Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. A Waffle House employee in Mississippi was shot dead after she asked a customer to stop smoking in the restaurant, police said. Johnny Max Mount, 45, was allegedly smoking in a Biloxi Waffle House when the 52-year-old employee asked him to put it out, according to the Sun Herald. Mount is accused of refusing and instead removing a 9mm handgun hidden under his shirt. Police allege he shot the woman, who has not yet been identified, once in the head. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Mount was arrested and charged with first degree murder. He is in custody with a $2 million bond.
Next, music to my ears. The Baltimore-based “experimental music” creators Matmos announced the release of their new album, “Ultimate Care II,” consisting entirely of “music” made by a Whirlpool washing machine (the Ultimate Care II model). According to a report in Time magazine, the machine’s 38-minute wash cycle will be “sampled and processed” to lighten the original sound. (Matmos previously “played” canisters of helium on stage at Radio City Music Hall and a cow’s uterus at the San Francisco Art Institute.) [Time.com]
Finally, “I’m doing what God wants,” Mike Holpin, 56, told British TV’s Channel 5. “In the Bible, God says go forth and multiply,” said the unemployed former carny who claims to have fathered at least 40 children (now aged from 3 to 37) by 20 different women. Holpin has been married three times, and lives with his fiancée Diane and two kids in the Welsh town of Cwm. “I (will) never stop,” Holpin said. “I’m as fertile as sin…” [Daily Telegraph]
The spirit of the season! A man dressed in a Santa Claus suit accused of shooting two men over the weekend at a Detroit gas station was acting in defense of a co-worker who was dressed as Mrs. Claus, his attorney said. Marcus Weldon, 26, faces multiple assault charges, including assault with intent to murder, as a result of the shooting, which wounded two men. Weldon’s attorney, Gabi Silver, pleaded not guilty for him. Silver told Judge Michael Wagner that Weldon was acting in defense of a woman. Silver later told reporters the woman was his co-worker, who was dressed as Mrs. Claus and had possibly been pushed by one of the men. Silver said Weldon and his co-worker were dressed as the Clauses for a party at the MGM Grand Casino in downtown Detroit, where they both work. “They were just getting off work, no alcohol was involved,” Silver told reporters. “This was a situation that started off ugly and just got uglier.” Violence erupted when Weldon, dressed as Santa Claus, got into a heated verbal exchange with one of the men, a gas station customer, prosecutors said. Weldon fired several shots, wounding the man and a passenger in his car, prosecutors said. Weldon fled the scene, but was taken into police custody nearby shortly after the incident. The shooting victims were hospitalized. Silver said Weldon has no prior record and was licensed to carry a concealed weapon. When he’s not playing Santa, Weldon works as an electrician apprentice at the casino, Silver said. Wagner set a bond of $50,000. [Reuters]
Small crimes…. Nigel Graham, 55, had to appear in Southampton, England, Magistrates Court after being charged with illegally parking in handicapped spaces. In court, Graham admitted to misuse of his mother’s disabled parking badge after she died in 2002. He pleaded guilty to charges of misuse of a “blue badge” and fraud by false representation. Four months later, Graham was back in court admitting to misuse of a blue badge again. That time, he had used it to park at the Southampton Magistrates Court for his first case. He was fined 400 pounds (US$600) for the new offense. [BBC]
Liquid Stupid Pills: A Florida woman was arrested after calling a local police station and asking for… wings and cigarettes. Forty-five-year-old Liann Gae Watson is accused of calling police and asking them to bring her wings and cigarettes, claiming that she was too drunk to drive and get them herself. When officers arrived, she repeatedly asked them for cigarettes while claiming that the call was a joke, The Orlando Sentinel reports. Police report that she switched back and forth between hysterical laughter and sobbing while being interviewed and was ultimately handcuffed and placed in the patrol car. When she arrived at the Lake County Jail, she reportedly began shouting profanities, banging her head against a partition and kicking her legs up toward the ceiling. After being warned four times, police restrained her arms and legs to prevent her from harming herself and others.
Is Atkins making a comeback? Someone stole 40,000 pounds of meat from a meat plant in central Pennsylvania. According to state troopers, a trucker loaded $110,000 worth of meat into a trailer during a scheduled pickup and drove off. He was supposed to deliver it to a company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — but never showed up. A spokesman for Nicholas Meat says the customer notified him about the missing product, which would have been enough to make 160,000 burgers. Police later discovered the driver used a fake ID to get the delivery contract. Authorities say the company information on the truck was also fraudulent. The investigation continues. [AP]
Finally, a woman serving a 39 year sentence for robbery has been crowned the beauty queen of one of Brazil’s toughest prison for females. Michelle Neri Rangel, 27, beat nine other inmates to the “Miss Talavera Bruce 2016” title at the maximum security lockup of the same name in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was ordered detained at the facility in 2010 after being convicted of prostitution and a series of holdups, reports Globo. “(This competition) is a question of honor. I’m feeling like a woman, I’ve learned how to feel like a woman in prison,” she told the EFE news agency. The participants had their hair and make-up styled by local volunteers. Armed guards, family, friends and ten judges looked on as they first donned swimwear and then evening gowns for the two sections of the competition. Ana Carolina Rosa de Souza, 22, won last year’s event, and said it had served to “open doors” and make her a better person. She had been convicted for drug trafficking. “The competition is not just about beauty. The judges are looking for the ability to express sympathy,” El Tiempo reports her as saying. The annual event is organized by community and church groups who want to boost inmates’ self-esteem, and this year was hosted by Brazilian model and actress Carol Nakamura. Overall, the country’s overcrowded prison population is now the world’s fourth largest, with more than 600,000 inmates being held in facilities designed for 377,000, according to Human Rights Watch. The pageant comes a month after Suzy Cortez was voted as having Brazil’s most beautiful bottom — and crowned Miss BumBum 2015.
Later.
