Weekly Review

By Claire Gutierrez

An American cattleman.

A 6.3 earthquake in the Abruzzo region of Italy damaged buildings in 26 towns, destroyed numerous historic monuments, left tens of thousands of people homeless, and killed at least 92 people, including an 82-year-old nun who died of shock. Seismologist Giampaolo Giuliani, who for weeks had warned of the earthquake, demanded an apology from the Italian government, which had forced him to remove his predictions from the Internet. “Every time there is an earthquake there are people who claim to have predicted it,” said Enzo Boschi, the chairman of Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology. “It is not possible to predict earthquakes.”^{1 2} President Barack Obama traveled to Europe with his wife, Michelle, for the G-20 summit and the sixtieth anniversary of NATO, and met a number of foreign leaders for the first time, including Queen Elizabeth II (who, the press noted, actually touched the First Lady), Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and Chinese President Hu Jintao. When Hu and French President Nicolas Sarkozy quarreled and refused to sign the summit's communique, Obama resolved their argument. “I'd suggest,” said one senior official, “we'd still be in there had he not done this.”^{3 4 5} NATO leaders promised Obama only 5,000 more troops for Afghanistan. “No one will say this publicly,” said one European diplomat speaking on the condition of anonymity, “but the true fact is that we are all talking about our exit strategy from Afghanistan. We are getting out.”^{6 7} Journalists hoping to speak with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the NATO gathering were accidentally directed by the White House to call a phone-sex line.⁸ A piglet in China was born with three eyes and two noses.⁹

Jiverly Wong, a 41-year Vietnamese immigrant who had recently been laid off from a Shop-Vac factory in Binghamton, New York, barricaded himself inside the town's American Civic Association with two handguns and killed thirteen people (most of them immigrants attending English classes) and himself. “He was going to take the police on--or at least try to stop us from stopping him,” said police chief Joseph Zikuski. “He must have been a coward.”¹⁰ North Korea defied United Nations resolutions and launched a rocket over the Pacific Ocean, prompting President Obama to call for a world without nuclear weapons. “I'm not naive,” he said. “But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, 'Yes, we can.'”^{11 12} The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 663,000 jobs were lost in March, bringing the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent,¹³ and a study found that workers who are allowed to surf the Internet are more productive. ¹⁴ Home prices were 19 percent lower in January than a year ago, and the Obamas declined the $100,000 allowance allotted to each president to redecorate the private quarters of the White House, opting instead to finance the redecoration on their own. “It is politically astute in terms of symbolism,” said Carl Anthony, historian of the National First Ladies' Library. “It is also really thoughtful when people are losing their actual houses.”^{15 16} A British soccer player was given a yellow card for passing gas during the opposing team's penalty shot,¹⁷ and a St. Petersburg statue of Vladimir Lenin was bombed, leaving a crater in its rear.¹⁸

Same-sex marriage was legalized in Sweden, and in Iowa, where the state's supreme court declared that a 1998 ruling limiting marriage to opposite-sex partnerships was unconstitutional. “We are blessed,” said lesbian Kate Ventrum, “to live in Iowa.” ^{19 20} Researchers found that people with sisters are happier than people with brothers.^{21 22} People in 109 cities celebrated World Pillow Fight Day,^{23 24} and in honor of Genital Integrity Awareness Week, 50 “intactivists” demonstrated against circumcision in front of the White House, where a group of eighth-graders on a class field trip got mixed up in their rally. “It's gonna be their favorite souvenir,” the children's teacher said. “They got a picture that says 'penis' on it.”²⁵ The star of a popular Swedish TV show for children was hospitalized after he chopped off the tip of his finger on air,²⁶ and a deckhand aboard the chartered boat Gale Force died in front of 20 Los Angeles elementary school children when he choked on the bait fish he had stuck in his mouth in order to make the visiting kids laugh.²⁷ Two British boys, aged 10 and 11, were arrested for nearly killing two other boys, beating them with a brick, slashing them with a knife, and burning them with cigarettes.²⁸ Photographer Helen Levitt, famous for her photos of children playing in the streets of New York, died. “Children used to be outside,” she once said. “Now the streets are empty.”²⁹