Weekly Review
A New Jersey judge reduced to simple assault the charge of aggravated assault filed against a man who while dressed as the Easter Bunny dropped a 15-month-old girl during a photo shoot and then began to fight her mother. A daughter and mother in Georgia were charged with animal abuse for keeping 38 cats in their van, a man in Iowa was charged with animal neglect for keeping 62 ducks in a U-Haul, an elephant in Cambodia that was forced to carry tourists on a 104-degree day had a heart attack and died, a man in Hawaii was filmed punching a pregnant monk seal, and researchers found that dogs experience anxiety when hugged by humans. Read more...
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs found that women who served in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom were 10 times likelier than their male counterparts to suffer sexual trauma, and the House Armed Services Committee approved a measure that would allow women to be drafted. “A draft is there to put bodies on the front lines,” said Representative Duncan Hunter, who authored the measure and then voted against it.[1][2] Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress that the National Security Agency didn’t know how many Americans it was spying on. “Many people find that unsatisfactory,” said Clapper.[3] Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison for paying hush money to a man he had molested years earlier, and former Speaker of the House John Boehner said he “never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch” than Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate.[4][5] Cruz told a young protester he would give him a spanking if he were his child, and researchers in Texas and Michigan found that spanking children increases the likelihood of antisocial behavior later in life.[6][7] New York State police arrested a 31-year-old man suspected of serial butt slapping.[8] A nine-year-old boy in Missouri raised $7,000 selling lemonade to pay for his adoption, and a 10-year-old boy in Pakistan was fined $7,000 for having an affair with a 30-year-old married woman.[9][10] Apple’s iPhone sales dropped for the first time ever, and an employee was found dead in one of the company’s conference rooms.[11][12]
The president of Cleveland’s Police Patrolman’s Association said that the family of Tamir Rice, an unarmed 12-year-old boy who was shot by police while playing with a toy gun, should use a portion of their $6 million settlement with the city to teach kids about the dangers of fake firearms, and police in Baltimore shot a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a BB gun.[13][14] A Georgia police officer fatally shot a man he claimed attacked him with a machete while holding a live chicken. “De-escalate w/baton unsuccessful,” the officer’s department tweeted.[15] In Maryland, police shot a man dressed in a panda suit who walked into a news station and told a security guard he had a bomb. “This is not a joke,” said the man, whose bomb was made of chocolate.[16] The entire police force of Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, quit.[17] The mayor of Frankfort, New York, was charged with stealing 111 road signs.[18] A New Jersey judge reduced to simple assault the charge of aggravated assault filed against a man who while dressed as the Easter Bunny dropped a 15-month-old girl during a photo shoot and then began to fight her mother.[19] A daughter and mother in Georgia were charged with animal abuse for keeping 38 cats in their van, a man in Iowa was charged with animal neglect for keeping 62 ducks in a U-Haul, an elephant in Cambodia that was forced to carry tourists on a 104-degree day had a heart attack and died, a man in Hawaii was filmed punching a pregnant monk seal, and researchers found that dogs experience anxiety when hugged by humans.[20][21][22][23][24]
In Switzerland, a weasel chewed through a power cord at the Large Hadron Collider, forcing technicians to suspend operation of the 17-mile-long particle accelerator until mid-May.[25] Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry predicted that climate change would cause an exodus in North Africa and the Middle East, and scientists at MIT discovered three potentially habitable planets. “Jackpot,” said an astronomer.[26][27] An intoxicated man was charged with lewd exhibition and assault for having sex in a community pool and then, when parents asked him to stop, chasing their children.[28] A mother in Texas was arrested for allowing a sex offender to tattoo her children while she was drunk; a man in Iowa was arrested for drunk driving after he crashed his car in the parking lot of a taxicab company, where he was scheduled to interview for a position as a driver; and a Russian lawyer whose client was charged with drunk driving was filmed in the case judge’s office eating an incriminating breathalyzer report.[29][30][31] A Texas attorney threatened to sue a restaurant for charging him $2.50 for a cup of soup he didn’t receive, and a Turkish man shot and killed another man for paying for his soup.[32][33] Officials in Bihar, India, banned daytime cooking, and Venezuelan authorities announced that public-sector employees would be placed on a two-day work week in order to conserve power during the country’s ongoing energy crisis. “We are managing the situation,” said president Nicolás Maduro, “in the best possible way.”[34][35] It was reported that officials in Hokkaido, Japan, published a pamphlet asking tourists not to fart in public, that a doctor in China removed 26 cockroaches from the inside of a man’s ear, and that North Korea temporarily banned funerals.[36][37][38] Two fishermen in Thailand caught a 180-pound Siamese carp using their friend’s cremains as bait, and a fisherman in Indonesia found a doll on a beach that villagers believed was an angel that fell from the sky. “It was,” said a local police chief, “a sex toy.”[39][40]
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