CAT SMUGGLERS!!

The noisy box woke us up this morning with news that a CAT SMUGGLING RING had been broken and everybody was arrested! Wow! I was SO EXCITED that I could hardly wait to get on the pyooter and read about it. Turns out it was the plants instead of the animals though:

44 Indicted In Khat-Smuggling Ring
(AP) NEW YORK Federal agents say they have broken up a smuggling ring responsible for most U.S. distribution of a leafy stimulant called khat, which is illegal here but commonly used in East Africa and parts of the Arabian peninsula.Prosecutors announced the indictment of 44 people in New York on Wednesday on charges that they helped bring 25 tons of the plant into the U.S. in recent years. Fourteen men were arrested in the Minneapolis area.

Well, that was still interesting so I looked up KHAT in wikkipedia and found that even announcers on a multi-state radio station don't look up how to pronounce words they've never seen:

Khat (Catha edulis, family Celastraceae), pronounced "cot" and also known as qat, gat, chat, and miraa, is a flowering plant native to tropical East Africa. Believed to originate in Ethiopia, it is a shrub or small tree growing to 5–8 m tall, with evergreen leaves 5–10 cm long and 1–4 cm broad.

Now I'm still hot and upset from hearing about CAT smugglers too! I think I'm gonna email them a complaint!!