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A hungry customer cut her way through a McDonald's drive-thru line - but no one dared complain.

A four-ton elephant named Tina showed up at a McDonald's in Cape Coral, Fla., on Wednesday morning, happily swallowing 10 veggie burgers that she grabbed from workers by sticking her snout through the drive-thru window.

The stunt was a promotion for a visiting circus.

"It was a lot of fun," said McDonald's worker Missy Williams, 34. "Her snout was kind of wet, though."

Choosing veggie burgers for Tina's menu wasn't part of any diet plan that the Asian elephant is adhering to. Elephants just don't eat meat.

"She's pretty slim, as far as elephants go," said Adam Hill, the elephant's handler.

The Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus was performing in Cape Coral through Thursday.

A penny for your thoughts?

Matthew Mokanyk decided to have a little fun when he ended up on the wrong side of a lawsuit.

To settle a court-ordered tab of $1,853.87, the president of Landtech, a surveying company, dug into his pocket for an extra $1,000 to finance an elaborate prank on his former landlord, Powerhouse Gym, in Traverse City, Mich..

Mokanyk hired a delivery crew with a truck and forklift to deliver 74 14-pound boxes of pennies - 185,387 pennies - to Powerhouse Gym.

"It took us two weeks to get the pennies," Mokanyk told the Traverse City Record-Eagle. "The bank called us when they were ready and we had to have four guys go over and pick them up."

When Powerhouse owner Norm Schaub was asked to sign for the half-ton delivery, the delivery crew claimed they weren't sure of the contents. Schaub assumed it was gym equipment, said Paul Schaub, Norm Schaub's brother.

"We have stuff coming all the time so Norm just signed for the delivery," Paul Schaub said.

The Schaubs were left wondering how to spend $1,853.87 in pennies.

"But one good thing is my dad's been a coin collector all his life, so when he got back he just laughed and said, Oh, it's no big deal,"' said Adam Schaub, the owner's son and gym manager.

The Schaubs say Mokanyk, who leased an office at the gym for 18 months, frayed carpets when his employees moved heavy printing equipment. Mokanyk denies it. A judge ruled for the Schaubs.

Mokanyk arrived at the gym to snap a picture of the penny payload. He said he also dropped off a restaurant gift certificate for the Schaubs to prove he had no hard feelings.

APB: Emu on the loose!

There aren't many police reports that include a description of "dinosaur-like feet."

But that's what was called in to the Kent (N.Y.) Police Department on Saturday, and it set off a two-day, two-county search for an emu, a 5-foot-tall flightless bird that very occasionally shows up on suburban roadways.

The emu had escaped from the home of Jackie Gueft in Kent. A woman called police Saturday to say she was raking her leaves, her eyes cast downward, "when she noticed first what appeared to be dinosaur-like feet' standing right in front of her," the police report says. "She reluctantly moved her eyes upward and was startled to find herself eye to eye with the beast."

The bird "trotted" off and the chase was on.

It ended Monday morning, across the Dutchess County line, when the emu was spotted in East Fishkill, and police called the owner.

Emus can be raised for meat or oil but in the suburbs they are generally kept on estates as exotic pets.

"We had a few dealings with him," East Fishkill Sgt. Kevin Keefe told The Journal News. "He's done terrorizing the neighborhoods up there."

'I don't think the party will take in a person like me who is not

rich enough to have influence.'

- A Shanghai business owner, on the vote by China's Communist Party Congress to admit capitalists into membership.

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