Newsweek 9/4/2020

1962 Newsweek wrote that “in enigmatic Red China, one fact becomes increasingly clear: Mao’s Great Leap Forward has fallen short.” After three years of famine and environmental damage caused by disastrous policy and weather, the world was left asking, “Does the breakdown in China’s agriculture and industry herald the downfall of the Red regime?” Sixty years later, China has grown its industrial economy into the largest global exporter, but fears of food shortages have returned this summer due to a combination of widespread flooding, insect infestations, the global pandemic and high demand. 1937 “Marching members of the WAA sang and shouted their demands,” Newsweek reported, asking for “a relief appropriation double the $1.5 million allotted for this fiscal year.” Similarly, the Trump administration has been criticized by Democrats for relief packages that are…

DONALD TRUMP’S RAGE OVER THE circumstances in which he now finds himself—trailing in the polls as the November election approaches; on the defensive over his handling of the pandemic—has been directed mainly at one target: the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The list of grievances seems endless. Of course, one of Trump’s greatest hits is that China is to blame for the COVID-19 virus. On July 23rd, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a remarkably hawkish speech, even for him, arguing that nearly 50 years of engagement with the PRC had been a mistake. The administration then intensified economic pressure, in ways that critics say are untethered to any recognizable long-term strategy. On August 17, the administration announced it would further tighten restrictions on the Chinese telecommunications company…

MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND companies of all sizes—ranging from Verizon to outdoors retailer REI to hundreds of small business and nonprofits—have signed on to the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, a movement led by the ADL and NAACP asking companies to pause Facebook advertising to protest what the civil rights organizations see as Facebook’s failure to fight hate speech. “Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence,” the campaign argues. Yet many of the biggest brands participating in the boycott fund websites that promote as much or often more of the content that these advertisers don’t want to fund on Facebook. Over the past four months, companies including Pfizer, Microsoft, Starbucks and Target placed advertisements—probably inadvertently, through algorithms that determine where programmatic ads appear—on sites that…

ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON nearly 20 years ago, when I was a young political reporter, our human resources director asked me to stop by his office—and when I left five minutes later, I no longer had a job. That’s not so surprising; since 2008, U.S. newsrooms have been cut in half. But at the time, with the newspaper industry flush, I was stunned. Within moments, I went from having a “steady day job” (albeit a poorly paid one) to nothing at all: The paper sent me on my way with four days’ severance pay. Compounding the problem, I was laid off on Monday, September 10, 2001. My job search the next day did not go as planned. Eventually, of course, I found other work. But the stress of becoming unemployed on the…

PATIENTS CONTINUE TO COME TO our offices begging for prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Some even think there’s a conspiracy to prevent them from getting one. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed much about health care and our society. We have a crisis of trust and truth; it can be hard to know who to rely on. To help restore our faith in one another, it’s important that we health care providers admit something out loud: We often get it wrong. In the case of coronavirus, first we said no masks, but now we say masks for everyone. First we said no to steroids, especially if you are very sick, now we say yes to steroids, but only if you’re sick enough. And at first we said HCQ…

“I have encouraged everybody: Speed up the mail, not slow the mail.”—PRESIDENT TRUMP“NOW WE’RE ALL PRODUCERS AND VIDEOGRAPHERS.”—TENNESSEE SENATOR RAUMESH AKBARI“We haven’t had a clear national response to this crisis, so our campus is a microcosm of what goes on elsewhere.”—MIMI CHAPMAN, CHAIR OF UNC-CHAPEL HILL FACULTY“How sad would it be if, for the COVID-19 vaccine, priority is given to the richest.”—POPE FRANCIS“WE ARE AT A TIME WHERE WE NEED CHANGE.”—LeBron James on campaigning for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris“It’s incredible that companies that big can still grow that fast.”—INVESTMENT ADVISER NICK GIACOUMAKIS ON APPLE’S $2 TRILLION MARKET VALUE“AMERICA FACES A TRIPLE THREAT: A PUBLIC HEALTH CATASTROPHE. AN ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AND A RECKONING WITH RACIAL JUSTICE AND INEQUALITY.”—Stacey Abrams…