The managers of a cannoli outlet in Philadelphia reported 'We were so excited that the potholes in front of the bakery were finally addressed today' after a two-year delay, but the excitement didn't end there. Ten minutes after the work crew's departure, a public bus rolled up, despite closed-road signs. Not accepting the delay a detour would have entailed, two passengers stepped off and moved the barriers around the area of wet cement. Yes, the bus ended up wheel-spinning and was stuck until a towing vehicle arrived hours later. And Termini Brothers Bakery has to wait for road repairs once again.
Members of the squid-farming industry have called Narragansett, Rhode Island, the pulse of regional operations. A recent transport mishap there could therefore be equated to a ruptured major artery: a lorry driver with a full load of processing-bound squid failed to turn where the motorway did. For nearly eight hours, clean-up crews struggled to scrape up 20+ tons of rapidly decaying squid as 27°C temperatures began baking cephalopods onto the roadway. In the end, the fire department brought in mechanical loaders to assist as residents grew increasingly vocal about the pervasive stench of dead sea life.
In a rather different interaction between animals and transport, a sheep escaped from its pasture in Coesfeld, Germany. It wandered onto bus company RVM's property in Lüdinghause and onto a parked bus, which then went through an automatic giant car wash while ensconced in the footwell of a four-seat space. The ovine outing ended when the vehicle's driver stepped aboard to perform a pre-route walk-through to check for litter. Thanks to an ear tag, RVM staff were able to summon Stefan Naber to transport the wayward animal back to his ranch, by trailer rather than by bus.
Garbed in Darth Vader gear, a member of the public approached the podium at August's San Diego City Council meeting to support a proposal to install surveillance cameras city-wide. He justified the cost to the Public Safety Committee thus: 'We do not need parks. We do not need libraries. We do not need day-care centres. We do not need homeless shelters. All we need is money for our stormtroopers.' After all, continued Lord Vader, 'this council was elected to serve the police, not the public'. Arguing that funding an advanced Flock-camera network is necessary 'so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium', the satirical Sith cited a further benefit too: 'I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend.'
Radio Caroline's 19 May edition of the Barry Marsh Show has been
ruled to have breached broadcasting rules, albeit inadvertently. A
worker performing maintenance on the studio computer found some
pre-recorded files and played them out of curiosity, without realising
that they were going out live. Listeners heard three announcements of
King Charles III's 'confirmed' death, followed by the national anthem
and 16 minutes of silence, while a remote presenter kept talking in
the belief that he was on the air. At some point, the culprit figured
out what had happened, then 'panicked and left the premises',
according to a report by media watchdog Ofcom, which investigated
after receiving two complaints about the Death of a Monarch
incident.
Though an apology was broadcast within half an hour, Ofcom issued a
reprimand to the volunteer-run station for having perpetrated 'very
significant inaccuracy with regard to a matter 'of very high public
interest' and not having corrected a significant mistake quickly.
Pre-recorded obituary files have been moved from the studio computer.
Upon being pulled over for inattentive driving on a busy motorway, a 29-year-old Glenvale, Australia, man told the Queensland police 'I know that was stupid, but I was hungry'. The man, on a provisional licence and in an unregistered vehicle, had been operating the steering wheel with his knees while buttering a bagel. He gains three demerit points and loses the equivalent of 620 euros for this offence.
When a 54-year-old woman collapsed outside an Auckland supermarket, a
fellow shopper performed chest compressions until paramedics could
restart her heart and convey her to hospital. A few days later, she
received a penalty notice for exceeding the location's 1.5-hour parking
limit: her car had been moved six hours after she was. Upon appeal of
the roughly 40-euro fine, third-party enforcer Smart Compliance deemed
the breach notice 'issued in accordance with the terms and conditions
advertised' but reduced the amount to approx. 15 euros in light of
'the circumstances'. The woman's father, Keith Wilkinson, explains
that she then paid the 'offensive' fee, to avoid further stress.
The supermarket's owner, Steve McClean, said that New World Orewa
had requested withdrawal of the notice, to no avail. Staff ended up
paying the amount into the woman's loyal-customer account.
On Tuesday evening in Los Angeles's Sini Valley, 36-year-old Bailee
Lynn Rios was driving her SUV in the wrong direction when she ran a
red light, then ran into a public bus. While rescue workers extracted
injured passengers and two corpses, swarms of news crews circled for a
closer look. The NBC helicopter in particular 'was just getting lower
and lower and lower and lower', according to Zareh Sevanesian, who
then saw it become a fireball in a car park. The photojournalist
aboard died mid-report, several vehicles were engulfed in flames, and
the demise of the pilot and a pedestrian brought the helicopter crash's
death toll above the bus crash's. There were plenty of
emergency-services personnel nearby at least.
NBC anchor Colleen Williams requested 'a couple of minutes' to
process the helicopter crash. The FAA is processing the chopper's
audio to work out what happened to the engine. And Rios, who survived
the carnage, is in the process of being investigated for murder.
Central Kentucky's Houstondale estate advertises itself as a small
farm where 'horses, history, and hospitality collide with the arts'.
During filming of the wedding portion of a holiday movie, it collided
also with the law: among the 30+ extras on hand was the state's former
governor, Matt Bevin. For several months, there had been an arrest
warrant out for him for contempt of court in a child-support case
brought by one of his four adopted sons. The 'featured extra' was
taken into custody and jailed without incident. This came after
multiple courtroom no-shows and one occasion of being busy with a
'large boulder' at one of his rental properties in Maine.
After Bevin's arrest, Judge Angela Johnson handed him a 60-day jail
sentence for contempt, explaining that 'you didn't turn yourself in,
you have done nothing to show the court that you are willing to act in
good faith, and I cannot reward that'. Bevin responded that Johnson is
'politically motivated'.
Matters grew interesting after 46-year-old mother Christina Clemens
rang the Polk County, Florida, authorities to accuse son Shane of
battery. At the family home, 22-year-old Shane explained to sheriff's
officers that things had grown sour in their relationship, which had
turned sexual once he'd turned 18. Under questioning, Christina
reportedly stated that they'd had sex 'only about 100 times'.
This does not excuse either party from charges of incest, and
Christina also stands accused of adultery. Her husband, meanwhile,
stated that he had wondered why the two would sometimes spend time in
the home's master bedroom with the door locked.
Unable to find and retain a job after university, Montana's Alan Smith moved back into his parents' home, where he spent most of his time at his computer. When his parents eventually asked him to find somewhere else to live, the 44-year-old Smith went away. He returned after 2-3 weeks and decided to be sociable by taking part in Sunday dinner in the dining room, where he proceeded to shoot everyone present, ages 7-92: his mother, four children, and three in-laws who had remained close to the others after a divorce. Then, a self-inflicted gunshot wound added a ninth body to the tally. Officers arriving in response to the 911 call placed by 12-year old Charlotte found the house ablaze.
Last month, Charles Foy was riding an e-scooter on a public road in
Cheshire while his two dogs matched his pace. When Foy spotted that
the police had spotted his illegal locomotion, he zoomed away, with
one of the dogs proving unable to keep up. That Labrador retriever
answered an officer's query 'Has he been a bad boy and left you?' by
leading the cops to Hoy. The 41-year-old bad boy was hiding
under insulation panels in the attic of his home in Runcorn.
He has now been convicted - for the second time this year - of
driving while disqualified and uninsured, failing to stop for the
police, and failure to provide a sample for drug testing.
The motorist in our next story likewise lacked a valid driving licence.
When pulled over near Carlisle at 1:45am for swerving a Vauxhall Meriva
between lanes and onto the hard shoulder, Anthony Hall, 50, explained
that his reasoning might have been influenced by four bottles of wine
he'd shared with his partner in Huddersfield before setting off for
Scotland in her car without permission. Hall also explained that,
although he'd gone blind about two years earlier, he'd been able to
follow the lights of a heavy-goods vehicle on the motorway.
A court has sentenced Hall to roughly one day in prison for each of
the 240 kilometres he drove in his bid to 'escape from a troubled
relationship'.
As a Porter Airlines flight taxied toward the runway at the British
Columbia airport, the flight crew and a flummoxed parent continued
protracted attempts to cajole a child into sitting down and buckling
up before takeoff. Passenger Aryeh Kozuch described the frightened
child 'hiding under [or standing atop] their seat - if they got forced
into being strapped in, they just kind of slid out underneath'.
Ultimately, the aircraft returned to the gate so that the child,
parent, and associated luggage could be removed.
This truly was an 'ultimately'; in the time it took to refile flight
plans and complete other paperwork, the runway reached its 12:30am
closure time. All passengers on the 132-seat plane had to find
accommodation in British Columbia and fly to Toronto the next day.
Thank you, Phil, for the semi-heartwarming story that rounds out this set of Clippings. Together, 30 inmates at Kansas's Norton Correctional Facility chipped in $3,810 in efforts to offset the roughly $6,000 owed by local families for the Norton community's school meals. Kansas Department of Corrections workers added $457 to the total. Accepting the donation, school-district superintendent Corey Roy described being moved by the prisoners reaching out to help 'a young person they don't even know'. Organisers explained that several of the contributors had vivid memories of hunger and had grown up amid food insecurity themselves.
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