Newsweek 2/21-2/28/2020

1938 In the wake of Adolph Hitler’s three-hour long speech in Czechoslovakia on February 20 in which he pledged to protect the rights of the “German people living outside the Third Reich,” Newsweek speculated “Theoretically—in the event of Nazi aggression in Czecholosvakia—the next step would be up to France. That country must either come to the rescue, throwing down the steel gauntlet before Germany and Italy…or see her Central European alliances ruined beyond repair.” The article’s headline proved prescient: “Hitler Poses as Europe’s Master, Foreshadows a Greater Reich.” 1960 Attempting to determine if “man is not the only intelligent being in the universe,” Newsweek wrote, scientists from Project Ozma at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia, “will begin listening for any artificial pattern mixed in with the natural radio noise.” That…

NEW CYBERSECURITY BREACHES SEEM TO BE AN almost weekly occurrence lately and more than 14 million Americans a year become victims of identity theft, according to the latest estimates. Yet consumers continue to leave themselves vulnerable to fraudsters eager to nab their personal data. The culprit: the highly predictable passwords, PINs and other log-ins they use for their online accounts. That’s an increasingly costly mistake. More fraud victims are now on the hook for at least a portion of the expenses that data thieves ring up in their name and the amount they’re paying is rising too. All told, 3.3 million victims bore some financial liability for fraud perpetrated on their accounts in 2018 (the latest year that data is available)—that’s nearly three times the number who paid out of pocket…

“I couldn’t handle it. I’m a human being, not a robot.”—JUAN ESPINOZA, A FORMER AMAZON WAREHOUSE WORKER“THE PRESIDENT IS GUILTY OF AN APPALLING ABUSE OF PUBLIC TRUST.”—SENATOR MITT ROMNEY“I’m really disappointed that some of our technology created an issue that made the caucus difficult.”—GERARD NIEMIRA, CEO OF SHADOW INC., WHICH MADE THE APP USED BY DEMOCRATS IN IOWA“I’m terminally ill. There’s no cure for my type of disease. So, you know, I’ve served. I’ve served 11 years already, and, quite frankly, I’ve suffered through it.”—BERNARD MADOFF“I WAS BORN, AND THEY TOOK A PICTURE.”—Liza Minnelli“No matter what happens, I’m a lucky guy. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that. But I am.”—HUEY LEWIS ON HIS HEARING LOSS“I'M REALLY JUST LOOKING AT THE SHOW.”—Jay-Z on sitting through the national anthem at…

50 YEARS AGO IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN reasonable to fear that because of our bottomless desire for growth, we humans were going to strip our planet bare and poison it with pollution. But not anymore. The past half-century has shown us that we can increase human population and prosperity while also taking better care of the planet we all live on. We still face real challenges now and in the years ahead, of which global warming is the most pressing. The good news is that we now know the playbook for effectively meeting these challenges. The bad news is that we’re not doing a great job of following that playbook at present. We have to do better. We have to get smarter about meeting the problems we face. In 1970, people…

FOR THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS, THE sea level in Charleston Harbor has risen about an inch every decade. Now it’s rising about an inch every two years. Charlestonians, no matter their political persuasion, know climate change is real. The city is among the most vulnerable in America to global warming, and offers a preview into what will be coming soon to a coastal community near you. The lesson of Charleston is that even when everyone agrees on the problem, getting to the solution is going to be difficult, expensive and never-ending. Flooding has always been part of life in the Lowcountry. With much of the peninsula built on marshes reclaimed from the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, Mayor Henry Laurens Pinckney in 1837 offered a $100 gold coin to anyone who could solve…

THE THWAITES GLACIER IS ABOUT THE SIZE OF A U.S. SWING STATE AND holds enough ice to raise sea levels by about 10 feet. This alone is scary enough to justify its nickname, the Doomsday Glacier, but there’s more. The Thwaites sits along a 75-mile stretch of shoreline in Antarctica that serves to partially shield the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet from the warm ocean waters. The WAIS has enough ice to raise the seas by 200 feet. Forty years ago, the Thwaites was thought to be shedding 40 billion tons of water each year. Scientists recently upped that figure to 250 billion tons. To their alarm, a river of warm water appears to be flowing beneath the glacier, which can only hasten the day when it collapses into the sea—it…