Weekly Review

Earth experienced its hottest day on record for four days in a row, and scientists linked climate change to the shrinking of the human brain.^{1 2} The FDA gave full approval to a new Alzheimer’s medication for the first time in 20 years, and researchers found that fewer than half of new drugs add substantial value when compared with existing treatments.^{3 4} A poll was reported to have found that over 40 percent of Americans do not know what July Fourth commemorates, and mass shootings occurred in Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, California, Michigan, two cities in Indiana, two cities in Maryland, and twice in Fort Worth, Texas, the fewest in a Fourth of July weekend since 2019.^{5 6 7 8 9 10} “We will not stop until we can finally and forever rid the world of this scourge,” said President Joe Biden, about the destruction of an M55 rocket filled with sarin nerve gas, the last remaining munition in the United States’ declared stockpile of chemical weapons, which marked the completion of a project that was originally scheduled for 2007 and that went 2,900 percent over budget.^{11 12 13 14} On the same day, it was announced that Biden had approved supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions, which are designed to broadly disperse “bomblets,” 10 to 40 percent of which fail and can be accidentally detonated decades later.^{15 16} The weapons are banned by 123 countries and their use has been described by Biden’s former press secretary as “potentially … a war crime.”¹⁷ It was reported that cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House.¹⁸

The Israeli military raided the city of Jenin for two days, damaging cars and homes, tearing up the roads with bulldozers, and killing 12 Palestinians, four of whom were minors.¹⁹ In Tel Aviv, a Palestinian wounded eight in a car-ramming and stabbing attack before being shot by a civilian, and in Jerusalem, a court acquitted a police officer in the killing of an autistic Palestinian man.²⁰ Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary leader who had agreed to exile in Belarus after orchestrating a mutiny against Vladimir Putin, was seen in St. Petersburg, where a cache of weapons and 10 billion rubles were allegedly returned to him by Russian security, and it was revealed that former U.S. officials had held back-channel talks with prominent Russians about how to end the war.^{21 22} The Dutch government collapsed in a dispute over migration policy, and it was reported that murals of cartoon characters on the walls of a British intake center for unaccompanied child asylum seekers had been painted over because they were too welcoming.^{23 24} The hosts of the Wimbledon tennis tournament warned attendees not to use the club’s quiet room for sex, and a nurse in Wrexham was fired after a patient with whom she was having a relationship was found dead with his pants down.^{25 26} In India, police bulldozed the home of a man accused of urinating on a tribesman, and in Canada, a court ruled that a thumbs-up emoji counted as an acceptance of a contract.^{27 28} 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has repeatedly claimed that he keeps a photo of a dead police officer in his wallet, reportedly showed a newspaper an image of the man that his staff had printed out and covered in coffee to make look old.²⁹ Wisconsin’s governor, Tony Evers, used a partial veto to delete a hyphen and the number “20” from a school funding bill, extending its reach from the 2024–25 academic year to the year 2425, and Harvard University was sued over its admissions preferences for donors and legacies.^{30 31} A New Jersey judge was reported to be under investigation for making TikToks in which he lip-synched to raunchy songs while partially dressed and wearing his judicial robes. “You think you can run up on me and whip my monkey ass?” the justice appeared to sing.³² In the U.K., a man and a woman fought in the street over custody of a duck; in Illinois, a man robbed a laundromat while wearing a bunny suit; and in Ohio, a suspected shoplifter wearing a ladybug onesie chased an employee around a shop and smashed two bottles of wine.^{33 34 35} In Georgia, a man attempting to hold up a nail salon left after the patrons and staff ignored him.³⁶ A Texan who was reported missing eight years ago was found to have been living with his mom all along, and a tourist who had scratched a declaration of love to his girlfriend into the Roman Colosseum apologized, saying that he did not realize that the structure was ancient.^{37 38} It was reported that an Iowa woman who was alerted that her house was on fire broke multiple bones in a motorcycle accident on her way home and was diagnosed with cancer while in the hospital.³⁹ A bus crashed in Safety Beach, Australia.⁴⁰ —Jon Edelman