In a single evening, Ukraine and Russia carried out their largest drone strikes against each other in more than two years of war; Ukrainian officials announced the next day that the country had been attacked by at least 145 Iranian-made Russian drones, some of which had been launched from Belarus and Moldova; and Russian leaders said they had intercepted at least 84 Ukrainian drones over six regions, accidentally setting four Moscow-area homes on fire in the process.^{1 2 3 4} Russia prepared tens of thousands of troops to retake the Ukrainian-occupied Russian Kursk region, which is home to 1 million people and which the country lost over the summer while its army was seizing Ukrainian land in the Donbas, where more than 6 million people reside; and some 10,000 North Korean troops who were sent to Russia to assist in the country’s invasion of Ukraine were reportedly given full internet access for the first time and began “gorging on pornography.”^{5 6 7 8 9} It was reported that the Russian government might block nighttime internet usage and establish a Ministry of Sex to address declining birth rates, after laying off about 10 percent of its public-sector employees because digitization made their jobs irrelevant.^{10 11} The Chinese government built a prototype nuclear reactor to increase the range of its aircraft carriers; the American government said it would incorporate artificial intelligence into the decision-making protocols for its more than 5,000 nuclear weapons; and the Catholic Church revealed that, for several weeks, it had flown a drone fleet around Vatican City at night in order to take more than 400,000 photographs, which it then used, along with artificial intelligence, to build a digital replica of the Basilica that worshipers can access without leaving their homes: “St. Peter’s,” said Microsoft’s president, “for the times we live in.”^{12 13 14 15}  

Hackers stole 40 gigabytes of data from a French energy company and demanded a ransom of one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of baguettes; a fight broke out on a Paris commuter train among a group of teenagers wielding bats, knives, an axe, and a samurai sword; and in Poland, a driver thought he had struck and killed a man at a crosswalk only to discover that the corpse had fallen out of the back of a hearse.^{16 17 18} A hitman in India turned his employer over to the police after failing to receive payment for killing someone; the St. Louis prosecutor’s office announced that it had not received reimbursement from the Missouri Department of Revenue, accusing the latter of being “late in paying us to prosecute taxpayers who are late in paying them”; and Nigeria’s president ordered prosecutors to drop charges of treason against more than 30 children arrested for protesting the high cost of basic goods after four of them collapsed in the courtroom from malnourishment.^{19 20 21 22} A playground built beneath a bridge in Ohio burst into flames; Argentine lawmakers were reported to be considering repealing a 1974 law that allows the president to become the godparent of any family’s seventh same-sex child as a way of preventing it from becoming a werewolf; and residents in Colorado Springs voted on one ballot initiative banning the sale of recreational marijuana and another allowing the sale of recreational marijuana.^{23 24 25} “Both,” said the city in a statement following the election, “have been approved.”²⁶

TGI Fridays said in a bankruptcy filing that it probably couldn’t honor some $49.7 million in never-expiring gift cards, the Hertz rental car company attempted to fine a customer $10,000 for using its “unlimited miles” deal to drive 25,000 miles in a single month, and it was reported that an ambulance in Oregon hit a 71-year-old cyclist, loaded him into the vehicle, drove him to the hospital, and then billed him $1,862 for the ride.^{27 28 29} Around 100,000 students from Zhengzhou, China, cycled 50 kilometers in the middle of the night in search of soup dumplings; a family in Ashland County, Ohio, asked tourists to stop visiting their property to photograph their 50,000-pound concrete replica of an ancient Stargate from the television show of the same name in which such portals send travelers across space and time; Mattel dolls made in the likenesses of The Wizard of Oz’s witches were pulled from stores because their packaging directed children to a porn site; and a Russian state news channel aired nude photos of former U.S. First Lady Melania Trump as newscasters reported on her husband, Donald, who, since launching his successful campaign for 45th presidency of the United States in 2015, told supporters that being eaten by a shark was better than being electrocuted, said that he wanted to purchase Greenland, claimed that American bowel movements require fifteen flushes, speculated that the hairspray he uses to maintain his “gorgeous head” does not contribute to climate change because he keeps his windows closed while spraying it, stared directly into a solar eclipse as his aide shouted “Don’t!,” told a widower that her husband was looking up at her from hell, denied his first ex-wife’s accusation that he assaulted her in a fit of rage after a botched operation to reduce the size of his bald spot, buried his first ex-wife near his New Jersey golf course, recounted to a group of boy scouts the details of a decades-old cocktail party featuring a pro-segregation real estate developer that was attended by the “hottest people” in New York, repeatedly praised a fictional serial killer, said that “Second Amendment people” could “maybe” kill his opponent, accused congress members who didn’t clap for one of his addresses of treason, reportedly condoned the idea of his supporters’ killing his vice president for certifying the presidential election he lost, said black Americans should vote for him because he was “discriminated against” when he was arrested and charged in Georgia with attempting to subvert the state’s vote tally in that same election, and said he would act for one day as a dictator if he was reelected as the 47th president, which he was, by a margin of almost 4 million votes.^{30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50} —Joe Kloc