Weekly Review

At an international climate forum, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that humanity faces “collective suicide” if it does not take action to combat climate change.¹ In Great Britain, where homes have historically been built to retain heat, temperatures reached 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit, a new record.² Flights in the country were suspended after a runway melted, trains were canceled after tracks buckled, and 966 people would have died, according to a researcher’s estimate.^{3 4 5} A cinema chain offered free tickets to redheads.⁶ In France, where 64 areas experienced record high temperatures, at least three wildfires raged, two of which burned nearly 80 square miles of forest and forced the evacuation of 37,000 people and any animals that were easy to transport from the Bassin d’Arcachon Zoo.^{7 8 9} “This is brutal news and horrible timing,” said the band Pearl Jam, announcing that damage to lead singer Eddie Vedder’s vocal cords from heat, dust, and smoke at a Paris performance would force them to cancel their next show.¹⁰ “There’s just no throat available at this time.” Other wildfires burned in Slovenia (where a conflagration set off unexploded ordnances from World War I), Germany, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Morocco, the United States, Canada, and Spain, where, for the second time in a month, a blaze was accidentally ignited by a Dutch carbon offset company.^{11 12 13 14 15 16} In a speech at a former coal plant, President Joe Biden referred to the state of the climate as an “emergency,” but did not formally declare a climate emergency, which would unlock temporary powers to boost renewable energy and limit investment in fossil fuels.^{17 18} It was reported that decreases in air pollution over the past two decades have increased global warming by up to 50 percent.¹⁹

In China, where 264 million people were under full or partial lockdown because of COVID-19, officials in the city of Guangzhou apologized for breaking into 84 apartments in search of positive cases.^{20 21} In the United States, where zero states have maintained general mask mandates, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions increased, and President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus.^{22 23 24} Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom the director of the CIA described as “entirely too healthy,” traveled to Tehran for a summit with the leaders of Iran and Turkey and struck a deal to free over 20 million metric tons of grain stuck at Ukrainian ports, the blockading of which had sent prices soaring and exacerbated a global hunger crisis.²⁵ One day later, Russia fired four missiles at the port of Odesa, one of the deal’s designated export hubs.²⁶ The Russian military also shot down one of its own bombers; the Russian foreign minister confirmed that Russia is seeking to overthrow the Ukrainian government; and a member of the Russian parliament claimed that blood tests on Ukrainian prisoners of war proved that they were super-soldiers created in American biolabs.^{27 28 29} A gunman who killed three people and injured two others in an Indiana mall was shot dead by a bystander before doing any more harm, an outcome that occurred in only 5 percent of active shooting attacks between 2000 and 2021.^30 31 It was reported that a Connecticut man pulled a firearm on two women because they did not thank him for holding a door, and police in Utah released footage of a four-year-old firing his father’s gun at officers in a McDonald’s parking lot.^{32 33} Pat Benatar announced that she has stopped performing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”³⁴

A report revealed that a woman in New Zealand was not told for a week that her belly button had been removed during a hernia surgery, and California police announced that a woman had been arrested for posing as a nurse and attempting to steal a newborn from a hospital.^{35 36} “Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb,” said Florida congressman Matt Gaetz of pro-choice protesters.³⁷ “These people are odious on the inside and out,” continued Gaetz, who is currently under investigation for sex-trafficking a 17-year-old girl.³⁸ Investigators in British Columbia admitted that images released of alleged murder accomplices were stock photos, and police in Ontario discovered ecstasy pills made to look like Lucky Charms marshmallows.^{40 41} Amid a $2 trillion cryptocurrency crash, Ethereum developers held an unauthorized rave in the Paris Catacombs.⁴² “It’s very illegal, but also very crypto,” said an attendee. “We will not tolerate any asshole to come to do this kind of thing,” said a social media post attributed to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel of Mexico in which it threatened to kidnap a TikTok star who shut down traffic on a local bridge.⁴³ A Sesame Street–licensed amusement park apologized for an incident in which a worker dressed as the Muppet Rosita appeared to ignore black children in favor of white ones, and a chess-playing robot grabbed and broke the finger of its seven-year-old opponent.^{44 45} “It is extremely strange that this happened, but it happened, it happens,” said an official. —Jon Edelman