Lead Stories
In February the Hawaii House Agriculture Committee approved a bill to legalize cockfighting, provided the roosters wear tiny padded gloves on their feet instead of the traditional metal leg spurs.
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In September in Des Moines, Iowa, federal prosecutor Kevin Query, 40, was sentenced to ten years in prison for fondling a 12-year-old girl and taking nude photographs of her. Query said he was obsessed with females’ hair, which he thinks exudes perfection and beauty, and said he took showers with the girl to make sure her hair didn’t get tangled while being washed, and photographed her nude to document her beauty in case she later cut her hair. He said his marriage ended when his wife cut her hair.
Wells Fargo and MasterCard announced in January that they have installed an automatic teller machine at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, whose winter population is 200. And in November army engineers in India installed a pay phone atop the Siachen Glacier, near the Pakistani border. The temperature at the glacier, which is the site of many skirmishes between the two countries, hovers around minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with winds around 70 mph.
In order to get around local ordinances that shut down their strip clubs, bar owners in Eureka, California, and Ladson, South Carolina, adjusted their businesses accordingly. Tom Razooly’s Tip Top Club in Eureka became a recreational-vehicle promotion facility in November; now customers are handed brochures for RVs while they watch women do pole dances. In January Ladson’s Jerry Colombo converted his Club 2010 into the Church of the Fuzzy Bunny’s [sic], featuring Bible reading followed by a procession of dancers wearing pasties.
In February prosecutors in Boston finally dismissed two counts of arson against Boston University junior Keven Ackerman, who had been arrested in June despite overwhelming evidence that he was not the perpetrator. Though he slightly resembles the arsonist, Ackerman is six inches taller; furthermore, he had no motive, no criminal record, and 15 alibi witnesses who were at a party with him all evening long, nor did police find any evidence on his person. The only witness against Ackerman has a long criminal record himself, and has reportedly falsely accused people of crimes in the past.
