Browsing burglar

A California teenage burglar’s thievery plot was spoiled when he woke up the owners of the home he had entered illegally. But the awakening wasn’t an accident; he reportedly woke them up to ask for the Wi-Fi network password. One of the homeowners told police he got out of bed after being awakened and pushed the young intruder down the hall and out the door. After the victim called police, authorities arrested the 17-year-old suspect just a block away. Police say two knives were missing from the home’s kitchen and that the intruder’s motives weren’t clearly known.

Valuable pawn

You wouldn’t normally find a $250,000 violin at LBC Boutique and Loan, a pawn shop in Somerville, Mass. But in July someone sold a Ferdinando Gagliano violin, handcrafted in 1759, to the shop for $50. Police say the violin had been stolen and that they have returned it to its owner. Dylan McDermitt, manager of LBC Boutique and Loan, told Boston 25 News that the store will from now on require sellers of musical instruments to prove ownership by playing them.

A nose for crime

It’s not surprising that a veteran Colombian cop has two armed bodyguards and travels in a van with tinted windows, given that the police veteran has a bounty on her head. The surprise is that the object of all this security is a 6-year-old German shepherd named Sombra. Colombian police say Sombra has sniffed out 2,000 kilos of cocaine hidden in suitcases, boats, and shipments of fruit and helped lead police to make 245 arrests. Her success has reportedly caused the Gulf Clan drug cartel to offer a reward of $7,000 to anyone who kills or captures the dog. Sombra’s handler, Officer Jose Rojas, says Sombra has both the obedient temperament and natural talent required for the job: “Her sense of smell is far beyond that of other dogs.”

No horsing around

You can’t walk through a drive-thru lane, but at one U.K. McDonald’s, you can’t even trot through. Louise Carter tried proceeding through a McDonald’s drive-thru lane in Worcestershire while riding her horse Oliver in July. According to a social media posting made by Carter, a McDonald’s employee refused to take her order because she wasn’t in a car. According to McDonald’s website, the company only serves drive-thru customers in motor vehicles.

Center-field surprise

Some fans may have made fun of his headgear. But Chicago Cubs fan Kyle McAleer must be happy he chose to wear a bucket on his head during a baseball game at Wrigley Field on July 24. During the Cubs game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, a metal pin fell out of the center-field scoreboard and struck McAleer in the head. The plastic bucket afforded some protection, but McAleer, 20, still needed staples in his scalp to fix the cut. Club officials say the loose pin fell when a tile was being changed.

Eat out or else

Elected officials in San Francisco are mulling an unusual move designed to prop up local eateries. Supervisors Ahsha Safai and Aaron Peskin unveiled a measure on July 31 that would ban local companies from providing food to their employees. According to Safai and Peskin’s logic, corporate cafeterias like ones at Twitter or Uber steal potential customers from local businesses. The law would not allow a firm to have an “industrial kitchen in your office building,” Peskin said. “People will have to go out and eat lunch with the rest of us.”

Bound for the record books

The quest for a record led a 64-year-old Bulgarian man to swim 2 miles while enclosed in a sack. Yane Petkov completed the 2.1-mile swim in Macedonia’s Lake Ohrid on July 24. Along with swimming while enclosed in a sack, Petkov was also bound by chains on his feet and hands. The Bulgarian man originally set the record for bound swimming in 2013. That record—nearly 1.3 miles—stood for just three months until an Indian man broke it. Petkov says he trained for only two weeks to retake his record.

Creative license

An inventive Ohio bureaucrat has devised a method of convincing Clevelanders to pose properly for driver’s license photos. Beneath the camera at an Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles office in the Cleveland area, an employee taped a picture of former Cleveland Cavaliers star forward LeBron James in a Los Angeles uniform. James left Cleveland by signing as a free agent with the Los Angeles Lakers on July 9, a move that gave Cleveland sports fans the blues. Many driver’s license agencies discourage people from smiling when taking their license photo.

The Windy City way

Willie Wilson’s campaign strategy could be called bold and without pretense, but it can’t be called illegal. The Illinois State Board of Elections said Wilson, a candidate for mayor of Chicago, broke no rules when he handed over $300,000 in cash and checks to parishioners of New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church on July 22. Critics accused Wilson, who is also a millionaire businessman, of trying to buy the votes of the 2,000 attendees. An aide to Wilson told WGN the money came from Wilson’s charitable organization and called the giveaway a property tax relief effort. An official with the Board of Elections said the event didn’t violate campaign laws because the money came from Wilson’s organization. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner joined Wilson at the event.