Weekly Review
On World Water Day, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was “deliberately causing thirst” in Gaza, where only 1 in 5 households has access to safe drinking water, while the World Food Programme warned that famine was imminent along the northern part of the Gaza Strip.1 2 3 4 “We have the food ready to go in, we just can’t get in,” said the program’s executive director.5 Israel informed the United Nations that it would bar the issuance of food rations to northern Gaza by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the United States Congress passed a measure that would cut all U.S. funding to the UNRWA.6 7 8 Ramadan, the Islamic month observed with periods of fasting, continued in Gaza, with prayers conducted in the midst of wreckage of bombed buildings.9 10 The Israeli Defense Forces initiated a weeklong and as yet ongoing raid of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital; “accessing al-Shifa is now impossible, and there are reports of health workers being arrested and detained,” said the director-general of the World Health Organization.11 Palestinian Mother’s Day passed without fanfare in Gaza, where a mother had been unable to supply her infant triplets with food for the early days of Israel’s incursion on al-Shifa.12 “This is the biggest cohort of pediatric amputees in history,” a surgeon of pediatric trauma said of the record number of children injured in the war on Gaza.13 Israel’s war will proceed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cadre of American senators from the Republican Party, in a meeting in which he underreported the death toll in Gaza.14 15 Jared Kushner, Senior Adviser to the President during the Trump Administration, advocated the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza for the sake of capitalizing on what he described as “waterfront property” that is “very valuable.”16 “We see our history in their eyes: a story of displacement and dispossession, a national identity questioned and denied, forced emigration, discrimination, and now hunger,” said Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Palestinians on St. Patrick’s Day at the White House, before endorsing a ceasefire.17 His words brought President Joe Biden to tears.18
Biden unveiled plans to forgive $6 billion in student loan debt for some 80,000 public service workers, and ahead of election stumping in Wisconsin met privately with the losingest coach in series-deciding games in NBA history; the two did not discuss strategy.19 20 21 The House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that could ban the social-media app TikTok.22 The U.S. Department of Justice was joined by 15 states in a lawsuit filed against Apple for antitrust violations.23 Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer indicated that he may support the adoption of term limits for officers of the court.24 Lawyers for Donald Trump indicated that the former president was too cash poor to post his $454 million bond, and that none of the 30 would-be lenders he approached for loans would grant him the sum.25 Senate approval of a $1.2 trillion spending bill averted a government shutdown.26 Former President Barack Obama made a visit of uncertain purpose to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street.27 After weeks of absence from the public eye, Catherine, Princess of Wales, appeared in a video announcing her cancer diagnosis.28
King Charles III was reported not to have died.29 “We’ll have to see,” said Trump of the prospect of deporting Prince Harry in the event that the former wins the presidential election.30 Godzilla was named police chief of Tokyo for a day.31 A Floridian huntsman fired a head shot at a man whom he mistook for a turkey.32 Martha Stewart proselytized a dish that splices the extremities of a lobster onto the torso of a chicken.33 Joni Mitchell returned her music to Spotify, terminating her two-year boycott of the platform.34 A study found the chemical basis for why children smell of flowers, while adolescents smell “goatlike.”35 “I out-ate Ozempic,” said the comedian Tracy Morgan of his time on the weight-loss drug, which was fruitless.36 A burglar in a catsuit was caught on camera performing calisthenics and stretching before her caper; she stands accused of stealing almond croissants from a bakery.37 Beyoncé projected an advertisement for her upcoming record onto the façade of the Guggenheim Museum; she did not request the institution’s permission to do so.38 Upon arriving to Puerto Rico, Vice President Kamala Harris danced along to the disparaging song with which locals greeted her; when an aide translated its lyrics, she stopped.39 Dancing will remain illegal in the city of Berlin this Good Friday.40 The Paris Olympic Games overturned a pandemic-era intimacy ban for athletes in the Olympic Village, and planned to disburse 300,000 condoms.41 A swarm of bees interrupted a tennis match at the Indian Wells Open.42 The vernal equinox heralded the arrival, in the Northern Hemisphere, of spring.43 —Lake Micah
