MIAMI -- Federal agents questioned two airline passengers Wednesday after a dispute that began when a man sprayed the person sitting next to him with perfume, authorities said. The two men, who were not arrested, were aboard an American Airlines flight from Lima, Peru, to Miami when the confrontation took place, Miami FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said. Before the flight, the older man left his assigned seat and lay down in the aisle. He asked for a glass of water and poured it on his head, Orihuela said. The older man, a 56-year-old Japanese national, then sat in a seat beside a jockey in his 20s, from Louisville, Ky., The Miami Herald reported. About two hours into the flight, the older man sprayed the jockey with perfume, Orihuela said. The younger man then took out an iPod, but the older man became upset and began elbowing the younger man, Orihuela said. The younger man alerted the flight crew, and he and the older man were separated. The plane landed early Wednesday morning and the two men were questioned, but not arrested, Orihuela said. Neither man was immediately named.
PITTSBURGH -- Some artists suffer for their work. Maggie, an 11-year-old sea lion at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, gets to eat dead fish for hers. Kesha Phares, a zoo trainer, has been teaching the animal to paint since last year. "It's, in a way, enriching," Phares told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for Wednesday's editions. "Sea lions are very smart animals, and painting keeps their minds active." It took three months to get the animal to hold a paint brush and touch the bristles to paper. Phares picks the paint colors -- sea lions are colorblind -- and puts paint on the brush. The paintings are done one stroke at a time, with Maggie getting a fish after each stroke. If the animal can be said to have a style, it is this: She tends to put more paint on the right side of the canvas than the left.
-- From wire reports
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- A city council member, reacting to a video store holdup believed to have been carried out by children, says parents who can't properly care for their kids should be sterilized. "We pick up stray animals and spay them," Larry Shirley said in a story published Saturday by The Post and Courier of Charleston. "These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. Once they have a child and it's running the street, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable." Shirley's comments come after police say a video store was held up by a group of children, including a 14-year-old girl suspected of wielding a BB gun that looked like a pistol. State Sen. Robert Ford, a Charleston Democrat, agreed that the crime highlights a societal problem but dismissed Shirley's suggestion to sterilize people as "crazy."
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