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