Issue April 6, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

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Main storiesEditor’s letterWell, Mark Zuckerberg, this time you’ve finally done it. After it was revealed last week that Facebook had pimped out the personal data of more than 50 million people to a piratical firm of political consultants, many users reacted with fury. (See Best Columns: Business.) The phrase #DeleteFacebook trended on Twitter, and prominent tech figures such as Tesla founder Elon Musk and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton—who sold his messaging service to Facebook for $16 billion in 2014—publicly quit the platform. There are many reasons to join the exodus. For years the company has taken an anything-goes approach to privacy: Back in 2010, the firm admitted that it had revealed users’ names to some advertisers. Facebook helps spread discord and disinformation because its algorithm is designed to maximize engagement, and so…3 min

Main storiesA show of unity against RussiaWhat happenedIn an unprecedented rebuke to Moscow over a chemical-weapon attack on a former spy in Britain, the Trump administration this week joined more than two dozen other Western nations in ordering a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats and spies. The U.S. expelled 60 Russian nationals; overall, more than 150 envoys were sent home to Moscow from 28 countries, in what British Prime Minister Theresa May hailed as the “largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history.” NATO joined the response, removing seven Russian diplomats from its Belgium headquarters; the Trump administration also announced the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, saying it was used to spy on a nearby U.S. naval base. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the expulsions send “a clear message to Russia that there…3 min

Main storiesIt wasn’t all badEight months ago, Kiko Matthews was in the hospital recovering from brain surgery. Now the 36-year-old Briton has become the fastest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Matthews nearly died from a tumor caused by Cushing’s disease in 2009 and survived a second tumor on her brain last year. Wanting to give back to the London hospital that saved her life, the former teacher set off on a 3,000-nautical-mile fundraising trek from Gran Canaria to Barbados. Matthews completed the voyage in a record 50 days and raised more than $120,000. “Anyone can attempt anything given the right attitude, belief, and support,” says Matthews.Not even triplets can slow down Ann Marie Cody. The California mom of three just broke her second Guinness World Record, becoming the fastest woman to…1 min

Main storiesStormy’s claim that she was threatenedWhat happenedAdult film actress Stephanie Clifford told her story about her alleged affair with President Trump this week, telling CBS’s 60 Minutes that she was once threatened with harm if she ever spoke out about the relationship. Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, told Anderson Cooper that she had unprotected sex with Trump once, after meeting him at a 2006 golf tournament. Five years later, shortly after giving an unprinted interview to Bauer Publishing about the alleged affair, the p*rn star was in a Las Vegas parking lot with her infant daughter when “a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story,’” said Clifford, 39. “Then [he] looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be shame…2 min

Main storiesU.S.-China talks ease fears of a trade warWhat happenedFears that President Trump’s hardball tariff tactics would spark a global trade war receded this week after The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese and American negotiators are quietly working to hammer out an understanding between the two countries. Trump threatened last week to impose tariffs on $60 billion worth of Chinese industrial and technology products in retaliation for Chinese rules that force American companies to turn over their intellectual property in order to do business there. China responded with threats to slap retaliatory penalties on $3 billion in U.S. goods, including fruit, pork, and ethanol, chosen specifically to inflict pain on Trump’s rural supporters.U.S. stocks suffered their worst week in two years, with the escalating tit-for-tat unnerving investors, before rebounding on the news that high-level talks are underway.…2 min

Controversy of the weekTrump hires Bolton: Is the U.S. now on ‘a path to war’?OK, “it’s time to panic now,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. Last week President Trump abruptly fired national security adviser H.R. McMaster, one of the last surviving “adults in the room” in this chaotic administration, and replaced him with John Bolton, the Fox News contributor and former U.N. ambassador. Bolton is best known for his “walrus mustache,” his contempt for diplomacy and international law, and foreign policy views so hawkishly extreme as to make Dick Cheney look like Gandhi. Bolton is already on record demanding military strikes against North Korea and Iran. Given that Trump lacks any foreign policy vision of his own, the belligerent Bolton may “excite Trump’s darker instincts” and put us on “the path to war” with one or both of those nations. In May, the Iran…3 min

Issue April 6, 2018 - The Week Magazine (2024)

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