Richard Handl, 31, was arrested in southern Sweden in July after a raid on his home. He had been trying for months to set up a nuclear reactor in his kitchen, but became alarmed when a brew of americium, tritium and beryllium created a nuclear meltdown on his stove. Only then, he said, did it occur to him to ask the country's Radiation Authority if what he was doing was legal, and the subsequent police raid answered that question. No dangerous radiation level was detected, but Handl still faces fines and a maximum two-year prison sentence for unauthorized possession of nuclear materials.
   
Leading Economic Indicators
Augustin James Evangelista is only 4 years old, but he nevertheless has certain financial needs -- which amount to about $46,000 a month, according to the child-support request filed by his mother, "supermodel" Linda Evangelista. A Wall Street Journal reporter concluded that the figure is about right for rich kids in New York City, what with needing a driver, designer clothes, around-the-clock nannies and various personalized lessons. And soon, according to a consultant-to-the-rich interviewed in August by the Journal, Augustin James will become even more expensive, as he graduates from his exclusive preschool and enters his exclusive kindergarten.
• The highest-paid state government employee in budget-strapped California in 2010 was among the least productive workers in the system, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation reported in July. Jeffrey Rohlfing is on the payroll as a surgeon in the state prison system (base pay: $235,740), but he has been barred from treating inmates for the last six years because supervisors believe him to be incompetent. Last year, Dr. Rohlfing earned an additional $541,000 in back pay after he successfully appealed his firing to the state's apparently easily persuaded Personnel Board. Currently, Dr. Rohlfing is assigned records-keeping duties.

No, Thanks!
(1) Colorado inmate Daniel Self filed a federal lawsuit in July against the Sterling Correctional Facility because prison personnel saved his life. They revived him after he had stopped breathing from an attack of sleep apnea, but he contends he had previously demanded to officials that he never be resuscitated, preferring to die rather serve out his life sentence.
(2) Terry Barth complained to hospital officials that he was "kidnapped" by paramedics and thus cannot be liable for the $40,000 he has been billed by Enloe Medical Center in Chico, Calif., where he was brought by ambulance following a motorcycle crash in August 2010. Barth said he had insisted at the scene that paramedics not take him to a hospital because he had no medical insurance. Paramedics are legally required to take anyone with a serious head injury.