Weekly Review

In the occupied West Bank, dozens of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and an American photojournalist during a harvest; Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was reported to have met more frequently with the Israeli prime minister than with the mayor of Philadelphia; and and a board member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party’s youth organization resigned after posting a map on social media that showed Luxembourg and Austria within Germany’s borders. Read More

The Pentagon confirmed that the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed; a Palantir executive claimed that many AI researchers have begun smoking cigarettes “as a way of signaling to other researchers” that they believe AI is “going to cure cancer”; and the mayor of Tirana, Albania, who is in jail awaiting trial on money-laundering and corruption charges, vowed to continue his work “from the cell” in an AI-generated video. Read More

The plot of a would-be hijacker was foiled in the skies above Saudi Arabia; the G7 voted to tap into its diesel-oil reserves to alleviate inflated costs since the outbreak of the U.S.–Israel war with Iran; and the wholesale retailer Costco announced that it would soon offer Medicare plans. Read More

U.N. delegates staged a mass walkout during the remarks of the Israeli prime minister, who branded the delegates as “moral cowards” and apostrophized the New York City mayor; Barack Obama suggested that AI may decide that humans are “fine but not necessary"; and Astronomers named an asteroid after Weird Al Yankovic. Read More

A top U.S. military advisor told American soldiers that they should prepare to fight in outer space; A Google official admitted that its AI model hacked into three companies during a cybersecurity test gone wrong; and Toys “R” Us announced that it would open 120 new stores thanks to an increase in the adult market for toys. Read More

The U.S. president skipped the ceremony in Manhattan, where politicians were not allowed to speak; high schoolers posted videos to TikTok with dance moves that pantomimed Charlie Kirk’s assassination; and a former James Bond actor announced plans to abandon his $100 million home. Read More

Roughly 50 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff were subjected to polygraph tests pertaining to leaks to journalists of information regarding the wartime shortage of critical munitions; an ICE agent who shot a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis made an initial appearance before a U.S. magistrate judge after being indicted on six counts of lying; Chinese regulators approved telepathy products to compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Read More

An Italian man was ordered to tear down a fake ancient Greek theater he had built and charged tourists to visit; a federal judge placed a temporary hold on a rule proposed by Trump, who voted by mail in Florida’s primary, to restrict mail voting; and Air France denied reports that a sauna in its Charles de Gaulle business-class lounge had been used by passengers as a “sex den.” Read More

It was reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement worked with the Iranian government to deport certain Iranian nationals to Tehran in the months leading up to the United States’ most recent bombing of the country; the Department of Homeland Security permitted the New York Police Department’s first independent use of its own drones to intercept unauthorized drones at the U.S. Open; and a Massachusetts police officer is under investigation for utilizing Flock’s camera network to stalk her ex-girlfriend, in one of at least 46 incidents wherein law enforcement agents have been accused or charged with abusing the technology. Read More

The Israeli finance minister stated that the Israel Defense Forces “cannot retreat one millimeter in the Gaza Strip”; Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced plans to spend up to $20 million on electric-shock gloves; Brazilian police recovered eight works by Henri Matisse after they were stolen during public viewing hours. Read More

A London weather station recorded its first month without rain since it began keeping records in 1871, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will equip its officers with body cameras and release footage when it is in its “best interests”; and capybaras strolled through the halls of the state legislative building in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state. Read More

At the 2026 AIDS conference, in Rio de Janeiro, U.S. State Department officials mislabeled every country on a map of Africa in a presentation likely generated with artificial intelligence; a Pennsylvania private school where two male students used AI to generate sexually explicit deepfakes of more than 50 female classmates asked a court to dismiss the resulting lawsuit; an OnlyFans model who has been accused of using dating apps to steal from wealthy men was arrested for her connection to the theft of luxury goods at a music festival. Read More

The U.S. president told a crowd at Wheeler High School, in Georgia, that communists want to destroy Mount Rushmore; hundreds of Russian children attended the Songdowon summer camp, which the British government sanctioned in May for its role in deporting and reeducating Ukrainian children; and the father of Jared Kushner, who is the U.S. president’s son-in-law, said he will relocate to Florida, explaining that he did not want to pay taxes to the mayor of New York. Read More

FBI managers received notice that the bureau would no longer investigate confrontations involving ICE agents; A Russian city-council candidate broke his spine after jumping from the second story of his apartment building to escape two police officers; and an Ohioan robocop was retired after failing to generate a single police report over the course of ten months. Read More

Lindsey Graham, who had recently returned from a trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, died at the age of 71; a 26-year-old American social-media influencer and self-identifying MAGA communist attended the state funeral and led such chants as “Down with the USA”; and a star 1,300 light-years away swallowed a planet in its orbit and may soon devour another celestial object with 22 times Jupiter’s mass. Read More

The Brooklyn Bridge briefly caught fire during a fireworks display; two Russian nationals scaled to the top of the spire of the Empire State building in supposed demonstration of the power of love and peace; a British Premier League soccer team donated more than 40 pairs of game-worn socks to a group of horses and donkeys who would wear them as protection from the bites of flies. Read More

At least eight people were sentenced to a minimum combined 450 years in prison for actions during an anti-ICE protest; in Europe, a major heat wave caused more than 1,000 excess deaths in France, including those of more than 40 swimmers who drowned while trying to beat the heat; and Canadians saw a 38.5 percent increase in confirmed tick reports as more species migrate from the United States. Read More

It was reported that several San Francisco gay bars use biometric facial-recognition devices, resembling those used by the TSA, to scan entering customers; the Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted to name June “Traditional Nuclear Family” month; and a set of couples reached a custody agreement after one mistakenly carried and birthed the other’s embryo due to a mix-up at the clinic where both received fertility treatment. Read More

The president entered the UFC crowd to the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck”; members of the Iranian men’s soccer team disembarked in North America wearing pins to commemorate the 168 people killed by a U.S. military strike on an elementary school in southern Iran earlier this year; and “Right hand of God,” said a power forward of the New York Knicks after his teammate scored a basket that would take them to what would become the final game of the NBA championship. Read More

The United States House of Representatives passed a bill to allocate aid to Ukraine and impose new sanctions on the Russian economy; Senator Dan Sullivan enjoined voters not to vote for his rival, also named Dan Sullivan, in the bid for his congressional seat; The U.S. president endorsed a New Jersey representative whose whereabouts have been unknown for months. Read More

The Bangladeshi government spared an albino buffalo named Donald Trump from religious sacrifice, citing security concerns; a Canadian doctor is under investigation for euthanizing a man he met and medically assessed outside the donut chain Tim Hortons; the White House X account posted a memorial for the ten-year anniversary of the death of Harambe, a gorilla who was shot and killed in 2016 at the Cincinnati Zoo. Read More

All charges against a group of anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement protestors were dropped as the top federal prosecutor of Chicago discovered evidence of ICE misconduct during the grand jury process; a Florida biologist was awarded a $485,000 settlement after being fired for reposting a meme criticizing Charlie Kirk’s stance on gun control after his death; and a Florida man who discovered $30,000 in the bathroom of a Wawa returned the money. Read More

In Norway, a fourteen-year-old boy, in his third bus theft in seven months, stole and drove a bus from Oslo to Kristiansand; in Atlanta, more than a dozen Waymo SUVs turned onto the same dead-end street; and in California, a dancing humanoid robot named Bebop delayed a flight from Oakland to San Diego after the size of its lithium battery was found to exceed airline regulations. Read More

A local council in Hachirogata, Japan, initiated a no-confidence vote against its mayor, who has been unconscious since February; the mayor of Cohutta, Georgia, fired the town’s entire police force after officers criticized his wife; and it was reported that the U.S. defense secretary has started bringing his wife to meetings at the Pentagon. Read More

Oil spills from the Iran War can be seen from space, with one spill spanning more than five miles across the Persian Gulf; the U.S. president said Iran has “not yet paid a big enough price” during his review of a new peace proposal from the country; it was reported that the price of eggs has more than doubled in Iran; and the price of gas in the United States has increased by 44 percent since the start of the conflict. Read More

In Paris, police officers probed possible weather-monitor device tampering after an “unusual” temperature spike coincided with a trader’s cashing in on a Polymarket bet related to the city’s temperature; the gambling platform Kalshi issued fines and suspended three U.S. political candidates from the platform for betting on their own campaigns; and a U.S. special operations soldier was charged with using classified intel to win more than $400,000 on Polymarket bets related to the capture of Venezuela’s president. Read More

In Los Angeles, California, three people were convicted of insurance fraud after one of them dressed up in a bear costume, broke into their vehicles, and blamed a bear for the damage; a woman sued the town of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, for sending her a cease-and-desist letter warning that she would be arrested if she continued recording interactions between residents and local geese; and it was reported that the band Geese is an industry plant. Read More

The U.S. president and the rapper Vanilla Ice sat together at a UFC fight in Miami while the vice president announced that the U.S. and Iran had not succeeded at reaching a peace deal; The Trump Administration announced plans to build an arch resembling France’s Arc de Triomphe; and an artificial intelligence company met with Catholic and Protestant leaders for spiritual advice in making its chatbot, Claude, a “child of god.” Read More

On Easter Sunday, Israeli attacks on Lebanon killed at least 11 and injured 39; and singers participating in Holy Week masses in the Lebanese capital of Beirut raised their voices to be heard over the sounds of low-flying fighter jets.1 2 It… Read More

An official investigator of a recent plane crash at LaGuardia International Airport in New York City was stuck in a security line for three hours at a Houston airport en route to the site; airport food vendors worked with the City of Philadelphia Department of Aviation on the longest-ever line of cheesesteaks; a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the former First Lady Jill Biden accidentally shot himself in the leg at the Philadelphia International Airport; and House Republicans rejected a Senate bill that would have extended funding for the Transit Security Administration, among other divisions of the Department of Homeland Security. Read More