BRICKBATS

Lional Campell wants to know why Wayne County, Michigan, courts are forcing him to pay child support to his wife for a son that died 25 years ago. Campbell said he didn't question the payments sooner because he assumed they were for the boy's older brother. When he finally got around to checking, he was told they were for his younger son, who died at age 3. Court officials told he he was still paying because of surcharges for missed payments. But he has asked several times for audits to show exactly how much he still owes, and each audit has produced a different amount.

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has the names, addresses and other personal information on millions of drivers. And it's available for a price. A Dallas TV station found the state sold drivers' information to some 2,500 private investigators, towing companies, collections agencies and other businesses and agencies in 2012. Drivers can't keep the state from selling their information.

Edison, New Jersey, police officer Michael Dotro has been charged with five counts of attempted murder after allegedly setting fire to his captain's home while the man and his family slept inside. Dotro was reportedly upset after being ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation after receiving his 11th excessive force complaint in the past decade. Dotro, who has at least 16 total complaints against him, has also been accused of harassing a police department clerk and was reportedly one of the prime suspects in the theft of a police car in 2008.

Officials in Yavapai County, Arizona, have ordered David Smith to remove a 9-foot-tall statue of a gargoyle from his yard orcover the statue's genitalia. They say neighbors have complained about the statue's anatomy.

A Quebec Superior Court has ordered a man to pay child support to his ex-wife even though genetic testing has shown that three of her four children are not his. The man, who wasn't named in press accounts, demanded the testing when the couple separated in 2010. The tests showed their three daughters were not fathered him him. Only their son was his.

In Florida, the Hernando School Board unanimously voted last year to end the recognition of valedictorian and salutatorian in graduating high school classes. But they have only now realized that they did that. The school system's superintendent says he also just realized what they had done. The problem occurred when the board voted to accept a staff proposal to recognize top graduates with cum laude and summa cum laude honors. No one realized the proposal also included ending recognition of valedictorian and salutatorian. Several school board members say they will bring back those honors.

An internal investigation found that Clearwater, Florida, police Lt. Richard Crean improperly accessedthe Florida Driver and Vehicle Information Database 100 times over a two-year period. Crean's searches focused largely on women between the ages of 24 and 33 and included a local television reporter and the wives and daughters of fellow officers. The department has recommended the city demote him to sergeant and suspend him for five days.

A Russian judge has resigned after video showed him apparently sleeping during a trial. Judge Yevgeny Makhno later sentenced the defendant in that case to five years in a penal colony. Officials say that man will receive a new trial.

The school board in Saint-Jerome, Quebec, says staff at a local high school should not have strip searched students to find a missing cellphone. But they did not say if anyone would be disciplined for their actions.

In California, Arroyo High School principal Larry Smith singled out one student during an anti-bullying assembly and accused him of bullying another student. Specifically, in front of more than 400 other students, Smith accused the boy of circulating an inappropriate photograph of a female student. The boy immediately denied the charge. Smith later called another assembly and admitted he had been wrong and apologized. School officials refuse to say whether Smith will face any discipline.

Swaziland's Civil Aviation Authority has threatened to fine witches who fly their broomsticks higher than 150 meters. An official with the agency said broomsticks are covered by the same law that bans kites and toy helicopters from flying too high. A local newspaper said it wasn't clear if he was being serious.

When Keandre Varner found his principal's mug shot online, he posted it to Instagram, along with his opinion that she had been arrested for DUI. In fact, Jamille Miller-Brown, principal of Georgia's Riverdale High School, had been arrested for missing a court appearance on a speeding ticket. Miller-Brown summoned Varner to her office where she tried unsuccessfully to have a police officer arrest him Failing that, she suspended Varner for four days. That was later reduced to two days.

Police in Chestnuthill Township, Pennsylvania, have charged Larry Liero with disorderly conduct and open lewdness. Liero, a senior at Pleasant Valley High School, mooned two eighth graders. He faces up to one year in prison. School officials also suspended Liero and banned him from graduation ceremonies.

Video shows police firing weapons from a helicopter at a car they are pursuing through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Officers say they were pursuing drug dealer Marcio “The Mathematician” Pereira. Pereira was found dead in another car the following day, so they appear to have gotten him. But the video shows that many of the rounds they fired also struck nearby buildings.

Vermont state Sen. Peter Galbraith, D-Windham, spent hours questioning a fellow senator about a campaign finance bill. Finally, Senate Majority Leader Philip Baruth, D-Chittenden, had enough. He rose and cited Mason's Manual rule that no one can speak tediously and said, “I believe the senator has spoken tediously.” Sen. Richard Mazza, D-Grand Isle, was more blunt. “You're saying nothing,” he said to Galbraith. “No one's listening. Don't you get it.” Lt. Gov Phil Scott ultimately said he would not rule that Galbraith had spoken tediously. To do so, he said, would set a precedent.

Chinese officials have responded to a wave of Tibetans setting themselves on fire to protest the occupation of their country. They've arrested people they accuse of helping others set themselves of fire and seized more than 1,800 satellite TV dishes in an effort to keep news from spreading across Tibet.

Andrea Benitez didn't take it well when she didn't get the table she wanted or believed she'd been promised at a Mexico City restaurant. Unfortunately for the restaurant, she's the daughter of the federal attorney for consumer protection, Humberto Benitez Trevino. Just a few hours later, inspectors from his office showed up and closed the restaurant. Benitez Trevino has apologized for his daughter's actions and said he knew nothing about them. The government has launched an investigation.

Live and Let DieLuzerne County, Pennsylvania, Interim Sheriff John Robshaw says law enforcement officers and military personnel are the only individuals who should be allowed to have fully automatic weapons. So he has refused to sign any Class III weapons permits since he took office in 2012. Thomas F. Braddock Jr. is one of the people whose permit Robshaw has refused to sign for, blocking his attempt to buy a fully automatic weapon. He says the refusal won't keep him from acquiring the weapon he wants. It will just force him to go through a more lengthy and expensive legal process.

Ron Tuitt has been fired from his job as a second-grade teacher at a Paterson, New Jersey, elementary school for urinating in bottles during class and forcing students to take the bottles to the restroom and flush the contents. Court documents claim Tuitt did this at least three times a week between 2006 and 2011. Peter Tirri, president of the city's teachers union, defended Tuitt and said he was being unfairly treated because of his popularity with students.

It started with a group of high school students presenting a quilt they'd made as a gift to the Martinsville, West Virginia, city council. It ended with one council member accusing the students of racial insensitivity and reducing some of them to tears. Students from the Piedmont Governor's School made the quilt, and they were trying to explain how each of the squares represented their educational journey. But council woman Sharon Brooks-Hodge was fixated on a black figure on the quilt, calling it offensive to blacks and a "negative image." Even after students explained that it represented them at the start of their journey, she still insisted it was offensive. When questioned about her remarks by a local TV station, Hodge said "I am not one of your locally home grown house negroes. I don’t shuffle, I don’t tap dance, and I don’t take out the garbage."

A Turkish court has given classical pianist Fazil Say a 10-month suspended sentence for defaming Islam on Twitter. One of his tweets, for instance, mocked the rapid call to prayer at a local mosque, with Say asking if the announcer had a woman or an alcoholic drink he was in a hurry to get to.

In New York, an Albany High School teacher, who wasn't identified by local media, has been suspended after asking students to write a letter to a Nazi official arguing that Jews are evil. The assignment was given before the class was scheduled to read "Night," a memoir by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. District Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard apologized for the assignment, calling it insensitive but not malicious.

"I am the senator, you are the citizen. You need to be quiet." That was what North Carolina state Sen. Tommy Tucker, R-Waxhaw, said to Hal Tanner. Tanner had just asked for a recorded vote from the State and Local Goverment Committee on a bill that would shift public notification of local government actions to the Internet and away from newspapers. The committee had just had a voice vote on the bill, and Tucker, the committee's co-chairman, said it had passed. Tanner, publisher of the Goldsboro New-Argus, said the bill failed the voice vote and asked for a vote on the record. Tucker denied telling Tanner to shut up, though the remark was confirmed by others at the hearing.

Antonio Martinez was just walking between his home and the bakery his family owns in Vista, California, when a San Diego sheriff's deputy decided to stop him and ask him about a domestic violence incident. A neighbor tried to explain that Martinez has Down syndrome and wasn't doing anything wrong, but the deputy then pepper sprayed and struck Martinez with a baton. Deputies took him into custody for possible obstruction of justice. But they released him without filing charges.

When a single dad signed his daughter up for females-only swim lessons at Toronto's Dennis R. Timbrell Recreation Centre, he didn't realize just how seriously staff took that "females only" stuff. Chris, whose last name wasn't reported by local media, said that when the two arrived at the center he was informed he wouldnot be allowed to watch the lessons. He said that nothing on the city's website, where he'd signed up for the lessons, mentioned that. City aquatics director Anne Jackson said the females-only classes are designed to accomodate the "cultural and religious practices and requirements" of some residents. Don't worry, the city also offers males-only classes, and the mothers of boys who take them aren't allowed to watch.