Weekly Review
Officials in Turkey said they would not apologize for shooting down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jet that was traveling through Turkish airspace near the Syrian border. Saudi Arabia announced that its Justice Ministry would sue a Twitter user who criticized its decision to execute a poet for apostasy as “ISIS-like.” The Islamic State killed four police officers in a drive-by shooting in Egypt, beat to death a 17-year-old Austrian girl in Syria who was attempting to flee the group, and launched an anti-smoking campaign. “Smoking,” reads the campaign slogan, “killed millions.” Read more...
Cook County prosecutors charged former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke with the murder of Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old whom Van Dyke shot 16 times last year.[1] Van Dyke’s initial account of the shooting, in which he claimed self defense, was discredited after a judge ordered the release of a dashboard-camera video showing Van Dyke fire on McDonald from 15 feet away, shooting for 13 seconds after the teenager was motionless on the ground.[2] The manager of a Burger King near the shooting claimed that several police officers had visited the restaurant and deleted more than 80 minutes of surveillance footage, which they were recorded doing on the same security system. “It is curious,” said the attorney of McDonald’s family in response to the police superintendent’s claim that Burger King’s footage was already missing when the officers arrived, “what were they looking at for two hours?”[3] In Minneapolis, gunmen opened fire on a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators demanding to see video footage of the death of Jamar Clark, an unarmed black 24-year-old man shot by police last month.[4] A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli police after he stabbed a border guard in the neck at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, and an Israeli court found two teenagers guilty of murder for their role in kidnapping, bludgeoning with a wrench, and burning to death a 16-year-old Palestinian boy.[5][6] In Colorado Springs, a 57-year old man armed with an assault rifle entered a Planned Parenthood health clinic and killed three people, including a police officer and a veteran of the Iraq war. “He died,” said a friend of the veteran, “in his own country.”[7]
Leaders from 150 countries gathered in Paris for a climate summit primarily aimed at reducing global carbon emissions, and French police fired tear gas at a group of demonstrators who were protesting rising levels of greenhouse gases.[8][9] Conservationists in Hong Kong warned that development projects, high-speed ferry traffic, and pollution could drive away or kill the 60 remaining pink dolphins in the city’s waters; and Japan announced that it would proceed with plans to capture and kill 333 minke whales to conduct studies on the creatures’ health and migration.[10][11] Researchers in the United Kingdom published a study outlining how the airline industry could halve its carbon footprint by changing fuel formulas and altering flight paths, and officials in Turkey said they would not apologize for shooting down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jet that was traveling through Turkish airspace near the Syrian border.[12][13] Saudi Arabia announced that its Justice Ministry would sue a Twitter user who criticized its decision to execute a poet for apostasy as “ISIS-like.”[14] The Islamic State killed four police officers in a drive-by shooting in Egypt, beat to death a 17-year-old Austrian girl in Syria who was attempting to flee the group, and launched an anti-smoking campaign. “Smoking,” reads the campaign slogan, “killed millions.”[15][16][17]
It was reported that a 79-year-old woman and her 57-year-old son disappeared from the town of Deer Lodge, Montana, ten days after discovering a gold bar worth almost half a million dollars in the home of a late relative.[18][19] Two men dressed as pandas robbed a convenience store in the English town of Louth.[20] In Huron, California, a suspected burglar attempting to enter a house through the chimney was killed after the homeowner lit a fire in the fireplace.[21] A 16-year-old in Georgia was killed by a car after he attempted to twerk on the hood of his friend’s Jeep and lost his balance.[22] Prince Harry of Wales fell off a horse twice.[23] Paraguay’s head of indigenous affairs was fired for kicking an indigenous woman in the stomach.[24] Russian president Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to the 99-year-old daughter of a general who was exiled in 1920 for opposing the Bolshevik revolution; the oldest person in Europe turned 116, crediting her longevity to her three-egg-a-day diet and her decision to leave her violent husband in 1938; and the eldest female in a troop of baboons at the Toronto Zoo initiated a battle for leadership in which six of the animals suffered severe facial lacerations, bites, and possible nerve damage. “She’s fighting to be dominant because of age,” said a zoo employee. “You have to let their natural behavior happen.”[25][26][27]
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