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Now, he’ll have to pander to the single-issue constituencies within the Democratic Party, as well as the punditcrats who fell in love with him during his Senate bid, for enough support to keep his campaign afloat. That’s probably why he answered unhesitatingly and in the affirmative when CNN’s Don Lemon asked in a recent forum, “Religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities—should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?...

The Golden Globe-winning actress mocked Trump’s background and accent on Tuesday, while the First Lady was delivering a speech for the Republican National Convention from the Rose Garden at the White House. During Trump’s speech, Midler wrote, among other things, “Get that illegal alien off the stage!” As if she were on a roll, Midler continued with the insults, mocking the former model’s marriage to President Donald Trump. Midler described the president’s wife as “one lucky Slovenian....

Midler made a plea to Beyoncé’s Beyhive—the nickname given to her legion of fans—on Twitter on Thursday: “#Beyoncé has 133 million Instagram followers. More than double the people who voted for Trump. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the #BeyHive mobilized to defeat him? I also wouldn’t mind if a regular bee hive [sic] fked his st up,” Midler wrote. Some members of the Beyhive were none too pleased with Midler’s request....

What’s the bank saying about all this? Spokeswoman Lisabeth Weiner insists that First Chicago’s investigation last year showed that no bank money was wagered in the pool. But Weiner admits that executives just last month refunded bank expenses for the displays and the party. Even so, that doesn’t satisfy Chicago alderman Robert Shaw, who is demanding that the bank’s executives explain their involvement in the gambling activity before the city goes ahead with a $400 million general-obligation bond issue for which First Chicago was to serve as underwriter....

The obvious explanations are that Florida Fatigue is still at play; Democrats and Republicans alike want to move on instead of stewing in last winter’s juices. And of course the media is otherwise occupied obsessing over the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit case. But there are two other possible explanations for why this big and well-executed story didn’t get more traction: one involves the changing media; the other the unchanging Democratic Party....

Spam in e-mail isn’t new. But as barriers to it have succeeded, spimmers have taken fresh aim at IM. It’s particularly nettlesome since that IM from John wasn’t really sent by him; a spimmer had taken over his contact list. The best protection: be wary of clicking on IM links to any Web site.

Gore also solicited help from his boss, a veteran of three presidential debates with Perot. Clinton’s advice: take the offensive and don’t let Perot burnish his image as a populist. The veep was ready with a line of attack, painting Perot as a wealthy businessman whose enterprises stand to lose money if NAFTA passes; aides say he also was ready to label Perot a “union buster.” During the practice session, aides told Gore to be superaggressive in grilling Perot....

On Wednesday, Beyoncé shared the track list for Renaissance, which is scheduled to drop on July 29. Among the 16 songs shown on the album are the lead single “Break My Soul” and “America Has a Problem,” the latter causing an online debate about its possible meaning. The Apple Music Page for Renaissance also includes many, but not all, of the contributors to the release. Jay-Z, Skrillex, The-Dream and Drake are named as composers, while high-profile artists such as Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder and James Brown are found in the sampled credits....

In other words, Jeff Bezos is getting into the space business. Now he has a $1.7 billion fortune to try to convert that dream into reality. NEWSWEEK has learned that Bezos created Blue Origin, also known as Blue Operations LLC, to pursue his fervent dream of establishing an enduring human presence in space. He has surreptitiously recruited a stable of rocketeers: physicists, ex-NASA scientists, veterans of failed space start-ups and even sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson (“Snow Crash” and “Cryptonomicon”), who has a lifelong interest in rocketry....

Even in Israel, campaigning doesn’t get much rougher than this. The country has always respected pluck and thrived on in-your-face discourse. But the vitriol of this month-old campaign has shocked even the most hardened observers. Everyone seems to have it in for Netanyahu–and the prime minister refuses to pack up his office without a fight, however dirty. Though there are more candidates than ever competing in this race, they represent fewer and fewer points of view....

“I am disappointed that, particularly some Republican governors, have been so cavalier with the health of these kids—cavalier with the health of their communities,” Biden said Friday while speaking at a Washington, D.C. middle school. “We’re playing for real here—this isn’t a game.” After months of dismissing suggestions that he might institute a broad vaccine edict, Biden announced that all federal employees and federal government contractors will have to get vaccinated on Thursday....

“The Federal Reserve and the [Biden] administration failed to act fast enough, and today’s data is a snapshot in time of the consequences being felt across the country,” Manchin said. The report released Tuesday showed that inflation, partially fueled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, increased about 8.5 percent for the 12 months ending in March, Newsweek reported. In addition to the Labor Department’s Tuesday report, the Department of Agriculture said in a report released late last week that it expected food prices to continue to increase another 3 or 4 percent over the rest of 2022....

More than 4.4 million employees left their jobs last month, the highest figure in two decades, and a rise of about 164,000 from the last record set in August of 4.3 million, according to the Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Friday. As employers contemplate raising wages to attract workers amid their struggle to fill millions of jobs, Bernstein contended that the shortage is “often misinterpreted as a bad sign, when from a worker’s perspective it’s actually a good sign....

The collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government has produced an economic cataclysm the Afghan people were simply not prepared to handle. Afghanistan’s humanitarian emergency, however, was quite predictable. The country relied on foreign donors for roughly 80 percent of its public expenditures, and a sizable portion of Afghanistan’s $20 billion GDP was based on a war-time economy, cash infusions from Washington and regular appropriations from foreign capitals. In effect, Afghanistan was less a sovereign entity in the traditional sense of the word and more like a dependent whose leaders grew complacent with foreign support....

Building Back Together, a 501(c)(4) started by alumni of the Obama administration, is spending nearly $1 million in bilingual ads across TV, radio, and digital platforms in key states like Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. “Building Back Together is working hard to ensure Latino families know what President Biden has delivered, from taking on the pandemic and helping small businesses keep their doors open, to jumpstarting the economic recovery and working to lower prices for families,” chief strategy officer Mayra Macias told Newsweek....

The virtual summit with Putin and Xi on Wednesday will examine their Russian-Chinese relations, plan their countries’ shared goals for the next year and “exchange views on major international and regional issues of common concern,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a Monday briefing, The Hill reported. The call comes as both countries recently criticized Biden’s early December Summit for Democracy. The summit was a meeting with 100 countries to fight corruption and defend free and fair elections in the U....

The Biden transition team didn’t provide any additional information and didn’t immediately respond to Newsweek’s request for comment on the change after President Donald Trump, who hasn’t conceded the November 3 election, blocked Biden from getting the sensitive information that has traditionally been shared during transitions between administrations. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris also received the brief, commonly called the PDB, during a meeting at the Department of Commerce on Monday, according to an update from the transition team to reporters....

National security adviser Jake Sullivan told Bloomberg on Wednesday that he would meet with congressional leaders to discuss the Taiwan Policy Act (TPA), whose authors—New Jersey Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham—called it “the most comprehensive restructuring of U.S. policy towards Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act [TRA] of 1979.” The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Menendez chairs, is scheduled to mark up the TPA on September 14....

Like many who left small towns for an urban college, I have now resided most of my adult life in a metropolitan area. Having lived in both worlds—one rural and the other urban—I appreciate the perspectives of the voters in each sphere. This understanding causes me to be pessimistic over the future of our democracy if we do not address the current divide and optimistic if we do. Even before last month’s election, political commentators were discussing the urban-rural gap—the world of Whole Foods versus Cracker Barrel—and pundits were warning that the cultural arrogance within parts of the Democratic Party could have an electoral impact....

An NBC poll released on Sunday found that 45 percent of registered voters approved of Biden’s overall job—a figure up 3 points from last month and the highest since last October. The margin of error for the 1,000 registered voters who were surveyed is 3.1 percent. The NBC News survey was conducted on September 9 to September 13. While Biden is not up for reelection this year, historical data suggests that there is a correlation between presidential approval and congressional seat gain in the midterms....