Lead Story
Unclear on the Concept
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In March, after receiving numerous noise complaints from neighbors, the Scandia Family Fun Center in Sacramento, California, instituted a new policy for its weeks-old main attraction, a 16-story, 65-mile-an-hour thrill ride called the Scandia Screamer: riders now must remain silent at all times or the ride will be stopped immediately. Said one 15-year-old patron, “It’s kind of a bummer.”
News of the Weird has reported several times on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, traditionally held to be the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and burial, and the complex power-sharing arrangement that allows clergy, monks, and acolytes from six Christian denominations to coexist there with only the occasional fistfight. In April the UK’s Independent reported that as thousands of pilgrims arrived at the church for Easter observance, lavatory drain blockage had led to a pronounced odor of sewage in the building, but the three denominations–Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Apostolic–that control the church’s public toilets had not yet resolved Armenian Apostolic grievances that were keeping badly needed renovations on hold. Though the Armenians conceded they were obstructing larger renovation plans, they said the current problem could be fixed immediately if a fourth denomination, the Coptic Orthodox church of Egypt, weren’t denying emergency access to a critical section of plumbing until it’s granted permanent control of one of the toilet stalls.
Howard Fisher, 54, was arrested in March on DUI and drug-trafficking charges after he plowed into a parked South Carolina highway patrol cruiser on Interstate 95 near Santee (it was positioned to block off an accident site) in a car allegedly containing 43 pounds of marijuana. In the same month, three men were arrested for drug possession after they drove up to a tollbooth on New York City’s Triborough Bridge in a car allegedly containing $4,000 worth of cocaine and found they didn’t have $4.50 for the toll.
