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SWAT-ing Fries 8.4

When 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth was discovered violating the Metro's "zero tolerance" policy by Washington transit police, she was arrested, handcuffed and taken off to a detention center. But Hedgepeth wasn't holding drugs or a gun: she was eating French fries, and just happened to be caught in the Great Snack Scofflaw Crackdown of 2000.

After hearing numerous commuter complaints about snacking on Metro trains, the

TERRY LABAN

Washington Post reports, Metro Transit Police Chief Barry McDevitt decided that enough was enough and launched a week-long crackdown on snackers involving a dozen undercover officers (who apparently don't have anything better to do). In all, 35 violators were nabbed by police.

While most of the adults were simply given citations, juveniles charged with criminal offenses have to be taken into custody. And, as the chief told the Post, "Anyone taken into custody has to be handcuffed for officer safety" because youngsters "can kill you too." (Though probably not, even the chief would admit, with a side order of fries.)

Hedgepeth, who some say was targeted for arrest because she is black, is being forced to atone for her, er, crime, with community service and counseling. She may also face disciplinary actions at school for her reckless snacking, the Post reports.

Hard-Knock Life 6.8

The BBC is in hot water after one of its film crews left a child pretending to be a homeless African orphan on the doorstep of a London-area resident--as part of an ill-conceived, Candid-Camera-style practical joke. According to London's Daily Telegraph, Gillian Dumbarton answered the door of her Croxley Green home to find a man claiming to be raising money for African children. After she gave the man a one-pound note, the Telegraph reports, "a wooden box was unloaded from a lorry, out of which came a 7-year-old actor pretending to be an African child. As the boy ran toward her, she was told she would have to keep him."

After the film crew came out of hiding and revealed it had all been a joke, an angry Dumbarton called police. "I've got a sense of humor," she explained, "but this was in such bad taste when you think of all the disasters that have hit people in Africa."

The BBC has apologized for the incident, saying it didn't mean any offense.

Say What? 7.9

When Bill Clinton decided to make some critical remarks about Vietnam's lack of human rights in a recent speech at Hanoi's National University, the translator for the Vietnamese government seemed to have wax in his ears. "Most of Clinton's uncontroversial remarks were rendered clearly," Reuters reports, "but the translation became hopelessly garbled when Clinton touched on human rights."

Clinton noted, for example, that "only you can decide how to weave individual liberties and human rights into the rich and strong fabric of Vietnamese national identity." But the translator rendered his comments as "only you can decide (pause) on how to live with the issue, um, (pause) in the issue that human rights in Vietnam and in the society then you make a decision on your own."

Not that Clinton was exactly forthcoming himself, pointedly refusing to apologize for American actions during the Vietnam War.

 

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