Weekly Daily Brickbats Archive 2009 May 1-31

Social workers have taken the children of 26-year-old recovering heroin addict and placed them for adoption, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail. This comes despite the woman's attempts to have her parents care for their children. The parents want to take custody of the boy and girl, but social workers won't let them, citing their age and health. The man is 59 and has angina; the woman is 46 and has diabetes.

The New York City Housing Authority has banned Boston terriers from housing projects. The dogs weigh only about 10 pounds on average, but they are one of about 30 breeds the housing authority considers dangerous. The authority's new dog policy also reduced the maximum weight of dogs that residents may keep to 25 pounds from 40.

Joshua Shawn Beaver says two boys riding a school bus "flipped him off," so he followed the bus to East Bank Middle School in Charleston, West Virginia. He asked the bus driver if he could come on board and identify the boy. The bus driver let him on, and Beaver allegedly "smacked" a 14-year-old boy. Beaver has been charged with felony assault of a child near a school. School officials said the driver should not have let Beaver on the bus.

Michael Brandon bought the contents of a Denver storage unit at an auction. He didn't know what was in there, but when he opened it up, he didn't expect to find hundreds of U.S. passports, Social Security cards, birth certificates, and driver's licenses, as well as records from a local hospital. He packed it all up, took it to the nearest police station and tried to turn it in. But the officer who met him told him they weren't interested and advised him to throw everything away. Only after he took the documents to the local media did police express any interest in the contents of the storage unit.

In Italy, more than 100 people, including police officers, are being investigated for allegedly rigging traffic cameras to increase the number of fines. The amber lights were apparently set to change after three seconds instead of the required five or six. Thousands of drivers issued tickets from the cameras are expected to ask for compensation.