I know it seems a little early, but in politics you've got to pay attention to stories when they bubble up to the top. And Sarah Palin is about to bubble, if not outright explode, back onto the national scene. Her book, Going Rogue, had been on Amazon's bestseller list even before it came out. She's now started her book tour, or is it a presidential campaign? Whatever you think of Palin, she is a remarkable political figure. From the moment I watched her walk onto the Republican convention stage and wow a skeptical crowd with rare magnetism, it was clear to me that she was going to be with us for a while. What do you think of her? Could she be president? Do you plan to read her book?Drop me a note below or at editor@usnews.com and let's chat about where the Palin phenomenon is heading.

That didn't take long. He is just completing his first year in office, and Barack Obama's presidency is verging on crisis mode. Not a full-blown crisis, to be sure, but an array of bedeviling issues on so many fronts that he might soon set some kind of historical record for facing the most bad-choice/worse-choice decisions. He is officially a war president, having upped the troop level in Afghanistan and weighing even bigger questions about where we go from here. Then there is the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons, the stalled Mideast peace process, the fragile financial system, and the prospect of a jobless economic recovery. There's a global warming coalition in disarray, an incipient trade war with China—and of course the slog over healthcare reform, which Obama intended to be his first triumph.

In each case, the questions being asked around the world are: How will the American president lead? What direction will he give? What tone will he set? Is he up to the job?

Relax. You can still retire. You just might have to redefine the word retirement a bit. Like maybe calling it "second career explorations" or "extended earning opportunities" or just plain "working."

All right, this might not be as easy as you'd hoped. The economic tsunami of the last year has greatly complicated the already tricky issue of retiring gracefully. If you're close to that age, you've got some scrambling to do—near retirees probably took the biggest beating of anyone in the stock market meltdown. But even if you've got a long way to go, now's the time to revise your plans.

We're publishing our annual ranking of America's Best Hospitals at a moment when America's entire health industry is under the microscope. President Obama has decided that now is the opportunity to change the way the country gets its healthcare. He has opened up a trunkful of arguments, most notably about cost, effectiveness, and fairness. The debate will be with us for months to come, if not longer.

Our hospital rankings have long provided some important benchmarks at the top end of the quality spectrum. We looked in depth at nearly 5,000 of the nation's hospitals and selected the top performers in key specialties, as well as those rare few that do many things with excellence. We have also continued the separate rankings of children's hospitals that we began two years ago.

Besides the numbers, we look at some of the people and technologies that are improving medical care. The surgical robot is just one example of what we're starting to see in regular use. Laser surgery, body scans, and indestructible replacement parts for aging bodies are all becoming common. Many of the improvements have to do with communication, long a shortcoming in medical institutions. Patient data can be sent where they are needed more quickly. Doctors and equipment can be tracked in hospital hallways. Telemedicine, which allows specialists to diagnose patients far away, is gaining critical mass. Big investments by the best hospitals are cutting error rates and improving patient outcomes.

A popular president faces big problems but with supreme self-confidence rolls out an audacious series of solutions. "Rarely have such far-reaching changes been proposed for the U.S. economy...launching the nation on a dramatic and unexplored course that reverses decades-old policies." That's how U.S. News summed up the first phase of a monumental presidency—28 years ago. "The Reagan Revolution" was our cover headline March 2, 1981, and we dissected Ronald Reagan's bold plan to not only kick-start a moribund economy but reverse a trend of gov-ernment expansion that had begun in the 1930s.

It was tough medicine in the short run—massive cuts in spending programs coupled with high interest rates designed to snuff out inflation. "If misery loves company, then everybody'd better love everybody else, because we didn't overlook anyone," Reagan said. But the longer-term changes were equally profound: tax cuts and deregulation that shifted money and power to the private sector to stimulate the juices of capitalism. The outcome was mixed, and it is still debated. But the transformation could fairly be called revolutionary, at least by the civilized standards of American politics. No blood was shed, but fundamental changes were set in motion to the point that the words Reagan and revolution are now joined in perpetuity.

Don't get me wrong: There is nothing fun about a recession. But there may be some hidden value. What we've got going on now is not just a recession but a tectonic shift in many industries—my own included. In many cases, jobs that long existed will never be coming back, no matter how quickly the economy recovers. The auto industry will never employ as many people as it once did, and it is unlikely that industries like housing, retail, and financial services will have anywhere near the jobs they've had for the past two decades.

But other opportunities are emerging. Fields like—healthcare, the environment, education and of course, the federal government—all are hiring even in bad times and show great promise when the economy turns up. The point is, now is a good time to take stock of your work life and where it's going. This is when to think not just about your next move but about the ones beyond that.

If you think the intertwined subjects of energy and the environment are uninteresting, the April print issue is not for you. (If you're on the fence, give me a minute to make my case.) I know the hesitation. We've seen it, we've heard it. We're locked in the same old debate we've been having at least since the '70s when Americans first realized that energy wasn't a free good—and how unpleasant life became when the price went up, to say nothing of the social costs of using too much. Over the years, we've written our share of stories that, while fascinating, essentially recapped the status quo.

But a lot has changed very recently, and the stalled debate is moving toward a critical mass for action. In our current print issue, our writers and editors take you through the new state of play of this crucial topic, which involves politics, economics, and technology—and maybe the health of the world. What's changed, in a word, is Obama. The president and the tide of voters who swept him into office want a change in the way we manage energy and the environment—and to put them at the top of the country's agenda. It looks like that will happen.