Weekly Review

Members of the Sunrise Movement, a group of youths who advocate for immediate action on climate change, visited Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office in San Francisco to request her endorsement of the Green New Deal.¹ The senator, after learning that one of the activists was 16 years old, told her, “Well, you didn’t vote for me.”² Eric Swalwell, a California congressman who is considering running for president as a Democrat and has visited Iowa at least 16 times since January 2017, assisted a woman whose car was stuck in the snow in Des Moines; “I am an underdog,” said presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar, who once ate a salad on an airplane with a comb and then ordered her aide clean it, at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Des Moines; and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who co-negotiated a deal with Amazon in which the firm would receive $1.2 billion in tax subsidies in exchange for locating its second headquarters in Queens, mooted a cap on corporate handouts at a talk in Des Moines.^{3 4 5 6 7 8} “We have to show that we are not the party of the elites, but the party of working people,” de Blasio said to the crowd of at least 55 people. Ivanka Trump, who attended the University of Pennsylvania, endorsed Nikki Haley’s daughter for student body vice president of Clemson University.^{9 10} Ian Austin, a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom who has repeatedly called for limits to immigration and has proposed fingerprinting nonnatives and charging them for National Health Service care, cited racism and Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership as the reasons for his resignation from Labour and enlistment in the Independent Group, an unofficial political party of 11 MPs that, according to member Anna Soubry, has no policies but “shared values.”^{11 12 13 14} At least 39 people have died since Election Day in Nigeria.¹⁵

A new report disclosed that Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, and Georgia-Pacific use virgin wood pulp from trees in the Canadian Boreal forest for the manufacture of their toilet paper, which has severely damaged the environment, and an ex-Amazon employee with Crohn’s disease has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he was discriminated against after requesting flexible breaks.^{16 17} The Washington State Department of Health discovered that 97 percent of schools had at least one water source with levels of lead above one part per billion.¹⁸ Moonshine in the Indian state of Assam has killed at least 154 people.¹⁹ Court filings showed that a white nationalist and lieutenant in the US Coast Guard had amassed 15 firearms and 1,000 rounds of ammunition and used his work computer to create a list of journalists, politicians, professors, judges, and “leftists in general”; the man’s lawyer argued that he should not be detained because it is “not a crime to think negative thoughts about people.”^{20 21 22} Two Catholic cardinals wrote an open letter blaming child sexual abuse in the church on “the homosexual agenda,” and Joss Sackler debuted a new fashion line on the same day that Prescription Addiction Intervention Now staged a protest against Purdue Pharma.^{23 24} A grand jury found that police had used justifiable force in an attempted robbery that resulted in the deaths of a man carrying a pellet gun and a sound technician for the reality-TV show Cops.²⁵

An Arkansas legislator has proposed a bill that would cut lunch funding to schools with declining literacy rates.²⁶ The president of Sudan dissolved the federal and provincial government and replaced governors with members of the security forces.²⁷ The mayor of Port Richey, Florida, shot at SWAT team members who came to his home to arrest him, killing no one.²⁸ A woman in Greensville, South Carolina, is accused of neglect and abuse after her boyfriend allegedly rubbed hot sauce on her son’s face and eyes.²⁹ The island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico, was inaccessible for up to 12 hours because a ferry was being used to transport trucks and supplies to a millionaire’s wedding.³⁰ Scientists have created mosquitoes that carry a lethal genetic mutation for their species in the hopes of eradicating malaria.³¹ Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker altered their code after it was reported that users’ menstruation data was being shared with Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg called his company an “innovator in privacy.”^{32 33} An Android update has rendered Nike’s $350 Adapt BB smart sneakers useless, as the sneakers cannot be properly tightened unless connected to a smartphone; Nike is working to restore connectivity.³⁴ —Violet Lucca