CHICAGO: A judge in the US state of Missouri has sentenced a prolific poacher to repeat screenings of “Bambi,” the Walt Disney classic weepy about a fawn whose mother is slain by a hunter.
David Berry Jr will be forced to see the animated movie at least once a month during his year-long jail term, the result of what law enforcement officials described as one of their “largest-ever poaching investigations.”
Berry and two family members were arrested on charges of killing hundreds of deer over three years, according to the Missouri Conservation Authority, which announced the sentence in a December 13 statement.
“The deer were trophy bucks taken illegally, mostly at night, for their heads, leaving the bodies of the deer to waste,” said prosecutor Don Trotter of Lawrence County, Missouri.
Berry had already seen his hunting privileges revoked for past wildlife infractions and was on probation.
The Walt Disney Company bewitched generations of children with its pioneering animated film, released in August 1942, about a wide-eyed young deer and his doting mom.
But the shocking image of young Bambi curled up next to the doe after she is slain by hunters has become as iconic as any scene in cinema history, credited with opening up taboo conversations about death and helping youngsters cope with bereavement.
“Bambi” often leads lists of the saddest moments in cinema, and even moved Time magazine to include the movie among its top 25 horror movies of all time, alongside “Frankenstein,” “The Exorcist” and “Night of the Living Dead.”
Judge Robert George sent Berry to jail for one year and ordered the film viewings to be conducted by the sheriff of the Lawrence County Jail.
Fourteen people have been ensnared in a multi-year investigation of illegal hunting spanning Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Canada.
Natural fawn killer: US judge sentences poacher to “Bambi” viewings
Natural fawn killer: US judge sentences poacher to “Bambi” viewings
- The Walt Disney Company bewitched generations of children with its pioneering animated film, released in August 1942, about a wide-eyed young deer and his doting mom
Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users
WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
“The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
