June 1-2
- Ukraine, Israel & the West’s double standards
- Beware of “sniffy”
- All downhill cheese-chasing from here
- … and much more!
🎲 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ
What do you remember from the news this week?
1. What two words did Benjamin Netanyahu use before the Knesset to describe the deadly Israeli strike on Rafah?
2. Which city saw its heat record shattered, with a blistering 52.3 °C (126 °F)?
3. Which centuries-old tradition has Colombia decided to ban?
4. What was found inside balloons sent from North Korea over to South Korea?
Toy rockets / “Visit Pyongyang” leaflets / Trash / Tapes of Kim Jong-un singing
[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]
#️⃣ TRENDING
Sniffy, a French brand of snortable energy powder, has found popularity and controversy online. While the powder is legal, the method of consuming it, the same as sniffing cocaine, has led psychiatrists to say it conveys a dangerous message to young people. French Minister for Health Frédéric Valletoux called on Saturday for it to be “banned as soon as possible.” The white powder contains only legal energizing products and according to the Marseille-based company is designed to improve performance, develop muscle mass, fight drowsiness and increase endurance.
🎭 5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW
• U.S. returns about 600 looted antiquities to Italy. The artifacts, which include ancient bronze statues, gold coins, mosaics and manuscripts valued at $65 million, were recovered as a result of criminal investigations. Some were looted by “tombaroli” tomb raiders or stolen from Italian museums, religious institutions and private homes. U.S. Ambassador Jack Markell said Washington was committed to returning these items “to where [they] belong.”
• John Lennon’s long-lost guitar sells for $2.9 million, breaking Beatles auction record. The 12-string Hootenanny acoustic guitar, which was used by Lennon to record songs for the band’s 1965 studio album Help! and film of the same name, was recently discovered in the attic of a 90-year-old man after being presumed lost for 50 years. This also comes just months after fellow Beatle Paul McCartney was reunited with his legendary Höfner bass guitar, which had been stolen back in 1972.
• Munich museum reveals Germany’s oldest photograph. The Deutsches Museum presented a photograph found in its archives which it said was taken in 1837 by mineralogist Franz von Kobell. Along with physicist Carl August von Steinheil, Kobell was known as a pioneer of early photographic and photochemistry procedures, but the images of the two men from 1839 had been considered the oldest until now.
• Music by South Korean singer Kim Yeon-ja, beloved by Kim Jong-il, gets banned. Radio Free Asia reported that while the reasons behind the ban were unclear, the order came directly from North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Kim Yeon-ja, now 65, became popular in North Korea at the beginning of the 2000s when she traveled there for two concerts, including one at the personal request of then-leader Kim Jong-il.
• House from Home Alone is on sale for $5.25 million. The five bedroom, six bathroom mansion in Winnetka, Illinois, still features the staircase which Kevin McCallister (played by Macaulay Culkin) rode down on a sled in the iconic 1990 film, but has now a living space twice as big and includes a state-of-the-art basketball court. The Georgian-style property, built in 1921, was last sold in 2012 for $1,585,000.
🇺🇦🇮🇱 The West’s ambivalence on arming warring parties
While significant restrictions have been imposed on Ukraine for how it can use its imported weapons, Israel continues to use heavy bombs in Gaza without interference, despite criticism and repeated warnings from Washington and Berlin. For Jörg Lau, this Western policy is not only “immoral,” it is also “strategically foolish and self-destructive” as it plays straight into the hands of both of the West's adversaries, Moscow and Hamas, he writes in German weekly and news website Die Zeit.
Read the full story: Ukraine, Israel And The West: A Dangerous Double Standard On Weapons Supplies
✝️🤦Five times Pope Francis put his holy foot in his holy mouth
The Pope has once again caused outrage because of a homophobic statement he recently made. According to some sources, Pope Francis said that in Italian seminaries there’s too much frociaggine — a homophobic slur deriving from Roman dialect. From his statement that kids having doubts on their sexual orientation require “psychiatric” help to an f-bomb slip during his Sunday blessing, that comment is only the latest in a series of controversial takes since Francis' papacy began in 2013.
Read the full story: Holy Gaffe! Five Of The Pope's Worst Slips And Slurs
🏳️🌈🤠 The gay cowboys taking rodeo culture by the horns
In the U.S., the rodeo is a leisure activity like any other. And gay people did not wait for the Village People or Brokeback Mountain to appropriate the activity: the first gay rodeo was organized in 1976. Solenn Cordroc'h, for French LGBT+ magazine Têtu, attends an event at Las Vegas' Horsemans Park stadium. “The most notable feature remains the inclusiveness of the event: In a milieu that can be homophobic and sexist, gay rodeos welcome everyone with pleasure, and the events are mixed,” the journalist writes.
Read the full story: Riding With Pride: How Gay Rodeo Found Its Place In Cowboy Culture
💧🌱 BRIGHT IDEA
A South African-based international tech company has developed a new irrigation water tech called RainMaker. The big blue boxy units have started gaining traction in arable regions around the world, by helping water reach the soil in several ways: They encourage the growth of beneficial fungi (mycelium), loosen compacted soil, reduce salt buildup, and balance soil acidity. This technology aims at providing potato farmers and other crop growers with a sustainable solution, boosting yields while protecting the environment.
🧀 SMILE OF THE WEEK
People from around the world flocked to Cooper's Hill in southwest England, on May 27, to cheer on competitors in this year's annual Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling contest. Continuing a tradition that dates back to the early 1800s, participants hurl themselves down the steep slope to catch (and win) a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese. This year’s winners included daredevils from Germany, Australia and England on the men’s side, while the women’s race went to an American woman.
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⏩ LOOKING AHEAD
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to visit France next week to attend the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings (D-Day) on June 6. French President Emmanuel Macron stated that all possible options for assistance to Ukraine would be discussed during the upcoming meeting.
• A meeting between Bolivian President Luis Arce Catacora and Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled in Russia next week. Bilateral cooperation issues are set to be discussed.
• On June 3, Jupiter, Mercury, Uranus, Mars, Neptune and Saturn will momentarily align on the ecliptic path — but the rare event will not be visible from Earth with the naked eye. According to NASA, the planetary alignment, or what astronomers call “conjunction”, will occur across a massive swath of sky in the Northern Hemisphere.
⁉️ WHAT THE WORLD
From teenaged orcas to AI's bad advice, take a quick world tour of the internationally weird!
News quiz answers:
1.Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described deadly Israeli airstrikes on Rafah as a “tragic mistake,” adding, however, that Israel’s war against Hamas would continue until all goals were achieved, despite international criticism.
2. Temperatures in Delhi, India, hit a record high of 52.9 °C or 126.1 °F on Wednesday. As temperatures continue to rise, heat-stroke related deaths have been reported from the capital, and in the states of Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand.
3. Colombia approved a bill to ban bullfighting. The ban, which still needs final approval from President Gustavo Petro, will apply from 2027 on, after a three-year transition period to help families depending on it to find new sources of income.
4. At least 260 balloons containing filthy waste — including toilet paper, dark soil, and batteries — were sent by North Korea across the border, prompting South Korean authorities to warn its residents to stay indoors. This comes after North Korea warned it would retaliate against the “frequent scattering of leaflets and other rubbish” on the border by activists in the South.
✍️ Newsletter by Worldcrunch
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*Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa/ZUMA