truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

In July a transit system police officer in Washington, D.C., arrested, handcuffed, and searched Stephanie Willett, 45, an Environmental Protection Agency scientist, detaining her at a police station for about three hours because she was finishing up the chewing of her PayDay candy bar inside a Metrorail station in violation of the no-eating rule. Transit officials pointed out that Willett had been warned by the officer a minute before not to enter the station while eating the candy bar, but she thought if it was completely in her mouth as she walked in, she was safe.

In April, the Virginia Supreme Court turned down the petition for a new trial for Aleck J. Carpitcher, who was sentenced in 1999 to 38 years in prison for molesting an 11-year-old girl even though she recently told authorities she made up the whole incident to punish Carpitcher, who was at the time dating the girl's mother. The justices cited state law, which allows consideration of "new evidence" only if it is submitted within three weeks of the sentencing date.

Although 50 countries (including Japan) have now banned American beef because of inadequate mad-cow controls, the U.S. Department of Agriculture not only has declined to order widespread testing but has even prohibited one farm, Creekstone (Campbellsburg, Ky.), from voluntarily testing. USDA said such conscientious testing would imply that America's entire 35 million yearly slaughters should be tested (which the industry says is too expensive, even though Japan requires universal testing for its beef). USDA said it aims to test only 40,000 cows, up from 20,000 for the last two years (although it has been unable for nine months now to document those tests in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by United Press International).

Not My Fault: Earlier this year, a worker compensation commission in Sydney, Australia, awarded benefits for "psychological injury" to teacher Jeff Sinclair, caused when Baulkham Hills High School fired him. The basis for the firing was his romantic relationship with a student, which began in 2000 when he was 49 (and the married father of three) and she was 15. Sinclair will receive from the government the equivalent of US$19,000, plus US$215 monthly for as long as his "injury" continues. Teacher and student now live together, as Sinclair and his wife have divorced. (And in May, Sinclair's ex-wife said she would file a similar claim for "psychological injury," before the same commission, also based on the firing of her then-husband.)

And They Say Government Is Inefficient: When her 14-year-old son died in a farming accident last July in Beaumont, Tex. (pronounced dead at 2:20 p.m. on the 31st), Melissa Devillier knew that the boy's Social Security survivor's benefits (from his dad's death in 1992) would be terminated, but government was startlingly swift to act. On August 11, it told the mother that since the boy had not lived out the entire month of July, he didn't qualify for July benefits, and federal law required her to pay back the $1,025 July advance she had already received.

In March, the Saunders County (Neb.) Board of Supervisors reaffirmed that it would not reimburse Register of Deeds Don Clark for the price of a sandwich he ate while out of town on business, even though Clark insisted there was money in his office's budget to cover it. The Board said its own rules supersede Clark's budget and instructed the county attorney (who seemed to oppose the Board) to hire an outside lawyer to deal with the matter.