The Week Magazine June 3, 2022

Schools. Churches. Synagogues. Supermarkets. The victims of the last massacre, in Buffalo, were still being buried this week when another disaffected young man armed with an assault weapon slaughtered 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. So far this year, this broken nation is averaging 10 mass shootings of four or more people every week. The same country recently passed 1 million Covid deaths—far more than any other nation. Tens of millions of people believe the 2020 election was stolen, and democracy itself stands on crumbling ground. Sharply conflicting abortion laws will inflame the rancor between blue and red states. Even the supposedly nonpartisan Supreme Court has split along the seams, with justices openly expressing scorn and suspicion of the enemy faction. These are all symptoms of an underlying…

What happened America’s decades-long debate over gun-safety laws received a horrifying jolt of urgency this week, after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in a Texas elementary school. It was the second mass shooting in the U.S. in two weeks, and the deadliest school shooting since 2012’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Wearing body armor and wielding a semiautomatic assault-style rifle, Salvador Ramos shot his way past three armed police officers to enter Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and opened fire in two adjoining classrooms, killing 19 third-and fourth-graders and two teachers. As 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza tried to dial 911, witnesses said, he told her, “You’re going to die,” and shot her. The shooter’s hour-long rampage ended only when a Border Patrol tactical unit…

What happened Russian forces redoubled efforts to seize Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region this week, raining fire on the city of Sievierodonetsk with such intensity that Ukraine’s human rights ombuds-woman called it “the new Mariupol.” Russian troops surrounded the industrial city on three sides, as an estimated 10,000 citizens, remnants of the prewar population of 100,000, huddled in shelters. “They are systematically destroying the city,” said regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai. He said the next days of fighting would determine the fate of the Donbas. As the war hit the three-month mark, Russia’s military had made scant progress beyond occupying Mariupol and blockading the key port of Odessa, a siege that has worsened global grain shortages. Indeed, in several cases, Russia had captured towns only to cede them back to…

What happened Georgia Republican voters gave a strong show of support this week to GOP incumbents who rebuffed former President Trump’s claims that the state was stolen from him in the 2020 election. In the gubernatorial primary, Brian Kemp trounced Trump’s hand-picked challenger, former Sen. David Perdue, by more than 50 points, days after Perdue said, “I guaran-damn-tee you we’re not down 30 points,” as polls indicated. In a last-ditch effort, Perdue launched a racist attack against Stacey Abrams, who will face Kemp this fall, saying the Black Democrat was “demeaning her own race” and should “go back where she came from.” Rep. Jody Hice failed to force a runoff against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a longtime Trump target who spoke out emphatically against Trump after the then-president…

Most Americans don’t realize it, said Rachel Roubein in The Washington Post, but Covid is back. A new, highly transmissible subvariant of Omicron, BA.2.12.1, has evolved to evade prior immunity and is rapidly spreading across the country. The number of new reported infections in the U.S. has climbed back to more than 100,000 a day, and because most people do not report their home tests, experts say the actual number could be 500,000 to 1 million new cases a day. Deaths in this “silent” surge are still relatively low, at about 350 a day. But hospitalizations have risen by more than 20 percent over two weeks. Even though no one wants to admit it, the U.S. is actually in the midst of “a sixth wave,” said Erin Prater in…

Good week for: Guilt, with the return of a dozen religious idols that had been stolen from a Hindu temple in Uttar Pradesh, India. The thieves explained in a note to temple staff that “we have not been able to sleep, eat, and live peacefully,” and “are returning your valuables.” Technology, after a group of students at Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering announced the invention of edible adhesive tape to hold messy tacos, burritos, and wraps together. Democracy, after British ornithologists found that a flock of jackdaws will take a “voice vote” before deciding democratically where and when to fly, enabling hundreds of birds to “perform cohesive, collective departures from the roost.” Whether such a system could work in human communities remains to be seen. Bad week for: Coveting, after…