The Week Magazine May 19, 2023

When former police officer Stephen Spainhouer rushed to the scene of a mass shooting at an Allen, Texas, outlet mall last week, he came upon a battlefield. Bloody, torn bodies were scattered on the ground next to the dead killer and his assault rifle. A little girl seemed to be hiding next to a bush, but when Spainhouer turned her over, “she had no face.” He tried performing CPR on other victims, but “the injuries were so severe there was nothing I could do.” (See Talking Points, p.16.) Hours later, cellphone images of the disfigured dead began circulating on Twitter. No mainstream publication, including this one, would publish such photos, for many reasons: the need for family consent; preserving the dignity of the dead; the sensibilities of readers. But by…

What happened President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met for the first time this week to discuss a path forward on the debt limit, but emerged with no progress in the stalemate that has the nation on course for its first default in history. “I didn’t see any new movement,” said McCarthy, who continued to insist that raising the limit be tied to steep cuts in discretionary spending. President Biden said he was willing to “begin a separate discussion” of spending cuts and other measures to cut budget deficits that are now $1.4 trillion a year. But he insisted that Republicans—who hiked the debt limit three times without conditions during Donald Trump’s presidency—first lift the ceiling with no strings attached. “America is not a deadbeat nation,” Biden said. “Avoiding…

What happened A federal jury rendered the first-ever sexual misconduct verdict against a former president this week, finding Donald Trump liable for civil battery and defamation and ordering him to pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages. Carroll, 79, a former magazine columnist, testified that nearly 30 years ago when she was helping Trump purchase gifts in a Manhattan store, he pushed her against a dressing-room wall and penetrated her with his hands and penis. After deliberating for less than three hours, the jury of six men and three women gave a mixed verdict, finding that Carroll had proved that Trump sexually abused her but had not proved that he raped her. They also found that Trump had defamed Carroll last October by calling her accusations “a hoax…

Diving close to 2,000 feet underwater, researchers in Ecuador’s Galápagos marine reserve found a thriving marine environment filled with pink octopuses, sharks, and squat lobsters. The discovery of the well-preserved coral reef has fueled optimism about the future of such ecosystems, which have been decimated over the past decade. The coral, at the summit of an underwater volcano, has survived for thousands of years. “The captivating thing about these reefs,” said marine researcher Stuart Banks, is that they are “essentially pristine.” Hassan Tibwa and Sami al-Gada, two mechanical engineering students, saved at least 60 people trapped in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, after fighting broke out last month. Driving a battered Toyota sedan, the 20-somethings rescued several United Nations officials and foreigners stranded in their buildings, including a Korean couple with two…

At the precise moment that one national crisis formally ends this week, said Brian Bennett in Time, “another may begin.” The federal government’s official ending of the Covid “emergency” on May 11 automatically suspends the use of Title 42 as a pretext to expel foreign migrants apprehended at the southern border. Knowing the restrictions would be lifted, hundreds of thousands have now massed at the border—35,000 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, alone—hoping to file asylum claims and enter the U.S. The asylum system is already “massively backlogged,” said Camilo Montoya-Galvez in CBS News. Fearing a migrant influx will be a political liability in the 2024 election, President Biden has sent 1,500 troops to the border and finalized a new asylum rule that is in many ways “a tougher policy” than…

Good week for: Giraffes, which exhibit a surprising range of “complex statistical skills” in finding food, according to University of Barcelona scientists. These skills, researchers said, may enable giraffes to better “identify from a distance which trees have the best proportions of leaves and flowers.” Multiplying, after actor Robert DeNiro, 79, revealed he had become a father for the seventh time, this time with girlfriend Tiffany Chen. The pregnancy, DeNiro noted, was “planned.” Drinking alone, after an Australian woman, Lillian Ip, survived five days lost in the Australian outback by eating candy and drinking a bottle of wine that she’d intended as a gift for her mother. “I thought I was going to die there,” said Ip, 48, who ordinarily doesn’t drink. Bad week for: Leon Botstein, president of New…