D![[IMG: The pony in situ]](http://theanna.org/clip/images/pony.jpg)
uring a distracted-driving sweep near Marseille, French police
officers pulled over a micro-car that had a pony as a passenger.
While this arrangement does not maximise equine safety, the officers
recognised that the woman driving had at least made efforts to ensure
the comfort of the animal, which she uses in her work as a psychomotor
therapist.
Upon arrest, she explained why she'd chosen the micro-car: a driving
licence is not required for these low-top-speed vehicles when driven
on France's smaller roads. After verifying that she was indeed
awaiting the issue of her licence to drive a heftier vehicle, the
officers opted not to fine her.
Halfway through a China Southern Airlines flight to New York, medical doctors Zhang Hong and Xiao Zhanxiang were called upon to diagnose the cause of a distressed passenger's painful, swollen stomach. The problem was a litre of urine trapped in his bladder. The doctors' solution involved drinking straws, a syringe needle, and oxygen-mask tubing. They sucked the urine from the elderly passenger's body through the tubing and spat it into a glass held by a member of the flight crew. Zhang later said: 'It was an emergency situation. I couldn't figure out another way.'
South Africa's Times reports on the death of senior state prosecutor Addelaid Ann Ferreira Watt, who was fatally wounded by an exhibit in the courtroom. Reportedly, a handgun taken into evidence for a house-robbery case at the Ixopo regional court fell to the floor and discharged at point-blank range, leaving a large hole in the 51-year-old barrister's hip area. Courtroom staff were unable to staunch the bleeding, and she died in hospital. According to police spokesperson Brigadier Jay Naicker, the incident is being investigated as culpable homicide, with a colleague of Watt adding: 'The weapon and the ammunition [...] should have been submitted in separate evidence bags, so someone is in big trouble.'
Also in South Africa, Thandaza Mtshali and aunt Ntombenhle Mhlongo, from the province of KawZulu-Natal, were displeased with the unexplained delay in processing of their insurance claim for a relative's death by natural causes on 7 November. To expedite the process and the burial, they lugged the body bag into the office of insurance company Old Mutual. This had the desired effect, with company spokesman Clarence Nethengwe reporting via Twitter on 15 November that the claim, which he described as having required 'further assessments', had finally been paid and calling the incident regrettable.
A Lincoln, Nebraska, woman told a mother by text message that she would no longer look after her children. Police officers were soon recording the child-minder's statement about the aftermath: the 23-year-old mother had paid her a personal visit to kick in the door, deliver some punches to the face, and steal a few items. In a farewell gesture, a bowl of chilli was dumped on the victim's front porch. The mother has received a ticket for vandalism and disturbing the peace.
The man who broke through the front door of a Rochester, New York,
home could have chosen an easier target. For one thing, the
82-year-old resident was home, having just returned from a workout at
the local YMCA. Another factor is that she was Willie Murphy. This
47-kilo senior citizen can deadlift 105 kg and holds various
power-lifting records.
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle describes the robbery attempt
as unfolding thus: Murphy smashed a small table over the intruder,
sending him to the ground. She then poured shampoo in his eyes and
began hitting him with the broom she uses to remove snow from her car.
As she put it, 'I was whaling on that man'. He was removed from the
home not by police officers but by an ambulance crew.
A man in Van Buren, Maine, was rather less good at defending his home. That man, 65-year-old Ronald Cyr, rang the emergency services on Thanksgiving to report that he had been shot. More specifically, he had fallen foul of a booby trap on his own front door, which was designed to fire a handgun at anyone attempting to enter. First responders conveyed Cyr to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries. Meanwhile, the Maine State Police Bomb Squad were called in to deal with Cyr's remaining homemade devices.
According to The Australian, an asylum-seeker awaiting processing on
Papua New Guinea's Manus Island decided to enlarge his penis by
injecting palm oil into it. This caused the Iranian man to fall ill,
whereupon he was granted entry into Australia for reconstructive
surgery that cost taxpayers the equivalent of 6,000 euros. Home
Affairs Minister Peter Dutton reports that medical-evacuation laws
left him unable to block the transfer. Furthermore, the laws do not
address what will happen to the man next. He is reportedly involved
in processes for resettlement in the US but has skipped many of the
relevant meetings.
Critics of his transfer point out also that the 30-something man
racked up about 50 'behavioural incidents' in his five years at the
processing centre. These range from drenching a security guard with
boiling water to punching an officer who confiscated his porn videos.
Our next story comes from Japan, where an upscale department store in Osaka adopted 'period badges', for female employees to wear when menstruating. The Daimaru outlet explained that the idea is to inform colleagues that the worker in question might need longer breaks or less strenuous physical tasks. In the wake of customer confusion and outrage from local media, the programme is reportedly being scrapped. However, in the 'fine print' a company spokesman states that it is only the badges that are being done away with. An equivalent will be used in their place.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the country's largest supermarket chain
asked staff to use an 'innovative mobile app' to aid in sizing for new
uniforms at its 1,000 shops. Albert Heijn workers in Nijmegen
expressed concern after they were asked to upload photos of themselves
in their underwear, with 17-year-old employee Jochem de Haes telling
newspaper reporters: 'My mother thought it was a joke, but the
manager told us that if we don't do it, we can't be in the store
anymore because we don't have the right corporate clothing.'
In response, the Dutch Data Protection Authority deemed the plan
'bizarre', and the retailer's national managers issued a statement
that they 'cancelled the pilot yesterday and we apologise to all
involved'.
A ![[IMG: Are we there yet?]](http://theanna.org/clip/images/non-border.jpg)
man in the St Petersburg area agreed to smuggle four central Asian
migrants into Finland from the Vyborg area, at a cost equivalent to
10,000 euros each. Accordingly, the five men travelled through
forests by car and walked around a lake in the darkness with an
inflatable boat in tow, finally reaching a post marking an entry
point to Finland. Some time later, the four smugglees were rather
surprised: Russian border guards apprehended them and revealed that
they were still in Russia - their guide had erected a mock border
post. According to an FSB statement, a fraud case may be opened
against him, while the four migrants have been fined and will be
deported from Russia.
Using his mobile phone to check the security camera feed from his Stanford-Le-Hope home, a man noticed smoke and contacted the Essex County Fire & Rescue Service. The fire crew who extinguished the blaze determined that its origins lay in the kitchen, and it later emerged that the homeowner's husky had mounted a worktop and turned on the microwave oven, where a package of bread rolls was stored. Geoff Wheal, watch manager at Corringham Fire Station, said that, while the dog was unharmed and the fire in this 'very strange incident' was fairly small, it's still best not to leave anything in an unattended microwave oven.
Northern Brazil's Neitor Schiave tried to help 60-year-old mother Maria with her driving test, which she had failed thrice. Driving examiner Aline Mendonça recounts that Schiave, 43, took a hands-on approach to the test in Nova Mutum Paraná: putting his own hands, with neatly painted fingernails, on the steering wheel. Though sporting plenty of facial make-up, a floral-print blouse, a wig, and jewellery, Schiave didn't look convincingly similar to the woman on the relevant ID document. Therefore, the police were called in, and Schiave was arrested for fraud and misuse of someone's identity. He has confessed but maintains that his mother had no knowledge of his scheme.
On the way to a friend's baby shower and lacking a gift, Veronica
Alvarez-Rodriguez and her husband visited a Goodwill charity shop in
Valparaiso, Florida, where the pair were delighted to find a baby
bouncer in an unopened package for $9.99. Upon opening the gift at
the party, the father-to-be appeared delighted himself, exclaiming 'You
guys got me a gun!' Alvarez-Rodriguez reported that some guests seemed
amused, while she and her husband were worried and summoned the
police.
Officers checked that the purchasers weren't convicted felons, told
the father-to-be that he could keep the weapon, and later requested it
as evidence for investigation of how it could have entered the box.
Animal rescuers in Las Vegas were appalled by what many online have deemed cute - local pigeons wearing cowboy hats. Mariah Hillman, co-founder of pigeon-focused group Lofty Hopes, stated: 'At first, I was like "Oh, my God - that's cute!" Then, I was like "Wait a minute - how did they get those hats on there?"' When one of the pigeons was captured, it emerged that the hats were attached with glue. Reports have come in of at least three pigeons wearing cowboy hats, but none of the other birds have been corralled thus far.
Upstate New York's Lisa R. Snyder rang the emergency services to
report finding four-year-old daughter Brinley and eight-year-old son
Connor hanging by a dog lead attached to a beam in her basement, with
upturned chairs on the floor below. After the children died in
hospital, Snyder described a heavily bullied and suicidal Connor
asking to take her hours-old dog lead and heavy dining-room chairs
into the basement to build a fort with Brinley.
Evidence soon emerged that Connor, while not having displayed the
physical difficulties described by Snyder, would have had a hard time
hanging his sister at the same time as himself. Also, he had seemed
happy, while Snyder, 36, was the one with a troubled history, which
included two of her children having been removed from her care and
later returned. Then, examination of her electronic devices revealed her
Web searches less than a week earlier for 'carbon monoxide in a car
how long to die' and 'does a hybrid car produce carbon monoxide while
idling', then 'hanging yourself'. Authorities also found a search for
'almost got away with it'. And they found at least three sexually
explicit photos she had sent of herself engaged in sex acts with the
family dog.
When 
a pair of bats made their way to the enclosed balcony of a Lviv,
Ukraine, flat, the owners 'were afraid to go out to the balcony and
hoped that the bats would fly away', according to bat expert Dr
Andriy-Taras Bashta. He was called in a week later, once it had
become clear that the bats had attracted others and were preparing for
winter. He found bats overflowing cupboards and drawers, in a cavity
in the wall, and in two sacks of vegetables stored for winter - 200
bats per sack. Meanwhile, there were no bats elsewhere in the tower
block.
In all, Bashta removed and released roughly 1,700 bats, 80% of them
newborns, in an operation that he summarised thus: 'It was such fun!'
Our next story is from the UK, where a driver in Halifax caused an explosion in his vehicle that broke the windscreen, left the vehicle's doors buckled, blew its windows out, and damaged windows of nearby businesses. The motorist, who suffered only minor injuries in the incident, explained that he had sprayed the interior liberally with air freshener while waiting in traffic. Indeed, West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service characterised the 'dramatic' incident as caused by use of 'excessive' amounts of the aerosol spray. The ignition source was the driver promptly lighting a cigarette.
Responding to reports of an explosion, firefighters in Bozeman, Montana, discovered that an aerosol can left in a home's oven had exploded when the three young men living there set the oven to pre-heat. The residents soon recognised what had been in the can - bear spray. Battalion Chief Grover Johnson reports that the trio, who offered no explanation for this choice of location for their bear spray, were allowed back inside the building after the three fire crews had used large fans to ventilate it sufficiently.
Arlando M. Henderson faces various charges for financial crimes that
he might not have committed in the subtlest possible way. This
29-year-old man worked at a Charlotte, North Carolina, bank, where he
had access to the cash vault, from which 80,000 euros' worth of
deposited money vanished in the course of 2019. Several of the 18 or
more thefts were on the same dates as cash deposits by Henderson at a
nearby ATM and coincide with dodgy edits to the bank's books that
implicate him. He also made a $20,000 down payment on a luxury car in
cash.
In addition, he faces charges for covering the rest of the cost of
that 2019 Mercedes-Benz with a loan obtained under false pretexts from
another financial institution. Prosecutor Daniel Ryan's job has been
made even easier by Henderson's decision to post photos of him posing
with stacks of cash on several occasions this autumn.
Florida's Matthew Noffsinger, Jr, arrived at a local hospital with a
gunshot wound to the leg. Although he explained that someone had shot
him while he was out in the woods, he could not account for the
entrance and exit wound marking a path straight down his leg.
The 36-year-old Noffsinger ultimately admitted to the police officers
in attendance that he'd been 'playing cowboy' when the weapon
discharged. He also admitted that, as a convicted felon, he shouldn't
have been in possession of a firearm anyway, let alone twirling it on
his finger.
Adding to Noffsinger's troubles, a search of his rucksack revealed
five items that did not belong to him: an identity document and four
credit cards, all of which he described as things he'd 'found'.
Last year, I reported on the arrest of one Sherman Hopkins for
trying to purloin a domain name at gunpoint - http://theanna.org/clip/july2018.html#domain provides an outline.
It turns out that this was at the insistence of his cousin, Iowa's
Rossi Lorathio Adams II, who is known for posting videos of drunken
Iowa State University students at doit4state.com URLs. He wanted to
use doitforstate.com also. This 26-year-old Cedar Rapids man's prior
attempts by telephone to get doitforstate.com owner Ethan Deyo to part
with the latter name had actually proved successful, but Adams
declined to pay Deyo's $20,000 asking price.
The price Adams is now paying is 14 years in prison. He still
maintains that Hopkins, who had been staying in a homeless shelter
when things came to a head, had been acting alone in attempting to
procure the domain name for Adams. This is despite Deyo's testimony
about the voice of the person Hopkins had asked to supply directions
by phone during the transfer attempt.
Appeals are expected, with the lawyer for Adams stating that
the claimed scenario is 'inconsistent with what any thief would do -
steal something unique, and then place the stolen property into the
thief's account, knowing that the property can be easily traced' and
that the personal details on the instructions carried by Hopkins are
actually evidence that Adams (whose palm print was found on the paper)
was not involved.
Southport 
nightclub-owner Matty Jones bought an inflatable Santa Claus
on eBay to display on the outside of his house. He found the item a
bit strange-looking when it arrived, but the issue became clear only
once he'd started adding the air: 'It kept growing and growing. I did
wonder if it was ever going to stop.' To strap down the blow-up Santa,
which had cost Jones the equivalent of 150 euros on the auction site,
he had to enlist four assistants. Santa ended up taller than his
house, and the neighbours ended up in stitches. Jones, 32, blames
himself for confusing eight metres for eight feet.
During a supervised visit with her 12-year-old son in Goleta,
California, 55-year-old orthopaedic surgeon Theresa Colosi began
whacking the court-appointed chaperone in the head with a metal
object. At the social worker's behest, the boy ran to fetch help at
the nearby bowling alley, with Colosi hot on his heels until he was
safely indoors. She then opted to drive off, and witnesses summoned
help for the seriously wounded social worker.
Authorities then learned that Colosi had given away all of her
belongings, withdrawn nearly a million dollars from her bank account,
and chartered a flight to Montana for herself and her dog (under
assumed names) - along with a 12-year-old boy. She was apprehended
after entering a taxi in Montana and now faces a host of charges,
including attempted murder and attempted kidnapping of a child.
In our final bit of news, from Canada, a drunken man attempted to spread Christmas cheer by leaving fully decorated Christmas trees in the gardens of Brandon, Manitoba, homes. The trees came from the shopping trolley he was pushing in the area of a grocery store - whose outdoor holiday display turned out to be missing a dozen Christmas trees. The ornaments dropping from the trolley documented the man's festive route for the police, whose Sergeant Kirby Sararas reports that officers were able to retrieve all the trees and locate the 33-year-old culprit. He was described as still 'highly intoxicated' at the time of his arrest for theft.