STATUS UPDATES
A week in which the Dutch went old school with vote counting and a primate used a Tinder-like app to find a mate
COMPETING
The Venezuelan government with a planned TV miniseries on Hugo Chavez. It’s a response to Sony Pictures’ El Coman
dante series, which the government sees as distorted. Culture Minister Adan Chavez, brother of the late president, said the working title of the production is “The True Chavez.” Sony says its series is a work of fiction.
SIMPLIFIED
Dutch vote counting (or that may depend on how you look at it). The government said it won’t use its usual computer software to count and transmit election results amid reports that the software could easily be hacked. Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said municipalities and electoral regions will now have to tally all votes by hand.
ACCUSED
An astrologer who predicted Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena would die. Vijitha Rohana Wijemuni was once convicted of trying to assassinate India’s prime minister in 1987. Wijemuni published videos predicting Sirisena would die before Jan. 27. The government suspected a coup or assassination attempt was brewing, though he’s the only person being investigated.
STRUGGLING
Lexicographers, to keep up with a new vocabulary of U.S. politics. The Guardian reports that Trumponomics, trumpertantrum and trumpkin are among words that may be fast-tracked into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Eleanor Maier, OED associate editor, said words are usually around for about 10 years before being added, but exceptions can be made.
JUDGING
A female orangutan in a Dutch zoo, among possible romantic partners. An adapted tablet is being used in the experiment to see if Samboja will select a soulmate from pictures shown to her at her primate park. The profiles come from members of an international great apebreeding program, the Guardian reports. The experiment could save ill-starred international trips.
EXPANDED The
minds of five boys who spray-painted a black school in Virginia with swastikas and “white power.” The boys, all 16 or 17, pleaded guilty this week. Their unusual sentence: to read books by prominent black, Jewish and Afghan authors, write a paper on hate speech, visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and listen to an interview with a former student of the school.
ACCUSED
The mayor of Shamokin, Pa., of disturbing 14 graves. Investigators say Mayor Bill Milbrand allowed a construction crew to build a cellphone tower over the graves in the cemetery where he serves as board president. The mayor has denied the charges and said he had little involvement in directing the project, which he says will generate money for the upkeep of the cemetery.
BREEZING
Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov in his campaign for re-election. It’s a foregone conclusion, but he has a knack for keeping campaigns interesting. This week he sang to a group of workers, while playing guitar. He regularly joins, and wins, races on bikes, in cars or on horseback, the Guardian reports.