Weekly Review
The United Kingdom approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, where the WikiLeaks founder, who released classified CIA documents that revealed American war crimes, faces espionage charges.1 Rodolfo Hernández, a right-wing real estate mogul known as “el viejito de TikTok” who is the subject of at least 38 corruption investigations, was defeated in the second round of Colombia’s presidential elections by the former leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro.2 3 4 President Biden, who faces lawsuits from environmental organizations for issuing thousands of oil and gas drilling permits on public lands in the West, fell off his bicycle near his beach house in Delaware.5 6 Wildfires in Arizona destroyed an astronomical observatory, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would change its bovine diets with the aim of cutting back on farts that produce greenhouse gas emissions, and a heat wave in Kansas killed at least 2,000 cows.7 8 9 The climate emergency, the war in Ukraine, and other international catastrophes pushed the world’s refugee count to 100 million people; a study found that more than 330,000 deaths from COVID-19 could have been prevented by universal health care; and the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed a military budget of $847 billion.10 11 12 “So I just took responsibility for it and I said, ‘Yeah it’s my fault, and I’m to blame,” said a former gas station manager who was fired for accidentally pricing gasoline at .69 cents a gallon.13
In Texas, officials in Uvalde used a legal loophole to block the release of police records related to the recent mass shooting there, and a couple used a stroller with a baby in it to steal over $3,000 worth of ammunition from a Cabela’s in El Paso.14 15 16 In Ethiopia, a rebel group massacred more than 200 Amhara civilians, and militants in Afghanistan killed multiple people in an attack on a Sikh temple.17 18 Ryanair, which is based in Swords, Ireland, reversed its decision to give South Africans a test in Afrikaans, the language of Dutch colonizers, before travel to the United Kingdom.19 20 “I would appeal to the nation to cut down on one or two cups of tea,” said Pakistan’s Minister for Planning, Development, and Reform, citing the country’s trade deficit.21 Anna Sorokin, a fraudster whose story of posing as a German heiress was recently adapted for Netflix, announced that she will launch a collection of NFTs.22
A doctor in Houston accidentally gave a four-year-old a vasectomy.23 “He heard me and he saw me, and he kept looking at me,” said a cyclist in California, referring to a zebra who chased him through the mountains near Santa Barbara.24 The Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance to ban public bike repairs.25 After strolling across a bed of hot coals as a team-building exercise, 13 people were hospitalized with severe injuries in Switzerland.26 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans who may have been exposed to monkeypox that they should masturbate at least six feet from their partners, and researchers used a dental cavity to discover that the Black Death originated in what is now Kyrgyzstan.27 28 —Sam Needleman
