Weekly Review

Thousands of people were evacuated as massive wildfires raged across Sardinia, southwestern Canada, and dozens of places in the Western United States, while excessive rain led to enormous floods in Germany, India, and parts of China, where a sandstorm in the country’s northwest swallowed the city of Dunhuang.^{1 2 3 4 5 6} Water theft increased in California, and severe water shortages in Iran’s Khuzestan province motivated antigovernment protests.^{7 8} “This is just the beginning,” Joe Biden said in a statement announcing the strengthening of Trump-era sanctions against Cuba.⁹ The general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an organization that voted to deny President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Communion for their support of pro-choice legislation, resigned after cell-phone data revealed that he regularly hooked up with adult males on Grindr.^{10 11} The director of the Olympics opening ceremony, who told jokes about the Holocaust in a 1998 sketch, was fired from his post and then apologized.¹² In Tarrant, Alabama, a white city council member who used the N-word to refer to a black female council member during a public session refused to apologize or resign, and announced that he was considering a run for mayor.¹³ The police in Brockton, Massachusetts, continued searching for the person or persons who left several gallon jugs of urine covered in racist messages on the driveway of a black city council candidate.¹⁴ Researchers developed a test that can detect a type of brain tumor in pee.¹⁵

The Chicago Department of Public Health reported a spike in cases of Legionnaires’ disease, and the city’s average daily rate of new COVID-19 cases increased by 76 percent over the previous week, though Lollapalooza will be held at full capacity.^{16 17} In Florida, where 20 percent of recent U.S. COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed, Governor Ron DeSantis—who was criticized for his management of the state’s vaccine rollout, including his decision to prioritize vaccination sites in two of the wealthiest zip codes in Manatee County—encouraged Floridians to get vaccinated but reiterated his anti-mask stance.^{18 19 20 21 22} “Here I am recovering, getting out of here finally tomorrow. Am I going to get a vaccine? No,” said a Louisiana man who was hospitalized after he caught COVID and later developed pneumonia.²³ “Because there’s too many issues with these vaccines.” “We know [mask mandates] can be reinstated at any time, and we want to be able to get in front of it,” said a pastor at a Catholic school that is suing the state of Michigan for violating religious freedom on the grounds that masks hide “God’s image and likeness.”²⁴ An Indonesian man with COVID-19 wore a niqab and pretended to be his wife in order to fly, but was caught when he changed into his own clothes mid-flight.²⁵ A large chunk of a private airplane’s landing gear crashed onto the seventh fairway of a Maine country club, a Coast Guard helicopter rescued an Alaskan camper who had been harassed by a bear for seven nights in a row, and Florida homeowners yelled “Get the man out of here, have him die somewhere else!” at a man who had a seizure on their lawn.^{26 27 28} “We’re starting to get a picture that more species went extinct in North America than anywhere else,” said a paleontologist who has been using rats’ nests in Wyoming’s Natural Trap Cave to study the fossil record.²⁹

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel stated that the country would “act aggressively” against Ben & Jerry’s parent company, Unilever.³⁰ The former dean of science at the University of Technology Sydney was found guilty of forging threatening notes to herself.³¹ A teenage refugee from Syria won a libel case against the U.K. far-right influencer and activist Tommy Robinson, whose comments led to the boy being beaten up by his classmates.³² “I’ve struggled hugely with my own issues these past 12 months,” said Robinson. It was reported that an unknown man has been masturbating as librarians read aloud the Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland.³³ Hardcore pornography was embedded across hundreds of websites, including the Washington Post’s, after the defunct Vidme ad network was purchased by 5 Star Porn HD.³⁴ A 51-year-old Japanese man suffered a stroke while masturbating.³⁵ “I don’t even know how to explain the gut-wrenching reaction you have when you go to turn on the faucet and no water comes out,” said Oregon farmer Judy Shanks, whose well went dry.³⁶ “You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”—Violet Lucca