-- Ukraine International Airlines has banned a traveler from all future flights with the carrier after the unidentified woman opened an emergency door on a Boeing 737 and went for a walk on the wing as it was waiting at a gate at Boryspil International Airport in Kyiv. CNN reported the passenger had traveled from Antalya, Turkey, with her husband and children in the Aug. 31 incident, when other passengers heard her say she was "too hot" before she popped open the emergency exit and went outside. The airline criticized her for setting an inadequate "parental example" and threatened she may face "an exceptionally high financial penalty." Airport security and doctors on the scene determined she was "not under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs." [CNN, 9/4/2020]

-- A 51-year-old man from St. Cloud, Minnesota, was released from the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River on Sept. 12, but as he left the facility, he decided to take with him a DoorDash delivery that had been intended for a correctional officer working there. The Star News reported the officer contacted the former inmate by phone to inquire after his $29.13 order, and the man said he thought his family had sent it to him. He was cited for theft. [Star News, 9/17/2020]

Oops!

-- Officials in Dania Beach, Florida, recently upgraded signs welcoming visitors to their city, including a small one that has greeted drivers for years along Dania Beach Boulevard, but local activist Clive Taylor took exception, pointing out that the sign is actually in Hollywood, not Dania Beach. "The little sign was bad enough," Taylor, who is vice president of the Hollywood Historical Society, told the Sun Sentinel. "But to have Dania put up this mini-billboard with lights on it is wrong." Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy says he's confident the two towns can work together to resolve the issue. [Sun Sentinel, 9/17/2020]

-- An octogenarian in the village of Parcoul-Chenaud, France, set off a violent explosion in his attempt to kill an annoying fly, the BBC reported in early September. Not realizing a gas canister in his home was leaking, the man used an electric fly swatter to battle the insect and caused an explosion that destroyed his kitchen and damaged the roof of his home. While the man was mostly unharmed, he has had to move to a local campsite while his family makes repairs to the home. [BBC, 9/6/2020]

Chutzpah

Three unnamed Metro-North Railroad employees were suspended without pay on Sept. 24 for turning a storage room under New York City's Grand Central Terminal into a man cave, complete with a television, refrigerator, microwave and futon couch, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The Associated Press reported that investigators found the space after receiving an anonymous tip in February 2019 that the three -- a wireman, a carpenter foreman and an electrical foreman -- had built a secret room where they would "hang out and get drunk and party." [Associated Press, 9/24/2020]

Nature

Caesar, a 16-year-old alpaca at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, was killed on Sept. 20 by a wild brown bear that tunneled under a fence while the facility was closed then left. Caesar, who had lived at the zoo for 15 years, was "a crowd favorite," executive director Patrick Lampi told the Associated Press. The bear had been hanging around the zoo, knocking over trash cans and breaking locks, and was later euthanized when it returned. Caesar's companion alpaca, Fuzzy Charlie, escaped the attack and was unharmed. Lampi said a similar incident took place about 20 years ago; that bear was captured and relocated to Duluth, Minnesota. [Associated Press, 9/23/2020]

Collections

September 22 marked the 60th anniversary of the day 14-year-old Boy Scout Steve Jenne scored a special memento of then-Vice President Richard Nixon's campaign visit to Jenne's hometown of Sullivan, Illinois. Nixon took a bite of a buffalo barbecue sandwich that day, then set it down. "I looked around and thought, 'If no one else was going to take it, I am going to take it," Jenne told the Herald & Review, and the leftover has been in a glass jar in Jenne's freezer ever since. In 1988, word of the sandwich earned Jenne a spot on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson" and led his acquiring half-eaten items from Carson and fellow guest Steve Martin, as well as Tiny Tim and Henny Youngman. [Herald & Review, 9/23/2020]

Smooth Reaction

A 78-year-old Spanaway, Washington, woman was alerted by her barking dog on Sept. 20, and opened her door to find "a man," she told KIRO, standing in front of her. As "he turned and started to leave," the woman, identified as Sandy, said, "Oh, no, you don't," and picked up her shotgun and cocked it. The alleged intruder plopped down on her porch steps and the two waited for police to arrive. "You know, I've got grandchildren your age!" Sandy told him. Pierce County Sheriff's deputies took the man into custody, but Sandy didn't press charges. [KIRO, 9/22/2020]

Government in Action

The Opa-Locka (Florida) City Commission voted 4-1 on Sept. 9 to repeal a 13-year-old ordinance that made wearing saggy pants a crime, the Miami Herald reported. Around town, visitors can see signs reading, "No ifs, ands or butts ... It's the city law!" and showing two young men with low-riding waistbands, but Vice Mayor Chris Davis explained: "I felt it disproportionately affected a certain segment of our population, which is young African American men." The ACLU of Florida agreed. [Miami Herald, 9/13/2020]

Frontiers of Farming

Cockroach farms are not new in China, where the bugs have long been used in Chinese medicine, but a new facility near the eastern city of Jinan is gaining attention as a way to deal with food waste while producing organic protein supplements for animal feeds. In four industrial-sized hangars, Australia's ABC News reported, rows of shelves are filled with food waste collected from restaurants through an elaborate system of pipes. A moat filled with roach-eating fish surrounds each building to keep the roaches from escaping. "In total there are 1 billion cockroaches," farm manager Yin Diansong said. "Every day they can eat 50 tonnes of kitchen waste." Said project director Li Yanrong, "If we can farm cockroaches on a large scale, we can provide protein that benefits the entire ecological cycle." [ABC News, 9/19/2020]

Armed and Clumsy

A Pineville (Louisiana) police officer who reported he'd been "ambushed" on Sept. 20 has been accused of shooting himself instead, according to authorities. The Pineville Police Department said John Goulart Jr. originally claimed that he'd been shot once in the leg, and that a second shot had hit the rear door of his police car while he was at a shopping center. But Police Chief Don Weatherford told KALB: "(E)vidence gives you some pretty clear direction and it led us to reinterviewing Officer Goulart Jr. and he admitted at that point that he had not been truthful with us during the investigation." Goulart was charged with filing a false police report and malfeasance; he's also been placed on administrative leave. [KALB, 9/23/2020]

Florida real estate agent Kristen Kearney was inundated with interest in a condo she listed in Lake Worth after photos of the $100,000 property and its Budweiser beer can decor went viral. The former owner, now deceased, made it "his life's mission to wallpaper his home in beer cans, and he did it," Kearney said. "He even created a crown molding look with the cans." United Press International reported every wall and ceiling in the condo is covered with actual beer cans, except the bathroom. Kearney said the property is under contract with a backup offer. [United Press International, 9/15/2020]

Come Again?

A man identifying himself as Jesus Christ appeared before Rickergate court in Carlisle, England, on Sept. 15 after being arrested by British Transport Police on suspicion that he did not buy a ticket to ride a train from Edinburgh to Carlisle. When asked to state a plea, the man replied, "There is a not guilty plea; I don't need to plead," the News & Star reported. In response to a request for his address, he said: "No fixed abode, or Yellow House, Albion, Mauritius." The bearded defendant wore a hood and a green blindfold throughout his hearing; he was returned to custody as prosecutors considered his case. [News & Star, 9/15/2020]

The Passing Parade

Windermere, Florida, fifth-grader Ian Golba, 11, visited the principal's office on Sept. 15 after his teacher asked him to remove his Hooters face mask. "She said it was not appropriate for school and I asked her why and she said if you really want to know why go ask the principal," Ian told WESH. The principal at Sunset Park Elementary School backed up the teacher, asking Ian three times to remove the mask, which he did. But Greg Golba, Ian's dad, wants to know what the problem was. "I don't think it's offensive at all. It's just a restaurant," Greg said. [WESH, 9/16/2020]

Compelling Explanation

Tarrant County, Texas, Sheriff's Deputy Jay Allen Rotter, 36, called 911 on Aug. 26 to report that his girlfriend, Leslie Lynn Hartman, 46, had shot herself in the head with his duty weapon as they shared a hug in their bedroom, telling the dispatcher "she is done" and he "would have stopped her if he could have," according to Denton police. But as police investigators analyzed physical evidence and Rotter's electronics over the following weeks, they came to identify Rotter as a suspect, leading to his arrest on Sept. 14, reported NBC5. According to the arrest affidavit, the deputy had been active in a chat room called Discord that night, where he posted that he had "just sent a 9 millie in this ... hippie," and phone and computer records showed the two had been arguing about the shooting of a milk carton in the backyard before the alleged murder. Rotter was charged with murder and tampering with evidence and is being held on $1.15 million bond in the Denton City Jail. [NBC5, 9/16/2020]

Inexplicable

Jimmy Senda of Racine, Wisconsin, takes a walk along the beach on Lake Michigan every morning, where he collects "sea glass and random stuff -- because I like to do artwork at home with the stuff that I find," he told FOX6. On Sept. 15, he came across a curious package, "wrapped in aluminum foil, and around it, it had a pink rubber band," he said. "Curiosity got to me, so I popped it open and it looked like a chicken breast," but on closer inspection, he determined, "it was a brain." The package also contained flowers and paper with what appear to be Mandarin characters printed on it. Senda called police, who turned the package over to the Racine County Medical Examiner's Office and later announced the brain was "not consistent with a human brain," although they were still trying to determine what kind of animal it came from. [FOX6, 9/16/2020]

Government in Action

Ocean Township, New Jersey, listed the home of 89-year-old Glen Kristi Goldenthal for sale on Sept. 9, foreclosing on the property because Goldenthal owed 6 cents on back taxes from 2019. The tax shortfall had accrued to more than $300, triggering the sale, which alerted Goldenthal's daughter, Lisa Suhay, in Virginia. NBC New York reported the outraged Suhay began calling everyone in the township's office to explain that her mother suffers from Alzheimer's and probably forgot about the bill. Suhay took care of the debt, but for her mother, "(T)his isn't over ... She's called me dozens of times in the last 24 hours," asking about her house and where she's going to live. Mayor Christopher Siciliano was apologetic, but Suhay remained incensed: "Shame on anybody who can't think far outside the box enough to come up with six cents in an office full of people." [NBC New York, 9/13/2020]

Bright Idea

A commuter boarded a bus between Swinton and Manchester, England, on Sept. 14 sporting what one fellow passenger thought was a "funky mask" until it started to move. The face mask turned out to be a live snake, wrapped around the man's neck and over his nose and mouth, the BBC reported. Another passenger took photos and posted them on Twitter, commenting "each to their own and all that." "No one batted an eyelid," another rider said. Transport for Greater Manchester, however, said in a statement that "snakeskin -- especially when still attached to the snake" is not suitable for masks. [BBC, 9/16/2020]

Fashion of the Times

In response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, French fashion house Louis Vuitton announced it will release a protective visor Oct. 30 in its stores worldwide that Vogue reports is "the most luxurious take on a plastic face shield that we've seen to date." The LV Shield is trimmed with the designer's signature monogram and gold studs engraved with the company's logo. It doubles as a sun visor, changing from clear to tinted when exposed to sunlight, and also can be flipped up and worn as more of a cap. Although a price for the shield has not been set, Vogue estimates it to be somewhere between the cost of a typical Vuitton hat, $700, and sunglasses, $800. [Vogue, 9/10/2020]

Duuuude

Colin Sullivan, who grows cannabis plants outside his home in New Brunswick, Canada, caught a little thief in his garden on Sept. 8, the Daily Mail reported. Sullivan took four photos of a mouse nibbling on the stems of the plants -- then found the little rodent passed out in a pile of leaves. "He's missing an ear so it may be self-medication for his PTSD but I still think it's time for an intervention," Sullivan posted on Facebook. Sullivan re-homed the mouse to a cage, where he was weaned to just one medium leaf per day. "It's been a couple of rough days for our little baked buddy here and despite a belly ache and a wicked bad case of the munchies I think he'll make a full recovery," Sullivan wrote. [Daily Mail, 9/10/2020]

Police Report

-- Daytona Beach, Florida, police arrived at the home of Lovely Butts, 64, on the evening of Sept. 14, where they found a female juvenile relative standing in the front yard, smelling of bleach. The girl, who was described in the police report as Butts' "primary caregiver," told police she had argued with Butts about "the location of her medicine" and that Butts had thrown bleach at her, striking her in the face and mouth. Butts also allegedly threatened to pistol whip the girl. The Smoking Gun reported that Butts was charged with aggravated assault and child abuse; police confiscated her unloaded pistol from her nightstand. [The Smoking Gun, 9/16/2020]

-- Mark King of Wolcottville, Indiana, went to war with imaginary enemies on Sept. 13 after using methamphetamine on the previous two days, according to the LaGrange County Sheriff's Department. Deputies responding to reports of a man swinging a broom handle around and hollering in a yard, found King as he left a neighbor's garage after having thrown a gun through the building's window. Previously, police determined, King had allegedly shot up the inside of his own home, imagining that people were trying to break in and steal some of his belongings. WANE reported King was transported to a hospital and later charged with possession of meth and paraphernalia. [WANE, 9/14/2020]

Cynthia Lynn Teeple, 47, of Jacksboro, Tennessee, was charged with public intoxication after Campbell County Sheriff's deputies found her topless in a LaFollette backyard with two miniature horses on Aug. 30, according to authorities. WLAF reported the homeowner told deputies Teeple had been eating grass and dirt from the horse enclosure, and also chewed on one of the horses' manes. Teeple then volunteered that "the horse's hair is made of Laffy Taffy and Airhead candy," according to the arrest report, and admitted she had taken methamphetamine the day before. [WLAF, 9/8/2020]

Bright Ideas

-- In Botswana, cattle are left to graze and roam during the day, but that makes them vulnerable to attacks by lions, leopards and other carnivores, so two conservation biologists from the University of New South Wales in Australia have come up with an idea to allow both cattle and cats to co-exist, NPR reported. Because big cats hunt using the element of surprise, the biologists came up with a way to make the predators believe they'd been seen by their prey and then abandon the hunt. "We tested this by painting one-third of a cattle herd with artificial eye spots (on their backsides)," explained Cameron Radford, and over four years, "none of the cows that we painted with artificial eye spots were killed by ambush predators." Village chiefs and native farmers "look forward to us coming back and painting more eyes on bums," Radford said. [NPR, 8/23/2020]

-- Conducting choir practice indoors was out of the question for Mark Potvin, instructor of music at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, given the school's COVID-19 protocols, and finding a space outside posed a challenge until, "I was driving past the city pool," Potvin told KCRG, and "noticed they were draining the pool." Officials at Decorah Park and Rec gave their blessing, and now choir members rehearse while standing in the empty pool, socially distanced and masked. Luther College has five choirs and one of the nation's largest collegiate music programs. [KCRG, 9/10/2020]

Least Competent Criminals

-- John Travis Ross, 33, and Joshua Ray Corban, 18, were charged with conspiracy and attempting to smuggle contraband into the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, Mississippi, after a drone they used as a delivery device became tangled in a net above the prison fence, according to a Department of Corrections statement. The Associated Press reported the drone was caught on Aug. 26 and carried 2 ounces of marijuana, a cellphone, cigarette lighters, phone chargers and headphones, corrections commissioner Burl Cain said. Investigators were able to trace the drone's flight and discovered security video showing the men launching it. Cain said officials plan to reprogram the drone and use it at the state's maximum-security prison in Parchman. [Associated Press, 9/9/2020]

-- Three teenage girls in Clinton, Connecticut, have been arrested and charged with stealing a duck after photos of them surfaced on social media, according to police. WTNH reported the girls took a duck named Quackers out of a pen in mid-August at the Grove Garden Center Nursery, where it was recovering from a raccoon attack, and posted photos of themselves with Quackers at the town beach and a house party. The girls were charged with larceny and trespassing. Quackers is still missing. [WTNH, 9/10/2020]

Suspicions Confirmed

Brittany Keech of Belding, Michigan, got an unexpected bit of news with her mail on Sept. 8. "Sitting right on top of the mail," she told WXMI, was a postcard dated 100 years ago -- Oct. 29, 1920. "Yeah, that's a little too slow," Keech said. The Halloween greeting from young Flossie Burgess was addressed to her cousins: "I just finished my history lesson and am going to bed pretty soon." A USPS spokesperson said, "In most cases ... old letters and postcards -- sometimes purchased at flea markets, antique shops and even online -- are re-entered into our system ... (and) as long as there is a deliverable address and postage, the card or letter gets delivered." [WXMI, 9/9/2020]

Ewwwww

-- An unnamed 17-year-old girl in Bokaro, India underwent surgery on Aug. 31 to remove a 15-pound hairball from her stomach following years of obsessive hair-chewing, Metro News reported. A team of doctors led by Dr. G.N. Sahu initially thought the mass was a tumor, but discovered the hairball during the six-hour surgery. The girl was reported to be in stable condition following the procedure. [Metro News, 9/7/2020]

-- Doctors at a hospital in Dagestan, Russia, were shocked to discover the source of a woman's stomach distress was a 4-foot-long snake that had apparently slithered into her mouth as she slept outside her home in Levashi village. In a video of the procedure, a doctor is heard to say, "Let's see what this is," Yahoo News Australia reported, as a tube is inserted down the anesthetized woman's throat. Local residents say such incidents are not unheard of in the mountainous area. [Yahoo News, 9/1/2020]

Obsessions

Akiko Obata, who lives in Chiba Prefecture in Japan, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of Sampuru, the fake food restaurants use to promote their offerings. Sampuru is an important part of Japanese food culture, according to Oddity Central, and after 15 years of collecting, Obata now has more than 8,000 individual items filling an entire room in her house. "Replicas are not real food, but I truly respect how each of them are made to look so real," Obata said. [Oddity Central, 9/3/2020]

Irony

Bounty Cheramy, 22, smelling of alcohol and swaying back and forth, was arrested and charged with drunk driving on Aug. 30 after his Mazda allegedly struck an electronic traffic sign flashing the message, "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over," according to a police affidavit. Officers in Port Charlotte, Florida, said Cheramy told them he had been on his phone and "suddenly struck something" but was unsure what it was. His car sustained heavy front-end damage, and the nearby sign was wrecked, The Smoking Gun reported. The affidavit also noted Cheramy recorded a blood alcohol content twice the legal limit in two breath tests. [The Smoking Gun, 9/2/2020]

Overreaction

A 34-year-old Wichita, Kansas, man died after a disagreement over leftover barbecue beans escalated, KWCH reported. On Aug. 2, Ryan Speight returned to the home he shared with his uncle, David Staley, 57, and went to the kitchen, where Staley questioned him about eating the beans, according to an arrest affidavit. Staley told police Speight became upset, pushing and punching Staley, who, in response, picked up a knife from the counter and "jabbed Ryan one time in the chest." Staley was charged with voluntary manslaughter. [KWCH, 9/10/2020]

Awesome!

World War II veteran Suttie Economy, 94, of Roanoke, Virginia, developed a taste for Juicy Fruit gum during the war and is well-known around town for passing out sticks of his favorite flavor to everyone he meets. Now, CNN reports, Economy has been granted his dying wish: to be buried in a casket painted to look like a package of Juicy Fruit. After initially having his request for permission turned down, Economy's friend Sammy Oakey, owner of Oakey's Funeral Service, received a call from a Mars Wrigley company vice president approving the use of its logo. The company even delivered 250 packs of gum to Economy's family. Meanwhile, Economy is living at the Virginia Veterans Care Clinic, where his health is improving. [CNN, 9/9/2020]