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Curses, Foiled Again
Police who cited California trucker Ashwin Kumar, 28, for trying to avoid paying a toll to cross New York’s George Washington Bridge reported that Kumar parked on the highway shoulder at daybreak, just shy of the Fort Lee, N.J., toll plaza but right beside a police parking lot. An officer spotted him and assumed he had a problem. “So he thinks, ‘I’m going to go down and help this guy,’” Port Authority Police official Al Della Fave said. “But then he sees the driver, who’s crouched down at his license plate with duct tape.” The officer watched him cover his plates and drive through the E-Z Pass lane without a transponder, then pulled him over. “I guess he thought nobody was around at that time,” Della Fave said. (Newark’s The Star-Ledger)
Dylan T. Hankewycz, 18, pulled a pocket knife on a 34-year-old man and demanded his cell phone, according to police in Hanover, Pa. The victim later purchased a new phone and was downloading photographs from his carrier’s server when he found pictures of the man who robbed him. Police identified Hankewycz from the pictures and arrested him. (Harrisburg’s WHTM-TV)
Ted in Real Life
Charles Marshall, 28, was arrested for the fourth time in the past two years for having sex with a teddy bear after employees at a Cincinnati health clinic spotted him pleasuring himself in an alley. His first arrest occurred in February 2010, when witnesses reported he engaged “with a teddy bear in mens bathroom” at a Hamilton County public library. He was arrested in November 2010 for “masturbating w/a stuffed animal (teddy bear)” and in August 2011 for “masturbating using a teddy bear in a public place where minors were likely to be present.” (The Smoking Gun)
Unintelligent Design
Louisiana is issuing publicly funded vouchers for the school year that will allow thousands of children to attend private schools where they will learn that Scotland’s Loch Ness monster is real. The schools follow a fundamentalist curriculum that includes the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) program, which aims at disproving evolution and proving creationism. One of its tenets is that if dinosaurs lived the same time as humans, then Darwinism is flawed.
One ACE biology textbook declares that scientists are becoming more convinced that dinosaurs are alive today, explaining that the Loch Ness monster “has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.” Another claim is that a Japanese whaling boat once caught a dinosaur, an event that did occur in the movie Godzilla but hasn’t yet happened in real life.
Scotland’s position is that such teaching is good for tourism. Nessie expert Tony Drummond, who leads Loch Ness tours, called it “Christian propaganda” and “ridiculous,” but urged pupils at the Louisiana schools “to come and investigate the loch for themselves.” (Scotland’s The Herald)
Justice Is Blinds
Thomas Molina, 38, broke into a community college in Albuquerque, N.M., according to police who rescued him after finding him tangled in window blinds. The frustrated burglar told them he was looking for computer equipment. (Albuquerque’s KRQE-TV)
Victims of Success
Improvements in airline safety have complicated rules to improve flight safety. That’s because the benefits of these rules are calculated primarily on how many deaths they may prevent. “If anyone wants to advance safety through regulation, it can’t be done without further loss of life,” said William Voss, chief executive officer of the Flight Safety Foundation. (Bloomberg News)
Success in the fight against cancer has created the problem of how to deal with cancer survivors. A report from the American Cancer Society estimates that 13.7 million Americans who have had cancer were alive as of Jan. 1 this year and that the number will rise to 18 million by 2022. The report indicates that the medical profession may not be prepared to deal with the survivors’ problems, such as long-term effects from chemotherapy and radiation. Treatment can cause cardiovascular problems, cognitive defects and muscle pain, as well as psychological problems for patients who fear the recurrence of their cancer or the higher risk of being diagnosed with a secondary cancer. “Survivors are relieved to have completed treatment, but may need to make physical, emotional, social and spiritual adjustments to find a ‘new normal,’” the ACS report concludes. (CNN)
When Guns Are Outlawed
Philadelphia police arrested Kenneth Butterworth, 45, saying he pulled out a crossbow in a fit of road rage and pointed it at the other driver. (Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV)
Mensa Reject of the Week
Eiliya Maida decided the best way to remove cobwebs from the backyard of his home in Chico, Calif., was to use a propane blowtorch. He ended up igniting dry plants, which started an attic fire that caused $25,000 in damages, according to Fire Inspector Marie Fickert, and displaced the family, which has no insurance. (Chico Enterprise Record)
Adding Insult to Injury
After a drunk driver killed her oldest son, Loretta Robinson told the judge at the driver’s sentencing in Greenville, S.C., that even though her son wasn’t at fault, she has received bills associated with his death, including paying to have his wrecked car stored for months, in case there was a trial. “I had to pay to have the vehicle towed,” she said. “I had to pay for the vehicle removal and to clean up the street from Justin’s blood on the ground.” The charge for cleaning the street was $50. (Greenville’s WYFF-TV)
