OC pair suspected of filching fillings from labs

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Authorities are seeking the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth from a pair of suspected burglars in Orange County.

Anaheim police Sgt. Rick Martinez says 38-year-old Matthew Marchman and 29-year-old Shawna Lerer were arrested Sunday on suspicion of stealing precious metals used to fill cavities from dental labs.

Martinez says 18 dental labs throughout the county have been burglarized since November.

Martinez says vehicles were stolen and destroyed in two of the burglaries.

Officers say they saw Lerer sitting in a car outside one lab Sunday morning and saw Marchman, who was on foot, discard a crowbar on seeing them.

Martinez says Marchman was arrested and Lerer fled in the car but was quickly caught.

Marchman and Lerer were being held at the Anaheim Detention Facility.

Police reached Sunday night did not know if they had hired attorneys.

Goats munch Christmas trees

ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — Dozens of Christmas trees in Arlington, Wash., not only were recycled, they became a meal for goats to munch on.

KING-TV in Seattle says the trees were taken to the New Moon Farm Goat Rescue and Sanctuary, where the evergreens were fed to about 38 goats.

Sanctuary owner Ellen Felsenthal says people like the idea of turning trees into goat food. She says she’s looking for good families to adopt the rescued goats.

Detective’s trail camera captures theft

HOMER TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan State Police detective who has used motion-detecting cameras to get images of a bear and an eight-point buck has recorded a pair of thieves in action near his hunting spot.

Detective Sgt. Andrew Longuski tells WJRT-TV and the Midland Daily News that he checked a camouflage digital trail camera Dec. 24 and found the image of two men stealing from his tree stand in Midland County’s Homer Township.

The photo with a date stamp of Nov. 17 shows one of the men carrying a set of steps from the stand.

Longuski says he usually leaves his business card attached to his hunting gear to deter potential thieves.

He says he had set up the camera to photograph deer. Longuski is seeking tips on the theft.

Crews contend with 19 pythons at Utah trailer fire

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) — Crews responding to a trailer fire in southern Utah had another factor to contend with: snakes.

Kristeen Checketts, the animal control officer in St. George, says there were about 19 pet pythons in the trailer when it caught fire Thursday morning at an RV park in town.

Once the fire was put down, Checketts and firefighters began pulling out snake after snake, most in cages and some up to 18 feet long.

Checketts says 11 survived. The snakes’ owner tried to revive another by massaging it and blowing into its mouth through a plastic pipe.

Wyoming llama back at home after cougar attack

ALTA, Wyo. (AP) — Frito the llama defied his name and didn’t get eaten.

Lou Centrella seemed sure that was Frito’s fate after a mountain lion killed another of his llamas on Sunday. Frito was nowhere to be found after the attack on the other llama, named Grayson.

On Monday, the cougar returned to the Centrellas’ yard in western Wyoming to feed on the llama it had killed. Concerned the big cat may have acquired a taste for llama, Centrella shot it.

Wildlife officials say he was within his rights, but Centrella says he felt bad about killing the mountain lion.

Centrella and his daughters Lane and Mila went looking for Frito on Wednesday. They found him four miles away, across the state line in Driggs, Idaho.

Furloughs prevent New Year’s Eve marriages

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Budget woes mean couples who want to tie the knot at one Maryland courthouse on New Year’s Eve are out of luck.

Dec. 31 is usually the second busiest day, after Valentine’s Day, for weddings at the Anne Arundel County Circuit Courthouse in Annapolis.

But because of state furloughs to reduce a $2 billion budget deficit, no weddings were performed there Thursday.

Mayor, 19, follows in grandma’s footsteps

ASHVILLE, Pa. (AP) — The new mayor of the tiny western Pennsylvania borough of Ashville is 19-year-old Justin Seese. But his legacy of public service is much older than it first appears.

That’s because Seese, who was sworn in Wednesday to lead the community of about 280 residents, is the grandson of one of the town’s former mayors. That woman, 75-year-old Laverne Passanita, was mayor of Ashville for 12 years in the 1960s and 1970s. Before that, she served on borough council along with her husband, Joseph — she for 12 years and he for 25.

Seese was 18 when he won the Democratic primary in May.

He also won a seat on borough council in November, but decided to serve as mayor instead. He works full-time as a laborer.