Newsweek 4/3/2020

1975 Once hailed as a “maker of diplomatic miracles,” Newsweek compared Henry Kissinger to “Gulliver in Lilliput, bedeviled by foreign crises on all sides.” Among these setbacks: “a tragic assassination in Saudi Arabia, the breakdown of his peace initiative in the Mideast, a chaotic rout of the South Vietnamese Army and Communist gains in Portugal.” Serving as both the secretary of state and the national security advisor, Kissinger was undeniably influential in shaping U.S. foreign policy. But, with both a Nobel Peace Prize and accusations of war crimes, he remains a controversial figure. 1989 Newsweek reported that Disney’s billion-dollar park expansion was a “dazzling new high-tech playground” that included MGM studios and its ridesimulator attraction, “Star Tours.” Just last year, two estimated $1 billion “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge” expansions opened, one in California…

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAN ONLY RETAKE THE White House by refashioning American politics—starting from the center and reaching out to those who handed power to President Donald Trump—according to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Former Vice President Joe Biden has emerged as the front runner for the Democratic 2020 nomination in recent weeks. His campaign will have to unify the Democratic Party, appeal to independents and peel away the voters who backed Trump in 2016 if Biden wants to become the 46th commander in chief. Blair, one of the most successful moderate leaders in modern history, believes he knows how Biden can succeed. Alongside President Bill Clinton, Blair drove the so-called “Third Way” brand of social democracy that attempted to fuse center and rightwing economic policy with center and left-wing social…

MANY AMERICANS THINK THEIR PRESIDENT IS ELECTED BY MAJORITY RULE, but in actuality, the Electoral College—the mechanism by which the president is formally elected—is decidedly not a one-person-one-vote system. In fact, two of the last five presidential elections have been won by the candidate who lost the popular vote, making voting Americans feel increasingly disenfranchised. This often-criticized system comes under renewed fire by New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman in this excerpt from his new book, Let the People Pick the President, in which he proposes an alternative that would make every citizen’s vote matter—an ever-more important issue as we approach the 2020 presidential election. Our nation was conceived out of the audacious, world-changing idea of universal human equality. And though it was born in a snarl of prejudice,…

Why this book? The way we pick our president is one of the most hotly contested topics in American politics. Now that the popular-vote loser has won the presidency twice in the past two decades, it’s at the front of the public’s mind. And yet, I found virtually no general-interest books advocating for the national popular vote. So I took Toni Morrison’s advice and wrote the book I wanted to read. Which founding father do you admire most and what was his position on the Electoral College? James Wilson. Haven’t heard of him? Neither had I, until I started writing this book. And yet, at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, he was the most respected lawyer in the land, and more influential than any framer with the possible exception of James Madison. Wilson had…

THE Guardian “I don't take responsibility at all.”—PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP“REMEMBER, DESPITE ALL THE CURRENT EVENTS, THERE IS NO CRYING IN BASEBALL.”—TOM HANKS CNN “For a while, life is not going to be how it used to be in the United States.”—DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES“Look, this is serious, you know? Now is the time to think about social distancing, washing your hands.”—IDRIS ELBA ELLE “AT SOME POINT, HOPEFULLY SOON, WE’RE GOING TO BOUNCE BACK. WE ALWAYS BOUNCE BACK.”—Jennifer Lopez BBC “We are at war.”—FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON“I DON'T KNOW WHAT MY FOOTBALL FUTURE HOLDS, BUT IT’S TIME FOR ME TO OPEN A NEW STAGE FOR MY LIFE AND CAREER.”—Tom Brady…

Long before the coronavirus began to spread beyond China, infectious disease experts around the world knew there was ample reason to fear it. Not only was the pathogen highly contagious and lethal, it was also new—scientists had written no medical papers on it, doctors had no vaccines or pills to give their patients. The most effective tools we have, at the moment, are public health measures out of the 19th century such as quarantines and social distancing. The emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2019, or SARS-CoV-2, has made plain our vulnerability to a novel pathogen. An estimated 160 million to 214 million people in the United States could be infected over the course of the epidemic, by some estimates. Fatalities could run from 200,000 to 1.7 million people, according…