A weekly dispatch taking aim at the relentless absurdity of the 24-hour news cycle.

Three hundred sixty thousand people were forced to flee Rafah after Israel issued evacuation orders.¹ ² The Israeli military continued its assault on northern Gaza, and Israeli settlers raided the West Bank, attacking Palestinians and setting their land on fire.³ ⁴ ⁵ Egypt said it would join with South Africa in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and in Tel Aviv, Israeli police used water cannons to break up a demonstration of thousands of protesters demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secure a hostage release deal and then resign.⁶ ⁷ ⁸ After the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to shut down Al Jazeera in the country last week, Israeli authorities proceeded to take the network off the air, raid its offices, and confiscate its equipment.⁹ The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to admit Palestine as a member state; only nine countries, including Israel and the United States, voted against the bid. Police in riot gear arrested more than 30 people at the University of Pennsylvania, more than 30 people at George Washington University, 64 people at the University of California San Diego, and roughly 130 people at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for participating in encampments.¹⁰ ¹¹ ¹² ¹³ ¹⁴ The administration of Trinity College Dublin said it would completely divest from Israeli companies “that have activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and appear on the UN blacklist” and would endeavor to divest from other Israeli companies following the efforts of pro-Palestine student protesters, which included blocking access to the Book of Kells, a highly decorated manuscript from the ninth century that is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Ireland.¹⁵ ¹⁶ In London, two octogenarian “Just Stop Oil” protesters used a hammer and chisel to break the glass around the Magna Carta, a 13th-century document that the travel site Lonely Planet describes as “still-powerful.”¹⁷ ¹⁸ Around 800 anticapitalist “Disrupt” protesters attempted to break into a Tesla factory in Germany, and four members of Extinction Rebellion interrupted the Westminster dog show agility course.¹⁹ “We disrupt things we love,” said one of the climate protesters.²⁰

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that a parasitic worm found its way into his brain, “ate a portion of it and then died,” Donald Trump described the fictional character Hannibal Lecter as “late” and “great” at a campaign rally in New Jersey, Hillary Clinton said that students protesting the war in Gaza “don’t know very much,” and Kathy Hochul said, “We have young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word ‘computer’ is.”²¹ ²² ²³ ²⁴ “There are some things that would’ve been better left unsaid,” the judge of Trump’s hush-money trial said in New York.²⁵ The Socialist Party won an election in Catalonia, Panama’s former security minister won the country’s presidential election, Sadiq Khan won reelection as London’s mayor, and Switzerland won Eurovision.²⁶ ²⁷ ²⁸ ²⁹ “I have a special thought for the unfortunate candidates who have lost the competition,” said Mahamat Idriss Déby, the incumbent president of Chad, whose reelection was met with opposition protests and accusations of fraud.³⁰ ³¹ ³² “This was a wrestling match level mudslinging and takedown by any means necessary,” Questlove said of the rap battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.³³ One hundred fifty men wearing lederhosen gathered to finger-wrestle in Bernbeuren, Germany.³⁴

The first man to receive a genetically modified pig kidney transplant died two months after the operation, the remains of a Vietnam veteran were identified 50 years after their discovery by Arizona farmers chasing a runaway pig, and two pet pigs were mistakenly killed by mobile butchers in Washington State.³⁵ ³⁶ ³⁷ Hundreds of wasps attacked Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza after they drove their tank over a nest.³⁸ “Everyone got stung at least a couple of times,” said the fire chief of Clinton, Maine, of the first responders tasked with containing 15 million honeybees after the tractor-trailer transporting them overturned.³⁹ The driver of a box truck crashed and caused an hour’s worth of stalled traffic after suffering a sneezing fit in New Hampshire, and in Oklahoma, another driver crashed his truck into a power pole after a Chihuahua jumped into his lap.⁴⁰ ⁴¹ In New York City, Steve Buscemi became the second cast member of Boardwalk Empire to be randomly punched in the face.⁴² —Megan Evershed