STATUS UPDATES
A week in which an Indian bridge fell down and an English crow spoke up
HITTING THE PANIC
BUTTON: Workers at Chicago hotels, if they need help. An ordinance took effect this week requiring hotels to provide such buttons. They’re intended to protect housekeeping staff and others who work alone in guest rooms from sexual harassment and other crimes.
GETTING SOME LOVE: Visitors to the castle in Knaresborough, U.K. There, a pied crow has been filmed greeting people by apparently asking “Y’alright love?” in a Yorkshire accent. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds speculates the bird’s unusual ability comes from being an escaped pet. Or it’s just chatty.
UNWIRED: Ottawa’s train service, thanks to copper thieves. The O-Train’s Trillium Line had to shut down after valuable copper cable, used for signalling, was stolen. “We’ve had occurrences where graffiti and those types of things occur, but nothing of this magnitude,” Troy Charter of OC Transpo told CBC.
MAKING AMENDS: Bank of America, to the oldest man in the U.S. Richard Overton, 112, had his account drained by fraudsters. With the money restored, he has resumed his daily habits: smoking cigars and sipping on whiskey and Coke. Third cousin Volma Overton noted: “Everything’s back just like it was.”
HITTING THE PANAMA BUTTON: A U.S. woman, unwittingly. The woman discovered the patriotic stars-andstripes top she wears every July 4 was actually a Panama flag, thanks to soccer’s World Cup. Her grandson tweeted the mistake: “Over 25 years of treason,” he joked. We know where she could be extradited.
DISHING OUT HATE: A Massachusetts man, according to police. The 19-year-old was charged with a hate crime for allegedly holding a man hostage and beating him for four days because he is gay. The man’s attorney argued the man was “trying to entice my client to do things that were against his nature.” Like not be violent?
OVERWIRED: A pedestrian bridge at a Mumbai railway station, according to Western Railway officials. The bridge collapsed this week during heavy rains, revealing a thick layer of utility cables hidden underneath. The extra weight of the wires was blamed as a potential cause of the collapse.
MAKING MUSIC: French President Emmanuel Macron. His visit to to the legendary concert hall New Afrika Shrine in Lagos overshadowed his earlier extremism-related meeting with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Macron said: “I recognize the importance of this culture, I recognize the place of this culture.”