Cop dresses as shrub to catch distracted drivers

To quote from a post by Dunellen Borough Police Department in New Jersey:

Did you spot our "shrub" today? If you had your head buried in your phone, probably not!

Today, the Dunellen Police Department conducted a Distracted Driving Enforcement Detail on the 100 block of North Washington Ave. We specifically chose this highly-trafficked, pedestrian-heavy downtown area to enforce New Jersey's Handheld Cell Phone Law and protect our community.

The results? Our "shrub" was busy. We issued 74 citations to drivers distracted by their devices in a six-hour window.

Let this be a reminder: That text or notification can wait. Keep your eyes on the road, not your screen!

Snickers wants a ‘Chief Online Chill Officer’

To quote from the press release:

Designed for the ultimate SNICKERS Ice Cream fan, the "Chief Online Chill Officer" title comes with plenty of opportunities to sample the brand's five Minis flavors, which debuted earlier this year. Throughout their experience, the "Chief Online Chill Officer" will create social content and vlogs, capture behind-the-scenes moments, and give followers an inside look at the chillest experience of the summer—all while enjoying one of the sweetest perks of the gig: eating SNICKERS Ice Cream Minis.

True to the spirit of SNICKERS Ice Cream Minis, this experience is perfectly snackable. The hybrid gig, based in the Chicago area, runs for just 9 business days—from August 24 through September 3. The selected "Chief Online Chill Officer" will be compensated, earn an unofficial C-sweet-level title and the ultimate bragging rights for landing the chillest gig of the summer from SNICKERS Ice Cream.

Restaurant owner faces jail over ant dessert

It isn’t because he sprinkled the dessert with ants—it’s because he didn’t seek approval for that.

As reported by The Guardian:

Prosecutors in South Korea have asked a court to sentence the owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant to one year in prison for serving a dessert topped with ants, an insect not approved for consumption under local food safety law.

The restaurant, which holds two Michelin stars and is located in Seoul’s upmarket district of Gangnam, is reported to have served a sorbet dessert sprinkled with ants for customers who wanted the flavour.

Under South Korean law, only 10 insect species, including grasshoppers, mealworms and silkworm pupae, are approved for use as food ingredients. Ants are not among them.

Businesses wishing to use an unapproved insect must first obtain temporary approval, a process the restaurant did not follow, the ministry said. Violating the law carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison or a 50m won fine.

Missing underscore led to being jailed

As reported by Ars Technica:

One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months.

A 2018 child-luring investigation, which began in Madison, Wisconsin, and eventually extended to Halifax, Canada, was based on a false premise.

Police were looking for a man using the Kik messaging service under the name “fus__ro_dah” (two underscores after “fus”), but they accidentally requested records for the username “fus_ro_dah” (one underscore after “fus”). This one-character difference led them not to the perpetrator but to a Canadian man named Brandon Klayme.

Despite finding no evidence of the crime on his digital devices, Canadian police arrested Klayme in 2020 on child sex abuse charges. He was convicted after a trial in 2023 and sentenced in 2024 to 18 months in prison. He served the full term.

Even after release, Klayme continued to fight his conviction. In the process of preparing his appeal, the username mistake that led to all these years of disruption was finally discovered. On Thursday, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned Klayme’s conviction, writing: “Mr. Klayme is factually innocent of the offences. He should never have been charged, let alone convicted.”

Better In Real Life

From Australia: awkwardness abounds in this film for Melbourne-based Hector’s Deli centred on a first date that gets off to a shaky start.

Link to video

Israel clears way for crocodiles to stop prison breaks

To quote from a DW news report:

Israel’s environment minister has reclassified crocodiles so that they can now be used for security purposes. Far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reportedly wants them to surround a jail holding Hamas militants.

The new classification puts the crocodiles in the category of “cultivated wild animal” instead of wild animals. It could allow an approved security organization to keep Nile crocodiles for security purposes, subject to government approval and conditions set by environmental authorities.

One such body is the Israel Prison Service, which answers to Ben-Gvir.

Israeli media reported that Ben-Gvir intends to use crocodiles to guard Ketziot prison in southern Israel, which primarily holds Palestinian security prisoners.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Ben-Gvir wrote: “Are you thinking of attempting to escape? Think again.” He accompanied the post with an AI-generated image of himself with a crocodile on a leash.

Prison agency receives enquiry about room booking

To quote from a news report out of the Philippines:

A local tourist planning a weekend stay here mistakenly inquired about room availability at the female dormitory of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

Sharing the exchange in a social media post on Friday, the BJMP said it received a message from a female netizen asking if it had “available units” for rent for her upcoming trip to the country’s summer capital.

The administrator of the jail’s official Facebook page had to explain to the tourist that “Ma’am, this is a jail for women,” punctuating the reply with a smiley.

“Ay, sori po,” came the room seeker’s apology, with a crying emoji for stress.

The BJMP did not name the tourist who made the inquiry but said it obtained permission to post a screenshot of the exchange.

It capped the post with a reminder to all that “BJMP’s jail facilities are not hotels.”

Deliciously Confusingly

A pigeon takes centre stage in a new spot for Pepsi’s ice cream flavours.

Link to video

Get Real World Useful

No students.  No campus sights.  A new campaign for the University of Lincoln in England steers clear of familiar tropes and makes its point with a real-world dose of dry humour.

   -Sofa
   -Hikers

Shoes for a zombie apocalypse

A new spot for orthopaedic footwear brand, Kuru.

Link to video

Man arrested for ‘rubbing genitals’ on a car

Well, that’s probably the most striking among the list of reasons for which the arrest was made.  To quote from a post by the Rochelle Park Police Department in New Jersey:

Tyler Lee, 27, was arrested & now faces numerous criminal charges. Lee had jumped behind the counter of our local Wingstop, stole food, rubbed his genitals on a vehicle parked outside & attempted to get into another occupied vehicle before attempting to flee from our officers. After a brief foot pursuit, he was taken into custody & taken to the hospital for his injuries prior to processing. He also attempted to bite our officers & EMT personnel.

Court affirms prisoner’s right to send sperm-stained letters

From the coverage by The Sun, of a news story out of Germany:

A prisoner has won the right to send letters to his fiancée from jail splattered with his semen, a German court has ruled.

The prison administration punished the inmate over the correspondence, after the jailhouse letters were found to be a health hazard.

But the drug felon serving a multi-year sentence challenged the decision to punish him by filing a lawsuit.

He reportedly claimed the ban suppressed his sexual fantasies and violated his fundamental right to free development of his personality, German legal journal Beck Aktuell said.

The prisoner also argued in the lawsuit that if prison staff felt disgusted when searching the letters, they could wear gloves during the search.

He also countered that it was not a criminal offence to send the fluids in the mail.

The Hagen Regional Court ruled in favour of the prisoner and found there was “no legal basis” for the disciplinary measure to have been taken against him.

The court found the man had not breached his duty to support health and hygiene measures inside the jail, because this requirement was intended to ensure the health and safety of prisoners not staff.

The prisoner was found to have committed one violation; by including the semen, the mail was found to be a package rather than a letter, the legal journal said.

Inmates are required to obtain permission before sending packages under German law.

Man arrested for train surfing… naked

To quote from a tongue-in-cheek post by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Colorado:

Greetings Sedgwick County,

For those of you who had the unfortunate experience of seeing this gentleman surfing naked on top of a moving locomotive yesterday, I want you to know that he was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges.

Daniel Ray Ballance of Quartzsite, AZ decided to visit our County yesterday via the Union Pacific Railroad after he broke a window on a locomotive and entered it. To some he blew the horn, to others he showed a little too much.

Daniel expressed his love of vodka, beer, and playing the Banjo. Unfortunately, we had to separate him from those loves and the train ride. Instead Daniel is spending some time at an all expenses paid stay in jail, where he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Don’t Wait For Weird

From Canada: a strikingly surreal breast cancer PSA.

Link to video

RIP Gary Sobers

From a tribute on the AP News website:

Sobers held a slew of records. His unbeaten 365 against Pakistan in 1958 — remarkably his first test century — was the record score for 36 years, before countryman Brian Lara bettered it. He also was the first player to reach 8,000 runs in test cricket and to hit six sixes in one over in a first-class game, for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in English county cricket in 1968.

All this achieved while maintaining a party lifestyle.

“Well, it’s an exaggeration to say I was partying every night. Just every other,” Sobers told The Guardian newspaper in 2002.

“The night before a test match, I’d always be out and about all night. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all before a big game.”

RIP Brenda Fricker

The pigeon lady has flown on to the Great Beyond.

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
  - The Paper
  - ‘A sexy wee bastard’

Woman caught smuggling python… in her bra

To quote from a news report out of Amsterdam:

You truly never know what headline you’ll read next. A Canadian woman has been caught at Schiphol trying to smuggle a ball python onto a plane.

Thankfully, before Schiphol passengers could experience a real life version of “Snakes on a plane”, the woman was caught.

According to the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the snake was discovered during a safety check, RTL Nieuws reports.

How did she attempt to hide the animal? By stuffing it into her bra… Unfortunately for her, it seems that the cupsize wasn’t enough to disguise a living snake.

Leave your VanMoof anywhere

A series of spots for the Dutch bike maker featuring unusual settings and unusual ‘thieves’.

   -Plastic Bag
   -Tumbleweed
   -UFO

Man tries to rob bank… with a stolen kitten

To quote from a report out of Maryland:

A man grabbed a kitten from the adoption area of a Maryland pet store, then allegedly tried to use her to rob a nearby bank.

But it was far from the purr-fect crime — police were on the scene in minutes, and the kitten, named Magnolia, came through it all unharmed.

Security camera video shows a man wearing a light-colored t-shirt and black beanie walking into Pet Supplies Plus on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville, Maryland. Seconds later, he ran out clutching a black and white kitten.

Witnesses said he kept running straight for the PNC Bank in the same shopping center.

Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats rescue was nearby when she got a call from a very alarmed store employee around 10:30 a.m. They said someone used the key hanging nearby to open the cat adoption area and take 3-month-old Magnolia..

Stullich drove over immediately.

“Immediately saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that's a heck of a response for a stolen cat,’ but then I realized they all were going down to the bank,” she said. “[…] They came back out a few minutes later and said, ‘Yes, there is a cat inside the bank.’ Apparently he went into the bank with the cat in his arms, and he walked up to a bank employee and said, ‘Can you hold this?’ And then he wrote a note and handed it to a bank teller and it said, essentially, give me all your cash.”

RIP Sam Neill

The Hunt for Red October (1990)
  - Living in America

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
  - ‘Word of advice’
  - ‘Nothing surprises me’