Newsweek 09/21/2018

2001 “Grief and love, rage and vengefulness, pride and defiance—a volatile set of emotions was let loose in America last week,” veteran editor Kenneth Auchincloss wrote in Newsweek’s special report on September 11. On the cover: Thomas E. Franklin’s iconic image of firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero. Inside, Kristen Brochmann’s powerful photo of the south tower erupting at the moment of impact. “This is the re-United States of America,” a Boston dockworker told the magazine. 1937 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported a shocker: Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Newsweek followed with transcripts from a meeting in which Black officially joined. More shocking: It was a scandal but not a career-ender. Black remained on the court until 1971. 1982 “[Football] fans may…

Firefighters battle a massive blaze that engulfed Brazil’s National Museum on September 2. Most of the 20 million artifacts in the 200-year-old institution, including the oldest human fossil found in the Americas, were destroyed. Among the items rescued was the 5.9-ton Bendegó meteorite. Officials speculate an electrical short circuit might have sparked the overnight inferno. No injuries were reported, but the tragedy “serves as a lesson,” said Culture Minister Sérgio Sá Leitão. “Brazil needs to take better care of its cultural heritage.”…

“People were on the verge, psychologically and physically.” ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2017, HURRICANE MARIA plowed into Puerto Rico with winds of 155 miles per hour, leaving the island in shambles. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz’s voice quivers as she speaks of that day and the man-made disaster that followed. “I feel anger and sadness because this should have never happened,” she says. “It has been a difficult year for Puerto Rico.” In a recent bombshell revelation from a Harvard study, the number of hurricane-related deaths jumped from the original 64—released by the Puerto Rican government last year—to 4,645. And life continues to be challenging for survivors: Thousands of Puerto Ricans are dealing with a deteriorated electric grid and crippled infrastructure, coupled with a crushing $70 billion debt that weakens the island’s…

IN AUGUST, NEARLY ONE YEAR after Hurricane Maria wrecked Puerto Rico’s electrical grid and plunged its 3.4 million residents into darkness, island officials heralded a milestone: The lights were back on. The state-owned electric company even tweeted a photo of a smiling family it said was the last to receive power. But Christine Nieves, an activist in Mariana, didn’t celebrate. She and her small mountain community near the southeastern coast had already restored electricity—on their own. Tired of waiting on the government’s halting repairs, she worked with a band of self-described “anarchistic organizers” from the mainland to install a small solar grid, one of more than a dozen like-minded efforts across Puerto Rico. By the time electric workers showed up, Mariana was two months ahead of them. (The Puerto Rico Electric…

DREAMING OF A NEW LIFE IN America, Elsa Johana Ortiz Enriquez had imagined the harrowing journey many times: seven days on the road from Guatemala to Mexico with her 8-year-old son, Anthony; turning themselves in to a Border Patrol agent; being held in detention for weeks at the perrera, or dog kennel, as migrants refer to U.S. immigration detention facilities. “I thought I might even have to wait weeks or months to be released, but then I’d eventually make it to Virginia,” she says. But just 24 hours after they arrived in McAllen, Texas, on a warm Saturday morning in May, the reality was far different: Immigration authorities entered their cell and grabbed her son. “It all happened so quickly,” Ortiz says. “I went to get his shoes, and he was…

A KILLER IS STALKING THE STREETS OF England, taking more lives than Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy combined. Police, pathologists and amateur investigators are scrambling to solve the case as mutilated bodies pile up between winding rows of terraced houses, parks and even schools—more than 500 at the latest count. The victims are not people; they all walk on four legs: Foxes, rabbits and hundreds of cats. After each is bludgeoned, the killer slices off trophies, often taking the head, the tail or a paw. The bodies, or just the dismembered parts, are then displayed in places children are sure to find them—in front of homes, in the family rabbit hutch or, in one case, outside the gates of a school. While no one knows for sure, the…