Weekly Review
A survey of U.S. special-operations personnel found that 64 percent of male respondents believe women are not mentally tough enough to serve in commando units, and 20 female politicians won municipal office in the first Saudi Arabian election in which women were allowed to vote. A Norwegian study found that men have a better sense of direction than women, and a Florida man who was running from the police waded into a lake and was eaten by an alligator. “It’s not a bad idea,” said an officer, “to go into the water.”
Donald Trump called on U.S. officials to ban all Muslims from entering the country, and an opinion poll found that 35 percent of Republican primary voters support Trump’s candidacy for president.[1][2] Two Muslim women leaving mosques in Tampa were shot at and stoned; a deli owner in New York was attacked by a man yelling “I kill Muslims!”; a pig’s head was thrown at the door of a mosque in Philadelphia that had previously received a voicemail saying “God is Pork!”; a teacher in Georgia asked an eighth-grade student wearing hijab if she was carrying a bomb in her backpack; and a woman employed by the California Department of Corrections threw hot coffee and an umbrella at a group of Muslim men praying in a public park. “You have nothing,” said the woman, “but hate.”[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] German schoolchildren spit on and stoned refugees in their class; and several Austrian men who were dressed as Krampus, a horned folk creature that punishes children, whipped five teenagers with birch branches.[10][11] In Le Bourget, France, representatives of 196 countries approved a climate-change agreement requiring each country to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions and prevent the global temperature from rising an additional one degree Celsius during the twenty-first century.[12][13] Scientists at Harvard University found that melting glaciers have caused the length of a day to increase by one millisecond over the past one hundred years.[14]
The U.S. Supreme Court debated striking down an affirmative-action admissions policy at the University of Texas. “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts.[15] The Supreme Court rejected an appeal challenging a Chicago suburb’s ban on assault weapons, and Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy announced that he would bar people on federal terrorism watch lists from buying firearms.[16][17] Eighty-seven people were killed in attacks on military sites in Burundi.[18] A former Oklahoma City police officer was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting black women while on patrol, and a Florida police department published photos of nine unidentified, unconscious women on Facebook in an attempt to solicit information. “We’re not sure if they’re even alive,” said the police chief. [19][20] A survey of U.S. special-operations personnel found that 64 percent of male respondents believe women are not mentally tough enough to serve in commando units, and 20 female politicians won municipal office in the first Saudi Arabian election in which women were allowed to vote.[21][22] A Norwegian study found that men have a better sense of direction than women, and a Florida man who was running from the police waded into a lake and was eaten by an alligator. “It’s not a bad idea,” said an officer, “to go into the water.”[23][24]
It was reported that Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who earlier this year raised the price of a toxoplasmosis drug by more than 5,000 percent, had purchased the only copy of a special-edition Wu-Tang Clan album and planned to increase the price of a drug for Chagas disease. [25][26] Teenage members of the K-pop group Oh My Girl canceled a Los Angeles event and flew back to South Korea after Los Angeles International Airport customs officers detained them for 15 hours and accused them of being sex workers.[27] A concert in Beijing by the North Korean band Moranbong, which was intended to improve relations between the two countries, was canceled because Chinese president Xi Jinping was not going to attend.[28] China’s top religious-affairs official accused the Dalai Lama of sympathizing with the Islamic State.[29] A Colorado school was temporarily closed after a third grader sent an email filled with emoji guns, knives, and bombs to the student body.[30] A man in California was arrested for using geotagged social media photos to break into people’s homes to steal their underwear.[31] Sixty-six snakes were found in an apartment in Baltimore; more than 100 animals including dogs, cats, ducks, and a peacock, were seized from a home in Texas; and a Canadian woman drove an ailing beaver 250 miles so the animal could receive medical care.[32][33][34] Researchers in Canada acknowledged that the warm winter was making Toronto’s squirrels chubbier, and Australia opened its first hangover clinic. [35][36] A Kentucky homeless shelter banned women in order to prevent sexual relations between patrons. “It takes two to do that,” said the director. “We are not biased or prejudice whatsoever.”[37]
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