Economist , Jan. 17 (posted Saturday, Jan. 17) The cover editorial urges the United States to lift its embargo on Cuba. With Fidel Castro aging and the pope visiting, now is a good time to reopen relations. Warmer dealings with Cuba might hasten its adoption of a free-market economy. ... The requisite Asian economic crisis story argues that the region's authoritarian regimes should be replaced by democratic ones. ... A story spots a disturbing trend in Bangladesh: Angered men throw acid in women's faces, disfiguring and blinding them. (Estimate: There are 100 acid attacks per year.) The Economist blames a male backlash against Bangladeshi women's growing economic independence. ... A profile salutes "Finland's Buster Keaton." Aki Kaurismaki hates Hollywood and directs sly, funny films. His latest is entirely silent. New Republic , Feb. 2 (posted Friday, Jan. 16) The cover story uses the trial of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy to slam the proliferation of picayune ethics laws. Special prosecutors wield unchecked power, settle political scores, and waste money. (Espy prosecutor Donald Smaltz spent $12 million investigating a $35,000 transgression.) Once we punished sleazebags by ostracizing them; now we unnecessarily jail them. ... "TRB" is skeptical of Republican efforts to credit Ronald Reagan with the current budget surplus. Doesn't that make Reagan responsible for the early '90s recession, too? ... A year after the Texaco-tapes scandal, a story ridicules the company's new diversity training. Silly games and animated fables anger executives and stretch racial divides. New York Times Magazine , Jan. 18 (posted Thursday, Jan. 15) The cover story laments the disappearance of abortionists. Young doctors don't learn the techniques because 1) they fear pro-life violence or 2) they consider abortion a low-rent procedure for second-class docs. Nearly two-thirds of abortion doctors are 65 or older, and some serve clinics in multiple states. ... A profile cheers Sherman Alexie, American Indian poet, essayist, novelist, and filmmaker. Alexie's forthcoming film, Smoke Signals (produced, directed, written by, and starring American Indians), depicts reservation life accurately and touchingly. ... A writer recounts his 3-year-long experiment with not talking on Sundays. His weekly silence annoys some but affords him "flashes of clarity." He also had "the best date of my life!": She did all the talking. Harper's , February 1998 (posted Thursday, Jan. 15) A long article describes the pathos of a Louisiana prison rodeo. Life-without-parole inmates, for the entertainment of the public, sustain horrible injuries in often degrading events (e.g., "Inmate Poker": Four inmates sit at a table in the ring, while a bull is goaded to charge them. The last inmate to stand up wins.) Despite the pain and humiliation, the inmates love the rodeo and feel "free" for that one day. ... A writer recounts his experience as a phone psychic. Callers, overwhelmingly poor people of color, think their lives are entirely pre-scripted and want to be told what to do. Psychics (generally not psychic) oblige. Other callers just want someone to talk to. (Cost: more than $4.00 a minute.) ... From the "Index": "Percentage of Americans who believe they are more likely to cheat at cards than Bill Clinton or Al Gore: 8." Time and Newsweek , Jan. 19 (posted Tuesday, Jan. 13) Time 's cover story calls Toni Morrison "The Great American Storyteller." Her new novel, Paradise , follows black families venturing westward after the Civil War. Morrison says winning the Nobel Prize was a bit of a curse, as it distracted her from her work. (See Brent Staples' review in Slate .) ... Newsweek 's cover story tries to predict the impact of the pope's visit to Cuba. The pope hates communism but, like Castro, he also loathes heartless capitalism. He will request religious freedom for Cubans. Castro hopes for a PR coup: If the world's most saintly man will deal with Cuba, why won't the United States? Newsweek 's scoops: 1) Ted Kaczynski's lawyers have talked to the Justice Department about avoiding the death penalty; and 2) if Kaczynski wants to get life without parole, he must cede any right to appeal the sentence. ... Also, a story says chimps may have better language aptitude than previously thought. Chimps can use word order to determine meaning ("bring the person to the water," not "bring the water to the person"). Chimp neologism for a stale pastry: "cookie rock." Time wonders if the U.S. Postal Service can be profitable in an e-mail age. E-mail could steal 25 percent of USPS business by 2000. The post office's ace in the hole: mountains of desirable marketing data. ... Time spots a new treatment for heroin addicts: The drug buprenorphine relieves cravings and withdrawal symptoms, but packs only a small high and is not addictive. U.S. News & World Report , Jan. 19 (posted Tuesday, Jan. 13) The cover story worries that our military needs retraining. Budget cuts and boring, noncombat peacekeeping missions are atrophying our troops' battle-readiness. ... A story cheers Madeleine Albright's first year in office. The secretary of state uses immense charm, straight talk, and fluent French and Russian to get her way. Some criticize her "preoccupation with image," but others call image-control essential to the job. ... A package on abortion says 43 percent of American women get one, but few talk about it. To remedy that, U.S. News interviews several women about their experiences (one was raped, another used abortions as birth control). A sidebar says late-term abortions are rare (1 percent of all cases) but usually performed for nonmedical reasons. The New Yorker , Jan. 19 (posted Tuesday, Jan. 13) A piece says there's not enough evidence to indict JonBenet Ramsey's parents. Revelations: 1) Her body may be exhumed to determine whether she was assaulted with a stun gun and 2) some investigators suspect that her death was an accident, and her parents' real crime was covering it up. The piece praises much-maligned Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter for his impartiality, but admits his office is too soft on punishing criminals. ... An article describes a new scheme to clean the sacred but polluted Ganges. (It's teeming with corpses, since it's holy to be buried in it.) Scientists propose using bacteria-eating algae to disinfect the water. ... Also, a long biography of Mikhail Baryshnikov. He's turning 50 and just returned to the former Soviet Union for the first time since his 1974 defection. Thesis: Dance is the substitute for the home and family that he never really had. (His mother killed herself when he was a boy.) Weekly Standard , Jan. 19 (posted Tuesday, Jan. 13) A three-story cover package mourns the 25 th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade : The lead piece claims that abortion will be "the central issue" in the 2000 presidential campaign because the next president will likely have three Supreme Court seats to fill, enough to shift the court's balance against Roe . Overturning Roe is the only way to restore a "politics of republican self-government ... and moral decency." ... Also, another conservative chestnut: An article asserts that the death penalty is used too infrequently. Since 1977, juries have sentenced 5,500 murderers to death but, thanks to obstructionist lawyers, only 432 people have been executed. ... An article welcomes Iranian President Mohammed Khatami's conciliatory comments but notes that it's still anti-American mullahs who really control Iran's military and government. Best-case scenario: popular unrest with the mullahs grows, leading to a middle-class democratic revolution. The Nation , Jan. 26 (posted Tuesday, Jan. 13) The cover report exposes a new campaign-finance scandal: influence-buying in state judicial elections. Interest groups fund a judge's campaign, then often appear before that judge in court (e.g., "In Nevada, Justice William Maupin received more than $80,000 from casinos and gambling interests, much of it while ruling favorably on a landmark casino case"). ... A dispatch from Denmark debunks claims of the welfare state's death. Despite severe unemployment, Danes still live the good life (great health care, seven months of paid maternity leave, social harmony). Changes: The state is nudging the jobless to work and shifting from income taxes to "green" taxes on fossil-fuel use. ... Also, a letter from Ralph Nader to Robert Rubin slams the treasury secretary's work on the Korea crisis. According to Nader, the International Monetary Fund plan bails out American banks, rewards them with cheap Korean investment opportunities, and throws Korea into an unnecessary recession. Vanity Fair , February 1998 (posted Friday, Jan. 9) A profile argues that Al Gore secretly hates politics. His family bred him to be president, and he does his duty as a good son, but he'd rather be doing almost anything else. The piece reaffirms the cliché that Gore is a warm, funny guy behind his wooden exterior. ... An essay wishes the New York Times would ditch its new sections. "Dining In," "Fine Arts," etc., help advertisers more than readers, and make the paper unwieldy to read. ... Also, Vanity Fair dubs Brown University "Jet-Set Ivy." Super-rich, super-hip students (called "Euros," even when not European) drive Ferraris, wear Chanel, and hit Paris for weekends. Brown attracts the children of the rich and famous (Diana Ross, Kate Capshaw, Lamar Alexander, Itzhak Perlman), and its grads dominate the music and Web-publishing industries. --Seth Stevenson