The week at a glance ... United States

Monroe, Ohio

Jesus statue burns: One of Ohio’s best-known landmarks, a six-story-tall statue of Jesus, burned to the ground this week after being struck by lightning. Formally titled King of Kings, the 62-foot statue is popularly known as “Touchdown Jesus” because of the figure’s raised arms. It had stood in front of the evangelical Solid Rock Church in Monroe, a Cincinnati suburb, since 2004. The statue, erected by the church’s founders, Lawrence and Darlene Bishop, at a cost of $250,000, was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame. The frame was all that remained after the blaze. “It will be back,” said Darlene Bishop, “but this time we’re going to try for something fireproof.”

Irvine, Calif.

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

Muslim students accused: Following a disciplinary review of an unruly student protest in February, an official at the University of California, Irvine, this week recommended the suspension of the university’s Muslim Student Union. Members of the union had shouted down a campus speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The disciplinary review, by director of student housing Lisa Cornish, found that the outburst had been “planned, orchestrated, and coordinated in advance,” and that the Muslim union’s leaders had instructed participating students to deny the group’s involvement in organizing the protest. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education investigated complaints by Jewish students at UC Irvine who said they were harassed by Muslim students. The department found no basis for a discrimination case.

West Hartford, Conn.

Self-amputation attempt: A homeowner trapped in his basement nearly amputated his own arm after it became wedged in a furnace vent. Rescuers found Jonathan Metz, 31, nearly unconscious three days after he first became trapped. Metz said that he had dropped a vacuum cleaner part into the furnace and became trapped when he reached through a vent to retrieve it. When he began to smell rotting flesh, he decided to cut off his arm. “As luck would have it,” he said, “I had the blades that I would use with some of my power tools.” He stopped cutting when the pain grew unbearable. Doctors, who said Metz would have died within hours had rescuers not found him, completed the amputation.

Arlington, Va.

Chaos at national cemetery: Hundreds of grave sites at Arlington National Cemetery lack headstones, contain the wrong remains, or are empty as a result of mismanagement, the Army’s inspector general said this week. An investigation found more than 200 unmarked or unidentified graves and several discarded burial urns at the cemetery, which the Army blamed on cemetery superintendent John Metzler and his top deputy, Thurman Higginbotham. A “long-standing rift” between the two men led to an “unhealthy and ineffective organizational climate,” the report said. Metzler retired this week and Higginbotham was placed on leave. The Army launched its investigation after several families of soldiers buried at Arlington complained of conditions there.

Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Biker killed by feds: Thomas “Tomcat” Mayne, 59, the reputed treasurer of the notorious Outlaws motorcycle gang, was killed after he opened fire on federal agents who were raiding his Maine home. The raid was part of a broad crackdown on the gang, in which federal agents fanned out from Wisconsin to Tennessee to arrest more than 50 Outlaws members on charges of murder, kidnapping, and other crimes. Law-enforcement officials called the Outlaws “a highly organized criminal enterprise” that is heavily involved in methamphetamine trafficking. Officials say the gang has carried out several vicious attacks on rivals, including on members of the Hells Angels.

Shirley, Mass.

Official snooping scandal: The administrator of a northern Massachusetts town was arrested this week following accusations that he had bugged colleagues’ offices and installed a video camera in a women’s restroom in Town Hall. Kyle Keady, 46, collected “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of images in the past nine months, said police, who discovered intimate pictures of Keady’s unwitting colleagues on computer hard drives in his home. Police say Keady, a divorced father, admitted that he had secretly recorded conversations with other town officials and had planted audio bugs in the offices of his personal assistant and the town accountant. “When you invade someone’s privacy on that intimate a level,” said town Selectman Armand Deveau, “it can’t be described as anything but molestation.”