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Curses, Foiled Again
Police charged Johnny Lee Walker, 21, with shooting another man in Orange Park, Fla., after he left his cellphone at the scene of the crime. Investigators said the phone contained text messages about a $300 marijuana deal believed to be the motive for the shooting. “Sometimes it helps when the bad guys aren’t very smart,” Police Chief James Bolvin said. (Jacksonville’s The Florida Times-Union)
Police arrested Judy Weible, 61, after she called a sheriff’s deputy in Hinds County, Miss., and tried to sell him prescription painkillers. The deputy, thinking the call was a prank, hung up. The woman called back several times, and when the deputy ignored her calls, she started texting, offering to sell 30 pills for “$60 and some green.” Finally, the deputy alerted investigators, who set up a meeting. Explaining that Weible apparently reached the deputy by misdialing a number, sheriff’s official Jeff Scott said, “I cannot recall a situation where someone has called a narcotics officer and offered to sell them narcotics.” (Jackson’s The Clarion-Ledger)
Ho, Ho, Ho, No!
The day after Linda Gipson lost her job, she was Christmas shopping at a mall in Ypsilanti, Mich., and took a break to drop off some gifts at her car. She loaded them into the trunk and headed back to the mall. An hour later, she returned to find her car there, but the one she had put the gifts in was gone. Another, identical gray Ford Focus had been parked in the same aisle as hers, and her key opened its trunk. “I screamed, ‘Don’t tell me I put them in the wrong car,’” she said. “It’s my kids’ Christmas.” (Detroit’s WXYZ-TV)
The day after the newspaper printed a story about Gail Larkin’s car being stolen from the parking lot of a shopping mall where Larkin was appearing as Mrs. Claus, she said the mall’s general manager told her she was fired for “negative publicity.” A spokesperson for Mesilla Valley Mall in Las Cruces, N.M., clarified that Larkin “couldn’t be fired because she was a volunteer,” so, “she was asked not to return” to the mall. “It’s not my fault my car was stolen,” she said, adding it’s “the kids” who suffer by her dismissal, “not me.” (Las Cruces Sun-News)
Why Banks Always Win
During the 2008 financial crisis, trading companies Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley declared themselves to be banks so they’d be eligible for emergency loans from the Federal Reserve Bank. When the Fed issued the Volcker rule, which bans banks from trading when their own money is at risk, Susquehanna Financial Group analyst David Hilder reported the firms would shed their bank status to avoid having their activities constrained. (CNBC)
Constitutional Wrongs
When prison inmate Michael Baynard, 37, requested a copy of the state constitution from the Pennsylvania Department of State through the state’s Right to Know Law, he was told he couldn’t have it. He appealed to the Office of Open Records, which ordered the State Department to send Baynard a copy. The department complied after deciding that appealing the Office of Open Records decision wasn’t worth the time and money but insisted its position was correct.
Calling the State Department’s denial “just plain silly,” Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, pointed out, “The amount of time spent reviewing the request, making a decision about it, denying it and then having to deal with the Office of Open Records probably cost a couple hundred dollars in staff time, where they could have just gone to the photocopier, copied the constitution and mailed it to the guy for 10 bucks.” (Harrisburg’s The Patriot News)
Way to Go
Ivan Mendel, 77, died shortly after winning first prize in an eating contest in the Ukrainian town of Tokmak. He polished off 10 dumplings in 30 seconds. (Reuters)
Brian Depledge, 38, died while hanging his laundry to dry when he became entangled in a clotheshorse. The coroner’s inquest in Bradford, England, concluded that Depledge fell backward into the folding device after tripping over a stool, and his neck and chest became wedged in its rungs as it collapsed. Detective Inspector Mark Long testified that when the victim tried to untangle himself, he pushed down on the bars, tightening its grip “like a concertina” until he suffocated. (Britain’s Daily Mail)
Roundabout Route
When an Indian express train carrying more than 1,000 passengers pulled into Warangal, passengers and crew realized they had traveled nearly 400 miles in the wrong direction and were 600 miles from their intended destination of Bhubaneswar. Railway officials blamed the error on the train’s having been given an incorrect destination code and the fact that many of the staff were new and unfamiliar with the route. (The Times of India)
Foreperson of the Year
Accused murderer Derrick C. Smith received a summons for jury duty for his own trial in Schenectady County, N.Y. Commissioner of Jurors Hope Splittgerber noted it was the first time in her 28 years on the job that a defendant received a summons for his own trial. (Albany’s Times Union)
Second-Amendment Follies
Chaz Ursomanno, 22, was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after he accidentally shot himself in the head while showing his girlfriend a handgun. Naomi Ensell, 24, told Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies she asked Ursomanno to put the gun away, but he insisted the weapon was safe. To prove it, he held the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. He then pointed the gun at his head a second time and fired. This time, it went off. (Associated Press)
End with a Bang
An Alabama company is offering to turn the cremated ashes of hunters and gun enthusiasts into ammunition. “We know how strange it sounds to people who aren’t comfortable around guns, but for those who are, it’s not weird at all,” Thad Holmes, co-founder of Holy Smoke LLC, said, noting that a pound of ashes fills about 250 shotgun shells. “People take ashes and spread them across lakes or forests or throw them in rivers, and nobody thinks twice about that. This is no different.” The service starts at $850. (Reuters)
Legislative Follies
The city council in Topeka, Kan., voted 7-3 to repeal an ordinance banning domestic battery. Assistant city attorney Catherine Walter insisted the repeal wouldn’t decriminalize domestic violence, which remains a state crime. The council acted to shift responsibility for prosecuting offenders to Shawnee County. (The Topeka Capital-Journal)
Louisiana lawmakers voted to make it illegal to buy or sell secondhand goods for cash. State Rep. Rickey Hardy, a co-author of the measure, explained it’s aimed at criminals who steal anything from copper to televisions and sell them for a quick buck. Having a paper trail will make it easier for law enforcement to track stolen goods. (Lafayette’s KLFY-TV)
The U.S. Senate voted to allow school cafeterias to serve unlimited potatoes. The move blocked a Department of Agriculture proposal to limit school lunches to two servings of potatoes a week. “The proposed rule would have imposed significant and needless costs on our nation’s school districts at a time when they can least afford it,” said Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from potato-growing Maine, who introduced an amendment to a USDA funding bill to prevent any limits on serving potatoes or other vegetables. The measure does allow the USDA to regulate how the potatoes are prepared. (Associated Press)
When Guns Are Outlawed
An unidentified man attacked a 57-year-old woman with a frozen armadillo, according to Dallas police, who said the attack occurred when the man tried to sell the armadillo to the woman. The two argued about the price, and the man threw the carcass at the woman twice, causing bruises to her leg and chest. (United Press International)
Hands-Down Favorite
A British school that previously tried getting students to attract teachers’ attention by using colored signs instead of raising hands switched to having them raise their thumbs. Insisting the policy helps make the class environment “calmer and encourages quieter pupils to share ideas,” Cheryle Adams, head teacher at the Burlington Junior School in Bridlington, England, said it was no big deal and “something all the children have accepted.” Parent Dave Campleman disagreed, declaring, “Kids are used to putting their hands up. Being told to do something different just confuses them.” (United Press International)
