News Quirks 

Curses, Foiled Again

Dallas police said Dwayne Lamont Moten, 20, hired a friend, Jacob Wheeler, 20, to shoot him, intending to blame the crime on his wife’s boyfriend so he could gain custody of his 3-year-old son. Wheeler was only supposed to wound Moten, who “drove a short distance before he realized he was shot a little worse than he had planned and got out of his car and was screaming for help,” then died, according to Sr. Cpl. Kevin Janse, who noted, “There’s legal ways to get custody of a child, and taking a bullet and ultimately dying is definitely not one of those ways.” (KDFW-TV)

Shawn Martines, 25, flagged down a sheriff’s deputy in Pasco County, Fla., and explained that he let a woman put handcuffs on him, thinking they were fake, but they were real, and the woman didn’t have a key. Martines managed to pick one cuff and wanted the deputy to unlock the other. First, though, the deputy patted down Martines for weapons. When he found a hypodermic needle and nine Xanax pills, he locked the loose cuff on Martines’ free wrist and arrested him on drug charges. (Associated Press)

Looks Minus the Talent — and Egos

A Los Angeles sperm bank has launched a service that lets its clients choose donors who resemble Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, Justin Timberlake, Tiger Woods and other entertainment and sports celebrities. Pointing out that state law requires sperm donors to be anonymous, Scott Brown, the communications director for California Cryobank, said the clinic’s “Donor Look-A-Like” service is “a way of connecting the client to the donor” by suggesting which celebrity the donor most resembles and showing pictures of those celebrities to give clients a “general idea.” Acknowledging that there’s no guarantee the offspring will actually resemble the celebrities, Brown said that since introducing “Donor Look-A-Like,” the clinic has seen a 400 percent increase in visitors to its website. (The Washington Times)

Signs of the Times

Millions of dollars earmarked to create jobs under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act have created jobs making posted signs reminding people that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has created jobs. Claiming that states have spent at least $20 million of federal funds on the signs, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., introduced a bill “to prevent further funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 from being used for physical signage indicating that a project is funded by such Act.” (ABC News)

Real-Life Math

Alabama’s Birmingham-Southern College must cut 20 percent of its operating budget, about $10 million, in part because it erroneously awarded millions of dollars in financial aid by adding Pell grant money to students’ financial-aid packages instead of subtracting it. “This was not just a one-year thing,” college president David Pollick admitted. “Our finance operation was dealing with systems that go back 20 years. They’d just been doing things certain ways. It’s almost like you have an infection that you don’t see; nobody knows about it.” Pollick added that besides cutting 51 staff and 29 faculty positions, the school is eliminating five student majors, including accounting. (The Birmingham News)

Doctrinal Matters

When an Austrian church undergoing renovations listed its old confessional on eBay, it noted the boxlike structure was ideal for conversion to a one-person sauna, a small bar or a children’s playhouse. Vienna’s archdiocese quickly intervened to end the bidding, declaring that auctioning “objects that were used for dispensing the sacraments is not acceptable.” The daily newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten reported that the highest bid received was 666.66 euros. (Associated Press)

Four months after Indonesia’s highest Islamic authority instructed the nation’s Muslims to face west to pray toward Mecca, it admitted that its directive actually had the faithful “facing Somalia or Kenya” instead of Saudi Arabia. “We are now suggesting people shift the direction slightly to the northwest,” Cholil Ridwan, the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council said, adding, “There’s no need to knock down mosques, just shift your direction slightly during prayer.” Ridwan said that even though Muslims had been facing the wrong way, “their prayers will still be heard by Allah.” (Reuters)

Slightest Provocation

Police in Gainesville, Fla., charged Jennifer B. Elder, 25, with “robbery by sudden snatching” after she grabbed money from Dan Alford’s shirt pocket. Alford explained that negotiations over sex for money broke down when Elder smiled, and, according to Cpl. Tscharna Senn, he was turned off by “the extent of her dental issues.” (The Gainesville Sun)