News & Blues 8/25

Tobacco Road

When researchers denounced R.J. Reynolds Tobacco for marketing Camel
Orbs, mint- or cinnamon-flavored dissolvable tobacco pellets that they
said too closely resemble Tic Tac breath mints and will appeal to
children because they can be eaten like candy, Reynolds official David
Howard noted, “Virtually every household has products that could be
hazardous to children, like cleaning supplies, medicines, health and
beauty products, and you compare that to 20 percent to 25 percent of
households that use tobacco products.”

The difference, insisted Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, chair of the
American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium, “is that kids
potentially will be watching grown-ups ingesting these products. The
last time I checked, we don’t have adults drinking toilet bowl cleanser
in front of their kids.” (The New York Times)

Above and Beyond

Two Japanese police officers spent six evenings in a row hiding in a
closet before finally nabbing a 16-year-old boy suspected of stealing
862 yen ($9.72) in Wakayama Prefecture. (Japan Today)

Joseph M. Veladro, 28, spared the world another lawyer by telling
police in Port St. Lucie, Fla., that he stole more than $300 in
merchandise so he’d be charged with a felony that would keep him from
going to law school. (West Palm Beach’s WPTV News)

No Peeking

After students at a Pennsylvania high school were charged with child
pornography for circulating cell phone images of a sex act on school
grounds, school officials found themselves being investigated for
examining the video images. Parents complained that officials at
Susquenita High School who confiscated pornographic images and videos
from the students “passed around” and viewed the offensive material. “Of
course, one or two people had to see the images to determine what they
were, but if more than one or two top administrators saw them, there
better be a good reason why,” Perry County District Attorney Charles
Chenot said, adding that employees who showed the images to people not
involved in the investigation could face the same charges as the seven
students involved. (Harrisburg’s The Patriot-News)

Ironies of the Week

After Wisconsin state troopers needed tire spikes to stop a
tractor-trailer whose driver refused to pull over, authorities said the
44-year-old driver appeared to be sleep-deprived. His cargo: energy
drinks. (Minneapolis’s KMSP-TV News)

New York City fire investigators blamed a blaze that gutted five
businesses and required 140 firefighters to extinguish on a worker
installing a fire-safety door at a pizza shop. The worker, an employee
of Ideal Fire Safety Systems, said his welding torch apparently set some
grease on fire. (New York Post)

Recidivist of the Week

Just one month after Douglas Gardner, 54, was released from a Vermont
prison, where he spent nearly 20 years for a fatal drunk-driving crash,
state police charged him with DUI when he drove a car down an
embankment in Highgate. (The St. Albans Messenger)

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.