Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, who is accused of pressuring Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky—a former television actor who played a character who publicly criticized government corruption and was also elected president—to investigate the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for pushing Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating Biden’s son Hunter; the Trump Administration allegedly suppressed records of the president’s July phone call.1 2 3 The White House accidentally sent Republican talking points on Ukraine to House Democrats, and Pelosi accidentally left the first draft of her impeachment speech on a plane.4 5 The State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine resigned, and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, confirmed in TV interviews that he personally pressured the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens, and read text messages aloud suggesting that the State Department was complicit in his efforts.6 “I wish,” said one Republican congressperson, “that he would shut the heck up.”7 Trump implied that the whistle-blower who first drew attention to the phone call should be executed, suggested that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, be tried for treason, and retweeted a megachurch pastor intimating civil war.8 9 10
Trump mockingly tweeted about a 16-year-old Swedish activist who scolded world leaders for inaction on climate change at the United Nations.11 12 The next day, Trump addressed the body and warned of the dangers of “globalism”; Wilbur Ross, the U.S. commerce secretary who has been criticized by White House personnel for his inability to stay awake during meetings, slept through the president’s speech.13 14 15 Boris Johnson’s disquisition to the United Nations described potential futures in which “your fridge will beep for more cheese,” “pink-eyed terminators” are sent back in time to “cull the human race,” and synthetic biologists create “terrifying limbless chickens.”16 Thomas Cook of Nottingham, England, was stranded on his honeymoon in Greece after the Thomas Cook travel company went bankrupt, and Donte Slash and Abraham Shears of Columbus, Ohio, were charged in connection with a knife attack.17 18 An unidentified woman was found dead inside a burning port-a-potty in Jacksonville, Florida, and two Dalit children were beaten to death in India after defecating in a public street.19 20 The Orlando Police Department announced that it would drop misdemeanor battery charges against two six-year-old children, and teachers at an Indiana elementary school gave fifth graders a deadline for breaking up with their significant others, assuring parents that they were “just attempting to lessen the number of broken hearts.”21 22 A German court ruled that hangovers are a disease.23
The pope decried the use of adjectives and adverbs, and the “OK” hand gesture, bowl cuts, and the McDonald’s character Mac Tonight—a crescent moon who wears sunglasses—were added to the Anti-Defamation League’s database of hate symbols.24 China was reportedly harvesting thousands of organs from its Uighur population, and the original breeder of the labradoodle described it as his life’s biggest regret.25 26 “I opened a Pandora’s box and released a Frankenstein monster,” he said. A Russian naval vessel was destroyed by a marauding walrus.27 Researchers suggested that Neolithic babies were fed milk from bottles, falling water levels in Spain revealed previously submerged Stone Age megaliths, NASA released video footage of a shredding black hole, and PBS released footage of an octopus that scientists suspect was dreaming.28 29 30 31 A hidden continent was discovered beneath Southern Europe, and an Irish fisherman who caught an eight-foot bluefin tuna worth $3.2 million released it back into the sea.32 33
