Shoe Zone, a footwear retailer with stores throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, announced March 8 that Terry Boot has been named its next chief financial officer effective immediately, according to the Evening Standard. Mr. Boot takes over the role after the unexpected departure in February of Peter Foot, who had been with the company for seven months. [Evening Standard, 3/8/2021]

Quick Thinking

An unnamed maskless woman waiting in line at a Pick 'n' Pay supermarket in South Africa was caught on cellphone video being confronted by a store guard who demanded she put on a mask or be thrown out of the store. On the video, she is next seen reaching up under her dress, pulling out her underwear -- a black thong -- and placing it on her face, the New York Post reported. Witnesses were mixed in their reaction. "Good lord," one shopper was heard saying. "Brilliant," said another. [New York Post, 2/26/2021]

Oops!

Federal Judge Jesse M. Furman ruled in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Feb. 16 that Citigroup could not expect to receive repayment of nearly $500 million of the $900 million it mistakenly wired to a group of lenders last year after a contractor checked the wrong box on a digital payment form. Intending to make only an interest payment to the lenders on behalf of its client Revlon, Citi instead wired payment in full for the entire loan, and after realizing its error, asked for the money back, but some of the lenders refused, according to The New York Times. Judge Furman found that the lenders were justified in assuming the payment had been intentional. "To believe that Citibank, one of the most sophisticated financial institutions in the world, had made a mistake ... to the tune of nearly $1 billion, would have been borderline irrational," he said in his ruling. Citi vowed to appeal. [New York Times, 2/16/2021]

Can't Help Himself

Garrett Monds, 30, was sentenced to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison on March 10, following his sixth conviction for unlawful surveillance in women's restrooms in central New York state. Syracuse.com reported Monds spent two years in prison for the first five incidents, in which he set up hidden cameras in restrooms in college buildings, a warehouse, a mall and a Walmart. He was released in March 2020, but within four months was arrested again. "That wasn't a long turnaround," County Court Judge Stephen Dougherty remarked, adding, "No offense, but I don't want to see you again." Monds agreed, telling the judge, "I really am remorseful this time around." [Syracuse.com, 3/10/2021]

Creepy!

Samantha Hartsoe noticed a draft in her New York City apartment and traced it to the mirror in her bathroom, the New York Post reported on March 4. With the help of friends, Hartsoe removed the mirror and found a hole in the wall behind it leading to ... another apartment. As she documented her adventure on TikTok, Hartsoe climbed through the hole into a hallway leading to a room at the end and "a whole other apartment" with three bedrooms, a disconnected toilet, a staircase and an unlocked door (which she promptly locked). Hartsoe returned to her own apartment, showered and vowed her landlord would get an unusual call the next day. [New York Post, 3/4/2021]

Least Competent Criminal

Authorities in Camden County, Missouri, arrested Leigh Ann Bauman, 43, a prominent Lake of the Ozarks real estate agent and self-described "cheer mom," on March 4 for plotting to kill her former mother-in-law. Prosecutors say Bauman offered to pay $1,500 to a person in St. Louis who contacted the Missouri Highway Patrol and then turned informant, recording Bauman's request that the "look like an accident," and later saying she's a Christian but she could ask for forgiveness later. According to The Daily Beast, Bauman also texted her daughter, saying, "Your grandmother will die." She is being held without bond in the Camden County Jail. [The Daily Beast, 3/5/2021]

Crime Report

Detectives investigating recent thefts of catalytic converters from vehicles in Pasco, Washington, went to the mobile home of Dustin Allen Bushnell, 30, in nearby Burbank with a search warrant on Feb. 26, and not only found converters, but also discovered a 400-pound playground slide that had been removed from a city park in December, KEPR reported. The slide had been repainted and mounted to a bunk bed in the home. Bushnell was arrested for possession of stolen property for the slide; no charges were filed for the converters. [KEPR, 3/10/2021]

Awesome!

Snake breeder Justin Kobylka of northeast Georgia has been breeding ball pythons for eight years to achieve a bright golden yellow and white color combination, but recently wound up with a snake bearing three smiley face emoji-looking markings on its body. Kobylka told United Press International one in 20 of his snakes sports a smiley face, but this was the first to have three faces. He sold it for $6,000. [United Press International, 3/9/2021]

What Could Go Wrong?

Alexandr Kudlay, 33, and Viktoria Pustovitova, 28, of Kharkiv, Ukraine, are experimenting with a new way to preserve their on-and-off relationship: On Valentine's Day, they handcuffed themselves together and have vowed to stay that way for three months. "We used to break up once or twice a week," Kudlay told Reuters, but now when they disagree, "we simply stop talking instead of packing up our things and walking away." They take turns taking showers and give each other privacy in the bathroom by standing outside with one hand inside. [Reuters, 3/11/2021]

Bright Ideas

-- On March 9, Eric Dion Warren, 50, was sentenced to federal prison in Lubbock, Texas, after pleading guilty to robbing a bank and using a BMW he was test-driving as his getaway car. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that, according to court documents, Warren drove to the AIM Bank in Wolfforth on June 7, 2019, handed the teller a note demanding $10,000 in small bills and showed what appeared to be a handgun. The teller complied, and Warren headed back to the dealership where he pulled out $3,000 as the down payment on the car he had been driving. As Warren finalized the deal, the dealership received a call about the bank robbery and the connection was made. Warren was given the maximum sentence of 20 years. [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 3/10/2021]

-- Police in Spain announced on March 12 they had foiled the plans of drug smugglers who were building a narco-submarine capable of carrying over 2 tons of cargo, the Associated Press reported. In February, police in Malaga discovered the 30-foot-long, light blue craft made of fiberglass and plywood, which they suspect was meant to "go into the high seas to meet another ship (to) take on board the drugs," said Rafael Perez, head of the Spanish police. It was powered by two 200-horsepower engines but had never sailed. Fifty-two people were arrested in the international smuggling scheme, and hundreds of pounds of cocaine, hashish and marijuana were seized. [Associated Press, 3/12/2020]

Sign of the Times

After many months of postponement, voting in the 74th Annual Tony Awards is underway, and the statues are scheduled to be presented with the reopening of Broadway this spring. In an unusual twist, reported The New York Times, actor Aaron Tveit, star of "Moulin Rouge!" is competing for recognition as leading actor in a musical against ... only himself. And even though there are no other nominees, Tveit could still wind up losing, as the rules require 60% of the vote to win. [New York Times, 10/15/2020]

On Feb. 23, Siriporn Niamrin, 49, discovered a large, waxy, oval-shaped lump that smelled of fish and weighed about 15 pounds along the beach near her home in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, Thailand, and was excited to learn it may be a rare substance called ambergris, or vomit produced by sperm whales. The Mirror reported ambergris is highly prized in making perfume, and it might be worth as much as $260,000. "If I really have the genuine ambergris, I can help my community once I find a buyer for it," Niamrin said. "I'm keeping it safe in my house" as she waits for expert confirmation of its authenticity. [Mirror, 3/1/2021]

Multitasking

Northern California plastic surgeon Scott Green surprised officials in Sacramento Superior Court on Feb. 25 when he appeared for a traffic trial via videoconference from what appeared to be an operating room, the Sacramento Bee reported. As clicks and whirs of medical equipment and suctions could be heard in the background, a courtroom clerk questioned his whereabouts, and Green, dressed in hospital scrubs, admitted, "Yes, I'm in an operating room right now. I'm available for trial. Go right ahead." Despite Green's repeated assurances, Court Commissioner Gary Link was skeptical: "I do not feel comfortable for the welfare of a patient if you're in the process of operating ... I don't think that's appropriate." The trial was rescheduled for later in March. California's Medical Board said in a statement it was investigating the incident. [Sacramento Bee, 3/1/2021]

Crime Report

Sharon Carr of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was arrested by officers responding to a residential burglary call on Feb. 26 when she stepped from the shadows in front of the victim's house. Investigators found a window screen removed and a window open, where they allege Carr entered the home but quickly left, leaving behind an empty Cheetos bag and a water bottle. Cheetos residue on Carr's teeth linked her to the crime, reported KTUL-TV, along with testimony from the victim. Carr was charged with first-degree burglary. [KTUL, 2/27/2021]

The Foreign Press

Diplomats and their families from the Russian embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea, worked around extreme COVID-induced travel restrictions by pushing themselves across the border in a rail trolley to reach their home country on Feb. 25, the BBC reported. The group of eight, including children, traveled 32 hours by train and two hours by bus to reach the Russian border, but trains and wagons cannot enter or leave North Korea, so the embassy's third secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, completed the last half-mile of the journey by pushing the trolley filled with the group and their baggage on train tracks over the Tumen River, where they were met by Russian officials at the border station. [BBC, 2/26/2021]

Animal Antics

EuroWeekly reported that on Feb. 24, a routine Sudanese Tarco airline flight from Khartoum to Doha, Qatar, was forced to turn around about a half-hour after takeoff when a stowaway cat caused a midair emergency. The cat gained entry to the cockpit and became aggressive, attacking the crew, who were unable to restrain it, prompting the pilot to return to the airport. Officials believe the cat got onto the airplane while it was parked overnight in a hangar in Khartoum. [EuroWeekly News, March 2021]

Inexplicable

Natasha Harris of Lillian, Alabama, called the Baldwin County Sheriff's office on Feb. 28 after her granddaughter's pet goat, Billy the Kid, returned home from one of his frequent adventures around their rural neighborhood painted from head to toe. Harris told Fox 10 News she suspected local teens had stolen and abused the goat, but investigators followed the goat's trail to Erica Farmer, who was visiting relatives nearby, and arrested her for theft of property and animal cruelty. Farmer has since apologized for dying the goat with colored shampoo and food coloring, and Harris now wants the charges dropped, telling the district attorney's office, "I'm really sorry for wasting your time." [Fox 10 News, 3/2/2021]

Just Desserts

In late February, Thangulla Satish, 45, was killed in Telangana state in southern India when the rooster he was preparing for an illegal cockfight panicked and slashed him with the 3-inch blade strapped to its leg. Police inspector B. Jeevan said Satish was "hit by the rooster's knife in his groin and started bleeding heavily," the Associated Press reported. He died on the way to the hospital. The rooster was removed to a poultry farm nearby. [Associated Press via ABC News, 2/28/2021]

Oops!

Mates Jackson Perry and Noah Palmer of Mandurah, Western Australia, planned a leisurely float offshore, drinking beer on a blowup air mattress on Feb. 27, but they wound up stranded in the Indian Ocean for nearly three hours after the wind blew them out to sea. "We couldn't paddle against the wind, and we just kept going further and further out," Perry told 7News, but they did manage to call a friend, who reached them on his jet ski just before their cellphones died. "We were kind of getting worried at that point," Perry said, but the beers helped with the anxiety. [7News, 3/1/2021]

Mystery

Police in Hertfordshire, England, received about 100 complaints over a three-day period from people parked at a Tesco store in Royston who reported their car alarms inexplicably went off, and they couldn't use their key fobs to lock or unlock their vehicles. Communications watchdog company Ofcom told the BBC in March 1 its investigators checked the area for signs of interference, but found nothing. No cars have been reported stolen, and police said they were not treating the incidents as malicious. [BBC, 3/1/2021]

Devil's in the Details

Amazon released a new icon for its shopping app in January with what was supposed to look like a jagged piece of tape on a package above Amazon's smiling arrow logo but instead reminded some viewers of Adolf Hitler's mustache, CBS News reported. After Twitter users commented on the resemblance, Amazon tweaked the art and rolled out a more squared-off version in late February. [CBS News, 3/3/2021]

Cliche Come to Life

Wendi Dale Hird, 56, was arrested at her home in Largo, Florida, late on Feb. 28 after throwing her cat in her 73-year-old male roommate's face, causing the cat to scratch him, according to arrest records. Police say she then struck the man in the face. Hird was charged with domestic battery on a person over the age of 65, reported The Smoking Gun. (Bonus: Hird was arrested in 2018 for allegedly battering the same man, described in court documents as a platonic roommate, but was not prosecuted.) [The Smoking Gun, 3/2/2021]

Shannon Stevens, along with her brother Erik and his girlfriend, snowmobiled to Erik's yurt in the backcountry near Haines, Alaska, on Feb. 13 and got the scare of a lifetime when she was attacked from below by a bear in an outhouse, the Associated Press reported. Erik heard his sister's screams and went out to investigate, opening the toilet seat to find "a bear face ... just looking right back up through the hole, right at me," he said. He shut the lid and ran back to the yurt, where they treated Shannon's wound with a first aid kit and determined is wasn't serious. Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wildlife Management biologist Carl Koch said the bear probably swiped at her with its paw, rather than biting her. "She could be the only person on Earth that this has ever happened to," Koch speculated. [Associated Press, 2/19/2021]

Awwwwww

Reuters reported on Feb. 24 that a wayward sheep found in a forest in Australia, has been shorn of the more than 77 pounds of fleece he was carrying and is now recovering at Edgar's Mission Farm Sanctuary near Lancefield, Victoria. Named Baarack by his rescuers, the sheep was "in a bit of a bad way," said the sanctuary's Kyle Behrend. "Sheep need to be shorn at least annually, otherwise the fleece continues to grow and grow ... He was underweight and due to all the wool around his face he could barely see." [Reuters, 2/24/2021]

Family Values

On Feb. 10, prosecutors in Indianapolis charged Jeremy Farmer, 36, with murdering his father, Fred Farmer, 58, who disappeared in November of 2019. Without a body, a weapon or a murder scene, detectives based their case instead on evidence that Jeremy cleaned out his dad's bank account, used his truck and credit cards, and likely sent fake texts full of emojis that Fred never used from his father's cellphone to family and friends for two months after the disappearance, WXIN-TV reported. Police hope someone will come forward with information about the fate of Fred Farmer. [WXIN, 2/10/2021]

Government in Action

Leslie Pilgrim of Huntington Beach, California, waited more than two hours at the DMV in Laguna Hills in early February to get a REAL ID, an upgraded driver's license that will be required for airline travel starting in October. Staying compliant with COVID-19 safety rules, Pilgrim left her mask on throughout the process and was startled when officials took her photo while still wearing her mask, she told Fox 11. The clerk realized the error and took another photo, but when the new ID arrived in the mail, Pilgrim's masked-up face was on the license. The DMV advised her the license is valid, even with the mask, but Pilgrim is not taking any chances: She's getting a new one made. "(A)t the end of the day, this is funny," she said. "With all the things happening in the world right now, this is an incredibly minor inconvenience," she said. [Fox 11, 2/23/2021]

Lost and Found

Phoenix police were called to a home on Feb. 21 by homeowners who unearthed a duffel bag filled with rusted handguns and assault rifles while digging hole in their backyard to plant a tree, Fox News reported. Officers said the guns will be examined to determine if they were used in any crimes. The residents have lived in the house for four years; before that, it was a rental property. [Fox News, 2/24/2021]

Police Report

Brandon Soules, 19, was arrested by police in Coolidge, Arizona, on Feb. 17, for falsely reporting to police that he had been kidnapped in an apparent scheme to get out of work. On Feb. 10, police found Soules lying near a water tower with his hands bound behind his back and a bandana in his mouth, the Associated Press reported. Soules told officers two men had kidnapped him from his home, knocked him unconscious and driven him around in his car looking for money his father had hidden around town, but detectives could find no evidence of a kidnapping or assault, and when pressed, Soules confessed he made the story up to avoid work at The Tire Factory, which subsequently fired him. [Associated Press via KNXV-TV, 2/24/2021]

The Passing Parade

Mr. Friendly Auto Service in Warren, Michigan, is one of two auto repair businesses in the area targeted by a serial pooper, police say. The man, seen on surveillance video, entered parked, unlocked vehicles to do his business, leaving his deposit behind for workers to find the next day, Fox 2 reported. The man first struck in November and returned in January, said Chris Phillips, manager of Mr. Friendly. In February, police said, the man struck at nearby Twin Tire, going from car to car until he found one left unlocked because of an electrical problem. "Now we've got double padlocks on the gate," said Phillips. "The guy needs to be caught. There is something wrong with him." [Fox 2, 2/16/2021]

Smooth Reaction

Vidam Perevertilov, 52, chief engineer on a supply ship sailing in the South Pacific from New Zealand to Pitcairn Island, fell overboard after finishing his shift at 4 a.m. on Feb. 16. Alone in the dark and without a life jacket, Perevertilov nevertheless started swimming toward a spot that appeared on the horizon at dawn, The Guardian reported. The spot turned out to be an abandoned fishing buoy and Perevertilov spent the next 14 hours clinging to it before being rescued by his crew, who noticed his absence six hours after he fell and were able to determine where he left the ship. Perevertilov's son, Marat, said his father was unhurt, but exhausted, and he left the buoy in the ocean "so it could save another person's life." [The Guardian, 2/24/2021]

Bright Idea

The famed Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn, New York, is celebrating the easing of local COVID-19 restrictions with a hand from Madame Tussauds wax museum, whose celebrity wax figures will be mingling with restaurant patrons. On Feb. 26 and through the weekend following, “Mad Men's” suave Don Draper could be seen relaxing at the bar with a cocktail, joined by others, including Jimmy Fallon, Al Roker and Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly, the Associated Press reported. Restaurant vice president Daniel Turtel said it was a “fun, safe way to fill some of the seats that need to remain empty as we continue to fight the pandemic.” [Associated Press, 2/26/2021]

Math Is Hard

An unidentified Dunkin' Donuts customer was captured on video berating store employees on Feb. 15 and demanding she get 50 Munchkin doughnuts after ordering a dozen. "I need more," she forcefully told the clerk. "Fifty. Five, zero. That's what a dozen is." Upworthy reported that another customer tried to correct her, saying "Twelve is a dozen," to which the woman replied, "I want more than 12! I want 50!" and later continued, "You understand nothing! ... You're not understanding the English!" Or the math. [Upworthy, 2/19/2021]