NEWSQUIRKS

Curses, foiled again

Police had little trouble identifying the masked woman who robbed a drugstore in Manchester, N.H. A witness reported seeing the suspect flee the store and get into a car with vanity plates that read “B-USHER.” Police arrested Bonnie Usher, 43, who was at her home with stolen money. (Boston’s WCVB-TV)

Overreactions

Ronald Miner, 30, told police in Lincoln, Neb., that his girlfriend, Tressa Amerson, 19, became upset because “she believed he ‘broke her car,’” according to a probable cause affidavit, and “grabbed a knife and attempted to cut the tattoo of her name off his neck.” An officer reported that a 2-by-2-inch “Tressa” tattoo appeared to have “two scratch marks that ran across the tattoo.” (The Smoking Gun)

A mole hill out of a mountain

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Hotel and Resort notified other businesses with “Mount Washington” in their name to cease and desist or face a legal challenge, even though the celebrated 6,288-foot peak’s name is stamped on everything from the local chamber of commerce to a towing company. Larry Magor, managing director of the 108-year-old hotel in Bretton Woods, insisted it’s trying to protect its identity, not patent the name. (Conway’s WMWV-FM)

Fruits of research

Four researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spent four years finding out how cats drink. “We did it without any funding,” said Roman Stocker, an associate professor at MIT’s department of civil and environmental engineering, who initiated the project. The team’s finding, reported in the journal Science, is that cats simultaneously overcome gravity and inertia by forming a ladle with their tongues and lapping liquid at the rate of four times a second to create an upward stream. (The Washington Post)

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