Visitors to Merlion Park in Singapore on June 8 were startled to see Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump enjoying a casual walkabout, hand-in-hand. On closer inspection, however, they would have seen the two men were Howard X, a Kim impersonator, and Dennis Alan, a Trump impersonator, who traveled to Singapore in advance of the June 12 summit meeting between the two real leaders. Janette Warokka of Indonesia was fooled: “It’s so shocking for me. I don’t know why those two famous guys come here,” she told the Associated Press. Airport officials were less amused when Kim’s doppelganger, whose real name is Lee Howard Ho Wun, arrived at Changi Airport. Wun said police officers searched his bags and detained him for two hours before releasing him with stern warnings to stay away from the summit. Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said Wun was interviewed for about 45 minutes. [AP via ABC News, 6/8/2018]
The Litigious Society
If you’ve ordered a Quarter Pounder recently and specified “no cheese,” you may be interested in a $5 million class-action lawsuit brought against McDonald’s on May 8 by Cynthia Kissner of Broward County, Florida, and Leonard Werner of Miami-Dade. According to the Miami Herald, the two are angry that they’ve been paying for cheese even though they ordered their sandwiches without it. The lawsuit contends “customers … continue to be overcharged for these products, by being forced to pay for two slices of cheese, which they do not want, order or receive.” Also, Kissner and Werner “have suffered injury as a result of their purchases because they were overcharged” and “McDonald’s is being unjustly enriched by these practices.” While attorney Andrew Lavin admits the mobile app ordering option does offer a Quarter Pounder without cheese, he notes in-store customers have no such choice. [Miami Herald, 5/24/2018]
Irony
Charlotte Fox, 61, an accomplished mountain climber who summited Mount Everest in 1996, met an unlikely death May 24 when she fell down the hardwood stairs at her home in Telluride, Colorado. Fox was part of the infamous 1996 Mount Everest expedition chronicled in “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, when eight climbers died. Friends called her fall “shocking,” according to The Aspen Times. Climbing partner Andrea Cutter said of the news, “It made me think, ‘Jeez, it’s just so wrong.'” San Miguel County Coroner Emil Sante said officials “have no reason to believe that it was suspicious at all.” [Aspen Times, 5/29/2018]
Armed and Clumsy
Things got wild on June 2 at Mile High Spirits and Distillery in Denver when an unnamed off-duty FBI agent accidentally shot patron Tom Reddington, 24, in the lower leg. According to the Denver Post, the agent was dancing and did a backflip, which caused his firearm to come out of its holster and fall to the floor. When he bent to pick up the gun, it discharged. “I heard a loud bang,” Reddington said, “and I thought some idiot set off a firecracker. All of a sudden, from the knee down became completely red, and that’s when it clicked in my head, ‘Oh, I’ve been shot.'” A man at the bar applied a tourniquet to Reddington’s leg. The FBI agent was taken to Denver police headquarters and released to an FBI supervisor. Mile High Spirits has promised “complimentary drinks forever” to Reddington. [Denver Post, 6/7/2018]
Sweet Revenge
In a bid to unseat his boss, Bon Homme County, South Dakota, Deputy Sheriff Mark Maggs thrashed Sheriff Lenny Gramkow in the June 5 Republican primary by a vote of 878 to 331. So Sheriff Gramkow didn’t waste any time: Less than a minute after the polls closed, he fired Maggs, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported. “As of this moment you are no longer an employee of Bon Homme County,” Maggs’ termination notice read. Maggs, a 31-year-old father of four, will not become sheriff until January, but he is confident the county commission “will stand with my family … and insure that my family will not be left hanging without an income or insurance,” Maggs said. “We’re going to be fine.” [Argus Leader, 6/8/2018]
Just Say No
On June 2, as two Jackson County, Oregon, sheriff’s deputies waited for a tow truck to remove a 2003 Toyota Camry from the side of a road, 23-year-old Anthony J. Clark, of Grants Pass, walked up to the car and told the deputies he was going to steal it. He then got into the car and drove off, leading officers on a 40-mile chase through Ashland, Talent and Phoenix, Oregon, crashing into fences and driving the wrong way on several roads. When officers finally stopped the car, The Oregonian reported, Clark ran into a mobile home park, where he was arrested trying to steal another car. The deputies reported Clark admitted taking LSD and said he thought he was inside a real-life version of the “Grand Theft Auto” video game. Among other charges, Clark was accused of driving under the influence of intoxicants and second-degree criminal mischief. [The Oregonian, 6/4/2018]
You Think Your Job Is Bad?
Car salesman Brett Bland in League City, Texas, finally had enough and filed a lawsuit in May against his employer, AutoNation Acura Gulf Freeway, and Jeremy Pratt, a co-worker. Pratt, the suit alleges, engaged in “constant taunting … making extremely crass, vulgar and rude comments” and “reinforced dominance over his subordinates by regularly entering their enclosed offices, intentionally passing gas and then laughing,” as well as “pinching and touching his male subordinates’ nipples.” KPRC-TV reported Pratt was fired after sending a text to everyone at the dealership alleging Bland was a sex offender (which he is not). After the firing, however, Bland’s lawsuit alleges, AutoNation allowed Pratt to “loiter at the dealership” and continue harassing employees, and Bland was threatened with termination if he didn’t sell eight vehicles a month. Bland seeks damages and court costs. [KPRC, 5/30/2018]
Ewwwwwww!
— In Beihai, South China, an unnamed 51-year-old man had been experiencing nonstop nosebleeds for 10 days when his wife told him she saw something “peek” out of his nose. In June, Metro News reported, the man went to Beihai People’s Hospital, where Dr. Liu Xiongguang removed a slithery, several-inches-long leech from his nostril as a nurse filmed the procedure. The doctor said the leech might have entered the patient’s nose as he swam in a river. [Metro News, 6/8/2018]
— In a gross twist on road rage, Henry George Weaver, 69, of New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, ended an argument with another man June 8 by defecating on him. According to Lehigh Valley Live, Pennsylvania state police reported that “the accused and the victim got into a road-rage argument, leading the accused to defecate on the victim,” but they did not disclose what started the argument. Weaver was charged with harassment. [Lehigh Valley Live, 6/10/2018]
