Cats in committee

Surprise visits from pets during legislative committee meetings in New Hampshire have sparked a conversation about etiquette for Zoom meetings. On Feb. 3, during a meeting of the New Hampshire House of Representatives Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee, cats owned by Rep. Anita Burroughs began investigating her laptop and appeared on the Zoom conference call. According to Burroughs, a Democrat, the appearances of her cats Yoshi and Jack during the teleconference sparked a rebuke from Republican committee chairman Rep. John Hunt. Burroughs said Hunt told the ranking Democrat on the committee to tell her Democratic colleagues to keep pets from interfering in committee work. “The chair talked to [the ranking Democrat] and said no animals in the room,” Burroughs said. “I can try to keep the cats off the screen. Keeping them out of the room is going to be impossible.” Though the Feb. 3 meeting was also disturbed by a dog barking, Hunt denies issuing a pet ban, calling it merely a suggestion.

Fighting for life

Jeanne Pouchain knows she’s not dead. But she has to prove it in court. The 58-year-old French woman was declared dead by a court in 2017 during a decadelong legal case. An employee Pouchain fired years ago is suing her for lost wages and told a court that Pouchain was dead after she stopped responding to the employee’s letters. Without evidence, the French court accepted the allegation and levied a judgment against Pouchain’s estate. The court’s decision set off a chain reaction in France’s bureaucracy, which scrubbed her from official records and invalidated her identity cards and licenses. “I have no identity papers, no health insurance, I cannot prove to the banks that I am alive … I’m nothing,” Pouchain recently told The Guardian. In January, Pou­chain’s attorney presented an affidavit to the court from her doctor attesting to her continued existence. Her former employee says Pouchain had been pretending to be dead in order to avoid paying the court-mandated damages.

Birthday release

A Miami-area jail offered a tremendous birthday present to one of its inmates on Jan. 25. Jail officials accidentally released Eduardo Cabana, a 52-year-old inmate in Miami-Dade County, after they apparently confused his release date with his birth date. Cabana was being held without bond on multiple charges. His previous rap sheet included arrests on gun and drug charges. Authorities found Cabana and re-jailed him by Jan. 29, and the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department said it had launched an internal investigation into the early release.

Save a Chihuahua

Authorities in Lompoc, Calif., have decided not to file charges against a woman who housed 104 Chihuahua dogs in her house. Last October, a concerned neighbor called animal control to report that the unidentified woman was hoarding small dogs in her Santa Barbara County home. “The resident cooperated fully with our staff and surrendered the dogs,” Animal Services director Angela Walters Yates told the Santa Barbara Independent in February. “All of the dogs were in good physical condition, and there were no signs of neglect or abuse.” Despite that, the woman can’t keep the animals because she exceeded the number of dogs she was allowed to have without a kennel permit. A team of nearly 20 veterinarians and other staffers inspected the animals and arranged for their transport to shelters around the region.

Masculine messaging

Chinese boys are too feminine, according to a directive issued by China’s education ministry. The December missive titled “The Proposal To Prevent the Feminization of Male Adolescents” directed schools to take steps to promote the masculinity of male students. The government edict suggested schools in China begin focusing more on soccer and instructed the institutions to aim at student mastery of at least one or two sports skills. Earlier in 2020, high-ranking apparatchik Si Zefu complained that Chinese boys were becoming “weak, timid, and self-abasing,” according to the BBC.

Money for the taking

Fake jobless claims cost California $11 billion in 2020, according to California Labor Secretary Julie Su. Announcing the news in January, Su said state investigations revealed some 10 percent of the $114 billion paid in unemployment claims was fraudulent. “There is no sugarcoating the reality,” Su said. “California did not have sufficient security measures in place to prevent this level of fraud, and criminals took advantage of the situation.” How easy has California’s unemployment system been to game? Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said he uncovered an unemployment claim from a 99-year-old former housekeeper who hasn’t worked in decades.

Witch hunt regret

A Scottish lawyer has asked the country’s Parliament to pardon nearly 4,000 people accused of witchcraft from 1563 to 1736 under Scotland’s Witchcraft Act. Claire Mitchell, who began her campaign last year to clear the names of people accused of witchcraft, lodged a formal petition with the Scottish Parliament to grant posthumous pardon and an apology to the 3,837 people—mostly women—accused of witchcraft during the 173-year period. Mitchell noted that scholars believe authorities executed around 2,500 supposed witches in Scotland during that time frame, often after eliciting confessions by torture. The Scottish legislative body has agreed to host the petition on its website and collect signatures until March 17.

Vive la lunch

French workers can now legally commit the ultimate taboo: eating lunch at their desks. In order to help accomplish pandemic-related social distancing, the French government has suspended a prohibition on workers eating lunch in the office. Prior to the Feb. 14 announcement, French employees weren’t permitted to have their meals in the workplace, a rule meant to preserve the nation’s traditional la pause déjeuner, or lunch break. French workers often splurged on two- and three-course meals at local bistros before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Row your boat

A tough grandfather from Oldham, England, has earned new bragging rights. At 70 years old, Frank Rothwell on Feb. 6 became the oldest person to complete the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, an annual charity race in which participants row across the Atlantic Ocean. An experienced sailor, Rothwell rowed solo and unassisted 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 56 days, raising $1.4 million for dementia research. While he isn’t the oldest person to row solo across the Atlantic—72-year-old Graham ­Walters set that record last year—Rothwell said he plans to make the trip again in 2023.