While it’s impossible to comprehensively catalog all of the world news from this summer in a concise manner, an overview is due. The three-month break was far from quiet.

Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with over 33 million acres burning from May through August. This was just one of many extreme climate records including high ocean temperatures off the coast of Florida, and July being the world’s hottest month in almost two centuries.

On June 9, former United States president Donald Trump was served his second indictment, this one including 37 felony charges for his mishandling of classified documents.

On June 14, a fishing boat with as many as 750 migrants on board sank near the coast of Messenia, Greece. The Greek coast guard and military were responsible for the search and rescue mission, which survivors have described as extremely inadequate. The response was two hours late, and only 104 people were rescued, while everyone else was declared “presumed dead”.

On June 20, Estonia became the first Baltic and post-soviet country to legalize same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. The legislation will take effect on January 1, 2024.

On June 23, the Wagner Group — a Russian mercenary group — staged a short-lived mutiny against Moscow. A day after it began, the rebellion concluded when Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin folded against Putin’s pressure.

Beginning on June 27, mass riots sprang up across France in protest of the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old named Nahel Merzouk by two police officers. While the protests started because of Merzouk’s death, they were more broadly against France’s long history of police brutality against non-whites.

On July 3, the Israeli military made an aggressive move in raiding the Jenin refugee camp on the Palestinian-occupied West Bank, escalating the ongoing conflict.

On July 4, the Taliban in Afghanistan ordered the closure of beauty salons across the country. This is another step in a series of similar orders over the past year aiming to restrict womens’ access to public spaces.

On July 7, the United States became the last member of the Chemical Weapons Convention—an agreement signed in 1993 by 165 countries to eliminate the use and stockpiling of chemical weapons—to destroy all declared stockpiles. This marked the elimination of all known reserves of chemical weapons on the planet.

On July 11, Japan’s supreme court affirmed a transgender woman’s right to use workplace bathrooms aligned with her gender identity, a victory for trans people across Japan.

On July 14, the American actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, joined the Writers’ Guild of America in their strike. It was the first time writers and actors had gone on strike together since 1960. The writers’ strike lasted 146 days, after which the writers successfully got concessions from the studios on most of their demands. The actors remain on strike.

On August 1, Trump was indicted a third time, on four counts, for various parts of his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. On August 14, he was indicted again in Georgia, on 13 counts, for trying to overturn his electoral defeat there in 2020. This brings the total amount of felony charges leveled against him to 91.

On August 11, wildfires tore across the island of Maui in Hawai’i, decimating the historic town of Lahaina and much of the surrounding land.

All this, and about a thousand other things. Don’t get too overwhelmed by the scope of it all. South Eugene is small, unlike the world. We can’t always change what happens out there, but we can fight for and begin to build things here. Welcome back, South.

Article by Nellie Schmitke-Rosiek