Experts said it devastates new ecosystems. The snail grows up to 10 inches long, can reproduce on its own and even can even eat plaster. The man said he meant no harm, and his religion uses the snails in healing ceremonies. Followers said they got violently ill, losing weight and developing strange lumps in their stomachs.

Detective Lt. Charles Love said the gunman was aiming for a man who escaped with a bullet hole in his down jacket. The suspect remains at large. Frazier told The Press of Atlantic City that ‘I could have been dead. They said my love handles saved my life.” Frazier also told the newspaper that she had been “hollering” that she wanted to lose weight. She now said “I want to be as big as I can if it’s going to stop a bullet.”

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Information from: The Press of Atlantic City, http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com

Joyner’s son told a deputy that his 2002 silver Kia and his 46-year-old father were both gone when he woke up early Monday morning. The man’s son also said that $50 in change was taken from a piggy bank that belonged to J

The report said the man would not let the woman out of the vehicle, so she threw his drink out of the car. In response, the man allegedly grabbed her arm and smashed the cheeseburger into her face. The pair got out of the car, and authorities say the man again took the McDonald’s sandwich and put it on her face.

The man was released on $1,000 bond Wednesday.

Richard Gonzalez had reported a pet theft after Max disappeared several months ago from his daughter’s yard in Brandon, Fla.

Gonzalez says he thought that Max would never get far. But the pooch was identified in Chicago by an implanted microchip.

Gonzalez contacted the Northcentral Maltese Rescue to retrieve Max. Rescue director Mary Palmer had the dog taken to Racine, Wis., and he will be flown Saturday to Florida.

Gonzalez says he has no idea how his dog got so far away. He says he was so thrilled about the find that he almost asked Palmer to put Max on the phone.

Maney, who has previously worked as a handler for five canines, turned down several dogs. He focused on ones that showed alertness, lack of fear and an eagerness to learn. He adopted an eleven-month-old black lab mix in March and named him Rezadu.

They trained in abandoned phosphate mine property and open fields for 12 weeks, detecting illegal narcotics.

Rezadu did so well that he was nationally certified in August.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Alfinez pleaded guilty Tuesday to elder abuse charges. His family has said the case was a misunderstanding.

The 85-year-old grandmother can be seen in the video holding a handgun, wearing a black mask and threatening to shoot “all the pigs.”

Alfinez was arrested in April after authorities seized the tape during a routine traffic stop. Alfinez and others also could be seen in the video shooting a pistol around town.

Alfinez also pleaded guilty to charges of firing out of a moving vehicle and into a building.

Bay County Sheriff’s deputies were forced to use a Taser to subdue an escaped emu named Plop-Plop. The large female bird escaped from a farm last weekend and on Monday, she holed up with some horses and goats in a pen.

When deputies arrived, the emu “went kind of crazy,” said Sheriff’s deputy Randolph Grob.

The deputies didn’t want the bird to hurt itself or them, so the used the Taser stun gun to immobilize Plop-Plop.

The emu was brought to the Bay County Animal Control Center, where she has made a full recovery. The bird’s owner is expected to take her home soon.

“I don’t anticipate this will ever happen again,” said Dina Cellini, who oversees the display, “but we may need to rely on technology to save our savior.”

The Mary and Joseph statues will also be fitted with GPS devices, she said.

The devices are being bought using residents’ contributions and Cellini’s own money.

Cellini has also installed a Plexiglas screen in front of the display.

Eunice Lopez has been charged with bigamy, accused of marrying 10 men between 2002 and 2006 without divorcing any of them, federal immigration authorities say. The Miami Herald reported Saturday that a records search by the newspaper found seven additional marriages under the bride’s name and birth date.

Lopez arrived in South Florida from Cuba in 2002 and was a legal U.S. resident.

“I can tell you that none of the individuals she married had any type of residency,” said Terry Chavez, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade office of the state attorney.

Prosecutors say she charged her husbands an unspecified amount to help them secure immigration status and continued asking the men for money long after the wedding, threatening to expose them if they didn’t pay.

Chavez said the state attorney’s office began investigating after being tipped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Lopez was released on $18,000 bond. Her last known address was in Hialeah, just north of Miami. A telephone listing for her could not be located, and it was not known whether she had an attorney.

Jeffery Mumani, 25, was rescued Tuesday. He removed an air conditioning cover at a CVS store Monday night and tried to enter the store via the shaft but became trapped, Marion County Sheriff’s Capt. James Pogue said. He began calling for help about 8 a.m. Tuesday.

“I heard a cat in the thing. I was trying to chase the cat,” Mumani told the Ocala Star-Banner. He denied attempting to steal prescription drugs. “No, sir, it’s a feline cat — a little animal.”

It took firefighters an hour and a half to rescue Mumani, but he suffered only minor cuts and was in stable condition, Fire Rescue spokeswoman Heather Danenhower.

Mumani has been charged with commercial burglary, possession of burglary tools and felony criminal mischief, Pogue said. Online records with the Florida Department of Corrections indicate Mumani has previous convictions in South Florida for burglary and drug-related crimes.

He was convicted in Palm Beach County for possession of the prescription painkiller Oxycontin, according to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office report. Mumani also was arrested earlier this month on an arson charge.

Deputies added charges of possession of a controlled substance after finding a vial containing a yellow substance in her purse. A drug field test suggested the substance was methamphetamine, The Tampa Tribune reported.

Hunter had protested, saying the substance was dehydrated cat urine for her son’s science project and that it had been purchased at an animal clinic. She was released Thursday after lab tests found the substance was, in fact, cat urine.

Hunter pleaded guilty to petty theft and a judge gave her time served. It was not clear if she had an attorney and why the substance might have tested positive for methamphetamine.

It’s not clear how the bag fell from the truck, said Mark Clark, spokesman for Loomis, a Houston-based cash-handling company.  Cole’s boss, Bob Hauser, said he can’t give her a raise or a bonus for her good deed because she’s a government employee. But maybe, he said, he can arrange some extra time off.  Cole, who grew up in Long Island, said she was raised to be honest. She said she raised her four daughters the same way.  Did she think for just a minute about keeping the money?  “Everyone keeps asking me that,” Cole said. “To be honest, no. It didn’t even cross my mind.”

A jury took 45 minutes to convict Terry Lee Alexander, 20, of the misdemeanor on Wednesday. Judge Fred Berman sentenced him to 60 days in the county jail. He had faced up to a year.

In November, Deputy Coryus Veal, who was monitoring Alexander’s cell from a centrally located control room, saw him masturbating while he was sitting on his bunk, alone in his cell.

Veal testified that she brought the charge against him the third time he masturbated in view of her.

Alexander had been waiting in jail to resolve an armed robbery case. Twelve days after the incident, Alexander pleaded guilty to the armed robbery and got a 10-year prison sentence.

The sheriff’s office encourages deputies to file criminal charges to discourage masturbating in the county’s jails, said Elliot Cohen, an agency spokesman. He said privacy is one of the rights inmate give up in jail.

“That’s why there are no doors on the bathrooms. That’s why detention deputies monitor what you do and when you do it,” Cohen said. “That’s what jail is.”

Veal has brought similar charges against seven other inmates in six months.

Kathleen McHugh, Alexander’s attorney, said her client did nothing wrong. She said he was alone in his cell, which was not open to the public.

“I think the government’s gone awry,” McHugh said. “Has it been a slow year in crime that they’ve got to go prosecute masturbation in the Broward County Jail?”

During jury selection, McHugh looked at 17 prospective jurors and asked how many among them had never masturbated. No hands were raised.

He told authorities he began calling 911 because “I have no minutes on my phone and 911 is a free call,” the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Ford was being held on a $50,000 bond Wednesday afternoon.

Officers used GPS coordinates from Ford’s cell phone to track his location to the west Pensacola home where he was arrested, the Pensacola News Journal Reported.

“His phone service had been cut off and 911 was the only number he could dial from the phone,” said Bob Boschen, communication chief for Escambia County.

Boschen said many of Ford’s 292 calls were sexual in nature.

“When he would call and a male dispatcher would answer, he would hang up,” he said. “Our policy says that if a caller is belligerent in nature we have to get enough information to process the call and then we can disconnect,” he said.

Ford never asked dispatchers for help or indicated he was in trouble.

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Information from: Pensacola News Journal, http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com