Weston Kosova

The co-chair of Obama's deficit commission on today's Washington.

Flat-screen televisions are a hot gift this year. Despite the awful economy, sales are up over last season, mostly because high-definition televisions, once prohibitively priced, are so much more affordable than they used to be.

So Rupert Murdoch, who has suffered for so long at the hands of Google—what with all the traffic Google directs to his NewsCorp Web sites for free—has finally had enough.

When the Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader was announced last week, I wrote about the company's strategy to beat out Amazon's Kindle by making B&N e-books available on many different devices, giving customers more places to buy and read their books.

On Monday I wrote about the new Barnes & Noble e-book reader, called the Nook, and how it is part of a larger strategy by the bookseller to topple Amazon.

There is a lot of buzz that Barnes & Noble will release its anticipated e-reading device tomorrow. If the usual rumor sites are to be believed, it will have an e-ink screen, like Amazon's Kindle, and it will have built-in wireless so you can buy books over the air, like the Kindle.

On Friday I wrote how Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper execs are pretending to be upset that search engines like Google link to news stories on their Web sites.

The executives who run big, ailing news organizations—in particular Tom Curley of AP and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch—complain every chance they get that search engines—in particular Google—are stealing from them, because Google links to their stories but doesn't pay the AP or News Corp.

But it is easy to say you are. Why some companies are pretending to be more eco-conscious than they actually are.

Wish Away Cancer! Get A Lunchtime Face-Lift! Eradicate Autism! Turn Back The Clock! Thin Your Thighs! Cure Menopause! Harness Positive Energy! Erase Wrinkles! Banish Obesity! Live Your Best Life Ever!

After visiting the D.C. public school system and two prestigious private institutions, Michelle Obama chose the elite Sidwell Friends for her children. NEWSWEEK imagines how educators might have lobbied the future First Lady.

There is a theme running through Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's new autobiography: It's only affirmative action if you go looking for a job, not if it comes looking for you.

Ever notice that when politicians talk about this conflict they can't get out of a sentence without uttering the phrase 'blood and treasure'? What it really means.

As he spoke, Don Imus had no inkling—none, he later told NEWSWEEK—that he had said anything that would cause him trouble. Wednesday, April 4, started and finished like any other day for the talk-show host.

For American soldiers stationed in Iraq, one of the few comforts of this war is how easily they can keep in touch with family back home. Many service members call their spouses and kids several times a week and e-mail daily, reassuring them that they are all right.

From today's New York Times:

Gary Ackerman is the last man you'd expect George W. Bush to turn to for advice. Just elected to his 13th term in the House, the New York Democrat thinks the president's handling of the Iraq war has been "totally inept." So Ackerman was a bit surprised when Bush invited him and other members of Congress to the White House last Wednesday morning, just hours after the long-awaited Baker-Hamilton report was released.

You'd think it would take a good long while for official Washington to read, ponder and absorb the 79 recommendations contained in the 160-page Iraq Study Group report.

To those who worried our violent, sex-obsessed, celebrity-crazed culture had at last reached the very farthest depths of depravity, O. J. Simpson and Judith Regan come bearing news: we had so much farther to fall.

Welcome to the day after. The people have spoken. And so—at impressive length—have the anchors and spinners and "commentators." So now you wonder: What Does It All Mean?  The morning newspapers—and the  Democrats themselves—maintain that the election represents "a decisive turning of the tide" for the Democrats and "a stunning reversal of fortune" for the president.

Rick Santorum once dreamed of being president. Now, the Pennsylvania Republican is struggling just to hang on to his Senate seat. Never one to keep his thoughts to himself--you'll recall his concerns about gay marriage leading to "man on dog" matrimony--Santorum has a talent for the disparaging remark, often aimed at his Democratic Senate colleagues.

George W. Bush has four years to go, but Republicans are already jockeying to succeed him. The first officially unofficial GOP hopeful for 2008? Newt Gingrich.

For seven years, Jason DeParle, a senior writer for The New York Times, followed three welfare mothers, Angie Jobe, Jewell Reed and Opal Caples, as they struggled to make ends meet and keep their families together. "American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare" opens in 1991, just after the women, who are cousins, move from Chicago to Milwaukee in search of cheaper rent and more generous government checks.

Get ready for the real fight. Yes, the campaign was bitter and nasty, but with George W. Bush returning to the White House for a second term, another epic battle is already underway--inside the Democratic Party.

No Voter Left Behind Unless you live in Texas, say, or Vermont, you've probably opened the front door to find a cheerful campaign worker imploring you to vote, and vote early.

It's just about impossible to stop Claude Hawkins from voting. The 24-year-old supply store clerk from Kansas City, Mo., was so enthusiastic about this year's election that he registered to vote three times, just to make sure his application wasn't lost.

All Summer, You Watched George W. Bush And John Kerry Snipe And Sneer At Each Other From A Distance. Now, See Them Do It Live, On The Same Stage! The Upcoming Presidential Debates Could Push Kerry Over The Top--Or Seal The Deal For Bush. A Newsweek Guide To Verbal Combat.

Some days a guy can feel he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders. For George W. Bush it's every day. What with the menacing enemies he's got in Iraq, Afghanistan--France--not to mention a groggy economy and a nasty re-election fight, you'd think those jogging-scarred knees might just start to buckle.

THE REAL BATTLEGROUND STATE The mother of all campaign issues. Though Kerry voted in favor of the war in Iraq, he as been very critical of the way Bush has handled it, saying the president overstated the intelligence, alienated the rest of the world and failed to prepare for the bloody aftermath.