Weekly Review

Morocco declared a three-day period of mourning after an earthquake killed at least 2,800 people and more than 2,500 were injured.^{1 2} In Marrakesh, hundreds of people slept outside, parts of the Old City were destroyed, and historic 12th-century walls were damaged.^{3 4 5} The epicenter of the disaster was in the High Atlas Mountains, where residents of many hard-to-reach villages, some of which are accessible only by helicopter, described digging people out of rubble with their bare hands.⁶ Two days after the earthquake, buildings were still collapsing, and the Moroccan palace had only accepted aid from a handful of countries, despite offers from a number of nations to send search-and-rescue teams, sniffer dogs, and medical professionals to help in the aftermath.^{7 8} Critics said there may have been an hours-long delay in rescue efforts because King Mohammed VI, who has been accused of ruling the country from his French residence, was not around to authorize the provision of assistance.⁹ At least 2,000 people were killed in Libya, according to one count, when storms hit the eastern part of the country, causing a dam to collapse and buildings to flood.¹⁰ In Brazil, a cyclone killed at least 42 people and displaced thousands more, and residents of the town of Muçum, 85% of which was flooded, were rescued from rooftops by helicopters.^{11 12 13} “This is something else—an extreme, extreme weather event,” said a researcher in Greece, where rain has battered the country, killing at least 15 and almost completely submerging multiple villages.^{14 15 16} “The amount of rain that has fallen here is unseen before,” said the mayor of Tsarevo, Bulgaria, where extensive damage was caused by Storm Daniel, the same storm that killed at least seven people in Turkey.^{17 18} Two people died in flash flooding that hit Hong Kong and parts of southern China, researchers announced that Antarctica had experienced extreme precipitation in the last year, the semifinal of the U.S. Open was interrupted by climate protesters, one of whom glued their bare feet to the ground, and another climate protester hit the CEO of Ryanair in the face with a cream cake.^{19 20 21 22}

A man escaped from a prison in Philadelphia by crab-walking up a wall, another man escaped from a London prison by hiding under a food delivery truck, and the “jailbreak king” went on trial in France.^{23 24 25} A criminal defense lawyer in Toronto said some of her clients would rather remain incarcerated than deal with the city’s housing crisis.²⁶ Police arrested a man wanted for armed robbery who had previously eluded them using cars, sailboats, bikes, paddleboards, and tractors.²⁷ A man was arrested after trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a giant hamster wheel, and Irish police detected more than 860 speeding drivers on “Slow Down Day.”^{28 29} A New Jersey business owner was arrested for using a drone to dye people’s swimming pools green, and Russia hired a priest to teach children how to fly combat drones.^{30 31} “I returned to the Russia of my dreams—or even better than my dreams,” said Viktor A. Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” who ran for regional office in Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Lenin.³² “We are not part of any mad cult or crazy clubs,” said a café in Lincolnshire, England, after they hosted a yoga session that a pair of passing dog walkers mistook for “ritual mass murder.”³³ A man in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to buying and selling human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary, and an ancient human skull was donated to a Goodwill in Arizona.^{34 35} In China, two construction workers looking for a shortcut dug a hole through a Ming dynasty-era part of the Great Wall, and a draft law was introduced that would ban people from wearing clothes that “hurt the nation’s feelings.”^{36 37}

A couple demanded Singapore Airlines reimburse them after they spent a 13-hour flight next to a snorting, drooling, and farting dog, Air Canada kicked two passengers off a flight for refusing to sit in seats with “visible vomit residue,” and a Delta plane flying from Atlanta to Barcelona was asked to turn around after a passenger had diarrhea “all the way through the airplane.”^{38 39 40} “I was shocked but I was also … a little bit impressed,” said the Australian owner of a plant nursery, after discovering a koala named Claude had eaten several thousand seedlings of plants intended to boost koala habitats in New South Wales.⁴¹ “He took three White Claws, drank, and left very happy,” said a Florida resident whose mini-fridge was broken into by a three-legged bear.⁴² More than 300 illegally trapped migratory songbirds, often used in singing competitions in which owners gamble thousands of dollars, were either released or given veterinary treatment after their captors were indicted.⁴³ “These birds are stressed right now,” said a researcher about flamingos that have been spotted as far west as Ohio as they flee Hurricane Idalia.⁴⁴ Australia declared “war” on feral cats, police shot the tires of a backhoe driven by a suspect who intended to knock down an animal shelter, and PawPatrol snacks were recalled after it was discovered that a URL on their packaging directed consumers to a porn website.^{45 46 47} A German shepherd snuck out of her owner’s house to attend a Metallica concert.⁴⁸ —Megan Evershed