Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jun 30, 2017

Small town, small people:

Do you consider popping out to grab groceries romantic? Can love truly be found in the canned vegetables aisle?
Apparently, yes, if you're shopping at supermarket chain STEW LEONARD'S. Over one hundred couples have gotten married after meeting in the stores, which operate in Connecticut and New York.
MIKE DERIVAN and DONNA OSWIAK are one of the couples: They were working in the Meat (or is it "meet?") Department in a Stew Leonard's in Norwalk, Connecticut, back in the 1980s.
"We were all in our early 20s and we'd all spend a lot of time together outside of work. We were all out on a group date when we just felt the spark and decided to try things out," said Derivan.
Other couples range from the grocery department to the registers, and STEW LEONARD, Jr., the current CEO, says, ""Since my family opened the store in 1969, we know of about one hundred couples who have met here at Stew's and gotten married, resulting in dozens of children. We just think this adds to the family atmosphere!"
Phoner: Did you met your significant other while shopping at the grocery store? (In what department?) Or at work? (AB)

Fireworks vs. American Bald Eagle:

Wildlife officials in a small Connecticut town are pleading with residents to lay off the fireworks this year --so they don't hurt the family of bald eagles nesting in the area. CBS News says Columbia, Connecticut, became home to a pair of bald eagles last summer in the area of Columbia Lake.This spring, an eaglet appeared in the nest, which is located about 100 feet up in a tree. The bird is not yet old enough to fly and wildlife biologists say there is a real concern that the noise of fireworks could be enough to scare the eaglet out of the nest before it is ready.
The town has shared a letter from the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, urging residents to avoid shooting off fireworks during their Fourth of July celebrations. "Eagles and fireworks are both sort of this great American tradition," it says, adding that for the baby eagle there is nothing "more perfectly startling" than a firework. The eaglet should be ready to fly in a couple of weeks and is likely to stay with its parents through the end of the summer before flying off on its own. Eagles mate for life and normally return to the same nesting site for years. (Bartha)

And... that brings us to this reminder: don't set off fireworks on your head.
It sounds ridiculous, but two years ago(in 2015), DEVON STAPLES, who was 22, decided it would be a great idea to take a fireworks mortar tube and put it on his head, and set off a large, flaming artillery shell firework out of it. Of course, it didn't end well. According to Maine State police, he died instantly from his injuries. Not shocking, but police say alcohol was involved.
"I was the first one who got there. There was no rushing him to the hospital. There was no Devon left when I got there," his brother told the Daily News. "It was a freak accident.... But Devon was not the kind of person who would do something stupid. He was the kind of person who would pretend to do something stupid to make people laugh."
PS: In 1999 the U-S Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 85-hundred fireworks-related emergency-room visits --about two-thirds of these in July. And there's no tally of the countless blistered hands, traumatized pets, singed shrubs, and melted G.I. Joe dolls. The Commission says it's dangerous to handle fireworks yourself --blowing up a watermelon with an M-1000, for instance. Even sparklers can catch clothing on fire, and something like an illegal M-80 can take your hand off. In fact, the Commission says that's the second leading cause of injury behind firecrackers and ahead of rockets.