Newsweek 1/29/2016

Jakarta, Indonesia—Police take cover as they pursue suspects after a series of bombs killed at least two people and wounded 24 others on January 14 in the capital city of the world’s most populous Muslim country. The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attacks, and Jakarta’s police chief, Tito Karnavian, said those responsible took their orders from an Indonesian named Bahrun Naim, who is believed to be in Syria. Two of the attackers died in suicide bombings, and the other three were killed by police.…

Joint Base Andrews, Maryland—President Barack Obama arrives home aboard Air Force One after a town hall meeting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on January 14. After his final State of the Union speech, the president pledged to spend more time meeting Americans face to face. Republicans criticized Obama’s portrayal of the state of the country as overly optimistic and slammed him for not mentioning the 10 U.S. Navy personnel briefly detained by Iran after they strayed into Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. After a flurry of diplomatic phone calls, Iran released the sailors unharmed.…

Madaya, Syria—A girl crosses a road as an aid convoy waits to enter the town on January 11. “U.N. teams have witnessed scenes that haunt the soul,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after convoys reached the town, where Syrian government forces are conducting a siege affecting 42,000 people. “The elderly and children, men and women, who were little more than skin and bones: gaunt, severely malnourished, so weak they could barely walk and utterly desperate for the slightest morsel.” Ban said the use of starvation as a weapon is “a war crime.” At least 32 people have starved to death in the past month, according to UNICEF.…

Texel Island, the Netherlands—Three out of five beached sperm whales lie on a shoreline on January 13; all died after being stranded for several hours. According to the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, a group beaching is especially rare in the Netherlands, as the North Sea is too shallow for the deep-diving mammals. Sperm whales can measure up to 60 feet and weigh up to 50 tons. Officials are investigating what caused the whales to be stranded. In the same week, dozens of short-finned pilot whales were beached in Tamil Nadu, India, and at least 73 died.…

HISTORY DOESN’ repeat itself, Mark Twain supposedly once said, but it sure does rhyme sometimes. In 1997, once vibrant emerging markets in Asia began toppling one by one. Currencies cracked. International credit markets came under intense pressure. Oil prices plunged as the Asian financial crisis spread to Russia—which defaulted on its debt—and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Through it all, the largest economy in the world, the United States, sailed on almost unperturbed. Its gross domestic product continued to increase at a rate that many economists now believe is unattainable—more than 4 percent per year—even as growth slowed in the developed economies of Western Europe. Nearly two decades later, with China sending shockwaves through global stock markets, the tune sounds familiar. But it’s important to pay attention not to…

IN THE WINTER of 2008, a Los Angeles Times real estate column profiled Porter Ranch, a collection of subdivisions in the San Fernando Valley that feels utterly removed from the huge city on whose northern edge it lies. The neighborhood is “graced with lush parks,” the Neighborly Advice column gushed, and “attracts residents seeking sanctuary from the urban hubbub.” THERE’S A NO-FLY ZONE ABOVE PORTER RANCH BECAUSE “FUMES FROM THE GAS LEAK COULD BE IGNITED FROM THE AIR.” Until very recently, you would have had to do a considerable amount of Internet sleuthing to discover that Porter Ranch, home to 30,000 people, is not the pristine, quasi-rural paradise promised by its developers and boosters. The hills that frame its Instagram-ready backdrop also cradle the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility, where the Southern California…