A winter festival in Aspen, Colo., is looking for a new slogan after the Aspen Chamber Resort Association decided to drop its 2012 contest winner, “To Die For,” because of complaints. The Aspen Daily News reported that people said the slogan for Wintersköl was in bad taste. The theme of next year’s festival, “End of the World” — playing off suggestions the world will end in 2012 — also ruffled feathers.
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A Facebook user in Bucks County, Pa., posted that he was going on vacation. So one of his Facebook friends, Steve Piecznyski, 36, allegedly used the tip-off to break into the vacationer’s house and steal jewelry, coins and 120 DVDs. Police arrested Piecznyski after a neighbor of the victim wrote down the license plate of a suspicious car in the vicinity, which was traced to Piecznyski.
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The low-cost Irish airline Ryanair was forced to turn back a plane carrying 200 passengers after a cockpit window sealed with duct tape came loose 20 minutes after takeoff. Crews allegedly taped around the edges of the pilot’s window before the plane left on a flight from England to Latvia. “We were kept in the dark, and were terrified,” said one passenger. “I could see guys taping in the windscreen.”
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DirecTV subscribers may soon lose access to shows such as “The Simpsons,” “Glee” and NFL games due to a dispute with Fox Networks. The satellite provider said Fox wants DirecTV customers “to pay 40 percent more for the exact same Fox channels that they already receive.” DirecTV has threatened to pull the plug on Fox channels Nov. 1.
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Facebook is under investigation by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission on charges of privacy violations, including collection of “extensive profiles” on non-users who are in contact with Facebook members. The complaint alleges that Facebook Ireland gathers “excessive” personal information “without notice or consent.” Privacy rights lawsuits against Facebook are also filed in Mississippi, Louisiana, Kansas and Kentucky.
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The unguarded truck carrying teleprompters, official seals and podiums for President Barack Obama’s three-day bus tour was stolen from the parking lot of a suburban Marriott hotel outside Richmond, Va. The truck was found near the Richmond airport, but all the cargo is still missing and no arrests have been made. A top political security expert interviewed by The Associated Press pointed out how prohibitively expensive it would be to guard all the equipment for a traveling president.
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Jeremy Hollinger, a special-education teacher at Eichold-Mertz Elementary School in Mobile, Ala., is accused of repeatedly belittling his second-grade students on Facebook. He allegedly posted status updates that said, “I guess crayons are on the menu” and “why is there s--- on the floor?” and took one of the kids’ helmets, put it on his head, took a picture and put it on Facebook. The school refused to comment on the situation, but Hollinger is still thought to be working as a teacher.
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Fake concert promoters cheated Indonesian music fans out of an estimated $60,000 in ticket sales for a Mötley Crüe show that never existed. Jakarta media were also fooled, excitedly spreading news that the heavy metal group would play its first-ever Indonesian concert in October. Mötley Crüe members went on the Internet to deny rumors of the false concert as soon as they heard about it. But by then, some 1,500 people had already bought $40 tickets.
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Iowa convenience store chain QC Marts held a contest offering a $10 prize to employees who correctly predicted which of their colleagues would be fired next. Employees were told to write the name of the next cashier they thought would be fired, along with the date and their own name on a piece of paper. An unemployment benefits judge ruled that the “egregious and deplorable” contest was sufficiently “good cause” for employees to collect benefits after quitting.
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The press secretary for “macho man” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin admitted that the viral video of Putin discovering sixth-century ceramic jugs during a scuba dive was a photo setup. The jugs were found earlier by archeologists and left in six feet of water for Putin, wearing a wetsuit, to retrieve for the cameras. “This is completely normal,” insisted press secretary Dimitri Peskov. “It is totally not a pretext for malicious joy and so forth.”
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