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Staying up-to-date with the latest news is no easy task. It’s so challenging, in fact, that we’ve made it our mission to save you the trouble by gathering the most important, unexpected, or simply astonishing stories every week.
After a few weeks of peaceful respite, this week began with two separate individuals choosing to unleash their anger on the world by taking innocent lives. Though tragic, these grim events were balanced by stories of change, innovation, and progress—like new social movements, scientific breakthroughs, and significant strides toward the nationwide approval of marijuana legalization.
10. A Horrifying Mass Shooting Shakes Toronto
This column has previously pointed out the disturbing trend of individuals using vehicles as their preferred weapon. While often associated with Islamist terrorism, this pattern isn’t exclusive to it. On Monday, Alek Minassian broke the mold by driving a van into pedestrians on Toronto’s Yonge Street, resulting in 10 deaths and 14 injuries.
What was his tragic excuse? The fact that no women would sleep with him.
Fortunately, Minassian was apprehended alive. Officer Ken Lam arrived first on the scene after the van crashed and Minassian exited, claiming to have a firearm. Lam’s cool response? “I don’t care.” He swiftly arrested the suspect, who now faces the consequences of his actions.
9. A Strange Mass Shooting Strikes a Tennessee Waffle House
Though four people lost their lives, several others were injured, and a brave, unarmed man managed to subdue the shooter, the Waffle House massacre from Sunday will likely be remembered for one strange twist. After allegedly committing the deadly act, Travis Jeffrey Reinking fled the scene on foot. According to police, he was barely dressed.
Reinking was no stranger to law enforcement. Among other incidents, he had previously attempted to breach the White House grounds, hoping to speak with President Trump. After this, his firearms were confiscated, but his father somehow managed to retrieve them and return them to his son. This decision led to the tragic deaths of four people.
Reinking was captured late Monday following a 34-hour manhunt. He is currently under suicide watch, awaiting his trial.
8. Armenia’s Velvet Revolution Toppled A President
Last week, we covered the massive protests that had swept through Armenia, a struggling nation in the Caucasus. Former President Serzh Sargsyan had just been appointed as prime minister after completing his constitutionally allowed presidential term, during which he had stripped the presidency of its powers and concentrated them in the PM’s office. At that time, we noted how mass protests had failed to halt Sargsyan’s power grabs in the past and doubted their success this time.
We couldn’t have been more wrong. On Monday, Sargsyan resigned. By then, nearly a quarter of the country was believed to be marching against him.
The absence of violence and fatalities has led to the movement being dubbed a “velvet revolution,” borrowing the term from the 1989 Czechoslovak revolution that unfolded without a single shot fired. However, Armenia’s future remains uncertain.
Sargsyan’s Republican Party still controls the government, and protesters continue to demand the resignation of the entire ruling body. Will Armenia finally experience the transformation it so desperately needs? We’ll have to wait and see in the coming weeks.
7. US Marijuana Legalization Efforts Gaining Momentum
Chuck Schumer stands as one of the most influential Democrats in the United States. As Senate minority leader, he’s firmly entrenched in the political mainstream. This is what makes his announcement last Friday so noteworthy. In celebration of 4/20, marijuana’s unofficial holiday, Schumer publicly endorsed the decriminalization of marijuana.
He’s joined by former Republican House speaker John Boehner, who had just signed on with a cannabis company board a week prior, signaling his shift toward advocating for legalization. With growing support, the pro-marijuana movement seems to have gained significant traction. As more states legalize weed and enjoy the resulting tax revenue, it seems inevitable that federal law will eventually follow suit.
This is a major shift from just a few short years ago. In 2017, the idea of a Senate leader and a former House speaker openly supporting drug legalization would have seemed laughable. But things change quickly, and it now looks like we’ll see marijuana legalized nationwide before this decade concludes.
6. Swaziland Has Officially Rebranded Its Colonial-Era Name
The former British colony of Swaziland remains one of the world’s last absolute monarchies. Essentially, whatever the king decrees becomes law, which sometimes leads to some rather unusual announcements. Such was the case late last Thursday when King Mswati III issued a new command. As of that moment, Swaziland’s official name was changed to eSwatini. The name Swaziland is no more.
The name “Swaziland” had long been a relic of colonialism, akin to Ukraine still being called the “Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic” or Ghana being known as the “Gold Coast.” While most countries shed their colonial names upon independence, eSwatini waited five decades for the king’s 50th birthday to mark the change.
In a curious twist, King Mswati III also moved the country’s official independence day to coincide with his own birthday this year—because that’s the kind of thing you can pull off when you’re an absolute monarch.
Despite the name change, eSwatini continues to face significant challenges. It has the highest rate of HIV in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies. Additionally, it is geographically squeezed between the two regional giants, South Africa and Mozambique.
5. A Major Legal Immigration Scandal Shakes The UK
For the past two weeks, the UK government has been at the center of a scandal entirely of its own making. After World War II, London legalized immigration from all Commonwealth countries. Up until the early 1970s, anyone arriving in Britain from nations like India, Pakistan, Canada, Jamaica, Australia, and many others were automatically granted UK citizenship, regardless of whether they held a UK passport.
This last detail is crucial because many members of the so-called Windrush generation (the first group of Caribbean immigrants arrived on the ship Empire Windrush) only had one government-issued document confirming their legal status. In 2010, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition ordered the destruction of these documents. Under Theresa May's leadership, the Home Office then began deporting Windrush immigrants, despite them having full legal rights to stay in the UK.
The scandal gained widespread attention a week or two ago, but it really intensified this week when current Home Secretary Amber Rudd acknowledged that Windrush immigrants had been deported to meet arbitrary quotas. This revelation has ignited a political firestorm, severely damaging Theresa May’s government and causing significant hardship for elderly British citizens born in the former empire.
4. Finland Ends Its Universal Basic Income Experiment
Universal basic income (UBI) is regarded by some as the ultimate solution for 21st-century societies. A guaranteed monthly income for every citizen—whether employed or wealthy—is championed by some on the left as the necessary safety net in the age of automation, and by some on the right as the ideal way to liberate people from the constraints of a traditional welfare system.
In essence, it is a major movement gaining traction as a potential game-changer in policy. However, this week it suffered a major blow. After being a frontrunner in UBI for two years, Finland has officially ended its experimental program. The world’s largest-scale UBI trial is now officially over.
The Finnish trial offered 2,000 unemployed individuals €560 a month, which they continued to receive regardless of whether they found employment. The social security agency had requested additional funding to extend the same benefits to a random group of 2,000 employed individuals. However, Helsinki ended the program before any definitive conclusions could be made.
3. North and South Korea Poised to Make History
By the time you read this, Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in may have already made history. No, not by Kim setting off a chain of destruction, but by making substantial strides toward peace.
At 9:30 AM local time on Friday, Moon is set to meet Kim at the border between North and South Korea. They will then walk together to a summit located on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). This will mark the first time since 1953 that a North Korean leader has stepped onto South Korean soil.
As this column is submitted just hours before the deadline, we don’t yet know how these discussions will unfold. However, there is hope that Kim and Moon will come to an agreement, officially ending the Korean War of 1950-53, while also clearing the path for a potential summit between Kim and President Trump later in the year.
North Korea is notoriously hard to interpret, and it has given ample reasons in the past to question its commitment to peace. However, this time, Pyongyang could genuinely be sincere. After all, any move that could contribute to the denuclearization of the peninsula is worth pursuing.
2. George H.W. Bush Came Close to Death
Last week, we reported the passing of Barbara Bush, the wife of President George H.W. Bush and mother of President George W. Bush. This week, we almost had to report the death of her husband, too. After the funeral of his wife, former President George H.W. Bush was hospitalized with sepsis and placed in intensive care. You could almost hear obituary writers across the nation racing to write their tributes.
Luckily, the 41st president of the United States survived and was moved out of intensive care on Wednesday. As of this moment, however, he is still unwell and under careful observation.
The probability is high that Bush will recover from this current illness and live to fight another day. Nevertheless, his near-death experience draws attention to the fact that two of America’s remaining presidents may not have much time left. Jimmy Carter is 93 and in poor health, and the same applies to George H.W. Bush. It's possible that we may soon lose two members from the small group of living US presidents.
1. We Might Have Detected the Largest Structure in the Universe
Billions of years ago, 14 young galaxies teeming with new, brilliant stars collided. The catastrophic event, though destructive, eventually resulted in the creation of an immense galactic cluster, far denser than our Milky Way and possibly the largest object in the observable universe.
Approximately 12.4 billion years after this violent cosmic collision, the light from this ancient event finally reached Earth. Unveiled this week by an international team in Nature, this discovery not only reveals the largest object in the night sky but also threatens to change everything we understand about the universe's beginnings.
The 14 exceptionally bright galaxies are known as starbursts, galaxies that create new stars at an extraordinary pace. The surprising part? We wouldn't expect to see so many of them so close to the universe's origin. Similarly, the formation of a galaxy cluster during such an ancient period is something we didn’t anticipate. It might be time to revise our entire understanding of the universe's birth and its early development.
