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A gun battle at the Notre Dame des Neiges Trappist wine-making monastery in France in November left one monk wounded. Because the monastery had been burglarized twice before in 1990, the monks had armed themselves with shotguns. After an alarm sounded, one brother fired a shot into the air, flushing out the burglars, and another blocked the burglars’ exit. The burglars began shooting, and the monks returned fire before Brother Zepherin fell with 200 pellets in his leg.
In October at an international conference in Helsinki, delegates from 22 countries arranged to petition the United Nations to include on its list of basic human rights the right to smoke.
Among Miami crime news in 1990: Two Nicaraguans were arrested in a routine traffic stop with TOW missiles and an antitank rocket in their pickup truck, and a drug enforcement agent was knocked unconscious by a 200-pound bale of $20 bills that had been tossed out a window during a raid. (The bale contained almost $2 million.)
According to a September report by University of Illinois veterinarians, wild raccoons are usually healthy, but those that hang around humans can acquire rotten teeth and high cholesterol because they eat human leftovers.
