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October 2020


31 October 2020

Two days after absconding from an open prison to visit his mother, Britain's Akram Uddin attempted to return to custody, following advice to turn himself in to the police. As he recently told Maidstone Crown Court, he sought arrest at the Lewisham police station but was turned away. Over the following month, the same thing happened at several other stations, with Uddin and his solicitor being told, among other things, that there was no warrant for his arrest. There were seven such occasions in all.
In the end, the police came to collect Uddin one day before an appointment they had booked for him. He has now been handed a four-month extension to his sentence, for absconding from prison, and Judge Charles Gratwicke has demanded that the Metropolitan police force conduct an inquiry into itself.

Two kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong entered into an argument about how best to handle the children in their care. One of these teachers, Wang Yun, apparently answered this question by means of poisoned porridge: she handled 25 of the other teacher's students by adding nitrite she'd purchased online to a school meal. The results included vomiting children and one fatality. The Jiaozuo Intermediate People's Court, in central China, decided to increase the death count and sentenced her to execution.
The case against her was strengthened by her history with nitrite. In 2017, she poured the substance into her husband's glass after an argument, leaving him with minor injuries.

Some people hold strong opinions on the virtues of almond milk vs. dairy milk. One of those people is Florida's Justin Garcia, a 30-year-old man who was arrested in Lehigh Acres for trying to settle the milk argument with violence. He is accused of punching his cousin in the forehead and then responding to a retaliatory strike by slashing said cousin with 'a pocket knife with a three-inch blade'. An uncle restrained Garcia until police officers arrested him, confiscated the knife, and took statements - which failed to specify which man favoured which type of milk.

Amid Argentina's coronavirus-related restrictions and before 'Toobin' became a household name (and perhaps a verb), lawmaker Juan Emilio Ameri became bored during a largely online legislative session. In consequence, those viewing a debate on pension-fund investments, whether in person on a giant screen or on the legislature's YouTube channel, were treated to scenes of him kissing his girlfriend's bare recently augmented bosom.
Though he later claimed to have beckoned to her while believing his connection was offline, he can be seen looking straight into his computer's camera just before lowering her blouse. He has since resigned. One fellow lawmaker did come to his defence: Marķa Rachid, stated that his actions were no worse than other congress members playing Candy Crush on a mobile phone during sessions.

Shortly after Anchorage, Alaska, news anchor Maria Athens announced via Facebook that she would soon report on the mayor having posted photos of his naked body on an 'underage website', the Fox/ABC affiliate barred Athens from its studio. She then released an image described as the backside of mayor Ethan Berkowitz, 58. This was followed by denials from his office and release of a voice-mail message described as death threats made by Athens against the mayor and his wife.
He has since resigned and admitted to 'a consensual, inappropriate messaging relationship' with Athens. An investigation found no evidence of criminal conduct on his part. Athens, in contrast, was arrested for trespassing at the studio and assaulting the station manager - who is her boyfriend - for not letting her run her story.

Other people opt to confine their illicit sexual liaisons to the workplace. This didn't do New Hampshire's Britany Barron and her fellow medical-supply worker Jonathan Amerault much good, however. It appears that Armando Barron discovered suspicious material on his wife's mobile phone and then used the device to invite Amerault to a park, where he was waiting with both Britany and a handgun.
Allegedly, Armando ordered Britany to shoot her lover upon his arrival. According to court papers, she refused, so he performed the task himself, thrice, and then offered to forgive her infidelity if she would merely decapitate the corpse to thwart identification attempts. She may even have buried the body. However, authorities found the head elsewhere and arrested both Barrons.

D[IMG: Helaine shwoing off his physique]istrict administrators restricted Sylvain Helaine from teaching kindergarten at Docteur Morere Elementary School, near Paris, after a three-year-old not in his direct care encountered him in a common area and began having nightmares about him. Helaine, 35, stresses that his pupils - now age 6 and up - and their parents have always been able to see past his full-body tattoos and surgically blackened eyes and that, therefore, the school's decision was 'quite sad'.

A Massachusetts man paid dearly for a major change in lifestyle: switching from red fruit-flavoured to black liquorice twists. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that this 54-year-old construction worker, with a diet 'consisting primarily of several packages of candy daily', passed out in a fast-food outlet, from which he was rushed to hospital after resuscitation attempts failed. His death on the following day was linked to heart-rhythm problems connected with the potassium-related havoc wrought by the black stuff's glycyrrhizic acid.

Security tapes at a New Brunswick off-licence show staff hiding clerk Françoise Sauvageau's work shoes, which had been beneath a desk. Deeming the incident indicative of a toxic work environment, Sauvageau filed an injury claim, seeking worker's compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. The claim was supported by a diagnosis from a psychologist who explained that 'Ms. Sauvageau is worried her colleagues will do the same thing again'.
The province's court of appeal wrote in its decision that '[a] reasonable person would not regard the moving of shoes, and the subsequent denial by fellow employees of having done so, to be the type of occurrence that could realistically result in an employee being unable to continue with his or her employment'.

Also in Canada, a woman who visited Pompeii about 15 years ago sent a parcel recently to a travel agent who works with the historical site's archaeological park. Inside it were two mosaic tiles, pieces of an amphora, a ceramic item, and a letter concluding 'Please, take them back, they bring bad luck'. The woman, who identified herself as Nicole, explained that she didn't want to pass on her misfortune, exemplified by two run-ins with breast cancer, to relatives.
Nicole is not alone. The site's personnel established a museum that displays many of the items that have been returned thus, by roughly 100 remorseful and ostensibly curse-afflicted tourists, alongside their apology notes.

In 2018, a couple in La Havre, France, responded to an advert online by purchasing a Savannah cat - a cross between a house cat and an African serval - for about 7,500 euros. When the kitten began growing up, they started to doubt its origins and asked the authorities to collect their pet, which turned out to be a Sumatran tiger cub. This sparked a two-year investigation, which has now culminated in the arrest of nine people on charges of trafficking in endangered animals. The tiger cub remains in the care of the French Office for Biodiversity.

Finally for now, commuters at Barcelona's Plaça Espanya underground station looked on as two platform guards engaged in fisticuffs. One of the security guards pinned the other to the ground before taking several punches to the face and himself being overpowered. Members of the public captured much of the fracas at the metro station on video, including comments that equate to 'Get off me, you idiot! What are you doing, you dick-head?'
Both men have been suspended, according to a Barcelona Metropolitan Transport representative, and union leaders state that the man who went on the offensive had suffered a drop in blood-sugar levels just before he 'launched himself at his colleague and tried to strangle him', while the other man was acting in self-defence when he 'tried to free himself with his fists'.


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