Weekly Review

The arrest and planned deportation of Mahmoud Khalil was justified under the Cold War–era Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, an attorney at the Department of Justice said she was fired because she refused to restore Mel Gibson’s right to own a gun, and two Japanese tourists were detained for two weeks and then deported from China after one of them exposed his butt in a photograph on the Great Wall. Read More

A group of Swedish citizens announced that they would protest U.S. policy shifts against Europe by boycotting Netflix. “I had to,” said the organizer, “do something.” Read More

Zelensky took his leave of the White House early, without reaching a peace agreement, and White House officials tucked into a lunch of rosemary roasted chicken and crème brûlée that had been prepared for Trump’s affronted Ukrainian visitors. Read More

The Trump Administration fired the only locksmith at Yosemite National Park, who holds all of the park keys, which are sometimes used to help rescue visitors locked in park bathrooms. Read More

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” wrote the president on social media, a sentiment expressed by the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik that has been attributed to the French imperial dictator Napoleon Bonaparte. Read More

Lithuania reported that it is maintaining a stable supply of power after disconnecting its energy grid from Russia and Belarus, and Sri Lanka said that its entire population of 22 million people was cut off from power by a monkey who broke into a power station. Read More

A man at Quantico was photographed painting over a mural bearing the words Integrity, Cooperativeness, Stability, Diversity, Respect. Read More

Two Sumatran corpse flowers, Sydney’s Putricia and New York City’s Smelliot, bloomed on either side of the globe, luring in thousands of visitors as they released an odor variously described as redolent of “briny, dead fish,” “hot garbage,” and “poo.” Read More

On Inauguration Day, Joe Biden announced pardons for his family members in the final twenty minutes of his presidency, and Donald Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 people involved in the January 6 riot in the first hours of his. Read More

The Belgian government warned its citizens not to eat their discarded Christmas trees. Read More

A man in Maryland was arrested outside a Catholic church after dropping an onion in the aisle on his way to the altar, pouring whisky in the holy water, and throwing tangerines at the congregant who escorted him out of the mass. Read More

In Texas, a school district removed the Bible from classrooms under a new law banning sexually explicit or vulgar books. Read More

A company that made robots for children with autism announced that they had run out of money and that parents should inform their kids that the robotic friends would soon die. Read More

At the UnitedHealthcare headquarters in Minnetonka, Minnesota, a flag emblazoned with the company’s logo flew at half-mast, and a shooter lookalike contest was held in New York City’s Washington Square Park. Read More

The Anchorage, Alaska, fire department asked local residents not to explode frozen turkeys in boiling grease; a wild turkey smashed through the window of a Montana home and roosted on the homeowner’s bar; and, at a Thanksgiving dinner in Memphis, Tennessee, a grandmother stabbed both her daughter and her grandson in their left hands. Read More

132 hamsters broke free of their cages in the cargo hull of a Portuguese commercial airplane and stormed the cabin, grounding the craft for four days. Read More

In Tromsø, Norway, fishermen trawling for halibut caught the USS Virginia, a nuclear-powered submarine armed with cruise missiles. Read More

Residents in Colorado Springs voted on one ballot initiative banning the sale of recreational marijuana and another allowing the sale of recreational marijuana. “Both,” said the city in a statement following the election, “have been approved.” Read More

In Michigan, it was reported that a man living in the woods of the Upper Peninsula captured video of himself being “knocked out cold” by what he claimed was a bigfoot. Read More

In Iowa, a North Liberty man was arrested for strangling a woman with the American flag. Read More

A 10-month-old fire station in Stadtallendorf burned to the ground after flames in the building went undetected because no one had installed a fire alarm. Read More

“It can wait,” Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson said of reconvening Congress to approve additional disaster funding. Read More

It was reported that Israel’s prime minister rejected a ceasefire deal with Hamas because he worried he’d lose his job, and that Hamas’s leader rejected terms for a ceasefire with Israel because he was hoping for the conflict to draw more countries into war. Read More

During a televised debate for the mayoralty of São Paulo, a candidate who worked as a crime-show host walked across the stage and struck a rival with a steel chair. Read More

Vladimir Putin implored his citizenry to have sex on their lunch breaks to boost Russia’s birthrate. Read More

An infantile pygmy hippopotamus took Thailand by storm; the English transliteration of her name, Moo Deng, would be “bouncy pig” or “pork patty.” Read More

It was reported that Vladimir Putin’s secret sons enjoy pretending to be Disney characters. Read More

In Australia, workers gained the right to ignore their bosses outside of work hours. Read More

At an aquarium in Sydney, a gay gentoo penguin mourned his partner’s passing through song, rousing the colony to join in his dirge. Read More

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose 49-day premiership was outlived by a head of iceberg lettuce, alleged that a group of “far-left activists” had “suppress[ed] free speech” after they unveiled a poster of the victorious vegetable behind her during a stop on her pro-Trump speaking tour. Read More