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INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND EXCLUSIVES, JANUARY 26, 2009 ISSUE

SPECIAL INAUGURATION ISSUE

COVER: Obama's America-A National Portrait 2009 (All Overseas Editions).  Editor Jon Meacham opens Newsweek's Special Inauguration Issue with an essay about the make-up of the America that President-Elect Barack Obama is inheriting when he takes office on Tuesday. As Meacham points out, the turning point came not long after Obama himself was born, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Naturalization Act in 1965, a law that played a key role in creating the America that made this week's inauguration of Obama possible. Meacham writes about Johnson because "who we are now-a country in which traditional barriers of race and age and gender are crumbling-flows in many ways from what LBJ did then."  This issue looks at the political, cultural and economic state of the union. He writes that what's clear and certain: "the nation over which Obama will preside is changing, rapidly, and history is likely to connect his political rise to the shifting nature of a country that was largely one thing in the wake of World War II and through the Cold War and into the opening years of the 21st century and quite another as the Obama era began."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180205

POLITICS: Hoping That Left Is Right. Senior Writer and Political Correspondent Jonathan Darman profiles San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who, in 2008, vocally and passionately opposed Proposition 8 and has made gay civil rights his signature issue. Newsom has become a joke to Democratic insiders, but he hasn't gotten any less ambitious. In the next six months, Newsom is widely expected to announce a run for governor of California. His advisers say his high visibility on gay marriage will be an asset in a Democratic primary where a large majority of voters opposed Prop 8. 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180047

GEOGRAPHY: A Team of Expatriates. Washington Bureau Chief Jeffrey Bartholet and Reporter Daniel Stone report on the number of Obama's top aides who grew up in other countries and the insight they developed by seeing America from the outside in. The former expats include domestic policy adviser Valerie Jarrett; Retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, the incoming national-security adviser; Timothy Geithner, the nominee for Treasury Secretary; and Retired Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, a leading contender to become the new NASA administrator. They're increasingly typical: as the world shrinks, the numbers of Americans working and studying outside of the country is rising. In 2006-07, more than 241,000 Americans studied abroad, up from less than 100,000 who did so a decade ago. The State Department now estimates that more than 5 million Americans live overseas.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180207

IMMIGRATION: The Refugees Who Saved Lewiston. Reporter Jesse Ellison reports on Lewiston, Maine, a mill town that like many of the more rural, white areas of the country suffered from a shrinking population and vanishing jobs. Now it's been transformed because of thousands of African refugees who have settled there since 2001, when the first Somali family arrived. Since then, per capita income has soared, and crime rates have dropped. In 2004, Inc. magazine named Lewiston one of the best places to do business in America, and in 2007, it was named an "All-America City" by the National Civic League. The payoff has been new businesses and expanded enrollment at Maine's universities.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180035

AGE: Faith Beyond His Father's. Reporter Tony Dokoupil and Religion Editor Lisa Miller look at how a generation gap is opening up even among evangelicals. Youth are now more willing to call themselves liberal than at any time since 1973. Young Christians, too, liked Obama much better than Kerry: a third of white evangelicals ages 18 to 29 voted Democratic this time, compared to 16 percent in 2004. This doesn't represent a sea change among evangelicals-who remain more socially conservative than most other religious groups-but painful generational divisions within their ranks. Disagreements revolve around priorities: how best to express Christian values in a fast-changing world.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180107

Tight-Fisted Is Back In Style. European Economics Editor Stefan Theil reports that economic frugality has surged back into fashion as the global recession ushers in an "Age of Thrift."  The shift to thrift is natural in hard times, but this time the clampdown on spending appears to be more than a sharp but temporary downturn of the economic cycle.  "In Britain, the U.S. and other consumer-driven economies, including Spain and Ireland, it seems to herald a much broader shift: the end of a way of life based on freewheeling consumption fueled by easy credit and the wealth effect of ever-rising asset values."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180051

Give Them a Raise. Hong Kong Bureau Chief George Wehrfritz reports that setting a minimum wage for Asia's poorest workers could help speed the world out of recession.  In today's global economy, plagued by overcapacity and a shortfall in demand, Asia's ultralow factory wages are a big part of the problem since their laborers can't afford to buy much.  The global economy's well-being rests heavily upon Asia's ability to consume more of what it manufactures.  "Economics theory holds that minimum wages don't work at a national-let alone international-level."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180052

Point of View: When Prudence Was a Virtue. Joseph Epstein, author of "Snobbery: The American Version," writes that it is hard to predict whether the recent global economic meltdown will restore the spirit of thrift to Americans in their economic behavior. "One of the things that has subtly yet substantially changed in American life over the past quarter century or so is this traditional game plan. Generations have come into the world with not even secondhand memory of economic depression, or even serious reversals." 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180054

WORLD VIEW: You Want to Make a Clean Break?  Raymond Fisman, co-author of "Economic Gangsters: Violence, Corruption and the Poverty of Nations" writes that the days leading up to Barack Obama's inauguration have felt like the dawn of a new era in the United States and the country seems eager to break with a recent past characterized by corruption and self-interest.  "Changing an equilibrium of corruption-or of anything else-is extremely difficult because it's so costly to be the odd person out. As a result, everyone has to make the switch all at once ...What all this means is that change requires a clean and visible break with the past, not incremental efforts."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180057

THE LAST WORD: James A. Baker III. Baker shares his advice for new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.  "I told him, 'You've got the worst job in the government.' He needs to understand that he may be the second most powerful man in Washington, but he's only staff. I said, 'You're walking around with a big target painted on your front and your back. As long as you recognize that nobody elected you and they don't want to see or hear too much of you, you will do a good job'."     

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180055

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