Sir, You'll have to remove your shoes ... and your monkey

Man Smuggles Monkey Into NYC Airport

NEW YORK (AP) - A man smuggled a monkey onto an airplane Tuesday, stashing the furry fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail, an airline official said.

The monkey escapade began in Lima, Peru, late Monday, when the man boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell. After landing Tuesday morning, the man waited several hours before catching a connecting flight to LaGuardia Airport.

During the flight, people around the man noticed that the marmoset, which normally lives in forests and eats fruit and insects, had emerged from underneath his hat, Russell said.

“Other passengers asked the man if he knew he had a monkey on him,” she said.

The monkey spent the remainder of the flight in the man's seat and behaved well, said Russell, who didn't know how it skirted customs and security.

Airport police were waiting for the man and his monkey when the plane landed about 3 p.m., and the man was taken away for questioning. It was unclear whether he would face any criminal charges.

The city's animal control agency said the monkey appeared healthy. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was planning to take it for disease testing and keep it quarantined for 31 days, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

If the monkey is healthy, it could wind up in a zoo.

“It is kind of a spirited monkey,” Russell said. “That will be the nickname of the monkey: Spirit.”

Naked couple involved in wreck

Just in from the Austin American-Statesman:

Investigators think that alcohol was a factor in a head-on collision in Comal County on July 18 in which two victims were pulled from their car naked.

“The only thing they had on was the radio . . . and their seat belts,” Department of Public Safety Cpl. Rick Alvarez said.

On the evening of July 18, Lisa Marie Bishop, 25, of Austin was driving north on FM 1102 north of New Braunfels when she went around a curve and swerved into the southbound lane, crashing head-on to a truck driven by Juan Montoya, 49, of New Braunfels, Alvarez said.

Montoya was not injured. Bishop sustained injuries that were not life-threatening, but her passenger, 26-year-old Robert Rydeen of Austin, was airlifted to San Antonio and was in stable condition Monday, officials said.

Bishop told investigators that she and Rydeen had been at Schlitterbahn Waterpark and had removed their wet clothes for the drive home, Alvarez said. Investigators found some wet clothes in the car as well as evidence of alcohol consumption.

Alvarez said that in his 13 1/2 years as a DPS trooper, he had never before investigated a crash involving nude drivers.

“But she's from Austin,” he said, “and I figure Austin folks are a little different.”