Two Sheriff’s deputies cruising along U.S. 19 near Homosassa, Florida saw a white Toyota Camry parked in Sunny Days Plaza. Two men were standing next to the car trying to change a flat tire.

The deputies pulled up to the car to help out. The men said they drove from Tampa to meet some acquaintances at the Circle K at U.S. 19 and W Cardinal Street. They weren’t familiar with the area, though, and missed the turn. Now they were stranded in an unfamiliar county with a flat tire.

As the deputies listened to the men’s story, they noticed that one man appeared to be under the influence of some type of drug. The officers asked the men permission to search the car. The men said the car belonged to one of their girlfriends, and they wouldn’t be comfortable with a search. Instead, the officers used a dog to search the outside of the car.

The dog alerted the deputies to the presence of a 25-caliber semiautomatic handgun and a semiautomatic assault rifle in the car. The officers also found a small amount of marijuana in the car, according to a sheriff’s report.

The officers arrested both men on charges of possession of marijuana and took them to the nearby Homosassa sheriff’s substation for more questioning. There, the men told the deputies they planned to drive to Citrus to rob a drug dealer. They said they were short on money and had a lot of bills to pay, so they figured they would rob a Homosassa man they knew who had a lot of narcotics and cash. They planned to meet the man at the Circle K, but they couldn’t find it and then got a flat tire.

Both men will face federal firearms charges from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Somewhere in Canada there are thieves with nearly 50,000 cans of beer they will have a hard time selling, although police said Thursday the truck driver who disappeared with the loot has been arrested.

The shipment of Moosehead beer, worth over $57,000, was on its way to Mexico from an East Coast brewery when it went missing, along with the driver.

The transport truck was recovered last week — still running — in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, but with most of its cargo missing.

The 30-year-old driver was picked up in Lindsay, Ontario, about 1,000 miles from Grand Falls. He has been charged with theft but police reported he did not have any beer with him.

The shipment of Moosehead was labeled in English and Spanish for export to Mexico, so it could not be sold in Canada. Nor could it be shipped into or through the United States without proper documentation.

“Its one of these classic, dumb crook stories,” said Joel Levesque, a spokesman for Moosehead.

“They can’t sell it anywhere in Canada without giving away the immediate fact that it’s been stolen… So we have crooks stuck with 50,000 plus cans of beer that basically they can’t fence.”

Very little of the stolen beer has been found. Four cans, three of them empty, were found in various parts of the New Brunswick province, according to the police and media reports.

On Monday, police found another 5,000 to 8,000 cans after a half-ton truck with a homemade trailer went off the road in New Brunswick. The driver of that truck fled the scene.

A Brookings, South Dakota man flunked another breath test - this time in court.

The man was in court to plead guilty to his fourth drunk driving conviction. But the judge suspected he might be under the influence, so he ordered him to take a breath test.

Authorities say the test revealed the man had a blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal driving limit. The judge ordered him arrested for violating his bail.

An elderly man tried to firebomb a Brisbane, Australia home in the mistaken belief it was occupied by someone alleged to have cheated him out of a $2.5 million Lotto win, a court heard today.

Milan Laus, 77, of Red Hill in Brisbane’s inner west, pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder and one of attempted arson. Prosecutor Charlie Clark told the Supreme Court jury that on that on August 18 of last year, Laus rode his moped at 5am to a nearby street in Red Hill and lobbed a Molotov cocktail at the back of a home owned by Andrew and Sonya Clay.

When Mr. Clay, a former police officer, raced outside to see what was happening, Laus allegedly attempted to fire his Chinese assault rifle at him half a dozen times, but it failed to discharge.

The Molotov cocktail - a petrol-filled wine bottle with sparklers strapped to it - had also failed to ignite when it landed next to the dog’s kennel near the backyard deck.

Laus told police he had lived in the Clay’s house 16 years earlier with a coal miner called Dusan Gribic.

The court heard Mr. Gribic had sold the house to the Clays in 1999.

Laus had admitted he was angry with Mr. Gribic, whom he believed had stolen a Gold Lotto ticket from him worth $2.5 million.

“There was an ongoing dispute since 1986 and he had sought numerous avenues of redress all to no avail,” said Mr. Clark.

“The issue was on the boil in his own mind as late as 2002 when he had solicitors pursuing it.”

Mr. Clark said Laus had denied any wrongdoing.

He told the police he only stopped there because his moped light wasn’t working and he had just gone for a walk with his gun.

A 20 year-old man told San Rafael, California police he was wounded in a drive-by shooting while using a pay phone. But after several hours of questioning, he told police the gun went off as he tried to draw it from his waistband.

The man described himself as a member of a Richmond gang and said he tried to pull the gun when saw rival gang members approaching.

It then went off accidentally, wounding him in the buttock and thigh.

Police searched his vehicle and found the small-caliber handgun, another gun that turned out to be stolen and methamphetamine.

Sleeping on the job is never a good idea, especially if you’re a car thief.

Police in Honolulu report they nabbed a suspected crook who was snoozing in a stolen car.

An officer was responding to a suspicious vehicle call, when he found the car parked with the motor running. After running a check on the tags, the officer arrested the 24-year-old man who was snoozing inside. The suspect also faces possible drug and drug-paraphernalia charges.

Two Arkansas residents were arrested Monday after authorities said they found evidence the couple had been manufacturing methamphetamine — or at least trying to.

Authorities went to the couple’s home after receiving complaints from neighbors of a strong chemical smell, said investigator Lanny Reese of the 12th-21st Judicial District Drug Task Force.

Inside the home, officers found a mixture of chemicals that appeared to be in the process of some type of chemical reaction, but it was unclear whether the mixture would have produced methamphetamine. Reese said the homeowner told the officers he had mixed paint thinner with “all the pills he could find” in the house.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before. I don’t know if it actually had ephedrine in it, or if he actually knew what he was doing,” Reese said.

The chemicals will be analyzed at the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory in Little Rock, Reese said.

The couple was arrested on suspicion of possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to manufacture methamphetamine and possession of marijuana.