Brickbat
Jazmine Martin, 12, really enjoyed the Old West show her family saw during a vacation in South Dakota. She enjoyed it so much that she brought some empty blank shotgun shells that had been fired during the show with her to school one day for show and tell. Officials at her Des Moines school suspended her for one day for violating the school's weapon policy.
In Birmingham, Alabama, one elementary school girl was suspended for giving pills to some of her schoolmates and three other girls were suspended for taking them. The pills were Altoids mints.
Washington state Sen. Rosa Franklin (D-Tacoma) says poor children shouldn't be called "at risk" because the label is discouraging. She has proposed replacing all uses of that term in state law with the phrase "at hope."
Officials in Pennsylvania's Brownsville Area School District suspended a teacher for 30 days without pay after someone posted photos of a bridal shower she attended on Facebook. The teacher, whose name was not released, was shown in the same frame as a male stripper in some of the photographs. Those who have seen the pictures say the teacher was fully dressed and not doing anything inappropriate. But that didn't matter. The school system's attorney said the school board will not take any public comments on the suspension when it meets.
A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a 13-year-old girl to 90 lashes plus two months in jail after she was caught in school with a cell phone.
Florida lawmakers have asked the Department of Management Services to identify state-owned properties that could be sold. The department's first challenge? Finding about 18,000 government buildings. The state doesn't have a list of those buildings, so department officials have proposed hiring a private company to compile one.
When Las Vegas contractor Charlie Mitchener found that someone had broken into his office, he called the police. When an officer arrived, Mitchener informed her that he had a concealed weapon permit, showing it and his driver's license to her. The officer responded by handcuffing Mitchener, seizing his gun, and locking it in her patrol car, all before searching his office to make sure the burglar wasn't still there.
Cesar Rodriguez and José Pena spent five nights in a New York City jail because Rodriguez has a sweet tooth. Police found a baggie of what they thought was crack in the two men's work van. It turned out to be coconut candy. But it took several days for the cops to get around to testing it.
