EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) – A 70-year-old grandmother was caught stealing the baby Jesus from the city’s nativity scene, police said.

A carriage driver tipped off police, who quickly caught up with her van after she foisted the statue. Virginia Voiers was ticketed for misdemeanor theft, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“It was a lark, it wasn’t any serious stealing,” Voiers said. “My granddaughter commented that no one had taken the baby Jesus this year and said, ‘Grandma?’ I said, ‘Oh, what the heck.”‘

Usually, the baby Jesus is returned by the thief. Voiers said her Saturday caper was the first time she’d taken anything from the nativity.

“I didn’t know we had a tattletale downtown,” said Voiers, a Sunday school teacher. She said she told her pastor what happened.

“He said, ‘Bless you, child. Go and sin no more,”‘ she said, adding that he asked, “‘You didn’t tell them you are a Methodist, did you?”‘

Subway says ‘sorry’ to Kansas

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – The Subway restaurant chain has apologized to any Kansans who were offended by a sign that took a playful jab at the Sunflower State.

In early October, Topeka residents Joe and Karen Davis stopped at a Subway in Reedsport, Ore., where they saw a sign promoting a salmon sandwich. It read: “Another reason you’re lucky not to live in Kansas.”

When the Davises returned home, they e-mailed Subway and asked for an explanation and apology.

In a statement issued Thursday from Subway world headquarters in Milford, Conn., the sandwich corporation said it apologized to anyone in Kansas who found the sign offensive.

Man tries to extract drug from urine

SAN MATEO, Calif. (AP) – A 22-year-old tried to extract methamphetamine from his own urine after smoking the drug in a South San Francisco hotel room, prosecutors said.

Instead, Daniel Zeiszler spilled some solvent on himself, took a smoke break and ignited his right hand, arm – and the hotel room.

Zeiszler was sentenced Friday to five months in prison and three years of probation in San Mateo County Superior Court after pleading no contest in November to a charge of manufacturing methamphetamine.

“The methodology this guy used would work, but it would take bottles and bottles of urine – not one void of a bladder,” Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said after the sentencing.

Zeiszler’s attorney, William Johnston, acknowledged that the experiment was “really, really silly,” but said his client was “a bright, articulate young man” who was doing it “as an intellectual proposition.”

“Anybody who would – for fun – read a chemistry text should be in school instead of sitting in San Mateo County Jail,” Johnston said.

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AP-ES-12-03-05 0449EST

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