Innholdsfortegnelse for 9/4/2020 i Newsweek International

1962  Newsweek wrote that “in enigmatic Red China, one fact becomes increasingly clear: Mao’s Great Leap Forward has fallen short.” After three years of famine and environmental damage caused by disastrous policy and weather, the world was left asking, “Does the breakdown in China’s agriculture and industry herald the downfall of the Red regime?” Sixty years later, China has grown its industrial economy into the largest global exporter, but fears of food shortages have returned this summer due to a combination of widespread flooding, insect infestations, the global pandemic and high demand. 1937 “Marching members of the WAA sang and shouted their demands,” Newsweek reported, asking for “a relief appropriation double the $1.5 million allotted for this fiscal year.” Similarly, the Trump administration has been criticized by Democrats for relief…

As stark as the differences are between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, millions of Americans can’t seem to choose between them. They’re the 10 percent of prospective voters who, with less than three months to go until the election, are still technically “undecided:” They haven’t made up their minds between the Republican and Democratic nominees, currently back third-party candidates or, at this point, just don’t care. Analysts say there are fewer undecideds this year than in 2016, when a surge of last-minute converts to Trump helped decide the election. But it’s still a sizable enough cohort—particularly in key battleground states—to potentially determine the 2020 result. “They are a relatively small population but they are certainly enough to alter the outcome,” says Chris Jackson, head of public polling at Ipsos. FOR…

LIVING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC REQUIRES NECESSITIES LIKE PAYING BILLS as well as trivialities like fighting boredom. Philanthropic YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson addressed both in July by posting what was billed as the world’s toughest puzzle. The winner got a $100,000 prize. Donaldson says he got the idea from the work of an online puzzle maker known only as Cicada 3301. “I got the inspiration from a Cicada riddle on YouTube. I knew we could go bigger!” Going big is what MrBeast is all about. The 22 year old with 40 million subscribers raised $22 million to plant 22 million trees with the #TeamTrees movement he co-founded last year. “I’ve always wanted to use my platform to help people, and, with the success of my channels, I’m able to do that.…

DONALD TRUMP’S RAGE OVER THE circumstances in which he now finds himself—trailing in the polls as the November election approaches; on the defensive over his handling of the pandemic—has been directed mainly at one target: the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The list of grievances seems endless. Of course, one of Trump’s greatest hits is that China is to blame for the COVID-19 virus. On July 23rd, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a remarkably hawkish speech, even for him, arguing that nearly 50 years of engagement with the PRC had been a mistake. The administration then intensified economic pressure, in ways that critics say are untethered to any recognizable long-term strategy. On August 17, the administration announced it would further tighten restrictions on the Chinese telecommunications…

PATIENTS CONTINUE TO COME TO our offices begging for prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Some even think there’s a conspiracy to prevent them from getting one. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed much about health care and our society. We have a crisis of trust and truth; it can be hard to know who to rely on. To help restore our faith in one another, it’s important that we health care providers admit something out loud: We often get it wrong. In the case of coronavirus, first we said no masks, but now we say masks for everyone. First we said no to steroids, especially if you are very sick, now we say yes to steroids, but only if you’re sick enough. And at first…

“The Facebook ad boycott has amassed an unprecedented amount of corporate starpower.” MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND companies of all sizes—ranging from Verizon to outdoors retailer REI to hundreds of small business and nonprofits—have signed on to the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, a movement led by the ADL and NAACP asking companies to pause Facebook advertising to protest what the civil rights organizations see as Facebook’s failure to fight hate speech. “Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence,” the campaign argues. Yet many of the biggest brands participating in the boycott fund websites that promote as much or often more of the content that these advertisers don’t want to fund on Facebook. Over the past four months, companies including Pfizer, Microsoft, Starbucks and Target…

“I have encouraged everybody: Speed up the mail, not slow the mail.” —PRESIDENT TRUMP “NOW WE’RE ALL PRODUCERS AND VIDEOGRAPHERS.” —TENNESSEE SENATOR RAUMESH AKBARI “We haven’t had a clear national response to this crisis, so our campus is a microcosm of what goes on elsewhere.” —MIMI CHAPMAN, CHAIR OF UNC-CHAPEL HILL FACULTY “How sad would it be if, for the COVID-19 vaccine, priority is given to the richest.” —pope francis “WE ARE AT A TIME WHERE WE NEED CHANGE.” —LeBron James on campaigning for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris “It’s incredible that companies that big can still grow that fast.” —INVESTMENT ADVISER NICK GIACOUMAKIS ON APPLE’S $2 TRILLION MARKET VALUE ”AMERICA FACES A TRIPLE THREAT: A PUBLIC HEALTH CATASTROPHE.AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AND A RECKONING WITH RACIAL JUSTICE AND INEQUALITY.” —Stacey…

THERE ARE 1,107,736 PEOPLE NAMED KAREN IN the United States right now, and there are probably never going to be 1,107,737. The reason: Karen has now joined that battery of names so closely identified with negative traits or reprehensible individuals that they’re taken off the table as baby names by well-meaning parents everywhere. As far off the table as Adolf? Unlike Adolf, the name Karen is not associated with a heinous person who masterminded the murder of 11 million people and started an international war. Nor is Karen a pointed ethnic slur, the way many other names that have become epithets often are. Guido is a contemporary example, now a derogatory term meaning a macho, thuggish person of Italian descent, sparked by the movie Risky Business in 1983. There were…