The Week Magazine March 31, 2023

Remember how chummy Donald Trump was with Vladimir Putin? As a candidate, Trump begged for Putin’s election assistance; as president, he said he trusted the Russian leader over U.S. intelligence; and as ex-president (last year, the very day before Russia invaded Ukraine) he praised Putin as a “genius.” It seems fitting, then, that both men are facing justice in the same week. Putin’s indictment by the International Criminal Court (see Best columns: International, p.15) brands him an accused war criminal. Trump’s looming indictment in New York (see Main stories, p.4) will make him the first U.S. president to be charged with a crime. These men were once the most powerful on the planet, and they are being forced to answer for their actions. In both cases, the courts are starting…

What happened The first-ever criminal indictment of a former president loomed this week, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was reportedly on the verge of charging Donald Trump in connection with a hush-money payoff to a porn star. The case involves a $130,000 payment made in the run-up to the 2016 election to Stormy Daniels, a porn actress who’d had a tryst with Trump a decade earlier. According to a 2018 criminal case that yielded a three-year jail term for former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, Cohen paid Daniels the money so she wouldn’t go public about the dalliance, and was reimbursed by Trump’s company with payments designated as “legal fees.” Trump is expected to be charged with falsifying business records and possibly violating campaign finance law, on the premise that…

What happened Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed his country’s close ties with Russia during a three-day visit to Moscow this week, although he stopped short of endorsing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin poured on the pomp for the visit from his key ally, the only major world leader with whom he remains on friendly terms. He greeted Xi in a vast gilt hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace, flanked by guards clad in 19th century–style uniforms, and treated him to a private banquet lasting four and a half hours. In their joint statements, the two authoritarians flattered each other’s leadership, criticized the U.S.-U.K. plan to send nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, and insisted that NATO respect the world’s “diversity of civilizations.” The visit came just days after…

Staff at an Iowa cemetery noticed that their resident goose, Blossom, seemed lonely after her companion passed away last year. So general manager Dorie Tammen took out a personal ad in the local paper in search of a partner for her “youthful, adventurous, and lively” goose. A nearby couple quickly responded: Their widower goose, Frankie, was similarly lonely after the loss of his mate. Tammen arranged a “blind date” for the birds on Valentine’s Day, and since then, they’ve spent nearly all of their time together. Orthopedic surgeon Felicity Fishman knows that getting an operation can be a scary experience, so when her young patients wake up from one, they’re greeted with a special surprise: a custom, hand-drawn piece of artwork on their cast. “It was about giving them a…

Twenty years ago this week the United States invaded Iraq, said Mortada Gzar in the Los Angeles Times, but for Iraqis like me the war isn’t “a distant memory—it’s our daily devastation.” When the U.S. campaign of “shock and awe” first drove Saddam Hussein from his palace, Iraqis briefly dared to hope we had been “liberated,” as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney insisted we had been. But “freedom didn’t materialize.” Instead, America’s intervention led to two hellish decades of “brutal civil wars, political turmoil, widespread corruption,” and the medieval horror of ISIS. At least 500,000 Iraqi lives were lost in a now-shattered nation that many Americans still can’t find on a map. For the invaders, it was also “a major loss,” said Ishaan Tharoor in The Washington Post.…

Good week for: Finland, which has been named the world’s happiest country by the U.N. World Happiness Report for a sixth straight year. The Finns, the report said, enjoy relatively long life expectancy, high per capita wealth, personal freedom, and strong social bonds. Dad jokes, which may help children’s psychological development. A new study found the cringing embarrassment caused by a dad’s lame, punny jokes teaches kids how to endure awkward moments. Hints, after President Biden strongly suggested that he will seek re-election at a White House event honoring people in the arts. While congratulating novelist Colson Whitehead for winning two Pulitzer Prizes, Biden said he is “kinda looking for back-to-back myself.” To Bruce Springsteen, he joked, “Some people are born to run.” Bad week for: Country life, after new…