Weekly Review
In the United States, the White House announced a 25 percent tariff on the import of all foreign-made passenger vehicles, and the domestic automaker Ford recalled several vehicles with transmission issues that may cause cars to move forward when shifted into reverse.1 2 3 A Canadian woman ran over a woman who was standing in a parking spot that she planned to save for another vehicle, and the Iranian government said that it would strike British forces stationed on a nearby island if attacked by the United States.4 5 The U.S. defense secretary travelled to Manila to announce that he would provide the Philippines with advanced military equipment because “friends need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to deter conflict,” and the U.S. president said he will “go as far as we have to go” to take control of Greenland.6 7 Denmark announced that it will begin drafting women into the military in 2026, North Korea deployed an additional 3,000 soldiers to assist Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, and an Israeli soldier told American reporters that the IDF commanded him to use Gazans as “human shields.”8 9 10 The U.S. national security advisor accidentally added a journalist to a group chat with the secretary of state and the director of national intelligence wherein they discussed plans to drop bombs on Yemen; confidential British military documents were found littering the streets in Newcastle, England; and journalists in Indonesia were sent a mutilated pig’s head and the bodies of six decapitated rats in the mail.11 12 13 14 “Just,” said a presidential spokesperson, “cook it.”15
Mexico banned the sale of junk food on school premises, a school district in Ohio said Christian groups could no longer offer toys and candy to lure students to enroll in Bible courses, and a schoolteacher in Phoenix was arrested for urinating into a can while teaching his sixth grade class, crediting the behavior to his military training.16 17 18 A former police officer in Australia who tased to death a 95-year-old woman in a nursing home was given 450 hours of community service as penalty, a judge ruled that it is unconstitutional for the state of Texas to hold the majority of its 130,000 prisoners in temperatures above 100 degrees but refused to order the installation of air-conditioning units due to cost concerns, and a video surfaced of a pastor in Maryland who directed ushers at his church to keep the doors closed until his parishioners collectively donated $40,000.19 20 21 The genetic-testing and ancestry company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy and plans to sell its 15 million customers’ DNA profiles, and Dollar Tree announced that it would sell off Family Dollar for 12 cents on the dollar.22 23 24 A nurse in Utah was accused of convincing her patient that she had terminal cancer and then killing her with a fatal dose of insulin in an attempt to collect her $1.5 million life insurance policy, and several police officers in North Bergen, New Jersey, sued their chief for defecating in office trash cans, shaving his body on their desks, and spiking their coffee mugs with Viagra.25 26
Archeologists in England excavated a cache of 2,000-year-old cauldrons, paleontologists in Australia identified a new species of fish from a 16-million-year-old fossil in which the creature’s last meal was still intact, and an unknown pathogen caused Russians to cough up blood.27 28 29 Declassified documents revealed the existence of a 36-year-old C.I.A. experiment wherein psychics aimed to locate the Arc of the Covenant, and researchers uncovered the manuscript of a 700-year-old tale of King Arthur’s court that had been reused by Elizabethans as a book cover.30 31 Lawmakers in Florida’s senate considered making it legal for 14-year-olds to work graveyard shifts on school nights, and a 19-year-old employee of the U.S. government efficiency department who is charged with downsizing the Department of Homeland Security was reported to have two years earlier provided tech support for a cybercrime ring.32 33 Three teenage girls were arrested in Texas for attempting to kill their mother with knives and a brick for turning off the Wi-Fi router, and a babysitter in Kansas checked for a monster under a child’s bed and discovered a 27-year-old man.34 35 A goat in South Carolina freed a captive kangaroo, a man in New York invented a Tamagotchi that dies if its owner stops vaping, a wildfire in South Korea burned to the ground all but the ceremonial bell of a 1,300 year old Buddhist temple, and in Japan, two companies 3D-printed a train station.36 37 38 39 —Joe Kloc
