Tennis ball bomb explodes as dog, owner play catch

Herald staff

PORTLAND, Ore. — A bomb hidden in a tennis ball exploded Saturday, killing a dog.

A Portland man was walking his friend’s dog when he found a tennis ball wrapped in tape next to the sidewalk.

He and the dog played fetch with the ball for about 30 minutes, when the toy ball exploded in the animal’s mouth, said Henry Groepper of the Portland Police Bureau.

"It must have been pressure sensitive," Groepper said.

The chocolate Labrador had to be euthanized at the scene.

The dog’s body was sent to a lab for testing to determine the type of explosive used.

  • Lawsuits filed over E. coli outbreak: Thirteen victims of a summer’s E. coli outbreak in Salem, Ore., are seeking a total of $1.7 million after they got sick from eating hamburger at a Wendy’s restaurant. The lawsuit, filed in Marion County Circuit Court this week, alleges that the customers were afflicted with abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea, vomiting and weight loss after eating at the Salem restaurant between Aug. 14 and 22. About 83 people were sickened in the worst E. coli outbreak in Oregon in a decade. Two children were hospitalized in Portland with kidney failure for several days. Three other E. Coli victims have filed individual lawsuits since the outbreak, two through the Seattle law firm of Marler and Clark. That firm has represented plaintiffs in past food contamination cases.

  • Potentially tainted soup recalled: A Canadian company is recalling various brands and flavors of canned soup sold in stores across the United States, including Washington state, because they might be contaminated with botulism. The canned soups, sold in 103/4-ounce cans and made by Les Produits Freddy Inc. of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, were distributed to U.S. stores nationwide.

    The recalled soups include:

  • Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup sold under the brands Wegmans, Stop &amp Shop, Tasty Classics and Baron.

  • Cream of Chicken Soup sold under the brands Wegmans, Stop &amp Shop, Tasty Classics and Baron.

  • Cream of Celery Soup sold under the brands Wegmans, Stop &amp Shop and Tasty Classics.

    The Tasty Classics soups were sold in stores across the Midwest and at Canned Foods Grocery Outlets stores in California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii.

    The Wegmans and Stop &amp Shop soups were sold in East Coast stores. The Baron soups were sold nationwide at various grocery stores.

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