| The Presidential Daily Brief |
IMPORTANT
September 29, 2018
A woman mourns in the Indonesian city of Palu on Saturday after an earthquake and tsunami left hundreds dead in the area. Source: Getty
Tsunami in Indonesia Leaves Hundreds Dead

A tsunami and 7.5 magnitude earthquake that struck Friday has left at least 384 dead and thousands of structures destroyed in the Indonesian city of Palu. Video shows people fleeing in panic from waves of up to 10 feet high. A series of deadly earthquakes on the Indonesian island of Lombok last month also left hundreds dead. Meanwhile, the Indonesian military has mobilized to deliver aid despite the city’s runway being damaged. The total number of dead and injured are yet unknown according to authorities who said bodies were found strewn along the shoreline.

Sources: CNN, BBC
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Kavanaugh Hearings Reach Denouement

There’s a “presumption of innocence.” That, for one key Senate Judiciary Committee member, was enough. Like much of America, retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake heard compelling testimony from both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, regarding an alleged sexual assault at a 1980s high school party. But in a stunning reversal, as the committee sends the nomination to the full Senate chamber, Flake said he would not vote to confirm Kavanaugh without an F.B.I. investigation into the allegations. President Donald Trump, in acquiescence, ordered the investigation, delaying a final confirmation vote by up to a week.

Sources: Vox, USA Today, NYT
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Facebook Breach Could Affect 90M Users

The company revealed Friday that it suffered its largest data breach in history this week, exposing the information of 50 to 90 million user accounts. They confirmed that the attack — which exploited bugs in the “View As” feature — also allowed hackers access to any account a user logs into using Facebook. It’s just the latest episode for the company which faced fallout earlier this year from several privacy scandals including that involving Cambridge Analytica, which harvested data from 87 million Facebook users in order to target U.S. voters.

Sources: Wired, NYT
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Could Donald Trump Win a Nobel Prize?

Will they be laughing after Friday? At the United Nations this week, world leaders expressed amusement at President Donald Trump’s boasts, inspiring back-and-forth claims they were laughing “with” rather than “at” him. On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, where Trump’s been nominated by some of Norway’s right-tilted politicians, announces its peace prize laureate for 2018. Even South Korean President Moon Jae-in has suggested that Trump’s worthy — although observers believe Moon may have been the prime mover in improving relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Sources: Nobel Peace Prize, Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera
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Briefly

The Week Ahead: On Monday, First Lady Melania Trump is to begin her first solo foreign trip, a weeklong visit to four African nations, where she plans to promote child welfare. The Supreme Court, one day into its new term, is to hold a hearing Tuesday on whether executing a prisoner with dementia and no memory of a capital offense constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. And that same day, Major League Baseball playoffs will begin.

Know This: Israeli soldiers killed seven Palestinians and wounded dozens more after opening fire during violent protests at the Gazan border on Friday. The U.S. military lost its first F-35 aircraft in a crash during a time the government is seeking to cut costs on the expensive jet program. And the co-founder of psychedelic rock group Jefferson Airplane, Marty Balin, has passed away at age 76.

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INTRIGUING
Orson Welles' Last Film Reaches the Other Side

It made Citizen Kane look easy. In 1970, the legendary auteur began filming The Other Side of the Wind, which stalled legally and financially before Orson Welles’ 1985 death. On Nov. 2, the project finally lands in theaters — and on Netflix. The mockumentary of Hollywood’s passing glory days and then-contemporary avant-garde period has frustrated Welles fans as they’ve watched the iconic filmmaker’s estate and other stakeholders grapple over rights. After a much-interrupted production process, Wind has already earned its own documentary, to be packaged online with its subject.

Sources: New Yorker
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How an Intern Became a Google VP

It was a “life-altering tool.” That’s what computer science student Jan Fitzpatrick thought of the research project she caught wind of 19 years ago. So during her summer break, she lucked out with an internship at Google, which launched a year earlier. As the search giant marks 20 years, Fitzpatrick traces her ascent, from becoming one of the startup’s first female engineers to helping found its user-experience team and Google News, and finally, her future as “geo” VP, running and developing Google Maps.

Sources: Fast Company
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Looking Back to Save Future Moms

Maternal care for America’s Black women is in crisis. Alabama ranks as the worst state in which to give birth, and in 2016 infant mortality rates increased, a statistic similar to far poorer countries, with Black women likely to suffer more than others. A midwife-devised program aims to reverse this trend. Nearly half of Alabama counties don’t even have OB-GYN services, forcing mothers-to-be to drive hours to obtain care. Midwifery is an old-school solution, but one health experts believe could add up to a healthier future.

Sources: Scalawag
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Venezuelans Escape From Chaos

The increasing number of refugees fleeing economic hardship under President Nicolás Maduro’s leadership has been a news story personal to photographer Luis Robayo. Hailing from a remote Colombian border region, he documented migrants’ struggles as neighboring countries clamped down on entry. Racing against time and carrying what would likely be all their possessions, the migrants trekked from Colombia to Ecuador and then Peru, braving the Andean chill and lamenting severed family ties. The tragedy, as Robayo sees it, is that these refugees had peacetime jobs, but back home, they have no hope of feeding their families.

Sources: AFP Correspondent
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Why Are National Football Conference Players Loaded?

Eight of the league’s 10 highest-paid players — from Aaron Rodgers to Aaron Donald — hail from the NFC, while two are in the American Football Conference. That’s despite a salary cap, so what gives? One reason is that the AFC is top-heavy; in 15 years, only five of their teams have gone to the Super Bowl. The well-rounded NFC sent 10, and half of its 2018 teams have championship potential, with well-paid quarterbacks. AFC fans, meanwhile, will have to hope the best for their young, economical play-callers.

Sources: OZY
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