At Pennsylvania State University, the Outing Club, founded in 1920, provided students with outdoor recreation opportunities such as hiking and camping. But no more. Penn State has announced that after this semester, the university will no longer allow the club to organize student-led trips because it is too dangerous out in the wilderness, according to the offices of Student Affairs and Risk Management. Two other outdoorsy clubs, the Nittany Grotto Caving Club and the Nittany Divers Scuba Club, have also been restricted from club activities outdoors. Michael Lacey, president of the Caving Club, told the Centre Daily Times: "Penn State's just been clamping down really hard on the nature of activities" since the Jerry Sandusky scandal. University spokesperson Lisa Powers said Penn State will offer school-sponsored outdoors trips, but students noted the cost will be much higher. [Centre Daily Times, 4/20/2018]

Unclear on the Concept

In a perhaps unintentional bid for the worst criminal disguise of 2018, Kerry Hammond Jr., 22, broke into a GameStop store in St. Marys, Georgia, at 1:19 a.m. on April 13, where he was captured on camera wearing a clear plastic wrapper (of the sort that holds bundles of bottled water) over his head. Even with the plastic "mask," WJXT reported, Hammond's face is clearly visible in surveillance video, and St. Marys police quickly identified him and captured him on April 17. Hammond already had two active felony warrants for his arrest for burglary and second-degree criminal damage to property. [WJXT, 4/16/2018]

Techno-Weird

In Tokyo, women who have qualms about living alone may soon have a new security option. "Man on the Curtain" is a prototype smartphone app that connects to a projector and throws a moving shadow of a man onto a closed window curtain. The shadow man can be doing any of several different activities, such as boxing, karate, vacuuming, playing guitar or getting dressed. Keiichi Nakamura, advertising manager of Leopalace21 Corp., an apartment management company where the idea originated, told Reuters that eventually his company would like to "commercialize it once we add variety, such as releasing a new video every day." [Reuters, 4/21/2018]

Fun-suckers

In Oslo, according to Reuters, tradition calls for recent high school graduates to participate in "Russ," a several-weeks-long party that includes drinking, nudity and public sex, sometimes resulting in fatal car crashes. So this year, the Public Roads Administration issued a statement on April 18 headlined "No to sex on roundabouts," warning that students should refrain from running naked and having sex on bridges and roundabouts, because such behavior gives drivers "too much of a surprise." Terje Moe Gustavsen, head of the administration, said: "Everyone understands that being in and around roundabouts is a traffic hazard. It may not be so dangerous for someone to be without clothes on the bridge, but drivers can ... completely forget that they are driving." [Reuters, 4/18/2018]

Bright Ideas

-- Resorting to a low-tech, but possibly offensive strategy, Largo, Florida, detectives visited a dead man at Sylvan Abbey Funeral Home in Clearwater and attempted to use his finger to unlock his smartphone. Linus F. Phillip, 30, was shot and killed by Largo police March 23 after he tried to drive away from an officer wanting to search him. As part of their investigation, police said they needed to access and preserve data on Phillip's phone. Legal experts generally agreed the detectives had not broken any laws, but Phillip's girlfriend, Victoria Armstrong, 28, was less forgiving: "Nobody even calling us ... to let us know detectives were coming there at all is very disturbing," she told the Tampa Bay Times. "I'm very skeptical of all funeral homes now." [Tampa Bay Times, 4/21/2018]

-- United Press International reports that in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the mayor has employed a clever way to keep his finger on the pulse of the city. When he goes out, he wears a fake beard so he'll blend in and not be recognized as the capital city's leader. Mayor Albek Ibraimov told Fergana, a Russian news agency: "I dress in old clothes ... take off my tie and I go and look, and see how things actually are." [United Press International, 4/20/2018]

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Over the last two years, Cameron County employee Gilberto Escamilla, 53, of Brownsville, Texas, has been accepting shipments of fajitas worth a total of $1.2 million at the Darrell B. Hester Juvenile Detention Center in Brownsville. The only trouble is, the inmates there aren't served fajitas. Escamilla had been ordering the meat from Labatt Food Service in Harlingen and intercepting it to resell. "It started small and got bigger and out of control," Escamilla told the court, according to The Brownsville Herald. On April 20, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to theft by a public servant. [The Brownsville Herald, 4/20/2018]

Oops

The Washington State Department of Transportation had to issue a mea culpa on the afternoon of April 17 after an electronic highway sign displayed the message "U SUCK" above Interstate 5 near Jovita. WSDOT called the sign "an inappropriate message" that appeared due to a training error and was "clearly a mistake," according to KCPQ TV. [Q13 FOX, 4/18/2018]

Bad Attitude

Timothy Hill, 67, of Grassington, North Yorkshire, England, having installed a laser jammer in his Range Rover, thought he was outsmarting law enforcement speed cameras. In fact, he was so sure of his scheme that he repeatedly raised his middle finger to the cameras -- sometimes casually, sometimes aggressively -- as he passed. What he didn't realize was that the laser jammer, rather than hiding his identity, was only blocking police from determining his speed, so when they tracked him down, he was charged not with speeding, but with perverting the course of justice. "If you want to attract our attention, repeatedly gesturing at police camera vans with your middle finger while you're driving a distinctive car fitted with a laser jammer is an excellent way to do it," Traffic Constable Andrew Forth told Metro News. Hill pleaded guilty on April 23, and was sentenced to eight months in jail and prohibited from driving for a year. [Metro News, 4/23/2018]

Least Competent Criminal

Kiana Wallace, 24, was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Belmont County, Ohio, on April 23 following her guilty plea for tampering with evidence. On probation after a drug possession sentence in 2017, Wallace failed a drug urine test when the "borrowed" sample she used tested positive for drugs. "Let me get this straight," Judge Frank Fregiato said in court, according to WTOV-TV. "To avoid the positive test with your own urine, you used someone else's urine, which turned out to be positive also. That's bizarre." [WTOV, 4/23/2018]

Inexplicable

-- On April 23, police officers in Warren, Michigan, responded to a home for a welfare check on 68-year-old George Curtis, whose relatives had become concerned because they hadn't heard from him. Curtis was, indeed, dead -- in fact, WJBK-TV reported, he had been deceased for months, maybe even a year. Also in the home: his girlfriend, who had continued living there with his decaying body, which was laid out in a bed. Police transported the unnamed woman to a hospital for a mental evaluation and are awaiting a report on cause of death from the medical examiner. [WJBK, 4/24/2018]

-- Meanwhile, on the South Side of Chicago, police responded to reports of an elderly woman pushing a dead body around the Chatham neighborhood in a shopping cart on April 21, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Officers took the woman to a hospital for a mental evaluation and launched an investigation into the female body, whose age and identity had not been determined at press time. [Chicago Sun-Times, 4/22/2018]

In Dorking, England, Chris Hepworth and his partner, Tanisha Prince, both of London, dove across the finish line in one minute and 37 seconds, setting a course record and capturing the coveted U.K. Wife Carrying championship on April 8. Any adult couple can compete in the contest -- married or not and regardless of gender -- which consists of one team member carrying the other, most using the "Estonian carry," with the "wife" upside-down, her legs over her partner's shoulders and gripping him around the waist from behind. About 40 pairs competed over the quarter-mile course strewn with hay bales and mud, Reuters reported. Hepworth and Prince plan to move on to the world finals in Finland. "I think a Finnish guy wins it every year," Hepworth noted, "so it'll be good to go there and take them down." [Reuters, 4/9/2018]

What's in a Name?

In Ohio in 2004, 6-year-old Alex Malarkey spent two months in a coma after a car accident, awaking as a quadriplegic and telling his family he had visited heaven, seeing angels and meeting Jesus. Alex and his dad, Kevin Malarkey, co-wrote a best-selling book in 2010, "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven," but in 2015, Alex admitted he had made up the story to get attention. "I did not die. I did not go to heaven," Alex told The Guardian. In a recent effort to set the record straight, Alex filed a complaint April 9 in DuPage County, Illinois, against the book's publisher, Tyndale House, alleging that "any reasonable person would have realized that it was highly unlikely that the content of the book was true." The Washington Post reported that while Kevin Malarkey is not a party to the suit -- which cites several Illinois statutes regarding the right to privacy, defamation, and financial exploitation of a person with a disability, among others -- it does allege that Alex's dad concocted and sold the story to Tyndale. The younger Malarkey did not receive any royalties from the sales of the book. [The Washington Post, 4/13/2018]

The Continuing Crisis

Richland Carrousel Park in Mansfield, Ohio, a family-oriented destination, just wanted to provide a seasonal attraction for kids who wanted to pose for a picture with the Easter Bunny. But Ladonna Hughett, 54, had other things in mind on March 24 when she plopped into the bunny's lap, grabbed him in inappropriate ways and made lewd comments, reported Fox 8 Cleveland. She then moved on to ride a horse on the carousel, also in ways witnesses described as lewd. "As soon as you think you hear all," said Mansfield Assistant Police Chief Keith Porch, "I've never heard of somebody performing those types of acts on the Easter Bunny." Hughett was arrested for public drunkenness and is no longer welcome at the amusement park. [Fox 8, 3/26/2018]

The Hypnotic Power of Special Sauce

McDonald's drive-thrus are a chill place to be, if three recent events are any indication. On March 17, police officers called to a McDonald's restaurant in Okeechobee, Florida, found Derril James Geller of West Palm Beach had passed out in his car while waiting in line. Geller was arrested for driving on a suspended license (a crime for which he had been charged three previous times). But that's just the tip of the ice cream cone: The Okeechobee News reported that in January, an Okeechobee woman was charged with DUI after passing out at a different area McDonald's drive-thru, and in December, a Texas man also received a DUI for nodding off in the line at that same McDonald's. [Okeechobee News, 3/21/2018]

Ewwwww!

-- Workers renovating the old Dayton's department store in downtown Minneapolis came across an unusual find in early April: the mummified remains of a monkey. The store apparently had a pet department in the 1960s, and The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported that Steven Laboe, who worked in the building in the early 2000s, heard stories of a monkey escaping into an air conditioning duct, where it may have met its fate in the form of an exhaust fan. In fact, the mummy does show an injury to the abdomen. "We continue to find pieces of history in the Dayton's project as we redevelop the building," Cailin Rogers, a spokeswoman for the redevelopment team, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. [Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, 4/10/2018; Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 4/12/2018]

-- At Bull City Burger and Brewery in Durham, North Carolina, April is Exotic Meat Month! This year, according to WTVD, the restaurant offered a tarantula challenge. Customers were invited to enter their name in a raffle, and if chosen could claim a $30 tarantula burger, which included a pasture-raised beef patty, gruyere cheese, spicy chili sauce -- and an oven-roasted zebra tarantula. Those who finished the burger received a commemorative "tarantula challenge" T-shirt. [WTVD, 4/13/2018]

Do Not Eat

1. An unnamed Chinese man "accidentally" swallowed a plastic and metal lighter 20 years ago. 2. He neglected to seek medical attention until recently, when he began experiencing stomach pains and other symptoms we'd rather not detail here. 3. In early April, using a camera inserted in the man's body to locate the lighter, doctors at Dujiangyan Medical Center in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, performed not one, but two surgeries to extract the item. The Global Times reported that the lighter had been severely corroded by gastric juices. [The Global Times, 4/16/2018]

My Weird Obsession

You may have read that the company that makes Necco Wafers announced in March that it would have to shut down in May unless a buyer was found. Since then, crazed Necco fans have been stockpiling candy. "Necco Wafers are up 150 percent," Candystore.com reported in a blog post. "A clear signal of panic-buying." Katie Samuels, 23, of Florida tried to strike a deal with Candystore.com, a wholesaler. "I offered to trade my 2003 Honda Accord for all of their stock," Samuels told the Boston Globe. "I don't have much right now, so I was like, 'I've got this car, and I want all that candy,' so maybe they would consider it." Candystore didn't accept her offer, but Samuels did buy 48 rolls of candy using her credit card. [The Boston Globe, 4/10/2018]

Oops

Officials in the city of Vordingborg, Denmark, planned the demolition of a 174-foot-tall silo months ahead of the event, but as onlookers cheered the explosion on April 6, the tower toppled in the wrong direction, landing on a waterfront library and music school. No injuries were reported, according to The Guardian, and the library interior, while covered with dust, sustained no serious damage. [The Guardian, 4/8/2018]

Picky, Picky

In Manchester, England, 75-year-old Peter Vipham of Rawtenstall, Lancashire, was shocked on April 11 when he was approached in the city center by two women who identified themselves as law enforcement. The officers told Vipham, a retired shoemaker, that he had been filmed littering when a small crumb of the pork pie he had been eating fell to the ground, and he flicked another crumb off his coat. Vipham offered to pick up the crumbs, but told Metro News he was not given the opportunity to view the video footage, and he refused to pay the fine. "If I had dropped litter I would pay the (50 pound) fine, but I would never drop litter. I am against litter 100 percent. I hate it," Vipham declared. A Manchester city council spokesperson said the city would review the evidence and contact Vipham to discuss his case. [Metro News, 4/15/2018]

On Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, a home rental agreement took an X-rated turn when Leah Bassett, artist and longtime resident of Aquinnah, unknowingly leased her home to an employee of Mile High Distribution Inc., a pornography production company. In September 2014, the Boston Globe reported, Joshua Spafford approached Bassett about renting her home from October through May 2015. In March 2015, Spafford informed Bassett he had left the house because he was fired, prompting Bassett to ask her parents to stop by and check it out. They were "shocked by the deplorable state of condition in which they found their daughter's personal residence," according to court documents. As "circumstances evolved," Bassett began reviewing internet sites maintained by Mile High, which "publicly boasted about their porn shoots on chic and tony Martha's Vineyard." Bassett filed suit in late March in U.S. District Court, alleging the sites featured photos showing her home, artwork and furnishings, "utilizing nearly every room of her home" including scenes on top of her dining room table, sofas and in her laundry room. Defense lawyer Stephen A. Roach said the suit "arose out of a basic landlord-tenant dispute." [Boston Globe, 3/28/2018]

Compelling Explanation

Fort Pierce, Florida, police pulled over a car on March 21 after observing it swerving down the roadway. As they approached, they smelled marijuana, and during the ensuing search, passenger Kennecia Posey, 26, was shocked -- shocked! -- when police found two bags in her purse: one containing marijuana, the other cocaine. WPLG TV reported that Posey admitted the marijuana was hers, but told officers: "I don't know anything about any cocaine. It's a windy day. It must have flown through the window and into my purse." Posey was charged with felony possession of cocaine and misdemeanor possession of marijuana. [WPLG, 4/6/2018]

Questionable Judgment

On March 20, the U.S. Marine Corps fired Navy Cpt. Loften Thornton, serving as a chaplain for the Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans, after Thornton was captured on video having sex with a woman on the street in front of the Crown & Anchor Pub, according to USA Today. Marine Reserve spokesman Lt. Col. Ted Wong said only that Thornton had been fired for "loss of trust and confidence." According to the Navy's strategic plan for religious ministry, chaplains "provide a source of comfort and refuge" to service members, which Thornton had apparently extended to members of the general public. [USA Today, 4/4/2018]

Dangerous Food

Some people don't like ham. When Beverly Burrough Harrison, 62, received a gift of ham from her family on Feb. 12, she waited until they left, then set it on fire and threw it in a trash can at the Bomar Inn in Athens, Alabama, where she was living. As smoke filled the room, AL.com reported, Harrison took her dog and left without alerting anyone to the fire. As a result, she was spared from being a victim of the ham bomb that blew out the front wall of the room when a can of butane fuel was ignited. Harrison was held at the Limestone County Jail on a felony arson charge and could face life in prison if convicted. [AL.com, 4/3/2018]

Failure to Communicate

Things went from bad to worse for soccer player Sanchez Watt during a match in Hertfordshire, England, on March 6. Awarded a yellow card, Watt was asked his name by referee Dean Hulme, who mistook "Watt" for "What." As Watt repeated his name over and over, the referee became perturbed and changed the yellow card to red for dissent, BBC Sport reported. Hulme rescinded the card when someone explained the mixup. "I think everybody found it amusing afterwards, including the referee," said team chairman Dave Boggins. "He was very apologetic." [BBC Sport, 3/7/2018]

Our Weird Addiction

On March 6, Royal Canadian Mounted Police participating in an awareness campaign set up several large electronic signs in North Vancouver, British Columbia, that warned drivers: "POLICE AHEAD -- STAY OFF YOUR PHONE." Despite that, within just two hours, officers ticketed 89 drivers, 74 of them for distracted driving, which results in a $368 fine, plus a $175 penalty payment on a first offense. "It is evident there is still more education and enforcement needed to make our roads safer," remarked Cpl. Richard De Jong to CTV News. [CTV News, 3/7/2018]

Disappointing

Organizers of the Big Cheese Festival in Brighton, England, on March 3 were forced to offer refunds to patrons after the event failed on several levels: 1. The festival ran out of cheese. 2. The promised "craft" beer was Bud Light and Stella Artois. 3. The wet weather prompted some to call the event #BigMudFestival and prevented some cheese-mongers and entertainment acts from making it to the site. "Sadly, due to this, a few compromises had to be made," festival organizers said. The BBC reported the festival has offered half-price tickets to next year's event for anyone who bought a ticket this year. [BBC, 3/5/2018]

Unclear on the Concept

-- Jonathan Rivera, 25, of Hartford, Connecticut, dutifully appeared in Hartford Superior Court March 7 to answer charges of stealing a car on Feb. 17. While he waited his turn, the Hartford Courant reported, parking authority agents outside the courthouse spotted a 2014 Subaru Legacy with license plates that had been reported as stolen. The car itself had also been stolen from Newington, Connecticut. Police waited for the driver to return and arrested Rivera as he started to drive away in the Subaru. He was charged with second-degree larceny and taking a car without the owner's permission. [Hartford Courant, 3/7/2018]

-- Phoenix mom Sharron Dobbins, 40, was determined to get her two teenage sons out of bed for Easter services on April 1. When one of them sassed her back, she grabbed a Taser and "I said, 'Get up! It's Jesus' Day!'" she told KNXV TV. Dobbins said she "sparked" the weapon just to make noise, but the 16-year-old called police, who found two small bumps on the boy's leg and arrested Dobbins for child abuse. Dobbins told KNXV, "I did not tase my son ... all I was trying to do is tell my kids to put God first." [KNXV via ABC News, 4/2/2018]

Redneck Chronicles

Last September, a celebration at a recreational lake in Wichita, Kansas, caught the eye of someone who reported seeing people "dressed in Muslim garb" with an American flag "desecrated with ISIS symbols," reported The Kansas City Star. Shortly thereafter, Munir Zanial, an engineer for Spirit Aerosystems, was notified by Facebook that authorities were seeking information about his account, and soon a call came from the FBI, saying it had determined that the flag reported to them was a Malaysian flag and its investigation would be closed. Zanial, a Muslim from Malaysia, had rented the lake to celebrate a Muslim holiday with friends and commemorate the 60th anniversary of Malaysia's independence. In March, Zanial filed a discrimination lawsuit in U.S. District Court after he was barred from renting the lake again. [Kansas City Star, 3/19/2018]

Crime Report

A 23-year-old Salina, Kansas, woman arrived at her home around 9:30 p.m. on March 29 to find that the door had been locked and chained from the inside. She called police, who searched the home and found no one inside, but about two hours later, her ex-boyfriend's legs punched through the ceiling in her living room, the Salina Journal reported. Tyler J. Bergkamp, 25, of Salina had been hiding in the attic. Police arrested him and took him to Salina Regional Health Center to recover from his fall. Five days later, he left the hospital and broke into another woman's house, where he left his hospital gown, exchanging it for one of her T-shirts and a pair of sneakers. Bergkamp was rearrested a short time later and faces a number of charges. [Salina Journal, 4/4/2018]