(RENO GAZETTE JOURNAL) 20 February 2008:

From the Reno Gazette Journal:  “Thomas Ballard of Delhi, La., recently called a buddy to crow about his success while playing a video game on the Xbox.

‘I have killed them all!’ said the ecstatic 29-year-old during the late-night call.

Unfortunately for Ballard, he called the wrong number. The confused lady on the other line, who spied Ballard’s number via caller ID, rewarded his gaming efforts by calling the police.

The good news for Ballard is that police ultimately realized he didn’t actually kill real people. The bad news? While checking him out, police also found out he had a five-year-old warrant for cocaine possession.”

(DES MOINES REGISTER) 20 September 2007

A man was arrested after he hit his wife in the back of the head with an onion. James Izzolena, 54, of Des Moines, had been drinking, became upset with his wife, Nicole Izzolena, 27, and threw an onion at her during an argument on Wednesday, police said.

Police said James Izzolena admitted throwing the onion at his wife but said he didn’t mean to hit her.

His wife told police it made her head hurt.

(REUTERS UK) 17 July 2007:

An employment court ordered former Police frontman Sting and his wife Trudie Styler to pay approximately $51K compensation for wrongful termination and found them guilty of sexual discrimination.

Jane Martin, who cooked for Sting and his family at their country estate in England, filed a claim in July last year saying she had been fired by Styler after revealing she was pregnant.

The couple plans to appeal.

(REUTERS) 19 March 2007:

An Australian policewoman, in order to cheer up her boyfriend, sent him a photograph of herself with her shirt unbuttoned, secondary sexual characteristics promintently on display, taken with her cell phone camera.  Boyfriend then then forwarded this on and it has been buzzing around the police email system ever since.

This is of course an offense under various rules, including sexual harrassment and inappropriate use of police resources.

Police have announced that they are looking into the matter and the photograph. In detail in fact, if not intently.

(REUTERS) 9 March 2007:

A German man decided to settle his imminent divorce by chainsawing a family home in two and making off with his half in a forklift truck.

“The man said he was just taking his due,” said a police spokesman. “But I don’t think his wife was too pleased.”

After finishing the job, the man picked up his half with the forklift truck and drove to his brother’s house where he has since been staying.

(SACRAMENTO BEE) 9 March 2007:

California resident Renee Honnold reportedly drove her son to a fight with another child and then reportedly cheered her son on as he pounded his smaller opponent. She also allegedly told another mother to mind her own business as that woman attempted to break up the fight — all the action being caught on video by another student. Police took the video as evidence.

Folsom police arrested Renee Ann Honnold, 37, at her home on March 8. Honnold was booked into Sacramento County jail on suspicion of endangering the life or health of a child and criminal conspiracy, both felonies. She also was booked on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a misdemeanor. Her son was cited on suspicion of misdemeanor battery.

Both boys have been suspended from school for five days, said Officer Kurt Knudsen, spokesman for the Folsom Police Department.

“In my eight years I have never seen anything like this,” Knudsen said.

(REUTERS) 29 August 2006:

One of the great problems of Russia is the constant requirement to pay bribes, at low levels as well as high. Most notorious is the GAI, the traffic police.  These cops will not only accept a bribe to let off an offender, even of the more serious type, like drunk driving, but they are known to pull over drivers for the express purpose of taking a bribe. There is even a law that cars must not be too dirty to aid them in their fleecing of the populace.

Officals in Volgograd have decided that enough is enough and they are going to change things. As women are considered to be less corrupt than men, they have created an all woman traffic department. As yet there have been no reports of drivers carrying flowers or perfume to deal with the new situation.

(LOCAL6.COM) 8 August 2006:

Chris Goflin chased down a man who groped his wife and 8-year-old daughter in a supermarket. First, he followed him in a mini-van, then tackled him on a golf course and held him down until police arrived. It’s unclear if the rest of the family was in the mini-van to witness the chase.

While police don’t encourage citizens to fight crime, it’s refreshing to see an ordinary man use an appropriate response to protect his family. Chivalrous, even.

Who needs sappy J-Lo and Julia Roberts romances when there’s a Chris Goflin in the world?

(REUTERS) 4 August 2006:

While men and women are indeed different we are also really rather similar. Part of the same species, (and there are those who trace many of our misunderstandings to this fact) thus subject to many of the same driving forces and urges. The actual expression of those urges might be a little different though, as it can be for sex itself. Like the German woman whose husband had not been living up to his marital obligations over a period of months. She woke him in the middle of the night to demand that he did and when again refused, she called the police. Difficult to imagine a man doing that. Whining, pleading, investing in a bottle of champagne, yes, but calling the police?

(REUTERS) 2 August 06:

Police in Brazil’s remote Amazon state of Rondonia have arrested a man who had 666 rough diamonds stashed in his underpants.

The 38-year-old man was stopped by cops during a regular road check.   When the police noticed he seemed nervous, they searched the man and found $200K worth of diamonds in his boxers.

So, are those diamonds in your pants or are you just happy to see me?