Saudi Arabia, Midterm Elections, Canada: Your Weekend Briefing
By Zach Johnk and Lance Booth
Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead.
1. Saudi Arabia finally acknowledged that Jamal Khashoggi is dead.
But after a week of shifting stories on the dissident journalist’s killing, the country’s explanation — that he was strangled by agents during a fistfight inside its consulate in Istanbul — was met with a flood of international skepticism. Many continue to suspect that the killing was planned in advance and that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, above, could not have been in the dark.
President Trump, however, broke with his own intelligence agencies by saying he found the new Saudi account credible.
Our reporters found a broad effort led by the crown prince and his close advisers to silence the kingdom’s online critics. This push included the recruitment of a Twitter employee suspected of spying on users, interviews show.
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2. She’s running.
Or at least that’s the consensus, after Senator Elizabeth Warren released the results of a DNA test that she said proved she has Native American heritage. Widely seen as eyeing the presidency in 2020, she was trying to neutralize President Trump’s unrelenting racial taunts of her as “Pocahontas.”
Predictably, her decision did not placate the president. But it also angered Native Americans, including the Cherokee Nation.
Have you been keeping up with the headlines? Test your knowledge with our news quiz. And here’s the front page of our Sunday paper, the Sunday Review from Opinion and our crossword puzzles.
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3. Senator Warren wasn’t the only prominent Democratic woman to all but openly begin running for president.
Senators Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand visited crucial early voting states at a time when stark divides around gender are shaping the midterm campaigns. Above at center, Ms. Gillibrand. (Be sure to check out our polling in real time.)
In one closely watched Senate race, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida could become the richest member of the next Congress. Our examination of his finances found that he created a blind trust that is blind in name only and that he has a tangle of investments that could benefit from his policies.
And on the campaign trail in Montana, President Trump praised Representative Greg Gianforte, who assaulted a reporter last year. “Anybody that can do a body-slam,” Mr. Trump said, “that’s my kind of guy.”
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4. Airstrike atrocities. Deep hunger. Thousands of dead civilians. Despite all this, the Saudi-led war in Yemen has remained largely invisible.
Until now, perhaps: The Khashoggi crisis has turned the world’s eyes to Saudi Arabia’s brutal — and U.S.-backed — prosecution of the conflict. Two of our journalists provided a rare look inside the country. And our Interpreter columnist explains why the Saudis face new pressure in Yemen. Above, the body of a Yemeni fighter with the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
In another conflict involving the U.S., the Taliban assassinated an Afghan regional police chief who had survived dozens of attempts on his life and symbolized opposition to the militants. The killing further undermined Afghanistan’s national elections.
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5. Imagine a government website offering step-by-step directions on how to roll a joint.
It might seem far-fetched, but that is what’s happening in Canada, which became the first major world economy to legalize recreational marijuana.
The national experiment presents a haze of questions. We tried to answer some.
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6. “We wanted to build it for the big one.”
That was one of the forward-thinking owners of a Florida house that stood majestically amid the apocalyptic wreckage of Hurricane Michael, a sign of how construction regulations fail to imagine the firepower of modern hurricanes. The house’s other owner said, “I believe the planet’s getting warmer and the storms are getting stronger.”
Climate change is no joking matter. But on TV comedy shows last week, it certainly was, our climate reporter writes.
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7. It was the Amazon of the Gilded Age. Now it has filed for bankruptcy.
Sears, which once pioneered the method of selling everything to everyone but struggled to adapt to changes in how Americans shop, faces long odds in trying to revive its fortunes.
The news came as China announced its slowest pace of economic growth since 2009, during the depths of the financial crisis. Concerns over China’s economy have weighed on global investors.
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8. Paul Allen, a revolutionary in the field of personal computing, has died at 65.
As a founder of Microsoft, Mr. Allen played the role of peacemaker — a contrast to his harder-charging co-founder, Bill Gates. After he left the company in the early ’80s, he helped transform Seattle into a cultural destination and became the owner of the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers.
And we also note the death of a different kind of revolutionary: Raye Montague, who faced down racism and sexism to become the first person to design a Navy ship using a computer program. Last year, in a nod to the best-selling book and Oscar-nominated movie about black female mathematicians at NASA, the Navy honored her as its own “hidden figure.”
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9. For half a century, he delighted children with two of the most beloved characters on TV: an 8-foot-2 avian and a monster who lives in a garbage can.
Caroll Spinney, the actor behind the gentle, inquisitive Big Bird and the delightfully irritable Oscar the Grouch, has retired from “Sesame Street.” Now 84, he said, “I always thought, ‘How fortunate for me that I got to play the two best Muppets?’”
Oscar had an enduring appeal, but, Mr. Spinney said, “playing Big Bird is one of the most joyous things of my life.”
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10. Finally, our Best Weekend Reads include a Melissa McCarthy profile that just might cheer you up at a time when Hollywood can’t seem to crack a smile.
One exception to that rule is Tiffany Haddish, whose wildly funny performance in “Girls Trip” catapulted her to stardom. Now, our reporter writes, she’s figuring out how to make that fame last.
Among our other worthwhile reads: We asked for epic stories of love in 100 words, and 3,000 people responded.
For more suggestions on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these eight new books our editors liked, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching, and our music critics’ latest playlist.
Have a great week.
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