Issue September 28, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

Home//The Week Magazine/September 28, 2018

The Week makes sense of the news by curating the best of the U.S. and international media into a succinct, lively digest.

Read on Any Device

Switch between PDF & Text Mode

Bookmark & Search Content

Read Offline

Receive New Issue Notifications

Cancel Anytime

in this issue

Main storiesEditor’s letterPaul Manafort was no rat; he wouldn’t “flip.” He would take his lumps at a second trial, and wait for a pardon from President Trump. That’s what nearly everyone—including the president and his legal team—believed until late last week, when special counsel Robert Mueller revealed that the former Trump campaign manager had pleaded guilty to reduced charges and would “testify fully, completely, and truthfully” about everything he knows about the campaign and Russia, which is no doubt a lot. (See Controversy.) What does this tell us? It tells us that Mueller and his team of crack prosecutors are working this investigation the way a grand master plays chess. No one knows what evidence they have or where they’re going. Claims that the special counsel has turned up “no proof of…3 min

Main storiesSex assault claim clouds Kavanaugh nominationWhat happenedJudge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court was thrown into jeopardy this week, after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were both high schoolers. In an interview with The Washington Post, Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist in Northern California, described how a “stumbling drunk” Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, cornered her in a bedroom during a house party in suburban Maryland in the summer of 1982. Kavanaugh was a 17-year-old student at the elite Georgetown Preparatory School at the time of the alleged incident; Blasey was 15. Blasey said that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and attempted to take off her clothes, holding his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Blasey,…5 min

Main storiesHurricane Florence brings a flood of miseryWhat happenedHurricane Florence this week turned towns in the Carolinas into virtual islands encircled by historic floodwaters. In Wilmington, N.C., normally a small city of 117,000 people, all roads were cut off. Residents trapped without power lined up for tarps and fresh water. By the middle of the week, the number of deaths had hit 37—including a 1-year-old boy swept away by the waters. The deluge reached biblical proportions, with 36 inches of rain recorded in Elizabethtown, N.C. Volunteers from around the country, including some from Louisiana’s ad hoc “Cajun Navy,” flocked to help, but they’ve had to contend with a cascade of environmental threats. More than 2,000 cubic yards of toxic coal ash leaked from a power plant, and a nuclear power plant was left inaccessible by roads. North…3 min

Main storiesIt wasn’t all badBattling high winds and heavy rain, a network of volunteers put their lives on the line to rescue hundreds of Carolinians affected by Hurricane Florence. Formed in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana-based United Cajun Navy is a group of private boat owners who leap into action when a major storm strikes. Using fishing vessels, party barges, and airboats, several hundred volunteer rescuers saved at least 500 Carolinians stranded by floodwaters in homes, hospitals, and on car roofs. “We’re glad that we’re able to help,” said Cajun Navy founder Todd Terrell.As Hurricane Florence approached the East Coast last week, Tony Alsup jumped into his old yellow school bus and drove off from his Tennessee home, straight toward the storm. The pet lover was on a mission to collect…1 min

Controversy of the weekManafort flips: What does this mean for Trump?Special counsel Robert Mueller has “finally nabbed his white whale,” said Matt Zapotosky in The Washington Post. Since the Russia investigation’s launch in 2017, Mueller’s team has worked doggedly to secure the cooperation of Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager, whose decades of shady, highly paid consulting work in Russia and Ukraine make him a likely key player in any collusion effort between the Trump team and the Kremlin during the 2016 election. But even as Mueller “methodically turned allies of Trump into witnesses,” Manafort refused to “flip.” Until last week. On the brink of a second trial that could have meant decades in jail, Manafort struck a deal. In exchange for a dismissal of five of seven charges and leniency on a prison sentence that will still total…3 min

Controversy of the weekGood week/bad weekGood week for:Platonic love, after the producers of Sesame Street denied a claim by one of the show’s former writers that longtime puppet roommates Bert and Ernie were designed to portray a hom*osexual relationship. “Bert and Ernie are best friends,” said Sesame Workshop in a statement, but puppets “do not have a sexual orientation.”People power, after Denise Mueller-Korenek, 45, pedaled a bicycle at 183.9 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, drafting behind a gasoline-powered dragster that had towed her up to 150 mph. It was a new world record for human-powered cycling.Newport Beach, Calif., which a new Census Bureau survey ranked as the most affluent community in the U.S., with a per capita income of $97,597. That’s higher than even the tech haven of Palo Alto, Calif.Bad week…1 min

Issue September 28, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

you may also like