Newsweek August 05, 2022

1997 “When Gateses make billions, plenty of people make millions,” Newsweek said of the technology company stock options creating a new economic class. “They’re people whose wealth is the product of the New Economy of ideas.” Despite predictions of broad democratization, the top 1 percent of the population controlled one-third of the country’s wealth. As sites like Robinhood and E*Trade have emerged, a recent Gallup poll shows 58 percent of Americans report owning stock; however, the wealth gap continues to grow and individual investors are reeling from recent stock market volatility. 1975 “The conviction was growing—even among crisis-hardened New Yorkers—that the city’s plight might be more serious than anyone had allowed himself to think” Newsweek wrote of the city on the brink of bankruptcy. New York City is now rebounding from its worst…

FEATURED EPISODE The Royal Report Palace news—from Meghan Markle to the Queen THE PALACE’S ‘DAILY FAIL’ ▸ Why would Prince Charles and Camilla hire a PR chief from the newspaper that Harry and Meghan sued three times for defamation? Commentator on race and the royals Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu weighs in. Plus: Prince Charles is no longer accepting donations in the form of suitcases of cash. HOSTS ▸ Jack Royston, Newsweek royal correspondent and Kristen Meinzer, host of Movie Therapy With Rafer & Kristen and By the Book IN THEIR WORDS ▸ “How can we not hold them accountable for their actions—whether in the public view or behind the scenes?” DON’T MISS FAST WOMEN Test-driving the newest cars on wild adventures Snorkel Included ▸ The Ford Bronco Everglades is optimized for off-road driving in swampy conditions. Nicole and Eileen test…

BY THE TIME A YOUNG MOTHER-TO-BE GOT TO Dr. Tony Ogburn one night in July, the prognosis for the baby was grim. The pregnant woman had come in through the obstetric emergency room at DHR Health, a busy medical center in Edinburg, Texas, complaining of severe cramping and bleeding. Clinicians quickly determined she was in labor. The 4-month-old fetus was not nearly developed enough to survive outside the womb, but it had already come partway through the cervix into the birth canal. If the mother didn’t complete this miscarriage soon, he and his team concluded, she would suffer a major hemorrhage, placing her life in jeopardy. In his 30 years as a practicing OB-GYN, Dr. Ogburn, an affable 63-year-old with thick white hair, wouldn’t have thought twice about operating immediately. Instead, in…

WHEN BLAKE LEMOINE WENT public in June about his experience with an advanced artificial intelligence program at Google called LaMDA—the two, he says, have become “friends”—his story was greeted with fascination, skepticism and a dash of mockery usually reserved for people who claim to have seen a UFO. When I caught up with Lemoine after he returned from a honeymoon in June, he did not come across as someone who is disconnected from reality. Indeed, he dismissed questions about sentience and whether or not a machine can possess a soul as essentially unknowable and something of a distraction. “This whole story has taken on a life of its own and gone very far away from what I was originally trying to do,” he says. The point he wants to make is less…

THE SIGNS OF FINANCIAL GLOOM ARE SEEM-ingly everywhere. Inflation is now at its highest point in more than 40 years. Stocks officially fell into a bear market in June, dropping more than 20 percent from their peak in January. Bonds and cryptocurrency are bleeding red ink too, with Bitcoin losing over half of its value so far this year. And, as if all that weren’t bad enough, economists are now warning in increasingly heated language about the rising risk of recession—a three-syllable term with four-letter-word implications. By one common but unofficial definition of recession—two consecutive quarters of economic contraction—the downturn could materialize within weeks, when estimates of GDP for the second quarter will be released. They’re expected to show the economy shrank by about 2 percent on an annualized basis during…

NEWSWEEK AND GLOBAL DATA AND RESEARCH FIRM Statista are proud to introduce America’s Best Petcare Brands 2022, our second annual ranking of the leading products, services and retailers for pets. We surveyed over 20,000 pet owners and asked them about the quality and value of products and services in 68 categories ranging from food and treats to grooming they had purchased or researched themselves and whether they would recommend those brands to friends and family. We then made 308 awards to 203 brands (a brand could be awarded in more than one category). Americans spend a lot of money every year on companions with fur, feathers or scales. According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans spent a total of $123.6 billion on their pets in 2021, a new record, up…