Boston's thieving hypnotists, and more

Boston's thieving hypnotists

Boston police are warning residents of Chinatown to beware a thieving gang of female hypnotists. In one incident, say police, the group approached an elderly woman, made small talk in Cantonese, then hypnotized her. She was handed a bag and told to loot her own home of valuables—in this case all her jewelry and $160,000 in cash—and turn them over to the hypnotists in a park. “If anyone asks me for directions, I’m not going to respond,” said Georgiana Tam of Boston’s Asian-American Civic Association.

Angelina Jolie's wedding goal

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In a twist on the typical prenuptial regimen, Angelina Jolie has set herself the goal of gaining 10 pounds before her wedding to Brad Pitt. So determined is the bone-thin Jolie to fill out her wedding dress, a source tells ShowbizSpy.com, that she has asked British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to supply her with high-calorie recipes. “Angie never cooks,” says the source, “so Brad’s now knocking up some English dishes like shepherd’s pie and sausage-and-mash.”

Tabitha the cat gets a washing

A cat got stuck inside a washing machine and somehow survived a full wash cycle. Karin Bennett, of Johannesburg, South Africa, couldn’t find her cat, Tabitha, despite searching all over, but then spotted the cat’s wet, furry face looking out through the glass of the washing machine’s front door. Tabitha apparently crept into the machine before Bennett started it, and survived more than an hour of soaking, tumbling, and drying. “The vet told me that she had lost seven of her nine lives,” Bennett said.