Weekly Review

A gunman shot six people at a birthday party in Indiana; New Orleans reported its bloodiest weekend in a decade; a shooter at a mall in South Carolina injured 10 people; two people died and 10 were injured after gunfire broke out in a nightclub in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; 10 people were shot in a subway in New York; and Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed a permitless carry bill, which allows people to carry concealed handguns in public without a license or background check, explaining that it was in the interest of public safety.^{1 2 3} “Now instead of throwing up the finger, they’re pulling out the gun and shooting,” the mayor of Houston said of a spate of road rage–inspired shootings.⁴ As part of the Save America Freedom Tour, a pastor in Tennessee told members of his congregation to use the Second Amendment against journalists who try to come to church.⁵ In discussing a new law to make camping by interstate off-ramps a misdemeanor, a Tennessee state senator encouraged homeless people to learn from Adolf Hitler.⁶ “Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while,” he said. “So a lot of these people, it’s not a dead end. They can come out of this, these homeless camps, and have a productive life, or in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life … I support this bill.” “I mean, why are we elected?” asked a member of the Florida legislature after state Republicans ceded responsibility for drawing new congressional maps to the governor, Ron DeSantis, who also this week signed a law banning almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.^{7 8} John Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981 and was released from federal custody in 2016, announced that he would be playing a concert in Brooklyn this summer; tickets have sold out.⁹ A federal jury convicted a member of the Beatles, an all-British cell of ISIS, of hostage taking and conspiracy.¹⁰

Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, and Helvetica fonts became unavailable in Russia because the copyright holder withdrew permissions within the country.¹¹ On Thursday, Ukrainian missiles sank a Russian warship possibly carrying a relic that some Christians believe is a fragment of the true cross.¹² “But it won’t bring them back either, Ben,” tweeted Edwina Currie, who served as a junior health minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government, at a man expressing sadness and anger about the fact that, because of COVID-19, he was forced to say goodbye to his dying grandfather via FaceTime.¹³ Flooding in South Africa killed at least 448 people, a new study estimated that global warming could put 60 percent of cactus species at greater risk of extinction, and in London, more than two dozen scientists superglued themselves to a building to protest the government’s inaction on climate change.^{14 15 16} Pet owners in Massachusetts, whose dogs were threatened with repossession by a financial services company that was trying to get them to pony up on outstanding debt, reached a settlement.¹⁷ After sustaining a traumatic brain injury in school, a soldier turned teacher said he would rather be redeployed to Iraq than return to the classroom.¹⁸ It was reported that a raft of child welfare workers in Texas were resigning to protest the state’s new anti-trans legislation; and at an emergency meeting prompted by one parent’s complaints, a school board in Ohio banned a book about a unicorn, saying the book promoted “a gay lifestyle,” even though the book is about the author’s experience with a brain tumor.^{19 20} A national task force recommended that all children age 8 and up be screened for anxiety.²¹

A man was charged with aggravated assault for beating his roommate in an argument over what mosquitoes look like.²² Research from the World Health Organization suggested that deaths from COVID-19 actually surpass 15 million worldwide, more than double the number that countries have officially reported, and the CDC found that rates of syphilis had risen 7 percent, and gonorrhea by 10 percent.^{23 24} Researchers in Lebanon announced that they could treat premature ejaculation by applying an electric current to the penis for 30 minutes three times a week.²⁵ The NFT of the first-ever tweet, which sold last year for $2.9 million, was listed for resale at $48 million but failed to gain any bids greater than $280.²⁶ The auction house Sotheby’s sold for $1.2 million a receipt for an invisible artwork from the 1950s called Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility, whose artist accepted payment only in gold bullion, half of which he would typically dump into the Seine.²⁷ —Cameron French