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A week in which a daycare is sued over a ‘fight club’ and farmers drag a politician into the ditch

RILED UP

Kids at a St. Louis daycare centre. A video surfaced showing preschoolers punching each other in what appeared to be a fight club organized by teachers. KTVITV obtained the 2016 video, in which small boys wearing oversized green Incredible Hulk fists punch each other. One mother is suing.

SHAMELESS

A staggering run-up by Manchester United’s Paul Pogba for a penalty kick. He took 26 steps before the shot against Everton — saved, but he scored the rebound. Soccer fans and social media were not kind to the flashy Frenchman, and one wag pointed out it took longer than Usain Bolt’s 100-metre sprints.

DEFACED

The tomb of Gen. Francisco Franco. An artist was arrested briefly after painting a dove in red on the Spanish dictator’s tomb. He wrote the words “for freedom.” Spain’s government has promised to relocate his remains before the end of the year, amid a national controversy.

RISING

The Statue of Unity, to 182 metres. India now hosts the world’s tallest statue, in the western state of Gujarat. The likeness of independence leader Vallabhbhai Patel is almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty (if you include the New Yorker’s pedestal). Some locals sneered at a $400-million price tag.

BLOWN UP A

dead moose in Wyoming. Gotta keep it from attracting grizzlies, you see, so forest officials used explosives to destroy the rotting carcass. Since a nearby trail in BridgerTeton National Forest is popular with hikers and hunters, using 45 kilograms of explosives was seen as prudent.

SHAMED

A group of farmers, apparently by Uzbek Deputy PM Zoyir Mirzayev. He was dismissed, the BBC reports, when the scandal of their humiliation went the Uzbek version of viral. An image on social media showed six men standing knee-deep in the cold water of an irrigation ditch, as they were punished for poor harvests.

DISARMED A

Florida motivational speaker. Chris Ruden had fought his insurance company to get the $150,000 prosthetic arm, but was devastated when it was stolen from his pickup truck parked at his girlfriend’s apartment complex. Boynton Beach police found the black carbon fibre arm in the bushes near a fence.

CRAWLING

Spiders, often unnoticed. A researcher at North Carolina State University, who was studying insect life indoors, looked at 50 houses in Raleigh and found an average of 10 spider species in each. In some of the homes, more than 200 arthropod species in total were present.