'Tis the season for indulgence, so we begin with this:
Seoul's Eastern Dongbu District Court has found a 26-year-old man
guilty of violating the Korean Military Service Act in efforts to get
declared unfit for duty. To avoid boot camp and skirt other service
obligations, he had embarked on a binge-eating and water-guzzling
regime designed by an acquaintance for raising his body-mass index
above the threshold of 35. From 83 kilos in 2017, the 169 cm man
reached 105 in 2022.
He received a suspended one-year prison sentence, and his
acquaintance was handed a suspended term of half that length.
TSA spokesman Daniel Velez declined to elaborate on how a Russian
woman lacking a boarding pass and valid travel documents managed to
forgo document checks at New York's JFK airport, bypass gate agents,
and evade other security mechanisms between her and a fully booked
trans-Atlantic flight. We do know that, with no seats free, the
50-something stowaway secreted herself in a toilet cubicle, then
alternated among lavatories - until a flight attendant noticed.
Upon arrival in Paris, the Delta pilot announced a delay for police
to 'sort out the extra passenger that's on the plane'. She was
returned to the United States, and the incident is under investigation.
Police officers and educators set out to catch the pervert who was
stealing children's shoes (only of light indoor designs, 21 in all)
![[IMG: the culprit - a weasel with a shoe]](images/shoefetish.png)
from the cubbyholes beside the door of a kindergarten in Japan's
Fukuoka prefecture. With a raft of security cameras, they identified
the culprit: a weasel, holding tiny footwear in its mouth. Deputy
Police Chief Hiroaki Inada concluded 'it's great it turned out not to
be a human being', and the children too ended up laughing and smiling.
Though the weasel remains at large, a protective net draped over
the storage unit now keeps the shoes safe from harm.
A ![[IMG: hapless elephant]](images/hollowpachy.png)
bit more animal action:
Miami Beach is playing host to a touring exhibition of sculptures that
includes several life-sized elephants fashioned by an artists' commune
in India from the wood of an invasive weed. One of the elephant
statues ended up playing host, in turn, to an invasive couple riding
atop it in what a security guard called 'loud sex'. Shining his torch
upon the action on the pachyderm's back and threatening the pair with
arrest brought an end to proceedings.
Daisy Link, a 29-year-old woman awaiting trial for murdering her
boyfriend, was feeling frisky after years at Florida's Turner Guilford
Knight Correctional Center. So, via the air vents above the jail's
toilets, she struck up romantic conversation with Joan Depaz, 23,
another inmate, recently identified as likewise charged with murder.
The two soon were sharing photos through the air system - and more.
After Depaz shared his dream of becoming a father: he shared a
clingfilm-wrapped semen sample attached to a bed-linens rope. It took
just a few stabs with an applicator for anti-candida medicine, and DNA
tests confirmed that she was pregnant with his child.
Depaz was moved to a different jail, and his mother is now caring
for the baby.
Another prison-system celebrity is Shaurn Thomas, 50, whose wrongful conviction for murder was overturned after he'd spent 24 years in prison. Now, seven years after he was freed and granted $4.1 million by the City of Philadelphia, financial issues several orders of magnitude smaller are likely to see him cell-bound for the rest of his life: For a small resale task, the multimillionaire hired a man he'd met via an association for innocent people recognised as wrongfully imprisoned, 38-year-old Akeem Edwards. Thomas has admitted to fatally shooting Edwards last year for failing to pay for the goods: $1,200 worth of cocaine.
An elderly passenger in a car at Croatia's Gunja border crossing raised guards' ire, then suspicions, by failing to respond to their greetings, then to questions about the ID documents handed over by the driver. There was a good reason: the 83-year-old woman was dead, and her legal guardian, the Austrian man behind the wheel, had hoped to circumvent the bureaucratic procedure of formally repatriating her body to Austria. After a coroner was summoned to the scene, the man, 65, was arrested and charged with attempted smuggling of a corpse.
For an alternative approach to smuggling, we turn to California's Raj Matharu, whose cow onesie attracted the attention of the workers monitoring x-ray images of checked bags departing Los Angeles for Sydney, Australia. Opening his checked bags for a closer look revealed more than a dozen board-stiff clothing items covered in a white residue. Matharu, 31, had soaked his clothes in methamphetamine, impregnating them with more than a kilo of the drug. He has been arrested and faces one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
A ![[IMG: raised bus stop]](images/Bus_stop_stopped.jpg)
contractor hired to create bases for the plastic seats at a freshly
renovated bus stop in Samut Prakan, Thailand, had a less than concrete
idea of the task's particulars. So, with a large load of cement on
hand, they poured it throughout the seating area, leaving some seats
goo-encrusted and raising the entire platform to where passengers'
bottoms were intended to go. That is, ground level ended up at
buttock level. According to Nation Thailand, an online fuss by people
forced to sit on the ground while waiting for a bus has prompted the
firm to accept full responsibility and promise to rectify matters.
Let's wrap things up on a jolly holiday theme:
As street performers on the central square of Aguascalientes, Mexico,
posed for tourists' Christmas photos, the Grinch ended up being far
from the ugliest thing in their snapshots. When two characters'
argument over 'the best spot' and who was making more money escalated
to fisticuffs, several onlookers called the police. Officers led the
Grinch away and then handcuffed Santa, who had been bleeding on the
ground.
![[IMG: Grinch being grabbed]](images/Grinch_grabbing.jpg)
![[IMG: Santa being snatched]](images/Santa_snatching.jpg)