SWEDEN
Bearded villains do good
Alerted by a passerby that bearded men with a black flag were acting suspiciously at Brahehus Castle in Jonkoping County, police found to their relief that it was not a group of Islamic State sympathizers, but a meeting of hirsute do-gooders. John Ekeblad, cofounder of the Swedish chapter of the Bearded Villains, on Monday said the incident on Saturday ended with police acknowledging their mistake and even ignoring the brotherhood’s illegal parking on the roadside. Ekeblad said the incident was “hilarious,” and that police drove off laughing. He said the group promotes equality and does charity work. Founded last year in Los Angeles, Bearded Villains calls itself “a brotherhood of elite bearded men from all over the world” on its Web site.
UNITED STATES
Running couple says ‘I do’
One couple ran away to get married — at the Chicago Marathon. Stephanie Reinhart wanted a “short and sweet ceremony,” while Mark Jockel wanted a big wedding surrounded by friends and family. The 35-year-old Reinhart and 46-year-old Jockel compromised, marrying at the 8-mile (12.9km) mark of Sunday’s marathon in the city’s Boystown neighborhood. Reinhart wore a white running outfit and held flowers. Jockel wore a tuxedo T-shirt. They exchanged vows under a garden arch decorated with race medals. The ceremony took less than four minutes. Reinhart said she got her simple wedding and Jockel got “several thousand guests.” Marathon organizers gave the couple customized bride and groom bibs. They toasted with Gatorade. The couple met two years ago through the Chicago Area Runners Association.
UNITED STATES
Clarke: sexiest woman alive
It is most definitely Emilia Clarke’s year. The 28-year-old Londoner, who plays menacing, white-haired Daenerys Targaryen, aka Khaleesi, aka Mother of Dragons on Game of Thrones, is Esquire’s “Sexiest Woman Alive.” The magazine made the announcement early yesterday, but GQ got there first, anointing Clarke “Woman of the Year” last month. In addition to her high-profile role on the massively popular HBO series, Clarke was Sarah Connor in the summer movie hit Terminator: Genisys.
UNITED STATES
Sex toy rally against guns
From Aug. 1 next year, licensed Texans will be allowed to carry concealed weapons on the campuses of public universities. As a protest against the law, a group of students have decided to enter classrooms carrying different accessories: dildos. Organized by Jessica Jin, a 24-year-old alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin, under the banner of Campus (Dildo) Carry, on Aug. 24 next year, students and others who want to participate will enter the university campus with sex aids strapped to their backpacks. The movement began as a joke, Jin told the Houston Chronicle, because dildos are “just plain funny.” However, she added that dildos point to deeper issues regarding the carrying of guns and the way society talks about obscenity. Carrying dildos around campus will “spotlight the masturbatory nature of the power which people derive from gun ownership,” Jin said. “Additionally, the dildo has proven itself to be interesting fodder for commentary on what our society does and does not consider ‘obscene.’” Since Jin formed the idea for the protest on Friday, the day of a campus shooting at Texas Southern University, the movement has grown. More than 4,600 people have pledged to participate.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
‘ANCIENT AND MODERN’: The project, which took 22 years to complete, unearthed more than 300,000 treasures now on display across the network It caused untold commotion, decades of disruption and — among historians and archeologists — controversy and despair, but at midday on Saturday, the antiquities-rich subterranean world of Thessaloniki opened to a world of driverless trains and high-tech automation with the inauguration of its long-awaited subway. The excitement on the streets of the northern Greek port city is almost palpable. “Archaeologically, it has been an extremely complex and difficult endeavor,” said Greek Minister of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs Lina Mendoni of the more than 300,000 finds made since construction began 22 years ago. “To get here required a battle on many
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘AMERICA FIRST’: Patel, 44, previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of anyone who refuses to support Trump’s agenda US president-elect Donald Trump has tapped Kash Patel to be FBI director, nominating a loyalist to lead the chief US law enforcement agency — which Trump has long derided as corrupt. Patel rose to prominence expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. With the nomination of Patel, Trump is signaling that he is preparing to carry out his threat to oust FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican first appointed by Trump during his first term as president, whose 10-year term at the FBI does not expire until 2027. FBI
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