hotel rooms and restaurant seats empty in this peak season. “We originally expected 40,000 tourists in October but the actual number will be half that because of the nuclear test,” says Jang Hwan Bin, an executive at Hyundai Asan, the South Korean firm that operates the tour project. “If this business fails, it would be a tragic loss for not only our company but also the whole Korean peninsula.”...

The bloody trail keeps lengthening, the what-ifs keep mounting up. By the end of last week, the sniper suspects had been linked by law enforcement to 20 shootings (13 dead, five wounded). Muhammad and Malvo apparently began their spree as far back as Feb. 16 with a shooting in Tacoma, Wash., and shot a woman outside a beauty parlor in Baton Rouge, La., on Sept. 23. In addition to the liquor-store shooting on Sept....

Earth Day has long served as an annual occasion to reaffirm warm, fuzzy resolutions about recycling and tree-hugging. But in last week’s spirit of ecogrimness, globalization–widely touted as providing a panacea for the developing world’s economic ills–also came under new scrutiny. World leaders such as President Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka and U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned that globalization is insidiously spreading the virus of social and cultural instability, especially in countries whose natural environment has deteriorated....

For Jews, the sacred memory of the Exodus is not a quaint recalling of some event in hoary history, but rather an active and eternal commandment to “know the heart of the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The sacred memory of liberation produces a religious life in which the suffering of people anywhere must be relieved in order to remember the event. For Christians the sacred memory of the life and teachings of Jesus is not the mere recalling of a Galilean carpenter, but rather an active and eternal commandment to try to love the way he loved....

You wouldn’t remember my face if you saw it. You did the job on me six months ago. A lot of bladders must have passed under your scalpel in the interim. Actually you didn’t seem to recognize me then, until you had my folder in your hand. I remember the file number. So that’s who this is from-Bladder # 139. I understand your not recognizing me. No hard feelings. In your office you were always busy, running from one examining room to another....

“It’s not press-bashing,” said an RNC spokesman. But the appeal was signed by none other than Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, whose recent claim that CNN Baghdad correspondent Peter Arnett was an Iraqi “sympathizer” made Simpson a hero among press-bashers.

Answers by Mark Dekanich, Professional Hockey Player What is it like to be a professional hockey player? It’s a fun job, but it’s still a job. Making a living off of playing a sport I love is a rewarding dream come true, yet also frustrating, exhausting, and demanding at times. Lifestyle truly depends on which professional level you are playing at. Having thousands of people cheer for you is very humbling....

For most candidates, the journey to canonization takes at least 50 years; for some, centuries. But thanks to the organization he left behind, Escriva, who died in 1975, is on track to set a modern record for swift recognition as a saint. Based on materials worked up by a team of Opus Dei priests, John Paul II declared Escriva “heroically virtuous” in April 1990; 15 months later a miraculous healing– authenticated, in part, by Opus Dei doctors–was attributed to his intercession....

A new “family” edition of Shakespeare is published by Thomas Bowdler. It expurgates the racy stuff. A new verb enters the lexicon: “to bowdlerize,” to remove what cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family. Big seller in the United States. Anthony Comstock, a New York grocer and religious fanatic, spurs laws banning obscene literature from the mails. He “exposes” such offending writers as Voltaire. “Comstockery” (as George Bernard Shaw called it) is born....

Now’s their big chance. The stunning 12th-century work by the court artist Zhang Zeduan is making its first appearance outside the mainland as the star attraction of “The Pride of China,” an exhibit of 32 important paintings from Beijing’s Palace Museum (through Aug. 11) marking the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese control. The five-meter-long “Qingming” scroll—named after the spring holiday for honoring ancestors—features more than 800 figures, 28 boats and 170 trees in a buzzing waterside city....

Both outcomes are viewed as significant signals toward the political landscape of the Midwest and have some questioning what it will mean for November elections, as President Donald Trump seeks a second term and Republicans and Democrats battle for control of the U.S. House and Senate. “In recent years, it’s gone from being a bellwether state to a pretty solidly red state, (but) Missouri has this odd political mix where people embrace populist policy but like mostly conservative candidates,” Randy Hagerty, the chair of political science at Truman State University in Missouri, told Newsweek....

ATMs are a fixture in American life–there are about 200,000 of them across the country. It typically costs $1 to $2 to use an ATM operated by a bank other than your own. However unpopular they are, the fees could keep rising, according to some industry experts, as banks continue to make ATMs more of a profit center. Bankers defend the fees. They’re a “convenience charge,” akin to paying more for popcorn at movie theaters, said Janet Eissenstat, spokesperson for the American Bankers Association....

Until lately, though, it hasn’t been that much fun for the man once hailed as the auto industry’s rock-star CEO. Back when he rescued a nearly bankrupt Nissan in 2000, Ghosn was so revered he became the subject of a superhero comic book in Japan. Bill Ford tried to hire him to fix his family firm, and last year General Motors’ largest shareholder sought to engineer a marriage with Ghosn’s Franco-Japanese auto alliance to create a global car colossus with vast economies of scale....

It’s not that there aren’t plenty of well-meant and well-executed articles and TV programs about the candidates and their stands on the issues-there are. And it’s not that these candidates really are the one-dimensional figures we come to see them as-they aren’t. The problem begins with our weakened political-party system, especially as it concerns the Democrats; it does not grow obvious presidential candidates. It just kind of springs candidates on the electorate–candidates who need introduction and definition every four years....

Israel’s crack Palnat Company is on the front lines of the war against terror, and last week it offered NEWSWEEK a rare view from its trenches. These men are experienced reservists, and nearly all of them have seen active duty in Lebanon. Before their call-up last month, they were Haifa bakers and Tel Aviv software engineers. Their views run the gamut from antiwar campaigners to right-wingers, such as the soldier who earnestly postulated a simple solution to the Palestinian problem: “Let’s nuke them....

That day is coming soon. The fight is taking place in several forums. Recently, state attorneys general met to review tactics for suing the companies. Nine states have sued, two dozen more are considering doing so. But the next big showdown comes this summer, when the Clinton administration unveils details of an FDA proposal to regulate tobacco for the first time. FDA Commissioner David Kessler has put together a proposal that is a politician’s dream-aimed at keeping kids from lighting up, while leaving smokers alone....

In Las Vegas last week Hillary Clinton insisted that Democrats needed to hug each other more and start swinging at the real enemy. “We are so different from the Republicans on all of these issues, in every way that affects the future of the people that we care so much about,” she said. “So I think that it’s appropriate on Dr. King’s birthday, his actual birthday, to recognize that all of us are here as the result of what he did, all of the sacrifice, including giving his life, along with so many of the other icons that we honor....

Biggs’s death was only a gruesome hit-and-run case until last week, when the medical examiner decided he would have survived if Mallard had called for help. That made it murder, and Mallard was placed under house arrest on $250,000 bail. She and her attorney disputed the most sensational elements in the police account–that she was high on ecstasy at the time, that she and her boyfriend had sex indoors while Biggs lay moaning on top of her car and that it had taken nearly two days for the victim to die....