Post by upfromsumdirt on Jul 10, 2005 17:27:39 GMT -5
*all articles retrieved from newsoftheweird.com*
A sheriff's spokesman in Gastonia, N.C., said a local police officer, summoned to a hit-and-run scene, accidentally ran over the victim (though investigators later concluded that he was already dead) (June). In Fort Worth, Texas, an intoxicated woman involved in a collision got out of her car to investigate and was killed when a beer truck accidentally rammed one of the cars into her (and the truck driver, too, was found to be intoxicated) (January).
Gerardo Flores, 19, was convicted of murder in June in Lufkin, Texas, in the death of the 5-month-old fetus of his girlfriend, Erica Basoria. Flores admitted that he had stood on Basoria's stomach several times at her request to induce a miscarriage, but Basoria had told authorities that she had also punched herself in the stomach several times. Under Texas law, killing a fetus is a capital offense, and so Flores automatically received a life sentence, but Basoria could not be charged because of her constitutional right to abortion. [Washington Post-AP, 6-6-05]
(1) British entrepreneur Colin Dowse recently introduced Sprayonmud (about US$14 a quart), dirty water chemically treated for greater stickiness, mainly for urban SUV owners to pass themselves off as all-terrain adventurers. (2) The maker of Doggles (which for several years has sold sunglasses for dogs at about $25) now offers corrective-lens Doggles starting at $75, which veterinary ophthalmologists can prescribe as alternatives to $2,000 lens-replacement surgery, according to a March report by KMGH-TV in Denver. [Wired.com, 6-10-05] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 3-3-05]
London's Housing Market: Agence France Presse reported in May that an agency had just rented out a 54-square-foot apartment in Notting Hill (loft bed over a kitchenette, closet and shower) for the equivalent of US$1,065 a month. And in the Haringey Park neighborhood, developer Andrew Markey proposed to convert the kitchen and hallway of a house he owns into its own two-story townhouse (producing a living room 21 feet by 8 feet). Agents said such a house might go for the equivalent of US$325,000, but in June, the local council rejected his initial plans. [Agence France-Presse, 5-26-05] [ThisIsLondon.com, 6-6-05]
(1) Five Buddhist monks in Bangkok were defrocked in May after a street fight culminating years of hostility between two temples, according to a Reuters dispatch. Said one (who used brass knuckles), "When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So will I." (2) In May, a 1,500-pound camel named Poon, roaming around his home at the Mayle Farm in Shinnston, W.Va., decided to sit down on top of a woman who was painting a fence. No one could hear her muffled screams, but she managed to call 911 on her cell phone, and help arrived just as Poon had begun to bite her. [Reuters, 5-31-05] [WBOY-TV (Clarksburg, W.Va.), 5-20-05]
People Different From Us
In March, The Australian newspaper identified an upswing in the business of some beauticians who have responded to customers' desires to lighten the skin around their anuses. A beautician in Sydney said she had long been helping sex workers for that condition but that lately the clients are civilians trying to please boyfriends who are taken by how "clean and light" porno actresses seem. Said another beautician of the ingredient she uses, "I explain that it will give them eczema and (other problems), but they want it anyway." [The Australian, 3-23-05]
Least Competent Criminals
Easy Identifications: (1) Awiey "Chucky" Hernandez, 20, was arrested when he went to the 90th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, N.Y., to check on the status of a pal and inadvertently stood directly in front of his own "wanted" poster (on robbery and drug charges). The in-custody pal Hernandez had come to inquire about was Huquan "Guns" Gavin, 18, who appears with him on the poster. (2) Charles Cross Jr., was arrested on the street minutes after allegedly robbing a Fifth Third Bank in Louisville, Ky., in May, because he displayed the effects of having been looking directly into his stash bag at the moment the red-dye device exploded. [New York Post, 5-25-05] [WAVE-TV (Louisville), 5- 26-05]
A sheriff's spokesman in Gastonia, N.C., said a local police officer, summoned to a hit-and-run scene, accidentally ran over the victim (though investigators later concluded that he was already dead) (June). In Fort Worth, Texas, an intoxicated woman involved in a collision got out of her car to investigate and was killed when a beer truck accidentally rammed one of the cars into her (and the truck driver, too, was found to be intoxicated) (January).
Gerardo Flores, 19, was convicted of murder in June in Lufkin, Texas, in the death of the 5-month-old fetus of his girlfriend, Erica Basoria. Flores admitted that he had stood on Basoria's stomach several times at her request to induce a miscarriage, but Basoria had told authorities that she had also punched herself in the stomach several times. Under Texas law, killing a fetus is a capital offense, and so Flores automatically received a life sentence, but Basoria could not be charged because of her constitutional right to abortion. [Washington Post-AP, 6-6-05]
(1) British entrepreneur Colin Dowse recently introduced Sprayonmud (about US$14 a quart), dirty water chemically treated for greater stickiness, mainly for urban SUV owners to pass themselves off as all-terrain adventurers. (2) The maker of Doggles (which for several years has sold sunglasses for dogs at about $25) now offers corrective-lens Doggles starting at $75, which veterinary ophthalmologists can prescribe as alternatives to $2,000 lens-replacement surgery, according to a March report by KMGH-TV in Denver. [Wired.com, 6-10-05] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 3-3-05]
London's Housing Market: Agence France Presse reported in May that an agency had just rented out a 54-square-foot apartment in Notting Hill (loft bed over a kitchenette, closet and shower) for the equivalent of US$1,065 a month. And in the Haringey Park neighborhood, developer Andrew Markey proposed to convert the kitchen and hallway of a house he owns into its own two-story townhouse (producing a living room 21 feet by 8 feet). Agents said such a house might go for the equivalent of US$325,000, but in June, the local council rejected his initial plans. [Agence France-Presse, 5-26-05] [ThisIsLondon.com, 6-6-05]
(1) Five Buddhist monks in Bangkok were defrocked in May after a street fight culminating years of hostility between two temples, according to a Reuters dispatch. Said one (who used brass knuckles), "When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So will I." (2) In May, a 1,500-pound camel named Poon, roaming around his home at the Mayle Farm in Shinnston, W.Va., decided to sit down on top of a woman who was painting a fence. No one could hear her muffled screams, but she managed to call 911 on her cell phone, and help arrived just as Poon had begun to bite her. [Reuters, 5-31-05] [WBOY-TV (Clarksburg, W.Va.), 5-20-05]
People Different From Us
In March, The Australian newspaper identified an upswing in the business of some beauticians who have responded to customers' desires to lighten the skin around their anuses. A beautician in Sydney said she had long been helping sex workers for that condition but that lately the clients are civilians trying to please boyfriends who are taken by how "clean and light" porno actresses seem. Said another beautician of the ingredient she uses, "I explain that it will give them eczema and (other problems), but they want it anyway." [The Australian, 3-23-05]
Least Competent Criminals
Easy Identifications: (1) Awiey "Chucky" Hernandez, 20, was arrested when he went to the 90th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, N.Y., to check on the status of a pal and inadvertently stood directly in front of his own "wanted" poster (on robbery and drug charges). The in-custody pal Hernandez had come to inquire about was Huquan "Guns" Gavin, 18, who appears with him on the poster. (2) Charles Cross Jr., was arrested on the street minutes after allegedly robbing a Fifth Third Bank in Louisville, Ky., in May, because he displayed the effects of having been looking directly into his stash bag at the moment the red-dye device exploded. [New York Post, 5-25-05] [WAVE-TV (Louisville), 5- 26-05]
