NEWS & BLUES

Curses, Foiled Again

A 24-year-old New York man who tried to steal merchandise from a Virginia Wal-Mart store was thwarted when employees retrieved the merchandise before he got out the door. According to Loudoun County sheriff’s official Liz Mills, the man fled to a waiting pickup truck, got behind the wheel and started to drive away with his 46-year-old passenger, but the truck’s muffler “dislodged.” When the driver got out to fix it, the passenger got behind the wheel “and drove the truck forward at the request of the New Yorker and struck him.” Mills added he was hospitalized “in serious condition.” He wasn’t charged, however, because Wal-Mart declined to prosecute, but police arrested the passenger, Robert V. Lyons, 46, for reckless driving. (The Huffington Post)

A 42-year-old woman, who police in Lynn, Mass., reported was being “chased frantically” by a man wielding a large kitchen knife, sought safety by running into the police station, where she “quickly began to cower.” The man followed her and raised the knife above her head while punching her. Officer Raymond Therrien said he grabbed the man’s arm and “delivered several knee strikes to his midsection” until he dropped the knife. Police filed multiple charges against Constantine Greven, 40. (Lynn’s The Daily Item)

Arm the Animals

In an effort to curb attacks on tigers and other endangered wildlife, India’s Maharashtra state declared that it’s no longer a crime for forest guards to shoot suspected animal poachers on sight. Saying that guards should not be “booked for human rights violations when they have taken action against poachers,” Maharashtra Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam added that the state will send more rangers and jeeps into the forest and will offer secret payments to informers who report poachers and animal smugglers. (Associated Press)

The Perils of Sitting

After exploding toilets injured at least 14 people, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of the Sloan Flushmate III Pressure-Assist Flushing System. The device uses air and water pressure to ensure a powerful flush but can burst inside toilet tanks, releasing stored pressure, which the CPSC said “can lift the tank lid and shatter the tank, posing impact or laceration hazards to consumers.” More than 300 of the units have burst in toilet tanks. (Reuters)

When a 65-year-old man who was camping with a friend in Ontario went into a wooden outhouse and left the door open, a black bear dragged him from the outhouse, bit him on his head and neck, and slashed his arms, neck and head. According to provincial police Sgt. David Pinchin, the man’s friend heard the commotion and shot the bear. “He was on the john,” the victim’s son said after his father was treated for his wounds. “He’s scratched up pretty bad.” (Winnipeg Free Press)

Citing a report by the National Counter Terrorism Center that terrorist attacks killed 17 U.S. civilians in 2011 and 15 the year before, The Atlantic magazine noted that Americans “are as likely to be killed by their own furniture as by terrorism.” Since Sept. 11, 2001, 238 civilians have died from terrorist attacks, whereas 293 Americans died from furniture falling on them. (The Atlantic)

Faster-burning furniture is causing the New York Fire Department to rethink its tactics for fighting residential fires. Firefighters and engineers agree that plastic fillings in sofas and mattresses burn much faster than older fillings like cotton. “Years ago, you could break a window and it took the fire several minutes to develop — or tens of minutes,” George K. Healy, a fire battalion chief in Queens, said. “Now we’re learning when you vent that window or the door, the fire is developing in, say, a minute with the available oxygen.” (The New York Times)

Lost Generation

Video games and online pornography are rewiring young men’s brains so that they demand constant stimulation, according to psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan. The authors of the book The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It said their research indicates video games and porn are “arousal addictions,” whose attraction is novelty rather than more of the same, as with drug, alcohol and food addictions. This craving for the next thing, the researchers concluded, is creating a generation of risk-averse men who are unable and unwilling to navigate the complexities and risks inherent in real-life relationships, school and employment in their pursuit of “a tech-based buzz.” (CNN)

Slightest Provocation

Police charged Jacob Andrew Kost, 23, with murdering another man in Cornelius, N.C., by running him over. The suspect’s father said the death occurred after the two men argued at a nightclub over whose truck was better. (Associated Press)

Bullish Betting

Having continued to base earnings on projected annual investment returns of 7 percent to 8 percent, public pension funds are falling well short of that optimistic assumption, forcing taxpayers to increase funding for public workers or lawmakers to consider reducing pension benefits, including yearly cost-of-living adjustments. In New York City, for example, lowering the return rate from 8 percent to 7 percent would mean adding $1.9 billion to the pension system, on top of the current $7.3 billion a year. The National Association of State Retirement Administrators said that since 2000, the actual rate of return on investments has been 5.7 percent. Compounding the earnings miscalculation, which New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg called “laughable” and “indefensible,” the city’s chief actuary, Robert North, pointed out that city workers are living longer and reporting more disabilities. These changes alone would require the city to kick in an additional $2.8 billion in pension contributions. (The New York Times)

Ironies of the Week

Matthew Haws, 24, was charged with drunken driving about an hour after he left a candlelight vigil in Oswego, N.Y., that he organized for three friends killed in a car crash while drinking. (Oswego’s The Palladium-Times)

At the funeral for a 19-year-old murder victim in Stone Mountain, Ga., attended by 500 mourners, Pastor Dr. Kenneth Samuel had just finished delivering a eulogy advocating non-violence when two men in the crowd started shooting at each other. Both died. “The first thing I thought to myself was, ‘My God, was anybody listening to what I was trying to say?’” Samuel said. “I think many people were. Unfortunately, not enough.” (MSNBC and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Double Dipper

Authorities charged Timothy McDaid, a town official in Maynard, Mass., with writing checks to himself from the town’s retirement fund totaling $521,573. The reported thefts occurred while McDaid was being prosecuted for stealing $170,000 from an autism charity he worked for. According to Assistant District Attorney Doug Nagengast, prosecutor for the second case, McDaid wrote a check to himself from the retirement fund to cover a $75,000 restitution payment for the first case. (Boston’s WXFT-TV)

Modern Politics

Federal authorities charged Felix Roque, 55, the mayor of West New York, N.J., and his son, Joseph Roque, 22, with trying to shut down a website advocating the mayor’s recall by breaking into the online accounts of their political opponents. Mayor Roque came to office after leading a successful recall against the previous mayor. According to FBI Special Agent Ignace Ertilus, the younger Roque hacked into the site recallroque.com and canceled the domain name. He also retrieved emails from the site, which Mayor Roque used to identify the people who ran and supported it. According to the criminal complaint, the mayor then contacted a prominent Hudson County, N.J., government official who had anonymously established the recall website and “stated that everyone would pay for getting involved against him.” (Ars Technica)

Inflammability Issues

When a Canadian tourist broke his foot while camping on a remote island in Norway, he lay there for three days waiting to be discovered. When no help came, the 25-year-old man lit a fire, hoping the smoke would attract rescuers. It did but not before the fire got out of control, burned down the man’s tent and then destroyed a large portion of the 178-square-mile island’s foliage. Two army helicopters and 20 firefighters were needed to douse the blaze. “It’s illegal to start this kind of fire,” said Joran Bugge, who led the rescue operation, “but in this case the police aren’t going to take any action.” (Britain’s Daily Mail)

Brett Sigworth said that after he applied Banana Boat Sport Performance spray-on sunscreen while barbecuing, he went to move some of the charcoal briquettes around, and all of a sudden his body caught on fire. “I went into complete panic mode and screamed,” he recalled after being treated for second-degree burns. “I’ve never experienced pain like that in my life.” Banana Boat’s maker said it takes the matter “very seriously” and promised “a prompt investigation.” (CBS News)

Fireworks Follies

Two unidentified men firing at a cargo container full of fireworks in Belfair, Wash., caused an explosion that flipped the container several times and started fires on the ground and in several nearby vehicles. Authorities said no one was injured, but a pile of tires that caught fire smoldered for several hours. (Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer)

Despite extreme fire danger and risk of wildfires that prompted nearby towns and villages to ban the use of aerial fireworks, Mayor Bryan Olguin of Peralta, N.M., refused to join them. His wife runs a fireworks stand where fire officials said aerial fireworks are sold. “I’m selling them because when somebody’s starting a fire from fireworks, it’s usually from irresponsibility,” Olguin said. “I can’t take responsibility for stupidityness.” (Albuquerque’s KOB-TV)

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.