Newsweek is reporting that the U.S. housing market presents a contradiction: buyers have gained transactional power without gaining equivalent purchasing power. It said calling the current market a buyers' market can be misleading because that term describes the balance of power between buyers and sellers already in the market, not how many households can afford to enter it. Newsweek said those two measures are currently moving in opposite directions.
Newsweek also reported on two cultural controversies it said unfolded this week. It said a financially struggling bar and arts venue in Greenfield, Massachusetts, had required customers to wear a KN-95 mask "or better," and that when it announced Saturdays would become mask-optional, commenters accused it of ableism, racism and complicity in a "mass disabling event." Newsweek said one commenter wished the venue would be firebombed. Separately, Newsweek reported that Philadelphia teacher and pro-Palestinian activist Hannah Gann admitted she has no Palestinian or Tunisian ancestry after fellow activists investigated claims about her background. It said she had been publicly described as Palestinian American and had at times presented herself as Black, leading to the nickname the "Palestinian Rachel Dolezal."
In a separate item, Newsweek said the number five is becoming a recurring problem for President Donald Trump, writing that "even the good fives are bad."
Newsweek also reported on China's J-36 experimental aircraft, saying its unusual configuration reveals Beijing's thinking, and on the relationship between the straits near China and Taiwan as the U.S. and China pursue competing interests. It additionally published commentary on how to talk with children frightened of another world war, an opinion piece arguing that resistance to Christian nationalism could help decide the midterms, and a first-person essay on making challah weekly.