A passenger plane was forced to return to the airport in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum after an angry cat, which somehow got into the cockpit, attacked the pilots shortly after takeoff, local media reports.
This Wednesday's flight of the Sudanese Tarco airline bound for Qatar’s capital, Doha, was proceeding in a totally routine manner – that is, until a most unlikely passenger caused an emergency mid-air.
Having departed from the Khartoum International Airport, the plane was in the air for roughly half an hour when an unregistered passenger was spotted inside the pilot’s cabin. The passenger in question was a ferocious cat, according to a report by the local news outlet Al-Sudani.
The feline clearly wasn’t a big fan of flying as it acted aggressively and attacked the crew. Apparently, after all attempts to restrain the furry hijacker failed, the pilot made a decision to turn the plane around and return to the Sudanese capital.
In its quest to investigate the spurr-ious story, Al-Sudani obtained information that the aircraft had spent a night stationed at a hangar at the Khartoum airport ahead of the flight. Their source suggested that the cat likely sneaked aboard during cleaning or engineering review and hid inside the cabin to surprise the pilots later.
As baffling as the incident may sound, this is not even the first “hijacking” attempt of the kind. In 2004, a Belgian airliner with 62 people on board was forced to return to Brussels after one “well-traveled” feline called Gin went berserk in the cockpit following an unexplained escape from a travel bag. The stressed cat sneaked into the pilot cabin when the meal was being served to the crew and then became “very aggressive and scratched the co-pilot,” leading to the unexpected landing. The very same year a seemingly unrelated cat-attack took place on board the national Bangladeshi carrier. A pilot was reportedly offered first aid after being pounced on by a stray cat en route to Dhaka – but the crew decided to complete the flight regardless. The attacker then bizarrely managed to evade security and escaped, only to be caught in the airport hours later.
In 2013, a Saudi cargo flight from Riyadh to Hong Kong was cancelled at the last moment after the pilot terrified a furry stowaway by starting the engine – and paid for it with a few scratch injuries. Local media claimed the cat was never found.
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February 28, 2021 at 04:08PM
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While Saturday Night Live’s ratings fell during the Trump years, it wasn’t the writers’ fault for churning out ‘Orange Man Bad’ sketches, Vanity Fair claims. No, it was Donald Trump’s fault for being so “noxious.”
By the time Donald Trump left office, Saturday Night Live’s reliance on the divisive president as a source of material had worn thin. 2019’s season opened to the show’s lowest ratings in five years, parodies of Robert Mueller, Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Sessions fell flat, and former cast member Gary Kroeger admitted last year that Alec Baldwin’s Trump impersonation had been “done to death.”
But one can’t blame the writers and cast, Vanity Fair claimed in an article on Sunday. They were simply “choking on the noxious fumes of the last presidency.” Vanity Fair described the laugh-free cold-opens of the Trump era as “a form of torture,” but blamed Trump and his “acts of amoral carnage and buffoonery,” rather than bad writing and uninspired acting, as othershave.
“The liberation of Saturday Night Live is real. Since the inauguration, the show has gotten stronger every week, as if the writers are recovering lung capacity after choking on the noxious fumes of the last presidency,” the article said. All that was missing was a description of Trump himself pumping poison into the studio, presumably while cackling as the liberals inside coughed and hacked.
To Vanity Fair, the new Saturday Night Live, which on Saturday featured impressions of Dr. Anthony Fauci, a defense of Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief act, and jibes at Republican ‘QAnon Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene, was a welcome change, and the magazine didn’t hesitate to share the best moments with readers.
Check out the cast competing for a vaccine shot from Fauci (“We’re low on Moderna, but we do have the Kirkland signature vaccine from Costco,” the good doctor quips back)! Marvel as they examine whether “workout mirrors [are] in fact the work of the devil?” Laugh until your sides split as they poke fun at Netflix’ obsession with “murder shows!”
“Wouldn’t a liberal wish list be avocado toast with Chrissy Teigen?” Colin Jost joked in defense of Biden’s Covid bill against Republican attacks.
Vanity Fair is a liberal magazine, and perhaps SNL’s break from Trump content is doing wonders for its writers’ blood pressure. They’re probably in agreement with the mainstream media journalists eager for a chance to switch their brains off for the next four years and let Biden do his thing, after the stress of having to stoke scandal after scandal during Trump’s tenure.
If so, one can forgive them their elation and allow them to gush a little. They can kick back and watch some Trump-free content, comfortable in the knowledge that Biden is bombing Syria, but professionally, and lovingly.
But when the jokes start landing flat, and the “noxious” Donald Trump isn’t around to blame, they may not be as entertained.
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February 28, 2021 at 03:46PM
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Former President Donald Trump has called for breaking up giant technology companies and taking away their Section 230 liability protections. He argued that the Big Tech mutes conservative voices like his own.
"The time has come to break up Big Tech monopolies and restore fair competition," Trump said Sunday at the CPAC conference in Orlando. "Republicans, conservatives must open our platforms and repeal section 230 liability protections,” he added.
While in the past the public had a chance to hear both sides of the argument before making an informed decision, the big tech censorship disproportionately targeted conservatives, depriving them of the right to be heard, Trump argued.
You would win, you would lose... But now there is no debate, because they refuse allow our side to even speak or to be heard
If the power of the big tech cannot be curbed on the federal level immediately, Trump urged "every state in the union where we have the votes" to "punish Big Tech with major sanctions whenever they silence conservative voices." He noted that Texas and Florida “are doing this” already.
Florida Governor Gov. Ron DeSantis has been championing a bill seeking to rein in tech companies by allowing users to bring a "cause of action" against platforms violating Florida law. The bill, if becomes law, would bar platforms from rapidly changing their policy and enforcing it selectively against users. Under the law, consumers would have the right to “opt-out” from algorithms that shadowban certain information. “As these companies have grown and their influence expanded, big tech has come to look more like big brother with each passing day,” DeSantis said, as he voiced support for the bill in early February.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott earlier this month announced his office was working on a bill to “prevent social media providers like Facebook & Twitter from cancelling conservative speech.” The bill will reportedly give the state more leverage to regulate social media companies, and allow Texans, yanked off social media platforms over political or religious views, the right to take Twitter and Facebook to court.
Trump made his comments on Silicon Valley giants and the censoring of conservative voices – including his own social media accounts – after calling for reforms to ensure "fair, honest and secure elections." For instance, he said, the US must end mass mail-in voting, require voter identification, verify that each voter is a legal citizen and provide chain-of-custody protection for all ballots.
"All the election-integrity measures in the world will mean nothing if we don't have free speech," he stressed.
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February 28, 2021 at 03:23PM
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