Jose Rivera, 22, survived two tours in Iraq, but back home in California, he took a job at the high-security Atwater federal prison, where officers cannot carry even non-lethal crowd-control weapons, and Rivera was murdered 10 months later by two inmates armed with handmade shivs. “Every single inmate in there is armed to the teeth for his own protection,” complained one officer, but a Bureau of Prisons spokesman told CNN in August that “communication” with inmates is a better policy than even modestly arming guards.

n When Eric Aderholt’s house in Rockwell County, Texas, burned down in June, it wasn’t because the fire department was too slow. They arrived within minutes, but none was aware that local hydrants were locked. Apparently, departments know that hydrants in rural areas have been shut off, as part of post-9/11 security, and must be turned on with a special tool, which no one brought that night. Texas law even requires shut-off hydrants to be painted black, but the firefighters still arrived without the tool, and by the time they retrieved it, Aderholt’s house was gone.

n A member of Pakistan’s parliament stood his ground in August, defending news reports from his Baluchistan province that five women had been shot and then buried alive as tribal punishment for objecting to their families’ choosing husbands for them. A defiant Israr Ullah Zehri told the Associated Press, “These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,” despite condemnation by Zehri’s colleagues. “Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid,” Zehri said.

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