Brickbats
In Newcastle-under-Lyme, England, the local council has introduced a mandatory recycling scheme that calls for residents to separate trash into nine bins, with different containers for paper, clothing, cardboard, garden waste, and household slop, among other categories. One woman told The Daily Telegraph that she and her neighbors have to find a place to put the large wheeled bins for garden waste even though they have no gardens. It now takes three trucks to pick up their recycling.
Brady Bendtsen, a student at Hampton High School in Pennsylvania, suffers from seizures. His family has an agreement with the school system that he can keep a mobile phone with him for medical emergencies. When an assistant principal tried to confiscate the phone, Bendtsen explained the arrangement to him, but the principal didn't listen. Instead he had police arrest Bendtsen, who then suffered a seizure as he was being taken from campus.
Police in Exeter, England, say some residents make life too easy for burglars. To prove it, they've burgled about 50 homes themselves. The police look for places with unlocked doors or open windows, slip inside, and put valuables in a bag for the owners to find.
JaDaimon Cole and his girlfriend were terrified when Dallas police officers ordered them out of their car at gunpoint. Sgt. Warren Mitchell described the stop as "an honest mistake." According to Mitchell, an officer typed in an N instead of an M when checking the license plate, and the computer indicated the car had been stolen. Cole was driving a 2005 Chrysler. The stolen car was a 1995 Chevrolet.
In York, England, a torrential rainfall caused the River Ouse to overflow. Three cars parked near the river bank were flooded, but as soon as the waters subsided parking enforcement officers slapped tickets on them. City officials say they'll waive the tickets if the owners can prove the cars were caught in the flood.
In Glasgow, Scotland, street preacher Shawn Holes has been fined £1,000 for saying homosexuals will go to hell.
Also in Scotland, during the run-up to the World Cup soccer tournament, the retail chain HMV removed banners reading "Anyone But England" after a police officer told managers the banners might be seen as promoting racial hatred.
After ThinkGeek ran a fake ad for unicorn meat on April Fool's Day, lawyers for the National Pork Board sent the website a 12-page cease-and-desist letter demanding that it stop marketing the product with the phrase "The New White Meat."
A few months ago, someone started placing scarves around trees and sign posts in West Cape May, New Jersey. The police want to find out who is doing it so they can get him or her to obtain the appropriate permits for decorating public spaces.