<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Harper&#039;s Magazine</title> <atom:link href="https://harpers.org/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link></link> <description></description> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:36:55 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1</generator> <image> <url>https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cropped-android-chrome-512x512-1-32x32.png</url> <title>Harper&#039;s Magazine</title> <link></link> <width>32</width> <height>32</height> </image> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/04/weekly-review-passenger-vehicles-tariffs-manila-shoulder-to-shoulder-go-as-far-as-we-have-to-go-pig-head-tased-to-death-close-the-doors-king-arthur-graveyard-shift/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2025 15:30:20 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292384</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/04/weekly-review-passenger-vehicles-tariffs-manila-shoulder-to-shoulder-go-as-far-as-we-have-to-go-pig-head-tased-to-death-close-the-doors-king-arthur-graveyard-shift/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap"><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/autos-tariffs-trump-tax-imports-ford-gm-e53823ef7bbb7b3c46d11eca90aaa638" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-adjusts-imports-of-automobiles-and-automobile-parts-into-the-united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wdbj7.com/2025/03/24/ford-issues-recall-several-vehicles-potentially-driving-forward-while-reverse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-pedestrian-run-over-st-james-1.7491149" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-target-britain-chagos-trump-190837067.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/southchinasea/2025/03/28/us-philippines-military-hardware-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/trump-us-control-greenland/story?id=120208823" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} 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.”^{<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/denmark-draft-women-military-amid-greenland-russia-tensions-2051366" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/noth-korea-3000-troops-russia-ukraine-rcna198123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-soldier-palestinians-human-shields-gaza/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-officials-in-signal-group-chat/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/28/confidential-british-army-documents-found-scattered-on-newcastle-streets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/28/intimidation-journalists-indonesia-pig-heads-rats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} “Just,” said a presidential spokesperson, “cook it.”^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/28/intimidation-journalists-indonesia-pig-heads-rats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.^{<a href="https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/health/mexico-bans-junk-food-sales-in-schools-in-its-latest-salvo-against-child-obesity/article_40989bfe-84aa-534e-9595-bdb02eaf63a9.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/columbus-school-district-bans-candy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wibw.com/2025/03/22/elementary-school-teacher-accused-urinating-can-front-his-class/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kristian-white-former-australian-officer-killed-95-year-old-woman-stun-gun-no-prison/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-heat-prison-air-conditioning-judge-ruling-5d25ef8d7229c9e37cd73b4730eb1d4b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fox26houston.com/news/marvin-sapp-close-doors-40000-donations-20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-03-29/23andme-bankruptcy-genetic-testing-privacy-dna" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dollar-tree-sellling-family-dollar-1-billion-private-equity/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&amp;linkId=783975041" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-8-5-billion-deal-dollar-tree-to-buy-family-dollar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/utah-nurse-accused-murder-faking-patients-terminal-cancer-diagnosis-claim-1m-insurance-policy-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.whiskeyriff.com/2025/03/29/new-jersey-police-chief-sued-for-pranking-his-officers-by-putting-viagra-in-their-coffee-pooping-by-their-desks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/world/europe/melsonby-iron-age-find-uk.html?smid=re-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/28/science/fossilized-fish-16-million-meal-australia/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/26426-mysterious-virus-in-russia-causes-severe-illness-and-bloody-coughing.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/archaeology-around-the-world/article-847774" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250324-the-magical-medieval-tale-revealed-by-a-100000-dollar-camera" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-senate-panel-advances-bill-to-further-roll-back-child-labor-restrictions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-27/doge-staff-big-balls-provided-tech-support-to-cybercrime-ring/105101466" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://abc13.com/post/3-houston-teen-sisters-arrested-trying-kill-mom-she-turned-off-wi-fi-hcso-says/16077928/?utm_source=fark&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_content=link&amp;ICID=ref_fark" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/babysitter-man-under-child-bed-kansas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/03/24/kangaroo-escape-goat-Horry-County-South-Carolina/2481742825417/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} ^{<a href="https://screenshot-media.com/culture/internet-culture/new-york-vaping-invention-tamagotchi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/25/asia/south-korea-wildfires-temple-destroyed-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} ^{<a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Transportation/Japan-builds-world-s-first-3D-printed-train-station" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39 </a>}</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">—Joe Kloc</span></em></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/04/weekly-review-passenger-vehicles-tariffs-manila-shoulder-to-shoulder-go-as-far-as-we-have-to-go-pig-head-tased-to-death-close-the-doors-king-arthur-graveyard-shift/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-insurrection-secret-service-benadryl-population-estime-openai-pilot-south-african-nightclub-pirates-booty-overdue-library-i-poured-myself-a-small-brandy/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2025 15:30:12 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292225</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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. </p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-insurrection-secret-service-benadryl-population-estime-openai-pilot-south-african-nightclub-pirates-booty-overdue-library-i-poured-myself-a-small-brandy/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap">In Turkey, the opposition party’s supporters accused the government of orchestrating the arrest of their party’s presidential candidate; judges in South Korea overturned the impeachment of their prime minister, making him the country’s acting leader in lieu of the currently impeached president, who is under investigation for leading an insurrection; the president of the United States, who was impeached for incitement of insurrection four years ago, revoked his predecessor’s security clearance and his predecessor’s children’s Secret Service protection; Iceland’s minister for children resigned after it was revealed that she had a child with a teenager 35 years ago; and it was announced that the pope would return to Vatican City to take a two-month rest.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/turkey-mayor-jailed-istanbul-f962743f724f00a318f84ffaed7f58de" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/turkish-opposition-party-members-others-head-polls-primary-election-2025-03-23/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-opposition-seeks-boycott-pro-erdogan-media-over-failure-cover-protests-2025-03-24/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/world/europe/turkey-protests-istanbul-erdogan-imamoglu.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-impeachment-han-ducksoo-20daed0fb3c90c02ca229c977d230b06" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/world/asia/south-korea-yoon-protests.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-impeachment-vote-capitol-siege-0a6f2a348a6e43f27d5e1dc486027860" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/politics/trump-security-clearances-biden-harris-clinton.html?smid=url-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/trump-security-detail-joe-biden-children-hunter-ashley" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iceland-minister-resigns-teenager-affair-6a777ac58f3c074b9f13239e6a2dca40" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} ^{<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/pope-francis-to-be-discharged-from-hospital-tomorrow-13333785" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} Police shut down the day care at a Methodist church in Georgia for administering toddlers Benadryl before nap time, a bill filed in the Florida state legislature proposed removing the high school graduation requirement of passing an algebra test, and a study found that billions of humans living in rural areas may have been overlooked in the widely cited global population estimate of 8.2 billion people.^{<a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/church-daycare-shut-down-benadryl-georgia-b2717534.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://cbs12.com/news/local/sb-166-florida-bill-proposes-removal-of-algebra-english-exam-requirements-for-graduation-10-english-language-arts-ela-assessment-algebra-1-end-of-course-eoc-assessment-south-florida-news-march-17-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/science/world-population-billions-more-study-b2718787.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} The U.S. commerce secretary claimed that elderly people would not protest if the Social Security Administration overlooked them when mailing out checks; a bill was introduced in Colorado to stop counties from claiming the social security survivor’s benefits from orphans; and in Norway, a man lodged a complaint against OpenAI after its chatbot claimed he murdered his children.^{<a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/social-security-lutnick-doge-checks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://coloradosun.com/2025/03/20/foster-care-federal-benefits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/21/norwegian-files-complaint-after-chatgpt-falsely-said-he-had-murdered-his-children" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>}</p> <p>In Philadelphia, a mother was arrested for allegedly using a canine shock collar to control her child; and in Germany, a professional soccer match was canceled when a player’s child bit the referee.^{<a href="https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/mother-grandmother-charged-child-abuse-dog-shock-collar-new-jersey/4140988/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.latintimes.com/german-soccer-players-child-bites-referees-testicle-forcing-game-canceled-577041" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} London’s Metropolitan Police were sued for reinstating an emergency phone operator who once called a rape victim a “slut,” and a cargo airline hired a pilot who was dismissed by British Airways in 2023 for snorting cocaine off a woman’s breasts in a South African nightclub.^{<a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/met-police-sued-after-reinstating-999-call-handler-who-mock-sarah-everard-and-ca/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/british-airways-pilot-back-in-the-skies-after-snorting-drugs-off-womans-breasts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} At a sports bar in Clearwater, Florida, a man fired off a 9mm handgun after discovering that the karaoke machine was broken; and a judge in California was criticized by his colleagues for releasing an 18-minute video of himself disassembling guns with large-capacity magazines in his chambers.^{<a href="https://thesmokinggun.com/documents/stupid/karaoke-glock-658390" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/judge-lawrence-vandyke-california-guns-video/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} The number of civilian-owned guns in Poland was reported to have doubled since 2017, the number of people who contracted measles in Texas this year surpassed the total number of infected Americans in 2024, and the Rikers Island jail population in New York City passed 7,000 for the first time in 6 years.^{<a href="https://tvpworld.com/85713429/polish-gun-permits-hit-record-amid-war-in-ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/measles-cases-linked-outbreak-texas-reach-309-surpassing/story?id=120019612" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/03/20/rikers-population-tops-7000/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} On Long Island, a New Yorker was cured of sickle cell anemia for the first time, a woman was accused of pretending to be a dentist; and the founder of Pirate’s Booty, a puffed-corn and rice snack company, attempted to overthrow his village’s government, citing as precedent the election of Pope Gregory X in Viterbo some 750 years ago.^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/sickle-cell-anemia-cure-new-york/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://abc7ny.com/post/suffolk-county-police-arrest-woman-accused-working-fake-dentist-bay-shore-home/16022735/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pirates-booty-founder-stages-long-island-mutiny-declares-mayor-tries-f-rcna197308" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.stefanorometours.com/blog/docs/longest-papal-election-in-history-origins-of-conclave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>}</p> <p>A woman in Indonesia was sentenced to almost three years in prison for telling her online followers that Jesus should “cut his hair,” and residents of Ontario, Canada, were found to be the most likely Canadians to report being abducted by aliens.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2x5kn7njlo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/albertans-second-most-likely-in-canada-to-be-abducted-by-aliens-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} An 83-year-old man in British Columbia returned to his library a camping guide that was 60 years overdue, and four people in Tennessee allegedly robbed a convenience store while armed with pythons.^{<a href="https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/03/17/canada-University-British-Columbia-graduate-library-book-64-years/2231742226615/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wvlt.tv/2025/03/17/4-people-accused-robbing-convenience-store-while-wielding-pythons/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1TJh0_W5_WaCfp0vrohtihVbonlKGJl9Ne0c_OOTtDtElxpVnji1EL4P4_aem_GqgEF_Ef1lf6iRPc3b2irQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} Tokyo restaurateurs apologized to customers who found a rat in their miso soup, and an animal shelter employee in Australia pleaded guilty to attempting to sell online two human toes she found in dog vomit.^{<a href="https://www.tokyoreporter.com/business/beef-bowl-chain-sukiya-apologizes-after-miso-soup-with-rat-served-customer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/australian-woman-in-court-for-trying-to-sell-regurgitated-toes/a-71939176" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} In Florida, Miami drivers were reported to have paid as much as $250 for DMV appointments sold online, and 25,000 acres of tropical swamp and marsh caught fire.^{<a href="https://autos.yahoo.com/scalpers-caught-selling-free-dmv-223017478.html;_ylt=Awr93xgDWdtn8qsAfhtXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzIEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article302578749.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} The CEO of a U.S. fraud-detection company was arrested for fraud, a South Korean man was arrested for unlawfully entering the Chinese Embassy in Seoul while dressed as Captain America, a paleontologist sued a university in New Jersey alleging that its unpaid UPS invoices caused his shipments of 300-million-year-old fossils to be dumped into a landfill and buried, and, in Bulgaria, two professional soccer clubs observed a minute of silence to mourn the death of a 78-year-old former player.^{<a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/21/kubient_ceo_jailed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} ^{<a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250319005300315" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/380-million-year-old-fossils-dumped-landfill-new-jersey-college-didnt-rcna196769" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://talksport.com/football/3029356/football-club-apology-minutes-silence-levski-sofia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42</a>} “I poured myself a small brandy,” said the former player, who returned home from work to hear the news of his own passing.^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/19/sport/arda-kardzhali-mourn-petko-ganchev-not-dead-spt-intl/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43</a>} <em>—Joe Kloc</em></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-insurrection-secret-service-benadryl-population-estime-openai-pilot-south-african-nightclub-pirates-booty-overdue-library-i-poured-myself-a-small-brandy/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Israel, the 51st State</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/03/israel-the-51st-state/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[John R. MacArthur]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:33:47 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Publisher’s Note]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292218</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>In the West Bank, where foreign media can still operate, daily horrors are both more commonplace and less frequent than in Gaza. A new Israeli-Palestinian documentary, <em>No Other Land</em>, is illustrative of the harassment Palestinians suffer at the hands of the Israeli army in collaboration with Jewish settlers, who are growing in numbers.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/israel-the-51st-state/">Israel, the 51st State</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div style="width: 250px; border: 1px solid black; background-color: white; margin-left: 30px; padding: 30px; padding-bottom: 30px; float: right; font-size: 90%;">A <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/850426/chronique-israel-comme-51e-etat" target="_blank" rel="noopener">version</a> of this column originally ran in <em>Le Devoir</em> on December 2, 2024. Translated from the French by Elettra Pauletto.</div> <p class="drop-cap">Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took Donald Trump seriously when Trump said he wanted to turn Canada into the 51st state. A <em>Financial Times</em> headline two weeks ago announced that “Trump’s Threat to Annex Canada No Longer a Joke for Trudeau.” At the same time, Chrystia Freeland, who was seeking to succeed Trudeau as prime minister, then threatened a 100 percent tariff on Tesla vehicles made by Elon Musk, King Trump’s favorite courtier.</p> <p>Well done! It is always good to see Ottawa take on a realist and combative stance. But despite his newfound wisdom, “governor” Trudeau, as Trump calls him, was wrong about the figures: there is already a 51st state, and it’s Israel. And soon, Gaza will be the 52nd. Think I’m kidding? Not any more than Trump is. While Canada was still getting wise to Trump’s bullying, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his support for the President’s plan to empty Gaza of its 2 million inhabitants and create an American-owned “Côte d’Azur.” According to Netanyahu, this bold real estate project is the “only viable plan to enable a different future” in the region.</p> <p>Before Trump’s inauguration in January, I would have dismissed such a statement as pure madness. But the United States has a history of seizing vast swathes of land under fraudulent pretenses. This history includes the brutal 1838 expulsion of 16,000 Cherokees from Georgia ordered by President Martin Van Buren based on plans promoted by his predecessor, Andrew Jackson, that became known as the “Trail of Tears”; the seizure of two fifths of Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48; and William McKinley’s imperial conquests overseas in 1898 that violently repressed Filipino rebels.</p> <p>“Manifest destiny” has vastly expanded America’s territory. Why not add Gaza to the list, with the help of “governor” Netanyahu? After all, the Trail of Tears was a joint military project of President Van Buren and Georgia governor George Gilmer.</p> <p>Let’s remember that Netanyahu spent part of his childhood near Philadelphia and was once a United States citizen. When he speaks in Washington or at the United Nations, he brings out his impeccable American accent; when he speaks in Israel, he hides it. A skillful activist, he could have pursued a successful political career in Pennsylvania.</p> <p>But his talent as a demagogue is not what makes me think Netanyahu, with Trump, can pull off the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It’s his ruthless character as a political survivor. Despite the atrocious attacks of October 7, no sane person would view the massacre in Gaza—where children are indiscriminately mutilated and killed on a regular basis—as a just or proportionate response. More than 48,000 Arab bodies to avenge 1,200 slaughtered people (including 37 children and 21 Bedouins)? This can’t be an existential question for Israel, which has an exceptionally efficient army and a well-stocked nuclear arsenal.</p> <p>Yet Gaza is not necessarily the best example to support my point. In the West Bank, where foreign media can still operate, daily horrors are both more commonplace and less frequent than in Gaza. A new Israeli-Palestinian documentary, <em>No Other Land</em>, is illustrative of the harassment Palestinians suffer at the hands of the Israeli army in collaboration with Jewish settlers, who are growing in numbers.</p> <p>Seeing a Palestinian home or school demolished by bulldozers without any blatant killing or obvious injury is paradoxically almost as shocking as seeing rows of small, motionless bodies, or children with amputated legs and arms. Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham’s film clearly shows Netanyahu’s violent nature, suggesting that for him, destroying the West Bank is a personal operation, while the furious bombing of Gaza (reminiscent of the United States’ bombing of Vietnam) is more distant and abstract.</p> <p>When did Netanyahu, the supposed spokesperson of the Jewish state, become so cold blooded? According to my friend and mentor Earl Shorris, “No one speaks for the Jews.” This simple sentence opens his book, <em>Jews Without Mercy</em> (1982), which condemns the American Jewish neoconservative movement of the 1970s and <span style="font-weight: 400;">’</span>80s. “All Jews want Israel to survive,” Shorris writes. “The disagreements between neoconservatives and other Jews” concerns the unbridled support of Israel by activists who believe “the government can do no wrong, nor can supporters of Israel err in moral choices if those choices are made with the interests of Israel in mind.” Not much has changed.</p> <p>Although secular, Shorris reminds us that “the lesson of the desert is that the world exists because of mercy … Mercy is the soul and the shield of the Jew … A Jew without mercy is a man prior to the Covenant” of Mount Sinai. “He belongs to the horde; he invites the desert.” In that sense, Netanyahu is more American than Jewish. His desire to work with Trump to expel the Gazans and annex the West Bank is, perhaps, the inevitable outcome.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/israel-the-51st-state/">Israel, the 51st State</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-mahmoud-khalil-shalom-hamas-letter-opener-mega-prison-oopsie-sarcastic-liberal-american-empire-protesters-guns-crotch-mooned-out/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:30:23 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292195</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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. </p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-mahmoud-khalil-shalom-hamas-letter-opener-mega-prison-oopsie-sarcastic-liberal-american-empire-protesters-guns-crotch-mooned-out/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ranjani Srinivasan, a doctoral student who had signed letters in support of Palestine and was arrested at Columbia University last spring, flew to Canada after immigration authorities revoked her student visa; Leqaa Kordia, a participant in the protests at Columbia, was arrested in Newark, New Jersey; Rasha Alawieh, a doctor whose visa is valid through mid-2027, was deported after returning from visiting relatives in Lebanon; and Mahmoud Khalil, a green card-holder and former graduate student at Columbia who served as a spokesperson for pro-Palestine protesters during campus demonstrations last spring, was arrested by plainclothes officers who drove away with him in an unmarked car.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/nyregion/columbia-student-kristi-noem-video.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/us/columbia-protester-leqaa-kordia.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha-alawieh-professor-deported.html#:~:text=and%20court%20papers.-,Dr.,by%20her%20cousin%20Yara%20Chehab." target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/2025/03/17/dr-rasha-alawieh-brown-university-medicine-deportation-h1b-visa/82486924007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj5nlxz44yo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} ^{<a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/16/us/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-protests-free-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/nx-s1-5328059/wife-mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university-ice-detention-deportation-case" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbia-university-student-mahmoud-khalil-hearing-deportation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/nyregion/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/12/columbia-mahmoud-khalil-wife-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} The White House’s X account posted a photo of Khalil, who has since been moved to a detention center in Louisiana, with the words <span class="text-small-caps">SHALOM MAHMOUD</span> superimposed on it; the Department of Homeland Security accused him of leading activities “aligned to Hamas;” and the White House press secretary said that Khalil’s arrest and planned deportation was justified under the Cold War–era Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952, which effectively barred Communists and Holocaust survivors from entering the United States and was introduced by a Pennsylvania congressman who once gifted President Roosevelt a letter opener fashioned from the arm bone of a Japanese soldier, and by a Nevada senator who described concentration camp survivors as “displeased persons rather than displaced persons.”^{<a href="https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1899155922842161597" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-mahmoud-khalil-complaint-names-trump-rubio-alleges-targeted-retali-rcna196378" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/03/11/can-marco-rubio-revoke-mahmoud-khalils-green-card-what-to-know-about-little-known-law-used-to-justify-protesters-arrest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/15/mahmoud-khalil-antisemitism-columbia-00232032" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2005/01/16/the-real-witch-hunter-of-the-1950s/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3640788" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} ^{<a href="https://time.com/archive/6788113/religion-honor-after-death/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/79th2017/Exhibits/Senate/GA/SGA470K.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} “We’re going,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “to keep doing it.”^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marco-rubio-mahmoud-khalil-arrest-face-the-nation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was also used during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II to expel, detain, and restrict people based on their ancestry, to deport more than two hundred Venezuelan men, alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, to a mega-prison in El Salvador in which inmates are prohibited from going outside, having visitors, or participating in educational programs; the planes had already left U.S. territory by the time a federal judge blocked the men’s deportation.^{<a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/alien-enemies-act-explained" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-invokes-1798-alien-enemies-act/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invocation-of-the-alien-enemies-act-regarding-the-invasion-of-the-united-states-by-tren-de-aragua/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/16/g-s1-54154/alien-enemies-el-salvador-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-trump-prison-immigrants-4ab3fc3c0474efb308084604b61f8a37" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/16/g-s1-54154/alien-enemies-el-salvador-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} “Oopsie…,” wrote El Salvador’s president on social media. “Too late.”^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9yv1gnzyvo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} Rubio announced the expulsion of South Africa’s ambassador from the United States for “hating” Trump, and a Colombian diplomat was hit by a stray bullet while in Sao Paolo, Brazil.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/15/south-africa-ambassador-us-no-longer-welcome-marco-rubio-ebrahim-rasool" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/brazil-colombian-diplomat-wounded-stray-bullet-320a0e06d93151be31b3e1edaf6b73dc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} The federally funded news organization Voice of America, which the White House has characterized as “radical,” was shut down by Trump, who earlier this month claimed he had “stopped all government censorship” and “brought back free speech to America.”^{<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/the-voice-of-radical-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/business/voa-trump-dismantle.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/04/us/trump-speech-congress#ive-stopped-all-government-censorship-and-brought-back-free-speech-in-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} “I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,” said Trump regarding his claim that he would end the Russia–Ukraine war in twenty-four hours.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-russia-ukraine-war-solved-f51b96e4e690341caee65358bcbab1fa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán promised to rid the country of foreign interests working on behalf of the “liberal American empire” while thousands of anti-Orbán protesters organized in Budapest, and dueling protests between supporters and adversaries of South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol took place in Seoul.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hungary-orban-crackdown-media-ngo-38776560a2edf5948482dd4839461411" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-yoon-protests-constitutional-court-69106e6a41d6793de0e280460dc3a7a5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} Serbian officials denied using a military-grade sonic weapon that can rupture ear drums in the course of dispersing peaceful anti-government protesters during a moment of silence for the fifteen people killed by the collapse of a concrete canopy in November.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/serbia-protest-sonic-weapon-8502587e5849997175a5ea02f98d2e19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} Israeli reservists filmed themselves reading the Book of Esther while firing toward Gaza.^{<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-03-15/ty-article/.premium/israeli-soldiers-fire-haphazardly-toward-gaza-during-purim-reading-of-book-of-esther/00000195-9a67-d6f8-a9dd-fff7f35f0000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} An attorney at the Department of Justice said she was fired because she refused to restore Mel Gibson’s right to own a gun, a private security guard was fired after leaving his gun in an elementary school bathroom in Twin Falls, Idaho, and a Swiss politician was fined more than seven thousand dollars for giving his godchildren water guns as gifts, which authorities said could be mistaken for real firearms.^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/doj-official-says-was-fired-opposing-restoration-mel-gibsons-gun-right-rcna195287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.idahoednews.org/kevins-blog/private-security-guard-leaves-gun-in-twin-falls-grade-school-bathroom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} ^{<a href="https://en.as.com/latest_news/fined-7390-for-buying-pink-water-pistols-online-they-could-be-confused-for-real-firearms-due-to-their-appearance-n/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} The organizers of a marathon in Taiwan apologized after handing out prizes in the shape of a machine gun currently in use by China’s ground forces.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-trophy-machine-gun-ab1fb784b9c450bc13f93d4e87b8415c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The governor of Rajasthan, India, suggested that rapists be castrated, as a deterrent to the committing of such crimes; a bill requiring child sex offenders to undergo chemical castration before release passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives; and an embalmer castrated the corpse of a convicted sex offender in Texas.^{<a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rajasthan-governor-haribhau-bangade-calls-for-castration-of-rapists-as-deterrent-they-will-recall-101741665332590.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://oklahomavoice.com/2025/03/10/bill-seeking-to-chemically-castrate-child-sex-offenders-advances-to-oklahoma-senate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42</a>} ^{<a href="https://wgntv.com/news/texas-embalmer-charged-castration-sex-offender-corpse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43</a>} A man in a New Jersey airport tried to smuggle a turtle through security in the crotch of his pants.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/turtle-pants-airport-tsa-newark-airport-pennsylvania-f55bd62d33530e9cfd26488e230ad8df" target="_blank" rel="noopener">44</a>} “As best as we could tell,” said the TSA’s federal security director for New Jersey, “the turtle was not harmed.”^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/turtle-pants-airport-tsa-newark-airport-pennsylvania-f55bd62d33530e9cfd26488e230ad8df" target="_blank" rel="noopener">45</a>} A man in Peru survived ninety-five days adrift at sea by eating turtles, birds, and cockroaches.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj92438d3xmo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">46</a>} Researchers at the University of Osaka turned cockroaches into cyborgs, and it was reported that 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.^{<a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-turned-cockroaches-into-cyborgs-giving-them-navigation-superpowers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">47</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/china-deports-japanese-tourists-for-picture-with-exposed-butt-at-the-great-wall-101741919906848.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">48</a>} “I’m a bit mooned out at the moment,” said a researcher after he discovered that there are 128 “potato-shaped” moonlets orbiting Saturn.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/science/saturn-new-moons.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">49</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/saturn-moons-found-discovery-research-solar-system#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">50 </a>}</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">—Megan Evershed</span></i></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-mahmoud-khalil-shalom-hamas-letter-opener-mega-prison-oopsie-sarcastic-liberal-american-empire-protesters-guns-crotch-mooned-out/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-boundary-not-a-given-canada-nuclear-arsenal-any-type-of-war-netflix-christian-disney-humpback-whales-having-sex-bags-of-cocaine-toupee-orlando-magic-eggs-picking-his-nose/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2025 15:30:38 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292173</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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.”</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-boundary-not-a-given-canada-nuclear-arsenal-any-type-of-war-netflix-christian-disney-humpback-whales-having-sex-bags-of-cocaine-toupee-orlando-magic-eggs-picking-his-nose/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap">The president of the United States was reported to have told the prime minister of Canada last month that he wanted the two countries to renegotiate their 117-year-old boundary; the Canadian prime minister warned citizens that Canada’s existence was “not a given”; Canada’s Liberal Party elected a new prime minister, who then said Canada would never become “part of America”; the premier of Ontario asked people to stop waking him in the middle of the night with text messages and said he would suspend electricity exports to the United States to make Americans “feel the pain”; and a photographer in Ontario captured footage of a bald eagle attacking a Canada goose.^{<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/world/us-news/story/president-donald-trump-wants-revise-us-canada-boundary-questions-117-year-old-treaty-report-2690654-2025-03-08" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/world/canada/trump-trudeau-canada-51st-state.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/trudeau-says-that-canada-is-not-a-given-in-farewell-speech-amid-trump-threats/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cg4k2l204zqt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/5185455-canadian-leader-mark-carney/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} ^{<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/11066018/doug-ford-cellphone-text-night-complaints/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} ^{<a href="https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-will-cut-off-u-s-electricity-exports-with-a-smile-on-my-face-ford-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/canada-goose-bald-eagle-burlington-bay-brawl-1.7473477" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} “That’s the way nature works,” he said.^{<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/canada-goose-bald-eagle-burlington-bay-brawl-1.7473477" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} The U.S. president said he was considering deporting some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; the special advisor to the U.S. president said the country should leave NATO because it “doesn’t make sense” for the United States to defend Europe; the president of France joined the prime minister of England in calling on the countries of Europe to militarize; Poland announced a plan to offer combat training to all adult males and announced that it would raise an army of 500,000 soldiers and seek access to nuclear weapons; France announced that it was considering extending the protection of its nuclear arsenal to other European nations; China responded to new U.S. tariffs by announcing it was prepared to fight “any type of war” to “the end” with the United States; and a group of Swedish citizens announced that they would protest U.S. policy shifts against Europe by boycotting Netflix.^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plans-revoke-legal-status-ukrainians-who-fled-us-sources-say-2025-03-06/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-suggests-the-us-should-leave-nato-2025-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/macron-europe-must-ready-defend-ukraine-without-us-assistance-rcna194867" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://tvpworld.com/85449284/poland-to-offer-military-training-for-all-adult-men-says-pm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-tusk-plan-train-poland-men-military-service-russia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/france-nuclear-europe-1.7476724" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gmd3g2nzqo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/07/swedes-launch-boycott-of-us-goods-in-response-to-recent-policy-shifts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} “I had to,” said the organizer, “do something.”^{<a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/07/swedes-launch-boycott-of-us-goods-in-response-to-recent-policy-shifts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>}</p> <p>Disney announced it would include an avowedly Christian character in its series about a middle school softball team, a substitute teacher in Florida was arrested for encouraging students to fight one another in her classroom, and a man in St. Louis, Missouri, was found guilty of shooting his son’s recreational football coach for not giving him enough playing time.^{<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/disney-christian-character-transgender-story-laurie-win-lose-2037780" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/crime/who-in-here-can-beat-him-up-jacksonville-substitute-accused-making-children-fight/77-d7fe7e5e-e6f8-4f67-b9d2-5d1f6f80d2e3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/02/28/man-convicted-shooting-sons-football-coach-over-playing-time/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} Biologists published the first ever photograph of humpback whales having sex, and a man in Missouri was arrested for the second time for sexual misconduct while trying to have sex with a train seat.^{<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/mating-male-humpbacks-1.7131511" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/missouri-man-charged-second-time-1012844" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} An intoxicated man in Peru received only minor injuries after being struck by a cargo train, and a flying car company in California successfully tested an electric two-seater.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cq6yzll9j92o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/video/20250302-flying-cars-make-successful-test-flight-in-california" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} Denmark announced that its postal service will stop delivering letters, a man on his way to Amsterdam was arrested at an airport in Colombia for stowing bags of cocaine under his toupee, and a Texas man pretending to be an NBA player on the Orlando Magic was arrested for swallowing $769,000 worth of jewelry at a Tiffany store in Orlando.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg8jllq283o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/colombia-cocaine-wig-drug-trafficking-methods-213436a6d8a232058e692c2a1145f5f3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-man-allegedly-swallows-stolen-tiffany-jewelry-florida/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} The corporate headquarters of hot-sauce brand Texas Pete in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, caught fire; a pet crematorium and incineration facility in Calgary, Canada, burst into flames; and members of Serbia’s parliament threw smoke grenades at one another.^{<a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2025/03/04/company-behind-texas-pete-hot-sauce-has-north-carolina-headquarters-catch-fire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/fire-destroys-calgary-pet-crematorium/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c798q33r9gjo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>}</p> <p>Amid a worldwide avian flu outbreak, Brazil was projected to nearly double its egg exports to the United States; the U.S. Customs and Border Control reported a 36 percent year-over-year increase in seizures of smuggled eggs at the Canadian and Mexican borders; chicken rentals in New Hampshire reportedly increased; and a chicken in Devon, England, laid an egg three times the usual size, inside of which there was a second egg.^{<a href="https://hms.harvard.edu/news/are-we-cusp-major-bird-flu-outbreak" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-10/brazil-to-nearly-double-egg-exports-as-us-reels-from-shortages?srnd=homepage-americas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://thelogic.co/news/canada-us-trade-war-eggs-fentanyl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/rent-a-chicken-egg-prices-new-hampshire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} ^{<a href="https://insidenewshub.com/devon-chicken-lays-mind-bogglingly-massive-egg-with-another-egg-inside/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} Police in Copenhagen announced the theft of three piglets who were being starved to death as part of an art installation, scientists in the United Kingdom identified a gene mutation that causes overeating in humans and labradors, and a 72-year-old convicted serial killer in the United Kingdom who was falsely accused of eating a prisoner’s brain went on a hunger strike when his PlayStation was confiscated from his cell.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/denmark-pigs-controversial-art-exhibition-animal-rights-4ed7e96f9274f68dd9f202ed9955748a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy05qw217x9o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/serial-killer-hannibal-on-hunger-strike-after-losing-tv-and-playstation-in-prison-7887875" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} ^{<a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/hannibal-the-cannibal-on-hunger-strike-normally-polite-and-worlds-most-isolated-prisoner-is-furious-why/articleshow/118828936.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} An 88-year-old man whose rare blood plasma saved 2.4 million babies’s lives died in Australia, and researchers at Harvard and MIT proposed injecting tardigrade DNA into astronauts to protect them from space radiation.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y4xqe60gyo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientists-astronauts-tardigrade-rna-radiation-damage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42</a>} A biotechnology company in the United States announced that it genetically engineered a mouse with the hair of a woolly mammoth, a California assemblyman introduced a bill to make Bigfoot the state’s official cryptid, a man in Detroit accidentally shot himself in the foot while attempting to kill a cockroach, a man in Xianyang, China, ruptured a facial artery while picking his nose, and in Tennessee, a dog climbed into a man’s bed and shot him in the leg.^{<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/woolly-mammoth-mice-genetics-colossal-texas-b2710695.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43</a> <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/bigfoot-could-get-official-state-status-if-california-assembly-bill-passes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">44</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news/detroit-man-shoots-himself-in-the-foot-attempting-to-kill-cockroach-20866211" target="_blank" rel="noopener">45</a>} ^{<a href="https://metro.co.uk/2025/03/08/avid-nose-picker-needed-surgery-digging-deep-rupturing-artery-22693637/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">46</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/man-shot-by-dog-in-frayser-police-say/article_87c5ad76-fdb3-11ef-842e-073ff59d8916.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">47</a>} <em>—Joe Kloc</em></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-boundary-not-a-given-canada-nuclear-arsenal-any-type-of-war-netflix-christian-disney-humpback-whales-having-sex-bags-of-cocaine-toupee-orlando-magic-eggs-picking-his-nose/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-zelensky-trump-mineral-chicken-creme-brulee-nato-drone-rheinmetall-aid-gaza-andrew-tate-andrew-cuomo-whistleblowers-citigroup-anora-mental-agony-tired-and-overwhelmed/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2025 16:30:06 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292108</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-zelensky-trump-mineral-chicken-creme-brulee-nato-drone-rheinmetall-aid-gaza-andrew-tate-andrew-cuomo-whistleblowers-citigroup-anora-mental-agony-tired-and-overwhelmed/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap">Relations between the United States and Ukraine curdled over the course of a meeting of some 50 minutes in the Oval Office, during which President Trump discussed a deal that would require Ukraine to invest in mineral extraction infrastructure and stands to give the United States access to revenue thereof; became impatient with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s “hatred” for Putin, desire for security guarantees against Russian aggression, and supposedly insufficient gratitude for American military aid; bellowed at Zelensky in front of a gaggle of hand-selected members of the press; and finally remarked of the meeting that it was “going to be great television.”^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/us/politics/zelensky-showdown-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/breaking-down-us-ukraine-minerals-deal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/28/zelensky-trump-oval-office-meeting-critical-minerals-peace-talks-russia-ukraine-war/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2erwgwy8vgo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/us/politics/trump-zelensky-putin.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn527pz54neo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/us/politics/zelensky-showdown-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://kyivindependent.com/president-zelenskys-plane-left-the-us-to-london/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} An administration official told the press that aid to Ukraine, including already authorized Biden-era shipments of ammunition, may imminently be canceled, and the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, ordered a pause on the Pentagon’s cyber offensive against Russia.^{<a href="https://kyivindependent.com/trump-to-discuss-potential-suspension-cancellation-of-military-aid-for-ukraine-on-march-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2er34w0jgdo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} “This largely aligns with our vision,” a spokesperson from the Kremlin announced with regard to the United States’ new foreign-policy aims.^{<a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/03/02/kremlin-says-us-foreign-policy-shift-aligns-with-its-own-vision-a88217" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} “Stop gossiping about what the U.S. might or might not do,” snapped NATO secretary general Mark Rutte at international media correspondents as European leaders gathered in London for an emergency summit to discuss their role in brokering a Russia–Ukraine peace deal and aiding the defense of the continent’s eastern flank, agreeing to increase defense spending. British prime minister Keir Starmer promised to supply Kyiv with 5,000 supersonic lightweight multirole air missiles of Irish origin, and French president Emmanuel Macron implied that other European nations might consider amassing their own nuclear weapons.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/mar/03/europe-live-blog-updates-trump-putin-zelenskyy-starmer?page=with:block-67c506208f081ffa02a94a1b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-europe-gears-up-for-massive-surge-in-defense/live-71796609" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/03/europe-looks-to-broker-peace-for-ukraine-after-the-white-house-fiasco.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/03/02/uk-to-supply-ukraine-with-5000-belfast-made-supersonic-anti-drone-missiles-in-2-billion-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250301-macron-reopens-debate-on-european-nuclear-umbrella-after-trump-zelensky-showdown" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} A Russian drone struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, a Russian oil refinery caught fire amid a Ukrainian drone attack, and shares in German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall soared.^{<a href="https://kyivindependent.com/8-injured-in-russian-attack-on-kharkiv-including-child/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/fire-erupts-key-oil-facility-deep-inside-russia/story?id=119378261" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/investing/europe-defense-stocks-us-security-intl/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>}</p> <p>The U.S. State Department, bypassing Congress, announced that it would be sending more than 35,000 2,000-pound bombs and 4,000 warheads to the Israel Defense Forces, and the Israeli government began blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza.^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-administration-approves-major-3-billion-arms-sale-119312449" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-agrees-us-plan-temporary-ceasefire-gaza-pms-office-says-2025-03-01/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} The social-media influencer Andrew Tate, a self-identified misogynist who is under investigation for orchestrating a transnational sex-trafficking syndicate, entered the United States after a three-year detention in Romania that reports claim was lifted after pressure from the Trump Administration, and disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, who sexually harassed at least eleven women per an investigation by the New York Attorney General, entered the New York mayoral race.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/andrew-tate-arrests-explained.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/27/tate-brothers-fly-to-us-after-romania-lifts-travel-ban" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64125045" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65959097" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/andrew-cuomo-announces-run-new-york-city-mayor/story?id=119174603" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} Federal judges ruled that the Trump Administration had acted unlawfully when it ordered the dismissal of some 16,000 probationary federal workers and that it had to reinstate the illegally fired “federal watchdog” Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel, whose responsibilities include protecting government whistleblowers reporting on the gross waste of government funds.^{<a href="https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/federal-judge-trump-mass-firings-unlawful/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/us/politics/dellinger-trump-watchdog-judge-jackson.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} The number of ongoing lawsuits in federal court challenging actions taken by the second Trump Administration reached 100.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/trump-courts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} “America is going down,” said a retired official from China’s People’s Liberation Army, which conducted “live-fire” nautical drills in Taiwanese waters.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/02/america-is-going-down-china-can-capitalise-on-damage-caused-by-trump-former-pla-colonel-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/02/27/nx-s1-5311378/taiwan-condemns-china-for-conducting-shooting-drills-off-its-coast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.thinkchina.sg/politics/chinas-live-fire-drills-show-force-pacific" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>}</p> <p>Citigroup, which was responsible for a financial crash that wiped out $322 billion from the European stock market in 2022 after an employee added an errant zero to a trade, disclosed to the U.S. Federal Reserve that it had mistakenly credited a customer’s account $81 trillion instead of $280.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/28/citigroup-credited-client-account-with-81tn-before-error-spotted" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/nyregion/citigroup-81-trillion-error.html#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20a%20Citi%20employee,%2478%20million%2C%20for%20the%20incident." target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} A Republican lawmaker introduced a bill to print a $250 bill with Donald Trump’s face on it, and lawmakers in the West Virginia House of Delegates introduced a bill to recognize the Holy Bible as “the utmost authority for human moral behavior.”^{<a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/news/trump-250-bill-act-republican-lawmaker-wants-president-new-federal-reserve-note" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wdtv.com/2025/02/27/wva-lawmakers-want-recognize-bible-accurate-historical-record-human-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} A painting bearing the words “thou shalt not steal” was stolen from an English church.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9vv54wz8xo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} <em>Anora</em>, a film about a Brighton Beach sex worker who was offered $10,000 to annul her own marriage to a Russian oligarch’s son, swept the Oscars, and an Indian man successfully won $320 in damages from the country’s largest movie theater after claiming that the number of prescreening ads had caused him “mental agony” and made him miss appointments.^{<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/02/nx-s1-5315323/2025-oscars-anora-wins-best-picture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/movie-theater-india-advertisements-court-damages-pay-cinema-pvr-rcna193957" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} “I was probably tired and overwhelmed,” pro-Russian Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic explained after accidentally voting for a pro-Ukrainian United Nations resolution.^{<a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/president-aleksandar-vucic-serbia-vote-in-favor-un-resolution-ukraine-mistake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} “Everybody is looking at their phones,” observed a Hawaii man upon his release from prison, where he had spent 30 years for a crime he had not committed.^{<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/everybody-is-looking-at-their-phones-says-man-freed-after-30-years-in-prison-13315407" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} <em>—Maya Perry</em></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/03/weekly-review-zelensky-trump-mineral-chicken-creme-brulee-nato-drone-rheinmetall-aid-gaza-andrew-tate-andrew-cuomo-whistleblowers-citigroup-anora-mental-agony-tired-and-overwhelmed/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-trump-musk-patel-fbi-atf-resign-park-bathrooms-bernie-fighting-oligarchy-harris-caa-grimes-milei-merz-pigs-hooters-bird-flu-pope-beards-rules-hoopla/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:35:22 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292049</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-trump-musk-patel-fbi-atf-resign-park-bathrooms-bernie-fighting-oligarchy-harris-caa-grimes-milei-merz-pigs-hooters-bird-flu-pope-beards-rules-hoopla/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The newly appointed FBI director, Kash Patel, who has also been tapped to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told his employees to ignore Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s latest directive, which demands federal employees respond with five bullet points explaining what they have accomplished in the past week and comes with the stipulation that “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fbi-director-kash-patel-atf-justice-department-e57250b2ac883af1c2fa7b4bf46ad876" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/23/elon-musk-tells-us-federal-workers-to-explain-what-they-achieved-last-week-or-be-fired" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/22/politics/elon-musk-employees-emails/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1893386883444437415" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} At least one labor council representing federal prison union locals chastised the order, writing in a statement that it is “ridiculous and lacks in the understanding and acknowledgement of what these brave men and women do every day for this great country.”^{<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1893386883444437415" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/19/national-parks-firings-employees-chaos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} Bernie Sanders kicked off his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour that targets districts in the Midwest that Trump won by small margins; thousands attended the rallies in Omaha, Nebraska, and Iowa City, with both events filling up overflow spaces.^{<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.press-citizen.com/picture-gallery/news/politics/2025/02/22/bernie-sanders-fighting-the-oligarchy-tour-iowa-city-photos/79632335007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} ^{<a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/02/22/overflow-omaha-crowd-launches-u-s-sen-bernie-sanders-fighting-oligarchy-tour/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} The former vice president Kamala Harris joined Joe Biden in signing with Creative Artists Agency with a focus on speaking engagements and publishing opportunities; in a statement, the agency said that it plans to work closely with Harris to create “strategic opportunities that expand her platform in support of the issues she has championed throughout her decades-long career in public service.”^{<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/19/kamala-harris-caa-creative-artists-agency/79216896007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.instagram.com/creativeartistsagency/p/DGQ99TRS1rb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} Musk, who has been at the center of custody disputes with the musician Grimes and the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Babylon Bee</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> employee Ashley St. Clair, who respectively mother three and one of his children, was seen wielding a chainsaw at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference with Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, who is embroiled in a cryptocurrency scandal after promoting $LIBRA in an alleged “pump and dump” scheme that collectively lost investors millions of dollars, and the AfD party in Germany, which has been accused of Nazi sympathies, finished second in the national election, behind Friedrich Merz&#8217;s CDU party, in the strongest showing for a far-right party since the Third Reich. ^{<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/grimes-very-publicly-begs-elon-musk-to-stop-being-a-deadbeat-dad/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/22/us-news/ashley-st-clair-sues-elon-musk-for-paternity-custody-of-their-six-month-old-son/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/musk-chainsaw-milei-trump-cpac-doge-d8fa68fb9aecd355772ed6529fcb615e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/musk-chainsaw-trump-doge-6568e9e0cfc42ad6cdcfd58a409eb312" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a> <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2025/02/20/javier-mileis-crypto-misadventure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/16/americas/argentina-milei-libra-cryptocurrency-impeachment-calls-intl-latam/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-main-stock-index-falls-after-milei-crypto-scandal-2025-02-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a> <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/27bcc19e-d422-4fac-ac08-5b76c1095e52" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Super pigs” wreaked havoc on the U.S.–Canada border; after a second deadly attack, pigs in Piedmont, Alabama, were put down; and a grand jury recommended the abolition of the Hanceville, Alabama, police force after determining that the department, of which every officer is currently on administrative leave, represents “an ongoing threat to public safety.”^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/wild-super-pigs-wreak-havoc-around-us-canada-border/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/entire-alabama-police-department-put-leave-grand-jury-recommends-aboli-rcna192982" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/entire-alabama-police-department-put-leave-grand-jury-recommends-aboli-rcna192982" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} As patronage dries up, the chain restaurant Hooters, which was acquired by a private-equity partnership in 2019, prepared to file for bankruptcy as it sorts out a $300 million debt with counsel from the firm Ropes &amp; Gray.^{<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-25/hooters-restaurant-chain-taps-advisers-to-address-debt-as-revenue-falls" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/21549-private-equity-firm-acquires-hooters#:~:text=TAMPA%20BAY%2C%20Fla.,North%20Carolina%2Dbased%20Chanticleer%20Holdings." target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} A zoo in New Bedford, Massachusetts, announced that a 21-year-old harbor seal succumbed to bird flu, a zoo in Syracuse, New York, shuttered its bird exhibits in an attempt to prevent the spread of bird flu, and in Florida, egg enthusiasts explored raising or renting their own chickens to avoid egg price inflation caused by bird flu.^{<a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/seal-death-avian-flu-buttonwood-park-zoo-new-bedford-massachusetts/63853402" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} ^{<a href="https://cnycentral.com/news/local/syracuse-zoo-makes-changes-because-of-avian-flu-rosamond-gifford-bird-animals-massachusetts-seal-buttonwood-park" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/23/florida-backyard-chickens-eggs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fox13news.com/news/rent-backyard-chickens-cost-egg-prices" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} In Ireland, a bird dropped the severed hand of a 12-year old boy over a schoolyard.^{<a href="https://metro.co.uk/2025/02/21/severed-human-hand-found-near-school-dropped-bird-22604332/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} A homeowners’ association in Las Vegas is working to “humanely” relocate hundreds of invasive goldfish that have once again taken over the Cadence Central Park Pond, and the European Union and Sweden are working to bolster their maritime security after the suspected sabotage of several sea cables, which authorities believe was Russian retaliation for the E.U.’s defense of Ukraine, which relies on continued European and U.S. support as President Volodymyr Zelensky negotiates a potential peace deal brokered by the United States and Trump, who recently called Zelensky a dictator.^{<a href="https://www.fox5vegas.com/2025/02/18/hundreds-invasive-goldfish-return-las-vegas-valley-park-pond/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/world/europe/baltic-sea-cable-sweden.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/world/europe/ukraine-trump-mineral-deal.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5nydr9rqvo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ukraine-and-u-s-negotiating-continued-military-aid-in-exchange-for-access-to-mineral-resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/politics/trump-zelensky-rift-ukraine-war/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} A Catholic hospital in Ohio is facing charges after refusing police orders to search a man&#8217;s anal cavity for drugs, saying the procedure would have been “morally wrong,” and Pope Francis is still alive and being treated at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, Italy, despite confusion after RTÉ News reported that he “passed a peaceful night.”^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drug-bust-feud-lorain-ohio-police-catholic-hospital-rcna186906" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0219/1497565-pope-francis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-pope-passed-a-peaceful-night" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A man sneezed out his intestines, but was released from the hospital less than a week later after a “reassuring abdominal examination,” a woman was heralded as a “cone-noisseur” after Hudsonville Ice Cream named her the Ultimate Ice Cream Fan, the FDA classified the now-recalled Mombo Vanilla Soft Serve Ice Cream Mix as Class I, because it “could cause severe or even life-threatening allergic reactions,” and an Alabama senator introduced a bill to exclude sweets from SNAP benefits.^{<a href="https://www.abcactionnews.com/us-news/weird/man-sneezes-several-loops-of-his-intestines-out-of-his-body-while-eating-breakfast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fox17online.com/news/morning-news/ice-cream-of-the-crop-hudsonville-ice-cream-names-ultimate-fan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ice-cream-recall-fda-update-2034962" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://mynbc15.com/amp/news/local/al-senators-bill-seeks-to-exclude-soda-ice-cream-desserts-from-snap-benefits" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42</a>} Burkina Faso celebrated the opening of its new Moulin Double Star Mill, with a daily processing capacity of 220 tons of flour and 80 tons of bran, which was established in an effort to boost domestic industry.^{<a href="https://www.world-grain.com/articles/21068-burkina-faso-inaugurates-flour-mill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43</a>} After three consecutive years of growth, a new report shows worker strikes are down in Portugal last year, with 1,099 instances of organized work stoppages.^{<a href="https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2025-02-23/strikes-down-by-27/95770" target="_blank" rel="noopener">44</a>} Victor Wembanyama, the starting center of the San Antonio Spurs, ended his season and bid for the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year after being diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder, and the New York Yankees reversed a near-fifty-year beard ban, which prompted former team captain Derek Jeter to celebrate by posting an AI image of himself donning full facial hair, with the caption: “New Rules!”^{<a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43937353/spurs-shut-victor-wembanyama-blood-clot-shoulder" target="_blank" rel="noopener">45</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/yankees-facial-hair-policy-7238acee720fe2017b2cb2691ba5531e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">46</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DGWVgQXSayb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">47</a>}</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Hoopla, a popular e-book vendor, faced criticism after distributing AI-generated books to libraries, and while the company assured its clients in an email that it is doing the work to “learn, grow, and continuously improve,” one librarian said they put their trust in Hoopla, but “Hoopla has broken this trust.”^{<a href="https://www.404media.co/public-library-ebook-service-to-cull-ai-slop-after-404-media-investigation-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">48</a>}</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">—Peter Lucas</span></i></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-trump-musk-patel-fbi-atf-resign-park-bathrooms-bernie-fighting-oligarchy-harris-caa-grimes-milei-merz-pigs-hooters-bird-flu-pope-beards-rules-hoopla/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-eric-adams-merchant-of-death-rikers-island-munich-security-conference-pete-hegseth-neo-nazi-bombs-trigger-warnings-trigger-fingers-whale-shark-capybara-opossum/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:35:05 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292022</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>“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.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-eric-adams-merchant-of-death-rikers-island-munich-security-conference-pete-hegseth-neo-nazi-bombs-trigger-warnings-trigger-fingers-whale-shark-capybara-opossum/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Department of Justice ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop corruption charges against New York City mayor Eric Adams.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/eric-adams-indictment-109ef48bd49bc8adc1850709c99bf666" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} In a memo providing rationale for the decision, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, wrote that the charges against the mayor have “unduly restricted” his ability to devote his full attention to “illegal immigration and violent crime,” and that accomplishing President Trump’s immigration agenda was “every bit as important” as the Biden Administration’s prisoner exchange of Brittney Griner for arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death.”^{<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25517976-doj-eric-adams-memo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/08/world/europe/viktor-bout-brittney-griner.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/09/us/politics/brittney-griner-prisoner-swap.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, resigned over the directive, writing in a letter of her own that she was “confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged,” and that her office had been preparing to bring further charges against him, including the claim that he “destroyed and instructed others to destroy evidence,” provided false information to the FBI, and conducted a fraudulent donor scheme.^{<a href="https://gothamist.com/news/acting-manhattan-us-attorney-quits-departure-follows-trump-order-to-drop-charges-against-mayor-adams" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} Four of Adams’s deputy mayors resigned in the wake of the dropped charges, as did five lawyers involved with the public integrity section of the Department of Justice.^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/four-senior-aides-new-york-mayor-adams-resign-media-report-2025-02-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fox5ny.com/news/4-senior-deputies-mayor-eric-adams-resign" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/nyregion/danielle-sassoon-quit-eric-adams.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} A few days after the motion was filed for charges to be dropped, Adams met with Tom Homan, the federal border czar, and announced that he would pass an executive order allowing Immigrations Customs Enforcement to operate on Rikers Island, even though a 2014 law prohibits New York’s Department of Correction from working with ICE, barring cases of serious or violent crime.^{<a href="https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-adams-plans-executive-order-allowing-ice-presence-at-rikers-island" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/judge-orders-hearing-for-motion-to-dismiss-corruption-charges-against-new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} “I just think people are making a lot about nothing,” said Homan.^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-border-czar-tom-homan-calls-eric-adams-quid-quo-allegation-ridic-rcna192403" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} Trump, who in the past few weeks has fired at least a dozen government watchdogs, ordered a pause on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that prohibits companies that operate in the United States from paying foreign government officials to secure business.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yveml59jlo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/trump-fcpa-bribery-law-corruption.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} “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.^{<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114009179225169296" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-bonaparte-anders-breivich" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-stokes-alarm-view-presidential-power-apparent-napoleon/story?id=118898574" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">U.S. officials traveled to Germany to participate in the Munich Security Conference, and while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited a U.S. military installation in Germany, two dozen people heckled, booed, and chanted “DEI” at him, and JD Vance met with the leader of Alternative für Deutschland, a neo-Nazi political party, to deliver a speech encouraging Europe to stop shunning far-right parties.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/pete-hegseth-dei-protest-germany" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/us/politics/hegseth-ukraine-russia.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-protest-dei-transgender-germany-military-rcna191636" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/14/jd-vance-alice-weidel-meeting-germany-far-right" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/what-you-need-to-know-about-afd-elon-musks-favourite-german-party/articleshow/117207405.cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/world/europe/vance-europe-immigration-ukraine.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} “Some of the things I say will be incorrect,” said Elon Musk, who had claimed that $50 million worth of condoms were sent to Gaza, Palestine, when they were, in fact, sent to Gaza, Mozambique, to protect people against HIV.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2025/feb/12/musk-says-he-will-make-mistakes-and-that-he-double-checks-with-trump-video" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} It was reported that a man in Miami Beach shot two men whom he thought were Palestinians but were actually Israeli tourists.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/17/miami-shooting-israeli-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} Trump ordered any demining groups that subsisted on U.S. funding to stop their work, and then said “We’ll … be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site” before redeveloping Gaza, a redevelopment plan to which the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “committed.”^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/trump-gaza-bombs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/17/netanyahu-committed-to-trumps-plan-to-take-over-gaza" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} More than 175 unexploded bombs from the Second World War were found under an English playground, and the ruins of a 2,000-year-old Roman basilica were found under an English office.^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/world/europe/wwii-bombs-playground-england.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/world/europe/london-roman-basilica.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} The University of West England added more than 200 trigger warnings to Shakespeare’s plays, including for such things as “knives,” “extreme weather,” “witchcraft” and “references to wild animal attack.”^{<a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/university-trigger-warnings-shakespeare-the-tempest-b1209910.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} “Our fingers are on the trigger,” said the leader of the Houthis, warning that should the ceasefire in Gaza break down, they would be prepared to launch an attack on Israel.^{<a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/yemeni-rebels-warn-fingers-trigger-34664528" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">More than one million Igloo coolers were recalled after reports of fingertip amputations, a woman in Vero Beach, Florida, allegedly shot two teenagers with a BB gun after they gave her the bird, and in the Finger Lakes, a man was arrested for biting a woman’s fingers.^{<a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/nx-s1-5297680/igloo-cooler-recall-amputations#:~:text=Igloo%20recalls%20over%20a%20million%20coolers%20after%20handle%20hazard%20causes%20fingertip%20amputations,-February%2014%2C%202025&amp;text=NEW%20YORK%20%E2%80%94%20Igloo%20is%20recalling,fingertip%20injuries%2C%20including%20some%20amputations." target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} ^{<a href="https://cbs12.com/news/local/woman-claims-teens-middle-fingers-led-to-bb-gun-fire-in-vero-beach-florida-woman-crime-bb-gun-teenagers-dirt-bike-florida-indian-river-county-february-13-2025" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fingerlakesdailynews.com/police-blotter/seneca-falls-man-arrested-after-he-strangled-hit-in-the-face-and-bit-womens-fingers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fingerlakes.com/towns/seneca-falls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} “I spent a second realizing I was inside the mouth of something, that maybe it had eaten me,” said a Venezuelan kayaker after being swallowed and regurgitated by a whale.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly50k8zypmo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} On a beach in Turks and Caicos, a woman attempted to take a selfie with a shark that proceeded to bite her hands off; a lawsuit was filed against Folly Beach, South Carolina, for using a third party to hand out parking tickets; and in Oxford, England, a United Nations judge was charged with “illegal folly” for effectively enslaving a young Ugandan woman.^{<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/shark-bites-off-tourist-hands-205333844.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.live5news.com/2025/02/11/lawsuit-company-issued-illegal-parking-tickets-isle-palms-folly-beach/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/17/un-judge-kept-slave-deal-ugandan-deputy-high-commissioner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} The Buenos Aires government approved plans to sterilize male capybaras and inject female ones with contraceptives in a gated community where the large rodents are breeding rapidly, and a Peruvian police officer pinned down a suspect and helped seize 1,700 bags of cocaine while dressed in a capybara costume.^{<a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-02-14/too-many-capybaras-rodents-face-vasectomies-in-luxury-argentine-community.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14400849/moment-cop-capybara-Peruvian-drugs-bust.html#:~:text=Bizarre%20moment%20cop%20dressed%20as,packages%20of%20cocaine%20and%20marijuana" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} A man in Houston, Texas, was arrested after giving his nine-year-old daughter a chocolate bar laced with THC, and an opossum was hospitalized in Omaha, Nebraska, after eating a Costco tuxedo chocolate cake.^{<a href="https://abc13.com/post/anong-inthavong-accused-giving-9-year-old-daughter-thc-laced-chocolates-ordered-stay-away-court-appearance/15913340/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/15/us/opossum-costco-chocolate-cake-nebraska/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42</a>} It was reported that a woman in Japan was arrested for “criminal damage” after squishing a pack of black sesame buns too hard.^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly5025n2g2o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43 </a>}</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">—Megan Evershed</span></i></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-eric-adams-merchant-of-death-rikers-island-munich-security-conference-pete-hegseth-neo-nazi-bombs-trigger-warnings-trigger-fingers-whale-shark-capybara-opossum/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-epa-toxic-pollution-venomous-snakes-cat-scan-american-bombs-artificial-intelligence-reddit-waffle-house-female-shark-kimchi-chicken-nuggets/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 11 Feb 2025 16:40:21 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=292002</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>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.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-epa-toxic-pollution-venomous-snakes-cat-scan-american-bombs-artificial-intelligence-reddit-waffle-house-female-shark-kimchi-chicken-nuggets/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency put more than 160 staffers on administrative leave, warned some 1,000 more that they could be fired at any time, and shut down an online service that was designed, in part, to prevent construction projects from exposing communities to toxic waste and pollution; and a man in Sydney discovered more than one hundred venomous snakes in his garden.^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/epa-staff-let-go-tool-shut-tumultuous-week-rcna191218" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theenergylawblog.com/2024/07/articles/business/epa-releases-new-version-of-ejscreen/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/06/totally-amazing-102-red-bellied-black-snakes-found-in-sydney-garden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} The National Institute of Health announced that it would cut $4 billion in indirect medical funding intended for building and maintaining facilities and administrative staff, the U.S. president issued a stop order to USAID that initially left thousands of participants in clinical trials with unmonitored experimental medical devices inside their bodies, and a jury ruled that the state of New Jersey must pay almost $12 million in damages after a police officer arrested a woman while she was having a stroke.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/08/trump-administration-medical-research-funding-cuts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/health/usaid-clinical-trials-funding-trump.html?rsrc=ss&amp;unlocked_article_code=1.u04.cvMV.DyaYrzc5-8L3&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} ^{<a href="https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/02/05/state-hit-with-12m-judgment-after-rookie-trooper-arrests-stroke-victim/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} A New Hampshire organ transplant recipient became the second known person living with a genetically modified pig kidney, and an Italian radiologist was placed under investigation for giving his cat a CAT scan.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/pig-kidney-transplant-organ-xenotransplant-mass-general-5c3c620f989092ba70720e54e2e4138f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/05/doctor-inquiry-injured-cat-scan-hospital" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} 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.^{<a href="https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/9/7497406/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/10/total-chaos-monkey-blamed-for-nationwide-power-cut-in-sri-lanka" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} A man in the South Korean city of Busan was arrested for attempting to rob a bank with a toy dinosaur, and the Czech government said that it saved $1 million when a dam project that it had spent 7 years developing was completed in two days by beavers.^{<a href="https://biz.chosun.com/en/en-society/2025/02/10/X2VLEZAZNBDS3BIBVOSV3CQ634/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.voxnews.al/english/kosovabota/qeveria-po-e-planifikonte-prej-7-vitesh-kastoret-ndertojne-brenda-dy--i84652" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The prime minister of Canada warned Canadian business and labor leaders that the president of the United States was serious about annexing their country, and the president of the United States said he was also serious about “buying” Gaza, where Israel in the past year and a half has killed at least 48,000 people and destroyed 66 percent of buildings using thousands of 2,000-plus pound American bombs.^{<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trudeau-says-trump-serious-about-canada-becoming-51st-state-reports" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn57neepx4vo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/10/trump-says-no-right-of-return-for-palestinians-under-his-gaza-proposal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://unitar.org/about/news-stories/press/66percent-total-structures-gaza-strip-have-sustained-damage-unosats-analysis-reveals" target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/destruction-homes-leaves-palestinians-unable-safely-return-rafah#:~:text=After%20more%20than%2015%20months,scale%2Dup%20of%20humanitarian%20aid." target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-has-sent-israel-thousands-2000-pound-bombs-since-oct-7-2024-06-28/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} Russian drone operators reported receiving a shipment of first-person-view goggles that were booby-trapped to explode when switched on, a large Ukrainian drone filmed a smaller Ukrainian drone attacking a Russian surveillance drone, and Google’s parent company dropped its promise not to use its artificial intelligence technology for military weapons.^{<a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/post/46836" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} ^{<a href="https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/02/from-motherships-to-shotguns-drone-war-evolves-rapidly-in-ukraine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/05/google-owner-drops-promise-not-to-use-ai-for-weapons" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} France announced that it would invest more than $100 billion in artificial intelligence; more than 100 artificial intelligence experts signed an open letter warning that, if the technology is irresponsibly developed, it could lead to new forms of consciousness that experience suffering; a study found that arguments generated by artificial intelligence are more persuasive than those of 82 percent of users on Reddit; and a company that uses artificial intelligence to help its customers with their writing asked job applicants to promise not to use artificial intelligence to help them fill out their applications.^{<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/10/frances-answer-to-stargate-macron-announces-ai-investment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/03/ai-systems-could-be-caused-to-suffer-if-consciousness-achieved-says-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} ^{<a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/02/are-ais-getting-dangerously-good-at-persuasion-openai-says-not-yet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.404media.co/anthropic-claude-job-application-ai-assistants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A study at the University of Reading found that the mean temperature of the ocean’s surface is increasing 400 percent faster than it had in the 1980s, and Russia held a demonstration in the Arctic Circle of two of its all-terrain rescue vehicles, which subsequently fell through the ice.^{<a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a63612575/warming-ocean-temperatures/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wtaj.com/news/local-news/johnstown-flood-museum-rebuilds-after-leak-flooding-in-exhibit-area/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/russias-elite-arctic-rescue-trucks-160000812.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACzqWfu_eCcsYDmBEpWiNUAbaP8Tv4vHiIMVFYRyfixQbQYrecHzdbfTXNwUPrSin2wyLWVvxAzPDBd1AF0R3N0pr1YLH6Hto5dXwlobWTuwJca5KD0aiedDpBuYMH0XIBu7VQlX3UayoKnzS0f-vIJqcEjWn6g11AW9EqNXiMHm&amp;guccounter=2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} A nurse’s aide in Iowa was fired for flossing her teeth while standing over a patient, and one Minnesota senator said beavers were “nature’s chicken nuggets” while another proposed overturning a recent state ban on eating them.^{<a href="https://www.live5news.com/2025/01/10/unacceptable-behavior-nurse-fired-flossing-her-teeth-over-patient/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.fox9.com/news/mn-senator-wants-make-legal-eat-beavers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} Police in Pennsylvania valued 100,000 eggs stolen from a refrigerated truck at 40 cents each, and Waffle House announced that it would add a 50-cent-per-egg surcharge to compensate for rising egg prices amid a national shortage.^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/100000-eggs-worth-40000-stolen-trailer-police-crack/story?id=118474293" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eggs-prices-shortages-bird-flu-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/waffle-house-adds-50-cent-123944346.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} A female shark held in a Louisiana aquarium gave birth despite having not encountered a male in three years, the rate of marriages dropped 20 percent in China since 2023, and in South Korea, the city of Seoul began offering couples $930 to get married this year.^{<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/baby-shark-mystery-virgin-birth-parthenogenesis-delayed-fertilization-2025790" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/china/china-marriage-registrations-record-low-2024-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/seoul-to-offer-930-to-couples-who-register-marriage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} South Korea’s Incheon International Airport confiscated 10.7 tons of kimchi being smuggled in bottles or plastic bags last year, and an airplane flying over Alaska vanished.^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/travel/south-korea-airport-kimchi-confiscation-intl-hnk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/02/07/alaska-missing-plane-mystery-explanation/78338411007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} Iowa’s Supreme Court reduced the advance notice landlords must give when evicting tenants who fall behind on rent payments from 30 days to 3, the Central Intelligence Agency offered to pay all of its employees to quit their jobs, the Federal Communications Commission blocked robocallers who called FCC employees’s personal and work phone numbers pretending to be FCC agents, and Tennessee lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow parents without high school diplomas to homeschool high schoolers.^{<a href="https://dailyiowan.com/2025/02/05/iowa-eliminates-30-day-eviction-notice-policy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cia-offers-buyouts-entire-workforce-align-with-trump-priorities-wsj-reports-2025-02-05/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} ^{<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/robocallers-posing-as-fcc-staff-blocked-after-robocalling-real-fcc-staff/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wbir.com/article/news/state/bill-to-create-new-category-of-home-schools-in-tennessee/51-2f500a59-afdc-4505-9f53-fa809c75fea4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42 </a>}</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">—Joe Kloc</span></i></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-epa-toxic-pollution-venomous-snakes-cat-scan-american-bombs-artificial-intelligence-reddit-waffle-house-female-shark-kimchi-chicken-nuggets/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Weekly Review</title> <link>https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-omb-snap-nlrb-eeoc-cdc-doge-usaid-fork-in-the-road-elon-musk-trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-mediterranean-port-canal-flood-leaks-zuckerberg-japan-elderly-criminals-punxsutawney-phil/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Harper’s Magazine]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 16:30:25 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Weekly Review]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://harpers.org/?p=291990</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>A man at Quantico was photographed painting over a mural bearing the words <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Integrity</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Cooperativeness</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Stability</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Diversity</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Respect.</span></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-omb-snap-nlrb-eeoc-cdc-doge-usaid-fork-in-the-road-elon-musk-trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-mediterranean-port-canal-flood-leaks-zuckerberg-japan-elderly-criminals-punxsutawney-phil/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="drop-cap"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The U.S. Office of Management and Budget issued a two-page memo directing all federal agencies to pause the disbursement of federal financial assistance, sowing confusion across the country regarding what portion of the trillions in congressionally-appropriated funds, which encompass SNAP benefits, rental assistance, and Pell grants, would be obstructed.^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-federal-funding-freeze-widespread-confusion-rcna189581" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1</a>} ^{<a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2025/attorney-general-james-leads-coalition-suing-stop-trump-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/us/politics/trump-funding-freeze-rollout.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ce" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4</a>} ^{<a href="http://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/open-government/statement-of-disbursements/glossary-of-terms#:~:text=Appropriation%3A%20A%20law%20of%20Congress,as%20may%20be%20necessary%22" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5</a>} Medicaid portals in all 50 states went offline without warning, and the New York attorney general led a 22-state legal challenge to the edict, which was duly rescinded by the Trump Administration.^{<a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/medicaid-payment-shutdown-trump-funding-freeze/738532/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">6</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/us/politics/medicaid-freeze.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7</a>} ^{<a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2025/attorney-general-james-leads-coalition-suing-stop-trump-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">8</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-administration-rescinds-order-attempting-freeze-federal-aid-spen-rcna189852" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9</a>} “I cannot promise you that everything is going to be OK,” wrote the National Labor Relation Board’s acting general counsel in a note to staff four days after Trump brought the agency’s operations to an effective halt by illegally ousting one of its Democratic members and vaporizing its quorum.^{<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/nlrb-memo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.stinson.com/newsroom-publications-nlrb-lacks-quorum-to-exercise-its-authority-following-president-trumps-removal-of-member" target="_blank" rel="noopener">11</a>} ^{<a href="https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/nlrb-shake-up-president-trump-removes-board-member-discharges-general-counsel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.epi.org/perkins/firing-nlrb-board-member-gwynne-wilcox/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13</a>} Two commissioners were removed at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the body that protects American laborers from illegal discrimination in the workplace, which ordered its own employees, in what would represent a repudiation of their duty to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, to pause their adjudication of gender and sexuality-based complaints.^{<a href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/eeoc-tells-employees-halt-lgbtq-discrimination-cases/738853/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.hrdive.com/news/trump-shoves-eeoc-democrats-aside/738566/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">15</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.usa.gov/agencies/equal-employment-opportunity-commission#:~:text=The%20Equal%20Employment%20Opportunity%20Commission,training%2C%20wages%2C%20and%20benefits." target="_blank" rel="noopener">16</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-eeoc-commissioners-firings-crackdown-civil-rights-c48b973cb32bad97e9da9e354ba627db" target="_blank" rel="noopener">17</a>} Staffers at the Center for Disease Control and the Departments of Energy and Transportation were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures, and the 60-year old Equal Employment Opportunity rule was overturned, once again allowing federal contractors to engage in acts of discrimination against their workers.^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-employees-told-remove-pronouns-email-signatures-end/story?id=118310483" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-equal-employment-opportunity-revoke-1965-dei-what-it-means/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">19</a>} In an Office of Personnel Management email bearing the same subject line, “Fork in the Road,” as the message sent to Twitter staff days after Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover of the social-media company, nearly all of the country’s 2.3 million federal workers were offered a buyout and encouraged to go on vacation or find “higher productivity” jobs in the private sector; shortly thereafter, OPM staffers found themselves locked out of internal databases containing sensitive information on all government personnel.^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/federal-worker-buyout-reaction/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2025/02/01/trumps-bold-buyout-plan-to-shrink-the-federal-workforce–heres-everything-you-need-to-know/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">21</a>} ^{<a href="https://wtop.com/national/2025/02/qa-explaining-opms-deferred-resignation-for-federal-workers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">22</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/29/tech/elon-musk-government-cuts-twitter-takeover/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">24</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tech/elon-musk-seizes-computer-system-171738117.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">25</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26</a>} Dozens of senior Department of Education employees were placed on administrative leave, dozens of Department of Justice prosecutors involved in criminal cases related to the January 6 insurrection were fired, and more than 1,000 people at the Environmental Protection Agency received notices that they were at risk of “immediate termination.”^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/union-official-education-department-employees-leave-dei-training-rcna190337" target="_blank" rel="noopener">27</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/doj-purges-prosecutors-january-6-cases-00201904" target="_blank" rel="noopener">28</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/31/politics/epa-workers-warning/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">29</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/us/more-than-1-100-epa-employees-warned-of-immediate-termination/ar-AA1yd8FZ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">30</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-employees-warned-of-immediate-termination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">31</a>} The Department of Agriculture ordered the removal of all mention of “climate change” from its websites, the Defense Department elected to no longer recognize Black History Month, and a man at Quantico was photographed painting over a mural bearing the words <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Integrity</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Cooperativeness</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Stability</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Diversity</span>, <span style="text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;">Respect.</span>^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/usda-orders-removal-climate-change-mentions-public-websites/story?id=118312216" target="_blank" rel="noopener">32</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-white-house-marks-black-history-month-defense-118332579" target="_blank" rel="noopener">33</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wsaz.com/2025/02/03/fbi-paints-over-core-values-wall-comply-with-trump-administration-dei-rollback/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">34</a>} Envoys from the Department of Government Efficiency, which lacks a congressional mandate and is thus legally not a federal department, sought and secured access to classified data in a Bureau of Fiscal Service system that disburses trillions in social security and tax refunds to millions of Americans each year as well as classified U.S. Agency for International Development intelligence briefings for which they lacked the required security clearances.^{<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/384904/trumps-department-of-government-efficiency-sounds-like-a-joke-it-isnt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">35</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/musk-treasury-access" target="_blank" rel="noopener">36</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-security-leaders-removed-refusing-elon-musks-doge-employees-acce-rcna190357" target="_blank" rel="noopener">37</a>} The Acting Secretary of the Treasury stepped down in defeat and two senior USAID security officers, who had tried to physically prevent DOGE personnel from accessing the restricted material, were escorted out of the Ronald Reagan Building and suspended.^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-security-leaders-removed-refusing-elon-musks-doge-employees-acce-rcna190357" target="_blank" rel="noopener">38</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/us/politics/david-lebryk-treasury-resigns-musk.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">39</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wqow.com/news/senior-usaid-security-officials-put-on-leave-after-attempting-to-refuse-musk-s-doge-access/article_0649034b-c9e5-509b-bce8-5917b0265b06.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40</a>} “Time for it to die,” Musk tweeted of USAID, whose communications department was largely gutted shortly before its website went black.^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/usaid-security-leaders-removed-refusing-elon-musks-doge-employees-acce-rcna190357" target="_blank" rel="noopener">41</a>} ^{<a href="https://amu.tv/154981/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">42</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-state-department-usaid-humanitarian-aid-freeze-ukraine-gaza-sudan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-usaid-staff-ousted-trump-182748021.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">44</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjdmx12j9no" target="_blank" rel="noopener">45</a>} Billions in U.S. foreign aid were frozen overnight, with an exemption made for military assistance to Israel.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/24/foreign-aid-israel-egypt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">46</a>} “These guys are terrible at everything,” tweeted a Senate Democrat regarding Trump’s failure to deport as many immigrants as Joe Biden had in his first week in office, and House Democrats held an emergency Zoom meeting.^{<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.latintimes.com/dem-senator-points-out-that-trump-deporting-fewer-criminal-immigrants-biden-these-guys-are-574095&amp;sa=D&amp;source=docs&amp;ust=1738554978073714&amp;usg=AOvVaw0hCTM_Y8S89jDuD7qleUWO" target="_blank" rel="noopener">47</a>} ^{<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5114602-democrats-emergency-meeting-trump-actions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">48</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, leading the premier of Nova Scotia to order the province’s liquor corporation to pull all 400 of its American alcohol products from its shelves, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to announce retaliatory tariffs on Floridian orange juice, the value of the Canadian dollar to tumble to levels not seen since 2003, and Canadian sports fans to readopt the Iraq War-era tradition of booing “The Star-Spangled Banner” when it was played at NBA and NHL games throughout the weekend.^{<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/tim-houston-responds-us-tariff-increase-1.7448333" target="_blank" rel="noopener">49</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/mexicos-president-says-tariffs-will-delayed-one-month-rcna190433" target="_blank" rel="noopener">50</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/toppartners.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">51</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadas-trudeau-announces-counter-tariffs-2025-02-02/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">52</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.tipranks.com/news/canadian-dollar-falls-to-lowest-level-since-2003-as-currency-markets-gyrate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">53</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/02/list-of-products-from-the-united-states-subject-to-25-per-cent-tariffs-effective-february-4-2025.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">54</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/nba/article-14352703/Angry-Canadian-NBA-fans-boo-national-anthem-Toronto-Raptors-game-Donald-Trump-imposes-tariffs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">55</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fans-boo-national-anthem-tariffs-canada-2c7210574c0373348870a94445814407" target="_blank" rel="noopener">56</a>} U.S. stock market futures plunged, Asian shares slumped, and wait times to take out gold bullion from the Bank of England octupled as a stockpile worth an estimated $82 billion was amassed in New York in anticipation of global trade war.^{<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/02/business/stock-futures-trum-tariffs/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">57</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70kn4676p4o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">58</a>} ^{<a href="https://fortune.com/europe/2025/01/31/waiting-time-get-gold-out-bank-england-reportedly-octupled-trump-tariff-threats-spark-exodus-us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">59</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-wrapup-1pixtv-2025-02-03/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">60</a>} “We may have short term some little pain,” Trump acknowledged as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Vehicle Suppliers Association warned the White House of the supply chain upheaval threatened by the new duties, which stand to spike the price of cars, fuel, beer, and avocados.^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-imports-mexico-canada-china-3fd4cf45b2294c69a03391024dd8ca2e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">61</a>} ^{<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-trade-surplus-3010e6368545e2976feb5ac6b41e528e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">62</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/your-money/tariffs-trump-economy/#:~:text=Nevertheless%2C%20Trump%20has%20acknowledged%20American,Trump%20told%20reporters%20on%20Sunday." target="_blank" rel="noopener">63</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.industryweek.com/the-economy/trade/article/55265104/condemnation-of-trumps-new-tariffs-from-auto-consumer-goods-groups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">64</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgpvq20qmdo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">65</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgpvq20qmdo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">66</a>} Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, who initially rejected the allegation that her government maintained an “intolerable alliance” with drug trafficking cartels, sent 10,000 troops to its northern border to intercept fentanyl trade, and Trudeau agreed to appoint a “fentanyl czar,” the two North American leaders later securing a one-month stay on the American tariff levy.^{<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-imposes-tariffs-on-imports-from-canada-mexico-and-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">67</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-us-claim-cartel-alliance-slander-vows-tariff-retaliation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">68</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.timesnownews.com/world/canada/what-will-canadas-fentanyl-czar-do-justin-trudeaus-border-plan-to-stop-smuggling-explained-article-117896572" target="_blank" rel="noopener">69</a>} Goods from China were slapped with an additional 10 percent in import duties, prompting the country to announce that it would file a complaint with the World Trade Organization, whose ability to mediate international trade disputes was kneecapped when the first Trump Administration blocked appointments to its main adjudication body, all seven seats of which remain vacant.^{<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/5121368-china-files-legal-case-us-wto-tariffs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">70</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/08/lessons-trumps-assault-world-trade-organization" target="_blank" rel="noopener">71</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/appellate_body_e.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">72</a>} “These sabotage actions will not be tolerated,” the Latvian defense minister said after a fourth data cable running under the Baltic Sea was damaged in what are suspected to be covert attacks, leading Norway to seize a Russian-crewed cargo ship.^{<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/nato-eu-on-high-alert-as-undersea-cable-attacks-escalate-in-baltic/7956600.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">73</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-authorities-board-ship-seized-over-baltic-sea-cable-breach-2025-01-27/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">74</a>} ^{<a href="https://gcaptain.com/norway-releases-ship-suspected-of-baltic-sea-cable-damage/#:~:text=Swedish%20police%20seized%20and%20boarded,but%20denied%20any%20malicious%20intent." target="_blank" rel="noopener">75</a>} On the Mediterranean Sea, the treaty granting the Russian Navy a military perch at the port of Tartus was terminated by the new Syrian government, which also demanded that the Kremlin, which is allegedly providing refuge to ousted leader Bashar Assad, pay the country reparations and “address past mistakes.”^{<a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/22/syria-terminates-russian-naval-base-deal-reports-a87690" target="_blank" rel="noopener">76</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/syria-demands-reparations-russia-2022813" target="_blank" rel="noopener">77</a>} The Panamanian president announced that his nation would step away from the Belt and Road Initiative as Trump renewed threats to reappropriate the country’s eponymous canal, through which $270 billion in cargo is ferried each year.^{<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marco-rubio-panama-canal-visit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">78</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.visualcapitalist.com/panama-canal-traffic-by-shipment-category-and-tonnage/%23:~:text%3DAbout%2520the%2520Panama%2520Canal%26text%3DThe%2520Panama%2520Canal%2520moves%2520roughly,of%2520all%2520global%2520maritime%2520trade&amp;sa=D&amp;source=docs&amp;ust=1738553532192133&amp;usg=AOvVaw2KtueQouLOXsvb2zq5kIpE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">79</a>} ^{<a href="https://fortune.com/asia/2025/02/02/panama-leave-belt-and-road-canal-china-trump-rubio/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">80</a>} The Suez Canal Authority announced that peace had been restored to the Red Sea while Israel continued its assault on the West Bank.^{<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/suez-canal-authority-says-stability-returning-red-sea-2025-01-31/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">81</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israeli-military-destroys-buildings-west-bank-rcna190328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">82</a>}</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Johnstown Flood Museum in Pennsylvania, which commemorates the victims of an 1889 deluge that killed 2,209 people, temporarily closed due to flooding instigated by a water leak on the building’s third floor.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/28/johnstown-flood-museum-closed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">83</a>} “Everything I say leaks,” complained Mark Zuckerberg during an all-hands meeting about firing leakers at Meta, according to audio that was leaked within the day.^{<a href="https://www.theverge.com/meta/603812/meta-warns-leakers-leaked-memo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">84</a>} After capitulating to Trump’s executive order “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness,” Google’s maps division reclassified the United States as a “sensitive country.”^{<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/28/google-reclassifies-us-as-sensitive-country-like-china-russia-.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">85</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-names-that-honor-american-greatness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">86</a>} “Perhaps this life is the most stable for me,” an 81-year-old Japanese woman said amid a rise in petty crime committed by the country’s growing population of single elderly women, some of whom are reportedly seeking imprisonment to gain better access to community and health care, and a 71-year-old Japanese man was found to be behind a string of local house robberies, which he said he committed in order to “look cool” and treat strangers to sushi.^{<a href="https://fortune.com/well/article/japan-prison-older-women-loneliness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">87</a>} ^{<a href="https://soranews24.com/2025/01/28/71-year-old-japanese-man-who-wanted-to-look-cool-robbed-63-houses-treated-strangers-to-sushi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">88</a>} “I wanted to build something creative for my community,” a Las Vegas ice cream truck driver said in response to social-media allegations that his vehicle was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement truck in disguise.^{<a href="https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/las-vegas-ice-cream-truck-mistaken-for-ice-vehicle-im-an-ice-cream-man-thats-it/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">89</a>} Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog ranked the 17th most accurate rodent weather forecaster in the country by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.^{<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/01/scientists-cast-doubt-reliability-us-groundhog-weather-forecasts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">90</a>} ^{<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/punxsutawney-phil-predicts-6-more-weeks-winter-groundhog-day-2025/story?id=118357788" target="_blank" rel="noopener">91</a>} ^{<a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/staten-island/staten-island-chuck-most-accurate-groundhog-weather-predictions/6130801/#:~:text=Punxsutawney%20Phil%20came%20in%20at,just%2035%25%2C%20NOAA%20said." target="_blank" rel="noopener">92 </a>}</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">—Maya Perry</span></i></p> <p>The post <a href="https://harpers.org/2025/02/weekly-review-omb-snap-nlrb-eeoc-cdc-doge-usaid-fork-in-the-road-elon-musk-trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-mediterranean-port-canal-flood-leaks-zuckerberg-japan-elderly-criminals-punxsutawney-phil/">Weekly Review</a> appeared first on <a href="https://harpers.org">Harper&#039;s Magazine</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel> </rss>