Newsweek 3/13/2020

1992 “After declining for nearly a century, a disease once ranked as the nation’s leading cause of death is back,” wrote Newsweek, calling the resurgence of tuberculosis in 17 states “a tragic social failure.” TB made its comeback in the U.S. because of “poverty, homelessness and AIDS—combined with a crumbling public-health system.” Today, the infectious bacterial disease is at historic lows in the U.S., but globally it killed an estimated 1.5 million people in 2018. People living below the poverty line and those suffering from AIDS are still the most vulnerable to tuberculosis. 1961 Chet Huntley and David Brinkley shaped a “revolution in TV newscasting,” wrote Newsweek. The duo gained popularity with their informal style and the “almost unparalleled appeal of their show business chemistry.” The Huntley-Brinkley Report nightly news show was an…

ON MARCH 15, 2019, A GUNMAN WALKED INTO two Muslim places of worship in Christ church, New Zealand, and shot 51 people dead. He started at the Al Noor Mosque, continued to the Linwood Islamic Center and was merciless; the youngest of his victims was 3 years old, the oldest 77. Forty-nine people were injured. Police found five guns at the scene—two semi-automatic weapons, two shotguns and a lever-action firearm. The alleged gunman Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian, had acquired a New Zealand gun license in November 2017, and had collected these weapons legally. New Zealand’s political response was swift. Briana Spainhour, 20, regional organizing director for the student-led March for Our Lives movement formed in the wake of the killings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, said:…

IN APRIL 1938, VATICAN DIPLOMAT Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli sent a confidential memorandum to American officials. In the note, he expressed antipathy toward the Nazi regime: “Evidence of good faith” by the Nazis was “completely lacking…. The possibility of an agreement” with the regime was “out of question.” One year later, Pacelli ascended to the papacy, becoming Pope Pius XII. He never spoke of those feelings again. It was this silence by Pius and the Vatican during the Holocaust—in which more than six million Jews were killed across Europe—that led historians to declare the pope a Nazi sympathizer. As those communiques from the 1930s remained unknown during the Second World War and for many years after, Pius was branded “Hitler’s Pope.” Seventy-five years since the liberation of Auschwitz in Poland, more than 150…

“This is a very sad day in the American Judicial System.”—BILL COSBY’S PUBLICIST ANDREW WYATT ON HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S CONVICTION“I COMPLETELY FAILED MY CHILDREN, FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND COMMUNITY. WHAT WAS I THINKING?”—HOT POCKET HEIRESS MICHELLE JANAVS ON HER ROLE IN THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen…but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.”—CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROLS’S DR. NANCY MESSONIER ON CORONAVIRUS“We live in an atmosphere polluted by too much verbal violence, too many offensive and harmful words, which are amplified by the internet.”—POPE FRANCIS“IT WAS WILD. I HAVEN’T SEEN WHITE PEOPLE GO THAT HARD SINCE KHAKIS WERE ON SALE AT BANANA REPUBLIC.”—Trevor Noah on the South Carolina Democratic debate“Sen.…

“OK, BOOMER” is what younger people say when they want to dismiss boomers as being out of touch or stuck in our boomer ways, sort of this generation’s version of “If you say so, old-timer.” It’s not exactly an ageist insult, but it sure ain’t a compliment. FINE. OK. WE GET IT. HAVE FUN. BUT REMEMBER ONE thing before slinging insults: The world, according to Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker (and many others), is better off now than it’s been at any time in history. That’s right. Ever. And I contend it’s because of boomers. Boomers are the greatest generation the world has ever known. The most innovative. The most caring. The hardest-working. That may seem a bit much, but to quote the pitcher Dizzy Dean, “It ain’t bragging if you…

AT LAST MONTH’S MESSY DEMOCRATIC debate in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the messiest moment came when Bernie Sanders was asked to address the concerns of American Jews over his Mideast policies. The Vermont Senator firmly voiced his commitment to protect the independence and security of Israel. But he also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a reactionary racist” and coupled his support for Israel with the view that “you cannot ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people.” The response likely didn’t win the candidate any new supporters but instead served to solidify feelings about Sanders among two key constituencies: Muslim voters, who are strongly in his corner, and Jewish voters, who are not—even though he may be the first Jewish person to become the presidential nominee of a major political…