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                                                               Alteration

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

June 11

Local barrister Nicholas Ward was arrested yesterday for releasing more than 100 live lobsters into the indoor pool at the mayor’s mansion in Minneapolis.

Mr. Ward, formerly a prominent environmental attorney and founding partner of the local firm Ward and Grant, allegedly persuaded 12 Minneapolis grocery stores to donate the lobsters by claiming that the crustaceans were the rightful property of endangered Hawaiian monk seals. The seals, Mr. Ward reportedly explained, are currently on the endangered species list because humans are stealing their lobsters.

At Mr. Ward’s request, Department of Public Works employees filled the mayor’s pool with non-chlorinated saltwater and more than 100 blocks of ice. Unnamed sources at the department confirmed that Mr. Ward convinced them the mayor was having a beach party. The ice, he claimed, represented the effects of global warming on arctic populations.

Once the lobsters were safely deposited in the mayor’s pool,