10 things you need to know today: September 29, 2019

(Image credit: Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Jump to category:

1. State Department reportedly ramps up Clinton email investigation
2. SNL returns for 45th season
3. Hong Kong protests turn violent ahead of China's 70th anniversary
4. An earlier version of Boeing flight control system reportedly had key safeguards absent from 737 MAX
5. Austria votes in snap parliamentary elections
6. Judge blocks White House plan to expedite deportations
7. Houthi rebels claim to have captured thousands of Saudi troops
8. Hurricane Lorenzo now a Category 4 storm as it heads toward Azores
9. Elon Musk reveals SpaceX's Starship prototype
10. Pete Alonso, Justin Verlander reach milestones as MLB season winds down

published 29 September 2019

1. State Department reportedly ramps up Clinton email investigation

The White House is reportedly ramping up its investigation into the email records of as many as 130 current and former State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email, The Washington Post reports. The officials targeted in the investigation were notified that emails they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and may now possibly be considered security violations. State Department officials said they are following standard protocol and that the timing of the investigation's apparent revival is consistent with how long it takes to peruse millions of emails. However, some subjects of the investigation believe the State Department's recent activity is an example of the Trump administration using executive powers to harm political adversaries.

Saturday Night Live returned to NBC for its 45th season Saturday night. Woody Harrelson hosted the premiere and Billie Eilish performed as the musical guest. The show's cold open parodied the past week's impeachment drama, with Alec Baldwin returning to portray President Trump. Baldwin's Trump tried to finagle his way out of the jam by asking a host of friends and family members, including new cast member Bowen Yang's Kim Jong Un, for help or advice, all to no avail. The show also spoofed the Democratic presidential candidates, with cameos from Larry David and Maya Rudolph as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), respectively.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

The 17th consecutive weekend of pro-democracy, anti-government protests continued in Hong Kong on Sunday. The demonstrations turned violent with Hong Kong police reportedly firing blue dye from a water canon in the hopes of making it easier to identify protesters, as well as rounds of tear gas, while protesters reportedly threw petrol bombs and bricks at the officers. Organizers did not request permission to stage the rally, but thousands of demonstrators showed up anyway and marched through Hong Kong's shopping district. The clashes took place ahead of the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on Tuesday. Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam will reportedly head to Beijing for the celebrations.

Engineers who worked on the Boeing 737 MAX's flight control system, MCAS, which accident investigators have implicated in two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, omitted key safeguards that had been included in an earlier version of the same system that was used on a military tanker jet, The Wall Street Journal reports. The engineers who designed the system for the military plane over 10 years ago reportedly made sure it relied on input from multiple sensors and limited power to move the plane's nose. The MAX's version of MCAS, however, relied on input from one sensor and was reportedly tougher to override. Boeing has said that when the MAX returns to the skies with a revised version of MCAS it will be among the safest planes ever to fly.

Voting in Austria's snap parliamentary elections began Sunday. The vote reportedly could result in former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz reviving a pact with the country's far right to reclaim his position. Kurz's conservative-nationalist coalition government collapsed in May following video footage that revealed then-Deputy Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache offering lucrative public contracts in exchange for campaign support to a woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch. Strache is now out of office, however, and Kurz's conservative People's Party is projected to finish first in the election, though Kurz will reportedly face some challenges in finding a governing partner. There is also some speculation that he could form a three-way coalition with the Austrian Green Party and the pro-business, liberal NEOS party.

U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson blocked the Trump administration Friday night from expanding a policy that would allow the government to quickly deport illegal immigrants without going through immigration courts. The policy, known as expedited removal, currently applies to immigrants who are found within 100 miles of the Mexican or Canadian borders and entered the U.S. illegally within the last two weeks. The White House sought to amend the policy so that it included the entire country. The administration also aimed to increase the amount of time to two years. Jackson said people represented by the immigration activists who filed the suit "would be irreparably harmed by the challenged agency action."

Yemen's Houthi rebels claim they have captured thousands of Saudi Arabian troops, armored vehicles, and weapons after a major attack near the border separating the two countries. A Houthi spokesman said Saturday that the "enemy military brigades had fallen" and that the offensive, which was allegedly the largest of its kind since the Yemeni civil war began in 2015, was supported by drone, missile, and air defense units. Saudi officials have not confirmed the reports and the Houthis have offered no visual evidence. Earlier in September, the Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile strike against two major Saudi oil facilities, although Riyadh alleges that it was Iran, who supports the Houthis, who actually launched the attack.

Hurricane Lorenzo briefly transformed from a Category 3 storm into a Category 5 on Saturday night while it spun in the Central Atlantic, breaking the record for the easternmost Atlantic hurricane to reach such an intensity before weakening a bit to become a Category 4 storm. By early Sunday, Lorenzo was sporting maximum sustained winds of 155 mph as it barreled toward the Azores, where it could make landfall in a few days. The hurricane is expected to produce somewhere between three and six inches of rain over the western Azores, the National Hurricane Center said, which has the autonomous Portuguese archipelago on alert for flash floods.

Elon Musk unveiled SpaceX's plans for interplanetary travel Saturday at the company's South Texas test site. He laid out the blueprint while standing beneath Starship Mk1, a prototype for SpaceX's massive reusable launch system. The new version of the Starship will reportedly be able to carry up to 100 people to the moon, Mars, or other destinations in space or around Earth, he said. It will reportedly be 387 feet tall. Musk called the prototype "the most inspiring thing" he has ever seen. Musk has long maintained that SpaceX's ultimate goal is to get humans to Mars and he said the Starship is the "fastest path" to building a self-sustaining city on the Earth's neighboring planet.

Saturday night proved to be an evening of milestones during Major League Baseball's final regular season weekend. New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso hit his 53rd home run of the season to break the record for most homers ever hit by a rookie in a season, surpassing New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge's mark set in 2017. Meanwhile, Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander added another line to his Hall of Fame resume when he notched his 3,000th career strikeout against the Los Angeles Angels. Verlander became the 18th pitcher in history to reach that number. He also picked up his 300th strikeout of the season, becoming the 19th pitcher in the modern era to do so.

Explore More

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.