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Police arrested Lawrence Neal, 45, for
purse snatching in Eastpointe, Mich., after he was “captured by his own
seat belt,” according to Detective Lt. Leo Borowsky. Noting that Neal
used his turn signals throughout the chase, Borowsky said the suspect
tried to bail out of his vehicle, got his right leg tangled in the seat
belt and was dragged several hundred feet before the vehicle stopped.
Neal suffered a broken leg
Alaska State Troopers said Stacey J.
Captain, 18, was driving a Dodge Dakota that burst into flames, but he
was nowhere to be found when they responded. While a witness was giving
her statement to troopers, she noticed someone, later identified as
Captain, stealing her Chevy Blazer. The Daily News-Miner
reported the troopers gave chase, but the driver abandoned it and fled
on foot. Meanwhile, troopers who went to the address of the owner of
the burning vehicle found Captain, the owner’s nephew. Vehicle theft
was just one of several charges filed against him.
Power Grabs
Denver’s power company wants to charge
solar energy users for electricity even if they don’t use any. Tom
Henley of Xcel Energy told 7NEWS that the proposed fee would level the
playing field for electricity users who are currently subsidizing
connectivity fees for solar users, who some months use no electricity.
Henley later admitted no Xcel customers pay extra to fund connectivity
fees and that the proposed fee, which would add $2 a month to
customers’ bills, would all go to Xcel. He said the fee is intended to
ensure that down the road solar users don’t get free rides.
Wind farms can trigger false alerts of
dangerous weather, warned the National Weather Service, which said the
massive blades show up on Doppler radar as a violent storm or even a
tornado. Weather radar operates by detecting motion and can filter out
structures, including the 200-foot wind tower but not the rotating
blades. “If you take a glance and then all of a sudden you see red, you
might issue an incorrect warning as a result,” NWS science and
operation officer Dave Zaff told the Associated Press.
Laptops, cell phones and televisions can be powered
without electric wires or batteries, according to a company that has
developed a system that sends electricity wirelessly. “Wires suck,”
Eric Giler, chief executive of WiTricity said at the TEDGlobal
conference in Oxford, England. “Batteries also suck.” The Times
reported that MIT physicist Marin Soljacic developed the system using
the principle of resonance to let two magnetic coils transfer energy.
The first coil is connected to the home’s power supply, the second coil
to the unit to be powered. London’s Institute of Physics, which tested
the device and concluded it “had no detrimental effects on the human
body,” stated its drawbacks are that only small appliances can be
charged and they must be within 7 feet on a power-supplying wall.
Second-Amendment
Follies
Police in Fayette County, Pa.,
confiscated an 80-pound homemade cannon after William Edward Maser, 54,
fired it in his yard, sending a 2-pound lead ball through the side of a
neighbor’s house. State Trooper Brian Burden told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the cannonball broke a window and traveled through a wall before landing in a clothes closet.
Posse vs. Posse
A sudden crime spree in Fox Creek,
Alberta (population 2,000), stirred residents to form citizen patrols.
So many patrols took to the streets that the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police said it had responded to several false alarms where one
slow-moving citizen patrol group reported observing another slow-moving
citizen patrol group acting suspiciously.
Never Mind
Delaware state police arrested a woman
who threatened a convenience store clerk with a pair of scissors after
demanding the clerk give her the $20 she insisted she had paid him for
gas. The clerk insisted she only gave him $1. Wilmington’s News-Journal
reported that Vickie Gambrell, 53, went into a rage, stormed behind the
counter and began punching the clerk in the head and face. The clerk
handed over two $10 bills when the woman held the scissors to her neck.
As the woman began to drive away, she looked into her pocketbook and
noticed the $20 bill she claimed she gave the clerk. She returned to
the store to apologize, only to find state troopers had arrived.
Silver Lining
Scientists credit global warming for
opening up the fabled Northeast Passage between Asia and the West.
Ships previously avoided the Arctic route because of its heavy ice
floes. Now, The Kansas City Star reported, a voyage from South
Korea to the Netherlands can save more than 3,000 miles and 10 days.
Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in
Boulder, Colo., called the clearing of the Northeast Passage “an
expression of climate change.”
A Thousand Words not Worth a Picture
Yale University Press decided to publish
a scholarly book about 12 controversial cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad that sparked angry and violent protests when they appeared in
a Danish newspaper in 2005, but without showing the images the book is
about. The recommendation by two dozen diplomats and experts on Islam
and counterterrorism the publisher contacted that it withdraw the
images, as well as historical images of Muhammad, was “overwhelming and
unanimous,” said Yale University Press director Jon Donatich. He told The New York Times the cartoons are freely available on the Internet, so reprinting them could be interpreted as gratuitous.
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nation’s press. To contribute, submit original clippings, citing date
and source, to Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.
