Jawanda Tench, 38, was in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County courthouse to fight charges of retail theft. Shortly after Tench's arraignment and release, a woman with court papers in her pocket entered the jury room. Shortly after that, nine jurors discovered that their money had been stolen from their bags, coming to about 400 euros in all. Shortly after that, investigators connected Tench with the theft. She is now in jail.
Two teachers at Louisiana's Destrahan High School face charges that include indecent behaviour with a juvenile and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Attention was turned to them after a 16-year-old student began bragging to other students that he was having sex with teachers. Rachel Respees, 24, and Shelley Dufresne, 32, are believed also to have videotaped their group sex with the boy, according to Police Chief Michael Glaser.
A four-year-old girl passed out about 250 packets of sweets to other
children at Delaware's Hickory Tree Child Care Center. Adults quickly
determined that the packets actually contained heroin, and several
children were taken to local hospitals for monitoring. The drugs had
come from a backpack given to the girl to replace the school bag a
family pet ruined the previous night.
The generous child's mother, 30-year-old Ashley Tull, has been
arrested for possession of drugs and endangering a child's welfare.
For the time being, Tull is not allowed to be in contact with the girl or
her two other children.
Planners of the new Moorestown, New Jersey, library building
designed it with two plates bearing the Latin phrase for 'We confirm
all things twice'. However, they came closer to 'We second-guess
everything', with 'Nos Secundus Coniecto Omnia'. Mayor Chris
Chiacchio said that the idea 'could have been expressed better'.
While the work is being redone, another mistake will be fixed: in
two other inscriptions, contributions from Friends of the Moorestown
Library are noted as dating from 1653; two 'C's had been omitted from
the relevant Roman numeral.
Shaila Hegde is accused of ringing the Glastonbury, Connecticut, police emergency line 162 times since 2007 for non-emergencies. Ignoring past warnings, she has called to make 'unfounded complaints' about such matters as her compact discs being scratched. Hegde, now 43, will soon face a judge on charges of misusing 911 and falsely reporting an incident.
Chinese media report on 26-year-old Liu Yuyou, of Shaanxi Province,
who tested positive for drugs in a routine urine test at work. He
confessed - under police torture, he claims - to using drugs and was
sentenced to 15 days in detention. However, he also asked his family
to test his theory that noodles he'd eaten were at fault. Family
members ate at the noodle bar in question, failed urine tests at home,
and then reported to the police.
The owner of the noodle shop, Mr Zhang, was arrested and, according
to the police, admitted to buying two kilos of opium-poppy shells and
using them in powder form to make his food addictive. Even buying
poppy seeds to flavour food is forbidden to China. Zhang was
sentenced to 10 days' detention.
Liu's family, who want an apology, are suing the local police, who
claim that their goal is to punish drug-users, regardless of intent.
Ellen Bogan, 60, alleges that Indiana state trooper Brian Hamilton,
after pulling her over for a warning ticket, asked her whether she had
accepted Jesus Christ as her saviour. She says that he proceeded to
ask further questions, give her a sermon on the benefits of salvation,
and finally hand her a pamphlet addressed to sinners.
Bogan explains that she felt that she had to sit there and listen
while Hamilton preached and his cruiser's lights flashed. She
described the incident as 'just weird' and is filing suit on claims
that Hamilton violated her First and Fourth Amendment rights.
In Honda, Colombia, 22-year-old Diana Martinez told public-health
nurse Carolina Rojas of her need to have a medical problem checked out
before her mother returned home. Martinez then began to undress,
revealing sprouts peeking out from her vagina. She explained to
Rojas, who at first suspected a practical joke, that her mother had
once told her that 'if you don't want to be pregnant, tuck a potato up
there, and I believed her'.
In an outpatient procedure, Rojas removed the tuber, which had been
in place for about two weeks. This saved Martinez some embarrassment,
but she later had to visit a health centre for procedures to prevent
infection.
In Colombia, where sexual-health education has met with resistance,
popular misconceptions about contraception are rife.
According to the Santa Cruz, California, Sheriff's Office, an
intoxicated man walking along the road hitched a ride the rest of the
way home. Once home, the drunken man fell asleep, blissfully unaware
that the helpful motorist and his other passenger, a toddler, were waiting
outside. The not-so-Good Samaritan, assisted by the child, removed
television sets, furniture, clothing, a laptop computer, golf clubs,
television sets, and other items from the home while the resident
slumbered.
Authorities have released security-camera footage of the two, who
are still at large.
The Bucks County Courier Times reports on Pennsylvania man George Byrd IV, who fired a gun through a neighbour's window one afternoon. Although he initially denied responsibility, Byrd later claimed that, unfamiliar with firearms, he had fired the gun in order to unload it. Detective Patrick Nicastro said that Byrd explained that he didn't know any other way to clear the chamber. A court date has been set.
Lisa Carter-Knight, from Exeter, New Hampshire, made several posts to Twitter about the four-hour delay of her JetBlue flight from Philadelphia to Boston. The delay came about when the pilot thought, rightly or wrongly, that a passenger had accused him of being intoxicated. After he passed his sobriety test, everyone was allowed onto the plane, apart from Carter-Knight, who says that JetBlue had judged her tweeting to be unruly behaviour. She received a refund for the cost of the flight.
In the pre-dawn hours, police in Daytona Beach, Florida, found a roofing-tar-covered man on a petrol station's roof. The man, Joshue Holoman, explained that he was visiting family. His second attempt at an excuse, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, was that he was a repair worker who had heard the air-conditioning units producing unusual noise. His third and final try was the explanation that he had been sleeping on the roof and was using tar to avoid detection. That statement would have been more credible perhaps if the 30-year-old Holoman hadn't been carrying a prying tool.
The Ottawa Citizen reports on a 30-year-old woman who drove up to a Burger King drive-through in Smiths Falls at about 2:40am. Not realising that the Burger King was closed, the woman tried to order food. A police officer watched her yell at the intercom for several minutes and then drive through a red light at high speed. The officer took off in pursuit and pulled her over, placing her under arrest. At the police station, breath tests showed the woman to be at three times the legal alcohol limit for driving a motor vehicle.
Finally, Charles Agosto evaded Oregon police who attempted to stop him for a traffic violation. As more officers converged on the area, he abandoned his car and hid amidst dense foliage on private property. Neither the undergrowth nor the lateness of the hour proved an impediment: the police tracked the 35-year-old man down from the smell of his strong cologne. They report that Agosto later described the cologne as a bad choice.
Want more?
Follow the link for earlier
clippings.
Want later clippings? Take a look at the
November pile.
Go to the Clippings index page
© 2014 Anna Shefl