Weekly Review
After six hostages were found dead in southern Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets demanding a ceasefire deal, and the country’s largest union called a general strike, disrupting several sectors of the Israeli economy.1 2 3 The Israeli National Labor Board ordered an end to the strike, calling it “political and illegal.”4 In a press conference in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the families of hostages for forgiveness and promised to “hurt Hamas in a way Israel hasn’t done before.”5 Hamas warned Netanyahu that more captives will return to Israel “in coffins” if military raids continue in Gaza, and protesters carrying coffins broke through police barriers near Netanyahu’s home.6 7 8 Britain announced that it will suspend some arms sales to Israel, citing a “clear risk” that the weapons could be used to violate international law, and when asked if Netanyahu was “doing enough” to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal, President Biden answered “no,” and walked away.9 10 In Germany, a far-right party won a state election for the first time since 1945.11 “People want change,” said one of the party’s leaders, who was fined twice for appropriating the Nazi slogan “Everything for Germany” during his campaign.12 A German warship blasted the “Imperial March” from Star Wars as it sailed along the Thames in London; the choice of music had “no deeper message,” the German navy said.13 In the Dominican Republic, the United States seized a plane used by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.14 An “outright criminal,” an “evil tyrant,” and a “very evil dictator,” Elon Musk said about a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who blocked access to X nationwide and froze Starlink’s bank accounts after Musk refused to appoint a legal representative in Brazil and pay millions in outstanding fines; Musk’s Starlink said it will not comply with the court order to block X in Brazil.15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Approximately 10,000 hotel workers went on strike in eight American cities during Labor Day weekend and hundreds of ride-share drivers voted to strike at Nashville International Airport, promising “more ruined vacations” for tourists; in Australia, workers gained the right to ignore their bosses outside of work hours. The U.S. National Institutes of Health announced it will stop researching Havana syndrome, a mysterious condition said to have affected CIA officers and diplomats in Cuba, after documents revealed that patients were coerced into joining the study and suggested the symptoms were “spurred by stress.”22 23 24 25 26 A former day-care worker in Australia admitted to abusing some 60 young girls, and after reports emerged of his having fired his entire VFX team, Francis Ford Coppola confirmed that he walked around the set of his upcoming film Megalopolis hugging and kissing several female extras, but that “they were young women [he] knew.”27 28 29 30 Two rugby players accused of rape returned to France, and a Frenchwoman who was drugged by her husband and raped by more than 50 men over the span of a decade showed up in court “completely determined” to face her husband and attackers.31 32 33 “I think they love me. I love them,” Donald Trump said of married women after praising their husbands for “allowing” them to attend his campaign rallies alone. In Washington, moms of Moms for Liberty embraced Trump for president.34 35
Scientists found more than 1,700 frozen viruses in a glacier in the Tibetan plateau, and that last year’s wildfires in Canada released 647 megatonnes of greenhouse gasses, surpassing the emissions of most countries in the world.36 37 38 Floods killed at least 14 people in the Philippines, 59 in Bangladesh, and nearly 200 in Nigeria, and caused tons of dead fish to inundate a port city in Greece.39 40 41 42 43 In Marseille, a museum welcomed nude visitors at its “Naturist Paradises” exhibition, and in California, police discovered the remains of an elderly nudist couple in a concrete bunker beneath the home of their neighbor.44 45 An environmental group called for an investigation into former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allegedly chainsawing the head of a dead whale and transporting it across state lines on the roof of his car, humpback whales were added to the list of animals known to make and use tools for hunting, and a Beluga whale accused of being a Russian spy called Hvaldimir was found dead in Norway; he was a “sweet, loving, kind, and gentle angel,” said a member of OneWhale, a nonprofit created solely to protect Hvaldimir.46 47 48 49 A British swimmer beat the women’s record for the fastest swim across Lake Geneva, and a swimmer who refers to himself as “The Shark” will attempt to cross Lake Michigan after failing to do it three times since 2023.50 51 A year after losing half her leg in a shark attack, the swimmer Ali Truwit joined the U.S. team at the Paralympic Games.52 A marijuana seller in Ohio was fined $150,000 for handing out free ice cream, hundreds of boxes of french fries shut down a freeway in Los Angeles after a semi-truck crash, and a bear climbed into a parked car to steal a bag of chips in New Hampshire.53 54 55 A truckload of watermelons was seized at the U.S.-Mexico border after authorities discovered that some of the watermelons were actually packages of methamphetamine wrapped in watermelon-print paper, which the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency called a “seedy situation.”56 57 —Clarissa Fragoso Pinheiro
