Newsweek February 03-10, 2023

2003 “The specialists inside Mission Control were well aware that the complex machines they put into space and then hope to bring home again are potential deathtraps,” Newsweek wrote of Space Shuttle Columbia’s explosion. “The rest of us forget, until a tragedy occurs, and the nation and the world are left mourning.” After the Space Shuttle program retired in 2011, NASA initiated the super heavy-lift Space Launch System: Artemis 1 launched last November as its first flight; Artemis 2, set for 2024, will be its first crewed mission and take humans around the moon. 1975 “Almost overnight, the Mideast oil producers have become a potent economic force,” Newsweek wrote. “The oil sheiks…may bring chaos.” Tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia escalated in October when OPEC Plus voted to reduce oil production, an…

FEATURED EPISODE Parting Shot Your weekly dose of everything pop culture FRIEND OR FOE? ▸ How the dark humor, viral dance and memes and surreal qualities of the doll M3GAN and the movie of the same name came to be. Tech toys like creepy M3GAN are what beg actress and co-producer Allison Williams’ ethical question, “If you’re giving something any kind of artificial intelligence, what are your responsibilities to it? What do you owe it?” Plus: Why M3GAN is so relatable to millenials. HOST ▸ H. Alan Scott, culture writer, comedian IN THEIR WORDS ▸ “Any of these battery-operated toys will outlive all of us as long as there are batteries, and that is just such an unsettling concept.” DON’T MISS FAST WOMEN Test driving the newest cars on wild adventures What’s Worth $22 Million? ▸ A 1919 Bentley…

Police officers carry Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg out of a group of protesters and activists and away from the edge of an open pit coal mine, the Garzweiler II, in North Rhine-Westphalia on January 17. The protest has lasted for more than two years in nearby Luetzerath, a tiny village slated to be emptied and demolished for the expansion of the mine, owned by European energy giant RWE. Thousands joined the demonstration for the village. This is the second time police have detained Thunberg, who has since been released, at the site.…

“A Ukrainian victory is unlikely. It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely.” ▸ P.20 The Copper Belt in the Congo (DRC)—a 250-mile crescent from Kolwezi to northern Zambia—is the source of 10 percent of the world’s copper as well as about half of the world’s cobalt reserves. Cobalt—deemed “critical” by the European Union and “strategic” by the United States—is essential for all of today’s rechargeable batteries, from smartphone and laptop batteries to e-bikes and electric vehicles, which require up to 22 pounds of refined cobalt each, more than 1000 times that required for a smartphone battery. In addition to its use in batteries, the mineral is used in turbines, dental surgeries, chemotherapy, missile guidance systems and more. Demand for the resource is expected to grow by almost 500 percent by 2050, and…

Q _ Why this book? Why now? A _ Almost every lithium-ion rechargeable battery in the world has cobalt in it, and almost three-fourths of that cobalt is mined in appalling conditions in the Congo. Never in human history has there been so much suffering that generated so much profit that directly touched the lives of more people around the world. Most people are unaware of this tragedy, and that is why I wrote Cobalt Red. The reader will hear directly from the Congolese people themselves how they live, work and die to enable our rechargeable lives. You describe the deplorable conditions artisanal miners in the Congo are subjected to so that the industrialized world can have smartphones, electric vehicles (EVs) and more. What can be done to improve the lives and…

NOW NEARING ITS ONE YEAR anniversary, there appears to be little hope Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, itself the latest phase of an 8-year conflict, will end any time soon. Peace negotiations began within days of the February 24 invasion but were undermined from the start by wildly different demands, espionage and battlefield developments. By April, talks had collapsed, with Kyiv increasingly outraged by emerging evidence of Russian atrocities in parts of occupied Ukraine. Both Kyiv and Moscow acknowledge that a negotiated settlement will likely be needed to end the conflict. But the two sides appear to be living in different, contradictory, realities. Ukraine is demanding the full withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory per its 1991 borders, reparations, war crimes prosecutions for Russian leaders and NATO membership. Russia is demanding…