Curses, Foiled Again
After a camera was found secretly recording in the women's locker room at a fitness gym in Seekonk, Mass., police examined the video and named a club member as their suspect because it shows the man setting up the hidden camera. (Associated Press)

• A burglar who stole two cash registers and three plasma TVs from a pub in Accrington, England, stashed the items in his car. When he returned to the pub for more, two thieves snatched his loot. Authorities said surveillance video of the parking lot showed the burglar, identified as David Douglas Greaves, 43, with a "look of confusion" when he found the items missing. Police arrested Greaves and the two thieves, whom they also identified from surveillance video. (Britain's Accrington Observer)

Speed Kills Meaning
Speed-reading apps thwart comprehension, according to researchers at the University of California at San Diego. Their study found that by converting text to a fast-moving sequence of individual words and phrases, the apps deny readers the opportunity to "regress," or go back and reread a word or sentence. "Our ability to control the timing and sequence of how we intake information about the text is important for comprehension," the researchers concluded. (The Washington Post)

Byproduct of Crime
It wasn't enough that Martin Eldridge, 35, stole dozens of air conditioners in Columbus, Ohio. Prosecutors charged that he also violated the federal Clean Air Act by knowingly venting the refrigerant HCFC-22 into the environment when he cut the tubing that connected the units to houses and buildings. (Associated Press)

Sex Is Its Own Punishment
British authorities said an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman died after falling from a sixth-floor balcony where they were observed "frolicking." Police Inspector Shaun Carre-Brown said the students were attending a party in London, and residents of a neighboring apartment building witnessed them "trying to have sex." (BBC News)

No-Sex Is Its Own Punishment
The four World Cup teams that banned their players from having sex during the tournament—Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile and Mexico—all made early exits from the competition, according to the news outlet Quartz. Players on champion Germany's team were allowed to have sex. Restrictions varied from team to team. Brazil allowed players to have sex but no "acrobatics," for example, while Costa Rica said players could have sex but "not all night." (The Moscow Times)

Second-Amendment Follies
Geoffrey Hawk, 44, a vendor at a gun show in Bloomsburg, Pa., accidentally shot a 25-year-old woman in the leg while demonstrating a gun and a concealed-carry wallet holster. Hawk told police he thought the gun was unloaded. (Associated Press)

• Gene Kelley reported that a 105mm howitzer shell blew through the wall of his home in Wyandotte, Okla., hit the ceiling and damaged another wall. Ottawa County sheriff's investigators said the 14.5-by-3.5-inch shell came from a historic artillery canon fired at a gun show three miles away. (Pittsburg, Kan.'s KOAM-TV)

• The Ignite Church in Joplin, Mo., encouraged attendance at its Father's Day service by raffling off two AR-15 rifles. To attract males age 18 to 35—"the biggest black hole in our society," pastor Heath Mooneyham said—Sunday services start later than many other churches and feature loud rock music. "We're just dudes," said Mooneyham, who sports tattoos and a short Mohawk, noting that churchgoers got excited about the firearms raffle "because that speaks our language." (The Joplin Globe)

• Police in Albuquerque, N.M., charged John Ruiz, 41, with child endangerment after he left his loaded .22 pistol with his 11-year-old daughter to protect herself while he went to get a tattoo. (Albuquerque Journal)

• A woman unloading groceries with her mother in Dolan Springs, Ariz., was shot in the stomach by a .22-caliber rifle hidden in the back seat of her station wagon that accidentally fired. Police said the victim's husband had stolen the rifle during a home burglary earlier that day. (Phoenix's AZfamily.com)

• A 51-year-old woman who said she slammed the butt end of a shotgun on the floor during a family dispute "to make a point" accidentally shot herself in the face, according to police in Fremont Township, Mich. (Michigan's MLive.com)

No-Fun City
New York City police are cracking down on underground acrobats: pass-the-hat performers who flip, somersault and pole dance among subway riders on trains. Police made more than 240 arrests in the first six months of 2014, compared with fewer than 40 during the same time a year ago. (Associated Press)

• Officials want to limit the number of costumed characters in New York's Times Square. "In the last 10 days alone, we've seen two Statues of Liberty arrested, a Spider-Man convicted of harassing a tourist, and now a third character arrested for groping a woman in Times Square," said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, a coalition of government officials and local business owners. Tompkins doesn't seek a complete ban, just a licensing system involving background checks. "Quirky in Times Square is OK," he explained. "Creepy is not." (New York's WCBS-TV)

No-Fun Country
Bus riders in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who play a musical instrument, sing or offer a live musical performance on a city bus risk a $100 fine, according to a new transit bylaw approved by the city's executive policy committee. (CBC News)

n Lawmakers in Mississauga, Ontario, voted to limit the height of clotheslines to 3 meters. The new bylaw stems from a complaint by Steve and Joanne DeVoe, who offered "hundreds" of photos of more than 15 clotheslines on neighboring property, some "at heights exceeding 20 feet." The couple's objections began five years ago, after they knocked down their existing house and built a bigger one with a view into their neighbors' yards. (Toronto Star)

Lactation Follies
Hoping to encourage more mothers to breast-feed, health officials in Mexico City launched a campaign that featured posters showing topless actresses and the slogan, "Don't turn your back on them ... Give them your breast." Women's groups and health advocates promptly objected. "It's not only a very terrible campaign in terms of how it looks, but its' also the message that if you don't breast-feed, you are a bad mother," said Regina Tames of the reproductive rights group GIRE. After removing the pictures of the topless actresses from the city's website, Mexico City's health director said the campaign would focus on opening 92 lactation rooms and two milk banks. (NPR)

Compiled from mainstream news sources by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.