In Mumbai, India, 27-year-old Raphael Samuel, an apparent follower of antinatalism, is suing his parents (both attorneys) for giving him life. Samuel says he was conceived without his consent, so his parents should pay him for his life. "I love my parents, and we have a great relationship, but they had me for their joy and their pleasure," Samuel explained to The Print. "My life has been amazing, but I don't see why I should put another life through the rigmarole of school and finding a career, especially when they didn't ask to exist. ... Other Indian people must know that it is an option not to have children, and to ask your parents for an explanation as to why they gave birth to you." [The Print, 1/30/2019]

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

Pavlos Polakis, Greece's deputy health minister, did not take kindly to a recent reprimand from European Union Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, who admonished Polakis for smoking in public. Andriukaitis was in Athens Feb. 4 to mark World Cancer Day, reported Reuters. He also complained that the health ministry smelled of cigarette smoke and that nobody wears ties. Polakis replied in a Facebook post about the casual dress: "That's a lie ... the security guard at the entrance wore one. I don't. It's the suits which passed through here who bankrupted our country." As for the scold about smoking, Polakis retorted: "I'll decide when to stop smoking, on my terms." Greece has the highest rate of smoking in the EU. [Reuters, 2/6/2019]

Lost at Sea(l)

When researchers at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand thawed out some frozen leopard seal excrement in January, which they use to study the animals' health, they discovered "deep inside the scat" a USB stick containing vacation photos from Porpoise Bay. Reuters reported the defrosted poo had been placed in the freezer in November 2017, and the USB stick was left to dry for a few weeks before volunteers tried it out. The only clue to its owner is the nose of a blue kayak shown in one of the photos. Should the owner want it back, NIWA has a request: more leopard seal poo, please. [Reuters, 2/5/2019]

Awesome!

Exterminators were called to the Rogers County (Oklahoma) courthouse on Feb. 4 after an attorney appeared in a third-floor courtroom with bed bugs falling out of his clothing. "Hard to imagine someone doesn't know ... bed bugs are crawling all over them, certainly in abundance," remarked Sheriff Scott Walton to KJRH TV. Courthouse officials met and decided to close the building at noon until exterminators could eliminate the pests. "I was told the individual that had them also shook his jacket over the prosecutor's files," Walton said. The buggy attorney, however, seemed unfazed by his parasitic companions, and it was not clear who would pay for the extermination. [KJRH, 2/5/2019]

People With Issues

The Harlem Romantic Depot lingerie store in New York City was the target of a vandal's political rage on Jan. 26. In surveillance video, the man can be seen pacing up and down in front of the store window, where two mannequins were on display: one of President Barack Obama dressed as a prince, and one of President Donald Trump, dressed as a princess and wearing a MAGA hat. Taking a brick or stone from a nearby construction site, the man used it to smash through the window, store owner Glen Buzzetti told the New York Daily News. Next, he yanked the Obama mannequin out of the window and threw it on the ground. A member of the store's security team was able to chase the man down the block and catch him, Buzzetti said. But Obama fans in the street weren't happy with him, either. "We had to protect him from the crowd," Buzzetti said. "He could have been killed. We had women trying to kick him in the head." He said the man kept repeating that "he hated Obama" and that "the (Obama) mannequin was looking at him bad." [Daily News, 2/5/2019]

Police Blotter

-- When firefighters responded to a house fire Feb. 5 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, resident Holly Williams, 37, was happy to tell them how it started. She and Michael Miller, 38, keep their car fuel in a container in the house, and they were arguing (about his drinking), and he was trying to take their car, so she flushed the gasoline down the toilet, reported the Altoona Mirror. Miller threw a lit cigarette in the toilet and as flames spread, Williams ran out of the house and called 911. Miller was arrested for arson, risking catastrophe and recklessly endangering another person; later Williams was charged, as well. [Altoona Mirror, 2/14/2019]

-- Phillip Lee, 27, was arrested Feb. 4 on charges of simple robbery and simple battery after his attempt to take cash from a New Orleans Popeyes restaurant went south. The Times-Picayune reported that Lee arrived at the restaurant around noon and tried to steal money, but he couldn't get the cash register open. So instead, he took some fried chicken and fled. Police caught up with him later, and the judge set his bond at $13,500. Popeyes is good, but wow. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2/6/2019]

Least Competent Criminal

Richard J. Betters Jr., 44, of Schenectady, New York, has encountered police detectives in nearby Rotterdam before, which explains why he had one officer's phone number in his contacts list. So on Feb. 6, The Daily Gazette reported, when a detective mistakenly received a text from Betters offering drugs, it was a law enforcement slam dunk. The detective played along with Betters, offering to meet him at the Taco Bell in Rotterdam, where he arrested Betters for criminal possession of a controlled substance (Oxycodone pills). He was held on $20,000 bail. [Daily Gazette, 2/6/2019]

Recurring Theme

It's happened again. In Fairhope, Alabama, 2-year-old Ezra Ingersoll visited Rotolo's Pizzeria with his family for dinner and game-room fun on Jan. 4. Soon, his sister alerted mom Kelsey that Ezra was in the claw machine. Ezra, hoping to get a toy, had crawled through the opening, but the flap inside wouldn't swing the other direction, so he was stuck. AL.com reported that police and firefighters responding took the machine apart to free the tyke, who received a free toy for his trouble. [AL.com, 2/5/2019]

Technology Update

And you thought smartphones were cutting edge! Samsung's Family Hub smart refrigerator offers a new app, Refrigerdating, that works something like Tinder. Instead of uploading a profile pic of yourself, according to United Press International, you lure mates with a photo of the inside of your fridge. "Let the world know what kind of person you are," the app's website suggests. "Refrigerdating will then hook you up with a variation of fridges, of different tastes, to pick and choose from." It even offers a little philosophical advice: "Remember, it's the unexpected mixes that make the three star restaurants." [United Press International, 2/6/2019]

Cabin Fever

As the polar vortex unleashed its cold fury on the middle of North America in early February, doctors switched from warning people about the cold to warning them about the dangers of flinging boiling water into the air to watch it freeze. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Feb. 6 that eight people trying the boiling water challenge, ranging in age from 3 to 53, ended up at Loyola Medicine's Burn Center. "We strongly warn people not to perform the boiling water challenge," said Loyola burn surgeon Arthur Sanford. "There is no safe way to do it." [Chicago Sun-Times, 2/6/2019]

In a whole new twist on stomach pumping, doctors in Quang Tri, Vietnam, saved 48-year-old Nguyen Van Nhat's life in January by transfusing 15 cans of beer INTO his stomach. As Dr. Le Van Lam explained to the Daily Mail, alcohol contains both methanol and ethanol, and the liver breaks down ethanol first. But after a person stops drinking, the stomach and intestines continue to release alcohol into the bloodstream -- even if the drinker has lost consciousness -- and alcohol levels continue to rise. In Nhat's case, upon arrival at the hospital, his blood methanol level was 1,119 times higher than the appropriate limit. Doctors administered one can of beer every hour to slow down his metabolizing of methanol, which gave them time to perform dialysis. Nhat spent three weeks in the hospital before returning home. [Daily Mail, 1/16/2019]

Names in the News

Your giggle for the week: During a Jan. 17 special program on ITV Westcountry in the United Kingdom about how police forces are suffering under budget cuts, a certain officer interviewed for the show got more attention for his name than for his opinions about the budget. PC Rob Banks has undoubtedly heard clever remarks about his name all his life, reported Plymouth Live, but Twitter users from as far away as Australia found it newly hilarious. [Plymouth Live, 1/18/2019]

Try the Decaf

Officers in Madison, Wisconsin, were called to a home on Jan. 20 by an unnamed 34-year-old male resident who went on a spree of destruction when he thought his wife had destroyed his prized collection of action figures. Madison Police Chief Mike Koval wrote in his blog that officers arrived to find an ax buried in the windshield of a car. The man explained to them he had overreacted and used the log-splitting ax to chop up a TV, TV stand, laptop computer and other items in the house before going outside to attack his car, chopping off both side mirrors and breaking out the windshield, reported WMTV. He admitted to officers that he had also been drinking too much, and he was charged with disorderly conduct and felony damage to property. [WMTV, 1/21/2019]

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

A 19-year-old man from Nice, France, has received a four-month (suspended) sentence for a clever plot he hatched in September. The man, known only as Adel, removed a PlayStation 4 from a supermarket shelf on Sept. 17 and took it to the produce aisle, where he weighed it and printed out a price sticker for fruit. Then he used the self-checkout line to pay and left the store with a $389 piece of electronics for about $10. Adel sold the PlayStation for $114 to buy a train ticket. The next day, he tried the same scheme, but police caught him in the act. He will only have to serve his sentence if he re-offends, reported Kotaku.com. [Kotaku.com, 1/29/2019]

Least Competent Criminals

-- Oh, those pesky surveillance cameras. Alexander Goldinsky, 57, had a bright idea for collecting some cash, but it was just so 1990s. While working as an independent contractor at a Woodbridge, New Jersey, business, Goldinsky scattered some ice on the floor in the company's kitchen area, then carefully arranged himself on the floor as if he had slipped and fallen, according to United Press International. Then, as the security cameras rolled, he waited to be discovered. He was arrested in January on charges of insurance fraud and theft by deception, after the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office said Goldinsky filed a false insurance claim for an ambulance ride and treatment at a local hospital. [United Press International, 2/1/2019]

-- For David Rodriguez, 28, it was his disguise of choice that tripped him up as he robbed a 7-Eleven store in Fort Myers, Florida, on Feb. 2, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office. Rodriguez donned a gray hoodie and a wig before approaching the counter at the store, showing a gun and demanding cash, reported the Miami Herald. When officers arrived, they got a detailed description, including the wig, and "additional witness information" led them to a nearby apartment. Inside they found Rodriguez, and "in plain view, a gray hooded sweater, several wigs and a large amount of wadded up cash." Bingo! Rodriguez was charged with robbery with a firearm. [Miami Herald, 2/3/2019]

Inexplicable

-- For UNC-Greensboro student Maddie (no last name provided), there really was a monster in the closet. Or at least a guy named Drew. After returning to her apartment on Feb. 2, Maddie heard strange noises coming from her closet. She put her hand on the door and said, "Who's in there?" "My name's Drew," answered the intruder, according to WFMY TV. Maddie continued talking with him, and when she opened the door, Drew was sitting on the floor of the closet, dressed in her clothing. He also had a bag full of her clothes, shoes and socks. Andrew Clyde Swofford, 30, begged her not to call police, and she chatted with him for another 10 minutes, "everything about his life and basically how he got in my closet," she said. Swofford left when Maddie's boyfriend arrived, and police caught up with him at a nearby gas station, where he was arrested for misdemeanor breaking and entering. Maddie told reporters she thinks Swofford has been in her apartment before: "We always joke that there's a ghost in here because I've been missing clothes since I've been living here." She signed a lease for a new apartment a few days later. [WFMY, 2/5/2019]

-- Sharisha Morrison of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and her neighbors have been the recipients since Jan. 1 of an odd gift: plastic grocery bags with slices of bread and bologna inside, delivered by an unknown man. At first, Morrison told KOB TV, she thought the food deliveries were acts of kindness, until she opened the bag and smelled the contents. "It smelled like urine," she said. Morrison said she can watch the man on her surveillance camera. "He'll just walk up and drop it on the little doorknob and walk away," she said. "I just want it to stop." Police have told her they can't do anything unless they catch him in the act. [KOB TV, 1/29/2019]

The Way the World Works

Residents of the small town of Hilgermissen in northwestern Germany voted decisively on Feb. 3 against naming the community's streets. Currently, addresses are a house number and the name of one of the former villages that combined to create Hilgermissen in the 1970s, reported the Associated Press. Officials had hoped that street names would ease the jobs of emergency services and delivery drivers, but 60 percent of the 2,200 citizens rejected the council's plan. The recent result will be binding for two years. [Associated Press, 2/3/2019]

Thieving With Style

A BP gas station in Swansea, South Carolina, was the setting for a reprise of at least one iconic moment from 1984's "The Karate Kid," according to Fox News. On Jan. 26, as surveillance cameras looked on, an unidentified man struck Mr. Miyagi's signature Crane Technique pose -- twice -- before stealing a purse from a parked car nearby. The Swansea Police Department posted the video to its Facebook page, and with the public's help, officers were able to identify the man and issue warrants for his arrest. [Fox News, 2/2/2019]

Vaev, a Los Angeles-based internet startup, is offering consumers the "luxury to choose" when to become sick with a cold, gushes 34-year-old Oliver Niessen, the company's founder. For $79.99, Vaev will send you a box containing a petri dish, which houses a facial tissue used by a sick person. Niessen explained to Time magazine that the recipient wipes their nose with the provided tissue and contracts a cold virus to get it out of the way before, say, leaving on a vacation. But Charles Gerba, professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona, debunked Niessen's theory: "There are more than 200 types of rhinoviruses ... getting inoculated from one doesn't protect you against all the others." He adds that Vaev's customers will never know what exactly is on the provided tissues, which Niessen says are produced by a "stable" of 10 go-to sneezers, some recruited on the internet. Still, Neissen claims to have sold about 1,000 used tissues, although the company's website currently shows the product as sold out. "We've had some supply-chain issues," Niessen said, without offering details. [Time, 1/18/2019]

Gift With Purchase

A shopper at a Primark store in Essex, England, was startled to discover a human bone in a sock on Dec. 10. Essex police reassured the public that the bone "did not appear to be a result of recent trauma," and it did not have any skin attached to it, according to Sky News. A Primark spokesman said the company is checking with its supplier, and "No evidence of any kind exists to suggest that any incident has occurred in the factory, so it is highly probable that this object was placed in the sock by an individual for unknown reasons." [Sky News, 1/25/2019]

Police Report

A motorist in New Canaan, Connecticut, called police on Jan. 23 after spotting a woman stopped at an intersection in the driver's seat of her car with her eyes closed. When officers arrived, they found Stefanie Warner-Grise, 50, "unable to answer basic questions," according to the arrest report. They "detected an odor of vanilla coming from her breath (and) her speech was slurred. ... In addition, several bottles of pure vanilla extract were located inside the vehicle." The Hour reported Warner-Grise failed field sobriety tests and she was charged with driving under the influence of vanilla extract. The Food and Drug Administration requires that pure vanilla extract must be at least 35 percent alcohol, which makes it 70 proof. [The Hour, 1/24/2019]

It's Good to Have Goals

Pavol Durdik added another Guinness world record to his collection Aug. 3 in Puchov, Slovakia by extinguishing 62 lighted matches with his tongue within one minute, according to United Press International. In a video posted by Guinness World Records on Jan. 25, Durdik had the matches laid out in front of him and lighted each one before putting it out on his tongue. He also holds the record for most socks put on one foot within 30 seconds. [UPI, 1/28/2019]

Gutsy

So much for advanced Russian security. As art lovers browsed an exhibition at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery on Jan. 27, Euro News reported, a thief nonchalantly strolled in, plucked a 1908 landscape by Arkhip Kuindzhi off the wall, and walked out of the building. Police quickly viewed surveillance video and arrested a 31-year-old man, who admitted he hid the painting, worth an estimated $185,000, in an unfinished building nearby. The gallery was able to recover the painting and announced that "security measures have been reinforced ... at all venues of the Tretyakov Gallery." [Euro News, 1/28/2019]

Least Competent Criminal

Police in Austin, Texas, caught up with 19-year-old suspect Luca P. Mangiarano on Jan. 24, a month after a bank robbery in large part because of his choice in getaway vehicles. According to police, Mangiarano stepped into the BBVA Compass bank on Dec. 18 and handed a note to a teller, reading: "This is a robbery, please give me all your 100's and 50's in a envelope and everything will be ok." The employee did as directed and the robber left the building, then hopped on a Jump electric scooter and took off down the sidewalk. He perhaps failed to consider that the scooters are linked to GPS tracking systems and online accounts with phone numbers, email addresses and credit card information, which, after police obtained them from Jump, led them to Mangiarano. Austin Detective Jason Chiappardi told The Washington Post: "We had never had a scooter involved in a robbery." [Washington Post, 1/29/2019]

Bright Idea

Outdoorsman Scott Ritchie of Loveland, Colorado, has a new lease on life thanks to 3D printing. Ritchie, 52, was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer in early 2018 after noticing pain in his hip after fly-fishing. CBS4 in Denver reported Dr. Ronald Hugate of the Panorama Orthopedics and Spine Center in Highlands Ranch took an aggressive and creative approach to treating Ritchie: He made a 3D virtual model of Ritchie's pelvis, then designed an implant to exactly replace the area of bone that would have to be surgically removed. Made of titanium, the implant was produced using a 3D printer. Two weeks later after surgery, Ritchie was walking with crutches and is expected to walk on his own in a few weeks more, although he was warned he might have a limp. "If I do have a limp, it's better than nothing," Ritchie said. [CBS4, 1/28/2019]

Uh, No

On Jan. 29, the Chenoa (Illinois) Police Department put a call out for volunteers to help with a training session taking place that evening. "Officers are undergoing their annual Taser training tonight ... and are looking for members of the public who are willing to volunteer for the experience," announced WEEK-TV. Volunteers were required to sign an "exposure waiver" in order to participate, but it was unclear whether the Tasers would be live. [25 News, 1/29/2019]

Ewwww!

Penny Pospisil, 47, of Sumter County, Florida, was arrested on Jan. 25 for the alleged murder of her boyfriend, 55-year-old Anthony Mitchell, according to WFTV. Investigators believe that last August, in the Lake Pan RV Village where Pospisil and Mitchell lived, she killed Mitchell and cut his body into pieces, living with the remains in their camper. When neighbors asked about him, she explained that Mitchell had died of natural causes and she had him cremated. But they also noticed a foul odor coming from the camper and that Pospisil was regularly showering at the pool. When police arrived in December to investigate her overdue lot fee, she told them that she was a victim of domestic violence and had killed Mitchell in self-defense. She faces charges of second-degree murder and abuse of a dead human body. [WFTV, 1/28/2019]

Blame It on the Meth

Debra Lynn Johnson, 69, of Searles, Minnesota, suffered from heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and mental illnesses, according to the Mankato Free Press, and was a patient at a transitional care center before her husband took her home to have a "death party," he later told authorities. Brown County sheriff's officers responding to a 911 call from Duane Arden Johnson, 58, on Jan. 24 found the words "Death Parde God Hell" spray-painted on the front door. Duane came out of the house naked, yelled that his wife was dead and ran back inside, where officers found him in the bathtub picking "things" from his skin. Debra's body, still warm, was wrapped in a sheet. Duane told police his wife had begged him to take her home to die, so they had staged the party, "rocking out" to Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" and taking methamphetamines. After her death, Duane said he washed and wrapped her "like the Bible told me to do." Police found stolen guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the home, and Duane was charged with felony counts of theft and receiving stolen property. [Mankato Free Press, 1/26/2019]