“A woman has been ordered to go under psychiatric review after she robbed a bank to give money to local kids. Jasmin Rivera attempted to rob a local branch of the Citizens Bank in Boston, telling cashiers she had a gun in her possession. Police reports state that Ms Rivera gave two notes to the cashier, one of them with the message, ‘please put the money in the bag, I have a gun, do not yell’ written on it. The homeless 30-year-old was given $652, according to police, and then proceeded to jump into a taxi, bribing driver Gary Levin with some of the money so he could take her to additional banks around the Roxbury neighborhood. Mr Levin told The Boston Globe about Ms Rivera’s erratic behavior. While seated in the backseat of the taxi cab, Ms Rivera told him: ‘You don’t realize what I just did. I just robbed a bank!… Rivera’s getaway ended once Mr Levin took action and dropped her off at a local park, calling the police soon after. When the officers arrived, they found the woman giving children $1 notes in the park’s playground.” w/ photo

“A Swedish woman’s recent toiling in her garden turned up a rather unexpected harvest when she pulled a carrot out of the ground ‘wearing’ the wedding ring she had lost back in 1995. After 16 years, Lena and Ola, who reside near Mora, Dalarna, in central Sweden, had given up hope of ever finding Lena’s lost wedding ring. The ring, which Lena had designed herself, went missing after she had put it on the kitchen counter in midst of a holiday baking session back in 1995. The couple engaged in a frantic search for the ring, even checked behind the appliances and beneath the floor boards when renovating the kitchen a few years later, but to no avail. But as Lena was about to gather the last of the carrots from the family vegetable patch, she pulled out a carrot that had something attached to it. As the carrot was so small, she was about to throw it away when she realized what it was that appeared to be ‘growing’ around the finger-sized vegetable.” w/ photos

“Police officers have ordered a shopkeeper to remove an ‘obscene’ chair from her window. The outrageous piece of furniture in question was decorated with images from 1950s Playboy magazines. Officers visited the Print Room in Station Street, Lewes, after complaints from members of the public. They said the saucy seat contravened the Obscene Publications Act. The shop owner was so bemused by the request that she has draped it with its own public health warning. The cheeky chair was the brainchild of Laura Diez, who runs Lollipop and Pepper at the Needlemakers in West Street. She said: “I can’t believe anyone in their right mind could actually be offended by this. “I used 1950s Playboys which are no more scandalous than the front cover of some men’s magazines which are on show in any newsagents. The sign now hanging from the chair, which is for sale at $123, reads: ‘This chair has been deemed inappropriate for public view. Please take care.” w/ photo

“It might have been a case of divine intervention, or simply a crease, but Miss Crane from Orpington was convinced she had found the image of Christ. She was so surprised by the likeness she even built a shrine to the disheveled item of clothing. She said: ‘I’d left the washing out to dry overnight – and it had probably been sitting there a bit too long when I noticed the face in the sock. ‘I called my boyfriend over straight away – we could both clearly see the face of Jesus in the sock. There is a straight-on face, and a side profile too – we couldn’t believe it. ‘I immediately took some pictures to show our family and friends – they all thought it was hilarious. ‘We think it’s a bit of a sign – but for what we don’t know.” w/ photo

“It is hard to imagine Italian mob bosses discussing the next shipment of olive oil, but according to a new book, the age-old olive oil business is the most corrupt in the recipe book. Tom Mueller spent months in Italy investigating the subject for Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil. There he learned that the industry is so badly taken advantage of by fraudsters and crooks, it is possible that the last bottle of olive oil you bought didn’t contain olive oil at all.” w/ photos

“Chile’s Supreme Court has ordered a newspaper to pay $125,000 to 13 people who suffered burns while trying out a published recipe for churros, a popular Latin American snack of dough fried in hot oil. The publisher of La Tercera newspaper in Chile must pay individual damages to 11 women and two men ranging from as little as $279 to $48,000 for one woman whose burns were particularly severe. The high court’s ruling was announced on Monday, seven years after the readers burned themselves while trying out the recipe. Judges determined that the newspaper failed to fully test it before publication, and that if readers followed the recipe exactly, the churros had a good chance of exploding once the oil reached the suggested temperature. Grupo Copesa, which publishes the paper, said it will abide by the ruling.” w/ photo

“Bad-tempered Elvis the crocodile, who lives at an Australian reptile park, took matters into his own hands when a zookeeper’s lawnmower came too close for comfort. The saltwater croc promptly stole the mower in the incident at Sydney’s Australian Reptile Park, grabbing it from operations manager Tim Faulkner and keeper Billy Collett and dragging it under the water of his enclosure. It took staff at the park an hour to retrieve the machine as Elvis – who is 16ft in length and weighs an impressive 1,102 lbs – sat watching his prize. ‘Once he got it, he just sat there and guarded it,’ Faulkner said. ‘It was his prize, his trophy. If it moved he would attack it again.’ He was eventually able to retrieve the mower from the water after Collett distracted Elvis with kangaroo meat.” w/ photos

“A trend among some students to crush certain candy and snort or inhale it — dubbed ‘Smoking Smarties’ — is causing concern among some drug educators. ‘It is not a narcotic of any sort. They are not getting high,’ said Carol Williams, project coordinator of the Shelby County Drug Free Coalition Project Safe Place Programs of Family Connection, Inc. ‘They are literally just inhaling sugar into their body.’ The students, often middle schoolers, crush candies such as Smarties or use already powdered candies such as Pixy Stix or powder drink packets such as KoolAid and snort them into their noses, Williams said. In some cases the students will crush a pack of candy and put the packet in their mouth and inhale and blow the fine granules out as if they were smoking. she said. ‘They think it’s funny,’ Williams said. But Williams, drug educators, and at least one candy company, aren’t laughing.” w/ photo

“A 45-year-old Florida woman who said she called 9-1-1 because she ‘ate too much food’ was arrested following an encounter at a hotel, according to a recently released affidavit. A St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputy on Dec. 18 went to the Traveler’s Inn motel in Fort Pierce, Florida and saw a woman “jumping up and down and yelling in room #108.” A man walked out and said the woman was his girlfriend, Mary Ellen Lisee. He said Lisee wouldn’t stop talking and that he was leaving so he could sleep in peace. When Lisee, who appeared intoxicated and smelled of booze, came out of the room, she started yelling, “Are you surprised? Are you surprised?” Lisee said she called 9-1-1 but said there wasn’t a reason for a deputy to be there. Asked how authorities could help, Lisee started laughing, saying she called because she ‘ate too much.’ Queried again why she dialed 9-1-1, Lisee said, “Because I ate too much food.” w/ photo

“As the saying goes, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And this weekend, football fans were all privy to that exact emotion when a woman shamed her ex on national television. A woman, named as Annie Walker, caught the attention of television cameras at Sunday night’s Packers-Bears football game by holding up a sign calling out her cheating ex boyfriend. The spurned woman, dressed in Packers gear, stood out because her homemade sign had nothing to do with football. Her sign had a much clearer message: ‘My cheating EX boyfriend is watching from couch instead.” w/ photos + video