Your Friday Evening Briefing

Hurricane Recovery, Cardinal Wuerl, Trump | View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, October 12, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( [Your Friday Evening Briefing]( By JEAN RUTTER AND VIRGINIA LOZANO Good evening. Here’s the latest. Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The New York Times 1. Rescue crews in Florida and Georgia continued to search for survivors after Hurricane Michael. Above, patients arriving in Panama City, Fla. The storm has been blamed for at least 16 deaths so far, and the toll may rise. At least 1.5 million people lost power, and officials are scrambling to get food and water to hard-hit areas. Our journalists have [live updates]( from the region — and one reporter gathered the team’s coverage in [a Twitter thread](. To give you a sense of the devastation, we stitched together [photographs showing a mile of Mexico Beach, Fla.]( with block after block destroyed. “The mother of all bombs doesn’t do any more damage than this,” said a former mayor of the beach town. _____ Drew Angerer/EPA, via Shutterstock 2. Pope Francis sent yet another mixed message to abuse survivors. [He accepted the resignation]( of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, above, the archbishop of Washington, who was named in a recent Pennsylvania grand jury report accusing Catholic leaders of covering up decades of child sexual abuse by priests. Victims had hoped the pope would use the moment to show his commitment to holding bishops accountable for mismanaging such cases. But instead of making an example of Cardinal Wuerl, Francis praised his “nobility” and held him up as a model bishop. The 77-year-old prelate will stay on as the archdiocese’s caretaker until a successor is appointed. _____ Chris McGrath/Getty Images 3. Andrew Brunson, the American pastor who has been held under house arrest in Turkey for two years, [was released and is on his way back to the U.S.]( He had been charged with aiding terrorist groups and espionage after a failed coup in 2016, accusations he denies. The decision signaled a truce of sorts in a heated diplomatic dispute between the two countries. Mr. Brunson’s release coincided with the disappearance and suspected murder of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That case has raised tensions between [Turkey and Saudi Arabia]( and may have led Turkey to seek to repair relations with Washington, analysts said. _____ T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times 4. You probably heard about [Kanye West’s Oval Office free-form rant](. In contrast, President Trump’s frequent campaign rallies “are starting to feel like the only scripted plot point” in a continuing reality show, writes one of our White House correspondents. So, jumping off from that idea of a script, she captured the careful way each rally unfolds [as a play in three acts]( — all based on real events that took place last month. Also: We polled the Texas Senate race and found Ted Cruz ahead by [eight percentage points](. And Eric Holder has outlined a new strategy for Democrats: “[When they go low, we kick them.”]( _____ Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times 5. Italy could be the center of [the next financial crisis](. History suggests that the world is about due for one — they tend to come every decade or so. And Italy has many of the ingredients: a pile of questionable debt. Weak banks. An erratic government. And a big economy that could inflict collateral damage outside its borders. Above, a street in Rome. Full disclosure: This is a story about bond markets. But it’s one of the most-read on our site right now — and our top business editor promises it will stir your heart. _____  6. Describe who you are [in three words](. Chances are, you didn’t include your politics. Just 3 percent of people in our survey listed political beliefs first. Sixteen percent did in their top three. Most chose words that described family status, nationality, religion and gender. But those could still provide clues to political leanings. A white Christian Southerner is highly likely to be a Republican. A nonreligious, nonwhite woman is highly likely to be a Democrat. That’s important, political scientists say, because it’s a sign that we are retreating into distinct camps, reducing our ability to compromise. _____  7. Remember maps? GPS navigation is more convenient, but those vast, folded pieces of paper gave you the bigger picture. Today we’re inviting you to spend time with some new digital maps we’ve created. They clearly trace the shapes of almost every building across the country. Why? To connect with our cities and explore them in detail. To find the familiar, and to discover the unfamiliar. The house near Pittsburgh where this writer grew up is clearly visible at the bend of our horseshoe-shape street. Nearby along the Monongahela River, I spotted the roofs of the rides at Kennywood, an amusement park that dates to the early 1900s. [Type a ZIP code into the search bar]( and see what you can find. _____ Todd Heisler/The New York Times 8. She came to New York with dreams of success and citizenship. Now she was crumpled outside a massage parlor, her blood pooling on the pavement she had worked. She was Jane Doe Ponytail to the cops, and SiSi on the street. But her given name was Song Yang. She grew up in a remote village in northeastern China, loved by her family, bursting with ambition and industry. [This is her story]( an epic tragedy on a small block in Queens. _____ Emily Kask for The New York Times 9. It’s boom time for college football coaches. Eye-popping salaries for head coaches are old news. But now the riches are trickling down a bit further, to assistants. [L.S.U. is paying Dave Aranda $2.5 million a year.]( And there are at least two dozen assistant coaches in seven-figure territory. It’s a sign of how much money is in college football, and the contracts make an easy target for critics. But the coaches have plenty of supporters, too. As one L.S.U. player said of Aranda after a recent game: “That dude is a genius.” _____ Andrew Seng for The New York Times 10. Finally, this is your periodic reminder that it’s not all bad news out there. A 107-year-old barber staying in good health by eating only one pasta shape. Plants sending messages to animals with their fruit. German teenagers hitting the dance floor in traditional lederhosen and dirndls. [This is the Week in Good News](. Here’s to a delightful weekend. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing. [Sign up here]( to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. Want to catch up on past briefings? [You can browse them here](. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at [briefing@nytimes.com](mailto:briefing@nytimes.com?subject=Evening%20Briefing%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT Sponsor a Subscription Inspire the future generation of readers by contributing to The Times’s [sponsor-a-subscription program](. For questions, email sponsor@nytimes.com or call [1-844-698-2677](. FOLLOW NYTimes [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytimes]( Get more NYTimes.com newsletters » | Sign Up for the [Morning Briefing newsletter »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Evening 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