STATUS UPDATES
A week in which a turtle expert gets shelled over nudity and Cher threatens an ABBA album
MAMMA MIA: A suitable response to Cher revealing she will release an entire album of ABBA covers. She told the Today show it followed her performance of “Fernando” in the new Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again film. Cher, 72, says she did ABBA “in a different way.” Thank God.
MAMMA MIA!!! A suitable response as a former stockbroker convicted of defrauding his mother faces four more years on his sentence. Franklin Marone, 55, also defrauded exgirlfriends and a military veteran. In June, he was sentenced to up to 25 years in jail for failing to pay restitution to ski patrol members he duped.
FORGIVEN: Any would-be Sunday dances in Fort Smith, Ark. City directors have repealed a 1953 ordinance that essentially outlawed public dancing on Sundays. It was sometimes called the Footloose ordinance, after the 1984 movie. The city director introduced the repeal after a resident told him about the antiquated law.
AVENGED: An Indonesian man thought to have been killed by a crocodile from a sanctuary. A mob killed nearly 300 crocs at the sanctuary, the BBC reports. The villager was killed while gathering vegetables on the breeding sanctuary. After the funeral, angry locals went to the sanctuary, armed with knives, shovels, hammers and clubs.
PAYING A PRICE (1): To lawyers for the water crisis in Flint, Mich. New figures show the state has spent nearly $25 million (U.S.) on attorneys involved. The Flint Journal reported the civil and criminal spending numbers for the crisis that started in 2014, but there is still a long way to go in many criminal prosecutions.
PAYING A PRICE (2): A wellknown turtle researcher. Richard Vogt was honoured for his lifelong achievements in Rochester, N.Y., at a meeting of fish scientists and herpetologists. But his lecture contained photos of scantily clad women. Some scientists walked out, and the Herpetologists League rescinded the award.
FAKE REVIEWS: Posted by doctors posing as patients on a National Health Service website. That’s a claim by top health officials, who say that fake positive reviews are hurting the integrity of the site, the Daily Telegraph reports. Doctors have reacted angrily to the “demeaning” accusations related to the NHS Choices site.
POOR REVIEWS: By North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, of some new economic projects. Forgoing the usual perfunctory praise, Kim was “appalled” by hot spring bathtubs “dirtier than fish tanks,” the BBC reported, and “appalled” that a power plant was unfinished. An unplastered hotel in Yombunjin also did not impress him.