Lead Stories
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According to a May San Francisco Chronicle report, 2,000 followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Fairfield, Iowa, have recently been clashing with the 8,000 townies over whether homes and businesses should be rebuilt to face east so that the residents will lead more fulfilling, harmonious lives. According to the followers’ beliefs, sunrises produce energy and sunsets produce lethargy. Two of the seven members of the city council are followers of the maharishi.
Another Argument Against Gun Control
In Athens, Alabama, in May Freamon Holt Jr., 29, was charged with theft after a lengthy chase that began when Holt fled on foot from a store after stealing two steaks. Holt then jumped on a bicycle and started riding, but soon crashed into a utility pole, briefly knocking himself unconscious. When he came to he fled again and, in a move characterized by a local newspaper writer as the final leg of his “triathlon” escape, jumped into Town Creek. A firefighter caught up to him after a short swim.
Another endangered species: According to a March London Daily Telegraph dispatch, the Brazilian government recently awarded a lone hermit tribesman a 96-square-kilometer personal preserve in the northwest part of the country despite protests from loggers, ranchers, and farmers in the area. A government team had tracked the man down last August to tell him about the planned preserve, but he shot an arrow at them.
Latest spectacular industrial fatalities: A 35-year-old man died when 21 panes of glass fell on him at a construction site in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February. Two railroad workers were killed when a loaded boxcar fell on them in Hamtramck, Michigan, in March. And two bin cleaners were killed when they were buried under an avalanche of corn in a grain elevator in Juniata, Nebraska, in April.
