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Here is a rundown of the killer animals and misguided ideas that made the news this past week.

More sharks and snark this week. Shark Week on the Discovery channel sparked outrage as the network attempted to defend its faked show about the continued existence of the long-extinct "megalodon" giant shark. When it shows up mocked on the Daily Show, you know you have reached a new low.  

Meanwhile, a much smaller shark mysteriously appeared on a New York subway train. We have the explanation.  

The huge story this past week, and I mean HUGE, was the tragic and confusing death of two children in Canada by a rock python. There was much skepticism about this story when it broke but even as more information comes to light, we still can't be sure how this happened.  

It was another bad week for Scientology as the lose the license for one of their drug-treatment facilities and an ex-member actress shines the spotlight on their dubious dealings.  

In an interesting twist to a criminal case, a "gypsy" psychic was convicted of the stabbing death of one of her clients. Her defense was that she was raised to cheat and steal, blaming her Romani culture on her desperate acts.   

There was too too much horrible news this week related to faith and misguided beliefs. 

The death of a 2 year old child in Malaysia during an exorcism ends with just fines for the family who killed her.

An unbelievably brutal crime in Brazil appears to be inspired by the mass murder that spawned the Amityville Horror tale.  

An Indian baby is brought to the hospital with burns. The diagnosis? Spontaneous combustion. The rest of us reel in the horror that this is more likely child abuse which goes unmentioned in the press.  

Faith healing was a popular topic this week as noted faith healer Solomon Wickey died. (The Doubtful News site was deluged with commenters who defended his herbal treatments. We do not allow proselytizing of nonsense.)  

And the Schaibel parents can not use their faith as an excuse. They will be charged with murder for the death of their second child after they failed to seek required medical attention.  

How did these Turkish men die? Was it telekinesis? No.But it's being suggested that it was.

Why do people cling to psychic beliefs in times of trouble? Because it gives us a false sense of control, a new study showed.

I have some good news and some bad news. First, the bad news. My pet peeve is when ghost hunters play pretend scientist What a sham. Then, they push this to kids.  

 To end with good news, congratulations to Beth Loftus who received a prestigious lifetime award in psychology acknowledging her superb work on human memory.   

Come visit Doubtfulnews.com for stories like this every day. Check out our twitter feed @DoubtfulNews and our Facebook page. We need your input to get to the real story! Thanks for your tips!

 

Sharon Hill runs Doubtful News, a unique feed of news stories about the paranormal, pseudoscience, the weird and the unexplained with questioning commentary.

 

Editor's note: Revisions were made due to website formatting errors.