NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Immigration solution, with pillows

Among the promotions offered by New York City’s upscale Marmara Manhattan hotel is a “birth tourism” package exploiting the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. For about $35,000, a foreign expectant mother with a visa can spend her delivery week in luxury accommodations (including medical care) — and assure her baby automatic U.S. citizenship. (That child could then become an “anchor,” subsequently making it easier for the parents to acquire

“green cards.”) Also, The Washington

Post reported in July that three agencies in China, with U.S. affiliates, offer similar packages to their affluent citizens, whose primary concern seems to be providing their children access to a U.S. education as an alternative to China’s expensive, competitive system. 

Drinking stories

. A naked, 47-year-old man was taken to an El Paso, Texas, burn center in July after “friends” won a bet and got to set his prosthetic leg on fire, and it spread to his body. The man admitted to police that he had lost fair-and-square, by downing “only” six beers. He was treated for several days and released.

. In June, two 34-year-old men in Horsham, Australia, underwent surgery as a result of a plan hatched during a drinking bout. They had both wondered if it hurt to get shot and thus obliged each other. 

Soccer and sorcery

Black magic failed to secure the World Cup for Africa this year, but on the other hand, the weak host team, South Africa, managed an opening round draw with Mexico and an upset victory over France. “Sangomas” (traditional “healers”) spreading “muti” (powders, potions, animal bones, especially from speedsters like horses and ostriches) had been out in force. World Cup stadium security was tight, but in African league soccer games, it is not uncommon for sangomas, pre-game, to bury animal parts on the field, or to have players urinate on it to improve the karma. 

Things you didn’t think happened:

. Although 85 percent of Americans are covered by health insurance, the figure in Rwanda is 92 percent. In that country’s 11-year-old system, everyone pays $2 a year — obviously just for basics. However, Rwandans’ main problems are more easily treatable — infections, malnutrition, malaria, unsafe childbirth — and not expensive diabetes, obesity, cholesterol-clogged arteries.

. In Israel’s West Bank, Palestinians have a highly competitive race-car season, and one team on the rise this year is the sexism-fighting female squad led by driver Suna Aweida. 

Questionable Judgments

. At press time, the city council of Barre, Vt., continues to debate extending its pet “leash” law to cats, following a woman’s complaint that a neighbor’s cat continues to foul her yard with droppings. In the few towns that try to enforce leash laws on cats, a main rationale has been to protect friendly birds. (The late U.S. statesman Adlai Stevenson, when he was governor of Illinois, once rejected such a law, terming leashing “against the nature of the cat.”)

. Hard Time, Hard Luck: Harry Jackson, 26, was in jail in Woodbine, Ga., in March, on several minor charges such as driving on a suspended license. However, acceding to pressure from fellow inmates, brought on by the jail’s non-smoking policy, Mr. Jackson agreed to break out, steal cigarettes at a nearby convenience store, and break back in, undetected. “(D)on’t come back empty handed,” one inmate supposedly warned him. Mr. Jackson was apprehended climbing back in over a fence. In May, a judge sentenced him, for the earlier charges plus the escape and subsequent burglary, to 20 years. 