Dateline: UzbekistanFilm licensing authorities in the central Asian nation of Uzbekistan have blocked the release of a locally made action movie because it does not star Morgan Freeman. It’s not that all Uzbekistan-made action films are required to employ the venerable American actor. It’s just that the new thriller Daydi (Rogue) prominently featured Mr. Freeman’s image on the movie poster and in the trailer—even though he does not appear in the film. Timur Films is accused of hijacking Freeman’s image from the 2015 direct-to-video film Last Knights, which costars Clive Owen. Daydi, on the other hand, stars Uzbek actor Mirolim Qilchev as a police officer fighting various well-armed bad guys. According to the government-affiliated Podrobno news agency, Timur has not yet commented on the controversy but has delayed the film’s release pending a ruling from other local authorities.Dateline: ScotlandA small town in Scotland has become so fed up with speeding drivers that residents have started posing as police officers to discourage the lawbreakers. People in the village of Hopeman employ reflective vests and hairdryers in their bid to stop speeders from exceeding speeds of 60 miles per hour along a stretch of road leading out of the area. Standing alongside the main B9040 road, the fake fuzz hope that drivers mistake them for actual police officers with radar guns. “It’s very dangerous. The speed that the traffic is doing through Hopeman is quite serious, especially when the kids are going to school in the morning. It’s quite alarming,” Moray Councilor Dennis Slater told BBC News. “This is why some of the residents have resorted to taking out hairdryers and putting on hi-vis vest to try to slow the traffic.” Constable Roy Cook of the Lossiemouth policing team admitted to The Press and Journal in Aberdeen, “We have had a number of complains regarding speeding in Hopeman, which we will continue to address.”Dateline: OhioAn elementary school student contacted local police when she needed help—with her homework. Unfortunately, it turns out police aren’t so great at basic math. The Marion Police Department shared screen captures taken by mother Molly Draper after her 10-year-old daughter, Lena, asked the police to give her some assistance with some difficult math problems. After locating the police department’s page on Facebook, the fifth-grader said, “I’m having trouble with my math homework. Could you help me?” After sending out an automated message saying that the page is not monitored 24/7, an actual police officer responded to Lena, asking what she needed help with. “Well I don’t understand (8+29)x15,” Lena answered. The officer behind the Facebook page, Lt. B.J. Gruber, helpfully informed her she needed to add up the numbers in parenthesis first. Unfortunately, the officer swung and missed on the second math problem “(90+27)+(29+15)x2,” telling the student to “take the answer from the first parenthesis plus the answer from the second parenthesis and multiply that answer times two.” Unfortunately, the officer forgot the order of operations rule “PEMDAS,” which says problems must be solved in the following order: Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction. “Maybe I should have mentioned that History was my favorite subject before answering,” Gruber later told reporters.Dateline: FloridaApparently, he’s going to make America high again. Police in Hernando County seized hundreds of individually wrapped heroin packages stamped with the image of President Donald Trump. Tampa news station WFLA reports law enforcement officers found 5,500 packages of heroin following a six-to-eight-month long investigation. It is believed the heroin was purchased in the Northeast and shipped to Florida via the postal service. Some of the packets bore the names or images of other notorious figures, such as Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. Authorities were at a loss to explain the purpose behind Trump brand heroin, but noted that dealers often stamp batches of heroin with individual street names. Police arrested 46-year-old Kelvin Scott Johnson on suspicion of heroin trafficking and other charges in connection to the Trump heroin. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said the dealer “made a big mistake” using Trump’s picture.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
