Lead Stories
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According to a November report in the Boston Globe, some callers to the city’s major homeless shelters became “frantic” or “outraged” when their offers to help on Thanksgiving were rejected (urban shelters routinely have too many volunteers at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and too few the rest of the year). Callers even tried to cajole officials to let them bypass waiting lists (one shelter, which started accumulating names in August, had a backlog of 170 by Thanksgiving), despite suggestions that they help instead at less popular suburban facilities.
In September in West Somerset, England, district council employee Ian Jewell was rewarded by his bosses after his count revealed that the council offices’ toilet paper contained only 200 sheets per roll, not the 320 specified in the supplier’s contract. And according to an October report from Bismarck, North Dakota, a popular pastime for teenagers there is a game called “Slip”–players roam the city on foot after dark, trying to avoid being spotted by friends driving around in cars (the thrill, apparently, comes from not knowing which set of headlights is the car hunting for you). Said one girl, “It’s better than sitting around on the couch on a Friday night watching a movie.”
People Different From Us
In Great Falls, Montana, in November, a 73-year-old man died when a thermostat in his building broke, creating such heat that all the water evaporated from a toilet. And in July in Bangkok, Thailand, a 21-year-old student accidentally strangled himself with his belt, which he’d looped around his neck and tied to a door handle during a marathon study session–the belt was supposed to tighten if he slumped forward in his chair, keeping him awake.
