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Elbow Room
The Wanxiang-Tiancheng shopping center in Shijiazhuang, China,
opened a parking garage with extra-wide spaces to accommodate women
drivers. The bays are 3 feet wider than normal and painted pink and
purple. In addition, the shopping center hired female attendants to
guide women into their spaces. “The added space helps us to park
safely,” a driver identified only as Miss Zhang told the Hebei Youth Daily newspaper. “I think it shows respect for women.”
On the Cutting Edge
Police in Beloit, Wis., said that when Yvonne Coleman, 31, became
suspicious of text messages from other women to boyfriend Lester Burks,
33, she confronted him with a knife. Burks responded by attacking her
with a sword. Coleman required six stitches on her forearm.
After police arrested Jared Weston Walter, 22, for snipping off the
hair of a woman sitting in front of him on a bus outside Portland,
Ore., they identified him as the “TriMet barber,” who prosecutor Chuck
French blamed for “a number of incidents” in which women have either
had their hair cut with scissors or “superglued” on TriMet buses.
New Year’s Resolution Follies
When some 20 Swedish dieters showed up at a Weight Watchers clinic
in Vaxjo to see how much weight they’d lost, the floor collapsed. “We
suddenly heard a huge thud,” one of the participants told The Smalandsposten
newspaper. “We almost thought it was an earthquake, and everything flew
up in the air. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along
the walls.” Eventually, the whole floor gave way.
Mixed-Use Zoning
Homeowners in a Knoxville, Tenn., community banded together to tell
the Metropolitan Planning Commission they oppose a plan by resident
David Perkins to turn his single-family house into a duplex and use one
of the units to operate a combination music studio and Jewish sperm
bank. Perkins, a musician who specializes in Klezmer music and
Dixieland jazz, said he wants to give music lessons at the address, not
performances, and insisted neighbors won’t notice the activities he
proposes because he’s been doing most of them for two years without any
complaints. Perkins already operates a sperm bank, to which, according
to his website (jewishspermdonor.net), he appears to be the only donor.
When Guns Are Outlawed
Police in Buffalo said Julious Jones, 25, tried to kill himself by
sitting naked in a bathtub holding a clock radio, two electric
clippers, a curling iron and a clothes iron. Alerted by the man’s
landlady, Officer James Hosking thwarted the suicide attempt by
reaching into the bathroom and unplugging the electrical cords.
A hooded man walked into a crafts boutique in Dallas, pointed a gun
at owner Marian Chadwick, 57, and demanded money. According to a
security tape of the incident, when she told the gunman she had none,
he pounded the gun twice on the counter. “I got mad,” Chadwick told The Dallas Morning News.
“So I pointed my finger and said, ‘In the name of Jesus, you get out of
my store. I bind you by the power of the Holy Spirit.’” The gunman took
a step back and told a customer to drop to the floor. After she
refused, Chadwick pointed her finger at the man and continued to
chastise him until he walked out, cursing but empty-handed.
It’s Really the Real Thing
Bolivian President Evo Morales endorsed a proposal by coca growers
to boost coca production by introducing a soft drink made from the
plant. An official with the Ministry of Coca and Integral Development
said that the drink would be called “Coca Colla” and packaging would
feature a black swoosh and red label similar to Coca-Cola’s. Coca is
already being used in tea, flour, toothpaste and liquor produced in
Bolivia, the world’s third-largest producer of the plant.
Next Time, a Bazooka
When Donald Koranek, 80, tried to enter the Hillsborough County
(Fla.) Courthouse with a pocketknife, a security guard told him to take
the knife to his car. He returned with a gun, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
After a security guard spotted the loaded pistol in his belt, Koranek
explained that he had a concealed weapons permit. Deputies detained him
and seized the weapon.
Is There Anything Guns Can’t Do?
Authorities said a 28-year-old security guard at a Northern
California casino drove off the road when his hands-free cell phone
device activated and startled him. The sport utility vehicle plunged
into a creek in Roseville and began sinking, but the driver escaped by
blasting out the window with his handgun. He flagged down a passer-by
and reported the incident.
First Things First
Venezuela’s new currency structure, set by President Hugo Chavez,
lists whale sperm, ham and pickles as essential goods, entitling
importers to a preferential exchange rate. Electricity, which has to be
imported because a drought has halted a hydroelectric plant that
supplied 73 percent of the country’s power, is considered nonessential,
along with racehorses, rabbit meat, ketchup and video games.
Recidivist of the Week (Tie)
Las Vegas police arrested Mark Hoffman, 47, for killing another man
during a welcome-home party celebrating Hoffman’s release from jail.
According to a witness, Hoffman beat the victim to death with a steel
pipe, which he called his “personal home security device,” after
learning the victim had an affair with his girlfriend while Hoffman was
behind bars. Police found Hoffman near the scene hiding in a
Port-a-Potty.
Theresa Jones, 49, was arrested in Pasco County, Fla., accused of
stealing a car on her first day out of prison. Authorities said Jones
had just completed a two-year, eight-month sentence when she met a pen
pal, and they drove to a New Port Richey hotel. Jones borrowed the
man’s car, saying she was going to buy beer. She didn’t return. When
authorities located her the next day, she explained that she stole the
car so she could get drugs.
Respite for Print
The Long Island daily newspaper Newsday became one of the
first non-business newspapers to charge customers for access to its
website, which it spent $4 million to redesign and relaunch. In the
first three months, only 35 people signed up to pay the $5 fee,
according to publisher Terry Jiminez, who reportedly told a staff
meeting, “That’s 35 more than I would have thought it would have been.”
Pre-Slept Comfort
Holiday Inn introduced a bed-warming service at three of its English
hotels provided by staff members dressed in fleece sleeper suits and
nightcaps. The chain said the human bed warmers at one Manchester and
two London locations are equipped with thermometers to assure the
temperature reaches 68 degrees Fahrenheit and will leave the bed before
the guest occupies it. Spokeswoman Jane Bednall likened the bed-warmers
service to “having a giant hot water bottle in your bed.”
Unclear on the Concept
Seattle police arrested a peeping Tom at a peep show. Officers
reported the 27-year-old suspect snuck into the Lusty Lady strip club
by walking backward through the front door and entered one of the
viewing stalls. He then climbed through the stall’s ceiling panels and
tried to reach the strippers’ dressing room along a crawl space above
the club’s glass ceiling. Alerted by one of the strippers, who said she
“was startled when {the man’s} legs came crashing through the glass
panel ceiling above her,” officers found the suspect still in the crawl
space.
Food Fights
Police said that when a customer at a restaurant in Brownsville,
Texas, complained he was served beef instead of chicken, owner Maria
Del Rayo Cordero told the man to pay for the food anyway and leave. An
argument ensued, during which the owner threw a tray of food and tea at
the customer, who threw the tea back. Cordero responded by throwing a
ceramic plate that hit the customer on the forehead. Paramedics treated
him, police arrested her.
When Ralph Barr, 61, pointed out that a grocery store in Findlay,
Ohio, mistakenly priced crab cakes, store manager Monte Erwin, 44,
offered to sell him the first pound at the discounted price but the
rest at the correct price. Police said Barr responded to the offer by
spitting in the manager’s face, head-butting him five or six times and
breaking the manager’s glasses. Police arrested Barr, who claimed Erwin
hit him with a price gun, but witnesses said the manager didn’t fight
back.
The Power of Suggestion
Helmut Kichmeier, 27, a performer with Britain’s Circus of Horrors
whose debut as a sword swallower resulted in his skewering himself in
front of the audience, sought the help of British hypnotherapist Ray
Roberts to learn to put himself into a trance so he could swallow
multiple swords on stage. After his training, Kichmeier was practicing
in front of a mirror at his London home when he accidentally hypnotized
himself. He remained in a trance for at least five hours, until his
wife came home and found him looking like a zombie “just staring at
himself in the mirror.”
Unable to awaken him, Joanna Kichmeier said she noticed an open book called Hypnosis Medicine of the Mind
on the sofa. She also saw a letter from Roberts next to the book and
called him. He talked Kichmeier out of the trance. The performer, whose
stage name is Hannibal Helmurto, vowed to practice auto-suggestion only
when his wife is present.
News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To
contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to
Roland Sweet in care ofThe New Times.
