New & Blues 7/14

Police looking for a man who stole two phones from a convenience
store in Orem, Utah, apprehended suspect John White after he flagged
down the investigating officers to ask for directions. They noticed
that White matched the description given them by the store clerk and
said the address he asked about was the same as that on a slip of paper
the thief had left behind. (Associated Press)

Spoilsport of the Week

New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that
would ban restaurants from using salt “In any form in the preparation
of any food for consumption by customers.” Ortiz said the measure would
give consumers “more control over the amount of sodium they intake.”
Offenders face fines of $1,000 for each violation. (Fox News)

Green Acres

Detroit officials plan turning a quarter of the 139-square-mile city
into fields and farms. Mayor Dave Bing said the city faces a $300
million budget deficit and dwindling tax base, and can’t continue to
provide police and fire protection and other city services to all
areas. The plan to “downsize” the heavily industrial city calls for
large demolition swaths to cut through 91,000 vacant residential lots
and 33,000 empty houses in blighted neighborhoods, creating pockets of
green, semi-rural surrounding surviving neighborhoods. The biggest
obstacle to implementation is getting hundreds of millions of dollars
from the federal government to buy land, raze buildings and relocate
residents, since the city has no money. (Associated Press)

Avoirdupois Follies

Ads and catalogs using plus-sized models don’t work with their
target audience, according to a study investigating the link between
model sizes in ads and the self-esteem of consumers looking at the ads.
“We believe it is unlikely that many brands will gain market share by
using heavy models in their ads,” said Naomi Mendel of Arizona State
University, who worked with researchers from Germany’s University of
Cologne and Erasmus University in the Netherlands. Not only does the
lower self-esteem of overweight consumers lessen their enthusiasm to
buy products touted by people who look like them, she explained, but
also “normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after
exposure to moderately heavy models.” (Arizona State University News)

Birds of a Feather

Citizens who oppose teaching the theory of evolution in schools are
gaining ground by linking it to global warming and arguing that public
schools should teach dissenting views on scientific theories in
general. The result is more state legislatures debating measures that
support the idea. “There is a lot of similar dogmatism on this issue,”
said John G. West, senior fellow with a group advocating the teaching
of intelligent design, “with scientists being persecuted for findings
that are not in keeping with the orthodoxy.” (The New York Times)

Slightest Provocation

Jacoby Laquan Smith, 33, admitted beating up his quadruple amputee
girlfriend, but only after she hit him first because he yelled at her
for blocking his view of television. Tiesha Bell, 28, “punched me in
the groin,” Smith told a court in St. Paul, Minn., then hit him with a
coffee canister, a bedpan filled with urine and her wheelchair. Bell
conceded there was hitting on both sides, declaring, “We both need
anger management.” (St. Paul’s Pioneer Press)

Reasonable Explanations

After police arrested Anthony Coffman, 28, for using a hunting knife
to cut open meat packages in a supermarket in Edinburgh, Ind., and then
throwing the raw meat on the floor, Coffman explained he’s a vegetarian
and gets upset when others eat beef. He insisted God sent him to ruin
the meat, adding he was trying to save little girls from food he
believes would make them “chubby.” “He thought if he could save one
chubby girl, he’s done his job,” police Deputy Chief David Lutz said.
(WRTV News)

After a late-night argument with his wife, Gerald Lancaster, 84,
fired a gunshot as she left their home in Houston, Texas, then went
back inside. He didn’t come out when police arrived and remained inside
for nearly six hours, even after a SWAT team arrived on the scene and
tried to coax him out with phone calls and pleas from a bullhorn. At
one point, they even fired tear gas into the home, but he still didn’t
come out. Finally, officers broke through the door and arrested
Lancaster peacefully. He explained to authorities that he hadn’t
responded to their efforts because he was asleep during much of the
standoff and didn’t realize police officers had surrounded his home. (Houston Chronicle)

Look Ma, No Eyes

Turkish pop singer Metin Senturk, who has been blind since he was 3,
wept for joy after learning that he had become the world’s fastest
unaccompanied blind driver. His average speed of 292.89 kph (181.59
mph) broke the previous record of 284 kph, held by a British bank
manager. Former rally driver Volkan Isik followed Senturk in a separate
vehicle and guided him by radio. (Reuters)

Collier Sims, 24, won the first known blind-fencing competition,
held at the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Mass. “A lot of the
fencing actions that we do, we can apply them to everyday life,” said
the competition’s organizer, Cesar Morales, fencing coach at the
Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass., explaining that
learning to use a fencing foil is similar to learning to use a white
cane to navigate. (The Boston Globe)

Well-Heeled Thief

South Korean police arrested a 59-year-old man suspected of stealing
shoes, which Koreans customarily remove before entering homes,
restaurants and funeral parlors. A subsequent search found 170 boxes
packed with 1,700 pairs of expensive designer shoes, sorted by size and
brand. “Shoe theft is not unusual here,” Detective Kim Jeong-gu said.
“But we gasped at this one.”

The suspect, identified only by his last name, Park, is a former
used-shoe vendor, convicted twice in the past five years of pilfering
shoes. He was on parole when police spotted him outside the Samsung
Medical Center funeral parlor. They observed him return several times
pretending to be a mourner and swapping cheap shoes for expensive ones.
(The New York Times)

News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To
contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to
Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.