Weekly Review

Marines in Mexico captured Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the fugitive leader of the drug cartel responsible for supplying the United States with the majority of its cocaine and heroin. Read More

In Italy, where more than 30,000 people die annually because of air pollution, the town of San Vitaliano banned the use of wood-burning pizza ovens. A British man in Kyrgyzstan was arrested on suspicion of racial hatred after he compared a sausage dish to a horse’s penis, and a priest in the Philippines was suspended by the Catholic Church for using a hoverboard during Christmas Eve Mass. China’s Communist Party released an official rap song featuring President Xi Jinping. “Corruption,” he rapped, “must be punished.” Read more... Read More

Christmas was banned in Somalia, and a ban on wearing "hats or clothes that resemble Santa Claus" continued in Brunei. Canada experienced a shortage of peppermint candy canes. A man in England dressed as Santa climbed through the window of a KFC wielding a knife, and it was reported that the number of people giving guns as Christmas gifts had increased since last year. "It is a significant gift," said a gun-shop owner, "to arm the people that you love." Read More

France’s National Front party, whose president, Marine Le Pen, recently compared Muslims praying in public to Nazi occupiers and was acquitted of hate-speech charges, won a record 6.8 million votes in regional elections. Danish legislators considered a measure that would allow authorities to seize jewelry, cash, and other valuables from refugees. Public schools in Los Angeles and Nashua, New Hampshire, were closed because of bomb threats, and a poll found that 30 percent of Republican primary voters support bombing Agrabah, the fictional city from Disney’s Aladdin. Continue reading... Read More

A survey of U.S. special-operations personnel found that 64 percent of male respondents believe women are not mentally tough enough to serve in commando units, and 20 female politicians won municipal office in the first Saudi Arabian election in which women were allowed to vote. A Norwegian study found that men have a better sense of direction than women, and a Florida man who was running from the police waded into a lake and was eaten by an alligator. “It’s not a bad idea,” said an officer, “to go into the water.” Read More

The porn actress known as Stoya accused the porn actor James Deen of rape. A 19-year-old named Bud Weisser was arrested for trespassing at a Budweiser brewery in Missouri; and, in Florida, an expert on driving under the influence was arrested for driving under the influence. Reddit users launched a campaign to deliver Christmas cards to the only child attending school on the Scottish island of Out Skerries.. The president of Mauritania was suspected of ending a championship soccer game out of boredom. Read more... Read More

Officials in Turkey said they would not apologize for shooting down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 fighter jet that was traveling through Turkish airspace near the Syrian border. Saudi Arabia announced that its Justice Ministry would sue a Twitter user who criticized its decision to execute a poet for apostasy as “ISIS-like.” The Islamic State killed four police officers in a drive-by shooting in Egypt, beat to death a 17-year-old Austrian girl in Syria who was attempting to flee the group, and launched an anti-smoking campaign. “Smoking,” reads the campaign slogan, “killed millions.” Read more... Read More

The Food and Drug Administration approved genetically engineered salmon for human consumption. Ethiopian Airlines operated its first flight staffed entirely by women, Salt Lake City elected its first openly gay mayor, and two 35-year-old men became the first gay couple to wed in Ireland. The National Institutes of Health announced that it would end its use of chimpanzees in biomedical experiments, and an animal-rights group sued a Louisiana amusement park for allowing a chimpanzee named Candy to smoke cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola. Read More... Read More

The Canadian Judicial Council was reviewing a judge’s behavior in a 2014 trial in which a 19-year-old woman alleged she had been sexually assaulted. “Why,” the judge had asked the woman, “couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” In Ontario, a woman was arrested for drunk driving after her nine-year-old son, who was in the car with her, called the police; in Ohio, a man was arrested after he forced a nine-year-old neighbor to drive him to a gas station to buy barbecue sauce; and in Florida, an officer scheduled to receive an award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving arrived at the ceremony too drunk to accept it. Read more... Read More

Two marshals in Marksville, Louisiana, were arrested after a body-camera video showed them shooting at a car they were chasing, killing the six-year-old boy sitting inside. A student at the University of California, Merced, was killed by university police after he stabbed four people on campus with a hunting knife. A hacking organization published the membership databases of several Ku Klux Klan websites. A Danish man appeared in a South African court this week on charges that he mutilated the genitals of his wife and at least six other women and kept their dried clitorises on a hook and in his freezer. Read more... Read More

A state-run Chinese newspaper wrote that the country was “not afraid to start a war” with the United States after the White House deployed a guided-missile destroyer near Pacific islands claimed by China. Kogalymavia Flight 9268 broke apart over the Sinai Peninsula en route from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to St. Petersburg, killing all 217 passengers and seven crew members. A 243-foot military surveillance blimp became unmoored in Aberdeen, Maryland, dragged a 6,700-foot tether across Pennsylvania that cut off power to tens of thousands of local residents, and crashed near Moreland Township, where the state police shot it about 100 times. Read more... Read More

A Swedish summer camp slated to be turned into an asylum center for migrants burned down, and it was reported that asylum seekers were entering Norway via its border with Russia by riding children's bicycles. A 27-year-old survivor of a 2011 terrorist attack in Norway was elected the deputy mayor of Oslo, and the attacker, Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people, was granted the right to sue the government for human rights violations. A hunter in Norway killed two moose with one shot before realizing they were in a zoo. "I had my mouth open," said the zoo's owner. Read more... Read More

Fifteen women withdrew from the Miss Iraq beauty pageant after at least two contestants received death threats. A Chinese airline vowed to take action after discovering a staff hazing ritual in which female flight attendants are forced into the overhead luggage bins by their male colleagues. Playboy announced that it would no longer publish fully nude photographs, and a naked woman destroyed a Subway restaurant in Alaska. The Australian fast-food chain Chicken Treat let a hen named Betty run its Twitter account. “0 j5cq0 OOOP 43 0 / g 2,” she tweeted. Read more... Read More

The president of FIFA’s Thai federation was suspended for 90 days for violating the organization’s ethics code, the mayor of Rome resigned after it was revealed that he charged more than $22,700 for personal outings and dinners to his official credit card, and John Ashe, a former president of the U.N. General Assembly, was charged with tax fraud for failing to declare to the IRS a $1.3 million bribe, which he used to lease a BMW, build a personal basketball court, purchase Rolexes, and pay off the mortgage on his house. “Everyone is expected to report all of their income,” said an IRS special agent, “including bribes.” Read more... Read More

A landslide in Guatemala buried 125 homes and killed more than 130 people, a candidate for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat named Augustus Sol Invictus admitted to killing a goat and drinking its blood in the Mojave Desert, and Utah representative Jason Chaffetz was chastised by a colleague for repeatedly interrupting Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, during a congressional hearing in which he called for the organization to be stripped of its federal funding. “Your compensation in 2009 was $353,000,” he told Richards. “Congratulations.” Read more...  Read More

An explosion of unknown origin occurred aboard a speedboat on which the president of the Maldives was riding, and British prime minister David Cameron denied that he put his genitals in the mouth of a dead pig. Martin Shkreli, head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, agreed to lower the cost of Daraprim, a drug that treats toxoplasmosis, after he was criticized for raising the price 5000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 a pill. “We’re doing something very good,” said Shkreli. Read more... Read More

In Toronto, fire-suppressing foam was accidentally released at the Pearson International Airport, covering an area equivalent to between two and three football fields. A woman was arrested on a flight to Chicago after she kissed and punched a flight attendant, a flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto was diverted when a seven-year-old bulldog in the cargo hold became too cold, and Mishka, an asthmatic sea otter in Seattle, was given an inhaler after she experienced trouble breathing because of nearby wildfire smoke. "We try," said a biologist working with her, "to make it as fun as possible.” Read More... Read More

More than 100 people were killed when a crane collapsed in Mecca’s Grand Mosque during a thunderstorm. President Obama announced that the United States would admit 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement over the next year, and the European Union presented a plan to settle 160,000 refugees among its member states. “This proposal,” said the European Commission’s president, “is quite modest.” Read more... Read More

The military rulers of Thailand rejected a new constitution, the war-crimes trial of the Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda began at the International Criminal Court, and the president of Guatemala resigned his post and was then arrested on charges of fraud and corruption. In Tennessee, a judge cited the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in his rejection of a straight couple’s divorce petition. “Tennessee's judiciary must now await the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court," he wrote, "as to what is not a marriage.” Read more... Read More

The Syrian government carried out air strikes and barrel bombings against rebels in the Damascus suburb of Douma, killing at least 150 civilians; Syrian rebels accused the Islamic State of using mustard gas on children; the head of an international gay-rights organization told the United Nations that the Islamic State has shot, stoned, beheaded, or pushed from tall buildings at least 30 gay, lesbian, and transgender people; and a study in Germany found that civil wars, political uprisings, and the spread of the Islamic State have improved air quality in the Middle East. “Negative NO2 trends,” the scientists wrote, “are associated with humanitarian catastrophes.” Read more... Read More

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter announced he would begin radiation therapy for brain cancer and said he hoped to see the eradication of the guinea worm before he dies. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally that drew at least 20,000 people in Mobile, Alabama; and poll found that 81 percent of North Carolina voters are unsure how they feel about Deez Nuts, a 15-year-old presidential candidate. “Anyone,” said Deez Nuts, “can run.” Read More

In Mississippi, a suit was filed challenging a state law that forbids adoption by same-sex couples; in Ohio, a judicial-conduct board announced that judges who perform marriages must wed same-sex couples; and the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who stopped issuing all marriage licenses when same-sex unions became legal, did not show up for work after receiving a court order to resume issuing licenses. Read more... Read More

The Islamic State captured at least 230 people in the Syrian town of al-Qaryatayn and threatened to behead a man for protesting the arrests of Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated women in Egypt. Nineteen girls held hostage by the group in Mosul, Iraq, were executed for refusing to have sex with soldiers, and the United Nations confirmed the authenticity of an Islamic State pamphlet listing the prices of its sex slaves. “The girls get peddled,” said one U.N. official, “like barrels of petrol.” Read more... Read More

Thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants attempted to reach England by entering the Channel Tunnel in Calais, France, and jumping onto passing trucks and freight trains. French authorities sent 120 riot police, equipped with dogs and tear gas, to assist the 60 officers who were already blocking the migrants’ passage. A Sudanese man was killed while trying to hop on a truck, becoming the ninth migrant since June to have died while attempting to cross into Britain. “It’s an incredible place,” said British prime minister David Cameron, “to live.”Read more... Read More

Mississippi authorities began investigating a suspicious car accident that resulted in the death of a black man who was an advocate for the Confederate flag. A former Baltimore police officer was told by a venue owner in Glen Burnie, Maryland, that he couldn’t perform in blackface at a fundraiser for the officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died in police custody. Police in Texas released a video of the arrest of Sandra Bland, a black woman who later hanged herself in jail, showing an officer pointing a stun gun at Bland and saying, “I will light you up.”  Read more... Read More

A man kills four Marines and a Navy sailor in Tennessee, the Islamic State’s chief singer-songwriter dies in an airstrike, and a squirrel is detained for stalking Read More

South Carolina removes the Confederate flag from its State House, El Chapo escapes from prison again, and the soundtrack to a pornographic film plays over the PA system of a Target in California Read More

Boko Haram kills 200 villagers in Nigeria, the mayor of Sacramento files for a restraining order against his city, and a teenager in Arkansas finds a four-inch centipede in his ear. Read More

The United States legalizes same-sex marriage, the Islamic State bombs a Shiite mosque, and a man named Rod is struck by lighting Read More

A white gunman massacres nine African Americans at a church in South Carolina, Pope Francis calls Earth a “pile of filth,” and North Korea claims to have developed a cure for AIDS  Read More