December 15, 2019

Your Weekend Briefing

By remy tumin and judith levitt

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

Samuel Corum for The New York Times

1. The House of Representatives is set to take a historic vote this week as it considers articles of impeachment against President Trump.

The two articles, which accuse Mr. Trump of abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress, bring a sitting president to the brink of removal from office for the fourth time in American history. Above, Representative Jerrold Nadler after the House Judiciary Committee approved the articles. A full House vote is expected Wednesday.

Senator Mitch McConnell is working hand in hand with the White House to make plans for a Senate trial, possibly as early as January. Mr. Trump has privately pushed for a prolonged, theatrical defense. Mr. McConnell has resisted the idea.

As Democrats pursued impeachment, Mr. Trump had plenty of good news to promote: finishing the first phase of a trade deal with China, averting a government shutdown and moving forward with his signature North American trade pact.

He summed it up in the Oval Office on Friday: “This has been a wild week.”

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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Andrew Testa for The New York Times

2. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decisive win this week all but ensured Britain’s departure from the European Union.

He did it by managing to tear through Labour’s old coalition of small-town, working-class voters in the Midlands and north of England, a block of seats once thought so impregnable that it was called the Red Wall.

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The deadline to depart the bloc is Jan. 31., and with it begins a new era “in which national interests take primacy over collective concerns,” our European economics correspondent writes in an analysis, with trade being chief among them.

Mark Makela/Getty Images

3. Across the Atlantic, Democratic presidential candidates were watching the results of Britain’s election closely: Was it a harbinger of a second term for President Trump?

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Centrist Democrats portrayed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s victory as a warning sign for the American election. Progressives said there were few similarities between the two political races.

We also looked at how former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York has drawn on support from a vast network of fellow mayors whom he has allied with and funded.

Mr. Bloomberg did not qualify for the next debate, scheduled for Thursday at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. But a labor dispute might get in the way of the debate happening at all.

Jeenah Moon/Getty Images

4. The stabbing of an 18-year-old Barnard College student in a park near campus has jarred New York City. The ages of the suspects are nearly as shocking: They are 13 and 14 years old.

Tessa Majors, a first-year college student from Virginia, was walking through Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan on Wednesday night when three teenagers tried to rob her, the police said. Above, a vigil at Barnard earlier this week.

The murder recalled an era decades ago when violent street crime was far more common in the area.

Jonah M. Kessel/The New York Times

5. We have two video investigations examining the future of technology.

A tank that drives itself, a drone that picks its own target, a machine gun with facial recognition software: Artificial intelligence is defining the next wave of warfare. Our reporters spoke with experts around the world in “Killing in the Age of Algorithms,” a 20-minute documentary.

And virtually anyone can buy a kit online to build a gun from parts — without a background check. Our reporter built one in six hours. What do these firearms, known as ghost guns, mean for the future of gun regulation?

Lauren DeCicca for The New York Times

6. What would Bangkok be without its fragrant street food scene? The Thai city just might find out.

Street food vendors — with their pungent salads, oodles of noodles and coconut sweetmeats — have lately become the target of some of the capital’s planners. They prefer a more manicured Bangkok, with air-conditioning, malls and Instagrammable dessert cafes. And they want the vendors gone.

“Bangkok to me is about street food,” said one vendor, who has been making green papaya salad for 36 years. “Without it, it wouldn’t feel the same.”

Netflix

7. The world wants more Danish TV than Denmark can handle.

The streaming boom has led to huge international demand for shows like “The Rain,” above, from the tiny country, where there are many more critically praised series and movies being made than ever before.

But there’s just one problem: There aren’t enough professionals to produce them.

And just when you thought made-for-TV Christmas movies couldn’t get any cheesier, Hallmark and Lifetime added Hanukkah to the mix. Our reporter wrote about the disastrous results.

Ron Frehm/Associated Press

8. Winning the Heisman these days comes with a big caveat: You have to agree to not sell the trophy.

The Heisman Trophy, given to the top player in college football, has been awarded annually since 1935. And since 1999 — carrying through to this year’s winner, Louisiana State quarterback Joe Burrow — winners have been prohibited from selling their hardware. At least 11 Heismans from older winners have been sold in the last 20 years, including by Tim Brown, pictured above in 1987.

In other football news, the Oakland Raiders played their last game in California on Saturday before moving to Las Vegas, where a $2 billion stadium awaits them. Can the team really boost the economy in a city built around tourism?

Conny Van den Bergh

9. Nature’s best poetry of 2019: clouds.

Every day, members of the Cloud Appreciation Society post photos of the sky from around the world. The group’s mission, in part, is to “fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it.”

This year, the society collected nearly 50,000 submissions (you, too, can become a member). Above, a virga cloud in Wilsele, Belgium.

“Clouds really teach you about transience,” a divorce lawyer in New York said. “They come, they go. Like thoughts, like feelings, like so many things.”

Veronique De Viguerie/Getty Images

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

This week we took a deeper look at racism in the banking world, exposed a hidden climate threat and reflected more on the year’s best, including the best photographs of 2019, like the one of Notre-Dame above.

For more ideas on what to eat, read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these five weeknight dishes, 11 new books our editors liked, a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from Watching, and our music critics’ latest playlist.

Our critics also put out their 54 favorite songs of 2019. Have a listen, and have a harmonious week.

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