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DAN GAINOR: November’s Nuttiest News: An Elvis judge, COP chaos and more media lunacy
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Here’s your round up of the seven wildest stories from last month. Let’s get started with the blazing insanity of a climate conference in Brazil and then look at six others.
1. COP Chaos
It’s November, and that usually means the eco-loons come out of the woodwork. For the past several years, November has brought the annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties, or COP. This year was COP30, held in Brazil and drawing more than 56,000 delegates and business representatives from around the globe. Yep, you made the connection — that’s a carbon footprint the size of a small city, flying all around the world to protest … the use of carbon.
It was far worse than that. First, there’s the massive highway they built right through the Amazon to get to the conference instead of, you know, doing it online. According to the BBC, that meant eight miles of “a new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest.”
The highway had been proposed back in 2012, “but it had repeatedly been shelved because of environmental concerns.”
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Then rooms at the event were so expensive even some of the delegates balked at the cost. (And most weren’t paying for themselves.) So Brazil brought in two large cruise ships to house poorer delegates. One of them advertised that it “offers 11 restaurants, 12 bars, 3 swimming pools, and 8 hot tubs.” Life’s tough working to save Mother Earth. That’s not a climate event — it’s a 56,000-person group vacation.
2. The less-than-excellent Mr. Burns
We’re talking Ken Burns, sometime historian and all-around lefty. Burns is in the news for his new documentary series on the Revolutionary War. I’ll leave fact-checking that to actual historians. I’m here to mock Burns for his elitist view of rural America. Burns was interviewed on Bulwark’s “How to Fix It” podcast, and he decided to shill for his paymasters in formerly public media.
According to Burns, defunding public media will hurt us in non-blue America. “It’ll hurt mostly rural communities — maybe that’s their intention. There’ll be news deserts.”
That’s right, folks in rural America must not have things like the internet to find news. He sounds like he expects us to be upset because we can’t hear NPR while sitting in our outhouse and drinking our moonshine.
Ken Burns speaks onstage during the New York premiere of PBS’ “The American Revolution,” featuring Ken Burns and Tom Hanks, during the 2025 Atlantic Festival on September 18, 2025, in New York City. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Rural America barely even notices public media. Those outlets are designed for upscale urban audiences who are more than 90% liberal. A country boy can survive … without NPR’s ever-left spin on the news.
3. A Toast to the Post
Things are changing in the opinion section of The Washington Post. In an effort to reach out to other voices, the paper launched a new section called Ripple. Depending on your age, that might mean what happens when you toss a pebble into a pond. Or it could conjure images of the great Redd Foxx playing Fred Sanford in “Sanford and Son.” His preferred drink on the show was a fortified wine called Ripple. For oldsters like myself, one wonders if the other names they considered were Mad Dog, Night Train or Thunderbird.
Things are changing in the opinion section of The Washington Post. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
4. Farmers No Longer Dig It
Change, as we learned from President Barack Obama, is often not so good. Such is the fate for the Farmers’ Almanac. The almanac is, well, buying the farm. No, not that almanac, the other one — or, as The Associated Press put it, “not to be confused with its older, longtime competitor, The Old Farmer’s Almanac in neighboring New Hampshire.”
Still, this Maine-based almanac has 208 years under its prodigious belt, and AP says, “it’s believed to be the oldest continually published periodical in North America.”
The Maine State Capitol in Augusta. (eyecrave productions via Getty Images)
All that is ending in 2026 due to a “chaotic media environment.” The staff has nothing to be ashamed of. They outlasted more than half the newspapers I ever worked for. Chaotic, indeed.
5. Down on the Farm
And while we are down on the farm, let’s talk sheep, followed by goat cuddling. The Washington Post ran a feature on a farmer who rescues gay sheep, under the memorable headline, “I love your sweater. Is it made from gay sheep wool?”
According to the Post, “As many as one in 12 male sheep are non-procreative but show an — ahem — interest in other rams.” So the farmer, whose sheep carry names like “Marvin Gay,” did “a fashion hookup with Grindr,” appropriately the gay hookup site. Together, they launched a fashion show “to promote Rainbow Wool.” The title of the show: “I Wool Survive.”
Not to be outdone, USA Today marked Thanksgiving by writing about “turkey cuddle therapy.” “Cuddling turkeys, in particular,” we are told, “can be profound.” But don’t you dare touch a turkey without its permission. “All interaction between guests and animals happens on the animals’ terms − in other words, the turkey needs to choose me,” wrote the author.
I will tell you, I cuddled some turkey on Thanksgiving — along with mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
A Thanksgiving dinner featuring cooked turkey and more. (iStock)
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6. House Hating
The media are bombarding us with well-earned complaints about how expensive life is for most Americans and how hard it is to buy a house. Leave it to lefty Vox to zig while the entire world zags. Vox ran a piece in November headlined, “Why owning a house is overrated.”
Yeah, building equity and having a place you can fix up and call home — what craziness. What followed was an interview with Jerusalem Demsas, editor-in-chief of The Argument, who argues: “Homeownership is overrated.” Now, I agree houses don’t always go up in value, but to come out against the American Dream is uniquely liberal.
Yes, houses don’t always go up in value, but to come out against the American Dream is uniquely liberal.
7. Hunka Hunka Burnin’ … Law
Movies that involve quirky judges are more honest than we want to admit. A Missouri judge is losing his job for wearing an Elvis wig and playing “The King” during court cases.
St. Louis Judge Matthew Thornhill “faces a six-month unpaid suspension under the deal he reached with the state,” according to AP. After that, he gets 18 more months on the bench before he steps down, possibly to go on tour. (People magazine even had photos of him as Elvis.)
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The Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline went after his love for the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” noting how he posed “with staff in a plastic Elvis wig and sunglasses” and sang from the bench.
(St. Louis Judge Matthew Thornhill.)
The Elvis-is-everywhere schtick allegedly violated rules on “order and decorum,” despite 35 letters backing the judge’s character. So the judge was judged and found wanting.
On the bright side, he might have the makings of a sequel to “My Cousin Vinny.”
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Boston, MA
A crowd scientist is helping the Boston Marathon manage a growing field of 30,000-plus runners
BOSTON (AP) — Running the Boston Marathon is tough enough without having to jostle your way from Hopkinton to Copley Square.
So race organizers this year turned to an expert in crowd science to help them manage the field of more than 32,000 as it travels the 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) through eight Massachusetts cities and towns — some of it on narrow streets laid out during Colonial times.
“There are certain things that we can’t change — that we don’t want to change — because they make the Boston Marathon,” said Marcel Altenburg, a senior lecturer of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain. “Like, I’m a scientist, but I can’t be too science-y about the race. It should stay what it is because that’s what I love. That’s what the runners love.”
The world’s oldest and most prestigious annual marathon, the Boston race was inspired by the endurance test that made its debut at the inaugural modern Olympics in 1896 — itself a tribute to the route covered by the messenger Pheidippides, who ran to Athens with news of the Greek victory over the Persians in Marathon.
After sharing the news — “Rejoice, we conquer!” — Pheidippides dropped dead.
Organizers of the Boston race would prefer a more pleasant experience for their runners, even as the field has ballooned from 15 in 1897 to as many as 38,000 to meet demand for the 100th edition in 1996. It has settled at around 30,000 since 2015.
As the race grew, it tested the limits of the narrow New England roads and the host cities and towns, which are eager to reopen their streets for regular commutes and commerce as quickly as possible.
“It would be kind of great someday to be able to grow the race a little bit more,” race director Dave McGillivray said. “The problem with this race is that it’s about two things: time and space. We don’t have either. … So, we’re trying to be innovative.”
That’s where Altenburg comes in.
A former German army captain who runs ultra marathons himself, Altenburg has worked with all of the major races, other large sporting events, and airports and exhibitions that tend to attract large crowds on ways to keep things safe and flowing smoothly.
For the Boston Marathon, which draws hundreds of thousands of spectators in addition to the runners, his models allow him to run simulations that help him see how the race might play out under different conditions.
“We have simulated the Boston Marathon more than 100 times to run it once for real. That is the one that counts,” Altenburg said in a telephone interview. “They gave me, pretty much, all creative freedom to simulate more waves, simulate more runners and — within the existing time window — they allowed me to change pretty much anything for the betterment of the running experience.
“And then we checked every aid station, every mile, the finish, every important point, (asking): Is the result better for the runner? Is that something that we should explore further?”
The most noticeable difference on Monday will be that the runners are starting in six waves — groups organized by qualifying time — instead of three. The waves, which were first used in Boston in 2011, help spread things out so that runners don’t have to walk after the start, when Main Street in Hopkinton squeezes to just 39 feet wide.
Other, less obvious changes involve the unloading of the buses at the start, the placement of the water and aid stations, and the finish line chutes, where runners get their medals, perhaps a mylar blanket or a banana, and any medical treatment they might need.
“For an event that’s as old as ours, 130 years, it allowed us to be a startup all over again,” said Lauren Proshan, the chief of race operations and production for the Boston Athletic Association.
“The change isn’t meant to be earth-shattering. It’s to be a smooth experience from start to finish,” she said. “It’s one of those things that you work really, really hard behind the scenes and hope that no one notices — a behind-the-curtain change that makes you feel as if you’re just floating and having a great day.”
Shorter porta potty lines would also be nice.
“What I loved about working with the BAA was how aware they are of what the Boston Marathon is. And they won’t change anything lightly,” Altenburg said. “So it was very detailed work from literally the moment the race last year ended to now. That we check every single option. That we really make sure that if we change something about this historic race, then we know what we’re doing.”
The BAA will look at the feedback over the next three years before deciding about expansion or other changes.
“Fingers crossed, hope for the best, but we’ll get feedback from the participants,” McGillivray said. “And they’ll let us know whether or not it worked or not.”
But keeping the course open longer isn’t an option. And the route isn’t going to change. So there’s only so much that crowd science can help with at one of the toughest tests in sports.
“I can talk. I’m a scientist. I just press a button and it’s going to be,” Altenburg said. “But the runners still have to do it.”
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Naugatuck Police say one person has been arrested after a multi-car accident on Route 63 Saturday afternoon.
According to police, they responded to the area of Route 63 and Cherry Street around 1 p.m. for reports of a collision with injuries.
They say a 30-year-old man from Waterbury was arrested and charged with operating under the influence of drugs/alcohol, operating under the influence with a child passenger, illegal possession of prescription drugs, failure to keep narcotics in the original container, risk of injury to a child and distracted driving.
Police say he is being held on a $10,000 Surety Bond.
This is all the information at this time.
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