Lead Story
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Photographer Gerry Edwards was denied unemployment benefits at a March hearing; he’d been fired in December by KGAN TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after another photographer sent his bosses a picture of him urinating behind a cemetery monument while he waited to cover an army funeral. According to the Des Moines Register, Edwards maintained he’d behaved appropriately: “If I went in my pants, that would be really unprofessional.” In April, after her arrest on shoplifting charges at a supermarket in Cape Coral, Florida, 61-year-old Helen Gallo reportedly explained to police that irritable bowel syndrome had made it impossible for her to wait in the checkout line. Also in April, a group of homes in the Malaysian state of Sarawak fell into a sinkhole in the middle of the night; the roughly 100 residents escaped in time thanks to shouted warnings from 57-year-old Renjis Empati, who happened to be headed for the communal bathroom when he saw his kitchen collapse.
Law Student Special
Several dozen members of Taiwan’s parliament rushed the speaker’s podium during a May session, setting off yet another of the extended brawls the legislative body is famous for. The last major fight before this had been in January, when deliberation broke down into four hours of punching, tie pulling, and shoe throwing. An expert on Asian politics told Reuters the practice arose among opposition lawmakers in the 80s and 90s, when single-party dominance left them no procedural way to affect policy. But even after genuine democracy took hold, the brawls continued, as legislators apparently believe such displays impress their constituents.
