Weekly Review

The Biden administration approved a $100 million military sale to Taiwan, Pfizer projected over $50 billion in revenue this year from its COVID-19 vaccine and pill, and the U.N. World Food Programme announced that roughly 13 million people in the Horn of Africa are on the brink of famine because of a severe drought.^{1 2 3} The University of California agreed to pay a nearly $250 million settlement to women who alleged sexual misconduct by Dr. James Heaps, a gynecologist, and nearly 100 Harvard faculty signed a letter defending the character and reputation of a tenured anthropologist accused of serial sexual harassment.^{4 5} Workers at the largest General Motors plant in Mexico won a vote to unionize, and in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, police tear-gassed factory workers striking for wages of $15 per day.^{6 7} Georgia, Kentucky, and New Mexico considered exempting police from paying state taxes, a representative in Iowa introduced a bill that would require cameras in public schools, “similar to a body camera on a policeman,” and lawmakers in Oklahoma proposed creating a database of pregnant people.^{8 9 10} “What do you think about this, what about this, or this?” said Finnish president Sauli Niinisto, describing his advice to world leaders on how to deal with Vladimir Putin as the threat of a conflict over Ukraine ostensibly escalated.¹¹ “That’s where I try to be helpful.”

A Russian teenager was sentenced to five years in prison for plotting to attack a virtual Federal Security Service building.¹² Heather Morgan, a Forbes.com contributor and rapper with a “hot grandma” aesthetic, was accused, along with her husband, of committing one of the largest heists in American history by conspiring to launder over $3.6 billion in stolen Bitcoin, and an 80-year-old nun in Los Angeles who stole approximately $835,000 from her school to fund her gambling habit was sentenced to a year in federal prison.^{13 14 15} “I’ve said more than enough about that issue,” said Boris Johnson when asked about the death threats Keir Starmer has received since Johnson accused him of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, and Johnson’s new communications director called his boss “not a complete clown” after the prime minister sang “I Will Survive” to him.^{16 17} Two members of the Canadian Special Operations Forces were investigated for taking part in the mass anti–vaccine mandate protests in Ottawa, and a bomb threat intended for a police department in Canada’s capital was accidentally made against authorities in Ottawa, Ohio.^{18 19} It was reported that flight attendants who claimed they were “contractually obliged to serve hot and mixed nuts” threw a woman with a nut allergy off a trans-Atlantic flight.²⁰ Snowfall in Beijing led to the cancelation and delay of skiing training, and the mayor of Hudson, Ohio, expressed concern that ice fishing at a local park could lead to prostitution.^{21 22} “What happens next year? Does someone come back and say, ‘I want an ice shanty for x amount of time?’ ”

At Have a Heart: Stop for Pedestrians, an annual pedestrian safety event in Las Vegas, a car hit a van that had stopped for someone crossing the street.²³ Approximately $20,000 in goods were stolen from Pro Systems, a Tennessee-based company specializing in security cameras, and Nike sent a cease-and-desist order to the online plant store Just Succ It.^{24 25} After four years of local protests and legal actions, Tuscan authorities fined a priest for incessantly ringing his church’s bells, and in Arizona, a parish pastor apologized and resigned after the Diocese of Phoenix announced that he had been performing invalid baptisms for more than two decades.^{26 27} A guard in a Russian gallery drew eyes on a painting because he was bored.²⁸ A linguist was temporarily banned from Facebook for soliciting sexual activity after she posted a Wordle-style puzzle in Comanche, an endangered language with fewer than 10 speakers.²⁹ Police dispatched to a sinkhole in Louisiana found a kitchen sink in the road.³⁰ “Like a whole sink with a countertop, faucets, and crocheted tissue box cover like your grandma had,” read the police department’s Facebook post. A new book accused former president Donald Trump, who once complained “that people have to flush their toilet 15 times,” of attempting to flush documents down the toilet.^{31 32} After discovering preserved whipworm eggs within it, scientists confirmed that a 1,500-year-old Roman terra-cotta pot was used as a portable privy.³³—Sam Needleman