Lead Story
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Charged with second-degree sex abuse, 16-year-old Jonathan Powell of Iowa City, Iowa, chose to take the stand in May to insist he’d had no sexual contact with the woman on whom his blood and saliva had allegedly been found. He said he’d merely bumped into her while jogging, gotten his foot stuck between her legs, and become so “entangled” with her that it took about 45 minutes to get free. He was convicted. Meanwhile, in an April trial in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 34-year-old Donald Duncan Jr. was found guilty of invasion of privacy but not guilty of child sexual abuse. According to the Harrisburg Patriot-News, he argued that he hadn’t intended to film two teenage girls disrobing in his house; he’d set up a hidden camera in the room only because he wanted to capture images of ghosts or “people doing silly things.”
The Belgian newspaper De Standaard reported in June on a 53-year-old Nigerian-born man who had tried to apply for a job at a wrought-iron company but was turned away at the gate by the white owner. Answering subsequent charges of racial discrimination, the owner insisted he’d rejected the applicant because the company’s guard dog was prone to biting nonwhites: “My dog is racist. Not me.”
The Continuing Crisis
Traffic was disrupted in Rayville, Louisiana, in June when an eight-foot snake turned up in the middle of a highway. By the time deputy Terry Thompson arrived at the scene, several witnesses were trying to protect the snake from one driver who was reportedly threatening to shoot it or run it over. Judging it to be nonvenomous, Thompson picked the snake up, then realized he’d seen it before: resident Chad Foote had brought it by the sheriff’s office last year, where he explained he’d gotten it at a discount because it was missing an eye. Thompson returned the snake, a boa, to Foote, who hadn’t seen it since March and was thrilled to get it back.
