Lead Story
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According to an ABC News report, an official charged with overseeing Al Hurra–the Arabic-language television network operated in the Middle East by the U.S. government–admitted to a congressional panel in May that one major reason the station keeps accidentally broadcasting overtly proterrorism messages was that no top Al Hurra supervisors actually speak Arabic. (Programming in December had included a 68-minute address by a Hezbollah leader advocating violence against Israel.) Meanwhile, following revelations in the same month that at least 58 Arabic-language specialists had so far been forced out of the military for being gay, a spokesperson for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network pointed out to Agence France-Presse that all of the discharged linguists were native English speakers who had been trained in Arabic by the military at considerable expense.
The Wichita Eagle reported in April on 74-year-old Thomas Wimberley, whose prior record of two misdemeanor theft convictions (from 1994 and 2000) meant that under Kansas law he had to be prosecuted as a felon when he was accused of stealing two hot dogs (cash value: $2.11) from a Wichita convenience store last summer. Wimberley, who lives on a $450 monthly Social Security check, spent more than a month in jail awaiting trial (at one point his bond was set at $100,000) even though he faced only probation if convicted. Finally, in April, a jury found him not guilty. One juror told the Eagle, “It was stupid.”
Least Competent Criminals
According to authorities in Dodge County, Wisconsin, a man called 911 from a strip club in April to report that he had just given $20 to a woman in hopes of receiving a lap dance, whereupon the woman, who turned out not to be an employee there, simply left with his money.
