STATUS UPDATES
A week in which a med student avoided jail, a rapper played in B-flat and a cold clown case got hot
DEFERRED TO An Oxford med student called “too bright” to go to jail. Lavinia Woodward, 24, who stabbed her Cambridge University boyfriend, was spared jail by a judge who acknowledged she violated her bail conditions. In May, Woodward had pleaded guilty to “unlawful wounding.” The aspiring heart surgeon got a 10-month sentence, deferred for 18 months.
SOUGHT Evidence that the Earth is flat. American rapper B.o.B. is crowdfunding the launch of satellites in search of proof. He’s seeking $200,000 (U.S.) via GoFundMe, BBC reported. “I would like to send one, if not multiple satellites, as far into space as I can, or into orbit as I can, to find the curve,” he said in a video.
CONFUSED Burger King’s Russian operations. They’ve filed a complaint to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service demanding that Stephen King’s
It be pulled from theatres because of a supposed resemblance between Ronald McDonald and King’s villain, Pennywise. Which of course would give McDonald’s an unfair advantage. Some say there’s no resemblance and it’s just a red hairing.
HANDS-OFF The owners of a German donkey, who must now pay. The animal chomped the back of a McLaren sports car (possibly mistaking it for a large carrot). The creature, Vitus, damaged the paint and a carbon-fibre part, The Associated Press reported, costing the owners $8,500 (Canadian). A court in Giessen sided with the car owner. Still, never park near a donkey enclosure.
DEMEANED South Africa’s public broadcaster has apologized to politician Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for referring to her as President Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife. CEO Nomsa Philiso said the mistake was “sexist and wrong,” the BBC reported. SABC has apologized before for calling her “mini-Zuma.” She is a top candidate to take over as African National Congress president.
FOUND A suspect to charge in a bizarre 1990 murder case in Florida. Twenty-seven years ago, a clown carrying flowers and two balloons fatally shot a woman at her front door. This week, NBC reported, Sheila Keen Warren, 54, was arrested. She’s charged with killing Marlene Warren, her current husband’s previous wife.
CHAOTIC The scenes this week in Uganda’s parliament. They stem from a motion to remove presidential age limits from the constitution, the BBC reports. Fist fights, chair tosses and heckling have featured and suspended MPs were dragged out. The upper limit is 75. President Yoweri Museveni is 73.
MICROMANAGED Mourners in Tajikistan. The country has set limits for how to act at funerals. It has banned black clothes, loud wailing, the use of hired mourners, tearing out hair and scratching faces, according to regional news agencies. President Emomali Rahmon’s government has often targeted behaviour commonly associated with fundamentalist Islam, including growing beards.