The Week Magazine May 27, 2022

It’s fitting that fatigue is the most common symptom of long Covid, when we are all so very tired of this endless pandemic. Once again, America is in a Covid surge, with hospitalizations up 20 percent in just two weeks and daily new cases now breaking 100,000—and that’s the undercount. It’s impossible to say how many people are really infected, because many of us test positive at home and don’t report it to local health authorities, and plenty of counties have abandoned even trying to track weekly cases. Nearly a quarter of adults never got a single shot, and more than half aren’t boosted. This sneaky new Omicron variant, meanwhile, BA.2.12.1, is spreading rapidly, even among the vaccinated and boosted. But my fellow Americans just don’t want to hear about…

What happened An 18-year-old gunman fueled by his belief in “replacement theory” shot and killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo last week, casting a spotlight on the spread of a once-fringe racist ideology. Payton Gendron, a college dropout from upstate New York, opened fire with a Bushmaster XM-15 assault weapon in a market on Buffalo’s predominantly Black east side after planning for months a bloodbath designed to kill as many Blacks as possible. He laid out his motives in a manifesto that echoed online screeds claiming that a cabal of leftist elites and “globalist” Jews are conspiring to gain power by “replacing” white, native-born Christians with dark-skinned foreigners. Blacks and immigrants “invade our lands” and “attack and replace our people,” wrote Gendron, who said he’d been…

Back in 2003, doctors told Bobby Channell he needed a new heart. He finally became eligible earlier this year and completed the procedure in Texas. While recovering at a special facility called Nora’s Home, Channell met Faith Crouch, staying across the hall to recover from a lung transplant for cystic fibrosis. The pair immediately bonded over their shared experience and soon began dating. Channell is still in recovery at Nora’s Home, but the couple is sure their love will outlast their hospital stays. “We definitely want to be together,” Channell said. A 2-year-old Jack Russell terrier has been awarded state honors from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his role in identifying 200 Russian explosives. Patron, whose name translates to “ammo” in Ukrainian, barked and wagged his tail at the award…

What happened In a closely watched primary, Pennsylvania Republicans chose a far-right gubernatorial candidate this week who backs former President Trump’s false 2020 election-rigging claims. Trump’s Senate pick, celebrity physician Mehmet Oz, was locked in a race with former hedge fund boss David McCormick that was too close to call when The Week went to press. The nominee for governor, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally outside the Capitol and supported sending alternate Trump electors to Washington. Mastriano will face Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who ran unopposed. In what’s expected to be a crucial battle for control of the Senate, Oz or McCormick will take on Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a 6-foot-8, shorts- and hoodies-wearing progressive populist who easily defeated moderate Rep.…

What happened Advancing Ukrainian forces clawed back more territory this week, as British intelligence reported that Russia had lost a full third of its invading troops. Ukrainian fighters retook Kharkiv, the second-biggest city, and pushed northward to the Russian border. Russia, meanwhile, focused its firepower on the south and east, but with mixed results. In eastern Luhansk, Ukrainian artillery obliterated an entire Russian battalion that was trying to cross a pontoon bridge, destroying more than 70 military vehicles and killing nearly 500 Russian soldiers. In Mariupol, though, Russia claimed that 1,000 Ukrainians had surrendered, and Ukrainians reported that Russians hauled away more than 260 soldiers from the city’s last holdout, the Azovstal steelworks. The Kremlin insisted Russia would treat the soldiers—many of them badly wounded—in accordance with international law,…

“Is my baby getting enough food?” It’s a fear every new parent has, said David Leonhardt in The New York Times, but one that’s become “acute” for millions of Americans caught up in a nationwide shortage of baby formula. Stores have about 43 percent less stock of formula than usual, creating an “urgent problem”: Some infants cannot drink breast milk, and a lot of working mothers simply don’t have the time or place to breastfeed. Major store chains like CVS and Walmart are rationing how much formula a person can buy, and desperate moms and dads are scouring shops and the internet for formula supplies, often vastly overpaying for any they do find. “It gets really scary,” says Carrie Fleming, a mother in Pell City, Ala. She spent $245…