Newsweek July 31-August 7, 2015

Somewhere on the grimy streets of an industrial city in northeastern China walks one of the world’s most dangerous men. Stocky and fleshy-faced, with a mole on his upper lip, Li Fangwei keeps a low profile and operates under a half-dozen aliases. In another time and place, he might have strutted about his criminal empire like a colorful cocaine kingpin, machine-gunning rivals and showering the locals with soccer stadiums. But Li’s brand of business requires more discretion: He sells advanced missile and nuclear technology and materials. To Iran. Indicted in New York last year for Iran sanctions-busting and money laundering, Li—known in the West as Karl Lee—operates out of Dalian, the Yellow Sea shipping center formerly known as Port Arthur. Once talkative, he no longer answers his phone. Employees at a…

Last year, when Joanne Jones learned that her son Nate had been arrested, the last thing she worried about was her phone bill. The police in San Marcos, Texas, had charged him with aggravated robbery, but when Jones tried to call him in jail, she quickly realized it was going to cost her. There was a $3.99 “wireless administration fee” and a $2 “non-use” fee, not to mention the cost of the call, about $10 for a 15-minute conversation. Over the past year, Jones, 60, an occupational therapist in Warwick, Rhode Island, has racked up over $1,000 talking to her son behind bars. The money goes to Securus Technologies, a Dallas-based company that’s one of the largest players in the prison tech industry. The company employs 1,000 people in 46 states,…

It’s the most common unsolicited advice new parents receive: Start saving for college. But the financial challenges of parenting come due much earlier—before a child is even out of diapers. In the U.S., the price for a year of infant day care has already surpassed that of some four-year public universities, according to a report published by Child Care Aware of America, a national nonprofit that advocates for affordable options for families. Working parents who don’t have a doting grandparent nearby can expect to fork over as much as $16,000 a year to ensure their baby is fed, diapered, cuddled and entertained by a trained professional. In most states, the average annual cost for child care also surpasses the average amount to keep a roof over the family. Families in the Northeast…

The city never agrees with the country. If you embrace one, you spurn the other. The divide harks back to the rift between Alexander Hamilton, the New Yorker who saw cities as the future of America, and Thomas Jefferson, the gentleman farmer of Monticello, who compared cities to sores that vitiate the body. The American antipathy to cities informs the assignation of state capitals, only 17 of which are in the largest city in their respective state. In New York, this divide is especially pronounced. New York City accounts for about 43 percent of the state’s population and is the acknowledged world capital of finance, media, culture and Cronuts. That makes for a perennially testy relationship between the global metropolis and Albany, the state capital. New York City can hardly repaint…

The pain and the irregular bleeding told Nanotte Pierre there was something wrong. But none of the doctors she visited over a decade could tell her what it was. An infection, they thought, but none of their expensive therapies put an end to the problem. Instead, it worsened. IN MUCH OF THE WORLD, THE DISEASE HAS BEEN ALL BUT CURED, BUT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IT REMAINS A COMMON KILLER OF WOMEN. In 2013, Pierre’s younger sister, who made her living selling sweets on the street, was working outside a Haitian gynecology clinic called Klinik Manitane. Nearby, a river of plastic foam and plastic bottles choked a drainage ditch, and the sun scorched the road until it swirled with dust. But the clinic was pleasant, and the women who’d come to see a…

Seen from above, the Appalachian Mountains jut from the earth like a spine curving through the eastern U.S., reaching north into Canada and south into Mississippi. For most Americans, this lush region conjures the strum of a banjo, the songs of Loretta Lynn and the gentle twang of a thick mountain accent. A closer listen reveals other, more disconcerting noises: the raspy voices, heavy wheezing and sighs of resignation that so frequently accompany a diagnosis of lung cancer. One of those voices belongs to Charles McKinster. He and his wife live outside the small town of Louisa, Kentucky, in Spencer Branch; it's a hollow (“holler” in the local dialect), the term for the creek-bottomed central Appalachian valleys where family clans have lived since Scottish and Irish settlers first arrived in the…