Asleep at the wheel

Robbing eight cars can make a guy tired. The Cherokee County (Ga.) Sheriff’s Office says that was the case for Timothy Zacharie, 23, after they found him asleep inside a parked car he was allegedly robbing in Acworth, Ga. Someone reportedly contacted police about the robberies, and authorities say they found credit cards, gift cards, and cash from the robberies with the slumbering Zacharie.

Tourist traps

Venice is lovely, but be careful where you walk and, now, where you sit. Facing intense pressure from angry locals, Venice, Italy, Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has proposed a new restriction on tourists: a ban on sitting in undesignated spots, with a proposed fine of about $588. In the recent past, the city has mandated that tourists walk on the right side of sidewalks, and not feed the pigeons. Brugnaro called the proposals “urgent measures to guarantee public safety, security, and livability.”

A cry for help

If Becky Muhs of West Fargo, N.D., was going for realism with her first Halloween decoration this year, she succeeded. WDAY reports that over the Sept. 22-23 weekend she and her husband put up their first decoration for the Halloween season—a sign in a window that says, “Help Me,” with the words having the appearance of being written in blood. It wasn’t long before worried neighbors began texting the couple with concerns, and one neighbor, radio host Jay Thomas, called 911. Thomas pointed out that the sign by itself didn’t look like it was part of a Halloween theme: “To my defense, there were no other Halloween decorations out there.”

Department of corrections

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a diplomat, but he is also waging a war of his own. In a September memo to State Department staff, Pompeo urged bureaucrats to fix common comma errors in department missives. Vexed by State Department–produced prose that either overused commas or left the punctuation out where needed, the memo directed officials to adhere to The Chicago Manual of Style rules for comma usage. The email included numerous examples of department releases containing comma mistakes. The memo gave no official guidance on the long-standing Oxford comma debate.

Game over

When Vontae Davis discovered he had lost his passion for football, he retired from the NFL. There was one problem for Davis’ Buffalo Bills: The 30-year-old cornerback made his decision effective immediately at halftime of a Sept. 16 regular season game. Declaring he was “done” with football at halftime, Davis reportedly packed his locker at halftime and left the stadium rather than play the final two quarters of the game. In a statement announcing his retirement, Davis said he had not meant to be disrespectful to his teammates or the Bills, but he simply realized he “should not be out there anymore.”

Dropping by

A city in Idaho has put out the call for volunteer scarecrows after a murder of crows descended upon the town in September. Nampa, Idaho, official Robert Sanchez said nearly 10,000 crows arrived in town to roost during the flock’s migration. The result: sidewalks covered in bird droppings and tree branches snapping under the weight of the large black birds. Sanchez told local media he needs volunteers to scare the crows away with noisemakers and laser pointers. Killing the crows isn’t an option, as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protects them.

A ring returns

In 1989, long before Phil Bryant became governor of Mississippi, he lost his wedding ring. On Sept. 28, after almost 30 years, he learned where it had been all this time: deep inside an old friend’s couch. “My friend Jeff Maher found my original wedding ring from 1976 in an old couch. It had been lost since 1989,” the governor tweeted. “Thanks, Jeff!” Gov. Bryant and his wife Deborah have been married for more than 40 years.

The family business

A New Hampshire man has developed a new tool to rob prizes from game machines: a tiny human. Police in Salem, N.H., say 34-year-old Anthony Helinski stole prizes from a KeyMaster arcade game by directing his toddler to wiggle into the machine’s prize chamber on Sept. 14. Authorities released cell phone video footage of the heist at the Mall of Rockingham Park in an effort to identify the culprit, and Helinski later turned himself in. According to the video, the female child was able to pass several prizes through the machine before climbing out and walking away with what appeared to be her father.

Where the rubber hits the sea

After decades of hoping, French authorities have decided to call off a controversial environmental plan to create a sea life sanctuary. In the 1980s, French authorities dumped 25,000 used car tires to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea hoping the debris would create a habitat for fish and coral. A 2005 study by scientists at the University of Nice demonstrated that the largely unused tires were leaching toxins into the water. In September, French officials called off the failed experiment, hiring work crews to scoop the tires from the seafloor. The cleanup is expected to last through early 2019.