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September 2019


29 September 2019

According to officers with Washington's Kennewick Police Department, a man rang them at 6am on a Sunday morning to report that his truck was being stolen. Surveillance video bore out 42-year-old William Kelley's account of a man riding past the 1992 Chevrolet pickup in question, then placing his bicycle in the bed of the vehicle and driving off, thanks to the keys being in the ignition. The CCTV footage also revealed something else: according to the police, Kelley 'was at the location because he was stealing items from a business across the street.' He was arrested for burglary and on an outstanding warrant. His getaway vehicle has not yet been found.

Two triplets were preparing food at the trio's Georgia home when one of them died. Kenneth Jernigan, 36 told the police that he hadn't meant to kill brother Kevin - he had intended only to hug him but had a kitchen knife in his hand at the time. The latter died of a knife wound to the chest. Corporal Matt Sitler, with the Columbus Police Department, stated that Kenneth's tale was not consistent with the evidence, and a murder trial has commenced accordingly.

Meanwhile in Nebraska, firefighters in Lincoln were summoned to a block of flats where a 19-year-old woman had been burning love letters from her ex-boyfriend. The woman, who has since received a ticket from the police for negligent burning, ended up causing about $4,000 in damage by falling asleep while the half-burned letters lay smouldering on the carpet, before awakening to the sound of smoke detectors beeping.

Long-time reader Jack has alerted me to the next item, also from Lincoln, where a police officer spotted a man drinking beer during an American football match - while reclining on the bonnet of a moving car. In his non-beer-clutching hand, 23-year-old Charlie Bush III held his mobile phone, capturing video footage of other sports fans.
When the vehicle was stopped at a red light, the police caught up with it. Bush was cited for riding on the outside of a vehicle and for possessing marijuana. Inside the car were 24-year-old Titus Williams, driving with an open container of alcohol and without a valid licence, and a passenger, who had his own open beer. All three of these experts at keeping a low profile had a warrant out for their arrest.

In a higher-profile news story, an 18-carat gold toilet was stolen from Blenheim Palace in an overnight burglary. Because this artwork, entitled 'America', was plumbed in for visitors' use, 'significant damage and flooding' resulted, according to the Thames Valley Police, who report that two people have been arrested so far in the probe, while the commode has proved more elusive.
Palace chief executive Dominic Hare, who might regret staff comments from last month that 'it's not going to be the easiest thing to nick', said: 'We hope that the wonderful work of our dear friend Maurizio Cattelan becomes immortalised by this stupid and pointless act.' Cattelan, in turn, said: 'I always liked heist movies and finally I'm in one of them.'

Corinne Jackson was fined for eating while driving past a roadside checkpoint in Kelowma, British Columbia. She recently told provincial judge Brian Burgess that she'd had both hands on the steering wheel while handling her bowl of spinach and chopsticks and that she had been travelling at 'no more than 10 km/h over'. This is in marked contrast to what RCMP officer Chris Neid, described: for the full 5-6 seconds of 'shovelling' witnessed, three fingers were on the wheel some of the time as Jackson balanced the bowl with her thumb and index finger.
Burgess handed out five times the normal fine for driving without due care and attention, and the 'egregious' crime has netted Jackson six penalty points also.

The Court of Appeal in Paris has upheld a ruling that a business traveller's death of a sex-induced heart attack involved a work-related accident. Security technician 'Xavier' died after engaging in adultery with a local woman at her house in the Loiret region.
The court stated that the law protects workers engaged in everyday activities throughout a business trip and concluded that sex is part of everyday life, 'like having a shower or a meal'. Xavier's employer, rail engineering company TSO, had contended that this particular liaison constituted an interruption to the work trip. They are liable for paying up to 80% of his salary to his children.

Cilla Carden is a Perth woman who has embraced veganism and, therefore, has not embraced her neighbours' embracing of an Australian tradition, the backyard barbecue. She has sued them for cooking meat and fish in their yard. 'I can't enjoy my backyard' she recently said on appeal to the Supreme Court of Australia, and she argued that the intent behind her neighbours' outdoor cooking is to anger her.
In response, Facebook-users have organised a community barbecue, to be held near Carden's home on 19 October, with thousands of people claiming that they will attend.

Alyssa Hatcher's boyfriend contacted authorities in Lake County, Florida, to report that the Hatcher, 17, had given a friend 'a lot of money' to kill her parents. Investigators determined that she had also paid someone else to perform this task earlier, without any luck. The amounts came via her parents' debit card, which had financed a cocaine purchase in addition. Upon Hatcher's arrest, she confessed. Her parents remain physically unharmed.

Jenna Evans and her fiance were on a high-speed train when it was set upon by bandits. To keep her engagement ring out of their clutches, she swallowed it with a nearby glassful of water. When waking from this dream, Evans found that the ring was still missing. 'Then I had to wake my fiance up and tell him that I had swallowed my engagement ring', she recounted later. Medics performed an endoscopy on the 29-year-old woman and found the diamond jewellery in her intestines, from which it later passed back into the light of day.

Last year, a 10-year-old girl picked up a sleeping baby at Amber Sweeney's in-home day-care centre in Wisconsin. She later told the police that she then accidentally dropped the little boy, Jaxon, causing him to hit his head on a stool and begin crying. According to Chippewa County District Attorney Wade Newell, the girl said she panicked 'and then she proceeded to stomp on the six-month-old's head' until he ceased crying. She placed the dead Jaxon back in his cot and went outside to play with the other children.
A homicide investigation led to the girl, who was being fostered by Sweeney, being sent to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute for enough counselling to be declared competent to stand trial. Her mother has now emerged and issued a plea for sufficient funds to release the girl so that she can pursue her dream of being a doctor. A recent report indicates that the girl's competency has regressed in her time at the facility's adult wing.

An Irish woman has shared her experience of car troubles. Identifying herself online as Mary, the woman explained that she visited a mechanic after a wing-mirror repair left the driver's seat unable to move back or forward. Mechanics at Dublin Automotive Services Ltd identified the problem with her Ford Fiesta, at a cost of 73 euros, but indicated that hygiene concerns left them unwilling to resolve it. Their notes identify the issue thus: 'Found dildo belonging to customer jammed in rails that the seat slides on.'

During a flying lesson, Max Sylvester's instructor slumped against him and could not be roused. When Sylvester therefore called Perth air traffic controllers on the radio, the ensuing conversation consisted of 'Do you know how to operate the aeroplane?', Sylvester's response 'This is my first lesson', and the tower instructing him on how to keep the Cessna level and become comfortable with the controls and the lay of the land. Twenty minutes after his mayday call, he landed safely while his wife and children anxiously looked on from the ground.
The instructor was rushed to hospital, and Air Australia International have granted Sylvester a 'first solo flight' certificate.

While out jogging in Florida, Todd Beavers spotted a wheelbarrow in a pile of rubbish and decided to claim it as his own. He didn't count on 54-year-old Curtis Miller also having his eye on it. Miller complained that he'd spied the pile first so should have first claim to the cart. Undeterred, Beavers started jogging back home with the wheelbarrow. When he arrived home, he found that Miller had followed him, with a samurai sword - this became evident when Miller attempted to slice him while trying to wrest the wheelbarrow from his grasp. Beavers pointed out the security cameras recording the altercation, so Miller left (he was arrested later).
The same cameras later captured a woman making off with the wheelbarrow. She stated that it had been stolen from her property during a jumble sale. A sheepish Beavers responded that he didn't really need it in the first place.

A case study in the British Medical Journal describes an Israeli woman in her late 60s who ate a large quantity of avocado dip at a wedding reception before detecting that it wasn't avocado but wasabi. She ignored a feeling of pressure in her chest until the next morning, when doctors determined that the pumping in one chamber of her heart had become disrupted. According to the report, beta-blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors restored her health to pre-wasabi condition.

Finally, the governor of Jindo County, Korea, decided to assist with International Coastal Cleanup Day efforts at south-west Jindo's sand beach - by dumping a load of rubbish there. The man in question, Lee Dong-jin, explained that '[w]e brought in waste styrofoam and other coastal trash gathered from nearby areas so the 600 participants could carry out clean-up activities'. He later apologised for this attempt to give environmental campaigners something to do and stressed that they had re-collected all of the rubbish, thereby eliminating any risk of 'secondary pollution'.


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