Marion McKeone: Black bear Henrietta’s extraordinary life on the lam has a much-needed happy ending
The story of the enormous bear’s phenomenal crime spree, capture, escape, recapture and death row reprieve gave the US some good, old-fashioned bipartisan news
Once upon a time, August was peak silly season in the US – from a news perspective at least. With the president on holiday, Congress shuttered until September and the Supreme Court justices decamped to their holiday homes (or someone else’s, if you’re Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito), Washington DC turns into a literal swamp. It’s a fetid, sticky, mosquito-infested hellhole where temperatures soar above 100°F with 90 per cent humidity levels.
With ‘the swamp’ temporarily drained of biting, snarling critters from K Street to Capitol Hill, the media turns its attention to sensationalising shark attacks, treating every sighting or biting as though it were the advent of Jaws V.
