Curses, foiled again
Police arrested Christopher Lee Anson, 23, for robbing a bank in Cannon Falls, Minn., after an officer stopped him for speeding during his getaway. According to the Rochester Post-Bulletin, the officer started writing a ticket but heard the call about the robbery and asked Anson for his address to mail him the ticket, then sped off to the crime scene. When the officer saw the bank’s surveillance video, he recognized the robber as the man he’d stopped for speeding. Police found Anson at the address he provided.
Police arrested Lawrence Neal, 45, for pursesnatching in Eastpointe, Mich., after he was “captured by his own seat belt,” according to Detective Lt. Leo Borowsky. Noting that Neal used his turn signals throughout the chase, Borowsky said the suspect tried to bail out of his vehicle, got his right leg tangled in the seat belt and was dragged several hundred feet before the vehicle stopped. Neal suffered a broken leg.
Energy drain
The Energy Department wastes millions of dollars a year by failing to use thermostats that automatically dial back the temperature when nobody is around, according to an inspector general’s audit of 55 buildings at four department sites. The report said the department could save more than $11.5 million a year with setback controls that adjust the heating and air conditioning at night and on weekends. The New York Times noted that such thermostats are already installed in most locations but aren’t being used. Cathy Zoi, an assistant energy secretary, said that if the report could motivate officials to start using the thermostats, “then it’s fantastic.”
Monkey see, monkey do
Russell Gortzig, 13, was hospitalized with multiple burns in Deltona, Fla., after imitating a YouTube posting of a man in a banana suit lighting himself on fire. WESH.com reported that a friend siphoned gasoline from a riding lawnmower and poured it on Gortzig, who held a lighter away from him, but a combination of the spark and fumes caught his shorts on fire. Linda McCrea said YouTube is at least partially to blame for her son’s pain, although a representative of the video-sharing Web site said it takes in 20 hours of video every minute and is unable to screen postings in advance.
Odd ending
Ken Kitamura, 19, a student at Japan’s Osaka Institute of Technology, drowned in the Yodogawa River when the concrete canoe he was testing for a school project capsized. Mainichi Japan reported Kitamura wasn’t wearing a life jacket.
Tumbling tubbies
Bigger butts reduce hip fractures, according to Canadian researchers, who found added weight provides more cushioning when overeaters fall. Since 1985, hip fractures among women have declined 32 percent, 25 percent for men, Bill Leslie, a professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba, told the Toronto Star. The researchers stressed that obesity should not be regarded as a hip-protection strategy.
Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet.
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