Innholdsfortegnelse for 5/21-5/28/2021 i Newsweek

1969 “Singing with a tortured passion that has become her trademark,” Newsweek reported, “Janis Joplin blew the rock world wide open.” She was “the first female superstar of rock music,” and “hard singing and hard living are her hallmark.” Joplin was a key figure in the movement identified as the “rebirth of blues,” bringing the style back to popularity among both Black and white audiences. She would have turned 78 this year, and her short career continues to influence the musical world, with prominent artists like Stevie Nicks and Pink claiming Joplin as a major influence. 1993 After declining two proposals, Newsweek said that Masako Owada “gave in to her prince.” The diplomat had to “become as familiar with the antiquated ceremonial roles her new position requires as she is…

To identify America’s Best Credit Cards, LendingTree in consultation with Newsweek collected data on candidates from more than 1,030 credit cards issued by 195 financial institutions and credit unions. LendingTree then applied filters to create a short list of eligible candidates in each category, based on the most salient features for each card type. LendingTree supplied the data and made recommendations about the feature weightings for each category; the final scoring system used was developed by Newsweek, based on the factors editors deemed most important to consumers for that type of credit card. Data sources included MagnifyMoney.com, DepositAccounts.com and information published by each credit card issuer. All together, 36 factors were assessed, covering a wide variety of fees, current interest rates, balance transfer details, introductory purchase offers, introductory sign-up offers,…

FOR MOST ACTORS, GETTING THE LEAD IN A HIGHLY ANTICIPATED PROJECT like Amazon Prime’s The Underground Railroad (May 14) from Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins would be intimidating, but not for Thuso Mbedu, who plays Cora, the series lead. “Stuff like that doesn’t actually register. I hear it, I get it, but when I’m at work, I’m here to be my best.” Just to add to the project’s weightiness, the limited series is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Colson Whitehead novel of the same name and is Mbedu’s first American project after getting her start in South Africa. Even though it’s a historical project, Mbedu says it’s still very relevant, particularly for Black Americans. “It’s closer to home than people realize.” In many ways, Mbedu was able to see parts of…

ON APRIL 22, WE CELEBRATED EARTH DAY. Once more we honored the Earth, talked about our environmental challenges, felt good for having done so, felt depressed about climate change and moved ahead to another year of doing…well, we’re not quite sure yet. But we better do something, and we better do it fast. According to climate scientists (although they vary in their appraisal of how long this could take), there’s no doubt that the trajectory we’re on could lead to social upheaval the likes of which we’ve never seen in the modern era. Entire swaths of nations, even continents, could become uninhabitable due to heat. Such a predicament would create massive food shortages and the implosion of entire economic systems. That in turn would create hundreds of millions of climate…

IT TOOK BARNEY GRAHAM, JASON MCLELLAN AND THEIR collaborators just a weekend in January 2020 to design a novel vaccine they believed would be capable of protecting people against COVID-19. Their design formed the basis for the vaccines that Moderna, Pfizer and others would eventually use to inoculate millions of Americans a little more than a year later, a pace of development unprecedented in the annals of modern medicine. By then, however, the two pioneering virologists were already thinking about future pandemics—and how they might get ahead of them. Graham and McLellan are part of a corps of researchers hoping to take the technology they used on COVID-19 vaccines and apply them to an even more futuristic creation: an arsenal of off-the-shelf premade vaccines that could be easily modified to…

WHO DOESN’T WANT TO BE richer and wiser and happier? We all do, sure. But getting there ain’t that easy. So, it is a good thing author/journalist William Green has come along with his new book called, well Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life (Scribner/Simon & Schuster). The book, available now in all forms of media, takes lessons from some of the more famous money folks and shows us how to apply them to our own everyday lives. “It is remarkable,” Green says. “how consistently the greatest investors talk about…the importance of just avoiding catastrophe, staying in the game (and) surviving dips.” I got to the bottom of that and more with William as part of my Newsweek/LinkedIn interview series, Better, where I talk…

THE PANDEMIC HAS DRAMATICALLY RESHAPED AMERI-cans’ relationship with credit cards—surprisingly, for the better. Instead of the increased delinquencies, ballooning balances and falling credit scores that might have been expected as the economy struggled and unemployment spiked, the opposite has happened: Balances are down, credit scores are up and credit card issuers are rolling out a red carpet of enhanced rewards to keep consumers spending. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, balances dropped an average of 10 percent from March to June of last year, and the trend continued through 2020, proving true even for people who had been struggling financially before the pandemic. New delinquencies on loans and credit card accounts also fell, after being flat or increasing gradually in 2019. Experts attribute the improvement to a combination of…

MOVIES LIKE PARASITE AND MINARI HAVE been critical and commercial international hits and K-pop artists like BTS have broken records around the world. Now its K-drama’s turn. According to Netflix, South Korean-made shows like Kingdom and It’s Okay to Not Be Okay are being watched on the streaming service in more than 30 languages, including English, German, French, Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesia. K-dramas have been one of the driving forces of South Korea’s entertainment industry for decades. In recent years, their quality has improved tremendously with bigger budgets and more varied characters and story lines than ever before. The international success of Korean TV actually predates the K-pop explosion. The word hallyu (“Korean wave”) was coined in the late 1990s. The trend picked up steam in 2003, when…

As time goes on, some places stay in use, but some get left behind—due to unforeseen circumstances, changing times or other reasons. These abandoned places immediately evoke feelings of eeriness and curiosity, no matter where they are. Their remains are testaments to their fascinating histories, and they are perfect destinations for those who love history, adventure and even stories of the supernatural. From old mining tunnels covered in glow worms to haunted prisons to ’70s movie sets decaying in the desert, here are some of the most fascinating abandoned sites to explore around the world. 01 Eastern State Penitentiary Philadelphia This prison operated from 1829 to 1971, and when it was first built, it was the largest building in the country. Notoriously, inmates were often tortured there. Now the deserted penitentiary…