Author: Graeme McMillan / Source: WIRED
Congrats, you survived another week! And this last one was a helluva week to witness. As measles made an unwelcome comeback, Ann Coulter suggested she’d vote for Bernie Sanders, a journalist got killed during a riot in Northern Ireland, and scientists got into the business of reviving dead pig brains. What’s going on?
How is it the end of April already? The days are flying by. In case you blinked and missed it, here’s what else happened in the past seven days.Sing the Bells of Notre Dame
What Happened: A literal piece of history was nearly destroyed last week when Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral went up in flames as the result of an electrical short-circuit.
What Really Happened: The week started with an unexpected tragedy across the Atlantic, as midway through Monday reports started to appear that Notre Dame Cathedral was on fire. The news quickly spread across the internet, as people tried to come to terms with the seeming destruction of the building, which is more than 800 years old.
Even as firefighters struggled to get the blaze under control—and save the priceless antiques and artwork inside the cathedral—Parisians came out to demonstrate how important the national monument was to them.
The day after the fire, there was some surprising good news to be found.
Indeed, it wasn’t just one of the iconic windows that had survived; it was all three, which almost seems like … a miracle, really. Meanwhile, reconstruction efforts were immediately announced, and they were ambitious.
To put the five-year timeline in perspective, experts were suggesting that 40 years was a more realistic estimate. The reconstruction would be aided by what might be considered an unlikely fortunate coincidence.
Any such efforts to rebuild, ambitious or otherwise, were to be well-funded, as it turned out.
Beyond the kindness of billionaires, corporations and cryptocurrencies also helped out. Of course, such largesse invoked a certain sense of one-upmanship for certain world leaders.
For anyone thinking, Wait, couldn’t the US use that money?, you weren’t alone.
The Takeaway: As it happened, the president had some other words of wisdom for the French when Notre Dame started burning, even if they weren’t entirely wise or gratefully accepted by their intended audience.
Was Mueller’s Report Worth the Wait? Maybe
What Happened: That thing that a lot of people never thought would actually come to pass? At the start of this week, it was revealed that there was a date for it to actually happen, with Monday bringing news that the Mueller report was just days away.
What Really Happened: For weeks now, folks in Washington have been, shall we say, upset that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election meddling had been submitted to Attorney General Bill Barr but not available to the public. Indeed, you might remember Barr promised that a redacted version of the report would be released to Congress by mid–April. Hey, guess what this week was…
President Trump, who’d previously said he was completely cool with the report being released with no redactions, seemed to be entirely on board with this plan. J/K.
Why the change of heart? Well, the…
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