MEDIA LEAD SHEET/APRIL 28, 2008 ISSUE (on newsstands Monday, April 21). To book correspondents, contact Brenda Velez at 212-445-4078-Brenda.Velez@Newsweek.com, Grace Huh at 212-445-5831-Grace.Huh@Newsweek.com-or Jan Angilella at 212-445-5638-Jan.Angilella@Newsweek.com. Articles are posted on www.Newsweek.com. 

COVER: "The Martyr Factory" (p. 24).  Jerusalem Bureau Chief Kevin Peraino, on assignment in Libya, reports on the large numbers of foreign fighters in Iraq that are coming from Libya.  In papers found during a raid at an insurgent headquarters in Iraq, of 112 Libyan fighters named, an astoundingly large number-52-had come from a single small town of 50,000 people along the Mediterranean coast called Darnah. Peraino traveled to Darnah to try to figure out why it was contributing such a large portion of its young men to fight the Americans in Iraq. In interviews, family members of the recruits spoke of young men with bleak lives in search of redemption. Far from being universally motivated by one global ideology, the jihadist recruits often seem to have been driven by personal factors like psychological trauma, sibling rivalry and sexual longing.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132938

INTERVIEW: Alvaro Uribe, President of Colombia (p. 32). Special Diplomatic Correspondent Lally Weymouth asks Uribe if he's thinking about alternatives to Colombia's strategic alliance with the United States if the U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement doesn't pass. "We have considered that. As for the House's approval of the free-trade agreement, the sooner the better. The more they analyze the current situation in Colombia-the efforts Colombia is making, the progress Colombia has made, the problems Colombia faces-the more they have to rethink and consider the possibility to approve the free-trade agreement."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132857

JONATHAN ALTER: "Adios, Sound Bites & Fat Cats" (p. 34). Senior Editor and Columnist Jonathan Alter writes about the impact of sound bites on the presidential campaign. The good, colorful sound bites get more play now than in the pre-YouTube age, and network news programs still attract large numbers of viewers with their "packages" of sound bites. "But the ecosystem of political media has changed, with sound bites losing their authority," Alter writes. "Consumers of news are less easily manipulated by the 24/7 barrage of images ...which are dissected endlessly on cable. Voters search for their own context. The bad news is that they are often simply looking for their opinions to be validated. The good news is that the search engages them more actively in the process and makes them demand more information than contained in sound bites."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132865

POLITICS: "Pause for Laughter"  (p. 36). White House Correspondent Holly Bailey reports on how GOP presidential candidate John McCain is trying to improve his skills at giving a speech. Reading a speech is not McCain's strength. His campaign is trying to find a happy medium between the candidate's comfort zone as a freewheeling campaigner who feeds off engaging directly with voters to the need for a candidate who can rouse and inspire audiences. 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132866

BUSINESS: "Murdoch, Ink." (p. 40). Senior Writer Johnnie L. Roberts reports on Rupert Murdoch's reconceived Wall Street Journal and how the media mogul plans to make the paper as influential as its rival The New York Times, basically starting an old-fashioned newspaper war. The fight could escalate in unknown ways if billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ends up acquiring the Times. As Newsweek has learned, top associates of the onetime information executive are encouraging him to do just that.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132852

ENVIRONMENT: "Rivers Running Dry" (p. 48). Health Reporter Jeneen Interlandi reviews a new book about the impending water crisis by Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute. In  "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet," Sachs describes the worldwide water shortage as "one of our most daunting challenges." A six-year drought in Australia has virtually wiped out that country's rice crop, contributing to food riots in countries from Haiti to Indonesia this month. "Much of the world is already in water crisis," Sachs says. "And that crisis will only continue to grow." Sachs poses several technical and economic strategies that may help avert disaster.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132892

CULTURE: "The Feminine Mistakes" (p. 50). Associate Editor Jennie Yabroff reports on another angle in the mommy wars-the influence of their own mothers on their lives. Some of these women's children may equate their mothers' career decisions with what type of mother they were, says sociologist Deirdre Johnston, coauthor of a forthcoming study on women's attitudes towards their own mothers and work. Many of the women she studied conflated their mothers' approach to being moms-involved or removed, supportive or critical-with whether they worked or stayed home. 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132891

SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW: "Endless Summer" (p. 52). Senior Editor and Movie Critic David Ansen opens this summer movie preview with an essay about the lack of good movie endings. Movies are expert at starting with a bang, he writes, but by the final reel, "inspiration is often replaced by rote-or the smell of fear, as the corporate suits strong-arm their filmmakers to come up with a socko finale that desperately tries to please everyone but ultimately satisfies no one." The summer season brings the usual collection of sequels, comedies, converted TV shows and special-effects derbies, and we can expect a deluge of happy endings. "The very notion of a franchise film, however, almost guarantees that its ending be less than fully satisfying. If it were, why would we want to come back for more?"

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132858

DOCUMENTARIES: "Snapshots Of Horror" (p. 57). Middle East Regional Editor Christopher Dickey reviews a new movie and companion book about Abu Ghraib, the notorious prison in Iraq, called "Standard Operating Procedure." The movie, directed by Errol Morris, "is remarkably cool, allowing the horror of the hundreds of photographs and the explanations by some of the soldiers  who took them to play across the viewer's psyche like waking nightmares," Dickey writes. "The book ... is, by contrast, incandescent with righteous anger."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132859

TIP SHEET: "Hard Times Mean Hard Thinking" (p. 58). Contributing Editor Jane Bryant Quinn offers some advice on how to invest in this economy. First, keep cash on hand in an insured bank account or money-market fund at a large institution. Also: diversification works and commodities can now be a very good addition to an investment plan.            

http://www.newsweek.com/id/132907

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