed since then in the county jail's psychiatric unit.

Rhode, who now lives in a homeless shelter, had been indicted on seven counts of child endangerment. The county grand jury said his behavior constituted sexual conduct and that children at all five centers saw him.

Rhode was freed Tuesday after pleading guilty to a disorderly persons charge. He was sentenced to five years probation and must undergo a psychiatric evaluation and receive any recommended counseling. He also must stay away from children.

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NEW ORLEANS -- It took more than holding his breath or a scare to cure Shane Shafer of his hiccups.

After seven months of constant, bark-like hiccups, a first-of-its-kind operation has returned normal life to the 50-year-old Texas man.

Shafer's speech is now a hoarse whisper - a side effect of the electronic device that cured him, one generally used to treat epilepsy.

But for the first time since November, he can eat, sleep and talk without a bark-like hiccup every three to four seconds.

"Even something as simple as a kiss is now performed without a hiccup," said his wife, Lori Shafer.

Surgeons implanted a vagal nerve stimulator in Shafer's chest June 23 in New Orleans. It was activated last week.

The couple wed in May 2003, on the first anniversary of the first of three strokes that apparently damaged Shafer's brain stem, leading to the hiccups.

"We had just recently started dating when he had his stroke. We tried to take the negative day of the stroke and make it positive, so the next year we got married," Lori Shafer said.

Then, around Thanksgiving, the hiccups began. They got worse with the new year.

Doctors tried a number of drugs, including tranquilizers and seizure drugs.

The vagal nerve stimulator, the doctors decided, could disrupt the miscommunication causing Shafer's hiccups just as it does to control seizures that can't be stopped by drugs.

In about 4 percent of patients, the device itself can cause hiccups. That wasn't really a worry, Lori Shafer said: "Nothing could have made them worse."