NEWSQUIRKS

Curses, foiled again

Police believe Jamie Minor, 26, tried to break into the Austin, Texas, restaurant where she worked by crawling through an exhaust duct leading to the office. She apparently became trapped when the duct tapered into an opening she couldn’t fit through, and she couldn’t back up. Noting that Minor had been missing more than a month before a maintenance worker found her body, police Commander Julie O’Brien explained, “That area is located in a part of the building where it’s not readily accessible to anyone, so noises inside of the duct work couldn’t be heard.” (Associated Press)

Big-bang theory

Sean Michael Ogden, 19, bought some fireworks in Durango, Colo., but then “decided the fireworks he purchased were too small,” fire marshal Tom Kaufman said. After searching the Internet for directions on how to blend smaller fireworks to make big fireworks, he put the fireworks in an electric coffee grinder. Kaufman said friction from the coffee grinder ignited the mixture, causing an explosion that shook houses a quarter-mile away. Ogden suffered severe burns and was hospitalized in “fair” condition. (Durango Herald)

Encore!

Kipp Rusty Walker, 19, was playing keyboard for a dozen people at a coffee house in Bend, Ore., when he stood up and began stabbing himself in the chest with a double-edged blade knife. “It was really unclear at first what was even happening,” Rhonda Ealy, coowner of the Strictly Organic Coffee Company, said.

“You know it is an open mic, and it’s a performance. People at first thought it was some sort of theater.” (Bend’s KTVZ-TV)

Rubber-dubber

The European Union endorsed a wonder-condom that promises not only protection, but also firmer erections and better sexual performance. The British company Futura Medical said gel in the tip of its CSD500 condom, sold under the Durex brand, dilates the arteries and increases blood flow to the penis, enhancing erections. Futura added that a clinical study showed both men and women believed the condom also increased penis size. (Reuters)

Litterbuggery

Firefighters were called in Fond du Lac, Wis., after Earr Stokes, 20, got his hand stuck in a car’s gas tank while trying to retrieve a Snickers candy bar someone had unwrapped and jammed in the tank. Capt. Tony Knecht said rescuers had to cut the filler pipe while a firefighter kneeled nearby with a hose in case a spark ignited the fuel tank. Firefighters were then able to access the backside of the gas tank opening and release Stokes’s bruised fingers. (Fond du Lac Reporter)

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