COVER: "Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue: The World That Awaits" (p. 28). Contributing Editor Richard N. Haass offers advice on the global challenges that await the 44th president. In a memorandum to the president-elect, he writes that the world he is about to inherit "is not the world you've been discussing on the trail." "The good news is that many of the arrows in Iraq are finally pointing in the right direction and it will not dominate your presidency. The bad news is that you know you are in for a rough ride when Iraq is the good news," writes Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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"The Right Way Back" (p. 32). New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg offers the next U.S. president advice on how he should handle issues such immigration, education and the economy after taking office. "By the time you take the oath of office, the worst of the bank panics should be behind us. And while the economy may well be in a full-fledged recession, leading the country out of it, and laying the foundation for a new century of growth and prosperity, can't be done in a few short months -- and it can't be done with regulatory reform alone," Bloomberg writes. "It is critical that you not allow Congress to confuse regulatory reform with an economic agenda. The long-term health and strength of the nation's economy depends less on the shape of federal regulations than on the country's capacity for growth and innovation."

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INTERNATIONAL: "We Should Talk to our Enemies" (p. 40). Nicholas Burns, former United States under-secretary of state for political affairs, writes that John McCain is wrong to attack Barack Obama for his willingness to sit down with America's foes. "As Americans learned all too dramatically on 9/11 and again during the financial crisis this autumn, we inhabit a rapidly integrating planet where dangers can strike at any time and from great distances. And when others -- China, India, Brazil -- are rising to share power in the world with us, America needs to spend more time, not less, talking and listening to friends and foes alike."

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"That Was Amateur Night" (p. 42). National Security Correspondent John Barry interviews United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about the national security challenges facing the next president. Gates shares, "I entered the CIA 42 years ago, and I think that the world is as complex and in a real way more dangerous than at any time since then." He examines the various challenges facing the United States, as well as what Gates believes are some of America's strengths. He says, "One of the great strengths of America is that, maybe more than any other country, we have the ability to correct course when we go too far in one direction."

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BOOK EXCERPT: "The Jordan Gospel" (p. 52). Vernon E. Jordan Jr., senior managing director, Lazard, and senior counsel, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, in an excerpt from his book "Make It Plain," a collection of his speeches, looks to history to explain our current political landscape. "As one born in 1935 in the deep south who saw my father and oldest brother go off to Europe and Asia to fight in World War II and return home to Georgia unable by law to vote in the white primary, I stand here today -- astonished, smashed, unbelieving, incredulous -- that America has come to this place and time."

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LIVING POLITICS: "What Have We Created?!" (p. 54). Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist Howard Fineman writes that while the Obama campaign has created a successful grass-roots machine made up of an astonishing number of supporters (3.1 million contributors, 5 million volunteers, and millions more supporters on Facebook alone), it could cause him a headache if he wins the election because "if you live by viral marketing, you can die by it, too." While Obama is an innovator in organizing and communicating, he also claims to be more: the first communal candidate. If he wins the election, at some point he will start governing and may disappoint his loyal followers, and "that's when we'll know how 'trusting' an organization it really is."

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POLITICS: "The Palin Problem" (p. 55). Senior Writer and Political Correspondent Jonathan Darman writes about what Sarah Palin could mean for the Republican party if John McCain loses the election. Palin's image may actually be what the Republican party is lacking: "a populist, far-right politician with intense celebrity appeal," and her big ambitions may signal her reinvention of the Republican Party -- not from the middle, but from the right.

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SCIENCE: "Why We Believe" (p. 56). Senior Editor Sharon Begley writes about the 90 percent of Americans who say they have experienced paranormal things or believe they exist. A growing number of researchers across fields are taking such beliefs seriously as a window into the workings of the human mind. The emerging consensus is that belief in the supernatural seems to arise from the same mental processes that underlie everyday reasoning and perception, but then those processes become hijacked and exaggerated. Historically, times of economic distress and social anomie are marked by a surge in belief in astrology, ESP and other paranormal phenomena.

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BETWEEN THE LINES: "Why McCain Won" (p. 61). Senior Editor and Columnist Jonathan Alter writes about the Democratic Party's nightmare: losing the election because of "low-information voters" and racism. It probably won't happen, Alter writes, but "millions of people in the rest of the world assume that Barack Obama cannot be elected because he is black. They assume that the original sin of American history -- enshrined in our Constitution -- cannot be transcended. I go into next week's election with a different assumption -- that the common sense and decency of the American people will prove the skeptics wrong."

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HEALTH: "Stomping Through a Medical Minefield" (p. 62). Senior Writer Claudia Kalb writes about Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who is at the center of the autism controversy. Offit believes in the safety of vaccinations in children and refuses to back down. In his new book, "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure," Offit takes on his critics full- force, challenging them to prove the science wrong. "People think of me as this wild-eyed maniac," Offit says. "If I sat down with them for 10 minutes, they'd see that my motivation is the same as theirs. You want what's best for kids."

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SOURCE Newsweek