Weekly Review
A British court awarded a 60-year-old woman the right to use her daughter’s frozen eggs to bear her own grandchild, and identical twin sisters in Colorado and California delivered babies at 1:18 a.m. on the same day. In a town in Long Island, where there have been no reported Zika cases, officials approved the construction of bat houses to ward off the virus. OFF! was announced as the official insect-repellent supplier for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. Read more...
In Karada, a shopping district in Baghdad, a truck bomb killed more than 200 people.[1] The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, as well as for a roadside bomb in northern Baghdad that killed two people, an 11-hour siege in a café in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that killed 28 people, and a grenade attack in a nightclub in Malaysia that injured eight people.[2][3][4] Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who recently appeared on state television to celebrate the army’s recapture of the city of Falluja from the Islamic State, visited Karada the day after the attack. Residents mobbed his convoy and threw rocks, buckets, and slippers. “Thank God,” said a shop owner, “I managed to hit Abadi with stones.”[5] Three cities in Saudi Arabia, including Medina, were attacked by suicide bombers, five people were killed by eight suicide bombers in Lebanon, and a suicide bomber riding a bicycle killed ten people in front of a bakery in Syria.[6][7][8] Flooding along China’s Yangtze River killed 130 people and 7,100 hogs, and the Chinese government warned that if the American military intervenes in its 1.4-million-square-mile territorial claims in the South China Sea, the United States will “pay a cost it can’t stand.”[9][10] A report issued by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations found that Israel’s policy of building settlements in the West Bank contributed to instability in the Middle East, and the White House pledged to increase a $30 billion military-aid package to Israel. [11][12][13] Boris Johnson, leader of the United Kingdom’s Tory Party, and Nigel Farage, leader of the Independence Party, who successfully spearheaded the Brexit campaign, announced that they would not be leading their respective parties through the transition. “I want my life back,” said Farage.[14][15]
In Texas, a teenager’s leg was amputated after he taped together and lit 180 sparklers; in New York City, an 18-year-old tourist’s foot was blown off after he jumped on a homemade explosive that had been left in Central Park; and in Thailand, an elephant who had lost a leg in a land-mine explosion was fitted with a prosthetic limb.[16][17][18] Second Amendment Sports, a gun shop in Illinois, announced that it would auction off an AR-15 rifle, the model used by Omar Mateen to kill 49 people in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and donate the proceeds to victims of the shooting.[19] The Supreme Court ruled that a federal ban on gun ownership for convicted domestic abusers was constitutional.[20] City Council officials in McAlester, Oklahoma, prepared to renew their demand for the return of Old Sparky, an electric chair used by the state to execute 82 inmates. “If everyone blows this thing off,” said a city museum owner, “it’ll be in some politician’s den.”[21] A British court awarded a 60-year-old woman the right to use her daughter’s frozen eggs to bear her own grandchild, and identical twin sisters in Colorado and California delivered babies at 1:18 a.m. on the same day.[22][23] In a town in Long Island, where there have been no reported Zika cases, officials approved the construction of bat houses to ward off the virus.[24] OFF! was announced as the official insect-repellent supplier for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.[25]
NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered Jupiter’s orbit.[26] China’s first commercial jetliner flew passengers from Chengdu to Shanghai, and Uber China announced that it would launch hot-air-balloon rides.[27][28] It was reported that a man who was killed while driving a Tesla in autopilot mode had been watching a Harry Potter film, and a study reported that people would prefer the self-driving cars of others to be programmed to sacrifice one passenger rather than kill ten pedestrians but would prefer their own cars to protect passengers at all costs.[29][30] In Wisconsin, a semitrailer containing 20,000 pounds of cheese was stolen; in Australia, police searched for $5 million worth of wine that went missing in March; and in New Zealand, police found 10 million dollars of cocaine inside the bejeweled bust of a horse.[31][32][33] An English stallion received hair extensions, and a nanny named Little Spot was crowned Lithuania’s prettiest goat. “We didn’t polish its nails,” said the goat’s owner. “We thought of it too late.”[34][35]
