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Staying on top of current events can be a challenge. To help, we’ve rounded up the week’s most jaw-dropping stories. What started off as a quiet week quickly turned into a news explosion that’s sure to be remembered. Major political upheavals in both France and the US left a mark, while around the globe, unexpected changes began to unfold.
10. France Voted in Its Youngest-Ever President
Let’s kick off with the headline news. On Sunday, May 7, the French people took to the polls and elected a new president. In a historic move, they chose the youngest individual to ever hold the office in France.
Emmanuel Macron, a self-proclaimed “radical centrist,” is just 39 years old. Less than a year ago, he resigned from his position as France's finance minister under the deeply unpopular socialist president Francois Hollande to launch his own political movement, En Marche. This was as wild in France as it would be in the US. Before 2017, no presidential candidate in the postwar era had succeeded without the backing of either the Republican or Socialist party. Imagine if Jack Lew had left the Obama administration to start a new political party in January 2016. The fact that 70% of you are now asking “Jack who?” highlights how unexpected this move was.
And yet, Macron triumphed. Not only did he win, but he did so while embracing the EU flag, advocating for increased immigration, and pledging to strengthen ties with Berlin. This was a bold stance that no other candidate dared to take, and it secured him a decisive victory (66.1%–33.9%) against his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen. Whether Macron can fulfill his promises remains to be seen, but his improbable victory was undeniably the political highlight of the year.
9. The Polls Were Wrong Again (Massively)
One has to feel some sympathy for Nate Silver. Just four years ago, the polling expert was basking in the glory of his almost perfect prediction of the 2012 US election. He had become the new oracle, able to predict public sentiment with remarkable precision. The era of unexpected election results, it seemed, was behind us.
Oh, no.
At this rate, it seems Mr. Silver might soon be living in a dumpster. Polling has been disastrously inaccurate lately. It missed Brexit, it missed Trump, it missed Colombia rejecting its peace agreement with FARC, and it inflated support for Austria’s far-right Norbert Hofer and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. Just last week, it misjudged Marine Le Pen’s chances too.
As Silver’s own blog, FiveThirtyEight, points out, this is the kind of polling failure that tends to be overlooked. The polls predicted Macron’s victory, and he indeed won. However, they forecast a close race, whereas Macron secured a landslide win. The polls got the direction right, but their numbers were far off. It seems that the era of polling has truly come to an end.
8. Phoenix's Infamous Serial Shooter Was Finally Apprehended
In August 2015, 61-year-old Raul Romero was walking to his car in Phoenix, Arizona, when he was fatally shot. Initially, police considered it a random tragedy. But as time went on, things took a darker turn. Starting in January 2016, more people began to turn up dead, all killed with the same weapon used to murder Romero. By the time the fifth victim was found, authorities realized they were dealing with a serial killer.
The Phoenix Serial Shooter wreaked havoc throughout 2016, instilling fear across the city. Nine victims were killed, including 12-year-old Maleah Ellis, who was shot on the porch of her home. Many others were injured. It was a killing spree as heinous as any in the state’s history.
Then, on May 9, a major breakthrough: The police had finally captured the serial shooter.
Aaron Saucedo, 23, was arrested after a tip-off from the public. He is currently awaiting trial and maintains his innocence. However, if ballistics evidence ties him to the murders, the police will have closed one of the most chilling serial killer cases in recent memory.
7. The 82 Kidnapped Chibok Schoolgirls Were Finally Freed
It was one of the darkest stories of the past five years. In Nigeria, the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a school in Chibok, threatening to sell them into slavery or worse. Emotional appeals for their rescue spread worldwide, and other nations offered support. Despite all this, the girls remained missing... until now. Last week, 82 of the abducted schoolgirls were finally released.
These girls join 21 who were freed in October, as well as a small number who managed to escape on their own. While not the first, this is the largest release of the Chibok victims so far. In exchange, the Nigerian government released five Boko Haram commanders—an expensive but necessary price to ensure the safety of the teenagers.
Although this is incredible news, it doesn’t signal the end of the 82 girls’ suffering. The 21 freed in October are still in rehabilitation centers, and it’s likely that the newly freed 82 will undergo a similar process. Thankfully, they are now much closer to being reunited with their families.
6. South Korea’s New President Extended a Peace Offer to North Korea
With all the focus on North Korea lately, you might have missed the drama unfolding in its typically more stable southern neighbor. To summarize: late last year, President Park Geun Hye became embroiled in a scandal involving a Rasputin-like cult leader who may have exerted undue influence over the government. Park, the daughter of South Korea's assassinated authoritarian ruler, was forced out of office, impeached, and is now standing trial with the threat of a life sentence hanging over her.
Amidst the turmoil of her trial, South Korean voters headed to the polls to elect a new president. With an unusually high turnout, they chose the left-wing candidate Moon Jae In. One of his first acts as president was to extend an olive branch to Kim Jong Un.
It’s crucial to understand that the DPRK is perceived differently in South Korea. Many South Koreans still hold onto the dream of reuniting with their family members across the border, and official policy supports reunification. However, Moon's task will not be simple. The DPRK continues to threaten further nuclear tests, and past attempts at improving North-South relations have failed. Whether Moon can break this cycle remains uncertain.
5. North Korea Threatened War With China
In a particularly reckless move last week, Pyongyang made a threat that could have lasting consequences for Kim Jong Un’s regime. After official Chinese media began to criticize North Korea’s weapons program, the North responded with a threat of nuclear war against China.
The tone was strikingly similar to that used by Pyongyang when it targets its traditional enemies: South Korea and the US. However, China is not an enemy—it is North Korea's primary ally and the main reason the Hermit Kingdom hasn't collapsed or been invaded. For decades, China has been protecting the DPRK. And yet, in a move that could be described as childish defiance, Kim Jong Un is retaliating against China's gentle reprimands with threats of nuclear war.
This is, to put it mildly, an unwise strategy. While it's unlikely that China will sever ties with the DPRK anytime soon, President Xi has already shown signs of growing impatience with the Kim regime. If North Korea pushes its only ally too far, Pyongyang will have only itself to blame when it inevitably falls apart.
4. A ‘Missing’ Irish Beach Returned After 33 Years At Sea
We usually focus on covering major events in our roundups, but in the midst of all the heavy news, it's refreshing to include a lighter story every now and then. This week, that story comes from Achill Island in Ireland. After a violent storm hit their town, the residents of Dooagh woke up to find that a massive beach they'd lost 33 years ago had mysteriously returned.
In 1984, a series of storms wiped out Dooagh beach, a 300-meter (1,000 ft) stretch of golden sand that had been a beloved local landmark. Since then, the area had been nothing but a barren stretch of rocky shoreline. But last week, another storm arrived. When it passed, the beach was back, exactly as it had been, as if the decades in between had never existed.
The explanation for this extraordinary event was that it was a “freak of nature” and unlikely to occur again if the beach were to be swept away once more. But hey, at least this unexpected return of sand offered a bit of a distraction from the global chaos, right?
And now, back to that chaos . . .
3. President Trump Dismissed The FBI Director
The Saturday Night Massacre is one of the most notorious chapters in Richard Nixon’s presidency. On October 20, 1973, the embattled president instructed his attorney general to dismiss Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor handling the Watergate investigation. Nixon had to go through two attorneys general before finding one willing to carry out the order. The Massacre is now viewed as a pivotal moment in the unraveling of the Watergate scandal.
Which leads us to President Donald Trump.
On the previous Tuesday, the president made the bold move of firing James Comey, the FBI director. This marks just the second time in US history that a sitting president has fired an FBI director. (The first occurred in 1993, when President Clinton dismissed William Sessions over corruption.) What makes this even more unprecedented is that Comey was overseeing an investigation into potential collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election when he was let go.
The official explanation is that Comey mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. However, many perceive the entire ordeal as a possible cover-up. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s disgraced former national security advisor, seems to be heading toward prison due to his connections with Russia. The investigation into the president’s inner circle is ongoing. Even if there’s no hidden agenda, the timing of it all is undeniably suspect. Expect more developments on this story in the weeks ahead.
2. We Learned Incredible New Insights About Our Ancestors
You’re probably familiar with the iconic illustration of evolution, where a monkey gradually transforms into a more human-like figure, eventually reaching Homo sapiens. Well, it turns out that depiction is far from accurate. In 2015, scientists unearthed 18 Homo naledi skeletons and decided to determine their age. Initially, experts believed they were a million years old. However, the discovery revealed they actually date back to about 236,000 years ago, meaning Homo naledi coexisted with our own ancestors.
In other words, that classic evolutionary drawing should be updated to show a variety of ape descendants crowded together, struggling to adapt to their surprising coexistence. Rather than evolving into progressively human-like creatures, a whole branch of our ancestors stalled at the ‘monkey stage’ while Neanderthals and modern humans continued their own evolution.
As an additional discovery, the team uncovered inconclusive evidence suggesting that Homo naledi might have used tools. If proven true, this finding could force us to completely reconsider the narrative of humanity’s evolution.
1. The Czech Government Resigned, Unresigned, And Turned On Itself (All In One Week)
For a small, peaceful country with a population just over 10.5 million, the Czech Republic has a remarkable knack for political drama. Just last week, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (shown in the image above) made an unexpected announcement of his resignation. He then escalated it to a resignation of the entire government, all with the aim of targeting one person: populist billionaire politician Andrej Babis.
Babis is a mix of Emmanuel Macron, Donald Trump, and Silvio Berlusconi. A billionaire populist who owns much of the nation’s media, he portrays himself as a centrist. Currently the finance minister, Babis became the target of Sobotka’s resignation gambit, seemingly meant to destabilize him and his new populist party ahead of the October elections. From here, things only get more complex.
The president of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman (a close ally of Babis, pictured left), rejected the resignation of the government. Instead, Zeman declared that only Sobotka had resigned and that he must leave office. In response, Sobotka attempted to rescind his resignation of the government, but then sought to dismiss Babis. However, the Czech constitution requires that any such dismissals be formally approved by the president, and Zeman refused to sign off on it.
Where this leaves the Czech Republic is uncertain. The government’s future remains unclear, the Prime Minister's position is in jeopardy, and questions loom over whether the president may have violated constitutional law. And to think, some people thought US politics were the most chaotic.
