The Week Magazine February 10, 2023

The Memphis cops who kicked and punched the life out of Tyre Nichols had been properly trained. In the “Reimagining Policing” reforms the city adopted in 2021, officers learned how to de-escalate conflicts whenever possible, limit the use of force, and report any abuses by colleagues. But on the streets, police warrior culture trumped that training and the race of the officers who pulled Nichols over. For allegedly driving erratically, they treated a terrified, compliant young man like a war criminal. While repeatedly pepper spraying a pinned Nichols in the face, one cop got some in his own eyes. “Ah, you motherf---er,” he yelled at Nichols. “Made me spray myself.” Fearing the gang of unhinged cops might kill him, a terrified Nichols got up and ran, and a sixth cop…

What happened America was thrust into another anguished conversation around race and police violence this week, after the release of graphic videos showing five Black Memphis police officers fatally beating a Black man following a traffic stop. Body-camera and surveillance videos released by the Memphis police department showed Tyre Nichols, 29, being pulled from his car and pushed to the ground after being pulled over by members of an anti-crime unit, allegedly for reckless driving. “I didn’t do anything,” Nichols, a 150-pound father of a 4-year-old who worked at FedEx, is heard to say. After being cursed at, pepper sprayed, and given 71 contradictory orders by cops, Nichols ran for his mother’s house. When pursuing officers caught him, they held him down and assaulted him as he cried out…

What happened Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week urged Israelis and Palestinians to “defuse this cycle of violence” as tit-for-tat attacks threatened to mushroom into a full-blown Palestinian insurgency. Blinken’s three-day trip to the region, which also included a stop in Egypt, came at the end of the deadliest month for Israel and the Palestinian territories in eight years. Last week, an Israeli army raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin left nine Palestinians dead, among them at least one civilian. A day later, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed seven Israeli civilians outside an East Jerusalem synagogue, prompting street celebrations in the West Bank, while the next day, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot and wounded two more Israelis. “Restoring calm is the…

About 100 years ago, Chicago’s Field Museum received a European Bronze Age sword, which curators assumed was a well-constructed replica. But as archaeologists prepare for an upcoming exhibition, they made a startling discovery: X-ray analysis of the sword’s composition showed it was authentic and dated back 3,000 years. Recovered in Budapest at the bottom of the Danube River, it was likely used to honor a warrior who died in battle. The Field Museum’s Bill Parkinson marveled at the fluke: “Usually this story goes the opposite way.” Last May, a patron of Washington, D.C.’s Everyday Sundae watched as owner Charles Foreman gave a scoop of ice cream to a child who didn’t have money-a gift Foreman extends to anyone who’s unable to pay. Moved by the act of kindness, Nicole, a…

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may not have any political principles, but the man “pays his debts,” said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic. To reward their support for his successful speakership bid, McCarthy has handed out plum committee assignments to the “most extreme—and weirdest—members” of the GOP “clown caucus.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of “Jewish Space Lasers” fame is headed to the oversight committee, to tackle the urgent work of tying President Biden to his son Hunter’s infamous laptop. The “unhinged” Rep. Ronny Jackson will join Greene on a new “Origins of Covid” committee, to air far-right suspicions that the sinister Dr. Anthony Fauci funded and covered up the creation of the deadly virus as a Chinese bioweapon. The hyperpartisan Rep. Jim Jordan will chair a new “Weaponization of Government…

Good week for: Facing reality, after star NFL quarterback Tom Brady, 45, announced he was retiring “for good.” Ex-wife Gisele Bündchen wished him “wonderful things in this new chapter of your life.” Plain English, after the Associated Press amended a policy advising staff to avoid “dehumanizing ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French.…” Online wags had wondered if people in France should now be called “people experiencing Frenchness” or people “assigned French at birth.” The Scots, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture was petitioned to legalize importation of Scotland’s offal-filled national dish, haggis. Regulations prevent the use of lung tissue in commercial food products, which the petition says makes “no scientific sense.” Bad week for: Writers, with Buzzfeed’s announcement, only a month after laying off 180 employees,…