Sean Gardner / Reuters

A reveler screams for beads as members of the Krewe of Endymion parade down Orleans Avenue on Saturday in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS -- In a city known for overindulgence, maybe the largest-ever Mardi Gras float was a little too much.

The 330-foot long super float built by the Krewe of Endymion had to be separated in half to make a turn during its parade Saturday. New Orleans Police Officer Shelton Carr says the float was separated and then re-attached so it could continue to roll.

The turn was only a minor hiccup. The parade actually finished its route ahead of schedule.

The float ended its journey at the Superdome, where thousands of revelers were decked out in black tie attire. It was the first major event at the venue since the Super Bowl power blackout.

The multimillion-dollar float holds more than 200 riders. The parade's celebrity grand marshal was Kelly Clarkson. 

A Confederate battle flag flew atop a state building in Mississippi for a couple hours after workers mistakenly bought it, a state spokeswoman told the Clarion-Ledger newspaper.

The flag was put up on the state Supreme Court building in Jackson about 2 p.m. Friday and taken down by 4 p.m.

Kym Wiggins, public information officer for the state Department of Finance and Administration, gave this account, the Clarion-Ledger said:

Workers went to a local vendor to buy new flags to replace a state flag that was torn. They were given two boxes labeled "Mississippi State Flag" -- but the flags inside were Confederate battle flags. A maintenance worker then put up the flag, and the mistake wasn't noticed for a couple of hours.

Wiggins described the incident as "highly unusual."

A professor emeritus of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi gave the Clarion-Ledger a different take. "Have we seceded already?" said Joseph Parker. “The execution is faster than I thought.”

Police on Friday were investigating what they called a bizarre incident following an overnight burglary at a doctor's office in Carol Stream, Ill., outside Chicago.

An officer responding to the burglary walked into an MRI room at the office on the 600 block of East St. Charles Road Friday morning, the building's owner said. The MRI machine's magnetism pulled away the officer's gun, which became stuck in the machine.

Because there is no way to turn off the magnetism, the gun remained in place and no one was allowed inside the building.

Carol Stream police said no injuries were reported, and the MRI manufacturer was called to assist, the building owner said.

Police said the burglary also is under investigation. 

-- NBCChicago.com

Police in Seattle are investigating how a large package of marijuana wound up being delivered to the stock room of a local Kmart store.

Police said the package -- 10 pounds of marijuana wrapped in garbage bags and encircled by packing peanuts and pages from a Korean newspaper soaked with cleaning fluid -- arrived at the store shortly after noon Monday.

Delivery information on the package shows it was originally to be shipped by UPS from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, police said, but it never made it to the City of Brotherly Love.

Instead, the return address was to a longstanding Kmart in the north end of Seattle.

Store employees called police, and the marijuana was placed into evidence.

“Today’s Blue Light Special: 10 Pounds of Weed,” quipped the Seattle PD’s blog headline announcing the marijuana’s seizure in an obvious joke on the chain's venerable in-store sales gimmick. A call to the Seattle Kmart's manager was not answered.

Though owning pot is legal in Washington state, that big of a stash wouldn’t appear to pass the legal sniff test.

Voter-approved Initiative 502 makes it legal for anyone 21 or over to possess up to only an ounce of marijuana, 16 ounces of “solid marijuana-infused product” (pot brownies, cookies and such) or 72 ounces of “marijuana-infused liquid.”

Washington’s Liquor Control Board is working on rules to implement the state’s new recreational marijuana law and faces a Dec. 1 deadline.

Related stories

• Help wanted: Official marijuana consultant (no, really)
• So where will all that 'legal' pot come from? Sale of pot stymied

Courtesy Volusia County Sheriff

Authorities say tow truck driver Matthew Dollarhide, 19, pocket-dialed 911 while he was talking about selling drugs with two passengers. Police later arrested and charged Dollarhide with drug paraphernalia possession.

A conversation with two passengers landed an Orange City, Fla., tow truck driver in jail after his cell phone pocket-dialed 911 and dispatchers listened in.

Authorities say 19-year-old Matthew Dollarhide was surprised when a Volusia County Sheriff's deputy pulled him over on Tuesday and asked why they were talking about selling drugs.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports deputies were alerted at 9:42 p.m. local time Tuesday and sent to a location where dispatchers said the phone signal was coming from.

From the conversation, dispatchers learned that they were driving a tow truck and heard the name "Harry." Deputies pulled over a "Harry's Towing" truck moments later.

Deputies found a crack pipe on Dollarhide. He was arrested and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. He told police the pipe belonged to his father.

Also on NBCMiami.com: State senator, local sheriff's office seek ban on texting and driving

Attempting a brazen getaway after a car crash via an ambulance, a pair of horses and a stolen SUV when you're drunk may not be the best idea. At least it wasn't for an Alabama man who attempted to do exactly that over the weekend, according to police.

The series of transportation failures began last Friday, when 24-year-old Matthew Todd of Boaz, Ala., got into a car accident, reported NBC affiliate WAFF-TV in Alabama. Investigators told WAFF that Todd was intoxicated at the time of the crash, which happened in Sardis City, a few miles from Boaz, in the northeastern part of the state.

It's unclear whether there were other drivers involved and what kind of injuries Todd suffered from the crash. He was taken by ambulance to the nearest emergency room at Marshall Medical Center South in Boaz and admitted as a patient, but Todd had no interest in sticking around: Authorities said shortly after he got there, he persuaded hospital staff to let him go outside for a smoke break.

Once outside, instead of grabbing a cigarette, Todd hopped into an ambulance that was running, according to WAFF.

"He got the ambulance stuck at the end of Bernard Street and after that, he entered a barn and a connected pasture and tried to saddle two horses," Boaz Police Chief Todd Adams told WAFF.

The attempted equestrian escape was just as doomed as the ambulance he had to abandon, so Todd stole an SUV instead, WAFF reported. He crashed the SUV, totaling it, according to Boaz police; Todd allegedly then found a second SUV to steal, which finally ended up being his ticket back to his house, WAFF reported.

Todd spent the night at home, and the following day, returned to the emergency room seeking treatment for the injuries he suffered from the initial car accident.

"That's when the ER staff and medics called us, and said, 'That's the guy that stole our ambulance,'" Adams told WAFF. The ambulance was found Saturday morning where Todd had left it; Todd was booked into Marshall County Jail on $7,500 bail on two charges of auto theft and one count of burglary, WAFF reported.

Charges are also pending against him for the initial crash that put him in the emergency room, according to WAFF. 

It's not known whether Todd has a history of criminal activity. 

A Pennsylvania man who died at age 88 was buried Saturday -- but not before a stop at Burger King on the way to the cemetery for a Whopper Jr.

The York Daily Record reported that David S. Kime Jr. of West York loved those burgers -- along with other fast food -- so his family and friends followed the hearse through the drive-through window at the Manchester Burger King. The manager said 40 Whopper Jr. burgers were prepared, including one for Kime, who died Jan. 20.

"He always lived by his own rules," Linda Phiel, one of Kime's three daughters, told the Daily Record. "His version of eating healthy was the lettuce on the Whopper Jr."

Phiel said her 5-foot-tall father was a borderline diabetic for years and had pacemaker, but he began eating what he wanted after his wife died 25 years ago, according to the Daily Record.

"He was not prejudiced," Phiel told the Daily Record. "He would go to any fast food place anyone invited him to."

After a while, she said, she gave up lecturing him: "When you're 88 years old, I guess you've earned the right to do what you want to do."

A photo in the Daily Record shows Phiel placing her dad's last burger atop his casket amid a spray of flowers.

Oops. Chicago Public School administrators were apologizing Thursday after a typo in a email to parents sent families to an erotic website.

The message was supposed to direct parents to the Illinois Board of Education website, at ISBE.net. Instead, an errant "L" in the Web address ushered visitors to a "private invite-only space for women over 18."

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the error was unintentional.

"As soon as it was brought to our attention we sent out a letter with a corrected link, and apologized for any inconvenience it may have cause," she said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The owner of the erotic site told the Sun-Times she did get some new sign-ups from the unexpected surge in traffic.

A grizzly bear cub, named Booboo, that escaped in Naples, Fla., this week was returned home Friday, its owners confirmed.

Officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had been looking for the 100-pound, year-old grizzly bear since it was reported missing from the Golden Gate Estates neighborhood around 11 a.m. Tuesday, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office  said.

According the company’s website and a report in NBC station WBBH in Fort Myers, Fla., the bear is licensed legally to Dexter Osborn, 27, and his company, A Grizzly Experience, which also holds licenses for Tonk, a 6-year-old Alaskan grizzly bear weighing 600 pounds, and Yogi, Booboo’s year-old brother. The company also holds a license for an alligator. 

When reached by phone, a woman claiming to be Osborn’s wife offered few details other than the cub was “completely home safe.”

WBBH reported that Dexter Osborn said a state wildlife officer shot the bear with a tranquilizer dart early Friday afternoon.

On its website, the company bills itself an “entertaining and educational show and exhibit” that travels around the country to give people an opportunity to get close to a real Alaskan grizzly bear.

The site says Osborn, an animal trainer, has worked around exotic animals, including bears, wild cats and elephants for the past 10 years.

During the facility's last inspection in March, the Florida Wildlife Commission issued a second "30-day warning" for the lack of a proper perimeter fence for the alligator, WBBH reported. The first warning was issued in October 2011.  

The FWC report said enclosure the grizzlies were kept in met state standards, WBBH said, and the animals appeared to be healthy and well-fed.

An Oregon woman was freed after dangling for hours in a narrow space between two buildings, where she had just eight inches of wiggle room in the early-morning cold as rescue teams worked to cut a pathway out for her.

The incident, which occurred at a downtown Portland apartment complex, began at about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday, when the Portland Fire and Rescue Department received a call from a bystander who heard the woman yelling. The screams were coming from a tight space between the apartment building and a cinder block parking garage adjacent to the complex, said Lt. Damon Simmons, spokesman for Portland Fire and Rescue.

"Somehow, she was on top of this 20-foot-high wall and fell down between the walls," he said. "The space that was in between them, at the widest, was probably eight inches and it got narrower from there. She was wedged in. She fell down about 10 or 12 feet."

It wasn't clear why the woman was on top of the wall. Officials did not identify her; NBC affiliate KGW.com reported she was a 30-year-old who did not live in the apartment complex.

The woman was upright and conscious, but visibly agitated when firefighters arrived, Simmons said. Simply pulling her out wasn't an option because she was so embedded into the tiny space; breaking through the wall was the only solution, he said. Urban search and rescue teams, who normally respond to earthquakes and building collapses, were called in.

"They were going to cut the wall in front of her, and just pull it away from her. [But] that was creating a major dust issue," Simmons said. Instead, they cut out two "windows" in the wall on each side of her -- smaller holes that would give rescue teams some access to her without causing her to have to breathe in as much dust.

The "windows" also enabled paramedics, who had been pumping heat from the top of the wall, to get their radiators closer to her. Meanwhile, the woman's husband had also arrived, and was talking to her to help keep her calm.

Don Ryan / AP

Building maintenance man Josh Granados measures holes cut by rescuers to free a woman who fell part of the way down a 20-foot wall and got stuck between two buildings in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday.

"It's 36 degrees, and she's up against these two cold concrete walls. So they're pumping heat into her, and they're talking to her, and paramedics are assessing her. At that point they elongated one of the windows and turned it into a 'door,' and then they were able to use soap and basically grease her up if you, will and slide her out of that doorway," Simmons said.

Once she was freed, the woman -- shivering, but happy -- was taken to the hospital. 

"She seemed really excited, obviously," Simmons said. "She seemed in good spirits. The hope is she'll be able to leave the hospital today."

The entire rescue took more than three hours and the coordination of more than 25 people, Simmons said.

Had the woman been stuck for longer, her situation could have been dire, Simmons said.

"In situations like that, where people are trapped and can't move around a lot, another concern is compartmentation syndrome," he said. "Your body is not able to circulate blood as well as it normally is with you moving around and walking around or lying down. And so you can almost get a blood poisoning: Your blood isn't getting cleaned like it should. And then when you're freed from that position, that blood starts circulating, and all those poisons start circulating. The rescue didn't take that long, so that didn't become an issue."

A teacher in Ohio is suing her former school district, alleging discrimination: She says she was forced to teach younger kids despite her fear of them.

Maria Waltherr-Willard, 61, who worked for Mariemont City Schools for 35 years, was reassigned from a high school to a junior high in Cincinnati, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Her lawsuit claims the district discriminated against her based on age and her "pedophobia," which can mean an extreme fear or anxiety around young children, the Enquirer said. The suit was filed in June 2012.

When Waltherr-Willard was transferred to a junior high school, she reportedly asked if there would be a high school position for her the following year. The school district claimed there were no open positions at the high school for her, according to Fox19.com in Cincinnati. She eventually retired in March 2011.

The lawsuit calims that the French and Spanish teacher had been diagnosed with specific phobia and general anxiety disorder, Fox19.com reported.

Experts told the Enquirer that extreme anxiety or irrational fear around children is a rare but recognized anxiety disorder.

"Like any phobia, it’s a situation in which one responds with overwhelming fear and anxiety to the stimulus," Dr. Caleb Adler, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati, told NBC News.

Childhood trauma and bullying incidents could be the cause of phobias like this, Adler said.

A spokesperson for Mariemont City Schools declined to comment Tuesday because of the litigation, but referred NBC News to the district's legal representation. Attorney R. Gary Winters said the district believes there is no merit in Waltherr-Willard's claims.

"Ms. Waltherr-Willard was a tenured teacher who could have continued to work as long as she wished, but retired," Winters said.

An attorney for Waltherr-Willard did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The Enquirer reported that a federal judge last week dismissed three of the six claims in her lawsuit gave the district's attorneys more time to respond to the others.

Related stories

• Coping with bridge phobia
• New fear: 'nomophobia'

The wild bobcat that attacked two people in Brookfield, Mass., leaving a man with severe gashes on his face and arms, had rabies, according to a town official.

Stephen J. Comtois, chairman of the town council, announced at a council meeting Tuesday evening that the bobcat was infected with the neurological disease, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported. Comtois said the victims of the attack were being treated with vaccination shots. 

Roger Mundell, 53, shot and killed the bobcat after it bit and clawed him and his 15-year-old nephew at Mundell's home Sunday morning, Brookfield police chief Michael Blancherd said. 

Mundell discovered the animal in his garage. Before he had a chance to get his bearings, the bobcat lunged at him.

Previous report: 'It gave me a bear hug': Bobcat attacks Massachusetts family

"It only took a split second for him to be on me," Mundell told WHDH, an NBC station in Boston. "I didn't have time to process it."

Mundell sustained a large cut on his forehead and puncture wounds on his arms during the attack, police said.

"It hit me with it's face right here," Mundell told WHDH, pointing to the wound on his forehead. "Then it gave me a bear hug."

Mundell wrenched away from the animal and bolted inside his house, slamming the door to the garage behind him. After Mundell told his wife, Cindy, what happened, she darted out the front door to alert her 15-year-old nephew, Blancherd said.

But as soon as Cindy got outside, the bobcat emerged from the garage's side door and lunged at her nephew. Mundell, who had also gone outside to warn the teenager, charged forward to rescue him.

"I had to get it off my nephew," Mundell said. "I was in a T-shirt by then and that's when it ripped up my arms and stuff like that."

Christine Peterson / The Telegram & Gazette via AP

Roger Mundell Jr., bears cuts on his face at his home in Brookfield, Mass., after being attacked by a bobcat in his garage Sunday.

Amid the frenzy, Mundell and his wife managed to pin the animal to the ground with a walking crutch. While Mundell kneeled on the bobcat, his wife ran inside to retrieve a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun, and Mundell shot the animal, Blancherd said.

Mundell, his wife and nephew were transported to a hospital for treatment. The three reportedly received rabies vaccinations before lab results came back because officials thought the bobcat might be rabid, the Telegram reported.

Since 1992, over 5,000 animals have tested positive for rabies in Massachusetts, according to data compiled by the state's Department of Public Health. Bobcats, along with coyotes and bears, are among the animals most susceptible to rabies.

But there are only a handful of reported cases in recent years of rabies-stricken bobcats that went on the attack, according to Tom French, a Massachusetts fisheries and wildlife official.

Raccoons and coyotes are the "primary" vectors of rabies in the state and are more likely to spread the disease to humans and other animals, French said.