STATUS UPDATES
A week in which a hugging cashier was fired, SNL came under fire and a famous cancer patient complained about his care
ASSAILED Julia Louis-Dreyfus and
Saturday Night Live, for airing a mock commercial for a product called Heroin A.M. While a New York drug treatment centre is calling for a viewer boycott of SNL, at least one doctor had nothing but praise. Calling it “savvy satire,” medical analyst Dr. Ford Vox commended the skit for going after the heroin epidemic “head-on.”
FIRED Frank Swanson, 52, a Walmart cashier famous in West Plains, Mo., for offering hugs to customers having a bad day. The company said this was inappropriate and that Swanson — who suffered a brain injury as a teen and had worked at the store for 20 years — gave a price break to a customer without a coupon, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
SUED The parents of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared nine years ago. Former Portuguese police inspector Goncalo Amaral, who accused Kate and Gerry McCann of faking their daughter’s abduction, won an appeal this week of a libel ruling against him. Afterward, Amaral, who wrote a book about the case, told Portuguese media he plans to sue for damages.
IN A RELATIONSHIP Mona Lisa and Mona Lisa. After an infrared examination, art detective Silvano Vinceti concluded the painting was based not just on a Florentine merchant’s wife but also Leonardo da Vinci’s “probable gay lover,” the Telegraph reports. “The Mona Lisa is androgynous — half man and half woman,” Vinceti said.
AGGRIEVED Fox News host John Stossel, who combined an announcement that he has lung cancer with a consumer review of New YorkPresbyterian Hospital. Saying the “customer service stinks,” he explained, “Doctors keep me waiting for hours, and no one bothers to call or email . . . I get X-rays, EKG tests, echocardiograms, blood tests. Are all needed? I doubt it.”
HIRED Frank Swanson, who was almost immediately recruited by a grocery store not far from the Missouri Walmart that fired him. On his first day in his new job, customers greeted him by name. “Frank is everybody’s Frank,” one gushed to TV station KY3. “When he gives people hugs,” said another, “Frank makes us women feel like we are somebody, somebody special.”
COUNTERSUED The openly gay founder of Austin’s Church of Open Doors. Pastor Jordan Brown bought a cake at Whole Foods and asked that “Love wins” be written in icing. Brown says he noticed later that a gay slur had been added. He sued. Saying it has proof the cake was tampered with after it left the store, Whole Foods sued back.
IT’S COMPLICATED The U.S. and U.K.’s “special relationship,” which some say will be blown up by the Brexit — the possibility of Britain leaving the European Union. U.S. President Barack Obama visited Britain this week in part to support U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s calls for the country to stay. Britain’s membership will be put to a referendum on June 23.