Weekly Review

Liz Truss—who has lied about aunts and cousins dying in order to avoid appearing on television—made history after she resigned 45 days into her tenure, which was five days fewer than Cher’s song “Believe” spent at the top of the charts in the United Kingdom, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in the country’s history.^{1 2} “It’s the Labour Party, it’s the Lib Dems, it’s the coalition of chaos, it’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati,” said Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a graduate of Cambridge and the Sorbonne, the day before she, too, resigned.^{3 4} Rishi Sunak, who is twice as rich as King Charles III, succeeded Truss, and a 41-year-old slice of wedding cake from the monarch’s first marriage sold for $190, slightly below asking price.^{5 6 7} Just Stop Oil activists were arrested after they smashed chocolate cake into the waxwork replica of the king at Madame Tussaud’s, and Lafarge, a French cement company, was ordered to pay $780 million in penalties for a yearslong “revenue-sharing agreement” with ISIS.^{8 9} “Of course, I’ve thought about how I’d feel if he dies there. But my son and I already haven’t seen or heard from him in 12 years,” said a Russian woman who proffered the name of her ex-husband to draft officials.¹⁰ “So if they do kill him, it will even be good: the child will be compensated.” In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was caught on tape bragging about rekindling his friendship with Vladimir Putin, saying they had exchanged cases of liquor and “a very sweet letter,” and Guido Crosetto, who was hospitalized during a 2013 election campaign after smoking 150 cigarettes in a single day, became defense minister.^{11 12} “I certainly do not share the allegation that it is somehow imperialist, white supremacist, or a retrograde message,” said the top E.U. diplomat, responding to criticism of his use of an extended metaphor in which he stated that the “gardeners” of Europe must tend to the “jungle” of the rest of the world.¹³ A competition in France evaluated which dairies made the stretchiest cheese.¹⁴

Schools in Texas are sending DNA kits to parents of K–12 students that could be used to identify their children’s bodies in the event of an “emergency,” such as the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in May, whose victims were so thoroughly mutilated by gunfire that DNA swabs were the only method by which investigators could positively identify their remains.¹⁵ Election officials warned that two vigilantes in tactical gear and masks were watching over a ballot box in Maricopa County, Arizona, where officials also said it was too late to remove Randy Kaufman from the ballot after the GOP candidate, who said he “wanted our children protected [from] the progressive left,” was arrested for masturbating in his truck while parked by a preschool.^{16 17} A Florida judge threw out voter fraud charges that had been brought against a former felon, and House Republicans introduced a bill inspired by the state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which includes prohibitions against children learning about gender and sexual orientation.^{18 19} As part of an effort to uphold gerrymandered election maps, Republicans in Alabama and Louisiana asked the Supreme Court to narrow the definition of who qualifies as black, and Barack Obama warned Democrats not to be a “buzzkill.”^{20 21} Brazil’s top election officials gained the ability to suspend any social media platform, and its House of Representatives is set to criminalize inaccurate political polling.^{22 23} Four former employees at a day-care, one of whom was recorded frightening the children by wearing a mask reminiscent of the Scream films, were charged with felony child abuse.²⁴

Eric Adams suggested that, in order to remain safe, New Yorkers should stop wearing headphones while riding the subway.²⁵ “The rats don’t run this city, we do,” said New York City sanitation officials in a press conference announcing that their department would limit how long residents could leave trash on the sidewalk before pickup.²⁶ U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents seized 44 pounds of fentanyl marked with the CNN logo.²⁷ A woman in Boston was arrested for setting bees on police officers as they tried to evict her.²⁸ A local politician in Australia apologized for leaving a copy of Forensics for Dummies at a memorial ceremony for Police Remembrance Day.²⁹ “I don’t think that’s quite right,” said a man who had trapped a sex worker in his car and pleaded guilty to assault during his sentencing.²⁹ “I was doing it out of kindness, actually.” One of the men who stole the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey died.³⁰ Scientists remarked upon the unusual “burps” being emitted from black hole AT2018hyz, more than two years after it spaghettified a star.³¹ —Cameron French