Weekly Review
Boko Haram kills 200 villagers in Nigeria, the mayor of Sacramento files for a restraining order against his city, and a teenager in Arkansas finds a four-inch centipede in his ear.
Greece failed to make a €1.55 billion debt payment to the International Monetary Fund.[1] Aid negotiations between the country and its European creditors collapsed, and Greek voters rejected the conditions of an international bailout. “What they’re doing with Greece has a name,” said the country’s former finance minister, “terrorism.”[2][3] Greek banks took a six-day holiday, stock markets in Athens were shut down, and ATM withdrawals were restricted to €60 per person per day.[4] Long lines formed at gas stations, pensioners swarmed main branches of the National Bank, and it was reported that an estimated 800,000 foreign visitors in Greece would be able to continue to withdraw unrestricted amounts of cash from ATMs. “We’re having,” said a woman from Philadelphia vacationing on the island of Santorini, “an amazing time.”[5][6][7] Tunisia declared a state of emergency in response to a recent attack on a beach resort in which a gunman killed 38 tourists.[8] Boko Haram militants rounded up and killed nearly 200 villagers in Nigeria; two teenage girls from London who ran away from home to join the Islamic State in February were reported to have married; and a teenage girl in Nigeria detonated a bomb in a mosque where worshippers were beginning afternoon prayers. “People asked her to leave,” said one witness.[9][10] The sister of Dylann Storm Roof, the man accused of killing nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, raised nearly $1,700 through an online fundraiser to pay for her cancelled wedding, which had been scheduled to take place four days after the shooting. “Money cannot replace,” she wrote on her GoFundMe page, “our perfect day.”[11]
Officials in Greeleyville, South Carolina, speculated that a lighting strike was responsible for starting a fire at Mt. Zion AME Church, the seventh predominantly black church in the South to burn down in two weeks.[12] President Obama didn’t say “God” during his annual Independence Day speech, and the Pirate Party in Iceland introduced a bill to make blasphemy legal.[13][14][15] The mayor of Sacramento filed for a restraining order against the City of Sacramento.[16] A man in Maine died after setting off a firework from the top of his head, and firefighters in Phoenix rescued a man who tried to enter his house through his chimney after a Fourth of July party. “I know, bro,” said one of the firefighters during the rescue, “it can’t be fun.”[17][18] Royal Dutch Shell announced that 30 vessels were on their way to the Bering Strait to begin drilling for oil in the Arctic; a court in Oklahoma ruled that fracking companies can be sued for injuries sustained during earthquakes; and it was reported that a luxury spa in Azerbaijan was offering 10-minute baths in crude oil.[19][20][21] A 28-year-old man was killed by a 12-foot alligator while swimming in a Texas bayou. “Fuck the alligator,” he said before jumping into the water.[22] A teenager in Arkansas pulled a four-inch centipede out of his ear; and it was reported that a dolphin jumped onto a boat in Orange County, California, and broke both ankles of a woman on board with her family. “It hit my wife,” said her husband, “and punched my daughter.” [23][24]
Two people in Turkey were arrested for making counterfeit popsicle sticks and redeeming them for free ice cream bars; a thief used a cup of Mountain Dew as a weapon while robbing a California Mini-Mart; and a man in a wheelchair escaped after robbing a bank in New York.[25][26][27] It was reported that cats control mice with chemicals in their urine.[28] A Swiss pilot who flew a solar plane for five days straight said he did yoga to stay awake, a Portuguese actor meditating before his flight in Paris was removed from the plane and accused of terrorism, and the Russian city of Nizhnevartovsk announced that yoga classes would no longer be held in municipal buildings because of their “occult character.” Yoga “must be banned,” said an official, “for the safety of the Russian people.” [29][30][31] Thirty-three cows died when lightning struck the pasture where they were grazing in Richton, Missouri; a dog died when lightning struck him on top of a mountain peak in Colorado; and a London man was arrested for drunk driving after his car was struck by lightning and he crashed into a row of parked vehicles. “His car was battered,” said a witness, “worse than cod.”[32][33][34]
