By Jason McLure PORTLAND, Maine | Wed May 16, 2012 3:59pm EDT PORTLAND, Maine (Reuters) - George Forni will spend most of next week holed up in his home in Sullivan, Maine, guarded by a new surveillance system and armed with a stun gun and pepper spray as he buys live baby eels from neighbors for thousands of dollars. May 31 marks the end of what has become a gold rush for a small group of Maine fisherman - the 10-week season for catching juvenile eels, known as elvers, whose price has increased nearly a hundredfold over the past decade.Dealers in Maine are paying $2,300 a pound for the thread-like creatures - more than double last year's price - and Forni is so awash in ... Continue reading →

By Chris Francescani SANFORD, Florida | Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:42pm EDT SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - A pit bull named Big Boi began menacing George and Shellie Zimmerman in the fall of 2009. The first time the dog ran free and cornered Shellie in their gated community in Sanford, Florida, George called the owner to complain. The second time, Big Boi frightened his mother-in-law's dog. Zimmerman called Seminole County Animal Services and bought pepper spray. The third time he saw the dog on the loose, he called again. An officer came to the house, county records show."Don't use pepper spray," he told the Zimmermans, according to a friend. "It'll take two or three seconds to take effect, but a quarter second for the dog to ... Continue reading →

Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:52am EDT (Reuters) - A Virginia woman found out on April 7 she won $1 million in a lottery drawing. And then she won again. Virginia Fike of Berryville, Virginia, had the good luck to buy not one but two lottery tickets from a truck stop that both turned out to be $1 million winners, matching five of the six Powerball numbers. Lottery officials presented her with a $2 million check on Friday.Fike said she found out that she had won - and won again - while sitting in a hospital room with her mother, according to a statement distributed by the Virginia lottery."I saw a scroll on TV about there being two $1 million winners," she said. "I looked at ... Continue reading →

Catching the #AmstelGold on the Speedwagon. http://t.co/6M47oek3 Continue reading →

By Tom Brown SANFORD, Florida | Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:14pm EDT SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - Two attorneys for George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, stepped down as his lawyers on Tuesday after saying they had lost contact with him and that he was no longer in Florida. Lawyers Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig said they had not heard from Zimmerman since Sunday and expressed concern about his mental and physical health. They said he had taken several recent actions without their advice, including calling a special prosecutor in the case and a television journalist."We have lost contact with him," Sonner told a news conference outside the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford, Florida, the town where 17-year-old ... Continue reading →

By Alice Popovici BALTIMORE | Thu Apr 5, 2012 1:55am EDT BALTIMORE (Reuters) - A Baltimore woman who says she holds one of three winning tickets in the record $656 million lottery held her own news conference on Wednesday but declined to answer questions or produce any proof of the winning ticket -- fueling doubts about her bizarre story. Mirlande Wilson, 37, arrived at her lawyer's office nearly an hour late dressed in a stretchy pink shirt, Capri pants and a baseball cap emblazoned with a cartoon pig and the words "Sweet Swine."Wilson sat silently - sometimes fiddling with her cell phone - while her lawyer pleaded with the media to let his client return to a "normal life" and deflected questions surrounding her bizarre ... Continue reading →