Newsweek 12/28/2018

1946 The magazine found Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life to be sentimental “but so expertly written, directed and acted that you want to believe it.” It took a while for audiences to agree. Before World War II, Capra was Hollywood’s master of populist fare (such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), but his first film after returning, with its triumphant performance by James Stewart as despairing good Samaritan George Bailey, did not resonate—at first. Capra’s career would never recover (he died in 1991), but the movie would become an American classic, as well as Capra’s favorite of his films. 1979 Newsweek profiled 52 American citizens and diplomats held by militants supporting the Iranian Revolution—an “arrogant defiance of the world community,” President Jimmy Carter said. Many believe the crisis cost him a second…

Anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray poses outside the Houses of Parliament on December 11. The protest came as Prime Minister Theresa May faced a series of embarrassing defeats amid growing opposition to her controversial proposal for leaving the European Union. First, she delayed a key vote after losing support from her own Conservative Party. Then she survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Seeking to salvage a Brexit deal, she sought help from EU leaders, only to be rejected. The divorce deadline is March 29.…

DONALD TRUMP’S UNLIKELY ASCENSION TO the White House shattered the conventional belief in American politics that not just anyone can be president—and it has made the chance to challenge him in 2020 open to, well, anyone. And so, even though there are nearly two years until the next presidential election, an immense field of prospective candidates is already emerging. They span decades in age and political experience, millions in net worth and across the liberal spectrum. Supposed front-runners shift week by week, jumping from billionaire megadonor Michael Bloomberg to anti–Wall Street socialist Bernie Sanders and even 46-year-old Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke. But despite their differences, the dozens of Democrats pondering presidential runs are united in the belief that, after their party’s success in the midterms and Trump’s tumultuous tenure in office,…

DEMOCRATS Julián Castro, 44 Former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development John Delaney, 55 Representative from Maryland’s 6th Congressional District Tim Ryan, 45 Representative from Ohio’s 13th Congressional District Amy Klobuchar, 58 Senator from Minnesota John Hickenlooper, 66 Governor of Colorado Jay Inslee, 67 Governor of Washington Terry McAuliffe, 61 Former governor of Virginia Eric Garcetti, 47 Mayor of Los Angeles Mitch Landrieu, 58 Former mayor of New Orleans Steve Bullock, 52 Governor of Montana REPUBLICANS John Kasich, 66 Governor of Ohio Jeff Flake, 55 Senator from Arizona Ben Sasse, 46 Senator from Nebraska…

The helling shook the dorm. IT WAS JUNE 2011, AND Barzan Ramo scrambled inside from the balcony. The 22-year-old college student was studying for his final exams in Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria when rebel groups and regime forces backing President Bashar al-Assad clashed beneath him. To escape, Barzan and a few other students pleaded with a minibus driver to brave the rubble-strewn streets and sniper fire before government troops surrounded the city. It took Barzan several days of furtive travel to reach his hometown, outside Qamishli, in Syria’s northeast corner. But even there, the war was waiting. Assad’s army wanted Barzan’s closest younger brother, Rezan, who had just completed his mandatory military service, to return to fight against the burgeoning revolution. The family had come to rely on the brothers;…

Hao Aihong, a 48-year-old farmer in Zuoquan County in north China’s Shanxi Province, couldn’t conceal his excitement when talking about his new home: a 100-square-meter apartment with a spacious living room and three bedrooms. Because of a leg disability, Hao is unable to work, leaving his wife to earn a paltry salary as a waitress in a local restaurant. “Now, my family doesn’t have to live in rented spaces or travel long distances from our shabby cottage to work. All I paid for our new home was 10,000 yuan ($1,400),” Hao said. The market price of the apartment is about 500,000 yuan ($71,750), a formidable figure for a low-income family. Zuoquan is one of China’s 592 impoverished counties. During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period of the country, more than 4,500 people…