The Weekly News Review: A look at the headlines from the past week.This week’s news was a majestic tornado of royalty, wildlife, science, fossils, bureaucracy, and embroidery, all swirling together like the universe decided to spin a giant wheel labelled “WEIRD”.

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If you’ve been alive and conscious this week or even just partially conscious, like a houseplant  you’ll know the news has been absolutely unhinged. 

Not in a bad way. More in a “did someone accidentally shake the planet like a snow globe?” way.Let’s begin with King Charles, who has become the first monarch to reveal his tax bill. And not just any tax bill  a £12.9 million tax bill! This puts him in the top 100 UK taxpayers, which is impressive because most people in that bracket are hedge‑fund managers, tech billionaires, or people who own suspiciously large numbers of yachts. Charles revealing his tax bill is a bold move, especially when the rest of us are still trying to figure out why our own tax returns ask questions like “Did you receive any income from the sale of livestock?” and “Are you now or have you ever been a small‑scale alpaca breeder?”

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, a wild elephant attacked a bus carrying air force personnel. Nobody was hurt, but the bus was damaged, presumably because elephants do not care about your vehicle’s warranty. The elephant reportedly approached the bus, inspected it, and then decided it did not meet its standards. This is the kind of story that reminds you nature is still very much in charge. You can have air force training, uniforms, and a bus full of disciplined professionals, but if an elephant decides it’s having a bad day, that’s the end of the discussion.

In science news, researchers have discovered that apes laugh just like humans. They analysed laughter from orangutans, gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans, and found they all laugh with evenly spaced rhythmic intervals. This is delightful, because it means apes don’t just laugh they laugh properly. Somewhere right now, a gorilla is laughing at a joke that would absolutely kill at a dinner party. This discovery also raises important questions, such as: what are apes laughing at? Is it us? It’s probably us.

Across the Atlantic, the Trump administration unveiled a new limited‑edition US passport design featuring a photo of President Donald Trump to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. The design reportedly includes patriotic imagery, which in America usually means eagles, flags, and fireworks, but now also includes the president’s face. This is a bold choice. Most passports feature neutral designs like coats of arms or tasteful patterns. The US has decided to go with “presidential selfie”.

Back in the UK, the Duke of Sussex is reconsidering plans to bring his wife and children to Britain next month after his request for police protection was rejected. This is one of those stories where everyone involved is probably exhausted. Royal security is complicated, and the Duke’s situation is complicated, and the entire thing is basically a giant Venn diagram of stress. The only certainty is that somewhere, a palace official is currently lying face‑down on a desk whispering, “Why can’t people just go to Spain like normal families?”

In palaeontology news, which is always the best kind of news an unassuming fossil that spent 40 years forgotten in a drawer has turned out to be the first dinosaur bone ever found in Antarctica. This is incredible. Imagine being the scientist who opens a drawer and finds a dinosaur. Most of us open drawers and find expired batteries, takeaway menus, and that one screwdriver nobody remembers buying. But the British Antarctic Survey opened a drawer and found history!
Finally, tens of thousands of people faced long waits to buy tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum. This is the 11th‑century embroidery depicting the Norman conquest of England, and apparently it is still a hot ticket nearly a thousand years later. People queued online for hours, which is impressive dedication for a piece of cloth that famously shows a man getting hit with an arrow in a place no man wants to be hit with an arrow. The tapestry is being loaned to the UK while its home museum undergoes renovation, proving that even medieval art needs a bit of DIY now and then.

So that’s your Weekly News Review: royal taxes, elephant bus inspections, laughing apes, presidential passports, royal security dilemmas, Antarctic dinosaurs, and a tapestry that continues to outsell modern entertainment. 

It’s been a week so strange that even the apes are probably laughing at it in evenly spaced rhythmic intervals.

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