Weekly Review
The Iranian government announced that it would exact “severe” retaliation against Israel for the assassination of a senior commander of Hezbollah in Beirut, which was carried out hours before Iranian agents commissioned by Israel’s intelligence agency assassinated the political chief of Hamas in Tehran.1 2 The United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan warned their citizens to evacuate Lebanon immediately, Greek intelligence warned of a “possible attempt to hit a target of Israeli interest in Greece,” and U.S. intelligence warned of an impending Iranian attack in Israel.3 4 5 In Nigeria, 13 people were killed during anti-inflation protests; in Bangladesh, at least 90 people were killed during protests demanding the prime minister’s resignation; and in England, far right protests erupted across the country after a misinformation campaign on social media spread false claims that the assailant in a knife attack that killed three girls at a dance class was an undocumented immigrant.6 7 8 A rare supercell tornado touched down in Spain, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck the Philippines, and Greece’s livestock association announced that though a deadly plague was spreading among sheep and goats, no significant decline was projected in the production of feta cheese.9 10 11
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris selected as her Democratic running mate for president Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former geography teacher and pheasant hunter; and independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted to finding a dead black bear on the side of the road during a falconry outing, and then loading it into his trunk, driving to a New York steakhouse for dinner, and dumping the corpse in Central Park next to a bicycle so as to make it appear as if a cyclist ran over and killed the animal.12 13 Louisiana legalized surgical castration for people convicted of child rape, a man was arrested in Georgia for licking a woman’s hair at a shopping mall, and a hotel employee in London was convicted of sexual assault for sneaking into guest rooms and licking women’s feet while they slept.14 15 16 Four members of an antiestablishment cult in England were arrested for attempting to kidnap a coroner, and Scotland reported a shortage of corpses for its medical students.17 18 A Texas woman sued a prosecutor who had charged her with murder for taking an abortion pill, a woman in Florida was arrested after police discovered a bag of drugs inside a bag labeled “bag of drugs,” and a Catholic priest in Austria was arrested for operating a meth lab in the rectory of his church.19 20 21 The Houston Police Department was found to have ignored more than 260,000 cases over an eight-year span, including sexual assaults and homicides; and a police officer in Arizona who recently received an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving was arrested for drunk driving.22 23 Google, which holds a global search-engine market share of 90 percent, lost its antitrust case after a federal judge ruled that the company “is a monopolist”; and a Florida cybersecurity firm announced that it had mistakenly hired a North Korean hacker for a remote IT job.24 25 26 “Egg,” said a company spokesman, “on our face.”27
In Indonesia, a 45-year-old man bludgeoned his 60-year-old neighbor to death for repeatedly asking him why he still wasn’t married, and a man stabbed another man to death over whether the chicken or the egg came first.28 29 A British man was jailed for eight months after a crime spree in which he robbed 19 stores of more than $3,000 worth of chocolate cream eggs, and a family in Georgia was arrested after one member began chasing another with a steak knife in a dispute about an unseasoned chicken.30 31 A leg washed ashore on a beach in Australia after a shark bit it off a surfer, and in England, a tide carried an ice cream truck out to sea.32 33 The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that “boneless chicken” can legally contain bones, a manager-in-training at a McDonald’s in Georgia who became frustrated with the store’s high volume of customers started a dumpster fire in the parking lot and posted a video of it online, and a four-year-old girl in New York was served a Burger King burger covered in the blood of an employee.34 35 36 “Mom,” said the child, “I don’t want ketchup.”37 —Joe Kloc
