Weekly Review

Despite Amazon’s multimillion dollar attempt to defeat a unionization drive at their warehouse in Staten Island, New York—which included hiring a prominent Democratic polling firm—workers voted by a wide margin to unionize, making it the first union at the company.^{1 2 3} It was revealed that Targeted Victory, one of the biggest Republican strategy firms in the country, was hired by Meta, which is being sued by survivors of the Rohingya genocide for failing to stop the spread of hate speech on Facebook, to lead a smear campaign against TikTok by pushing news stories about false fads like “Slap a teacher TikTok challenge.”^{4 5} A new app in Russia called Grustnogram, or “Sadgram,” which presents itself as an alternative to the now-blocked Instagram app was announced.⁶ “Post sad pictures of yourself, show this to your sad friends, be sad together,” says its website. Vladimir Putin ordered that another 134,000 citizens be conscripted, but the defense ministry claimed these fresh recruits would not be involved with the war in Ukraine, and a Russian soldier who replaced a plate in his body armor with a stolen MacBook was killed in Irpin, Ukraine.^{7 8} It was revealed that Elon Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder and will sit on its board; before the announcement, the entrepreneur responded to rumors that the legendary Berlin techno club Berghain had rejected him at the door by tweeting he had in fact chosen not to enter because the word peace was written on the wall.^{9 10}

In the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., police found five fetuses at the home of Lauren Handy, an antiabortion activist who had been indicted on unrelated charges.¹¹ “All this bill does is give an alternative form of marriage for those pastors and other individuals who have a conscientious objection to the current pathway to marriage in our law,” said the Tennessee state representative Tom Leatherwood, who is sponsoring a bill that defines marriage as “one man and one woman” but specifies no age limits.¹² In Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey signed two bills targeting trans youth, one banning some medical care and another barring kids from playing on high school sports teams that align with their gender; Ducey also signed a bill extending proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters in federal elections.^{13 14} The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on the humane treatment of pigs; Canada’s Supreme Court upheld a $9 million fine for a thief who was involved in siphoning off 3,000 tonnes of maple syrup; and a former supreme court justice in Sweden was fined for “the crime petty theft, previously known as shoplifting” after she tried to make off with ill-gotten meatballs and cheese.^{15 16 17} “I often describe it as going over Niagara Falls in a barrel while you’re on fire,” said the American astronaut Scott Kelly of returning to Earth.¹⁸ “And as soon as you realize you’re not going to die, [it’s] the most fun you’ve ever had in your entire life.”

A robber in Ohio who stole around $80 at knifepoint made his victim pinky promise not to call the cops, and General Motors introduced a new line of pickup trucks specially made for police pursuits, “designed for high speeds and dynamic capability with the added comfort and ample storage capacity needed for an everyday patrol vehicle.”^{19 20} Authorities discovered two bazookas and a practice grenade in a trash can near a school in California, but assured the public that the incident “was not an unusual occurrence, as we routinely find and seize inert military ordnance.”²¹ Groundskeepers in New Zealand found cannabis seedlings in the parliament’s rose garden, and confessed that despite the removal of the currently known seedlings, “many more will likely germinate for years to come.”^{22 23} In Australia, five people died after a helicopter crashed into Mount Disappointment.²⁴ —Cameron French