Lead Story
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Until the policy was changed in October, the 18 school cafeterias in the North Penn School District, northwest of Philadelphia, had for years been washing and reusing their disposable plastic cutlery, though students had long expressed disgust at having to eat with utensils covered in bite marks. Diners will now be issued a fresh set of cutlery at each meal, though officials estimated that the old system saved about $15,000 a year.
Life imitates Dead Ringers? In Seattle in November, obstetrician-gynecologist Charles Momah, 49, was convicted on two counts of rape and two other sexual-crime charges against four of his former patients. Momah (whose lawyer said he plans to appeal) still faces dozens of civil suits from other former patients, many of whom allege that he not only raped and molested them but allowed his identical twin brother, general practitioner Dennis Momah, to do the same (and to perform various medical procedures on them) while pretending to be Charles. Witnesses claim that the appearance and behavior of the doctor they believed to be Charles was suspiciously inconsistent: sometimes he was friendly and talkative, sometimes confused-seeming and nearly silent; sometimes he spoke fluent English with a stutter, sometimes broken English; sometimes he walked with a limp, sometimes not; sometimes there were scars on his face, sometimes not; at times he would appear to gain or lose as much as 70 pounds within a week. The state health department, however, was unable to find evidence that Dennis had practiced medicine while impersonating Charles.
In Fargo, North Dakota, in September, 26-year-old Justin Fraase contacted the police and gave them what he said was evidence that a protection order against him should be lifted: a hidden-camera videotape of him having sex with the woman who’d obtained the order. On viewing the half-hour tape, however, authorities had a different take on it–the woman, they concluded, had struggled against Fraase and seemed to want no part of the encounter–and charged him with two felonies for sexual assault and a third for violating the protection order. Police speculated that Fraase hadn’t actually watched the tape himself before handing it over.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
