Brickbats: August/September 2024

German law requires retail stores to close on Sundays and Christian holidays to give employees days of rest. Supermarket chain Tegut has gotten around this by fully automating its stores, and it gets 25 percent to 30 percent of its sales on Sundays. But a court ruled that the supermarket must give its robots Sundays off as well. A shop workers’ union filed suit to force the stores to close, saying it fears the company’s success could undermine support for the nation’s blue laws.

An internal investigation found that four Connecticut state troopers logged hundreds of fake tickets in 2018 in order to appear more productive. Investigators found the officers’ actions may have been felony crimes, but they did not alert prosecutors. Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin opened a criminal investigation in late 2022 after learning about the investigation from a reporter, but the troopers will not face charges because the statute of limitations ran out. Two of the troopers retired without punishment and each collects nearly $70,000 in annual pension; the other two received brief suspensions before being transferred to new units.

When federal agents arrested Penny McCarthy at gunpoint outside her Phoenix home, they insisted that she was Carole Anne Rozak, a fugitive wanted on a 1999 warrant for a probation violation in Oklahoma. The U.S. Marshals Service said McCarthy’s fingerprints matched Rozak’s, but they later admitted the prints did not match and blamed a computer glitch for the misidentification. A judge dropped all charges against McCarthy.

Police in Scotland received thousands of complaints under the nation’s new hate crimes law just in the first few days after it took effect. Former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf said “a tiny percentage” of the numerous complaints are “turning into actual investigations,” but staff is running up overtime weeding through them. Yousaf, who backed the law, said that even if complaints start to dwindle in the future, it will take “weeks or months” and cost “hundreds of thousands of pounds” to work through the backlog.

An Iranian court sentenced rapper Toomaj Salehi to death after finding him guilty of “corruption on Earth.” Salehi has been arrested multiple times for his songs about the government’s misconduct and stifling of dissent.

Chechnya’s minister of culture required all music in the country—vocal or instrumental—to fall between tempos of 80 and 116 beats per minute, to preserve the “Chechen mentality and musical rhythm” and “the cultural heritage of the Chechen people.” After backlash, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said the requirements were just “recommendations.”

In Italy, the Milan City Council is considering a law that would ban the sale of ice cream, pizza, and other takeout food and drinks after 12:30 a.m. on weekdays and 1:30 a.m. on weekends and holidays. The move is aimed at reducing the noise generated by people congregating in the streets. The law is particularly unpopular among gelato merchants, who have long sold the treat late at night.

Justin Champlin, the former chief deputy tax assessor in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, was arrested on two counts each of injuring public records and computer tampering, as well as malfeasance in office. Police said that on two different occasions, Champlin illegally reduced the assessment on his property to lower his tax obligation. Champlin was fired from his job in early April following an internal audit.

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