Lead Stories
A June Wall Street Journal dispatch from Tokyo described the trend of “serial divorce”: young married women desiring to keep their maiden names on official documents circumvent Japanese law by getting a divorce when a government document is needed and then usually remarrying their husbands immediately afterward. And according to a March New York Times report, cosmetics firms are doing a brisk business in products that reduce or mask the odor of noneal, a chemical released in greater quantity as people age. In superhygienic Japan, “old man’s smell” is extremely undesirable.
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First things first: Catholic priest Charles Mentrup, 41, was stabbed by a parishioner during confession in May; he survived but refused to identify the man who did it because of his vow of confidentiality. And at Christmastime last year, a drunken guest disturbed the Cistercian monks of Wales’s Caldey Island by singing Welsh hymns and carols while they were celebrating their 12 hours of “Great Silence,” but no one moved to quiet the guest because the monks could not speak.
Recurring Themes
A three-foot-long iguana escaped from captivity in Saint Austell, England, prompting a police alert, given its propensity for aggression toward menstruating women. In Ennis, Texas, a soiled diaper left in a plastic bag in 100-degree heat for three days combusted, setting fire to the walls of two apartments, causing $3,000 worth of damage. A disabled man in Milwaukee had his motorized wheelchair stolen at gunpoint. One of Rio de Janeiro’s notorious bus thieves, who had just snatched about $800 from passengers, escaped by leaping out a door but landed in the midst of a 400-officer police force guarding the municipal governor during a downtown ceremony.
