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A 19-year-old man was arrested in Darwin, Australia, in August after he shoplifted a pornographic magazine and retreated to a public restroom in the Karama Shopping Centre. A security guard trailed him, joined by a police officer, but they decided to wait until he was finished before apprehending him. A 26-year-old man was convicted in […]

A 27-year-old woman was killed in Melvindale, Mich., while setting off Fourth of July fireworks when she failed to move her head out of the way after launching a 3-inch mortar bomb. A 55-year-old man in Fall River County, S.D., was killed in August when he accidentally shot himself in the stomach. According to police, […]

Officials of the Miss Ventura County (Calif.) pageant said in September that they are tired of waiting (now, two years) and would seek police help in getting the disqualified 2005 winner Hilary Gushwa to return her crown to them. Gushwa was ousted for being secretly married at the time, a violation of pageant rules. She […]

In August in Atlanta, televangelist Thomas Weeks was arrested for allegedly beating up and threatening to kill his estranged wife, televangelist Juanita Bynum, in a hotel parking lot before a bellman rescued her. (Weeks blamed Satan for the incident.) Pastor Walter Steen pleaded guilty in Detroit in August to tax fraud and was sentenced to […]

Questionable JudgmentsShoe designer Marc Jacobs recently crossed a frontier in fashion by introducing women’s high-heeled shoes with the “heel” in the front. Wrote London’s Daily Mail: “A chunky, 4-inch heel nestles horizontally just under the ball of the foot. Where you’d expect a heel, there is nothing but fresh air.” Models of the shoe are […]

This past summer, two capital-murder inmates (who might have been executed, regardless) were put to death after curious court policies failed them. Luther Williams’ execution was carried out in Alabama in August after the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to stop it, despite his plea that the state’s lethal injection procedure was unconstitutional. However, one month […]

In the northern Albanian countryside, about 40 women still practice an ancient tradition as “sworn virgins,” who are young females who renounce sex forever in exchange for being treated as men, according to an August Washington Post interview of Elvira Dones, an Albanian native who recently completed a documentary on the subject. The oath is […]

A particularly environmentally conscious Catholic priest in Suffolk, England, set up a confessional in August at a Greenpeace festival to permit parishioners to relieve their guilt over despoiling the Earth, according to a report in The Times of London. At the festival, however, the priest, Dom Anthony Sutch, also had to deal with the August […]

Convicted sex offender Paul D. Brunelle-Apley, 26, was arrested again, in Madison Township, Ohio, in September, when his attempt to make up with his 14-year-old girlfriend came to public attention. According to police, Brunelle-Apley was seeing another girl on the side (age 15), and in a display of remorse, he delivered flowers and a teddy […]

Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Small-time drug operators, thinking they are keeping a low profile, continue to have their hideouts inadvertently discovered by police. In June, a single-engine plane crash-landed outside a home near Baton Rouge, La., and responding police discovered marijuana plants in the yard. In September in Escatawpa, Miss., Curtiss Coleman, 53, attempting to […]