The Week Magazine June 24, 2022

Any sports fan knows that wrenching feeling of betrayal when a team that has led for the whole game suddenly loses in the final moments. I’m looking at you, Atlanta Falcons fans. That a victory was snatched away can seem not just unfair, but unreal. But at least in the infamous 2017 Super Bowl, when Atlanta blew a 25-point lead, fans could watch live as the Patriots destroyed their dreams, so there was no questioning the reality of the loss. In an election, by contrast, voters must simply accept the tallies reported on television. And on presidential election nights, it can sometimes seem at first that a Republican win is inevitable, because more of the earlier-counted votes, cast in person, tend to be for the GOP. The electoral map fills…

What happened Former President Donald Trump ignored the urgent advice of aides and clear evidence he lost the 2020 election as he tried to engineer a coup that shook the foundations of American democracy, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol uprising said this week. In the opening of its televised hearings, committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said that Trump “lit the fuse that ultimately resulted in the violence of Jan. 6.” Using videotaped testimony of former Trump associates, Thompson and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) methodically laid out their case that Trump incited the Capitol attack with false claims of fraud and refused to intervene for 187 minutes as his supporters assaulted police officers, smashed through doors and windows, and sent lawmakers scurrying for…

What happened An increasingly desperate President Volodymyr Zelensky begged the West for more help this week, saying that without an immediate surge of weaponry, Russia could seize the entire Donbas region in Ukraine’s east. Zelensky also said his forces were enduring “painful losses” of 100 to 200 soldiers a day. Aid is coming: President Biden announced an additional $1 billion in military supplies, including 18 more Howitzers with more artillery rounds, rockets for multiple launch rocket systems, and anti-ship weapons. And NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was rushing to assemble a new assistance package. “Allies are committed to continue providing the military equipment that Ukraine needs to prevail,” he said, “including heavy weapons and long-range systems.” Ukraine’s leaders, though, complained that European countries have been too…

Scientists have rediscovered a species of Galapagos giant tortoise thought to have been extinct for more than 100 years. Fernanda, named after Fernandina, the island she was found on, is the only known member of the species Chelonoidis phantasticus, “fantastic giant tortoise”—the last-seen specimen was collected in 1906. Fernanda is over 50 years old, but small for her age, possibly because of a shortage of edible vegetation. Scientists are searching for other members of her species to jump-start a new breeding program. Chelsea Blackwell was frantically searching for her missing 15-year-old dachshund, Blue, when she came across a sprawling movie set. The film crew told the Albany resident not to worry—they had gotten word that someone had spotted her pooch. An hour later, a car pulled up, and inside sat…

“Miracles sometimes happen,” said Li Zhou in Vox. That was the message from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) this week, after he and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) broke an impasse and unveiled a bipartisan proposal for the first substantial federal gun-safety legislation in three decades. Negotiated in the wake of two horrific mass shootings, in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, the bill does not implement the ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines sought by President Biden and most Democrats. But the legislation does include several important “incremental” provisions for reducing school shootings and other gun massacres: Background checks for gun buyers under 21 would require a mandatory search of juvenile justice and mental health records. States would be rewarded with grants to enact “red flag” laws, under which authorities…

Good week for: Sarah Palin, who received 30 percent of the ballots in Alaska’s open primary to fill a vacant House seat. Palin emerged from a 48-person field that featured “Santa Claus,” the actual legal name of a rotund, white-bearded independent from North Pole, Alaska. Incentives, after Malmo, Sweden, installed two talking trash cans that thank citizens who feed them litter with moans of pleasure and “sexy messages,” such as “Come back soon and do that again!” Employee relations, after rapper Snoop Dogg revealed that he has raised the salary of his personal “blunt roller”—a blunt being a big, fat marijuana cigarette—to keep pace with inflation. The full-time employee reportedly had been making about $50,000 a year to prepare Snoop’s cannabis cigars. Bad week for: Grift, after a report that Donald…