TOPLESS COFFEE SHOP
VASSALBORO, Maine (AP) - A Maine topless java joint is serving again. Grand View Topless Coffee reopened yesterday after owner Donald Crabtree got the OK from a local planning board. Crabtree's topless waitresses are now working out of an office trailer. Crabtree's original location burned down in June in a suspicious fire. The blaze came just hours after Crabtree talked with local officials about making his business more like a strip club. Many in the rural town of Vassalboro don't like the idea of topless coffee in their area.

DRUGS-FRUIT
EDINBURG, Texas (AP) - There was something rotten in the fruit
-- and it wasn't spoiled produce. Officials at a Texas prison report a crate of donated fruit had 25 pounds of pot stashed inside of it. The illegal harvest had been missed in an earlier search. The fruit was part of a load that contained a half-ton of marijuana. The produce couldn't be sent to its original destination, so it was donated to the Segovia Unit prison. Officials say the pot had been missed by officers and even drug-sniffing dogs. Prison officials add that the inmates who found the illegal weed were strip-searched, just in case.

IMPERSONATOR ARRESTED
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Spider-Man's been busted on Hollywood Boulevard. The L.A.P.D. reports the arrest of a man dressed like the webslinging superhero. When officers responded to a report of a fight they actually found four people dressed as Spider-Man. Christopher Loomis was busted for outstanding misdemeanor warrants. The man he allegedly slugged has decided not to press charges. Movie characters and celebrity look-alikes pose for photos and collect tips from tourists near Grauman's Chinese Theater. Sometimes they get into scuffles over their sidewalk turf.

UNLUCKY BURGLARS
CHICAGO (AP) - It sounds like a scene from one of those heist movies. The bandits break into a jewelry store by busting through the wall of a neighboring business. But Chicago police report these crooks aren't so clever. After trying to get into N.P. Jewelers from an adjoining hair salon, all the bad guys got was some shampoo. Officers say the crooks only managed to make a two- or three-inch hole in the wall before setting off an alarm. Jeweler Peter Chandani says even if they had gotten in, it wouldn't have done them much good. All his jewelry is locked away in heavy safes.

PERU-NAIL SWALLOWER
LIMA, Peru (AP) - A Peruvian construction worker has plenty of iron in his diet. Doctors report removing a pound and a-half of metal from Requelme Abanto's stomach. He had swallowed nails, coins, copper wire and other metal scraps. At first the docs figured Abanto had appendicitis. He says he swallowed 17 nails, including five-inchers in a single day. Abanto says he might try nail-swallowing as a sport. But doctors tell a local TV station (Peru's Channel 9) they've ordered a mental exam.

GHOSTBUSTERS DENIED
JACKSON, Mich. (AP) - Who you gonna call? Not these ghostbusters. Officials in a Michigan town are denying the request of a couple of ghost hunters to spend a night in a cemetery. Randy Waltz and Denise Gowen-Krueger call themselves "forensic paranormal investigators." The Jackson Citizen Patriot reports they hoped to conduct research into the unsolved murders of four people more than 125 years ago. The victims are all buried in the Crouch Cemetery, about 75 miles west of Detroit. Local officials say there have been past complaints about noise, inappropriate behavior and other issues at the cemetery.

by Jamie Friar

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)