When You're Fighting, You're Family

It wasn't the greatest wedding night.

Eleven men from a New York City-area wedding party — including the groom, his father, his new father-in-law and his best man — spent the night in jail after a boozy brawl with another bridal party, report New York newspapers.

"It was pure bedlam," White Plains, N.Y., police spokesman Martin Gleeson told the New York Daily News.

The fracas began at about 3 a.m. Saturday when, following the reception celebrating Joseph Fortunato Jr.'s marriage to Erica Cancel, their wedding party arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (search).

At the hotel bar, they ran into the Anderson wedding party, complete strangers, who were steaming after their wedding photographer had stood them up.

In an apparent case of mistaken identity, members of the Anderson party took Fortunato's brother and best man, Alfonse, to be the wayward shutterbug, and got in his face.

Alfonse Fortunato, 26, promptly "clocked" one of his accusers, said police — and then about 100 people jumped in, according to the Staten Island Advance.

"Everybody's fighting everybody," Gleeson told the Daily News. "And both brides are kind of walking around helpless like, 'This is my wedding? I can't believe this is happening!'"

The first officers to respond found a huge crowd of people fighting, yelling, screaming and shoving, plus two brides frantic in their wedding gowns.

Eventually, more than a dozen cops responded, but not before the melee spread from the bar into the lobby and even into one of the elevators, where five men traded a round-robin of punches, reports the Journal-News of Westchester.

The groom, Joseph Fortunato Jr., 29, was the first to be arrested. The rest of his party then turned on the cops, leading to the other 10 arrests, all from the Fortunato party.

The 11 — including father of the groom Joseph Fortunato Sr., 56, and father of the bride Thomas Cancel, 58 — were charged with first-degree riot, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. They posted bail the next morning.

One man, Sebastian Russo, 28, also got slapped with criminal mischief for allegedly smashing the hotel's glass front door while being dragged to a squad car, then allegedly trying to kick out the cruiser's windshield.

Despite the epic brawl, police said no one was seriously hurt.

"We believe the event may have been alcohol-driven," Gleeson told the Daily News.

Staying Green All the Way

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — It was a terribly low-tech version of drug trafficking.

Dwayne Earl Anthony Etzel was arrested on drug possession charges after a police officer caught sight of him pedaling on a bicycle with three uprooted marijuana plants under his arm.

Police spotted Etzel, 18, cycling in the early evening Monday with what they described as a "big smile" on his face. It was 5:40 p.m. and still light out.

"I see this guy riding up the street with what looked like a big old bush under his arm," said Eugene Narcotics Detective Scott Vinje. "It didn't click right away that it was marijuana. Then I smelled it."

He pulled up alongside the bicyclist, showed him a badge and ordered him to stop.

When police tried to stop him, Etzel allegedly threw the marijuana plants at the officer's car and pedaled off. After catching up with him, the officer used pepper spray to get the cyclist under control.

Stop Smiling, This Is Germany

BERLIN (AP) — Germans were ordered Thursday to stay serious when having their photographs taken for new passports, wiping away any grins, smirks or smiles so that biometric scanners can pick up their facial features.

Interior Minister Otto Schily (search) ordered passport authorities to accept only pictures taken from the front showing the "most neutral facial expression possible," starting Nov. 1.

Facial recognition systems match key features on the holder's face and work best when the face has a neutral expression with the mouth closed.

"A broad smile, however nice it may be, is therefore unacceptable," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

German officials showcased the new passports in June, saying that they would be much harder to forge or tamper with. Two scanned fingerprints are also to be stored on a chip built into the passport cover from March 2007.

The passports are part of a host of security measures passed by the German government after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Biometric passports have already been introduced in Canada and the United States. The European Union agreed common standards in December last year.

Sailboat No Match for Mischievous Marine Mammals

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Jerry Dunlap spent more than a year fixing up his 1910 dream sailboat. But a gaggle of about 15 hefty sea lions (search) managed to sink the 50-foot craft in just one weekend.

Dunlap paid $3,500 to have the boat dragged up from the bottom of Newport Harbor. The radios, radar and electrical system were ruined, and he doesn't know how much it will cost to repair the boat.

"I really don't know what I'm going to do with it," said Dunlap, a contractor. "This is a major setback. I'm 63, I don't know if I feel like working another two years to get a boat to work."

The scuttling of Dunlap's $24,000 boat may be the most striking example of mayhem that sea lions have caused since they started showing up in the harbor in May.

Residents complain that they bark all night long, and the city received a report that a rogue sea lion tipped over a mother and her child in their kayak.

City officials are considering asking the City Council to make it illegal to feed the sea lions.

Some boat owners have also strung barricades made of wire and milk carton around their crafts, while others place upside-down lawn chairs on their swim steps, said Harbor Patrol Lt. Erin Giudice. The Harbor Patrol sprays the sea lions with fire hoses but they reboard the boats within minutes, she said.

Cornish Census Records Yield Curious Monikers

LONDON (AP) — Horatio Hornblower (search) is an odd name, but consider his siblings: Azubia, Constantia, Jecoliah, Jedidah, Jerusha and Erastus.

Rene Jackaman, archive assistant at Cornwall County Record Office, found all those names after coming across a real-life namesake of C.S. Forester's fictional naval hero in county census records.

The Hornblower name has been on record for centuries.

Inspired by that discovery, staff and researchers at the Cornwall Record Office (search) compiled a list of more than 1,000 unusual names found in censuses as well as in births, deaths and marriage records going back as far as the 16th century.

"My all-time favorites are Abraham Thunderwolff and Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane," she said.

Other discoveries included Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, Susan Booze, Elizabeth Disco, Edward Evil, Fozzitt Bonds, Truth Bullock, Charity Chilly, Gentle Fudge, Obedience Ginger and Offspring Gurney.

Levi Jeans was married in Padstow, Cornwall, in 1797.

Other remarkable duos in the marriage records included Nicholas Bone and Priscilla Skin, joined in wedlock in 1636; Charles Swine and Jane Ham in 1711; John Mutton and Ann Veale in 1791, and Richard Dinner and Mary Cook in 1802.

Compiled by FOXNews.com's Paul Wagenseil.

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