Weekly Review

Officials said that Hamas dropped a key demand in ongoing ceasefire talks, that Israel commit up front to definitively ending the war, while Israel introduced a list of new reservations expected to delay negotiations; among Prime Minister Netanyahu’s nonnegotiable demands is that Israel be allowed to keep fighting until it achieves its “war objectives.”^{1 2 3} Israel killed 16 Palestinians in a targeted attack on a U.N.-run school in central Gaza, and the U.N. Human Rights Office warned that Israeli settlers, backed by security forces, are ramping up attacks on herding communities in the South Hebron Hills, Jordan Valley, and East Jerusalem.^{4 5} Foreign reporters were permitted into Rafah for the first time since Israel launched its offensive; they described it as a “flattened wasteland,” a “rubble-strewn ghost town,” and a “maze of rubble,” and the Foreign Press Association reiterated its call for Israel to grant journalists unimpeded, independent access to Gaza.^{6 7 8 9} French media expressed surprise at the success of a left alliance forged in the country’s snap election, after weeks of polling projecting that Marine Le Pen’s far-right, Euroskeptic party would take the most seats; British media expressed surprise at Keir Starmer’s victory, which arrived alongside the Labour Party’s biggest majority since 1997 and after 14 years of leadership under the Conservatives; Western media expressed surprise at the election of Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s first reformist president in two decades, and befuddlement at Tokyo’s gubernatorial race, populated by 56 candidates, some of which included: “the Joker,” who campaigned on legalizing marijuana and promoting polygamy to address the nation’s declining birthrate; a pro wrestler who hid his face on camera and pledged to deploy AI to carry out governmental responsibilities; a 96-year-old inventor who peddled carbon-free gas-fueled cars; and a 31-year-old entrepreneur whose campaign video featured her taking her shirt off and guaranteeing “fun things.” ^{10 11 12 13 14 15}

European leaders will discuss measures to “Trump-proof” NATO; “They treated it like a NATO summit with his movements,” said a source regarding the Biden campaign team’s preparations for a fundraiser at a private residence for the president, whose approval rating hit an all-time low on Independence Day, and who is apparently regularly briefed with documents bearing large print and photos displaying his walking paths to podiums.^{16 17 18 19} “The dam is about to break,” a Democratic strategist close to moderate Congress members said.²⁰ Hakeem Jeffries convened a virtual gathering with ranking Democratic committee members on Sunday, in which at least four leaders called on Biden to end his candidacy; “I cannot do that. I will not do that,” Biden wrote in a letter addressed to fellow Democrats.^{21 22} An “anybody-but-Biden” group of donors is attempting to raise $100 million to support a replacement, and a new group called Pass the Torch is directing a nascent campaign to organize delegates for a different candidate ahead of the August convention.^{23 24} “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race. The Lord Almighty’s not coming down,” Biden told George Stephanopoulos in an interview on ABC, after which the White House entered discussions with ABC’s standards team over whether the president said “goodest” or “good as,” upon White House stenographers flagging a discrepancy between their recording and the network’s transcript.^{25 26} “Sometimes the Lord Almighty comes in the form of enlightened self-awareness,” counseled David Axelrod; Biden told two black radio hosts he was proud to have been “the first Black woman to serve with a Black president,” and Kamala Harris’s odds of winning the presidential election surged across all leading bookmakers, as top Democratic donors backed Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom.^{27 28 29 30} Representative Jim Clyburn endorsed “a mini-primary” on CNN, and two Democrats circulated a memo to donors and Biden campaign and administration officials offering a proposal for a “blitz primary” that would involve weekly candidate forums moderated by Michelle Obama, Oprah, and Taylor Swift.^{31 32}

On the Fourth of July, 26-year-old Patrick Bertoletti from Chicago was crowned America’s first new Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest champion in eight years, after reigning champion Joey Chestnut was banned from competition for endorsing vegan hot dogs.³³ A researcher at Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire overcame the dangers of studying hippopotamuses and concluded that they can fly, and Boeing agreed to plead guilty to lying to government regulators about uncontrollable nosedives in their 737 Max planes.^{34 35} A Chinese university is offering the nation’s first undergraduate degree in coffee science and engineering, and Cup Noodles unveiled a s’mores flavored ramen.^{36 37} Four volunteers who spent 378 days living in a 1,700-square-foot space 3D-printed by NASA to simulate conditions on Mars emerged from their habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to a round of applause.³⁸ “It was in fact a sharply pointed item,” British authorities said in a statement pertaining to a man who brandished a six-inch Legend of Zelda replica sword as a “fidget” toy and was sentenced to prison.³⁹ Durandal—a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades, once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth stuck in stone for 1,300 years—vanished from the Pyrenean village of Rocamadour.⁴⁰ —Jasmine Liu