Weekly Review

In the same city where Focus on the Family is headquartered, a gunman killed five people and injured at least 25 others at a gay nightclub before being subdued by unarmed bar patrons.^{1 2} “This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly,” tweeted Representative Lauren Boebert, whose gun-themed restaurant closed this summer.^{3 4} The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out in favor of federal legislation to protect same-sex marriage.⁵ “I feel gay. I feel disabled. I feel a migrant worker,” said the head of FIFA in defense of Qatar’s human rights record, whose showpiece World Cup stadium was designed by a company that also built a prison in western China to detain Uighurs.^{6 7} Joe Biden turned 80, making him the first octogenarian to occupy the presidency, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 82, announced she would relinquish her House leadership position, and Senator Chuck Grassley, 89, filed to run for reelection in 2028.^{8 9 10} “It should have happened 20 years ago, and if not for political maneuvering, it probably would have happened 20 years ago,” said one of the authors of a decision to eliminate the leap second, a move the Vatican disagrees with because time “is a constant reminder of our mortality.”¹¹ A former anti-abortion minister alleged that a 2014 Supreme Court decision was leaked to him and select other evangelical activists before the decision was made public; Justice Samuel Alito—who wrote the opinion, had dinner with the minister’s top donors weeks before the decision was publicly announced, and called the more recent leak of the Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade (which he also wrote) a “grave betrayal”—denied being the snitch.^{12 13} A woman was reunited with Snek, her pet boa constrictor, after he was abducted by two animal hoarders in 2019.¹⁴

Less than a month after buying Twitter, Elon Musk said that he wanted to find someone to replace him as CEO of the company, from which more than 1,200 employees resigned in the past week.^{15 16} Tesla recalled 320,000 vehicles, the 19th time it has issued a recall this year.¹⁷ In France, Moët announced that champagne stocks were running low in its network of cellars that stretch for 17 miles under the town of Epernay, a dearth the company attributed to a new “roaring ’20s” of luxury consumption.¹⁸ After reporting losses of more than $1.5 billion on its streaming platform Disney+ this quarter alone, Disney, the largest media company in the history of the world, announced that Bob Iger would be coming out of his retirement of less than a year to replace the man who had replaced him as CEO.¹⁹  “Vampires are cool people, are they not?” said Herschel Walker.²⁰ The vice president of Brazil explained that Jair Bolsonaro—who, during his presidency, was bitten by a giant bird at his palace, suffered an intestinal blockage from swallowing whole shrimp, and thrice contracted COVID-19, a disease he denied the existence of—has been absent from the public eye because a skin infection prevented him from wearing pants.^{21 22 23 24 25} An Australian woman was stopped by airport security in Abu Dhabi because she was wearing a butt plug containing her former boyfriend’s ashes.²⁶ “So today I’m happy and rejoicing that, thanks to all that’s happened in feminism, people can at least recognize the clitoris,” said a French writer and publisher when asked about her nation’s mascot for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which has been likened to a clitoris.²⁷ A new study found that sperm concentration has halved in the past 40 years and the rate of decline is accelerating.²⁸

Customs officials in Belgium have seized so much cocaine this year that incinerators are unable to keep up.²⁹ One of the German firefighters who put out a blaze in a shelter for Ukrainian refugees last month was charged with lighting it.³⁰ A 19-year veteran of the Vermillion County, Indiana, sheriff’s department accidentally shot a teenager during a drill instructing high school students what to do if there was a “bad guy” in the classroom.³¹ A massive sinkhole encroached on a police station in West Virginia.³² New research suggests that leprosy helps armadillos regenerate their livers.³³ Because of rain in Buckingham, England, the community board canceled an event on how to protect your home from flood damage, and the United Nations’ annual climate summit concluded with a deal to pay poor nations for the harm incurred by climate change.^{34 35} A flock of sheep in Inner Mongolia has been walking in a circle continuously for more than 12 days.³⁶ —Cameron French