Brickbats

Cornelius F. Salonis spent two months in a Minnesota jail on drug possession charges before lab tests showed the white powder police found in his car was deodorant. His attorney blamed a faulty field test.

In Denton County, Texas, a 13-year-old boy has been placed in juvenile detention on child pornography charges. A female classmate reportedly took nude photos of herself and sent them to his cell phone.

The British government is set to ban "happy hour" discounted drink promotions in bars, according to British press reports. It may also prohibit bars from offering women free or reduced-price drinks and require health warnings on alcoholic beverage containers. The moves are part of an effort to stop binge drinking.

Daytona Beach, Florida, has banned Santa Claus. City officials say they will fine shop owner Sheila LaBosco if she allows a man dressed as Santa to hand out candy canes on the sidewalk outside her store, since he would violate city laws against "animated signs."

Why did police seek former Orange County, California, Republican Party Chairman George Andrews for questioning? Someone overheard him at an auto repair shoptalking on his cell phone about the prospects for gun control policy under Barack Obama. That person reported him as a possible terrorist. Despite his very Anglo-sounding name, Andrews is of East Indian descent.

Utah has prohibited grocery stores and convenience stores from selling fruity alcoholic drinks. Package stores can still sell those drinks, but only if the labels show the alcohol content in capital letters.

Beaufort County, South Carolina, Council Member Laura Von Harten said she would vote against a proposal to rezone a local Catholic church so it can expand. She cited the Catholic Church's opposition to female priests and to "uterus rights." "I don't want to support anything that will perpetuate that," she told The Beaufort Gazette. "I just have to vote in favor of love not hate."

For hundreds of years, spas in Asia have used carp to eat the dead skin off their customers. It's supposedly relaxing and healthy. Tuyet Bui decided that the treatment might prove popular in her nail salon in Kent, Washington. And it did. Customers flocked in to have carp nibble their feet. But after just a few weeks, state regulators told her to stop the practice. They say state law requires all equipment used in pedicures to be sanitized. Bui changed the water between treatments. But "there is just no way to sanitize live fish," said a spokesman for the Department of Licensing.

Dutch police cited a 27-year-old man for smoking a joint in one of Amsterdam's famous coffee shops. Smoking pot is legal there, but the man, who was not identified by the local press, mixed the pot with tobacco before rolling the joint. That broke the Netherlands' ban on smoking tobacco in workplaces.