Weekly Review

Voters in Thailand overwhelmingly opposed their prime minister’s reelection in favor of the Move Forward Party, whose leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, vowed to “take military out of politics so that we don’t have a military coup every seven years.”¹ After five years of failed attempts to sell or raffle off Mexico’s presidential plane, which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has decried as a symbol of previous administrations’ excesses, the aircraft was finally offloaded to Tajikistan’s authoritarian government for $92 million.² “It would be heartless not to,” said Arturo Méndez, a Paraguayan politician who allegedly gave indigenous people money in exchange for their votes.³ “I expect the same democratic maturity from everyone,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who successfully campaigned to have opponents’ Twitter accounts censored but will face a runoff presidential election, Turkey’s first, as he and his competitor each failed to secure 50 percent of the vote.^{4 5 6} House Speaker Kevin McCarthy banned Representative Rashida Tlaib from holding an event commemorating the Nakba in the Capitol Visitor Center.⁷ Ron DeSantis signed a bill that exempts his travel records and “persons for whom such services are requested by the governor” from Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, which allows all other government proceedings, including arrests of the mentally ill, to be public record.^{8 9} A day after he was indicted in federal court for fraudulently applying for and receiving unemployment benefits during the pandemic, Congressman George Santos voted for the Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act, which he cosponsored.¹⁰ A federal investigation continues into New Jersey senator Robert Menendez, which includes but is not limited to his involvement with a New Jersey startup that became the sole halal meat certification company for products imported into Egypt.¹¹ Police in Enid, Oklahoma, responded to a report of a distressed person and found that the cries were coming from a goat who had been separated from its friend.¹²

“In Austria, the technical problem is Hitler,” said one passenger after Nazi slogans were reportedly played over an Austrian intercity train’s speakers.¹³ “If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people,” tweeted Elon Musk, who, by court order, must have his tweets approved by a lawyer for Tesla.^{13 14} A man who deliberately filmed himself jumping out of his single-engine aircraft with a parachute above Los Padres National Forest and, using multiple cameras, recorded the plane’s crash into the mountains for a video uploaded in 2021 titled “I Crashed My Airplane” misled the New York Times when he said, “I’ll happily say I did not purposely crash my plane for views on YouTube,” and pleaded guilty to intending to obstruct a federal investigation.¹⁵ Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 68 percent over the past year.¹⁶ An Australian woman who became stranded in the woods was able to survive for five days on wine and candy, and five pine snakes raised in captivity were successfully released into the wild.^{17 18} More than 25,000 people have donated nearly $2 million to a GoFundMe for Daniel Penny’s defense; the former Marine was charged with second-degree manslaughter after he held Jordan Neely, a fellow subway passenger, in a chokehold for nearly 15 minutes.¹⁸ “We must put safety first,” said a Michigan school official who banned backpacks in their district’s K-12 schools after a third grader brought a loaded weapon to campus, the fourth time that a student had brought a gun to class this academic year.¹⁹ Police in Chicago shut down a street and the Red Line because a student had placed wheels on a can of Chef Boyardee.²⁰

A woman who wrote a children’s book about mourning after her husband died was charged with his murder.²¹ In Lynnfield, Massachusetts, the son of the state’s former governor Charlie Baker was arrested for drunk driving, and in Springfield, Colorado, an intoxicated man was pulled over by police, tried to switch seats with his dog, and claimed he hadn’t been at the wheel.^{22 23} “Well, you might as well do it now, because you’ll do it later,” said former President Donald Trump, who was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.^{24 25} “Our country is dying. Our country is being destroyed by stupid people, by very stupid people.” Rudy Giuliani was sued for sexual assault and harassment by a former employee who alleged he made her work naked and deferred her $1 million salary until he finished divorce proceedings with his “crazy” ex-wife.²⁶ A black, metallic, potato-size rock that crashed through the ceiling of a New Jersey home was determined to be a rare, 4.5 billion-year-old chondrite meteorite.^{27 28} “The thing that I miss the most about being on the surface is literally the sun,” said a Florida professor who broke a world record for time spent living underwater when he surpassed the previous record of 73 days, two hours, and 34 minutes, and who doesn’t plan to resurface till June.²⁹ “I did think this job was going to be easier,” said a British man who quit his job more than 30 years ago to hunt the Loch Ness monster.³⁰ —Maya Perry