Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Caught in the Web.

Governor James McGreevey of New Jersey announced that he is a "gay American" and resigned. "I am here today because, shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony," he said. "It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable."¹ The California Supreme Court nullified gay marriages in that state, and² there was a scandal in Australian cattle circles over udder doping.³ Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told her countrymen to stop kissing her, and⁴ four people were arrested in the Philippines for killing, cooking, and eating a relative at a wedding reception.⁵ Terry Nichols was sentenced to 161 life terms without parole for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.⁶ A British rapist who was out of prison for a weekend leave won the lottery, and⁷ Dominican migrants, lost at sea on their way to Puerto Rico, threw a woman overboard when she refused to share her breast milk with other passengers.⁸ A 480-pound Florida woman who had not left her couch for six years died when doctors attempted to separate her from the couch, which was fused to her body.⁹ A Jelly Belly factory was robbed, and¹⁰ crude oil prices were at record levels.¹¹ President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan ordered the construction of a palace of ice.¹² Arabs hate America more than ever, according to a new poll,¹³ and a man who was sued by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for selling "Arnie" bobblehead dolls announced that he will now sell "Arnie" urinal cakes and a "Girlie Man" bobblehead doll with the governor wearing a pink dress.¹⁴

Hurricane Charley killed 13 people in Florida and caused an estimated $20 billion worth of damage.¹⁵ There was heavy fighting in western Afghanistan.¹⁶ Peace talks between the new Iraqi government and Moktada al-Sadr broke down;¹⁷ al-Sadr was reportedly wounded in a battle with American forces.¹⁸ A British journalist was kidnapped in Basra and released a few days later; an Islamic website posted photographs of the beheading of an Egyptian.¹⁹ American warplanes bombed Fallujah.²⁰ Croatian explorers found the world's deepest hole.²¹ A plague of locusts was heading for Darfur, Sudan,²² where the national police force has been recruiting members of the Janjaweed militia.²³ Hutu rebels attacked a refugee camp in Burundi and killed at least 159 Tutsis.²⁴ Three British men who have been held in Guantánamo Bay for two years were preparing to meet their lawyers for the first time.²⁵ A Pakistani man was in custody in North Carolina for videotaping skyscrapers.²⁶ Al Qaeda was reportedly planning a big assassination, and²⁷ Iran tested a new long-range ballistic missile.²⁸ Roughly 1,600 Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike to protest their conditions; "As far as I'm concerned, they can strike for a day, a month, until death," said Tzahi Hanegbi, the Israeli security minister.²⁹ The U.S. was planning to pull 70,000 troops out of Asia and Europe, and³⁰ National Guard and reserve troops were losing their civilian jobs in greater numbers.³¹ A flaming rabbit burned down a British cricket club.³²

British researchers were granted a license to clone human stem cells.³³ A Texas dentist died after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria called vibrio vulnificus ,³⁴ a crow in Oregon tested positive for West Nile virus,³⁵ and three Vietnamese died of bird flu.³⁶ It was reported that HIV has crossed the species barrier from apes to humans at least seven times in recent years and that a new strain of HIV, which is undetectable by normal HIV tests, has appeared in Cameroon. Scientists said that eating bush meat is the most likely cause; earlier this year, three bush-meat hunters came down with simian foamy virus.³⁷ Scientists at Purdue University were using ribonucleic acid to create self-assembling nanostructures.³⁸ Czeslaw Milosz died.³⁹ People born in January and February, a study found, are at greatest risk of getting brain cancer, while those born in July and August are least likely to develop it.⁴⁰ A twin delivered two sets of twins on her birthday.⁴¹ People in Mottola, Italy, made a 2,280-foot-long salami sandwich.⁴² Julia Child died.⁴³ A linguist at MIT found that women prefer men with names containing "front vowels" rather than "back vowels"; in an experiment performed using the Hot or Not website, men named Matt, Ed, and Mike were sexier than the same men when they were named Paul, Sean, or Roger.⁴⁴ Scientists used a dopamine blocker to turn lazy monkeys into hard workers.⁴⁵