News & Blues

After three men stole a coin collection worth several thousand dollars from a home in Corbett, Ore., they redeemed the coins in a Coinstar coin-counting machine for about $450, according to Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies. The machine rejected about 500 silver quarters, which the suspects cashed in at a bank for face value. “The obvious answer,” victim Dan Johnson Sr. said, is “that the crooks were idiots.” Deputies identified one of the suspects as Johnson’s son, Dan Johnson Jr. (Portland’s KPTV-TV)

After Tina Cafarelli, 36, used a stolen welfare benefits card to buy $64 worth of soda at a supermarket in Lynn, Mass., police Officer Craig Fountain, watching her on loss-prevention video, said she immediately inserted the 216 cans into the store’s digital can-return machine without first emptying them, expecting a $10.80 deposit refund. Instead, according to manager Kevin Wilson, the full cans caused “well over $250” damage to the machine. (Lynn’s The Daily Item)

Entitlement Programs

After an internal review of the metropolitan Washington, D.C., transit authority showed 645 items missing from one branch, investigators found 74 items in the home of a branch employee. “You would call it stealing, but I would say it was more like borrowing,” he said, explaining, for example, that he took a portable generator because his home lost power during Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and kept it in case he lost power again. After the search, word spread among the man’s co-workers, many of whom, the report stated, “began to bring into the office Metro-owned equipment that they had been keeping at home.” (The Washington Times)

On trial for stealing county property in Morrow County, Ohio, former police officer Joseph Hughes denied knowing about the stolen items, including 12 air conditioners, authorities found in his basement. “It’s going to sound kind of ridiculous,” Hughes told the court, “but we believed that there was some kind of paranormal presence in the basement.” Despite his insistence that “there was evidence to support it,” Hughes was found guilty of 18 of the 20 charges. (Columbus’ WBNS-TV)

Drinking-Class Heroes

Police charged Darrin Porter, 45, with disorderly conduct after he interrupted an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Cincinnati while “extremely intoxicated” and carrying a can of beer and refused to leave. (Cincinnati Enquirer)

Shirking-Class Heroes

Manhattan high school teacher Mona Lisa Tello, 61, claimed to have been on jury duty for a total of 15 days, but authorities accused her of forging her jury-duty notice. “The letter had wrong dates, wrong room number, wrong address, different words misspelled,” city school district Special Commissioner for Investigation Richard Condon said. “She had not done any jury duty.” Tello resigned but kept her pension. (New York’s WCBS-TV)

Slightest Provocations

Authorities arrested Ricky L. Leer, 48, for decapitating Stephen C. Webber, 53, in Sarasota County, Fla., during a fight over spilled food. According to the Sarasota Sheriff’s Office, Webber, Leer and a third man were cooking at a homeless camp in the woods when Webber knocked over the grill. Leer then jumped Webber and used a machete to slice off his head. (Sarasota’s Herald-Tribune)

Entitled to Special Parking

Americans lacking high school diplomas may qualify as disabled if employers deny them jobs on the basis of that shortcoming, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It stated in an “informal discussion letter” that an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening job applicants, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity” to avoid violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Employment-law professionals pointed out far-reaching implications of the EEOC’s advice, including, Philadelphia lawyer Mary Theresa Metzler said, “less incentive for the general public to obtain a high school diploma if many employers eliminate that requirement for job applicants.” (The Washington Times)

Scrap Heap of the Rich

Japanese police reported that 11 luxury sports cars driving to Hiroshima crashed in Yamaguchi prefecture when the driver of one tried to change lanes and hit the median barrier. His Ferrari spun across the highway, and other cars collided while trying to avoid it. In all, eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini and two Mercedes — worth more than $1 million collectively — were involved in the pileup, as well as three other vehicles. Police said 10 people were treated for bruises and cuts, and some of the vehicles were beyond repair. (Associated Press)

Second-Amendment Follies

After Transportation Security Administration screeners detected a loaded gun in a carry-on bag at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, they turned it over to police Officer N.J. Phillips. Richard Popkin, the owner of the .22 Magnum revolver, was telling Phillips how to clear the weapon when it accidentally fired, Phillips said, “grazing the left side of my face.” (CNN)

Two sheriff’s officers were eating at a convenience store in Sevierville, Tenn., when they began discussing the weight difference of their semi-automatic service weapons. Cpl. Chris Huskey, 40, unloaded his .40-caliber pistol and handed it to Deputy Adam Bohanan, 27. Bohanan handed the gun back to Huskey, who started to reload, but the gun accidentally fired. The bullet went through a 15-inch computer screen and continued into a cooler, where it lodged in a package of bologna. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

Police arrested Bill Robinson, 66, for firing a 12-gauge, double-barrel shotgun at some mistletoe on a tree at a shopping mall in DeKalb County, Ga. Insisting that a shotgun is the best way to get mistletoe, Robinson explained he would’ve gotten it from a neighbor’s tree, but the neighbor was away. “I didn’t want to go shooting in his yard if he wasn’t home,” he said. (Atlanta’s WGCL-TV)

A 22-year-old Navy SEAL shot himself in the head at his home in San Diego, Calif., while trying to convince a companion that the pistol was safe to handle. Police Officer Frank Cali said the man had been drinking with a woman and was showing her his 9 mm handgun, which he believed was unloaded. He offered to let her hold it, but when she declined, he tried to demonstrate how safe it was by putting it to his head and pulling the trigger. (Escondido’s North County Times)

A federal court in Brazil sentenced politician Talvane de Albuquerque to 103 years in prison for ordering four of his aides to kill congresswoman Ceci Cunha so he could replace her in the Chamber of Deputies. Albuquerque was Cunha’s alternate and would have assumed her seat. Albuquerque was also convicted of ordering the murders of Cunha’s husband and two of her relatives. (Associated Press)

Problem Solved

Following a rash of thefts from cars and trucks in a Detroit neighborhood, police banned street parking in the area. (Detroit Free Press)

Snakes on a Plane: The Prequel

Airport screeners in Argentina detained a Czech man who tried to smuggle 247 boa constrictors, poisonous pit vipers and coral snakes, lizards and spiders aboard a flight from Buenos Aires to Spain. Authorities said Karel Abelovsky, 51, had the animals in his overloaded suitcase, which screeners opened after noticing its contents wriggling around. (Associated Press)

Head Games

Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush, which has been deployed to the Arabian Gulf since May, have had to deal with toilet outages that have become so frequent crew members complain they sometimes cannot find a single working commode. Bush sailors told the publication Navy Times that they’ve resorted to urinating in showers, sinks and bottles, and that some crew members have developed infections after resisting urges to use the bathroom. Explaining that the problem lies with the vacuum system that pulls waste through the ship’s 250 miles of pipe, Navy officials pointed out that clogs can cause a loss of vacuum. They blamed most of the outages on sailors flushing “inappropriate material or items” down the ship’s toilets. (Norfolk’s The Virginian-Pilot)

Hide-and-Seek Follies

Police reported that a man destroyed the inside of a home in West Valley City, Utah, trying to locate his girlfriend, who he believed was trapped behind a wall and calling for help. After the man called authorities to help him rescue her, they learned the girlfriend was vacationing in Texas and that the home belonged to the man’s father, who was also out of town. (The Salt Lake Tribune)

Whatever It Is, We’re Against It

Republicans determined to curb government regulatory acts introduced three measures in the House of Representatives specifically intended to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from restricting farm dust, one of which passed, 268-150. Obstructionist Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) even wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post decrying the “EPA’s proposed regulations,” and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) declared, “Where’s the EPA going to be next, checking under my bed for dust bunnies?” Despite the outspoken opposition, the EPA has repeatedly insisted it issued no new rules restricting farm dust and has no plans to regulate that pollution. (The Washington Post, Associated Press) 

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.