Weekly Review

Juneteenth—which commemorates when, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, formerly enslaved people on the Gulf Coast of Texas learned that they were free—became the United States’ 12th federal holiday.¹ Opal Lee, whose family home in Fort Worth, Texas, was burned to the ground by a white-supremacist mob exactly 82 years before, was given the pen the president used to sign the bill into law; celebrations took place across the United States as well as in Nacimiento, Mexico, where hundreds of slaves escaped via the Southern Underground Railroad; and the Ford Motor Company—whose founder pressured dealerships to carry copies of the Dearborn Independent, which ran his column “The International Jew: The World’s Problem” on its front page—ran a Juneteenth television commercial that concluded with the voice-over, “While all are created equal, it takes all to create equality.”^{2 3 4 5 6} “How many holidays do we want?” asked a South Carolina representative, one of 14 congressmen who opposed federal observance of the holiday.⁷ “Do we want twenty? Are we gonna do one for the Native American Indians? I mean, where does it stop?” In response to the ongoing controversy over critical race theory, an academic approach to interrogating structural racism that Ted Cruz has described as “every bit as racist as Klansmen in white sheets,” the governor of Texas signed a bill that restricts how current events are discussed in K–12 classrooms; requires students to learn about “the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations” such as the 1924 Snyder Act, which granted Native Americans citizenship but not the right to vote; and proclaims that slavery is antithetical to the country’s “authentic founding principles.”^{8 9 10 11} Seventeen other states are considering similar laws, not including Alabama, where, after being asked to provide an example of the implementation of critical race theory, a state representative mentioned reading about a government reeducation camp for white men but, when pressed, couldn’t find the article.^{12 13} “Must have deleted the link,” he said. The San Jose Sharks tweeted and then deleted an illustration of the team’s mascot biting through a slave’s chains, and a robot ship using artificial intelligence to retrace the voyage of the Mayflower turned back toward England.^{14 15}

In commemoration of the 1967 capture of Jerusalem, conservative Israelis marched across a plaza near the Damascus Gate that police had prevented Palestinians from accessing during much of Ramadan; Hamas retaliated with incendiary balloons; and Israel responded with bombs.¹⁶ The Palestinian Authority refused to accept more than a million COVID-19 vaccine doses offered by Israel because many of them had expired or would soon do so.¹⁷ Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin met at a Geneva villa to discuss nuclear arms, cybersecurity, and human rights.¹⁸ Despite his criticism of Putin for interfering with foreign elections, which the United States has done at least 81 times, Biden described the summit as “positive,” and Putin said it was “quite constructive.”^{19 20} On a motorboat outside the villa, a niece of Osama bin Laden raised a flag that read trump won. The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act; ruled that a Catholic social-services organization could not be excluded from a municipal foster-care program because of its refusal to work with same-sex couples; and rejected a lawsuit alleging that the corporations Nestlé and Cargill are complicit in West African child slavery.^{21 22 23} “Drink water,” Cristiano Ronaldo said at a press conference after moving two Coca-Cola bottles out of frame.²⁴ Colorado issued its first-ever extreme-heat warnings along its Western Slope as the region’s worst drought in two decades continued, and Tropical Storm Claudette was downgraded to a depression, killed 13 Alabamians, including eight children, and was then upgraded to tropical storm again.^{25 26 27 28} High Anxiety, a ride at a New Jersey water park, succumbed to flames.²⁹

French police officers spent seven hours attempting to break up an illegal rave held in honor of a man who died when a 2019 concert was broken up by the police.³⁰ Some 500 Hong Kong police officers raided the newsroom of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper; froze its assets; and arrested five of its editors.^{31 32} It was reported that a West Virginia congressman used campaign funds for 53 purchases at Chick-fil-A.³³ The Girl Scouts had a surplus of 15 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies.³⁴ Oregon legalized human composting, which generates about 200 gallons of nutrient-rich soil per body.35 A beautician and a car salesman in Ukraine broke up after spending 123 days handcuffed together.³⁶ “I did not receive any attention from Alexandr because we were constantly together,” she said. —Jordan Cutler-Tietjen