Newsweek 3/6/2020

1985 “The rock scene has long cried out for women with power, ideas and an independent sense of style. Now, it seems, they’re emerging one after another,” wrote Newsweek. The new women rockers are “turning old ideas about pop’s feminine mystique inside out.” Said featured artist Cyndi Lauper, “I’m not trying to be different. I’m just saying it’s OK to be yourself, and if you have a few quirky things, that’s OK too.” Lauper’s message translates from the ’80s to today as the musical icon featured prominently in a 2020 Project Runway challenge, proving that girls really do still want to have fun. 1975 Two years after Roe v. Wade, “complex moral and medical questions” remained on when life begins. Nevertheless, Newsweek wrote, “as a matter of public opinion and social policy, the…

LAST MONTH, AS THE CALENDAR INCHED CLOSER to February 14, the air became thick with the usual Valentine’s Day offerings—roses, boxed chocolates and a plethora of new polls warning couples that financial infidelity is rampant and likely to ruin your romantic relationship. Consider just a sampling of some of these recent surveys. A CreditCards.com poll earlier this month found that 44 percent of respondents were financially two-timing their partners by hiding a checking, savings or credit card account, secretly being in debt or spending money their loved ones wouldn’t approve of. Various surveys concluded that millennials are the worst offenders, when it comes to keeping money secrets, although the percentages varied widely: from 27 percent in a TD Bank poll to 57 percent in the CreditCards.com survey. And no matter what…

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT NORMS are under siege. This month, when Attorney General William Barr committed the latest in a succession of aggressively political acts, he touched off a firestorm. The crisis began on February 11, when he intervened in the prosecution of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate, to ask for a lighter sentence than the one recommended by career prosecutors. Four prosecutors quit the case, with one resigning from the office. A few days later, it emerged that Barr had also quietly installed his own team of lawyers to re-examine a series of politically sensitive prosecutions, including that of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. By February 19, close to 2,500 former Justice Department officials had signed an online petition calling for Barr’s resignation. The same day—after President Trump…

“I am not here to judge Roger Stone the person. That’s for a higher authority.”—JUDGE AMY BERMAN JACKSON“EVERY SINGLE GUY OVER THERE NEEDS A BEATING. IT’S WRONG. THEY'RE MESSING WITH PEOPLE’S CAREERS.”—Atlanta Braves outfielder Nick Markakis on the Houston Astros and sign stealing“Let’s call it what it is: It’s a disgrace, that the richest state in the richest nation, succeeding across so many sectors, is falling so far behind to properly house, heal and humanely treat so many of its own people.”—CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM“I get very emotional watching this, because it is so, so close to what she wanted. The only thing missing is her, physically.”—SISTER-IN-LAW PAT HOUSTON ON “AN EVENING WITH WHITNEY: THE WHITNEY HOUSTON HOLOGRAM TOUR”“I WISH EVERYONE WAS AS PERFECT AS YOU, PETE.”—Sen. Amy Klobuchar to…

In the mid-2000s, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris opened a children’s medical clinic in the Bayview section of San Francisco, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. She quickly began to suspect something was making many of her young patients sick. She noticed the first clues in the unusually large population of kids referred to her clinic for symptoms associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—an inability to focus, impulsivity, extreme restlessness. Burke Harris was struck not just by the sheer number of ADHD referrals, but also by how many of the patients had additional health problems. One child arrived in her clinic with eczema and asthma and was in the 50th percentile of height for a 4-year-old. He was 7. There were kindergarteners with hair falling out, two children with extremely rare cases…

With the world’s attention focused on China’s battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak and the possible economic repercussions of the epidemic, an important milestone has tended to be overlooked. China’s per capita gross domestic product surpassed the $10,000 landmark last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on January 17. In 2019, the GDP totaled $14.38 trillion, showing the long distance it has traveled in recent decades. In 1978, when China adopted its reform and opening-up policy, the figure was $149.5 billion, accounting for just 1.8 percent of the global economy. The per capita GDP stood at $156, much lower than the average in even the least developed countries south of the Sahara, which was $490. While the epidemic, resulting in tens of thousands of infections, has taken a toll, given the solid…