Your Weekend Briefing

Kavanaugh, Trump’s Taxes, Nobel Prizes View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Sunday, October 7, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Weekend Briefing]( By JOUMANA KHATIB, ALAN YUHAS AND VIRGINIA LOZANO Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead. Erin Schaff for The New York Times 1. A huge Republican victory. At a cost. Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in to a lifetime appointment as a justice of the Supreme Court after being [confirmed by a 50-48 vote in the Senate]( on Saturday. His arrival swings the court to the right for what could be a generation. Above, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, after the vote. The partisan fight over his confirmation triggered #MeToo fury and rage at white male entitlement, and President Trump encouraged a sharp backlash. The battle has left the Senate [and the country]( bruised, divided and raw, and [the Supreme Court tarnished](. (The court hears arguments on Tuesday.) Democratic anger may move Congress to the left in midterm elections, just four weeks away, that will determine Mr. Trump’s prospects for the last two years of his term. House Democrats have already [promised to investigate the accusations of sexual misconduct and perjury]( against Judge Kavanaugh should they retake the chamber. [Here is our reconstruction]( of the most dramatic confirmation fight in a quarter-century. ____ Rebecca Cook/Reuters 2. Adding to President Trump’s victories, he fulfilled a campaign promise by [renegotiating Nafta]( — at [the expense of relations]( with Canada. Under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, [rules will change]( on dairy exports, car manufacturing and intellectual property. Above, Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, met with autoworkers on Friday. And [the American economy is humming](. The Labor Department reported that unemployment fell to 3.7 percent in September, the lowest rate in nearly 50 years. Here’s [the front page of our Sunday paper]( [the Sunday Review]( from Opinion and [our crossword puzzles](. (Our news quiz is off for a couple of weeks, while our writer takes a break.) _____ Bernard Gotfryd/Getty Images 3. President Trump has long claimed to be a self-made billionaire. But he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father, Fred Trump, pictured above. [An investigation by The Times]( found that much of that reached Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes, with sham corporations, improper deductions and real estate holdings undervalued by hundreds of millions. The schemes — some of them outright fraud — enabled the family to evade hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on the transfer of over $1 billion to the Trump children. Here are [11 takeaways]( from our report. A lawyer for the president said “there was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone,” and Mr. Trump called the article an “[old, boring and often told hit piece]( But officials in [New York State and New York City are investigating](. Meanwhile, the first lady, Melania Trump, is returning to the U.S. after a week far from the bedlam of Washington. She seemed at ease on visits to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt. She did raise eyebrows by [wearing a white pith helmet]( a symbol of colonial rule. [Follow her trip in photos.]( ____ Yves Herman/Reuter; Patrick Seeger/EPA, via Shutterstock 4. The Nobel Peace Prize went to Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecological surgeon, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State, for their [campaigns to end the use of mass rape as a weapon of war](. Ms. Murad, 25, has become the voice of women who survived sexual violence by ISIS. Dr. Mukwege, 63, has treated thousands of women in a country once called the rape capital of the world. Speculation on possible winners had included prime movers in encouraging North Korea to denuclearize. That process takes another step today. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has [met]( North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un]( and is in South Korea to meet President Moon Jae-in. ____ Aaron Favila/Associated Press 5. The death toll from an earthquake and 20-foot tsunami that struck the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Sept. 28 [increased to more than 1,700](. Many more are believed to have died, been buried under soil, swept away by waves or trapped in a tangle of crushed buildings that will take months, possibly years, to clear. “They are finding devastation and tragedy everywhere,” a spokeswoman for one aid group said. Liquefaction — when an earthquake [turns land into roiling waves like liquid]( — obliterated whole villages and neighborhoods. ____ Joshua Lott/Getty Images 6. “Justice for Laquan!” Crowds outside a Chicago courthouse, above, had prepared to protest, but instead they cheered as Officer Jason Van Dyke was [found guilty of second-degree murder]( for shooting Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, 16 times in 2014. It was the first conviction of a Chicago police officer for an on-duty shooting in nearly 50 years. Whether it will ease decades of mistrust and anger between the police and black Chicagoans remains to be seen. Nationally, in 15 prominent cases of black people killed in confrontations with the police since 2014, [three officers]( have now been convicted. ____ via Sotheby's 7. “We’ve been Banksy-ed.” The street artist appeared to pull off [one of his greatest pranks](. His work “Girl With Balloon” sold for $1.4 million before being shredded by a rigged frame at Sotheby’s auction house in London on Friday. Separately, don’t miss the [Magazine’s culture issue]( this week, featuring stories about [“The Good Place,”]( the director [Barry Jenkins]( (“Moonlight,” “If Beale Street Could Talk”) and a [profile of Lady Gaga]( the titled nova in Bradley Cooper’s “A Star is Born.” ____ Ben Solomon for The New York Times 8. Yankees 6, Red Sox 2 With two homers from Gary Sanchez and one from Aaron Judge, the [Yankees won in Fenway Park]( to head home with the American League division series tied at 1-1. They play again on Monday in New York, where the Yankees have won seven consecutive playoff games dating to last season. The Houston Astros will face the Indians in Cleveland on Monday. In the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers take on the Colorado Rockies today (4:30 p.m. Eastern), and the Los Angeles Dodgers face the Atlanta Braves (8 p.m. Eastern). ____ Will Heath/NBC 9. There were no surprise celebrity guests on “[Saturday Night Live]( so the show’s ensemble cast was on its own to address Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation to the Supreme Court. The cold open: a celebratory Republican locker room, with Senators Mitch McConnell (Beck Bennett) and Jeff Flake (Pete Davidson), above. The show’s host was the comic actress Awkwafina (“Ocean’s 8,” “Crazy Rich Asians”), who thanked another Asian woman who has hosted the show, her idol Lucy Liu, for “opening the door.” _____ Audra Melton for The New York Times 10. Finally, black women mobilizing voters in the South, above; Eugene O’Neill’s San Francisco; and Denmark’s missing $2 billion: We have these stories and others in [our Best Weekend Reads](. For more suggestions on what to read, watch and listen to, may we suggest these [nine new books our editors liked]( a glance at the latest small-screen recommendations from [Watching]( and our [music critics’ latest playlist](. ____ Have a great week. Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a.m. Eastern. You can [sign up here]( to get our Morning Briefings by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning, or [here]( to receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights. Browse our full range of Times newsletters [here](. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [briefing@nytimes.com](mailto:briefing@nytimes.com?subject=Weekend%20Briefing%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT Sponsor a Subscription Inspire a future generation of readers by contributing to The New York Times [sponsor-a-subscription program](. For every subscription granted through contributions to this program, The Times will provide a digital subscription to one additional student. FOLLOW NYTimes [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytimes]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Sign Up for the [Evening Briefing newsletter »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Morning Briefing newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018