Weekly Review
A landslide in Guatemala buried 125 homes and killed more than 130 people, a candidate for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat named Augustus Sol Invictus admitted to killing a goat and drinking its blood in the Mojave Desert, and Utah representative Jason Chaffetz was chastised by a colleague for repeatedly interrupting Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, during a congressional hearing in which he called for the organization to be stripped of its federal funding. “Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000,” he told Richards. “Congratulations.” Read more...
“His Majesty Frank Penguin, King of the Brutes” (January 1857)
In Roseburg, Oregon, a 26-year-old Umpqua Community College student named Christopher Harper-Mercer walked into his writing class armed with five handguns and an assault rifle and opened fire, killing the professor and eight students.[1] Harper-Mercer, who reportedly asked every student in the class if they believed in God before shooting them, spared one classmate and left behind a manifesto. “I am going to die,” the manifesto read, “a virgin.”[2][3][4][5] In response to the killings, President Barack Obama said that Americans have “become numb” to mass shootings, and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush told reporters there are “all sorts of things that happen in life.”[6][7][8] The county sheriff investigating the Oregon shooting, who vowed not to say Harper-Mercer’s name, was found to have previously shared a video on Facebook that suggested the Sandy Hook massacre was a government conspiracy to push gun-control legislation.[9][10] Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who is a Seventh-day Adventist, said during a campaign speech in New Hampshire that climate change is not a political issue, natural selection is real, and the Big Bang requires more faith than he has. “Gravity,” said Carson. “Where did it come from?”[11] Interpreting data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA announced the presence of liquid water on Mars.[12]
Doctors Without Borders withdrew from the Afghan city of Kunduz after a U.S.-led airstrike destroyed one of the organization’s hospitals, killing 22 people, including 12 staff members and three children.[13][14] Russia announced that it would carry out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and then bombed areas held by groups aligned with the Free Syrian Army, a rebel faction attempting to overthrow Russian-backed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.[15] The Islamic State opened two new theme parks featuring a Ferris wheel, teacup rides, and bumper cars.[16] In Jerusalem’s Old City, a Palestinian man stabbed two Israelis to death and injured two others, including a toddler; in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian teenager after he threw stones at their vehicle; and the Palestinian Authority declared to the U.N. General Assembly that it will cease to honor the Oslo Peace Accords.[17][18] The United States and 11 other countries agreed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest regional trade deal ever reached.[19] A landslide in Guatemala buried 125 homes and killed more than 130 people, a candidate for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat named Augustus Sol Invictus admitted to killing a goat and drinking its blood in the Mojave Desert, and Utah representative Jason Chaffetz was chastised by a colleague for repeatedly interrupting Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, during a congressional hearing in which he called for the organization to be stripped of its federal funding. “Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000,” he told Richards. “Congratulations.”[20][21][22]
A black widow found in a backyard in Ottawa was named Black Betty and put up for adoption, and a black widow found in the hallway of a Colorado police station was exterminated by an officer in full riot gear.[23][24] Villagers in India lynched a man who was rumored to have consumed beef, and, in Norway, Wonky Horns, the country’s oldest cow, was slaughtered.[25][26] A gas-like smell that prompted authorities to evacuate a train in France was discovered to originate from fermented meat in a passenger’s bag; and it was reported that the wife of a former pork-roll factory employee filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit after her husband was allegedly fired for passing gas in the office. “We have to do something,” the lawsuit accused the man’s boss of saying. “This can’t go on.”[27][28] Australian researchers outfitted turtles with swimsuits to collect their feces, and the New York Jets shipped 350 rolls of American-strength toilet paper to London in preparation for a game against the Miami Dolphins.[29][30] An Australian artist promised to alter a public mural depicting sex acts inside a cheeseburger.[31] A Florida eagle named Ozzie died of a heart attack after battling for his mate against a rival eagle named Frequent Visitor.[32] In Düsseldorf, a gay man was prevented from collecting his title of King of the Marksmen because the Federation of Historic German Marksmen’s Brotherhoods requires the king to be accompanied by a woman. “I want to enjoy this beautiful moment,” he said, “with Dirk.”[33]
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