Slippery Rock Gazette

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LA Cops Break Lego Theft Ring

Every parent knows how to find a piece of LEGO – walk around barefoot. But police in California found a whole lot more of the plastic bricks – 2,800 boxes.

The kits, which reports said included “Harry Potter” and “Star Wars” themed builds, were discovered at the home of a man believed to be part of a theft ring targeting the popular toy.

Detectives in Los Angeles said they began tracking LEGO thefts in December.

They built their case over the following months and, after watching 39-year-old Blanca Gudino allegedly help herself to boxes of LEGO at a local store, they sprang into action.

On June 6, they raided the Long Beach home of 71-year-old Richard Siegel, where they found 2,800 kits, whose value police put at between $20 and over $1,000 each.

“During the officers’ investigation at Siegel’s residence, potential buyers of the toys arrived, lured by advertisements placed by Siegel on internet sales sites,” Los Angeles Police Department said on Thursday.

Siegel has been charged with organized retail theft, while Gudino faces charges of grand theft for allegedly stealing the boxes of toys found in Siegel’s operation.

The owner of an Ohio arcade was surprised with a Guinness World Record when his daughter secretly counted his collection of 1,041 pinball machines.

Rob Berk, owner of Past Times Arcade in Girard, received confirmation that he holds the world’s largest collection of pinball machines after his daughter, Reilly Berk, applied for the record in secret.

Reilly Berk enlisted the help of Past Times Arcade employees to catalog the machines, as not all of them were out on the arcade floor.

“They basically built this contraption where they would open up the game, slide these four legs on it, take the picture, and take them off,” Reilly Berk told WKBN-TV.

The team arrived at a total of 1,041 pinball machines, after eliminating all of the duplicates.

Reilly Berk said she received word that the record was accepted on May 7, three days after her dad’s birthday. She presented him with the certificate at a party celebrating the arcade’s first anniversary.

“I can’t hardly believe this. This is a great honor,” Rob Berk said. “There’s so much we all do in our lives, you kind of wonder in the back of your mind, will anyone ever recognize you for what you’ve done? In that respect, it was a pleasure and a pleasant surprise.”

National eating champion Joey Chestnut will miss the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition in New York for the first time in more than 15 years because he violated his agreement with the Frankfurter company by signing up to represent a company that makes vegan hot dogs.

Chestnut is the biggest name in competitive eating and has won the Nathan’s event every year since 2016, the New York Post reported.

But dog gone it, not this year.

Nathan’s has said that they are done bending over backward for Chestnut’s demands because he has finally gone too far by signing up to endorse the meatless hot dogs produced by plant-based food company Impossible Foods.

The organization Major League Eating (MLE), which oversees the Nathan’s event, noted that they have made a number of concessions to Chestnut to ensure that he attends their event in New York, including allowing him to film a Netflix special based during a non-Nathan’s contest, paid him a fee of $200K to attend last year, and even offered a $1.4 million contract to sponsor him for four years.

But when he turned to a non-meat brand, that was the final straw.

“We are devastated to learn that Joey Chestnut has chosen to represent a rival brand that sells plant-based hot dogs rather than competing in the 2024 Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest,” MLE said in a statement.

“MLE and Nathan’s went to great lengths to accommodate Joey and his management team, agreeing to the appearance fee and allowing Joey to compete in a rival, unbranded hot dog eating contest on Labor Day,” they added.

“For nearly two decades, we have worked under the same basic hot dog exclusivity provisions. However, it seems that Joey and his managers have prioritized a new partnership with a different brand over our long-time relationship.,” the statement continued.

“Joey Chestnut is an American hero. We would love nothing more than to have him at the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest. We hope he returns when he is not representing a rival brand,” MLE concluded.

Chestnut has not yet commented on his exclusion from this year’s Nathan’s event.

Chestnut made a splash in 2022 when he took down an animal rights nut who tried to take the stage at the 15th annual Nathan’s event.

When the animal rights extremist bumped Chestnut aside as the eaters stood on stage, the champion grabbed the intruder by the neck and flung him bodily to the ground.

A YouTuber who allegedly directed a helicopter to shoot fireworks at a speeding Lamborghini for a “crazy stupid” video has been arrested in California, U.S. prosecutors said in June.

Suk Min Choi, better known as Alex Choi, boasts nearly one million subscribers to his YouTube channel, which promises its viewers “the greatest car shenanigans!”

But the 24-year-old’s fireworks stunt, shot in a dry California lakebed last summer, resulted in Choi being charged with “causing the placement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.”

If convicted, Choi could face up to 10 years in federal prison.

In the video titled “Destroying a Lamborghini with Fireworks,” Choi allegedly presses a “fire missiles” button while two women are in a helicopter, shooting fireworks at a speeding Lamborghini sports car.

Behind-the-scenes footage includes Choi allegedly making various references to himself coordinating the shoot, according to the affidavit.

He also thanks a camera company for “being a part of my crazy stupid ideas.”

The 11-minute video appears to have been removed from Choi’s YouTube page.

The helicopter was flying near the ground and without filming permits, a Department of Justice press release said.

Choi is believed to have purchased the fireworks in Nevada because they were illegal in California.

He was scheduled to make his initial appearance at a Los Angeles court in June, with his arraignment expected to follow.

Like a mini Mount Rushmore, a vintage Mercedes is emerging from a pile of limestone boulders on the edge of a small Croatian town.

The life-sized sculpture is a homage to thousands of emigrants who proudly returned home from Germany at the wheel of the ultimate status symbol.

Like many poorer areas across southeast Europe and Turkey, Imotski sent thousands of its sons and daughters to work in Germany as “gastarbeiters” or guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s.

And those that returned home driving a Mercedes-Benz were seen as having made it.

Ivan Topic (right) and sculpture student Fran Marko Vlahinic next to their creation of a life-sized classic Mercedes.

“It was a symbol of success, anyone who had one could have his pick of girlfriends, sit in the front row in church,” said Ivan Topic, who worked in construction in Frankfurt for 18 years before returning to Imotski in 1997.

Topic came up with the idea for the monument, arguing that the rugged endurance of the ageless “Minika” – as the classic 1960s W115 saloon is called here – mirrors the qualities of the rocky region’s people.

“That car was way ahead of its time, and it’s modern even today,” he told AFP as he helped workers put the final touches to the statue in local white karst stone.

The people of Imotski remain huge fans of the brand. Half of the area’s 16,000 registered vehicles are Mercedes.

As well as being a synonym of success, Mercedes-Benz has become deeply embedded in the identity of the region and its people, said Mislav Rebic, who came up with the design.

The poor agricultural area close to Bosnian border had been marked by emigration for decades, something that continues even today.

In the 1970s nearly a fifth of Imotski’s population was working abroad with some 9,000 living in Germany alone.

“They left looking to work to buy a cow, a bicycle,” Topic told AFP. But as the area’s road network developed, they brought back cars.

“They would buy a Mercedes, drive it back home and leave it as an inheritance.

“Mercedes is something we bought and left to our children and they will leave it to theirs,” he said.

Given the cult of the Merc, Topic said it was obvious to him that a statue of the iconic model would be the perfect show of gratitude for the sacrifices the region’s migrants made.

He knows a thing or two about the cars. He owns several himself, including a 1929 model, and heads the Imotski Mercedes Club, which has an impressive 230 members.

‘You’ve Made It’

But initially not everyone shared his enthusiasm and it took several years for the idea to build up speed.

However, as soon as work started, interest in the unusual monument quickly spread, even beyond Croatia’s borders.

In February, several young sculptors from Croatia, Denmark and Slovenia came to work for a week on the monument.

Nediljko Djuka, a returnee from Australia, hailed the statue.

“Mercedes symbolizes safety and our people, who emerged from this (karst) stone,” he said.

Stipan Busic, who helped with the monument, said there is nothing else like it anywhere in the world.

“Here a Mercedes means everything. When you buy one, you can be at peace – ‘You’ve made it!’” said Busic, who has three himself.