by Curses, Foiled Again
Dorothy McGurk, 43, was receiving $850 a month in alimony by claiming she was disabled and couldn’t work. Then ex-husband Brian McGurk discovered a blog showing the New York City woman belly dancing, as well as other Internet postings in which she wrote about dancing vigorously for several hours every day. He took her to court. Dorothy McGurk insisted the dancing was physical therapy, but the judge reduced her payments to $400 a month. (Associated Press) A 67-year-old Italian man who received $85,000 in disability benefits by claiming to be blind was arrested outside Naples when police caught him driving a car. The officers pulled him over in a random traffic stop and initially fined him for not having his license with him, but when they entered his name into their database, it showed up on a list of people suspected of disability fraud. (Italy’s ANSA news agency)
Don’t Like
Michigan authorities charged Richard Leon Barton Jr., 34, with polygamy after his first wife, living in Rhode Island, became suspicious because he unfriended her on Facebook.
The woman told police she married Barton in 2004 after the two met online, but he was arrested for parole violation in Michigan and imprisoned there until October 2009. He remained in that state. After he unfriended her, she searched online and found her husband’s wedding photos with a Grand Rapids woman on the pages of Barton’s friends and family. (The Grand Rapids Press)
Stand-Off
A 55-year-old woman and her daughter returned to their home in Portland, Ore., and heard a man’s voice coming from the bathroom. She yelled that she was calling the police, and he said he was doing the same. The intruder identified himself as Timothy James Chapek, 24, and told the dispatcher he’d broken into the house and was taking a shower when the owner came home. He said she had two barking German shepherds and that he feared she might also have a gun. Police arrested him without incident. (The Oregonian)
Don’t Have a Cow, Man
A man wearing a cow costume stole 26 gallons of milk, retail value $92, from a Wal-Mart store in Stafford County, Va. He was observed crawling out of the store, imitating a cow. Witnesses said the man handed the milk to passersby, then rose up on two feet and was last seen “skipping down the sidewalk,” according to sheriff’s official Bill Kennedy. A deputy responding to a call of a disturbance at a nearby McDonald’s spotted a man, not wearing a cow suit, who seemed to match the thief’s description. The deputy found a cow suit in the man’s car and charged Jonathan Payton, 18, with a misdemeanor. “I suspect it was a prank that went too far,” Kennedy said. “It would have been funny if he hadn’t taken the milk.” (Manassas News & Messenger)
Sex Is Its Own Punishment
Chicago police said prostitute Ashley Nicole Steele, 21, was with client Derrick Gray, 40, and another person, identified as a witness, at Gray’s home when a woman began pounding on the front door and screaming at Gray. According to court records, Gray got dressed and went to the door. Steele grabbed a handgun from a table and followed. The woman at the door said Gray had given her herpes and showed Steele text messages he sent her, apologizing for giving her a sexually transmitted disease. Steele then shot Gray in the head, body and arms, prosecutors said after charging her with first-degree murder. (Chicago Sun-Times)
My Bad
Houston police said Gboweh Dickson George, 32, fired several rounds into an apartment, killing an 11-year-old boy and injuring two members of his family. Other family members said George hopped over the balcony, entered the home, looked around and announced, “I have the wrong house.” (Houston’s KHOU-TV)
Space-Age Medicine
Authorities in Mower County, Minn., accused water-softener salesman Ronald Renken, 66, of swindling an elderly couple out of $6,300 by claiming he could make laser beams from a satellite cure the man’s diabetes, plus clean their well of lead and iron. “The real tragic part is he also told this man to quit using his medications, that he was cured, and that obviously wasn’t the case,” Sheriff Terese Amazi said. (Mason City, Iowa’s KIMT-TV)
Homeland Insecurity
The government reported that 247 people on its official terror watch list legally bought firearms in 2010 after submitting to required background checks. About the same number of people suspected of having ties to terrorism also successfully bought guns in 2009. (Associated Press)
Problem Solved
Changing diets for cows and sheep might reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, according to research funded by Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Feeding the animals highsugar grasses, for example, could reduce the animals’ methane emissions by 20 percent for every kilogram of weight gain, and naked oats could reduce methane emissions from sheep by 33 percent. Burping and farting cows and sheep account for nearly 9 percent of all British greenhouse gas emissions. (Reuters)
To help Workforce Central Florida raise awareness of its services, the federally funded jobs agency created a cartoon character named Dr. Evil Unemployment and spent more than $14,000 on 6,000 satiny superhero capes to distribute to jobless residents who became a fan on its Facebook page, took a Facebook quiz or had their photo taken with a foam cutout of Dr. Evil Unemployment. “Everyone is a superhero in the fight against unemployment,” agency vice president Kimberly Sullivan declared before public ridicule ended the program but after the money was spent. (Orlando Sentinel)
Ready to Rumble
When a 73-year-old school crossing guard in Lansing, Mich., tried to break up a fight between a 6-year-old boy and his 7-yearold classmate, the parents of the 6-year-old attacked him. James Thompson wound up with a broken tooth, and police charged Shareka McKinney, 29, and Darell Livingston, 26, with assault and battery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Before Thompson stepped in, the 6-year-old threw a punch that knocked the other boy to the ground. (Lansing State Journal)
News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.
