The Long, Perilous Road Ahead for Donald Trump

Before this year, no American president had ever been arraigned on federal criminal charges. Tomorrow, when Donald Trump is set to appear in federal court in Washington and plead not guilty to accusations that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election, it would happen for the second time in two months.

That would begin a long legal process in which federal prosecutors would seek to prove that Trump knowingly spread lies in an effort to subvert democracy. The timeline of the trial remains unclear; it could begin next year.

It is unlikely that the judge overseeing the case — Tanya S. Chutkan, an Obama appointee — will be receptive if Trump follows his well-established practice of seeking a delay. She swiftly ruled against the former president in his 2021 attempt to keep his White House papers secret.

Trump might also find a less sympathetic panel of jurors in Washington than in Florida, where he also faces federal charges, my colleague Ben Protess told me. “Drawing heavily from government workers and left-leaning people, the jury pool in Washington is more likely to be skeptical of the former president than the jury pool in Florida, where Trump won twice,” he said.

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter was sentenced to death

A jury in Pittsburgh determined that a death sentence should be imposed on the gunman who killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 in what is considered the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.

The gunman, Robert Bowers, was convicted of 63 federal counts, including hate crimes, in June. In the sentencing, the jury had to assess the defense’s contention that Bowers had schizophrenia and “committed the offense under mental or emotional disturbance,” and therefore should be spared the death penalty. None of the 12 jurors agreed.

In a statement, the family of two victims — Rose Mallinger, 97, who was killed in the attack, and Andrea Wedner, her daughter, who was wounded — thanked the jury. “Although we will never attain closure,” the statement read, “we now feel a measure of justice has been served.”

U.S.-trained troops stumble in Ukraine

When nine Western-trained brigades — some 36,000 troops equipped with advanced American weapons and taught American battle tactics — joined the counteroffensive this summer, they were supposed to offer the Ukrainians a much-needed advantage. But they quickly became bogged down by dense Russian minefields and constant artillery fire.

Those brigades have since changed tactics. Ukrainian military commanders have directed them to focus on wearing down Russian forces with long-range artillery and missiles rather than plunging into the battlefield.

Covid cases tick up

Over the past four weeks, coronavirus cases have slowly increased in parts of the country, echoing a seasonal pattern. Luckily, the infection rates are still very low, and experts expect that we’ll remain far from the horrific highs of previous years. Instead, the recent wave offers public health officials a first look at Covid as a post-pandemic threat — a permanent fixture of the infectious disease landscape, but one that can be managed.

Nearly all Americans have built up multiple layers of immunity, so the threat of the virus has decreased. Still, experts say, everyone should seek out an updated Covid (and flu) shot this fall.

Disrupting a concert may now be the ultimate souvenir

The barrier between a star performing onstage at a live musical performance and the crowd cheering below has become hazier than ever. Recent weeks have seen a spate of objects flying toward artists — a cellphone, a bra, even a wheel of cheese — as fans seek to insert themselves into the performances.

The trend may seem unsafe, or at least unwelcome. And at times it is. But my colleague Jon Caramanica walked through the recent incidents and explained that some pop stars, attuned to this era of social-media-inspired invasiveness, have used their proximity to the crowd as a powerful marketing and publicity tool.

The heaviest animal ever?

Paleontologists unveiled today the fossilized bones of one of the strangest whales in history. The 39-million-year-old leviathan, called Perucetus, may have weighed about 200 tons, as much as a blue whale — by far the heaviest animal known, until now.

The researchers suspect that Perucetus drifted lazily through shallow coastal waters like a mammoth manatee, propelling its sausage-like body with a paddle-shaped tail.

When a DNA test upended two lives

Richard Beauvais, a commercial fisherman in British Columbia, had always described himself as Métis, a person of mixed Indigenous and French ancestry. That was until his daughter, interested in his Indigenous roots, convinced him to take a DNA test. His entire identity soon unraveled.

Beauvais discovered that he had been born to Ukrainian parents and mistakenly switched at birth. The other baby, the one with Métis ancestors, grew up in Manitoba celebrating Ukrainian traditions, only to discover with a DNA test of his own that he was the one with Indigenous roots.