Police Nab Alleged Toilet Paper Bandit

Police said they suspect they’ve captured the “toilet paper bandit.”

A man who concealed his face by wrapping his head with toilet paper robbed a Lincoln, Nebraska convenience store last month. Police said the man was armed with a knife, but no one was hurt in the robbery.

He escaped on foot with an undisclosed amount of money.

Capt. David Beggs said 29-year-old Joshua Nelson was arrested Saturday night. Beggs said a prescription pill bottle found near the store gave officers a clue to pursue. But he said it took until Saturday for officers to find enough evidence for an arrest.

A jail spokeswoman said Nelson remained in custody on Monday. His attorney did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

Woman Attacks Sister With Toilet Tank Lid

Iowa City police arrested a woman who allegedly attacked her sister with the lid of a toilet tank.

Nitasha Johnson, of Iowa City, was arrested and was charged with domestic abuse assault causing injury and interference with official acts. According to police, Johnson removed the lid and hit her sister during a fight. Authorities said the sister suffered an injured foot and finger.

Johnson was taken to the Johnson County jail.  She remained in jail on Monday on a $1,500 bond. Jail officials did not know if she had hired an attorney.

All Nippon Airways To Offer Women Only Restroom

Women flying Japan’s All Nippon Airways will have a toilet all to themselves from next month, with the airline designating one restroom on most international routes as female-only.

The airline said in a statement it was responding to “numerous requests for this service,” adding that the toilet would be located in the rear of the plane and be available to women passengers from all classes.

An airline official told Kyodo news agency that ANA decided to designate women-only lavatories based on a 2007 online survey in which 90 percent of the women polled said they found the idea attractive.

The official also said women do not like using shared toilets as men sometimes leave the seat up. She said demand for women-only toilets was especially high among passengers taking long flights.

Men would be allowed to use the lavatory only in emergencies or when there were very few female passengers on the flight, the ANA statement said.

South Korea’s Korean Air has been offering similar facilities and ANA rival Japan Airlines designates lavatories for priority use by women, the ANA official told Kyodo.

Toilet etiquette appears to be an important part of ANA’s policy — the airline had previously asked passengers to use the lavatories before they board flights so as to reduce the overall weight of the plane, which would ultimately be better for the environment as it would mean less fuel usage.

Sumann Goes From Potty To Podium

Austria’s Christoph Sumann took an unlikely route to his first Olympic silver medal on Tuesday, going straight from the potty to the course before claiming a silver medal in the men’s 12.5km pursuit.

The 34-year-old border guard based in Frojach had been suffering for several days before the event but was mightily relieved he did not have to make any further detours while competing.

“I had some problems with my belly and I went straight from the toilet to the track this morning,” the Austrian told reporters after finishing 16.5 seconds behind Bjorn Ferry of Sweden at Whistler Olympic Park.

“I didn’t feel very well yesterday and also in the morning but I could focus on my skiing today. I didn’t have problems during the race and hopefully it will get better from now on.”

Sumann, whose previous best finish at a Winter Olympics was seventh in the 12.5km pursuit in Turin four years ago, improved 10 places from Sunday’s 10km sprint.

“The expectation for today was not that big because I was one-and-a-half minutes behind on the leaderboard,” he said. “But I tried to be calm … and we had really, really good skis today.

“And my shooting was good,” he said after missing only two targets, one in each of the two standing shooting rounds. “I felt good on this range.”

Mysterious Toilet Blockages Plague Cathay Pacific Flights

Cathay Pacific says its fleet of Airbus planes has been hit by a spate of mysterious toilet blockages.

The problem has been so serious that one flight from Riyadh had to land in Mumbai when the crew discovered none of the plane’s 10 toilets were working.

In other cases, the number of passengers boarding flights had to be restricted because of toilet problems.

Airbus engineers are now fitting new toilet pipes to the airline’s fleet and carrying out deep cleaning.

Cathay spokeswoman Carolyn Leung said although the exact cause of the blockages was unclear, passengers themselves may be partly to blame.

“You would be amazed what we find in the pipes when we clean the system – not just face towels but medicine bottles, socks, items of clothing and even children’s stuffed toys,” she said.

The toilets use high-speed vacuum pipes to take waste at up to 110km/h (68mph) into a holding tank, which is then emptied between flights.

Any blockage usually affects all the toilets on one side of an aircraft.

WTO Looks To Make Toilets Cool

Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization, has a theory about why governments and people are so reluctant to talk about hygiene: it isn’t cool.

“People demand a TV, not a toilet, because it is not aspirational or charismatic,” said Sim, who does not hesitate to talk in graphic detail about the dangers of poor sanitation.

“Governments and people are not very receptive to being told they’re dirty, that they need more toilets,” said Sim on a visit to Mumbai, where more than half its 18 million residents live in slums and where the average ratio of people to toilets is 81:1.

In Mumbai, where teeming slums sit cheek by jowl with gleaming office blocks and luxury apartments, sanitation is not just a poor person’s problem, said Sim, a native of Singapore.

“You are in such close proximity to slums, to people defecating and peeing in the open, that basically, you are walking in someone’s poo,” Sim said.

But the sight of people defecating by railway tracks or even by the roadside is so common that residents turn a blind eye to the problem and do not give it the seriousness it deserves.

“You see it long enough, and there is a basic acceptance that dirt is normal. But being repulsed by dirt, it’s smell and sight is a natural defense against disease,” Sim said.

With better sanitation in India, where thousands die of diarrhea and gastro-intestinal disease, people will not fall ill so much, can work better and get out of poverty, Sim said.

In India, Sim’s outfit, which he calls the WTO, works with several NGOs that build and maintain public toilets. But they need to think beyond just building more toilets that are seldom maintained and get taken over by encroachers, he said.

WTO, along with consumer goods maker Hindustan Unilever, has launched a pilot program on some premium Rajdhani Express trains to keep the toilets clean in return for advertising space.

“This is an example of market factors solving a big problem,” said Carolyn Jones, global hygiene manager at Unilever.

“It is a sensitive issue, but a serious one that has to be a shared responsibility of the government, companies and people.”

Camera Found In Bathroom Of Christian Bookstore

A 28-year-old clerk at a Christian bookstore in Simi Valley has been arrested on charges of peeping at customers in the restroom with a video camera.

Police said the man was cited and released on suspicion of peeping by means of an electronic device after a customer spotted the device hidden among boxes in the corner of the bathroom of the Family Christian Book Store.

The 40-year-old woman and her husband called police to report the suspiciously placed camera.

Sgt. Dwight Thompson said the recording shows the suspect hiding the video camera in the bathroom because it was taping as he positioned it.

Thompson says investigators believe the incident was isolated because the victim and the suspect are the only people seen on the video.

Toilet Inspectors Roam Through Poland

Patrols of two, wearing white overalls, are boldly entering toilets across Poland to check whether the country is loo-ready for the 2012 EURO soccer championships.

Lots of loos pass the test, they say, but others — particularly those that date back to pre-1989 Communist days — are less enticing.

The toaketa2012.pl project, organized by a company manufacturing toilet equipment, aims to encourage ordinary Poles to join the patrols.

The project is looking ahead to 2012 when thousands of fans will come to Poland and Ukraine for the European Soccer Championships.

So far the patrols have visited 200 toilets in Poland’s six major cities and have conducted a survey among foreign tourists, which showed hotels and airports provide good quality toilets, while railway and bus stations lag behind.

The Dziennik Gazeta Prawna newspaper commented drily that the country’s toilets were, however, still better prepared for the championship than its soccer players — who failed to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

School Asks Pupils To Bring Own Toilet Paper

Irish parents struggling to buy schoolbooks and uniforms in the face of a deep recession may now have to worry about sending their children to school with a toilet roll as well as a packed lunch.

Pupils at a primary school in the southern county of Cork are being asked to bring their own toilet paper to school to help save money, one of the starkest examples yet of the death of Ireland‘s “Celtic Tiger” economy.

“The letter was sent out just as a way of balancing books here in the school and not intended as a demand,” said Catherine O’Neill, principal at St John’s Girls National School.

O’Neill said the request was made because of cuts to government grants for books and computers. She added that parents were responding well.

“I’ve done a quick tour of the classrooms this morning and I’d say at least half the pupils have brought them (toilet rolls) in,” she told national broadcaster RTE.

“I have no doubt that there are an enormous number of schools out there that are doing the same thing.”

The World’s Most Disgusting Peeping Tom

A Maine man caught peering up at a girl from below an outhouse toilet seat four years ago stands accused of crawling into another pit toilet on White Mountain National Forest property in New Hampshire.

A federal affidavit indicates a 49-year-old man confessed to repeating his previous act on Memorial Day.

Federal agents sought the man out after a 9-year-old boy saw him climbing out of a toilet at the Hastings Campground. Two witnesses saw him walk away from the outhouse.

Forest Service special agent William Fors wrote that the man initially said he climbed into the waste-filled pit to retrieve a T-shirt. Four years ago, he said he was retrieving his wedding ring.

Fors wrote the man eventually confessed climbing into outhouse pits on more than two occasions.