Maybe we’re all still trying to recover from the psychological shock Jordan Peele’s Us delivered last weekend, because this week brought some eerie headlines and bizarre backstories. From an investigation into the seemingly supernatural forces that have been luring dogs to leap to their deaths from a gothic bridge in Scotland, to the story behind the sudden disappearance of China’s biggest movie star, this week’s headlines read more like Twilight Zone recaps. However, while some bizarre deep dives brought us face to face with the uncanny, some of the week’s more sobering reporting reminded us that many of the world’s most uncomfortable realities are lurking in plain sight.
Mongolia’s air pollution problem is one of the most severe in the world. The country’s dependence on coal to survive the brutal winters leaves the nation blanketed in blighted air throughout the frigid months. While the toxic atmosphere poses a profound threat to all citizens, the country’s children suffer the most, National Geographic reported. With hospitals filled beyond capacity by cases of pneumonia and bronchitis, particularly among the younger population, the capital closed schools for the winter months in a desperate attempt to protect children from the pollution. While the nation’s children suffer, National Geographic found that the polluted air costing the younger population both their health and their education is merely a symptom of a much larger set of social and political issues the country has struggled with in recent decades.
As gun violence continues to plague the United States and discussions surrounding the epidemic seem to remain at a perpetually heated standstill, CNN went behind the scenes this week to explore the crimes that take place even before a weapon lands in a criminal’s hands. In Part 2 of a series on unlicensed gun dealing, CNN found unlicensed dealers are behind a flow of weapons that have ended up in the wrong hands, including those of convicted felons in cases of armed robbery and murder. “The crime they’re committing is a white-collar crime,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said of unlicensed dealers. “But the crimes they’re facilitating are violent crimes that impact our communities across the country every day.”
In the wake of multiple recent suicides of school-shooting survivors and their family members, Westword turned to one of the country’s earlier and most infamous school shooting tragedies to examine psychological trauma in the long term. This April will mark 20 years since the Columbine High School shooting, and two decades later, the tragedy remains unfortunately relevant—perhaps increasingly so. “It’s been longer now since it happened than the age I was when it happened. I’ve moved on. But there’s still this deep, dark hole I can crawl back into when asked to go there,” Columbine survivor Alisha Basure told Westword of the event, which, as the outlet noted, “remains the singular tragedy that every new eruption of mass murder is measured against.”
Fan Bingbing was the most famous actress in China—“which is to say, the most famous actress in the world,” as Vanity Fair noted—when she vanished without a trace last year. For their April issue, the magazine investigated the story behind the starlet’s baffling disappearance. After being outed for tax evasion, the high-profile star effectively faded from view and the public eye. When she re-emerged in October, fans learned she had been held under residential surveillance by the Chinese secret police. While Fan’s case was a high-profile one that brought the issue to international attention, it was far from a singular incident. As Vanity Fair reported, Fan wasn’t alone in evading taxes. Her big mistake? Getting caught.
The New York Times generated buzz this week for their coverage of a story equal parts absurd and eerie. Training an eye on Scotland, The Times investigated the nation’s so-called “dog suicide bridge,” a daunting gothic structure in Dumbarton off of which hundreds of canines have been rumored to fling themselves to their deaths. Proposed explanations range from the rational—theories involving the terrain and the scent of other animals—to the supernatural. “After 11 years of research, I’m convinced it’s a ghost that is behind all of this,” teacher and author Paul Owens told the Times. While others have proposed more logical explanations, none have been proven, and the bizarre mystery lives on.
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