October 13, 2019

Your Weekend Briefing

By remy tumin and lance booth

Here are the week's top stories, and a look ahead.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

1. The impeachment inquiry into President Trump continues to intensify as Congress returns from recess this week.

The White House has said it would not cooperate with what it called an illegitimate effort "to overturn the results of the 2016 election."

Several White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, face deadlines in the coming days to comply with requests from Congress for documents related to the Ukraine pressure campaign. The U.S. ambassador to the E.U. is also scheduled to testify.

Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump's lawyer, is said to be under investigation over whether he broke foreign lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine. Tonight's episode of "The Weekly" looks at how Mr. Giuliani went from "America's Mayor" to being at the center of the investigation.

We also spoke to former F.B.I. director James Comey, who says he's working to end the Trump presidency. And yes, he knows many people might think he caused it.

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.

Nazeer Al-Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

2. Observers have long suspected that Russia bombs Syrian hospitals. But no one has been able to prove it — until now.

The Times obtained thousands of Russian Air Force recordings that directly implicate Russia in four hospital attacks in just 12 hours. Our detailed findings show how Russia repeatedly violated one of the oldest laws of war.

It comes as Turkish-led troops continue to push into Syria, days after the U.S. withdrew forces near the border. President Trump's abandonment of the Syrian Kurds, longtime allies of the U.S., alarmed other allies in the region because of its unpredictability as much as its betrayal, our Middle East reporters writes in an analysis.

3. Twelve Democratic candidates, one stage: The biggest presidential primary debate in history is coming to Ohio.

Hosted by The Times and CNN, the question heading into the debate on Tuesday night: Can anyone make a splash without being the one who ends up soaked? Here's what to watch for.

In a 19-way race in which three candidates, or at the most four or five, will emerge as viable options out of Iowa, the locations of field offices reveal clues about their strategies. We looked at who has the biggest 2020 ground game.

Here's what else happened on the campaign trail this week and a look at the latest poll numbers.

Jason Henry for The New York Times

4. When Pacific Gas & Electric, the largest utility in California, intentionally cut power off for more than 70,000 customers this week as a precaution against sparking wildfires, things did not go according to plan.

PG&E's website went down and it struggled to communicate with local officials and inform residents. Roads and businesses went dark without warning. Nursing homes scrambled to find backup power. Above, Oakland.

"There were definitely missteps," one state official said. "It's pretty much safe in saying, this did not go well."

Kyodo/Reuters

5. Nearly 6 million people were ordered to evacuate as Typhoon Hagibis slammed into Japan. An earthquake measuring 5.7 magnitude also hit off the coast.

The storm, the largest to hit the country in decades, brought landslides, record rainfall, flooding and burst levees. Violent winds measured at about 100 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 135 miles per hour.

Rescue services jumped into action early Sunday morning, using helicopters and boats to rescue stranded residents. Here is the storm in photos.

6. Jeffrey Epstein had an astonishing array of powerful men in his orbit. Few held the prestige of Bill Gates.

A new Times investigation reveals a closer relationship than previously known between Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender who committed suicide in prison, and Mr. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, who has tried to minimize his ties to Mr. Epstein.

Mr. Gates and the $51 billion Gates Foundation have championed the well-being of young girls. By the time Mr. Gates and Mr. Epstein first met in 2011, pictured above, Mr. Epstein had served jail time for soliciting prostitution from a minor and was required to register as a sex offender. The two met on numerous occasions after that.

In a statement, a spokeswoman said Mr. Gates now concedes an error in judgment.

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

7. Games that count are days away, but the political and financial fallout of a preseason clash with China threaten to reshape the N.B.A.'s future.

It began when the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted a pro-democracy message — "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong — innocuous by Twitter standards, except the N.B.A. is deeply invested in China, and the repercussions are likely to linger.

And we're well into October baseball: The Yankees defeated the Astros in Game 1 of the A.L.C.S., and the Nationals topped the Cardinals in their second N.L.C.S. game.

Kelia Anne MacCluskey for The New York Times

8. The world's most famous wedding site is for sale, and with it, the grand institution of the quickie Las Vegas wedding. The asking price is $12 million.

For 68 years, Charolette Richards has owned operated The Little White Wedding Chapel off the Strip. But the Las Vegas wedding industry is not the business it used to be — marriage rates are down, social values are shifting. It presents an obvious question: Can an industry whose hook is being stuck in the past flourish in the future?

To celebrate Modern Love's 15th anniversary this month, we're revisiting "classic" essays from the column's early years. In this 2006 piece, a wife tries to improve her husband by using exotic-animal training techniques.

Trent Davis Bailey for The New York Times

9. "To build something like this in prison — you have no idea of what it means."

Thirty Colorado inmates staged "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for nearby prisons. For the prison staff, the logistics of transporting a complicated set and inmates were daunting. For the cast and crew, it was transformative and surreal — and the first time in years some had been outside 20-foot walls and razor fences.

Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

10. And finally, dig into one of our Weekend Reads.

This week we examined why Amazon fires, above, keep raging 10 years after a plan to stop them, reviewed Ronan Farrow's new book and looked at how some New York river towns are capitalizing on Halloween.

For more ideas on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these 10 new books our editors like, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching, and our music critics' latest playlist.

Finally, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours (with a little help from his friends). Hope you find some inspiration this week.

Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a.m. Eastern.

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