Weekly Review

Europe was battered by a drought and two successive heat waves, each informally named for mythological Greek figures from hell that make appearances in Dante’s Inferno, climate events that forced officials in Greece to order the suspension of afternoon work in high-risk areas and a French town to replace their traditional Bastille Day fireworks display with a drone-based light show.^{1 2 3} A second firefighter in Canada died in the wildfires that have destroyed over 10 million hectares of land this year and that prompted yet another round of air quality alerts to be sent to some 70 million Americans.^{4 5} A drought has left more than half the population of Uruguay without clean drinking water, and the price of tomatoes skyrocketed over 400 percent in India following an erratic, extreme heat–fueled monsoon season; there were widespread reports of large-scale tomato crop thefts, a number of local McDonald’s outlets dropped tomato-related items from their menu, and a politician reportedly hired two bouncers to prevent customers from haggling over the price of tomatoes at his store.^{6 7 8} Thousands of people in Delhi were evacuated from their homes after the Yamuna River breached its danger mark by 10 feet, washing away migrant camps along its banks and forcing officials to convert schools into disaster relief sites.⁹ “Under no circumstances” will the United States pay reparations to developing countries being pummeled by climate change–linked natural disasters, the U.S. climate envoy John Kerry reiterated to Congress days before flying to meet with his counterpart in Beijing on China’s hottest-ever day on record.¹⁰

“The burn rate was way too high,” said a Republican insider regarding layoffs within the Ron DeSantis campaign, which has reportedly struggled to meet its own fundraising expectations.¹¹  Twitter revealed that it has lost nearly half its advertising revenue since the company was acquired by Elon Musk, and a Federal Reserve official credited Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” with boosting the U.S. economy.^{12 13} The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Serbia’s intelligence chief for alleged involvement in arms and drug trafficking, and Mozambique’s former finance minister, who is being detained in New York for allegedly accepting $5 million in bribes as part of a “tuna bond” scheme that led to the collapse of his country’s economy, was denied bail by a federal district judge for being too much of a flight risk.^{14 15} “It’s almost like you invite your friend to your house, and then arrest them,” complained a South African official, regarding the prospect of Putin attending an upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg, which would require South Africa, as a signatory to the International Criminal Court, to immediately arrest the Russian leader for war crimes.¹⁶ The Swiss watchmaker Swatch filed a lawsuit against the government of Malaysia, where homosexuality is a crime, for harming its local business prospects by confiscating 172 watches from its “Pride collection,” and more than 30 nations urged Hungary’s far-right government to retract its severely discriminatory LGBT laws, which recently caused the country’s second-largest bookseller to be fined more than $30,000 for placing a popular British graphic novel about two schoolboys who fall in love in its young adult section without the “closed packaging” required by a 2021 “child protection” law.^{17 18 19}

A National Geographic investigation found that the diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy were tested on an endangered monkey species.²⁰ “We just want the gorillas to be able to be gorillas,” said an official at the Toronto Zoo, which has asked visitors to stop showing the animals videos and photos on their phone because “some content can be upsetting and affect their relationship and behavior within their family.”²¹ Researchers found that crows and magpies in Europe were ripping out anti-bird spikes to build nests.²² “We do not know why this started,” said the manager of a sea otter program in Monterey, where officials attempted to apprehend a 5-year-old sea otter who has been accosting local surfers and stealing their boards.²³ “In this case, the defamed group is Californians,” said a DMV spokesperson regarding the decision to revoke a license plate in Nevada that read “GOBK2CA,” short for “Go back to California.”²⁴ “We’ve tried to get the city to do it, but they’re just dragging their feet,” said a resident of a Florida suburb about an invasion of up to 100 purebred lionhead rabbits, the descendants of a group that were illegally released by a local breeder two years ago.²⁵ “I think he’s probably out in that tall grass, maybe, because he likes that tall grass, likes to hide in it,” said the owner of a missing pet wallaby in Oklahoma.²⁶ “I have fallen in love with grass right now,” said Carlos Alcaraz after beating Novak Djokovic in the men’s Wimbledon final.²⁷ A Tour de France spectator taking a selfie caused 20 riders to crash 80 miles from the finish line.^{28 29} —Maya Perry