Weekly Review
The United Nations estimated that at least 579 Ukrainian civilians have died, including 42 children, the mayor of the town of Hostomel, and the actor Pasha Lee, known for his voice-acting work on Ukrainian versions of The Hobbit and South Park.1 2 It was reported that over the past 17 days, the European Union has accepted more Ukrainian refugees than all refugees in the years 2015 and 2016, when an estimated 1.3 million people applied for asylum across Europe and there were at least 74,314 civilian casualties in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.3 4 5 6 7 8 9 “You could see it was a country where there was a lot of love,” former President Donald Trump said of Russia.10 “Somebody wants to make his country larger or he wants to put it back the way it was.” An independent monitoring group announced that more than 5,000 people have been arrested in Russia so far for protesting against the invasion, including a woman who held up a blank sheet of paper in public; Belarusian authorities detained one of the most active editors on Russian-language Wikipedia for violating a new Russian law prohibiting anti-Russian fake news; police departments in Vermont, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Florida, and New York donated dozens of pieces of excess defensive equipment to Ukraine’s military; and Meta said it would permit Facebook and Instagram users to post “death to the Russian invaders.”11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 After it was announced that McDonald’s would close all its Russian locations, a Big Mac was advertised for about $36 and a paper bag for $373.19 A spokesperson for the Russian government called U.S. sanctions “hostile bacchanalia.”20
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, said that the launch of Bitcoin-backed bonds, which would help to fund the founding of the country’s “Bitcoin City,” could be delayed by the conflict in Ukraine.21 Yoon Suk-yeol, the former prosecutor general of Korea who was suspended after numerous alleged ethics violations and said that poor people should be allowed to eat substandard food at a discount as long as it did not kill them, was elected president of South Korea.22 23 “All responsibility lies with me,” said his opponent Lee Jae-myung in his concession speech. A new study suggested that half of all Americans alive in 2015 suffered brain damage from exposure to leaded gasoline.24 Formula One spokesman Martin Whitaker announced that Jeddah would host a race for at least another four years, and Saudi Arabia performed its largest mass execution in decades, killing 81 people.25 26 In India, a high court in the state of Karnataka upheld a ban on headscarves in classrooms, and the government said it had accidentally launched a missile into Pakistan.27 28 It was discovered that the U.S. Navy cannot deploy one of its war ships because it cannot legally fire the ship’s unvaccinated commander.29 Endurance, the ship led by the explorer Ernest Shackleton that sank near Antarctica in 1915, was discovered at the bottom of the Weddell Sea with its lettering and some belongings onboard still intact.30 “I understand today’s your birthday, Richard, how will you be celebrating?” said a woman whose son died of an opioid overdose to Richard Sackler, the former president of Purdue Pharma, during a hearing for victims and survivors of OxyContin addiction.31 “I guarantee it won’t be in the cemetery.”
A man accused of stabbing two employees at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan after having his museum membership revoked called the act a “poke poke poke wake-up call” in a Facebook post.32 The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education announced that public high schools can no longer mandate the color of students’ underwear or require students with curly or non-black hair to prove that they have not dyed or altered it.33 34 A 65-year-old Florida woman nicknamed the Hugging Bandit was arrested for pretending to recognize men on the street, giving them hugs, and stealing belongings from their pockets.35 “People will sometimes make light of these seizures, but there is nothing funny about these failed smuggling attempts,” said a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official in El Paso, Texas, about the confiscation of illegally imported Mexican bologna.36 A new logo unveiled for an Australian government organization focused on women elicited comparisons to a phallus.37 The assistant principal of an elementary school in Mississippi was fired for reading the children’s book I Need a New Butt! to second graders over Zoom, and a Florida middle school teacher was accused of biting two students to get them to return a jar of pickles.38 39 A 328-million-year-old octopus fossil that represents the oldest ancestor of the vampire squid was named for 79-year-old President Joe Biden.40 —Sarah Krolewski
