The Streets of San Francisco
The public works department in San Francisco gets, on average, 65 calls every day with complaints about feces on sidewalks. Public works director Mohammed Nuru and the city’s mayor, London Breed, put their heads together and came up with a solution: the Poop Patrol. In mid-September, five public works employees with a steam cleaner will begin scouring poop “hot spots,” such as the Civic Center, Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, during the afternoons to clean up what Nature left behind. (Another team also cleans overnight.) Officials told the San Francisco Chronicle that the waste comes from dogs and people, and the mayor recently allotted about $1 million for new public restrooms. “I just want the city to be clean,” Breed said, “and I want to make sure we’re providing the resources so that it can be.”
Fiendish Plot (Epic Fail)
As his trial got underway on Aug. 22, Chinese University of Hong Kong associate professor Khaw Kim-sun pleaded not guilty to a breathtaking murder plot. Prosecutors say that in 2015, Khaw filled a yoga ball with carbon monoxide, then left it in the trunk of his wife’s car, where it slowly leaked the noxious gas and killed his wife and their 16-year-old daughter. The BBC reported that Khaw was angry because his wife wouldn’t divorce him so that he could be with a student with whom he was having an affair. When colleagues caught Khaw filling the ball, he said he was going to use it to kill rabbits, but in his statement to police, he said the gas was to kill rats in his home. He is charged with two counts of murder.
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Impressive Plot (Epic Fail)
A man named Tang from Sichuan Province, China, promised his girlfriend, Yang, that he would buy an expensive luxury car for her. The only problem was that he didn’t have the money. So, he cooked up a scheme, inviting Yang and her brothers to the Chengdu car dealership on Aug. 16, where he had allegedly put down a 10,000-yuan payment. Tang asked the group to wait there while he went to get the cash, but instead, according to Shanghaiist, he went to a supermarket and bought a fruit knife. Outside, he found a secluded spot and cut up his own arms, then called Yang and said he had been robbed at knifepoint of the 750,000 yuan he had supposedly withdrawn for the car. While her brothers took Tang to the hospital, Yang waited for police, who eventually excised the story from Tang. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and a 500-yuan fine.
From UFO to GOP
On Aug. 20, the Miami Herald endorsed Republican Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, who was running to replace Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to represent a district that includes parts of Miami and Miami Beach. Rodriguez Aguilera has been a city official and a business executive, the Herald noted, but conceded: “We realize that Rodriguez Aguilera is an unusual candidate.” Before she was a candidate, Rodriguez Aguilera appeared on Spanish-language TV programs to talk about her experience of being abducted by aliens when she was 7-years-old. Three beings, two women and a man who reminded her of Jesus Christ, spoke to her “telepathically” and took her aboard their spaceship. Inside, she saw “round seats and some quartz rocks that controlled the ship,” and she said she has communicated with them several times ever since. However, editorial page editor Nancy Ancrum didn’t think Rodriguez Aguilera’s beliefs or past experiences compromised her as an effective public servant. “Here’s why we chose her: She’s not crazy,” Ancrum told The Washington Post. “I don’t think we went off the rails here.” Rodriguez Aguilera lost her primary bid on Aug. 28.
Wisconsinites Understand
Mason Tackett of Floyd County, Ky., told WYMT that neighbors called him on Aug. 26 to say his cousin, Phillip Hagans, was carrying items out of Tackett’s house. When Tackett returned home, he said, “It looked like he was packing up for a yard sale when he come out.” Hagans was “lying, throwing his hands, saying stuff like, ‘I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!’ He did pull a gun on me,” Tackett said. But, what he really couldn’t understand was Hagans’ choice of items to steal: a cheese grater, an empty Lysol bottle and soap. “Who steals a cheese grater!?” Tackett asked. Hagans was charged with receiving stolen property and being a convicted felon with a firearm… no, not the cheese grater.
© 2018 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
