Dateline: ZimbabweA top politician has warned the women of Zimbabwe that contraceptives are a “Western” plot to give Africans cancer. Tobaiwa Mudede, the country’s registrar general spoke at an Africa Day celebration in Harare on May 25, warning women to stop using contraceptives. According to the state-owned Herald newspaper, Mudede claimed, among other things, that the promotion of birth control is a “ploy” by Western nations to retard population growth in Africa and that use of these contraceptive methods can cause cancer in women. The registrar general’s office is typically in charge of administrative paperwork like passports, birth certificates and death certificates—not health concerns. The office refused to respond when asked by the newspaper to provide evidence of the registrar general’s assertions. Dateline: EnglandSophie Dalzell, a topless model from Manchester, skipped a court date on a charge of assaulting two police officers because she had to fly to Belgium to get breast augmentation surgery. “My boobs and my appearance are more important than the law,” Dalzell told The Manchester Evening News. Dalzell had already collected 11 convictions on various assault and vandalism charges when she was ordered to appear in court earlier this year. Instead, she presented a letter from her plastic surgeon detailing her second breast enlargement surgery. Dalzell has already been sentenced to 400 hours of community service for a drunken 2012 assault on two female police officers, but is refusing to do it because she says the work is “too hard and tiring.” The 20-year-old—who makes a living appearing on late-night, adult TV programs—told the Evening News she works about two days a week, “and the rest of the time I just chill out.” Instead of complying with the court’s orders, however, Dalzell says she intends to spend the summer vacationing on the island resort of Ibiza and then “deal with the consequences when I get back.”Dateline: IllinoisA group of Chicago-area nuns is suing a nearby strip club, saying the venue disturbs their peace. The Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo in the village of Stone Park say Club Allure, which opened last September across the back fence of the convent, now fills the neighborhood with loud noise, glaring lights, fist fights and piles of litter including empty whiskey bottles and used condoms. The convent, on the other hand, consists of three chapels, a home for retired sisters and a house for young women thinking of becoming nuns. “The sisters have every right to pray and work peacefully without disruption from a strip club in their backyard,” Peter Breen, a lawyer for the nuns of St. Borromeo, said in a statement. Illinois mandates a 1,000-foot buffer zone between adult entertainment and places of worship or schools. However, rural Cook County, where Stone Park is located, has a one-mile restriction. Attorneys speculate that the one-mile limit could be unconstitutional because it prevents any kind of adult business from opening in the county.Dateline: ArizonaPolice in Prescott Valley arrested a man for trying to kill the moon with a handgun. Police responded to a home 85 miles north of Phoenix after a woman called 911 and said her partner had fired several shots into the air after telling her and her teenage son he had seen Halley’s Comet. Prescott Valley police spokesperson said Cameron Read, 39, was arrested after a struggle with officers. He admitted to firing multiple times into the air while “trying to shoot the moon.” Read also confessed to smoking marijuana before the incident. He was taken to Yavapai County Jail on felony charges of unlawful discharge of a firearm, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and endangerment, and a misdemeanor count of criminal damage.Dateline: New JerseyOfficials at Newark Liberty International Airport confiscated a batch of cookies worth more than $50,000. Turns out those white chocolate chips weren’t made of chocolate. Customs and Border Protection disclosed that the cookies had 118 pellets of cocaine baked into them. A spokesman for the agency said customs officers made the discovery on June 5 while searching the luggage of passengers arriving at the New Jersey airport on a flight from Guatemala. A Guatemalan citizen was arrested after officers discovered the crooked cookies. The man was turned over to the police department of Port Authority and faces charges of narcotics smuggling.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
