ROUND ONE
Boner Candidate #1: THIS IS WHY PLEASANT GROVE CANT HAVE NICE THINGS
PLEASANT GROVE, Utah — For the second time in four months, a mountain light display shining over Utah County has been vandalized. This weekend, a ghost shines above Pleasant Grove for Halloween; a quick alternative from the original plan after $500 in lights were stolen Wednesday night. “We were planning to do a Yoda up there for Halloween and it was a multi day process,” said David Hartle. For two days, David and his family spent hours aligning the lights on the steep slope. When he hiked back to finish Thursday, the critical green lights were gone. “I was just heartbroken. I was so excited for the lights and this design. I put a ton of time into it. My kids were all excited about it. Seeing those gone, I knew we couldn’t do it,” said Hartle. This is the second time this year a light display was vandalized. In July, a 500-foot strawberry celebrating the town’s Strawberry Days was messed with.
Boner Candidate #2: YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Court of Appeals has rejected a man’s appeal that he was wrongfully convicted because a jury got to see his face and neck tattoos. Lee Heyen, 45, was sentenced to serve up to life in prison after being convicted by a jury in 2018 for raping two 15-year-old girls. He challenged his conviction claiming that his defense lawyer failed to have his tattoos covered up or, at the very least, instruct the jury not to consider them. But a three-judge panel at the Utah Court of Appeals dismissed his claims and upheld his rape convictions. The judges said at trial, Heyen wanted to make some of his tattoos a part of his defense (particularly a tattoo on his genitals) while excluding others that related to white supremacist gang affiliations. “Heyen argues that leaving his face and neck tattoos exposed during trial was unreasonable and that ‘there was no reason to allow jurors to see them.’ We disagree. There were several obvious reasons for leaving the tattoos uncovered, leading to the conclusion that it was not ‘objectively unreasonable’ for Counsel to allow the jury to see them,” Judge Michele Christiansen Forester wrote in the ruling.
Boner Candidate #3: …AND NO ONE WAS ARRESTED, NO CITATIONS ISSUED
SALT LAKE CITY — Several thousand people attended a Halloween party near Utah Lake on Saturday night, days after organizers claimed their event had been canceled. Police say it was one of two parties in Utah County on Halloween night in which more than 1,000 people attended. The Utah County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a large party on the west side of Utah Lake, south of Saratoga Springs near the Knolls about 10 p.m. Sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Cannon said “several thousand” people were in attendance, with the estimates from those who were there ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 people. The party included a stage, a professional sound system and lights, and DJs. Cellphone videos of the event posted on social media show people, who appear to be high school or college age, packed together in a large group with no social distancing and very little mask wearing.
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ROUND TWO
Boner Candidate #1: I THINK THEY SHOULD BE SUING JERRY
Jerry Falwell Jr., a close ally of President Donald Trump, sued Liberty University on Thursday, alleging the university defamed him and did not properly investigate claims about his personal life before pushing him to resign as president over the summer. The lawsuit represents the latest turn in an astonishing falling out between Falwell and Liberty, whose family name has been synonymous with Liberty since his father founded the university four decades ago. It would have been unthinkable six months ago, when — despite some public reports about Falwell’s unusual behavior — he seemed to have Liberty’s unflagging support. “Other than God and my family, there is nothing in the world I love more than Liberty University,” Falwell said in a statement. “While I have nothing but love and appreciation for the Liberty community, and I had hoped to avoid litigation, I must take the necessary steps to restore my reputation and hopefully help repair the damage to the Liberty University brand in the process.”
Boner Candidate #2: YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE
New York (CNN Business)Dr. Scott Atlas, an adviser on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, apologized after appearing in an interview with Russian state broadcaster RT, just days before Election Day. In his apology, Atlas claimed he was unaware RT was a registered foreign agent. RT is owned by Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti and subsidiary RT America is registered with the US Justice Department as an agent of the Russian government. The Kremlin uses RT to spread English-language propaganda to American audiences, and was part of Russia’s election meddling in 2016, according to a 2017 report from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Twitter labeled a video from the Russian-state controlled broadcaster RT as election misinformation on Thursday. YouTube videos posted by RT carry the disclaimer: “RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government.”
Boner Candidate #3: DOCTORS ARE REALLY DIFFEREENT IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Two men accused of selling an Indian doctor an “Aladdin’s lamp” for $93,000 have been arrested, authorities say. Dr. Laeek Khan approached the police in the city of Meerut, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, on October 25 after he realized the lamp he was sold did not have the power to grant him the good health, wealth, and fortune he was promised, according to the BBC. He said that the duo, named as Ikramuddin and Anees, who sold him the lamp would often make a ‘jinn’ or spirit appear from the lamp but later told NDTV News that it was just one of the men dressing up. Khan met the pair after he performed surgery on a woman named Sameena in 2018 and began making house calls for post-surgery care where he met them and said she was their “ailing mother,” Vice News reported. In his complaint, he said: “Gradually they started telling me about a baba (self-proclaimed godman) whom they claimed also visited their home. They started brainwashing me and asked me to meet this baba.”
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