Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

Police arrest squatter who called them for help
Lincoln police reported the rare occurrence of arresting a man who called them for help. Officials said a 25-year-old man called police Wednesday night to say someone was trying to break into his apartment.
When police arrived, they discovered it was the apartment manager trying to get into the apartment, which was supposed to be vacant.
Police said someone had illegally changed the locks on the apartment, and the man arrested was illegally occupying it.
Police also found more than three pounds of marijuana, equipment used to grow marijuana and nearly $3,500 in cash in the apartment.
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Stunned Resident Billed for 1.4 Million Gallons of Water
A Utah homeowner was billed for 1.4 million gallons of water for part of last winter, and even though Rick Baur disputes it, he paid the bill.
"I was blown away," said Baur, an Ogden resident who made good on the $9,700 bill in August. "It's enough to buy a used car."
That much water, the Standard-Examiner calculated, is enough to fill a swimming pool at Ben Lomond High School seven times — or a typical home pool 70 times.
Although the couple paid the $9,700, they aren't out of the woods yet. The city says they owe $1,700 for water usage in August.
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An Iowa woman had more of a jolt than usual from her morning coffee.
The woman had seen a bat in her house, but wasn't particularly concerned about it.
She turned on her automatic coffee maker, went to bed and drank her coffee as usual the next morning.
When she removed the coffee filter that night, however, she discovered a dead bat in the filter that had gone through that morning's brew cycle.
Ann Garvey, public health veterinarian, said the woman underwent rabies treatment for the exposure, which occurred last month.
The bat was sent to University Hygienic Laboratory in Oakdale for rabies testing, but the brain had been cooked by the heat of the brewing water they wasn't able to determine if it had rabies.
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Drug users 'overdosing on ecstasy by mistake'
Hospitals are facing an influx of drug users who have overdosed on MDMA – the main ingredient of ecstasy – because they thought they were snorting cocaine.
Professor David Nutt, incoming chairman of the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said drug users were buying white powder but did not know what it was.
"If you are buying white powders from someone, how do you know if you are getting MDMA, methamphetamine or cocaine? It's potentially very dangerous," he said.