Second-Amendment follies
James Looney, 40, accidentally shot himself in the head while teaching firearms safety to his girlfriend in Imperial, Mo. Witnesses said Looney was demonstrating the different safety mechanisms on several guns and would put the gun to his head and ask his girlfriend if she thought the gun would fire, then pull the trigger. KSDK-TV reported the safety mechanism worked for the first two guns but not the third.

Safety seat
Police in Albertville, Ala., stopped Jackie Denise Knott, 37, for driving a minivan with a large cardboard box on top with her 13-year-old daughter inside. The Huntsville Times said Knott told officers the child was riding on top because “the box was too big to go inside the van, and she would be able to hold it down if she was inside the box.” She added the girl wasn’t in any danger because Knott had secured the box to the van with a coat hanger.

Crackdowns of the week
As part of their campaign against Western cultural influences, Iran’s morality police warned store owners not to use scantily clad or curvaceous female mannequins in their windows. According to the stateowned newspaper IRNA, the police also banned men from selling women’s underwear and shopkeepers from showing models wearing neckties or bow ties.

A gay bar in Elk Grove Village, Ill., began requiring cross-dressing patrons to show a valid governmentissued photo ID that matches their “gender presentation.” Peter Landorf, manager of Hunter’s Nightclub, told the Chicago Tribune the policy is aimed at preventing prostitution “that could cost me my license.” Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois said the rule could be discriminatory if it applies only to cross-dressers.

Case closed
After former Kansas radio executive Paul W. Lyle admitted in a Girard court to embezzling $88,000 to support an addiction to scratch-off lottery tickets, he learned he had won a lottery prize worth $96,000.

Sands of time
Responding to a 2007 United Nations study describing desertification as “the greatest environmental challenge of our times,” architect Magnus Larsson proposed building a 3,720-mile-long wall across the Sahara Desert. The wall would be made by injecting shifting sand dunes with bacteria that produce calcite, a kind of natural cement, to bond the sand grains together, turning them into sandstone. “The idea,” Larsson told BBC News, “is to stop the desert by using the desert itself.”

Petty crime of the week
Police in Carlisle, Pa., cited Richard J. Cantor, 56, for harassment after he reportedly flicked a toothpick on the sidewalk in front of another man’s home. The Patriot-News said the victim, Brian Taylor, 43, told police Cantor constantly does things to annoy him, in this case driving out of his way to flick the toothpick on Taylor’s sidewalk.

Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.