NEW'S & BLUES

Curses, Foiled Again

While attending a party in Radnor, Pa., Ryan Letchford, 21, and Jeffrey Olson, 22, wandered into the apartment parking lot, spotted a police van, found it unlocked and entered it to take pictures of themselves pretending to be arrested. While drinking beer and spitting, they somehow managed to lock themselves in the van. When they failed to return to the party by 4 a.m., a friend went looking for them and found them inside the van. When he couldn’t open the door either, he called police, who notified Constable Mike Connor, to whom the van was assigned. “I came down and unlocked the doors,

and ‘Dumb and Dumber’ pranced out of the van,” Connor said after charging Letchford and Olson with attempted theft of a motor vehicle, public drunkenness and criminal mischief. (Philadelphia Daily News) Sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of someone breaking into a home in Effingham County, Ga., at 4 a.m. found no intruders but then realized the two men at the home who reported the break-in were hallucinating. “They were so high,” sheriff’s official David Ehsanipoor said, “they called 911 on themselves.” Authorities did discover a methamphetamine lab at the home and arrested Brian Austin, 25, and Brian Johnson, 28. (Savannah Morning News)

Big Brother Is Back

Russia’s largest retail bank has begun using automated teller machines with built-in lie detectors. Speech Technology Center developed the voice-analysis system for Sberbank to prevent consumer credit fraud by interrogating customers applying for credit at the ATMs. Software detects nervousness or emotional distress, possibly indicating the credit applicant is lying or has something to hide when asked questions like, “Are you employed?” and “At this moment, do you have any other outstanding loans?” Speech Technology Center’s other big client is the Federal Security Service, the Russian domestic intelligence agency that evolved from the Soviet KGB. (The New York Times)

Medical Plan Follies

When Virginia Graham, 85, complained that her new dentures were scraping her gums raw, Deltona, Fla., dentist Michael G. Hammonds, 57, began adjusting them. Graham screamed in pain, witnesses told Volusia County sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Haught, who reported, “She yanked them out and flung them at Hammonds, demanding a refund.” When Hammonds refused, Graham tried to grab the $900 partial plate, and the two got into a tug-of-war. It ended when Graham used the false teeth she was holding to bite Hammonds’ hand so he’d let go. When he did, she tried to run out the door, but he pushed it shut. Graham climbed on a receptionist’s desk hoping to escape through a window. At this point, two deputies arrived and arrested Hammonds on four felony charges, including false imprisonment. (The Daytona Beach News- Journal)

Church of the Iniquity

Pope Benedict XVI shut down a famous monastery in Rome for a lack of liturgical, financial and moral discipline. The Santa Croce in Gerusalemme church had been run by former fashion designer Simone Fioraso, who renovated the church’s crumbling interior when he became abbot, and opened a hotel. Before he was removed two years ago, he held regular concerts, a televised bible-reading marathon and attracted celebrity visitors. One of the monastery’s nuns, former lap dancer Anna Nobili, performed with other dancing nuns during religious ceremonies. Noting that an inquiry by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life found evidence of “lifestyles that were probably not in keeping with that of a monk,” Vati can official Father Ciro Benedettini said the monastery’s few remaining Cistercian monks would be reassigned to various Italian communities. (BBC News)

Weekend at Bernie’s, Part IV

A court in Cyprus convicted three men of digging up the body of President Tassos Papadopoulos and hiding it for three months. It turned up in another cemetery in suburban Nicosia after one of the corpse-nappers told Papadopoulos’ family its location and said he wanted money to start a new life abroad. He got no money, just 18 months in jail. The other two defendants were brothers, one of whom asked the other to dig up the remains so he could negotiate his release from prison, where he’s serving two life sentences for murder. They each got 20 months. (Reuters)

Enabling Architectural

A foyer of light and glass highlight Ohio’s new $105 million Franklin County Common Pleas Courthouse, which turns out to have one design flaw: a long staircase that extends from the first floor to the second. Its thin concrete panels form the steps, but glass panels cover the vertical gaps between them, allowing people below to see up skirts. “If you wear dresses, you’re on notice that you might want to take the elevator, as I will be doing,” Judge Julie M. Lynch said. While the county seeks a solution, director of public facilities management Jim Goodenow said security guards have been told to be alert for people on the busy walkway beneath the stairs craning their necks for a better view above. (The Columbus Dispatch)

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.