1.
Constitutional issues
Icon: enlarge
Rare sight
Photo:
Patrick Semansky / dpa
Can't be true
- at least since the Brexit vote, this sentence has lost nothing in active vocabulary.
The British are leaving the EU, the Americans elect Donald Trump as their President, the Europeans are drowning refugees in the Mediterranean.
All true, everything happens.
But even the run-up to the past few years has hardly been able to prepare one for 2020.
And now the last quarter of this crazy year begins with a
Trump tweet
in which he tells the world: He and his wife Melania had tested positive for the corona virus.
His doctor confirmed the diagnosis a little later.
Urgent messages in all news channels, push messages on countless mobile phones.
At lunchtime, the New York Times headlined that Trump showed mild cold symptoms, which the White House Chief of Staff confirmed shortly afterwards.
Again express messages, again push messages.
Joe Biden tweeted that he was praying for the president, well wishes for the Trump are coming from all over the world.
From a medical point of view
, Trump, at 74 years of age and overweight, clearly belongs to the risk group, as my colleague Julia Köppe explains.
From a constitutional point of view
, the election could be postponed, as my colleague Anna-Sophie Schneider explains.
However, that is unlikely, Congress would have to decide that, in the House of Representatives the Democrats have a majority.
From a moral point of view
, my colleague Stefan Kuzmany is concerned with the question of how to react appropriately to the news of Trump's corona infection.
From a political point of view
, three scenarios currently seem plausible, as my colleague Roland Nelles analyzes:
A disaster for the Republicans: a prolonged, severe course of the illness reveals that Trump's most important "We'll get the curve" story was nonsense and that he failed in the fight against the pandemic.
Trump is strengthened: the president is recovering quickly, claiming the pandemic is under control.
There is a national crisis: If Trump fails, Vice President Pence would have to take over.
Republicans are pushing for a later election date, blocking Democrats.
"One may look at Trump with concern
, feel anger or disgust - what does not change is the feeling that something is our
concern
," writes my colleague Nils Minkmar.
According to him, the fact that we are so concerned with Trump's corona test is also due to emotional patterns: "We are fixated on the healthy male boss who reconciles and inspires. Power has to be rethought."
"If 'Trump - The White House Years' were a series on Netflix
, a talented writer's pool couldn't have come up with a more effective plot twist so shortly before the election," writes my colleague Arno Frank.
Can't be everything, but it's true.
2.
Strache campaign
As Vice Chancellor of Austria, Heinz-Christian Strache fell over the compromising Ibiza video
.
Now the right winger is striving to return to the political stage, in the election on October 11th he wants to win a seat in the Vienna City Hall.
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In Austria, the SPIEGEL looks like this this week.
My colleague Walter Mayr, a correspondent in Vienna, has been following Strache's path for years.
He says: "To see how the Vienna campaigner Strache, three decades after the start of his career, starts all over again at the bottom, in Eckbeisln in front of a few listeners, that is almost tragic after the Ibiza video and the expense affair."
Walter Mayr was there when Strache complained to supporters in Vienna about the alleged "Stasi methods" with which SPIEGEL and "Süddeutsche Zeitung" had hunted him down.
Walter Mayr's conclusion:
Strache now needs friends who can teach him the truth.
Read the full story here: Back from Ibiza
3.
Loss of memory
Andreas Scheuer
is still Federal Minister of Transport.
No punch line.
My colleague Gerald Traufetter explains why here.
Icon: enlargePhoto: INA FASSBENDER / AFP
What else is important today
Interview with Navalny is debated around the world:
In SPIEGEL, Kremlin critic Navalny has made serious accusations against Russian President Putin.
Media from all over the world have taken up statements from the interview.
There were also reactions from Russia.
EU special summit in Brussels just misses the embarrassment:
The EU has decided on sanctions against Belarus - after weeks of agonizing discussions.
The case shows that the Union is still a long way from a powerful foreign policy.
Study with the third corona vaccine starts in Germany:
First 30 volunteers are to receive the drug: Another vaccine study can begin in Germany.
It is checked whether it is safe and tolerable - and works against Sars-CoV-2.
The repository company rows back when asked about influence:
Have there been attempts to influence the search for a repository?
No, the Federal Agency for Final Storage had claimed - and now had to correct itself in response to a request from SPIEGEL.
Verdict against Deso Dogg's widow:
Her men fought, she ran the household - and thus supported the cruel system of the terrorist militia in Syria.
Omaima A. was sentenced in Hamburg.
The court did not believe their version.
My favorite interview today: Ex-Spicegirl Mel C.
Two stretch limousines stopped at the entrance to the Virgin record company in London.
The doors opened and five inflatable sex dolls fell out.
"The clear message: if the record bosses wanted to hire sex toys for sale and for sale, then they should give the plastic dolls the contract," says a SPIEGEL text from the 1990s about the signing of the contract by the
Spice Girls
.
"A few minutes later the five heroines appeared. They signed and then the girls threw the dolls down the 15 floors, cheering."
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Zig-a-zig-ahhh!
Photo: Tim Roney / Getty Images
The Spice Girls burst into the music world of the nineties like a bombshell
.
They rely on solidarity with women and "girl power".
"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends", they sang in their hit "Wannabe", and the friends weren't boys, but the other Spice Girls.
A success story in both emancipatory and financial terms - millions of CDs sold, countless hits, permanent placements on radio stations and on music television.
Now, a quarter of a century later, my colleague Andreas Borcholte has spoken to Melanie C, 46, about her time as "Sporty Spice", about the reunification of the band - and their frustration at not being played so often on the radio.
Andreas met Mel C. in Berlin's Soho House and found her "admirably grounded, open to unpleasant questions, and energetically in a good mood".
It was important for the singer to come to Germany in person despite the corona pandemic to promote her new album: "Everyone is now fed up with their own four walls, so it is very good to go out and meet people."
In Germany, she said, she already feels safer than in Great Britain: "You Germans seem to take things far more seriously than we do at home."
Tell us what we want.
Here you can read the whole conversation: "We were very uncomfortable for many people back then, especially for men"
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL +
Two million micro-entrepreneurs are fighting for their livelihoods:
While the state is saving corporations from bankruptcy, many freelancers and self-employed people fall through the cracks.
But the government is stubbornly sticking to its concept.
The American who loved the GDR:
US soldier Victor Grossman deserted to the GDR in 1952.
There he gave lectures on Indians and capitalism and was sad when the wall fell.
How does he look back on his life?
Our reporter met him.
How safe are cruises ?:
New hygiene concepts should protect cruise guests from Corona.
Our colleague Martin U. Müller explains the problems on board in the SPIEGEL podcast (51:07).
What do many parents do wrong when buying children's shoes
: leather or fabric?
Shoelaces or Velcro?
In the store or online?
Pediatric orthopedist Esther Freifrau von Richthofen provides the answers.
Which is not so important today
Photo: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images / AFP
Hat Citizen:
The actor
Shia LaBeouf
, 34, known from the "Transformers" films, which are not necessarily praised for their dialogues, has to answer for hat theft, among other things, as reported by the "Los Angeles Times".
He is said to have clashed with another man and became violent and eventually stole his headgear.
Typo of the day
, corrected in the meantime: The service union Ver.di has announced a crazy strike in local public transport for the coming week.
Cartoon of the day:
Police service
Icon: enlarge Photo: Thomas Plaßmann
And on the weekend?
Could, no, you should
at least plan
a
trip to Sylt
- or just go there.
As a native of Berlin and moved to Hamburg, I know the island from the doctors song and bumper stickers.
In the family of my colleague Anke Dürr, however, the Sylt knowledge and Sylt love seem to be passed on from generation to generation: Anke writes about the island as Samweis Gamgee speaks about the Shire - like about a relative that one sees too seldom and that one longs for.
"My family's Sylt, my Sylt has nothing to do with the familiar clichés about the island,"
reports Anke. "We have always stayed as far away from Westerland as possible. And we are not interested in Kampen either."
The Sylt of Anke and her family is the Sylt of Puan Klent, a youth rest home in the middle of the dunes, named after the hiding place of a Frisian pirate: "It smells of the purple blooming heather and the rose hips, of dune grass and sun. My mother says, it smelled like that even in the 1950s. "
If, according to Anke's text (to be on the safe side: you can find it here), you don't feel the urge to catch the children and drive to the sea, ... then there is more space for us.
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Who has, the watt
Photo: puan-klent.de
In this sense: There is sand and sand.
Have a nice weekend.
Sincerely,
Oliver Trenkamp
Here you can order the "Lage am Abend" by email.