David McElroy

When a reporter started hearing passenger complaints in 2008 about the ways they were being treated at airports by the TSA, he filed public records requests to get copies of those complaints. The agency stonewalled on the requests for four long years, but he finally has the documents, revealing details and other examples of things we’ve been hearing anecdotes about for years.

• Because of modern technology, an Army wife in the United States saw her husband die in Afghanistan. Her husband was an Army captain and they couple were engaging in a video chat online when he was killed. Details of the death haven’t been released yet, but it surely must be the first time a wife on the other side of the world has seen a husband killed in a combat zone.
• Amish farm kids seem to be remarkably immune to allergies, as compared to children raised in the American mainstream. The scientists who did the study don’t understand yet what accounts for the low rates of allergy problems.

• A former Israeli prime minister says it was interference by U.S. conservatives that derailed a comprehensive plan that could have led to peace with Palestine. He claims that it was millions of dollars from the “extreme right wing” in the United States that led to his downfall and derailed the peace plan.
• Scientists studying how the brain works have discovered that dogs might be better subjects for fMRI tests than monkeys. The initial tests are considered proof of concept, but we applaud anything that lets monkeys quit being the experimental critter in the lab. Let Rover fetch the results. We have writing to do.
• A cat who somehow got into a washing machine in South Africa miraculously survived almost two hours of going through a wash, rinse and spin cycle. A woman heard a cat crying and she couldn’t find her cat, but it never occurred to her to look inside the washing machine. The cat was very lucky to survive, but is safe.