Weekly Review

President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet denied that the United States, which has sent more than $8 billion to Ukraine since February, is in a recession.^{1 2} Nancy Pelosi, whose husband sold $4.1 million in NVIDIA chip stock a day before the Senate passed multibillion dollar subsidies for U.S. chip manufacturing, announced a trip to Taiwan, where the lone supplier for NVIDIA and its main competitor’s chips is based.^{3 4 5} The House Speaker’s visit precipitated a flurry of warnings from the Chinese government, the precipitous fall of global stock prices and the Taiwanese dollar, cyberattacks on Taiwanese government websites, a bomb threat, and the suspension of hundreds of Taiwanese imports to China.^{6 7 8 9 10 11} “The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo,” Pelosi tweeted after landing in Taipei.¹² A subdivision of Toyota admitted that it had faked its emissions data since 2003, and a study revealed that Taylor Swift’s private jet had produced 8,293.54 metric tons of CO₂ this year, a figure 1,184.8 times higher than the average person’s total annual emissions.^{13 14} Osama bin Laden’s former personal physician and the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in a drone strike in a residential area of Kabul.^{15 16} It was revealed that the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund had accepted $1.21 million in donations from bin Laden’s half brothers, and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational’s third installment was held at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Ivana Trump was buried after her funeral at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.^{17 18 19}

President Emmanuel Macron decried Russia as an “imperial colonial power” while on a tour of West African countries that were formerly French colonies.²⁰ “[France is] the country that has been most committed to African states,” said Macron, who also criticized the “hypocrisy” of African leaders for failing to support Ukraine.²¹ The United Nations reported that, over the past year, 1.5 million people worldwide were infected with HIV, a number threefold higher than predicted.²² In Indiana, where, last month, a doctor terminated the pregnancy of a 10-year-old from Ohio who had been raped by an adult, the state Senate passed a bill that would prohibit abortions from the moment a fertilized egg implants in a uterus; victims of rape and incest would be exempt from the proposed ban, but would be required to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to an attack.^{23 24} According to North Carolina authorities, a man either jumped or fell from a plane he was piloting without a parachute; his copilot made an emergency landing at an airport and was released from a hospital after being treated for minor injuries.²⁵ Senator Ted Cruz fist-bumped his fellow Republicans after blocking a bill that would have provided care to veterans exposed to burn pits, and Representative Glenn Thompson attended his gay son’s wedding days after voting against marriage equality legislation.^{26 27 28} A newly public Bank of America memo revealed that the financial institution is hoping for an economic downturn and a higher unemployment rate.²⁹ “This is the tip of the iceberg,” said a former Haitian senator of a series of gun smuggling scandals, the most recent of which involved a shipping container addressed to the Episcopal Church of Haiti that held 18 “weapons of war,” four handguns, and nearly 15,000 rounds of ammunition.³⁰

President Vladimir Putin said it was “good” that Russia will be leaving the International Space Station.³¹ A woman seeking revenge on her ex-boyfriend attempted to torch the wrong house.³² “I would have thrown a tomato,” said a former Rotterdam City Council member of a proposed mass-egging of Jeff Bezos’s superyacht.³³ “I eat mostly vegan.” A debt collector in Thailand slapped an insolvent woman in the face with a durian, then sped off in a pickup.³⁴ “It’s David versus Goliath every day,” said Richard Rosenthal, a lawyer for dogs.³⁵ “I don’t think it’s a step forward. I feel like it’s creating chatter that’s just negative,” said a small-business owner in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of the city’s recent decriminalization of public urination.³⁶ Robotics researchers employed dead wolf spiders to grip delicate items up to 130 percent the spiders’ own mass.³⁷ A lawmaker in the Philippines introduced a bill that would make ghosting an emotional offense.³⁸ —Violet Lucca