MONDAY, APRIL 22

The week begins in Warsaw, Poland, where today brought the opening of a new and controversial shopping mall, on which Reuters dished the dirt: It was originally scheduled to open in 1996, but plans for the shopping center were scrapped after "an international Jewish outcry" against the placement of the mall just outside the gates of Auschwitz, which many denounced as a dishonor to the memory of all who perished at the former Nazi death camp. However, after six years of revisions, mall owner Janusz Marszalek finally gained the governor's approval to open his shopping center, which now includes "a car park, post office, book shop, chemist's, and fast food bar," Marszalek told Reuters, adding tastefully, "This has made it possible to remove such businesses from the Auschwitz grounds." As for the unfortunate proximity of a shopping mall to a Nazi death camp: Crucial to securing the governor's go-ahead was the reconfiguration of Marszalek's mall as a "parking and service complex" catering primarily to Auschwitz tourists, whose gut-wrenching strolls through the former death camp will undoubtedly spur cravings for My Grandparents Went to Auschwitz and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirts, and the savory succor of Sbarro.

TUESDAY, APRIL 23

Today news agencies across the land gleefully reported on the latest legal hubbub surrounding fallen ice princess Tonya Harding, who continued her glorious reign as America's trashiest citizen (sorry, Courtney!) by getting drunk and driving her truck into a ditch. The Associated Press reports that neither Harding nor her unnamed passenger were injured in the accident, which occurred late last Saturday night in Battle Ground, Washington, and resulted in Harding receiving a citation for drunken driving. (Authorities have stingily refused to release Harding's blood alcohol level, but confirm that she failed both the sobriety and Breathalyzer tests.) Harding's new brush with the law is but the latest in a decade of breathtakingly grubby criminal achievement, featuring such previous Harding masterworks as Conspiring to Hinder Prosecution of Ex-Husband for Conspiring to Commit Assault on Nancy Kerrigan's Right Leg (The Plea Bargain) (1994); Drunkenly Smashing Boyfriend in the Face with a Hubcap (2000); and Eviction from a Camas, Washington, Rental Home (January 2002).

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24

On December 26, 2000, Michael McDermott, a 42-year-old software engineer in Wakefield, Massachusetts, mercilessly gunned down seven of his co-workers at Edgewater Technology. Last week, McDermott went before a Massachusetts jury on seven counts of first-degree murder, with hopes of exonerating himself by means of an insanity plea. For three days, the defense strove to justify McDermott's self-diagnosis of insanity, citing childhood sexual abuse and longstanding battles with depression and schizophrenia to bolster his contention that he was legally insane when he methodically executed seven people with an AK-47 and a pump-action shotgun. (Jurors were also informed of McDermott's three previous attempts to commit suicide; tragically, time would prove him far more adept at killing others than at killing himself.) At the center of the defense was the testimony of McDermott himself, who spent two days on the witness stand detailing the specifics of the holy mission given him by the Archangel Michael, who told him he could prevent the Holocaust (and earn a soul) if he murdered Adolf Hitler and six German generals. "My mission was complete," said McDermott of the moment when he'd finished executing the "Nazis." "I knew at this point I had a soul." But despite the defense's best efforts, the jurors ultimately dismissed McDermott's "St. Michael and the Nazis" yarn as a desperate ploy to look crazy, and found him guilty on all counts. (And rightly so--apparently McDermott's "visions" were so by-the-book, they could've been assembled from a Psych 101 table of contents.) McDermott will spend the rest of his fucked-up life in prison.

··Speaking of unspeakable horror: Today in Bellingham, a 16-year-old boy was charged with the kidnapping and murder of his eight-year-old neighbor. Early news reports claimed that Ryan Alexander, 16, killed Michael Busby, 8, in a "game turned deadly," during which Ryan bound Michael's hands, feet, and mouth with duct tape, then pressed a stick against his neck until he died. Second-wave reports added the fact of cuts found on Michael Busby's torso, back, and legs, with prosecuting attorney Dave McEachran informing Seattle P-I reporter Hector Castro that severe blood loss contributed to Michael Busby's death. And finally, today the Associated Press reported the results of Michael Busby's autopsy, which revealed that the boy died not of suffocation or blood loss, but of acute insulin poisoning; the AP also mentioned the police's discovery of an empty insulin bottle and used syringe in the field where Busby's body was found. So far, Ryan Alexander--a troubled teen with a history of mental instability and crime--has confessed to choking Michael Busby with a stick and cutting his body with a razor blade, explaining that he "wanted to get even with Michael for pestering him." How the deadly dose of insulin came to be in Michael Busby is now up to a Whatcom County jury to determine. If convicted of aggravated murder in the first degree, Alexander faces life in prison without parole. (Still, it could've been worse: Had he been 18, Alexander could've faced the death penalty.)

THURSDAY, APRIL 25

Tonight in La Cieba, Honduras, a Mitsubishi Montero containing temperamental TLC superstar Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and eight other people swerved off a highway and smashed into a pair of trees, flipping the speeding vehicle several times and killing Lopes (who'd been driving) and no one else. Thanks to her hand in the writing and performing of a handful of absolutely classic pop songs (the hits "Waterfalls" and "No Scrubs," plus such kick-ass album tracks as "Kick Your Game"), Lopes earned a permanent place in the girl-group hall of fame. Thanks to the spooky freakishness of tonight's tragedy--nine people crash, one person dies--Lopes earned an equally permanent place, alongside Brian Jones, Gram Parsons, and Paul McCartney in the dead celebrity hall of myth. Stay tuned for a Left Eye sighting near you. (R.I.P. Ms. Lopes.)

FRIDAY, APRIL 26

Speaking of terrible car crashes: Last November, Debra Jean Acey, a 44-year-old woman from Snoqualmie, imbibed the equivalent of 15 glasses of wine and sped her Isuzu Rodeo the wrong way down the freeway. By the time she crashed into and killed 20-year-old Central Washington University student Erin Klotz, drunk Debra Acey had reached a speed of 100 mph going west in the eastbound lanes of I-90--and today a King County Superior Court judge repaid Acey's negligence by sentencing her to a nine-year stint in the big house. Explaining the exceptionally stiff sentence (nearly double the usual term), Judge Charles Mertel cited Acey's wanton intoxication (in addition to the booze, she'd taken muscle relaxants), as well as what Judge Mertel identified as Acey's "knowledge of the consequences of drunken driving": In the 1980s, Acey was arrested twice for driving while intoxicated, and was made to attend a panel discussion featuring victims of drunk drivers. A tragedy all around, the story of Debra Acey has something to teach us all--namely, when you're driving drunk at 100 miles an hour the wrong way down the freeway, make sure you don't run into anyone.

SATURDAY, APRIL 27

Nothing happened today.

SUNDAY, APRIL 28

Today either.

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