In the occupied West Bank, dozens of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and an American photojournalist during a harvest, burning olive trees and injuring two people; the following day, another group of settlers attacked, among others, diplomats from Belgium, France, and Poland; the United Nations reported that attacks on Palestinian farmers this year have exceeded 200, resulting in the injury of more than 120 people and damage to more than 2,500 olive trees; and the U.S. president gave the Israeli prime minister his “complete and total endorsement” nine days before Israel’s national election, calling him a “Great Warrior Prime Minister.”1 2 3 4 5 The White House press secretary, who called herself a lawyer and, when asked where she passed the bar exam, responded, “I went to China,” resigned after less than a week on the job.6 7 At the urging of the White House, the Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation into CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News for the networks’ suspension of pooled White House coverage after CNN was denied entry to White House grounds by the Trump administration; the Pentagon announced that it would withhold its report on the U.S. bombing of a school in Iran until after the midterm elections; Trump released a social-media video renewing his promise to give every American a $5,000 check if the Republicans win the midterms; and it was reported that 2026 election campaigns spent at least $137 million on AI-generated ads.8 9 10 11 12 At OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, an engineer was charged with using a device to intercept oral communications after a tiny microphone wrapped in toilet paper was discovered in a conference room; a New Orleans jail worker received a two-and-a-half-year sentence for helping ten inmates escape through a hole behind a toilet; and a district court judge in Nevada sentenced a former Crips gang leader to forty years to life in prison for orchestrating the 1996 murder of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur.13 14 “You don’t get to take a man from his family,” said the judge. “Especially when that man is Tupac Shakur.”15
Several left-wing bookstalls in Calcutta were destroyed by vandals using a bulldozer and garbage trucks, and a publisher of Irish novelist Sally Rooney announced that it would no longer sell her books in the United Kingdom after the author declared she would donate the royalties to Palestine Action, a direct-action group opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza that the British parliament designated a terrorist group last year.16 17 18 19 Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was found to have attended only 16 percent of his committee meetings in 2026 and was reported to have met more frequently with the Israeli prime minister than with the mayor of Philadelphia; a Philadelphia woman was arrested for allegedly refusing to move out of the way of a robot, saying, “They’re taking over the world”; and a 94-year-old Chicago electronics billionaire was accused of luring throngs of rats to the city’s public parks with a “luxury melange” of nuts.20 21 22 A Denmark Central Register of Persons data breach implicating the information of 8.8 million people was traced to IT-company accounts protected by the password “123456”; a cyberattack struck the refrigeration systems of more than 400 grocery stores in France; four men in Atlanta, Georgia, broke into a home and left with its refrigerator; and a Massachusetts meat producer recalled approximately 1.5 million pounds of ready-to-eat poultry and meat products because of possible “temperature abuse.”23 24 25 26 Off the coast of Turkey, researchers discovered the world’s oldest shipwreck, and Mattel unveiled a new Barbie doll inspired by Céline Dion’s performance of the Titanic theme song “My Heart Will Go On.”27 28 The Pope accepted a pontiff stuffed doll from a thirteen-year-old girl while leaving the hospital four days after having a tumor removed from his lung, and an Ecuadorian Catholic priest was killed by a falling crucifix soon after delivering a sermon about the transience of life.29 30
German police seized a robot after it allegedly sexually harassed a teenager, and a board member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party’s youth organization resigned after posting a map on social media that showed Luxembourg and Austria within Germany’s borders.31 32 33 The patron of an estate sale in Austin, Texas, unknowingly purchased live World War II–era grenades; a town hall clock tower in Limoges, France, which withstood both world wars, collapsed in a fire set by a protesting mob; and Dior reportedly hired private security guards to prevent protesters from breaking into the brand’s flagship store in Paris.34 35 36 A black bear broke into a California library and ate a jar of honey on the centennial of Winnie-the-Pooh’s publication, a small Yorkshire terrier named Benny successfully chased a bear out of its owner’s backyard, and a nineteen-foot-long steel dachshund sculpture was unveiled in Buda, Texas, to cement the city’s standing as the “wiener dog capital” of the state.37 38 39 40 “This pup isn’t merely decoration,” said the CEO of the Buda Economic Development Corporation. “It’s an investment in our identity.”41 —Sofia Pirri
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