[News] Things to Worry About Today

Always better to be able to pay full price for the funeral. Watch out if you prepaid, or, even worse, get an indigent's burial. In Allendale, S.C., a home might have fit a 7-footer into a 6-foot, prepaid coffin, and in Houston, a home might have confused a male with a female and cremated the wrong one. Associated Press via Charlotte Observer /// Houston Chronicle

Encouraging: an Israeli Jew working closely with Palestinians.(but the project was the robbery of a bank in Ramallah) (and guess who the mastermind was, you anti-Semites, you!). Agence France-Presse via Australian Broadcasting Corporation

In the last 6 yrs in hospital ERs in and around Austin, Tex., a total of 2,678 of the visits were made by only 9 people, who of course know the secret words that require the hospital to treat them ("chest pain"). American-Statesman

Indonesia apparently permits criminals to profit from their "celebrity," so "Ryan," the gay serial killer awaiting sentencing (which could be "firing squad"), whose autobiography is already on the shelves, is set to debut his angelic voice in an album of pop songs, My Last Performance. Agence France-Presse via Herald Sun (Melbourne)

It was published yesterday, but The Sun's story is certainly real, about one of Sir Richard Branson's health clubs in Acton, England, starting a program for pets. It's just that the pictures look a little April-Fool-ish (but, as with the health clubs themselves, the pets in the pictures all seem to be buff). The Sun

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Your Daily Loser
This one's a tossup: (1) There's poor Edwin Calix, 19, who tried to snatch a bottle of Hennessey cognac and run out the front door of Sykes Liquor Store in Trenton, N.J., but the clerk pushed the auto-lock, sealing the door. Calix's backup plan was a gun, which he pointed at the clerk, but that only allowed him to see that it wasn't a real gun, and by then, he had 911 on the phone, anyway. Said the clerk, "[Calix] just came up and sat on the floor and started crying." Among Calix's mumbles, the clerk said, was, "I have a child," which complicates the question of why he wanted the Hennessey's. Times of Trenton /// KYW-TV (Philadelphia) [mugshot]

(2) The other contenders are two unidentified men captured on surveillance video trying to break into an alarmed private residence in St. Petersburg in daylight. WFTS-TV: "One placed himself in a football stance and ran the length of the yard into the porch door with his body. The latch held quite nicely. The impact sent the would-be thief flying backwards and onto the ground, where he is seen writhing in pain." The alarm sounded; they gone. WFTS-TV (Tampa)
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Your Daily Jury Duty
["In America, a person is presumed innocent until the mug shot is released"]
Arlene Smith, 47, stands accused of several petty thefts from the little store located inside the courthouse in Cincinnati (Reese's cups, Slim Jims, etc.), but let's be fair: No one could possibly be so heartless as to shoplift from a store run by an obviously-blind proprietor, right? Cincinnati Enquirer
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Today's Newsrangers: Kurt Knochel, Neil Gimon, Ginger Katz, Stephen Taylor, Paul Blumstein