Issue May 25, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

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in this issue

Main storiesEditor’s letterJohn McCain still has something to say, even if a White House press aide doesn’t think a dying man’s thoughts matter. “I don’t remember another time in my life when so many Americans considered someone’s partisan affiliation a test of whether that person is entitled to respect,” the Arizona senator writes in a new book. He fears we have lost our way. “Principled compromises that move the country forward,” he says, are essential to a functioning democracy. Most unauthorized immigrants “are decent people working hard to make better lives,” not the rapists or drug dealers depicted by demagogues. Torture, which he personally endured as a POW, is a moral abomination that always debases both the tortured and the torturer. Our nation is diminished by “a half-baked, spurious nationalism” that has…3 min

Main storiesDozens killed in Gaza clashes as new embassy opensWhat happenedIsraeli soldiers killed at least 60 Palestinians near the border fence with Gaza this week, overshadowing a ceremony formally relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. About 40,000 mostly unarmed Gazans had gathered along the border as part of a Hamas-backed protest that began seven weeks ago but expanded because of anger over the U.S. Embassy decision. Egged on by organizers, some protesters tried to breach the fence, while others used slingshots to propel rocks over the border and flew burning kites into Israeli fields. When tear gas failed to disperse the crowds rushing the fence, Israeli snipers began picking people off. The Gazan health ministry claimed 1,350 were injured by gunfire; Israel, whose troops suffered no injuries, questioned those figures, and noted that Hamas…3 min

Main storiesIt wasn’t all badIn Australia, James Harrison is known as “the man with the golden arm.” Every few weeks for the past six decades, he has overcome his strong dislike of needles and given blood—saving the lives of more than 2.4 million Australian babies in the process. Harrison’s exceptionally rare blood type contains antibodies that are used to make Anti-D, a medicine given to mothers whose blood is at risk of attacking their unborn babies. Last week, the 81-year-old gave his last donation, having reached the maximum age allowed for donors in Australia. “It was sad,” Harrison said, “because I felt like I could keep going.”When Xia Boyu made his first attempt to scale Mount Everest in 1975, he came close to the peak before being forced back by high-altitude storms. The Chinese…1 min

Main storiesSupreme Court OKs legal sports gamblingWhat happenedThe Supreme Court this week struck down a federal law that had effectively banned sports betting in most states, clearing the way for an explosion of legalized gambling on professional and amateur sports. In a 6-3 vote, the court sided with a challenge brought by New Jersey, which had argued that the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act—from which Nevada was exempted—violated states’ rights to regulate activity within their borders. “A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. Casino stocks jumped following the ruling, and state lawmakers in New Jersey and elsewhere vowed to pass bills to regulate and tax legalized sports betting. Gaming industry experts estimate that Americans currently place at least $150 billion in…2 min

Main storiesTrump offers surprise relief to Chinese firmWhat happenedPresident Trump unexpectedly softened his position on trade negotiations with China this week by pledging to save a major Chinese telecommunications firm from crippling U.S. sanctions. In an about-face that stunned even his own advisers, Trump tweeted that he had ordered the Commerce Department to help Chinese smartphone maker ZTE “get back into business fast,” saying that its failure would cost “too many jobs in China.” In 2017, the Commerce Department fined ZTE $1.2 billion for selling electronics to Iran and North Korea, in violation of U.S. sanctions, and last month barred U.S. technology firms from selling parts to the company for seven years. Unable to find alternative suppliers, ZTE, which employs 75,000 people, began to shutter its operations last week.U.S. trade negotiators are now reportedly working with their…2 min

Controversy of the weekTrump’s foreign policy: Is unpredictability paying off?“Fortune favors the bold,” said WashingtonTimes.com in an editorial, and with President Trump in the Oval Office, that’s good news for U.S. foreign policy. Now that he’s settled into his job, and freed himself from the coterie of cautious advisers who initially tried to curb his natural instincts, the president’s “rough talk and firm resolve” are bearing fruit in a big way on the world stage. His critics in the media and foreign policy establishment had fainting spells when Trump warned North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that the U.S. would not tolerate his nuclear threats. Trump, they cried, will get us in “a shooting war.” Now a strikingly less aggressive Kim has made a date—June 12—to talk peace with Trump in Singapore. Unlike President Obama, Trump does not believe his…3 min

Issue May 25, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

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