Lead Story
Public Officials Looking Bad
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After robbers linked by authorities to the Irish Republican Army stole the equivalent of $50 million from the Northern Bank in Belfast, police announced in February that the bank would take the drastic step of withdrawing roughly $575 million in paper money from circulation and replacing it with new bills printed in different colors. (Each of Northern Ireland’s major banks issues its own notes.) London’s Telegraph reported that though the robbers would likely still be able to launder millions in stolen money, police hoped that the currency reissue would force them to speed up the process, possibly causing them to make mistakes. The reissue, which was projected to take eight weeks and cost up to $9.6 million, wouldn’t have been feasible had a lesser amount been stolen.
In September News of the Weird reported on a medical-journal article by Israeli doctors warning of the risk of herpes transmission via a rare circumcision method in which the practitioner sucks the blood directly from the wound. In December New York City health officials, investigating three cases of herpes (one fatal) in baby boys who had recently been circumcised by Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, ordered Fischer to stop practicing this method and submit to a herpes test.
