NEWS & BLUES

Curses, Foiled Again

A cleaning person arrived for work one morning at a social club in Boldon Colliery, England, to find owner Kim Collins, 42, bound to a chair with her mouth taped. Collins explained that a masked man had woken her in the night, dragged her along the hallways to turn off the alarm, then tied her up before snorting a bag of cocaine, emptying the safe and fleeing.

Suspicious detectives discovered the alarm had been deactivated only 40 minutes before the cleaning person got there. Outside security cameras showed nobody arriving earlier that night, and investigators found Collins’s saliva on the cable ties binding her wrists. When confronted, Collins admitted making up the incident to convince her boyfriend-business partner that they should sell the club and move away, explaining she got the idea from watching the television show CSI. “This lady clearly thought this was a good idea in the short term but hadn’t realized how the police would deal with it,” her attorney, David Forerester, said. (South Tyneside’s The Shields Gazette)

Popularity Contests

Sophie Laboissonniere, 21, pleaded guilty to rioting after the Vancouver Canucks lost the National Hockey League finals in June 2011. Shortly before the rioting, Laboissonniere, who was one of the first suspects charged, took part in a Vancouver beauty pageant and was named Miss Congeniality. (Associated Press)

Americans prefer root canals, colonoscopies, France and NFL replacement refs to Congress, according to a Public Policy Polling survey that showed only 9 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Congress. Eighty-five percent held an unfavorable view. “We all know Congress is unpopular,” PPP president Dean Debnam said. “But the fact that voters like it even less than cockroaches, lice and Genghis Khan really shows how far its esteem has fallen with the American public.” Despite its poor showing, Congress outranked North Korea, the Kardashian family and former Sen. John Edwards. (The Washington Times)

Oops!

The Florida sheriff’s office that investigated the disappearance of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony in 2008 overlooked evidence that someone in the Anthony home did a Google search for “fool-proof” suffocation methods on the day the girl was last seen alive. The victim’s mother, Casey Anthony, was tried for her daughter’s death but acquitted because jurors doubted prosecutors conclusively proved how Caylee died. 

Orange County Sheriff’s investigators missed the search after pulling 17 vague entries from the computer’s Internet Explorer browser, because they ignored the Mozilla Firefox browser that Anthony regularly used. It contained more than 1,200 entries, including the suffocation search. A computer expert for Anthony’s defense team did find the search before the trial, and lead defense attorney Jose Baez mentioned it in his subsequent book about the case. (Associated Press and Orlando’s WKMG-TV)

Problem Solved

Less than a month after the Sandy Hook massacre, the National Rifle Association released its Practice Range app, recommended for citizens as young as four. Described as a “new mobile nerve center” providing access to “the NRA network of news, laws, facts, knowledge, safety tips, educational materials and online resources,” the app also offers a target-practice feature. Users can choose from “nine true-to-life firearms” to aim at coffin-shaped targets with red bulls-eyes at head and heart levels. (Britain’s Daily Mail)

A Maryland company began selling bulletproof white boards that teachers can write on with dry-erase markers during lessons or turn into a shield if someone opens fire. Hardwire CEO George Tunis explained the boards are similar to those used by soldiers, police and federal agents, and can repel gunshots from handguns and shotguns, the types of weapons most commonly used in school shootings. Bullets that strike the board don’t ricochet, Tunis added, calling it a “bullet sponge.” He said the 3.75-pound boards are light enough for teachers to carry around while conducting lessons and called the $299 per board price tag “a one-time cost to armor every classroom and every adult, the janitors, the coaches, the lunch ladies.” (New York’s Daily News)

Lawmaking, Virginny Style

Virginia Del. Robert Marshall (R-Prince William) introduced a bill allocating up to $22,560 for a study to see whether the state “should adopt an alternate medium of commerce or currency to serve as an alternative to the currency distributed by the Federal Reserve System in the event of a major breakdown in the Federal Reserve System.” Marshall has introduced similar measures before, declaring them a “creative and savvy” way “to counter the buffoonery that’s been plaguing Washington.” (The Washington Post)

While longtime civil rights leader Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, was absent from the capital attending President Obama’s inauguration on Martin Luther King Day, Republicans found themselves with a one-vote edge in the otherwise evenly divided Senate. They pushed through a redistricting plan that blatantly favors white Republicans. Then Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, moved to adjourn the Martin Luther King Day session in honor of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. (The Washington Post)

Silver Lining

Hurricane Sandy generated 5,000 jobs for New Yorkers being hired for cleanup and rebuilding efforts. Federal and state officials said the positions, funded by $27 million in federal Labor Department money, pay about $15 per hour and will last about six months. In addition, the state and Federal Emergency Management Agency expect to hire another 700 temps for administrative and community relations positions. (Associated Press)

Gun Shy

In August, the University of Colorado announced that its Boulder and Colorado Springs campuses would reserve a separate dormitory for students older than 21 with a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Guns are banned in all other dorms. “So far,” university official Ken McConnellogue said in November, “no one has moved.” (The Denver Post)

Homeland Insecurity

Aviation blogger John Butler alerted travelers to security flaws in airline boarding passes that could allow terrorists or smugglers to discover in advance which security measures they will be subjected to. Butler said the bar codes of boarding passes are unencrypted, allowing anyone with a smartphone to discover any vulnerability and even modify the coded information. (The Washington Post)

The number of guns found at airport security checkpoints has been rising for the past couple of years, from 1,123 in 2010 to 1,320 in 2011 to 1,105 through September of this year. Security experts attributed the trend to two factors: an increase in gun sales and the spread of right-to-carry laws, which lead to more people showing up with weapons at checkpoints because they’re used to carrying them all the time. (The New York Times)

Despite Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s assurance that advances in scanning technology would soon allow all air travelers to keep their shoes on, the Transportation Security Administration has rejected four different scanning devices aimed at letting passengers keep their shoes on after spending millions of dollars to test them. All four failed to detect explosives and metal weapons, according to TSA official Lisa Farbstein, who said removing shoes “is going to be a part of air travel for the foreseeable future.” (The New York Times)

The TSA’s first collective bargaining agreement allows the agency’s 45,000 screeners to wear uniform shorts in hot weather, as well as athletic shoes and other footwear alternatives, and reduces tattoo restrictions. (Virginia’s Federal Times)

Litigation Nation

After avid golfers Robert and Katherine Brady bought a house next to a golf course in Ravalli County, Mont., they sued it and the county for not warning them that golf balls would land on their property. Some 1,300 balls a year landed in their yard, even after they built a 6-foot-tall cedar fence topped with a 14-foot-high net. The Hamilton Golf Club defended itself by pointing out no golfer would intentionally hit a ball into the Bradys’ yard and risk a two-stroke penalty, which would cause the golfer “strife and self-loathing.” District Judge James Haynes ruled against the Bradys, declaring they “failed to fulfill their independent duty to see what was plainly apparent” before buying the home. (Ravalli Republic)

What Could Go Wrong?

California enacted a law requiring safety and performance standards be set for driverless motor vehicles by January 2015. Gov. Jerry Brown showed up in a self-driving Toyota Prius to sign the legislation at the Mountain View headquarters of Google Inc., which has been developing autonomous vehicle technology and already operates a dozen computer-controlled cars. The new law requires a licensed driver to sit behind the wheel to serve as a backup in case of emergency. “You can count on one hand the number of years before people can experience this,” Google co-founder Serey Brin said. (Associated Press)

Those Zany South Koreans

The South Korean city of Suwon opened the world’s first toilet theme park to honor its former mayor, who campaigned for better toilets for his country. Sim Jae-Duck, known as “Mr. Toilet,” had a passion for toilets, having been born in his grandmother’s bathroom. He designed and built himself a toilet-shaped house, which is now a museum in Restroom Cultural Park. Besides the theme park, Suwon holds an annual Golden Poop Art Festival. (London’s UK Metro)

Several dozen South Korean activists stepped up aerial missions to launch condoms into North Korea after that country’s government threatened “merciless” military attack against such propaganda measures. In the latest assault, North Korean defectors joined Christian and right-wing organizations to launch 20 helium-filled balloons in Yeoncheon County carrying 150,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets and 5,000 condoms, as well as sanitary pads, underwear, flashlights, candy and toothpaste. (Agence France-Presse)

Suspicion Confirmed

Seatbelts on airplanes are pointless, according to Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary. “If there ever was a crash on an aircraft,” he announced, “God forbid, a seatbelt won’t save you.” O’Leary seeks approval to remove the last 10 rows of cabin seats on European flights so he can sell standing-room-only tickets there for less than $2. “We’re always looking for new ways of doing things,” O’Leary said. “It’s the authorities who won’t allow us to do them.” (Britain’s The Telegraph)

Slightest Provocation

Houston authorities accused Deby Mejia, 23, of beating her 10-year-old sister unconscious with an extension cord because she caught the child eating a bag of Cheetos that she bought from a neighbor while the older sister was gone. (Houston’s KTRK-TV)

It’s the Thought That Counts

San Francisco’s Health Commission voted to provide and pay for sex-change surgery for uninsured transgender residents. Public Health Director Barbara Garcia described the approval as “symbolic” since the city lacks the expertise, capacity and protocols to provide the procedure through its clinics and public hospital. (Associated Press)

Sushi Flambé

New York City fire marshals arrested sushi chef Fei Teng, 42, after gasoline he stored in soy sauce buckets at an East Side restaurant caught fire. Fire official Frank Dwyer said Teng asked a dishwasher to bring the containers from the basement to his car, but “more than half the gasoline” spilled onto the kitchen floor and ignited, burning Teng, a busboy and a waitress. (New York’s Daily News)

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