“Mamma mia.”
In Texas, a school district removed the Bible from classrooms under a new law banning sexually explicit or vulgar books.
A weekly dispatch taking aim at the relentless absurdity of the 24-hour news cycle.
The Security Service of Ukraine accused a Russian general of targeting Reuters journalists, the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council said that Times of London editors were legitimate military targets, and the U.S. military mistakenly shot down two of its own jets over the Red Sea.1 2 3 Following the shooting of a health insurance executive in Manhattan, officials in New York considered creating a dedicated hotline for CEOs to report threats against them; and two men in Zambia were arrested for possession of a chameleon and charms with intent to bewitch the country’s president.4 5 6 A woman in Germany was sentenced to life in prison for attempting to fake her own death by killing her doppelgänger, and two people in Spain were arrested for murder after police found an image on Google Street View of one of them loading the victim’s body into the trunk of his car.7 8 9 A man in New York pleaded guilty to running a secret Chinese police station in Manhattan’s Chinatown; a police officer in Peru dressed as the Grinch to carry out a drug raid, seizing bags of cocaine; a disciplinary panel in England banned a police officer from the profession for life for filming himself masturbating while in uniform and sharing the video on WhatsApp; and squirrels in California developed a taste for flesh.10 11 12 13 14
France added a nuclear reactor to its power grid for the first time in 25 years, a power company in Spain was fined for selling solar energy at night, and the Pope unveiled a photovoltaic roof as part of his “Brother Sun” plan for Vatican City.15 16 17 In Texas, a school district removed the Bible from classrooms under a new law banning sexually explicit or vulgar books; and Texas Governor Greg Abbott spent $100,000 on a billboard ad campaign written in Spanish that warned migrants that their daughters would be raped en route to the United States.18 19 The president of France, who visited the country’s overseas territory of Mayotte after it was hit by a cyclone that killed at least 35 people and injured around 2,500, told survivors that without the French government they would be “10,000 times more in the shit,” and two men in New York died of lung infections after using bat poop to grow marijuana.20 21 22 A woman in Australia was run over by her own car after failing to properly engage its brake as she helped a passenger unload a stroller from a taxi that she had just struck, and a man in Virginia was killed when a bear shot by a member of his hunting party fell out of a tree and landed on top of him.23 24
A man in Rhode Island called the fire department to help his 2,000-pound camel stand up after it fell over, and a fisherman in South Africa reeled in a drowning woman.25 26 In Los Angeles, at least 80 diners at the L.A. Times 101 Best Restaurants event contracted food poisoning; and a funeral home in Columbus became the first in Ohio to obtain a liquor license.27 28 The Ohio Supreme Court ruled for the second time in six months that chicken wings labeled “boneless” can contain bones, and a man in India died after swallowing a live chick.29 30 Doctors in India found a live cockroach in the intestine of a man complaining of abdominal pain, researchers in Singapore announced that every 68 seconds they can install an implant in a cockroach that allows them to control its movements, and a charter school in Arizona announced that it would replace all fourth- through eighth-grade teachers with artificial intelligence.31 32 33 Months after the longest serving Republican congresswoman was last seen on the House floor, she was found in an assisted-living home for patients who had lost their memory; and, in England, a woman started speaking in an Italian accent after recovering from a stroke.34 35 “Mamma mia,” she said.36 —Joe Kloc
When the going gets weird, the weird get going....