In the week that Trump got dragged to hell, here's everything you need to know

Switch on the TV, or open up any news site online, and it’s pretty hard not to feel like we’re moving backwards. Our generation was born into a world that, at least on the surface, was moving towards something better, but as 2016 comes to a disappointing, hate-fuelled crescendo, it feels increasingly hard not to despair. But don’t worry – every Friday from now on we’ll be bringing you a round up of what’s caught our attention from the last seven days, so things are looking up!

Donald Trump: The vulgar gift that keeps on offending

This week footage of Donald Trump boasting gleefully about his passion for sexually assaulting women surfaced, and while his polling has taken a hit after those stomach-turning comments, not even Michelle Obama’s heartfelt speech of a lifetime has stopped 40% of voters continuing to pledge their support for the repulsive Republican candidate.

The New York Times has taken a vocal anti-Trump editorial line in recent months, but it was their legal team’s response to a threatening letter from Trump Towers that marks just how high the stakes are. CNN have today reported that Trump is running out of ways he could win: we can but pray.

A toxic atmosphere

This side of the Atlantic there’s alarming news too. In the month after the vote for Brexit new figures show religious or race based hate crime soared a staggering 41%. News that homophobic incidents had also doubled in the three months since that fateful day might have first seemed surprising, but as James Butler put it in his piece for Huck, we’re being dragged back to the 1950s.

Meanwhile a professor wore a Hijab to show solidarity with Muslims facing the hatred of the far-right, and got fired.

Yep, it appears we’ve lost the plot, and the impending doom that seems to permeate our very existence is taking its toll: George Monbiot’s Guardian column, a response to the devastating stats that show at least a quarter of a million children in England are receiving mental healthcare, was nothing short of a call to action: “Of all the fantasies human beings entertain, the idea that we can go it alone is the most absurd and perhaps the most dangerous. We stand together or we fall apart.”

With #WorldMentalHealthDay setting the internet alight on Monday, it really did feel like there’s now an urgency to talk. From opening up about anxiety to the punk counsellor determined to support his community, and those who are being turned into criminals for self-medicating with home grown cannabis, we’ve been talking about mental health, knowing it’s the only way the stigma that surrounds our experiences can be put to bed for good.

Seven days of photography

There’s also been some incredible photography that’s grabbed our attention from around the globe this week.

Aris Messinis, an Agence France-Presse photographer jumped aboard a rescue boat off the Libyan coast, and what he captured were scenes of desperation unparalleled. With the Calais jungle looking set to be demolished any day now, we can at least cling onto the hope that work like this might make those responsible for maintaining fortress Europe show some humanity. Meanwhile these pictures from Elena Chernyshova, taken over a year in the Nordic city of Norilsk got us braced for the coming winter.

Feminism in photography has been all over our radars this week too: Annie Leibovitz made it clear that her work with women will never be over, fictional Twin Palms, California, is a hotbed of gender based revolt, and there’s been time to reflect on how feminist photography of the 1970s paved the way for women artists today thanks to a new exhibition at the Photographer’s Gallery. Meanwhile elsewhere in London, the Guerrilla Girls are taking up residency until March 2017 at the Whitechapel Gallery.

This week we also launched our latest Huck print edition, the Documentary Photo Special IV. Featuring work from some of the world’s best visual storytellers, it’s an exquisitely crafted opportunity to look for beauty in the world around us, which now more than ever seems oh so necessary.

It’s not all doom and gloom…

The world as we know it being turned on its head might rightly make us nervous, but with this change comes the potential for the extraordinary to happen. Take the woman who rebuilt her best friend after he died using artificial intelligence, the mind-controlled robot arm giving the sense of touch back to a paralysed man, and the bloke who spent 11 hours trying to make a cup of tea with a wifi kettle.

And if none of that helps, then why not just bask in the glory of these teenagers from Northern Russia, teaching us all a lesson in living in the here and now.

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