Weekly Review

A two-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by the Israeli military while sitting in a car with his father, at least the 117th fatality this year.^{1 2} Two hundred seventy-five people died in the Indian state of Odisha after two trains collided following a signal failure.³ Spending on the railways’ safety had recently fallen, despite a 37 percent increase in the number of serious accidents last year, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi prioritizing funds for speed and comfort.^{4 5} Modi, whose time in office has seen a wave of anti-Muslim violence and laws, a decline in press freedom, and controversial agricultural laws protested by hundreds of thousands of farmers, was invited by top-ranking Republicans and Democrats to address the United States Congress.^{6 7 8 9} In Germany, a new poll showed that support for the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland was at a record high, and four leftists were sentenced to jail for attacking people they believed to be neo-Nazis.^{10 11} A far-right politician in Warsaw stormed the podium at a lecture on Poland’s “problem with the history of the Holocaust” before smashing the microphone against the lectern several times.¹² “I don’t want reality,” said Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin at a committee meeting while questioning a witness about a book meant to educate children on racism.¹³ After being called a “fucking fascist” by a heckler in South Carolina, the Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said, “Yeah, well, thank you, thank you.”¹⁴

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case of a man who attempted to trademark the phrase donald trump too small.¹⁵ Air New Zealand announced that they would begin weighing passengers before they board their flights.¹⁶ “Big brains are still important,” said a scientist about the discovery that Homo naledi, extinct cousins of humans whose cerebellums were ape-size, buried their dead.¹⁷ “They just don’t explain what we thought they explained.” It was found that a 5,000-mile-wide belt of seaweed that washed up in Florida contains flesh-eating bacteria.¹⁸ Pigs, rabbits, and fish have been dying as a result of record-breaking temperatures in China, and firefighting goats may be furloughed because of a change in California employment law.^{19 20} A new report announced that, year to date, the tech sector has eliminated its largest number of jobs since 2001, and that, across all sectors, nearly 4,000 jobs were lost to artificial intelligence in the past month.²¹ The Bible will be removed from elementary and middle schools for depicting “vulgarity or violence” in a school district in Utah, where the Book of Mormon will also be undergoing review.^{22 23} A purification ceremony took place at St. Peter’s Basilica after a naked man stood at the main altar to protest the war in Ukraine.²⁴ In California, more than 4,000 people were baptized in Pirate’s Cove.²⁵

A man in South Carolina brought a Nintendo gun used for playing the video game Duck Hunt to rob a convenience store.²⁶ “It was done because they wanted to hunt what they thought was a large duck,” a police sergeant said of three teenagers who killed and ate a beloved local swan in New York Village, New York.²⁷ A truck driver was detained in Denmark after potatoes were found spilled across a bridge, and six people were taken to the hospital after sustaining injuries during a cheese-rolling competition in England.^{28 29} Alabama’s governor signed legislation declaring the Yellowhammer Cookie, which was invented by a fourth-grader and includes nuts of “historical and cultural significance” to Alabama, as the state’s official cookie.³⁰ A woman found a baggie of cocaine in her hot dog in New Mexico, and researchers found that people whose body odor most resembles rancid butter and smelly cheese attract the most mosquitoes.^{31 32} A man in Wisconsin hijacked a police car while awaiting trial for hijacking another police car, and over $2,000 worth of toothpaste was stolen in Vancouver.^{33 34} An 82-year-old man attempting to subsidize his pension with drug dealing was given a “last warning” by a court in Germany after 24 previous convictions.³⁵ Sex was declared a sport in Sweden.³⁶ —Megan Evershed