What Else Is News?
Mad, Madder, Maddening
Here are some headlines you may have missed over the last several days.
Boston University Researchers Produce New COVID Strain. Just what the world needs: another COVID strain. This time, researchers at Boston University created a hybrid version that may or may not be very deadly. BU researchers say that’s not true, but an article in the Daily Mail says it is. In fact, the Daily Mail article notes that researchers combined Omicron and the original Wuhan strain to create a version that killed 80% of mice in a study. Why? To study how spike proteins impact COVID-19 illnesses. Because only 20% of mice survived the experiment, the spike protein might be pretty significant.
A Really Big Fish Tale. The Lake Erie Walleye Trail draws anglers from around the Northern Ohio region. Qualifying rounds begin in the spring and are held in various locations along Lake Erie and its tributaries. The trail culminates with a championship in early fall. The prize for the heaviest five walleye is around $30,000.
Jacob Runyan, 42, and Chase Cominsky, 35, appeared to have the heftiest catch during the recent 2022 championship. When the director of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail cut open their walleye, though, he found them filled with lead weights and prepared fish filets. Both men were disqualified, and they’re still in hot water. The two have been charged with cheating, attempted grand theft, possessing criminal tools and unlawful ownership of wild animals. Their arraignment takes place later this month.
England’s NHS Makes Strong Statement on Transgenderism in Youth. The National Health Services (NHS) of England is revamping recommended treatment of children who identify as transgender, after declaring that most of those children are going through a “transient phase.”
“In most cases, gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence,” the NHS report stated. Based on that information, the NHS will ban puberty blockers in most cases for children under age 18.
In the United States, puberty blockers are often give to children who are at the typical start of puberty (between 8 and 13 for girls and between 9 and 14 for boys) and who are experiencing gender dysphoria. According to a study noted by the Cleveland Clinic, about two-thirds of children who suffer from gender dysphoria before puberty do not continue to experience gender dysphoria after puberty.
Climate Protestors Deface Works of Art. Andy Warhol painted Campbell soup cans, but Vincent van Gogh had actual soup splashed on one of his paintings. Members of the climate change activist group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. Immediately afterward, the two protestors glued themselves to the same wall as the painting and shouted, “What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?”
For those who are concerned about both, it’s worth noting that a glass screen protected the van Gogh painting from possible soup stains, and that the protestors appear to have not used glue that harmed the environment inside the National Gallery.
Over at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany, protestors chose mashed potatoes as their means of protest, hurling mounds of the mushy food at a painting by Claude Monet. “People are starving, people are freezing, people are dying,” one of the protestors shouted during the melee.
In the most perplexing of these food-related incidents, two advocates of the Just Stop Oil movement popped a cake into the face of King Charles’ wax figure at London’s Madame Tussauds. Because the king is well-known for his climate advocacy, perhaps the cake should have been directed at the wax figure of someone less committed to the cause.
It’s not apparent if the protestors in England, Germany and elsewhere realize that the food they throw could be used to feed the starving people for whom they claim to be advocating.
Latest TikTok Challenge Appears to Involve Taking Money From the Needy. A BBC investigation revealed that TikTok was taking advantage of Syrian refugee families begging for money on the platform. Apparently, agencies affiliated with TikTok recruited the refugees, encouraged them to beg for money on TikTok and then took a huge cut for themselves. At times, the livestreams resulted in gifts worth as much as $1,000 an hour. The gifts could then be converted to cash. But the BBC investigation claims that TikTok and its affiliates were taking up to a 70% cut of the money. To prove this, BBC investigators created a fictitious group that live-streamed for an hour and received only $19 out of a $106 donation.
TikTok responded to these allegations by banning all of the accounts that were mentioned in the BBC investigation. The platform also said it would expand its global policies toward banning “exploitative begging.”