Happy Wednesday, muggles. Tired of hearing the ice cream machine is broken at McDonald’s again? A 24-year-old created a map so you’re never disappointed again. The software engineer reverse engineered McDonald’s own app to create a map of every broken ice cream machine in the U.S. McDonald’s seems to be a fan of this fan, and several franchise owners are teaming up to try to find a permanent solution to their soft serve problems. While they work on that, we’re tracking some other problems. 

A dangerous plot to kill Biden ends with a teen arrested for child pornography  

Fri Oct 23

In May, bank employees in North Carolina called police about an abandoned white van in their parking lot, and what officers discovered was shocking. Inside the van they found an AR-15 rifle, a canister of explosive material, a handgun, books on bomb making, drawings of swastikas, and about $500,000 in cash. 

Who did the van belong to?

19-year-old Alexander Hillel Treisman, who had walked into the bank a little later, asked about the van, and was then arrested. The money is believed to be his inheritance, and all the weapons and information pointed to a plot to assassinate Joe Biden. Court documents revealed that the teen had searched online for Biden’s home, and even went to a fastfood restaurant four miles away from Biden’s home in Delaware.  

But Treisman hasn’t been arrested for the weapons or the alleged assassination plot, instead he’s been indicted on child pornography charges. During the search, federal officials reportedly found thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse imagery on eight different digital devices. He has pleaded not guilty to the child pornography charges, but is being held without bail.

SOURCES: The Washington Post, ABC7 News, NPR

Poland imposes a near-total ban on abortions

Thu Oct 22

In a country with some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, a Polish court has now ruled that abortions for fetal abnormalities go against the country’s constitution — and the decision cannot be appealed. 

Wait, what?

Previously, Poland allowed pregnancy terminations in the case of incest or rape, a threat to woman’s life, or for fetal abnormalities. Now, the latter won’t be allowed, even though it made up 98% of all legal abortions performed last year. 

Now, women’s rights activists and supporters are risking the pandemic to go out and protest. Abortion rights advocates also worry that tightening legal abortion restriction will lead to more women seeking illegal abortions or going abroad for the medical procedure. Poland has also been criticized recently over restricting minority and LGBTQ rights, and the judiciary branch’s — which includes the constitutional tribunal that handed down the abortion decision — lack of independence from political influences.

This judiciary branch is supposed to be the main check on the governing party. Sound familiar, United States? Last week, the U.S. signed an anti-abortion declaration along with 32 other countries. While the document is nonbinding, it says that the nations are committed to working together to “reaffirm that there is no international right to abortion.”

SOURCES: NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, ABC News