Newsweek October 28, 2022

2015 “The world population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050… If we want to avoid mass malnutrition, we’re going to have to up our food production by 70 percent,” wrote Newsweek of agricultural technology innovations around the world. “Unfortunately, that’s left us in a bit of a bind.” According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 33.8 million people, including five million children, are still food insecure. In 2021, Federal spending on USDA’s food and nutrition assistance programs totaled $182.5 billion, 49 percent more than the previous high of $122.8 the prior year. 1975 “[Bruce] Springsteen’s punk image... his hard-driving blues-based music and his passionate, convoluted lyrics of city lowlife, fast cars and greaser rebellion recall the dreams of the great rock ‘n’ roll rage of the 1950s.” Newsweek said. In…

Gena Hoyer held a photograph of her son, Luke, who was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, on October 13 at Broward County Courthouse as she awaited the verdict in the sentencing trial of the shooter, Nikolas Cruz. Last year, Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts each of murder and attempted murder. The jury charged with determining his sentence could have called for Cruz’s execution, but instead recommended he be sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole. ▸ AMY BETH BENNETT…

INCHING UP THE ELBE RIVER TO THE GERMAN port of Hamburg in early September, colorful containers stacked on deck like outsized pieces of Lego, the Libra looked like any other massive vessel plying the world’s oceans. Yet she was more than a commercial ship. As well as containers, the Libra carried a branch of the Communist Party of China (CCP), its political commissars and a crew who must pledge loyalty to the party and to increasing China’s economic power and national strength. The party calls ships like the Libra “floating fortresses.” These vessels are at the forefront of long-term efforts by the CCP to strengthen its hold on global shipping and logistics, prompting concerns in some Western countries over risks ranging from espionage to economic coercion, digital domination and military expansion. Ships…

“I CALL IT SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES.”—Farmer Idalino Nunes de Assis on logging and ranching near the Amazon“I think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly.”—PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN ON VLADIMIR PUTIN“This responsibility is about, in fact, carrying on the fight against injustices, whatever they may be.”—ANNIE ERNAUX, NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN LITERATURE“It’s important for folks to see how pregnancy and birth is a medical event that occurs in a hospital with doctors.”—KATIE DARLING, LOUISIANA DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, ON GIVING BIRTH ON CAMERA FOR A CAMPAIGN AD“WE ARE CERTAINLY IN THE BACKLASH PHASE.”—Dream Hampton, filmmaker, on the #MeToo movement“Why on Earth did he feel the need to do that?”—David Bier of the Cato Institute on President Joe Biden’s exclusion of non-citizens from his marijuana pardon“I CRIED UNTIL I HAD…

OST MIDTERM ELECTIONS ARE predictable affairs—the party in the White House loses seats (often, a lot of seats), voter turnout sinks—but not this year. Shifting momentum has kept the surprises coming. Early expectations of a red rout that would allow Republicans to wrest control of both houses of Congress yielded to predictions this summer that Democrats would retain a slim majority in the Senate and lose fewer seats in the House than initially thought, as rising anger over abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade competed with concerns about a flailing economy and high inflation for voters’ attention. Some key legislative victories for President Joe Biden and the emergence of a slate of GOP nominees for Congress and statewide offices deemed too extreme…

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 55 YEARS, THIS ELECTION SEASON could end with Democrats and Republicans heading an equal number of state governments. Fueled by voter concerns over abortion access and a slate of far-right Republican nominees, the odds are increasing that Democrats can retain or flip enough of the 36 governorships up for grabs on November 8 to prompt a 25-to-25-state tie between the two parties, versus the current 28-22 GOP lead. That even split has only happened one other time since Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959—back in 1967, in the thick of another painfully divisive era in American politics. Such a shift in power could have a powerful impact, since governors wield immense executive authority in their states, similar to the president on the federal level. Top…