STATUS UPDATES
A week in which tomatoes were ripe for theft, VR came to the Western Front, and Kenedy faced backlash
FOUND An Andy Warhol classic, by rocker Alice Cooper. The artwork called Little Electric Chair was a gift in the 1970s, but he forgot it was in storage. (A “swirl of drugs and drinking” was implicated.) Cooper’s mother recently remembered it, sparking a months-long search. The red silkscreen on canvas, part of Warhol’s
Death and Disaster series, is believed to be worth millions.
CONVICTED A woman accused of killing her fiancé by tampering with his kayak and leaving him to drown in the Hudson River in 2015. Angelika Graswald, 37, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide. Soon after Vincent Viafore disappeared, Graswald was behaving oddly, such as singing “Hotel California” at a pub, the New York Times reported. She faces up to four years in jail.
BOOTED OUT Kenedy, a soccer player with England’s Chelsea, of a pre-season tour in Asia. The Brazilian player decided to post offensive messages on Instagram including a video with an expletive about China, and a phrase translated as: “Wake up, China. You idiot.” He and the team apologized, and he denied racism was a factor.
PROTECTED Tomatoes in India. As prices have skyrocketed, the Hindustan Times reported that security became a big concern in the city of Indore. Market administrators hired a half-dozen armed guards to protect shipments. While Madhya Pradesh state had a good crop this year, it’s now the off-season and some crops were damaged by heavy rains, according to the BBC.
PRESERVED The memory of the First World War battle of Passchendaele, through virtual reality technology. The Royal British Legion launched a high-tech immersive view of Passchendaele, accessible to the public, the Daily Telegraph reported. Historian Dan Snow suggested this could be an effective way to keep alive the Western Front for younger generations.
LET OFF A Nigerian man who named his dog after his country’s president. Charges were dismissed against Joachim Iroko, 41, who was arrested in August 2016. The case in Ogun state involving President Muhammadu Buhari (photo) became something of a paws célèbre. Many Nigerians were outraged, though Buhari claimed he was ignoring the case.
MOVING IN A Muslim feminist planning to open a liberal mosque in the U.K. Turkish-born Seyran Ates scouted some London sites, the Guardian reported, part of her plan to open similar mosques across Europe. The liberal mosque she founded in Berlin last month, Ibn Rushd-Goethe, sparked death threats that have “made people afraid to come.”
OVERPROTECTED Crocodiles in the Solomon Islands. An increase in attacks by the saltwater crocs, some fatal, has police pondering the end of a 30-year ban on exporting their skins. The police set up a special unit to hunt the reptiles. This year the team has killed 40 crocodiles, the Guardian reported, including one that was 6.4 metres long.