Singing in the plane, and more

Singing in the plane

An American Airlines pilot was forced to make an emergency landing last week after a passenger refused to stop singing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” The unnamed woman started belting out the song when the plane took off from Los Angeles to New York, and her out-of-tune crooning soon became too much for passengers and flight crew. The pilot made an unscheduled stop in Kansas City, where police handcuffed and escorted the woman off the plane as she continued singing.

Chinese mock new People’s Daily building

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Chinese censors are trying to stop people from mocking the new headquarters of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main propaganda machine, after Internet users pointed out that the 150-meter-tall building resembled a colossal phallus. Photos of the scaffold-covered skyscraper have been circulating on Sina Weibo—China’s equivalent of Twitter—to officials’ dismay, with censors working overtime to take down the offending images. Weibo users then took refuge in double entendres, observing that “the organ” of the state has “risen up.”

A fresh approach to quitting smoking

A California woman desperate to quit cigarettes slapped a police officer in the hope she would be sent to a smoke-free prison. Police said that Etta Lopez, 31, waited outside a Sacramento jail and struck the first cop she saw. “She stepped into me and slapped me in the face,” said Deputy Matt Campoy. “She told us that she needed to quit smoking.” Lopez got her wish: She was sentenced to 63 days in prison for battery of a peace officer.