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Things People in Government Believe
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Diana Cortez and Sandra Lopez, formerly the mayor and bookkeeper of La Grulla, Texas, pleaded guilty in November to spending $53,700 of the town’s federal grant money on psychic consultations. And in August the Saint Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association fired consultant David Levin after seven years’ service, during which time it paid him around $1.4 million in fees and expenses. The decision followed the appearance of a magazine article in which Levin–whose clients have included other local civic groups as well as the city of Saint Louis–claimed to possess psychic powers and discussed his “clairvoyance-based” business seminars.
The Brisbane Courier-Mail reported in September that at Grafton Prison in New South Wales, Australia, some inmates had been breeding redback spiders (whose bite can kill children and the elderly) and injecting themselves with the spiders’ diluted venom to get high.
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