Weekly Review

“Congratulations world, it’s time for peace!” the U.S. president posted online before announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran; Armenian clergymen jostled with security forces outside a church headquarters before an archbishop was arrested for allegedly plotting a coup; a man called Patches Magickbeans crashed his van through a construction site while allegedly on hallucinogenic mushrooms. Read More

Iran launched a strike at a U.S. military base in Qatar; an Iranian missile struck an Israeli hospital; Israel bombed Iran’s state-news station during a live broadcast; Palestinians were locked out of bomb shelters in Israel; and digital billboards in Tel Aviv that earlier in the week had read MR. PRESIDENT, FINISH THE JOB!, now read THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT! Read More

A surge of pizza delivery orders was reported around the Pentagon hours before the Israeli government began bombing Iran, Hong Kong’s national security department ordered citizens to uninstall a Taiwanese mobile game app that it claims promotes independence from China through an “overthrow” of “the communist regime,” and the Conservancy of Southwest Florida announced that in the past 12 years it put to death 40,000 pounds of pythons. Read More

In suburban Detroit, employees on the beta production line of an “anti-Tesla,” Jeff Bezos-funded EV startup assembled cars to Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You” and Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield”; and in Newark, the U.S. president proceeded to his cageside seats at a UFC fight as Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” played. Read More

Explosions caused two bridges bordering Ukraine in western Russia to collapse; Elon Musk bade farewell to the White House, sporting a black eye he attributed to his five-year-old son; and a man jumped into a pit of ancient terracotta warriors in Xi’an, China. Read More

Two hundred and twenty cryptocurrency executives, influencers, and a former NBA player spent a collective $148 million to attend a black-tie gala hosted by the U.S. president to promote his cryptocurrency business; the U.S. Treasury announced a plan to halt the minting of pennies; and the Pentagon announced that it had accepted a “megajet,” valued between $200 and $400 million, from Qatar’s government to be used for presidential travel. Read More

Winnipeg, Manitoba, was briefly the hottest major city in the world; a Northeastern University student requested a tuition refund after learning that her professor asked a chatbot to provide her with “really nice feedback”; and it was reported that neighbors in Richmond, California, had found at least 50 dead birds on the streets and in their yards since February. Read More

It was reported that ravioli had been banned from being served to the College of Cardinals for fear that the stuffed pasta might contain secret messages, an MIT professor calculated a 90 percent probability that advanced artificial intelligence would someday pose an existential threat to humanity, and an 8-year-old boy in Kentucky ordered 70,000 Dum-Dums with his mother’s phone. Read More

Millions of dimes rolled onto a highway in Wise County, Texas, after the truck transporting them tipped over; Sovereignty edged out Journalism to win the Kentucky Derby; and the U.S. president posted an AI-generated photo of himself as the pope. Read More

A woman in Florida was arrested for impersonating an ICE agent in order to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife, Estonia’s government has begun “stockpiling ‘dragon’s teeth,’ barbed wire, and mines” near the Russian border, and Elon Musk could be the father of more than one hundred children. Read More

It was reported that the record-high average egg price of $6.23 per dozen had caused many Americans to celebrate Easter by painting potatoes and rocks, a California gubernatorial candidate proposed allowing undocumented women to remain in the country on the condition that they “marry one of our Californian incels,” and the Texas school district of Lamar banned Virginia’s state flag from classrooms due to its illustration of the Roman goddess Virtus’s exposed breast. Read More

U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a notice that smartphones would be temporarily exempted from reciprocal tariffs; lawful permanent resident and Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by ICE agents at his naturalization interview in White River Junction, Vermont; and the U.S. secretary of education confused AI with A.1. steak sauce. Read More

A 24-year-old American was arrested by the Indian Navy for bringing the world’s most isolated tribe a can of Coke, sea lions have become more violent due to a neurotoxin present in algae, and a man claimed to have been in his thirties at the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War. Read More

Confidential British military documents were found littering the streets in Newcastle, England; Mexico banned the sale of junk food on school premises; and a goat in South Carolina freed a captive kangaroo. Read More

It was announced that the pope would return to Vatican City to take a two-month rest, the founder of Pirate’s Booty attempted to overthrow his village’s government, and two professional soccer clubs in Bulgaria observed a minute of silence to mourn the death of a 78-year-old former player who was still alive. Read More

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