Weird news - Man smuggling large number of turtles

Smuggles are known to try and smuggle anything of value across borders, with drugs being one of the most common and value enhancing smuggling activities, and the smuggling of people one of the most tragic smuggling cases (with numerous such activities resulting in the deaths of many of those being smuggled across). Rare and precious animal species also form a large part of such smuggling activities, such as in this case. One can only stop and wonder about how people are able to smuggle a large number of such animals with the expectation that they will be successful, with each smuggling trip making them more confident (till the time that they are caught). Imagine smuggling 41 turtles on your body (just the fact that the ones taped to your body would be squirming and moving would make it so squeamish and ticklish is enough to turn off most people when they think about this). (link to article)

In August 2014, Xu crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Detroit and was watched by U.S. agents as he picked up a package at a parcel center and appeared to transfer items before heading back to the border, according to a criminal complaint. When he passed back through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, Xu was stopped by Canadian Border Services, which found and seized 41 live turtles taped to his legs and 10 hidden between his legs, the complaint said. The day of his arrest, Xu packed more than 1,000 turtles into suitcases that he sent with a runner he had hired to fly them to Shanghai from Detroit, prosecutors said.

Weird news: Man did not get a sandwich, punches stewardness

The amount of anger and rage that is seen in society has been increasing for quite some time. This is also seen in the air, where the incidence of some sort of anger directed at other passengers or at the cabin crew has increased. At the same time, while in earlier decades, this was tolerated or not treated harshly, with the 2001 hijacking attacks at the World Trade Center, air security has been incredibly tightened up and tolerance for any kind of problems in the air has reduced significantly.
So, while earlier troubles would have been hushed up, now, at the sign of trouble, other passengers get involved; if there is an air warden on board, he or she would also get involved; and the pilot could make a quick unplanned landing at the earlier airport in order to deboard such a person; and the report from the pilot while requesting the landing would ensure that security was available at the airport to arrest the offending passenger (link to article):

An easyJet flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Rome after an infuriated passenger allegedly assaulted a flight stewardess ‘because he was waiting too long for a sandwich’. A male passenger on a flight travelling from Geneva to Pristina in Kosovo on Tuesday morning allegedly punched the female flight attendant and knocked her to the floor. A witness told the Mail Online he had shouted: “I’ve been waiting for hours, I’m hungry,” and claimed that he carried on hitting her while she was on the floor. The witness said fellow passengers quickly stepped in and restrained him.

Weird news - Family defy no-smoking warnings on plane, forced to get off

There was a time when smoking was considered fashionable, and there were very few restrictions on smoking. It was only in the past few decades that the health problems of smoking became clear, and the restrictions on smoking started growing. Of particular concern was the impact of smoking on those who did not smoke themselves, this being called as 'second hand smoking', and more restrictions implemented to ensure that people who did not smoke did not get affected by those who did so. As a result, there were more laws passed to ensure that if people did smoke, they were prevented from doing so in a way that the smoke would impact others; one of these was about ensuring that smoking is totally banned on planes.
Given the closed environment of an aircraft, there was no way to ensure second hand smoking prevention, unless smoking was totally banned on a flight. Now it is strictly enforced, and there are warning messages that come on in aircraft, calling out that people cannot even smoke in the bathrooms (and in fact, there would be smoke detectors meant to prevent people from smoking there). Combine this with the fact that in this age of aircraft security, any unrest or disturbance on a plane is treated as a security problem and if the situation gets out of hand, then the plane can even land and the concerned people handed over to security (link to news article):

A family of three -- a father, a mother, and a son -- were arrested after they refused to stop smoking inside a plane, forcing the aircraft to land in the island nation of Bermuda. The flight from Halifax in Canada to the Dominican Republic landed in Bermuda, and police boarded the plane and arrested the three passengers, the Daily Mail reported.

Such a diversion can be pretty bad for the schedule of everyone concerned, since this causes delay in the transit of everyone, and if the time takes longer, then people may even need to stay overnight.

Weird news - Fight between 2 Chinese on board Swiss flight forces it to turn back

When people book a ticket on a flight, their need can be very critical. They could be going to meet a sick relative on the deathbed, could be going for an important business meeting, or the flight could be part of a vacation. In such cases, the delay or cancellation of such a flight can be very tricky, and cold cause huge effort for the people involved. Such delays and cancellations also have impacts on airlines; it means impact on their customers, it means heavy new logistics including maybe having to arrange for food and lodging for the flying customers, means having to pay charges at the airport (could be the one from where the flight was delayed, or a different airport in case their flight was diverted), and extra fuel that any change in their flight plan can cause. And for these extra costs, they cannot get more from the passengers, and in fact, they face some loss of goodwill for any such thing.
On a flight, any nuisance is treated very severely (the captain of the flight has responsibility and authority over whoever is on the flight) and in many cases, disturbances creators can face trial and jail terms depending on what they had done. Given the problems that can happen, it seems strange that a flight had to get diverted because of some quarreling passengers. The quarrel must have been very intense and the crew would not have been able to get the passengers pacified; as a result, the Swiss International flight bound to Beijing had to return to Zurich. The passengers were then taken off and arrested by the police at Zurich after disembarking (link to article):

A mid-air brawl between two Chinese passengers onboard a Swiss International airplane disrupted the Beijing-bound flight and forced it to return to Zurich, where the duo were arrested. According to media reports, a 57-year-old Chinese man travelling on the flight last Sunday felt disturbed while eating his meal when the passenger in front of him , another Chinese citizen, aged 27 reclined his seat. The elderly person who was reportedly drunk, hit the younger passenger when he did not respond to his protests. A fight then broke out between the two, which caused one of the passengers to bleed, state-run China Daily reported.

Weird news - Mom phones police about son's disappearance, charged later with crime

It is always scary for a parent when they lose sight of their child or the child goes missing, especially when the child is of such a young age that he or she cannot take of themselves. A 3 year old child certainly cannot take care of themselves, and it is incumbent upon parents and guardians to take care of them, and if this does not happen and the child seems to be mis-treated, then the government steps and can take over the maintenance of the child. However, even this does not happen in some cases, after all the Government is not all knowing, with a dependence that the parents of the child will take care of their responsibility. The Government more depends on law and the fear of the law to ensure that parents take care of their responsibility, and when they find cases where a parent is responsible for a child suffering, or in tragic cases, where the parent is responsible for the death of the child.
In a recent case, the parent of a child (where the parents are separated) filed a complaint that the child was lost in a park and appeared distraught. The mother came to the police looking very distressed and got the police in action to look for the child and more people including volunteers got into the action. However, this is where things get stupid and tragic. When they were looking near the child's home, they saw a garbage truck leaving the home and followed the truck to the garbage handling facility where they found the child's body. As a result, the mother of the child was held, although there is no admission from her of guilt as yet (link to article):

A Cleveland woman has been arrested in the death of her 3-year-old son after police found what they believe is the body of the young boy at a waste-treatment plant, according to authorities. Cleveland police said Monday they're holding Camilia Terry, 20, at Cuyahoga County Jail to await charges in the death of her son, Emilliano Terry. "We come here with heavy hearts, I'm sure you understand. Today, at approximately 4 o'clock, a body of a small child matching the description of Emilliano Terry was discovered at a waste treatment plant in Oakwood Village," Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath said, according to ABC News affiliate WEWS-TV.

Weird news - Man cooks his wife's body for 4 days

Sometimes you run into cases where you wonder what a person is really like; how could the person do such a thing ? Was this the behavior of a sane person ? I mean, you can commit a crime in a moment of passion, but then to try to cover it up in an elaborate measure such as this guy took totally takes it out of the ordinary. For normal people, just spending time with a dead body can seem creepy, and he was this guy who did some much to get rid of a dead body and to cover up his crime. The interesting thing is that he was finally caught, going to show that more often than not, your crimes are detected and you can be caught (link to article):

A 49-year-old chef from Los Angeles faces life in prison for murder after he told police he boiled his wife's body for four days to hide the evidence, a media report said. According to the Daily Mirror, David Viens stuffed his wife's body in a 55-gallon drum of boiling water and kept it submerged with weights. In a recorded interrogation presented by prosecutors at the trial in Los Angeles, Viens was heard saying he cooked the body of his 39-year-old wife, Dawn, in 2009 until little was left but her skull.

Weird news - Using stupid tactics to get step-daughter to have sex

Incest, even with a step-child can be pretty disgusting to a lot of people. And when you combine that with trickery, things can get even worse. And add stupidity to the whole mix, and things get even worse. In this case, a police detective tried to con his step-daughter with a story that she would get blackmailed unless she had sex with him which was video-taped. She took the right decision and called the cops, who refused to believe anything he said and arrested him (link to article):

Robert Glen Levinson, 43, of South Dartmouth, Mass. reportedly told his 37-year-old stepdaughter that someone would mail naked photos of the woman to her boss if they didn't videotape themselves having sex within 24 hours. The stepdaughter, however, didn't believe the story and contacted the police immediately, according to The Standard-Times. Levinson was arrested on Aug. 31 and pleaded not guilty to domestic disorderly conduct on Friday. The judge ordered him to cease all contact with his stepdaughter, who lives in Middletown, R.I., according to the Providence Journal.

Weird news - Door to door magazine salesman exhibits shocking behavior

There is an increasing air of insecurity that shows up in today's world. Parents are more scared for their children, for the safety of the children, and so on. Gated communities keep on popping up in more cities, people are warned against strangers. Some of the common stories relate to not letting strangers into the house for any reason, with the fear that once they come into the house, some trouble could happen.
Consider the following weird story, where a door to door magazine seller came into the house and made a sales pitch which was astounding, and liable to get the seller a jail term; you would never think that a normal person would make such demands as the person was making (link to article):

The man, Jerad Michael (pictured at left), who was peddling magazine subscriptions, allegedly forced his way into a woman's home, and refused to leave unless the woman either "submitted to drug use and sexual activity" or bought what he was selling, reports TV Station WCYB in Bristol, Va.
The woman said that she bought the magazines and promptly called the police. Arnold was charged with common law robbery, and was booked under a $20,000 bond.

Weird news - Egyptian military did virginity tests on arrested female protesters

This is really weird. After the deposition of President Hosni Mubarak, the military took power with a promise to better things; but the military in the past has also been associated with the rule of Mubarak, and it did not make conditions any better after it took over and had been ruling for some time. This in turn brought protesters onto the street, something that was not liked by the ruling military and it decided to turn tough on the protesters and arrested and jailed some of them.
However, soon after the arrest, one of the arrested made an accusation that was horrific, claiming that they were administered a virginity test by the authorities, and that too without any female doctor or personnel being present. At that time, the military forcefully denied that any such thing was done, but now a senior office has claimed that the denied tests were done, but stated that it was fine to do such tests. In further comments, the general claimed that these were 'loose' girls, and were done to protect the forces from future claims by the protesters that the girls were not virgins.
This is horrific behavior, to first state that the morals of a girl were loose if she was a virgin, to actually conduct such tests as if this was a crime, and then to justify such tests. No wonder the military regime is facing more pressure (link to article):

A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities. The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.
The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities. "We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were (virgins)."

Weird news - Burglars rob a house, kill the witnesses (goldfish)

It is one of the most common conceptions, that goldfish have one of the shortest memories of all animals, with the memory level supposed to be that of a second. This is apparently a misconception, with the scientific belief being that goldfish can remember things for 3 months. However, when you combine this with the strongly held belief by some burglars that they need to get rid of all witnesses, the consequences were tragic for the goldfish.
Some teenagers robbed a house, and being young and enthusiastic, and having probably seen too many episodes of CSI, they were worried about being identified and caught, and hence decided to eliminate any possible witnesses to the crime, which in this case, were only some poor goldfish in the tank (link to article):

An Illinois teenager is facing residential burglary and cruelty to animals raps after killing a trio of potential witnesses to an Arlington Heights burglary - three goldfish. On 24 January, the unnamed 16-year-old and two accomplices, aged 15 and 17, targeted an apartment in a block which had been evacuated following a fire on 19 January. Police say they "pried open a door and stole a video game system, CD player, 30 video games, 30 DVDs, a BB gun, jewelry and a safe".
When the residents returned, they discovered "hot sauce, mustard, ketchup and spices had been poured into their fish tank and three goldfish floating at the top", the local Daily Herald reports.

An expert at staging crashes for insurance fraud

Insurance fraud is something that insurance companies have long fought against, having specific departments that fight against such fraud. These can be in terms of life insurance, car insurance, householder insurance, or other such frauds. To make these frauds happen, many innovative methods are tried, and insurance companies have to be always on the watch out. Then there are those people who are expert in the processes used by insurance companies, and help in committing these insurance frauds (link to article):

Mohammed Patel, 24, charged £500 a time to stage accidents which enabled fraudsters to claim an average of £17,000 from their insurers. Police said he staged at least 92 crashes between 2005 and 2008, each time persuading the other driver to believe they were at fault.
The plot was uncovered after workers in an office block became suspicious about a regular number of crashes taking place at a nearby roundabout.

Getting arrested for a Facebook poke

A Facebook poke is a pretty innocent event, with many of us even ignoring when somebody gives us a poke. However, when you combine the 'online' world with the real world, you end up in dangerous zones or questions that are only resolved by courts. Consider the case when a person has been warned by a court against communicating in any way with somebody else, and a facebook poke happens. Is this a violation of the court order, or will the 'poke' be seen as a continuation of the earlier activities that led to the restraint order ?
A court resolved this to some degree by finding the person in this case guilty of violating the restraining order, and was sent to jail with a bail set at $1500. Now, the person faces a possible jail sentence and a fine (link to article):

Beware: a Facebook poke could land you behind bars. Just ask Shannon D. Jackson of Hendersonville, Tennessee, who faces that very real possibility.
Jackson was arrested and transported to Sumner County Jail on September 25th with a bond set at $1,500 after she violated an order of protection by allegedly poking a woman on Facebook. The alleged poke broke the terms of the court order: “no telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner.”

Man dressed as his dead mother to continue claiming benefits

Fans of suspense movies might remember the movie 'Pyscho' and the character of Norman Bates. However, that character was dealing with murder, while in a recent arrest, a man was convicted of impersonating his dead mother in order to continue claiming her benefits (Social security, loans, state housing subsidies). Irene Prusik, the mother of Thomas Prusik Parkin, died in 2003, and he started dressing up as her when required, and sought the help of another accomplice in maintaining this charade. The interesting fact in this was that he was able to continue this for as long as 7 years before the law finally caught up with him (link to article):

A 49-year-old Brooklyn man faces up to 25 years' jail for allegedly dressing as his dead mother to scam $1m in benefits and loans, the New York Daily News reports. Thomas Prusik Parkin (pictured) adopted Irene Prusik's identify following her death in 2003, the Brooklyn district attorney's office claims. Dressed in "wig, makeup, nail polish and long, red dresses", he and alleged accomplice, 47-year-old Mhilton Rimolo - who posed as his nephew - managed to collect "$62,000 in Social Security payments and $65,000 in state rent subsidies".
The elaborate scam finally came to an end when Parkin was arrested after attempting to renew his mother's driving licence at the Brooklyn Department of Motor Vehicles. A security camera captured him and Rimolo red-handed (see pic). When he was cuffed on Monday, investigators presented Parkin with clear evidence he was not his mother, in the form of a photograph of her grave.

He will be facing a trial for grand larceny and forgery, and could face upto 25 years in jail.

Mom arrested for neglecting 555 pound baby

Being obese has its own health problems, with diabetes, heart problems, liver, back problems and numerous other problems. For the case of people who are very obese, the terms is called 'morbid obesity' and requires urgent medical attention in order to reduce the weight and improve health. In cases such as these, the health of the patient is supreme and may require forceful medical attention; when you balance that against the obligations of the parent, then there can be conflicts. Consider the case of this lady whose son now weighs 555 pounds, and she has not been getting him the attention that he requires (link to article):

South Carolina authorities have located a 555-pound teenager and his mother, who faces a charge of violating a custody order, police said Thursday. The mother is being held in a detention center and will be extradited to South Carolina on an outstanding warrant, he said. "The understanding was that the individual was of the weight where it was decided by medical authorities that he needed treatment that was not being provided for by his mother," Armstrong said. Earlier in the day officials said the boy "is possibly at a stage of critical health risk."
Gray was supposed to appear in family court Tuesday with her son and failed to do so, the sheriff's office said. During the family court hearing, the boy was ordered into state custody because of medical neglect, as well as his mother's failure to appear. The Department of Social Services then contacted the sheriff's office, authorities said.

For a teenager, the parents bear a lot of responsibility for their well being and need to take this condition seriously.

Woman about to be arrested fakes labour

When people are about to be caught for something they have been doing, or are in the process of being arrested, they will do anything to try to escape. Any excuse, any action, anything works. Police officers are pretty used to this excuse-making habit of people and in many cases have gotten immune; but, there is a basic decency in every person, and this lady tried to exploit this property in trying to escape being arrested:

A woman in America has discovered the hard way that faking going into labour doesn't help you escape arrest for shoplifting. The woman was arrested in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after police were called to a mall over a report of a woman stealing a keychain. They also found pain medication without a prescription in her purse, and so also arrested her on drug charges.
But while being arrested, the woman complained of birth pains and said she was going into labour. She was taken to a local hospital by ambulance.

And this was the point where there was a lot of surprise involved; not only was the lady not going into labour, she was not even pregnant. The police did not take this kindly, and added the extra cost of the ambulance and hospital efforts onto her arrest charge. The judge is also less likely to be amused.

Police find drunk mother has child at the wheel

Seems like a scary scenario; imagine the horror of police when they stop a car and find that the car is being driven by a drunk lady. Finding a drunk driver already is a bad offense because of the danger to other drivers on the road, as well as to the person driving the road. And when this happens in the case of lady who already has a suspended license because of a prior drunk driving offense, it gets even more worrisome. And to compound matters, there is a 1 year kid sitting on the mother's lap and steering with the other children in the back of the car:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A patrol officer stopped a car for suspicious driving and found to his surprise that a drunk mother had let her one-year-old son take the wheel, the Ohio state police department said Thursday. Marya Green, 29, of Goshen Township, near Cincinnati, was arrested late Tuesday and found to have a 0.11 percent blood alcohol level -- well above the 0.08 percent legal limit.
Green had put her infant son behind the steering wheel, while two other children aged eight and five were also traveling in the car, she added.

This was very dangerous, given that in the case of any impact, the infant would have taken the impact of the steering wheel, with the lives of the other children in the car also at risk.