AM Prep-Kickers

LUCKY PLACE FOR A FIRE

BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore firefighters probably made record time arriving at the scene of a recent fire. That’s because it broke out in the building housing the fire department’s headquarters. Fire department spokeswoman Blair Skinner told The Baltimore Sun that an electrical fire Thursday triggered the evacuation of the downtown building the fire department shares with the city’s finance and information technology departments. Skinner says firefighters responded in a matter of minutes. She says the smoke appeared to have originated on one of the floors above the fire department’s offices.

LOST-A BIG TUBA

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Be on the lookout for a wraparound tuba: Someone has stolen the signature sousaphone belonging to Preservation Hall in New Orleans. Creative director and musician Ben Jaffe wrote about it on the traditional jazz venue’s Facebook page, saying he bought it after Hurricane Katrina to replace one lost to the 2005 storm. A photo shows him playing the brass sousaphone, which has “Preservation Hall, New Orleans” painted on the bell. He says it was taken Saturday, after a performance at New Orleans Airlift. There’s a reward. Sousaphones can cost up to $13,000.

DOLLAR FUNDING

TIVERTON, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island school district is asking local taxpayers to dig deeper into their pockets to fund next year’s school budget. But don’t expect outrage in Tiverton. The school committee wants a total of $1. The committee is proposing increasing the next fiscal year’s school budget by $800,000 over last year, but noted that it is getting an expected $340,000 in state aid and will withdraw almost $460,000 from its reserve fund. That leaves the town on the hook for $1, a minimum amount required by state law. School Committee member Deborah Pallasch tells The Newport Daily News that the board has never asked for just $1 before.

EXPENSIVE UBER RIDE

GLOUCESTER COUNTY, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man who got drunk in West Virginia and mistakenly ordered a $1,635 Uber ride back to his home state says the experience was “crazy.” Nj.com reported that Kenny Bachman thought he was taking an Uber to where he was staying near West Virginia University’s campus. But when his driver woke him up two hours into the more than 300-mile journey to New Jersey, Bachman says he didn’t know what was happening or who the driver was. The trip was made more expensive because Bachman gave the driver money for tolls and ordered an UberXL, which can hold up to six passengers. He says he tried to challenge the fare with Uber but ended up paying it. And he gave the driver five stars.

FENCED: SUSPECTS LAND IN POLICE LOT

PHOENIX (AP) — Two shoplifting suspects running from police scaled a fence to get away from officers and landed in a secure parking lot of a police station — and in custody. Officials tell KTAR-FM that officers were called to a gas station for possible shoplifting at 6 p.m. late last week. Authorities say as officers arrived, the suspects took off running along the side of a building and jumped a fence, despite a sign for “Peoria Police” above the door. Security video shows one of them trying to hide under a bench as the other one climbed back over the fence and was arrested on the street. They now face shoplifting, trespassing in a critical public safety building and drug charges.

HOG WILD IN DENMARK

BERLIN (AP) — Statistics show pigs are hogging the market in Europe as the largest livestock category and outnumber people in Denmark by more than two-to-one. A European statistical agency says that with a population of about 150 million in the European Union, pigs far outnumber cattle and other bovines. But Denmark is the only country where pigs outnumber people, with 215 pigs to every 100 residents. Not coincidentally, it’s also a country known in Europe for its quality bacon.

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