YALTA, CRIMEA—In what is being called the worst environmental disaster in the region’s history, millions of policy proposals gushed into the Black Sea on Thursday after a Brookings Institution think tanker ran aground off the coast of Crimea. “Cleanup crews are working around the clock to contain this massive flood of position papers on economics and global development,” said Brookings Institution president Strobe Talbott, adding that booms had been brought to the site to halt the spread of the nonpartisan research while skimmers had been deployed to collect the policy briefs from the ocean’s surface in hopes of preventing currents from dispersing them over a far greater area. “We’re doing our very best to limit the exposure of marine habitats to the analyses of sub-Saharan energy infrastructure, universal basic income, and automation in the labor market, but it could be months before we know the full extent of the damage.” Talbott went on to say that the Brookings Institution had already pledged $200 million toward cleanup efforts thanks to generous donations from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Hutchins Family Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
MINNEAPOLIS—Avoiding a potentially even greater disaster with his split-second decision-making, X Games motocross rider Nate Adams was reportedly forced to make an emergency landing Thursday after a bird flew into his engine during a jump in the Moto X Freestyle Finals. “Striking the bird right after takeoff immediately resulted in full engine failure, and at that point I had no other choice but to bring her down,” said Adams, who was halfway through performing a double backflip at an approximate altitude of 27 feet when he lost all thrust from the damaged 80cc engine and resorted to carefully gliding the bike to an improvised landing on the dirt track. “It was definitely frightening, but in moments like that you really don’t have time to panic. All you can do is trust your training and the thousands of hours of Big Air time you’ve logged. I’m just lucky the firefighters rushed to the scene in time to put out the flames before my bike exploded.” Event officials told reporters that the scary incident was a reminder of the X Games 2007 tragedy, when Best Trick participant Travis Pastrana mysteriously vanished off radar screens mid-flight and was never recovered.
