The Latest Breaking News from Brickbat

A man says he was threatened with arrest after his dog urinated on a public street in Bournemouth, England. Steve Schuurman said an "aggressive" female Dorset police officer shouted at him to "clear your fucking dog piss." Schuurman said he would have cleaned up if his dog had defecated but…

In Canada, Charlie Angus, a New Democratic Party member of Parliament, has introduced a bill that would make it illegal "to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel." Regular citizens who violate the act would face a fine of up to…

An appeals court in Thailand has sentenced democracy activist Mongkol Thirakot to 50 years in prison for Facebook posts he made that were critical of the country's monarchy. A trial court had sentenced him to 28 years, but the appellate court found him guilty on 11 more counts during his…

Canadian officials said that, on second thought, they aren't going to block Maria Kartasheva from becoming a citizen. Just before she was due to take her oath of citizenship, an official informed her she'd been tried in absentia in Russia, her home country, and found guilty of "public dissemination of…

Officials in Jackson County, Indiana, have agreed to pay $7.25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of a mentally ill man who starved to death over 20 days while being held in solitary confinement at a local jail. Joshua McLemore was found lying naked and confused on…

A report by the New Brunswick, Canada, auditor general's office found that the provincial Department of Public Health could not provide documentation to support any of a sample of 33 policy recommendations it made during the COVID-19 pandemic. "The department was unable to provide requested documentation, acknowledging that they 'did…

In Putnam County, West Virginia, a former U.S. Postal Service carrier faces up to one year in federal prison and a $100,000 fine after pleading guilty to desertion of mail. Michael Burdette reportedly tossed a total of more than 200 pieces of mail into a service station dumpster on two…

In 2015, in the midst of a drought, California lawmakers banned cities and counties from prohibiting synthetic grass. The logic behind the law was that artificial turf was better for the environment because it saved water. But state lawmakers now argue artificial turf is bad for the environment because it…

In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state would spend $30 million to build 1,200 prefabricated tiny houses across the state, including 350 in Sacramento, in an effort to ease the state's housing shortage. He promised the houses would be ready this fall. But local media in Sacramento report…

An employee of Michigan's Walter Reuther Psychiatric Hospital, which is run by the state Department of Health and Human Services, alerted a local TV station that children being treated there had not been allowed outside in three months and that the windows to their classrooms had been covered up. The…

Jarrod Belcher was stunned when he found out Alabama's Jefferson County School system had suspended his 6-year-old son for pointing his finger like a gun while playing cops and robbers with another student. The school system gave his son a class 3 violation, the most serious and the same one…