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Skunk sprays church robbery suspect Grant M. Simonson moments before arrest Whoever smelt it, dealt it. A suspected church burglar in Washington state got a smelly sendoff after a skunk sprayed him just before his arrest last week, authorities said. The incident happened around 3:10 a.m. Thursday when deputies responded to a reported burglary in progress at the Church of the Nazarene in Deer Park, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday. The caller told deputies that a male wearing a mask over his face and holding a flashlight was seen on a surveillance live feed walking around inside the church and looking at audio equipment. Deputies arrived at the scene and saw a man, later identified as 28-year-old Grant M. Simonson, walk past an open window and then begin to climb out, the sheriff's office said. Deputies demanded the suspect show his hands and get on the ground. “He began to follow the commands when suddenly a skunk came running around the corner, approached Simonson, and released its well-known and malodorous spray before fleeing the area,” the sheriff's office said. Simonson was taken into custody without further incident. After deputies read him his rights, they said Simonson claimed that he was “wide awake and bored,” so he went for a ride on his bicycle and noticed an open church window. Deputies said he claimed to have gone home before returning on foot, removing a screen from the window and entering because he was “curious.” Simonson was booked into the Spokane County Jail for second-degree burglary. He was released later that day on his own recognizance. As for the skunk, deputies said the animal's whereabouts are unknown. “The skunk is a wild animal and not affiliated with law enforcement or the church,” the sheriff's office advised. Louisiana mom FaceTimed her ex to show how she'd slit his kids' throats: A disturbed Louisiana mom repeatedly video called her ex after slitting their two young kids' throats — showing him his daughter “gasping for air” before she died, according to harrowing court documents of the “unspeakable” crime. Jenee Pedesclaux, 31, first called her ex, Jermaine Roberts, to tell him she'd damaged his vehicle amid their bitter child-custody battle — and that she planned to kill herself and their kids rather than go to jail, according to court documents obtained by NOLA.com. She then FaceTimed him three times to show how she'd stabbed their 2-year-old son, Jay'Ceon, and daughter, Paris, 4, the report said. In the last video call, she showed him how she had slit both kids' throats — with their daughter “gasping for air” on the bed before later being pronounced dead in a local New Orleans hospital, the outlet said. Covered in blood, Pedesclaux at some point went on Facebook Live to blame her ex for the bloodbath. “My children is dead! I'm done!” she howled in the distressing live video, although her young son survived. “I'm done with life, and it's all Jermaine's fault! … I'm killing myself, I'm done!” she sobbed. The kids' dad — who called cops after the first threatening call — raced over to the house, but his ex had locked him out, Nola.com reported. “We gone. It's over with,” Pedesclaux allegedly told him. The dad eventually managed to force his way in after smashing a window, finding his kids on a blood-soaked bed, the girl foaming at the mouth and her younger brother face down in blood, court documents said. Pedesclaux allegedly bit Roberts and threatened him with a knife before he took the children to University Medical Center, where they underwent emergency surgery. Despite multiple life-saving procedures, Paris was soon pronounced dead due to hemorrhagic shock due to her injuries, which included a cut on her neck, down to her spine, along with cuts to the chest and shoulders. Little Jay'Ceon remained intubated in critical condition as of Monday, awaiting another surgery to determine whether his trachea is healing correctly, the court docs said. Their mom had turned the knife on herself, but only suffered superficial cuts to her collar bone area, the report said. She was treated at a hospital before being booked into jail Monday night. Pedesclaux faces charges of second-degree murder, attempted murder, and second-degree cruelty to a juvenile, records show. She is due in court Thursday. The deadly attack came after a long-running child-custody battle between the pair, with the dad fighting for joint custody, arguing that his ex was “not stable or providing a healthy environment for the kids,” the outlet reported. Pedesclaux also tested positive in March for benzodiazepine, cocaine and cannabinoids during a drug screening at drug court, the outlet said. However, Pedesclaux's family blamed mental health for the “unspeakable tragedy.” “Mental health is a crisis that is affecting every family and ours is no different. The lack of mental health services and the toxic mix of social media has added to the problems we face as a community,” the family told NOLA.com in a statement. ‘Too ugly to sing': Cops make off-key Bangladesh singer sign apology This was one canary cops didn't want singing. Bangladesh police forced a quirky singer to sign an apology, telling him he was “too ugly to sing” and pushing him to stop his off-key performances of classic songs, reports said. “Hero” Alom claimed he was picked up at 6 a.m. last Thursday and kept at police headquarters for eight hours, AFP reported – describing the social media star as “an out-of-tune” singer. “Everyone was randomly throwing questions at me and I had to keep turning around and around,” Alom told India Today. “Then someone suddenly grabbed my hair and asked if I have a face that looks like a hero.” Authorities were allegedly focused on the cringy crooner's takes on songs by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, according to AFP. Cops told the news agency they received “many complaints” about Alom's singing and that he apologized for the songs and for wearing police uniforms in his videos. “(He) totally changed the (traditional) style (of singing),” Dhaka detective Harun ur Rashid said, according to AFP. “He assured us that he won't repeat this.” Cops denied trying to push the singer to change his name, according to the news agency. Alom, who has close to 2 million Facebook followers, posted a new music video after his alleged ordeal showing him behind bars and about to be executed, reports said. “This is an independent Bangladesh. If I cannot speak, sing or have recreational activities, then yes I think my rights are being snatched away,” the singer told India Today. Alom allegedly ran for office in 2018 and received 638 votes. Father fights Albanian police chief who allegedly killed daughter with boat A devastated father fought an Albanian police commissioner on the beach after the cop allegedly crashed his boat into his 7-year-old British daughter, killing her. The girl, Jonada Avdia, a British-born citizen, was killed on Tuesday while playing in the ocean when she was hit by a speedboat's propeller off Potam Beach in Albania. The boat was driven by officer Arjan Tase while he was off-duty, according to reports. When Tase parked his boat on the shore right after the fatal crash, her father Bedlar Avdia confronted his daughter's alleged killer and a brawl ensued, photos shared by Albania's former prime minister Sali Berisha show, the Daily Mail reported. The cop allegedly drove the craft into waters designated exclusively for swimmers. “I was bathing together with my daughter near the shore, I saw a white boat with two people on board,” Avdia, an Albanian native, reportedly told local news outlets. He said the boat parked briefly on the shore where a woman got off and more women and children boarded before taking off in the direction of he and his daughter. “It came in our direction and came at hellish speed and separated me and the girl,” he said “I dove down under the water and the craft hit my daughter with the engine part, cutting her all over.” Tase, the chief of police in the city of Elbasan, was later arrested and was due in court in the city of Vlora Friday. Investigators claim the cop was transporting members of his family from Porto Palermo to Potam — a roughly 5-mile distance — when the crash occurred. Law enforcement officials said Tase plowed through an area clearly designated for swimmers with marked buoys to drop family members off before pulling away and hitting young Jonada just 15 feet from the shoreline. The boat's propeller blades “caused serious injuries that led to immediate loss of life,” a police spokesman told local outlets. Tase has been charged with “negligent homicide” and 15 police officers who were supposed to be guarding the beach that day have been fired, the Daily Mail reported. The incident sparked protests in the capital city of Tirana, where demonstrators demanded the resignation of the country's Minister of Interior Bledar Çuçi, Director General of the State Police Gledis Nanos, and Tourism Minister Mirela Kumbaro, according to Albania Daily. Kumbaro told Albania Daily that she blames Tase in the tragedy and called for a maximum sentence in his case. “An angel is no longer among us because of the stupidity of a man who broke every law, every rule and every norm with tragically irreversible consequences,” she said. “With awareness that there are no words to serve as a consolation for the parents, the family for the tragedy they suffered, the request goes to justice to do its job, without compromise, with maximum punishment for anyone who breaks the law.” Shameless scoundrel uses fake $100 bill at boy's lemonade stand Washington state police were looking for the shameless scoundrel that used a counterfeit $100 bill at a child's lemonade stand. The fully grown man was caught on camera wearing sunglasses while he passed the fake bank note to Jeremy, 11, at his makeshift Everett concession stand earlier this summer, police said. The cheapskate then put the squeeze on the unsuspecting kid when he asked for exact change, forcing the boy to dip into his allowance to hand over $85 in legal tender, according to officials. Jeremy didn't know he had gotten a lemon of a big bill until he tried to spend it at a gas station, cops said. The pathetic scam left a sour taste in the mouths of investigators. “While our detectives work hard to bring closure to every case, this case struck a particular chord with them, and they want to do everything they can to get justice for Jeremy and catch this counterfeiter,” cops wrote on Facebook. Canadian man takes out billboard to trade one stick of string cheese A Toronto big cheese is paying big bucks for a massive billboard trying to trade a snack he found in the refrigerator of his new home. Angel Domingo bought a billboard in the city's Yonge-Dundas Square to advertise a single stick of string cheese apparently left behind by the previous residents, he told GlobalNews. “FOR TRADE: One Cheestring,” the massive billboard reads. “Accepting trades for one Cheese string. Marble flavour, still in original packaging. “No lowballs. I know what I have,” the ad concludes with a phone number. Domingo said he regularly trades items online such as car parts or furniture but thought he'd see what he could get for the string cheese. Since the unusual advertisement went up, he's been getting all kinds of trade offers in “droves.” “This is probably the strangest thing that I've ever had to offer up,” he told the Canadian outlet. “Somebody told me that I wouldn't get anything for it and nobody would want it, but I guess some people really want it.” “(I've received) a lot of offers,” Domingo continued. “Some people are calling me again because the first offer they had wasn't good enough.” he largest offer he received in exchange for the cheese? Two Persian cats, he said. The picky barterer has yet to accept any offers, however. “I've been telling everybody the same thing when they asked me what I'm looking for … it's like you'll know when you see it,” he said. There's been a lot offers and a lot of it is just fluff — there hasn't been any quality,” Domingo added. He would not disclose how much he paid to put up the billboard, but admitted the joke cost “a lot of money.”
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Two Persian girls discuss topics deemed unorthodox or taboo in the Persian community and interview Persian women who offer an interesting perspective. Persian Girl Podcast is a new platform for modern Middle Easterners, Persian or not, who want to speak openly and candidly about their experiences in communities that are not up to date with their standards of living.
Two Persian officials pen a letter to King Darius to determine if the Jews have permission to rebuild their Temple (Pastor Gene Pensiero)
Two Persian officials pen a letter to King Darius to determine if the Jews have permission to rebuild their Temple (Pastor Gene Pensiero)
Two Persian officials pen a letter to King Darius to determine if the Jews have permission to rebuild their Temple (Pastor Gene Pensiero)