Curses, foiled again
When two men tried to rob a 69-year-old woman sitting in her car in South Daytona, Fla., one of them smashed a hole in her windshield with a semi-automatic handgun, but the weapon fell through the hole into the driver’s lap. Carol J. Costello grabbed the gun and pointed it at the suspect, who fled to his getaway vehicle. She copied down the license number before it pulled away. The gunman also dropped a cell phone, which had pictures of him that Costello identified, leading police to Raymond Lewis Shepard, 25. The second robber wasn’t named. (Orlando Sentinel)
Disaster response
In the aftermath of British Petroleum’s oil spew in the Gulf of Mexico (94 million to 184 million gallons – so far), a worker on the oil rig that caught fire and exploded, sparking the disaster, told a government panel investigating the accident that the general safety alarm was routinely kept on silent mode to avoid waking the crew with late-night sirens and emergency lights. “They did not want people woke up at 3 a.m. from false alarms,” chief electronics technician Mike Williams said. (New York Times)
Face jobs
Chinese companies are hiring white people to pose as employees or business partners to impress clients and officials. To have a few foreigners hanging around means a company has prestige, money and connections to do business abroad, according to Zhang Haihua, author of Think Like Chinese, who explains: “Because Western countries are so developed, people think they are more well off, so people think that if a company can hire foreigners, it must have a lot of money and have very important connections overseas. So when they really want to impress someone, they may roll out a foreigner.” Some companies hire Caucasians for a few hours a day to sit near a window where clients and customers can see them. The mostly male posers, typically out-of-work models and actors or English teachers, can earn as much as 2,000 yuan (about $300) for a day’s work, which requires them to be white, smile and look good in a suit. (CNN)
How democracy works
Debate in the Taiwanese legislature on how to review the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed by Taiwan and China opened with ruling and opposition lawmakers pushing and shoving each other, exchanging blows and throwing objects at each other, including garbage cans, tea cups and a timer. Two legislators wound up in the hospital, one with a broken rib. (The Taipei Times)
When guns are outlawed
An Ontario court sentenced David Birch, 25, to four months in jail for assaulting his ex-wife with poutine. The court heard that after the two argued at a business in Timmins, Birch dumped the poutine — French fries, gravy and cheese curds — over the woman’s head, then snatched her purse and fled. (Toronto Sun)
Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.
