From Harper’s Weekly Review, Feb 13, 2024


Federal safety regulators warned families of “TV tip-overs” ahead of the Super Bowl, which the Kansas City Chiefs won in overtime, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg reminded Tesla owners not to wear Apple’s virtual reality headset while driving. A law in Australia introduced “the right to disconnect” outside of work hours, scientists discovered a hidden ocean on Saturn’s smallest moon, and a study found that Viagra may help protect men against dementia. Two JetBlue planes collided on the tarmac at Boston’s Logan Airport, and a cruise ship hosting a music festival promising “six terrifying nights of music and madness” crashed into a pier in Jamaica. An FBI contractor arrested for stealing a car from the bureau’s headquarters said he had received “coded messages” that he was in danger, and Fairfax County police will purchase 450 “Spider-Man-like” lassos for subduing suspects. “I’m on top of the world. I got a broom, like I’m sweeping my grandma’s living room,” said the rapper Killer Mike days after winning three awards at the Grammys, where he was handcuffed and escorted out for an alleged misdemeanor. The entry “Taylor Drift” won a snowplow-naming contest in Minnesota. A boy got trapped in a claw machine in Brisbane, and a woman who fell into a New Hampshire dumpster survived being compacted with the trash four times. Climbers of Mount Everest will now be required to bring their poop back to base camp; “Our mountains have begun to stink,” said a local leader.