Babies Out of Order: Amelia Spence, 29, gave birth in Glasgow, Scotland, in October to two babies, one just minutes before the other, but they were not twins. The apparently super-fertile Spence, though on contraceptive pills, conceived twice in a three-week period with eggs from successive monthly cycles (“superfetation”). In Cary, N.C., a woman gave […]
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Injudicious Judges
Pennsylvania Superior Court judge Michael Thomas Joyce, 58, was indicted in August for fraud in connection with $440,000 he received after his car was nudged (at 5 mph) in a 2001 accident. Joyce claimed that he was in such neck and back pain as to be prevented from certain activities such as holding a coffee […]
Cremation is no longer green enough
As an alternative to burial, cremation is no longer green enough, say environmentalists, because it releases smoke and mercury, and thus the industry is considering “promession,” in which the body is frozen in liquid nitrogen to minus-320 degrees (F) and then shaken until it disintegrates into powder. For green burials, the United States has at […]
The Entrepreneurial Spirit!
A price war broke out in November among chain stores in Britain, with Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda vying for the cheap-drunk customers, and at press time, Asda was leading by offering a low-end lager in multipacks for the equivalent of 46 cents a pint, which is less than colas or bottled water. For those Britons […]
Fine Points of the Law
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in October that attorney Michael Inglimo did not violate a state regulation that bars a lawyer from having sex “with a current client”: Inglimo had sex with a client’s girlfriend during a three-way session, but according to the judges, the regulation bans only direct sex with the client. (However, the […]
The Poor Dear!
A federal magistrate in Tampa, Fla., ordered a doctor’s appointment in October for the incarcerated Brian Wilcox, who is being detained on several child pornography charges, after he complained that he was suffering from a series of medical problems. He said that his back hurt from a 4-year-old injury; that he has problems with his […]
Least Competent People
The Providence (R.I.) Journal, reporting on a campaign by the area’s legal immigrants this summer to apply for citizenship, selected Juan Garcia, 54, as typical of the community. Garcia said he decided to apply after being encouraged by this year’s immigration-reform debate, adding that he had been in the United States legally since 1978, with […]
Recurring Themes
Ticketed for DWEC (Driving While Eating Cereal): Four people were injured in Houston in October when a driver failed to stop for a red light while eating a bowl of oatmeal and collided with a transit bus. (Three passengers were hurt, in addition to the motorist, and witnesses said oatmeal was found all over the […]
The Litigious Society
At press time, the top-notch Basketball Town recreational facility for kids in Rancho Cordova, Calif., was on the verge of closing permanently because its legal fees stood at about $100,000 and counting, for the lawsuit filed by a wheelchair-using man who said he was once prevented from attending a party there because the mezzanine level […]
Creme de la Weird
In Charlottesville, Va., in October, a judge found white-nationalist leader Kevin Strom not guilty of the sexual enticement of an 11-year-old girl, despite humiliating testimony from Strom’s wife. According to prosecutors, she (also a white-nationalist activist) had caught him at home naked, masturbating to photographs of nude women whose faces had been replaced by face […]
