The week started in tragedy as an F5 tornado with 200 mile-per-hour winds that barreled through Moore, Okla., a suburban town just outside Oklahoma City. It ripped apart 13,000 homes, left roughly $2 billion in damages and 24 dead in its wake. The 55,000 resident community of Moore is already in the process of rebuilding as the President is expected to visit this Sunday.

Meanwhile, it was a busy couple of days in the tech space. Online giant Yahoo! Inc. announced its purchase of the popular blogging site Tumblr for a whopping $1.1 billion, just the latest investment for a company seeking to rebound.

Likewise, Microsoft unveiled the name and specs for its latest generation video game console, the Xbox One, leaving—unsurprisingly—many gamers divided in fervor and excitement.

And Apple Inc.’s CEO Tim Cook was relatively unscathed when he took to Capitol Hill and fielded questions on his company’s tax practices in Ireland.

Also in Washington, the White House Press corps had a taste of the Memorial Day Weekend to come, grilling the Obama Administration over the latest scandals that hit the beltway, with the administration’s targeting of journalists and news organizations over government leaks leading the news cycle.

And in sports, LeBron James took his Miami Heat to a 103-102 Game 1 victory against the Indiana Pacers in the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals. James’ layup at the buzzer in overtime is the latest talking point in the ongoing debate about who is better, LeBron or Jordan.

Thankfully, the week comes to a close with the triumphant return of the cult classic “Arrested Development” on Netflix, restoring calm by bringing back America’s favorite stair car. Remember, “no touching!”

Oklahoma Tornadoes 2013: A magazine on the disaster that hit Moore, Okla., earlier this week.

Tech – Best of the Day: Jorwin Crowley’s magazine collects the big tech stories of the day.

Xbox One: Everything you’ll need to know about Microsoft’s next generation game console.

Apple Business: A collection of stories about Apple’s business and the waves it creates.

Obama Scandals Benghazi, the IRS investigations, the AP probe…this magazine has it all.

Miami Heat: A fan’s ode to the NBA Championship contender.

Bluth’s Banana Stand: All you need to know about the return of Arrested Development.

Are we missing anything? Send your recommendations to staffpicks@flipboard.com.

~NajibA
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After completing his MBA from the London School of Business in 1972, Tony Wheeler and his wife Maureen decided to take a year off and spend their honeymoon traveling. The plan was to go see the world and get travel out of their system before settling down.

Forty years later, Wheeler, who also has a degree in mechanical engineering, has kept at it, having trekked across more than three-quarters of the world’s countries and building up the travel guide empire Lonely Planet.

After the couple’s overland trip from England to Australia, they wrote and published “Across Asia on the Cheap,” a 94-page pamphlet that sold for $1.80 and answered the many questions they received from friends, such as: “Where did you guys stay? What did you eat? How’d you not get sick?” The first edition of Lonely Planet was born in 1973.

The esteemed travel guide is celebrating its 40th birthday this year, so we invited Wheeler to our red couch and asked him about what it’s like being a “parachute artist,” traveling into “dark lands” and if he ever asks for directions.

What’s the satisfaction you get out of travel?
There’s never a day where something new or fresh doesn’t come up. It can often be very uncomfortable but it can never be boring. There’s a lot to be said to that. I don’t like being bored.

Did growing up in a household that moved around help you in becoming a “parachute artist”?
I think moving around can make you an insecure person and I think in some ways, I was an insecure person. Every couple of years I was the new kid. But looking back, I think I quite enjoyed it. I was always fascinated by geography and maps and that element of travel.

You’ve traveled to some less touristy areas, places you call “dark lands,” like Papua New Guinea, the Congo and North Korea. What has that been like?
Well, you realize that what you read in the media is not always correct, generally not correct.

The places are never as bad as they make it out to be. It’s interesting to go to places with bad reputations. Pakistan, the Congo, Palestine, Iran—I had a wonderful time going to all those places, Iran especially.

I came back. I was like, what is it all about? Great people, wonderful history, drinking tea, quoting poetry, drinking alcohol illegally—shame about the nuclear weapons.

Are there places that you haven’t been to that you really want to go?
Yeah, lots of ’em. One I haven’t been to that’s on top of my bucket list is Yemen. It’s a fascinating country.

How do you prepare before traveling to a new place?
I will always look at a guidebook. The next place that I’m going to in the next few weeks is Capri in Italy, so I’ve taken a look at a few guidebooks, have a glance at that, and have a little idea of where I’m going before I get there.

What are your thoughts on traveling with someone vs. traveling alone?
I would say the great advantage of traveling by yourself is that you never have to argue with anyone and go through conversations like “Dammit, you chose this hotel! We should’ve chosen that hotel” or “Why are we doing this?“ or “Why haven’t we found a restaurant?” or “We are wasting our time here.”

If you travel by yourself, you can kick only yourself if you’ve made the wrong decision.

On the other side, if you’re with someone, you’ve got someone to bounce ideas off of. You’ve got someone to talk to you for those times you come out of a museum and you say, “Wasn’t that fantastic?” They’re both good in their own ways.

Having traveled for 40 years now, what’s the one piece of advice you would’ve given yourself when you first trekked out to Australia in 1972?
Don’t miss some great opportunity, because you may not get to do it get again. Don’t sit around thinking you’ll come back around to do it.

The thing I always bring up is when I was in Afghanistan in 1972. I could’ve gone up to Bamiyan from Kabul to see the Bamiyan buddhas. I have been to Bamiyan since, but after the Taliban destroyed them. Quite a regret in my life—I’ve have many others in my life, but that’s one.

How has sharing your travel stories changed?
We used to subject people to slideshows when we came back. Now they’re being subjected to Twittering and Facebooking and emailing—it’s the modern equivalent of making yourself obnoxious when you travel.

With the advent of technology and travel startups, is there much room for the guidebook?
I think that each one has its own space and to a certain extent they can coexist. Some of the stuff we were doing very early on, the crowdsourced information type of thing; people would write to us and say you should include this and why didn’t you include this.

We’re not going to read any less words than we have always read in the years to come. We’re going to do them on different platforms—not just on paper, but on phones, tablets, through the Internet. We’ll still want the information and are searching for it. It just depends on where it comes from and how it pops up.

What will you always carry with you when you travel?
Two essentials: your passport and your credit card. The other things and essentials are things you can replace as long as you have money.

Do you ask for directions when you need them?
Sure. Not in front of my wife, but I do.

~NajibA
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The detailed country guides published in the early years of Fodor’s Travel came from talented writers—and spies. Eugene Fodor, the founder of the iconic travel guide franchise, worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and the agency it became shortly after—the Central Intelligence Agency.

Fodor, who spoke six different languages, was somewhat reluctant in hiring spies under the cover of travel writer, but he had one major requirement. “I told them to make sure and send me real writers, not civil engineers. I wanted to get some writing out of them. And I did, too,” he told The New York Times in 1975, shortly after he was outed for his clandestine service.

Travel was something Fodor, who died in 1991, took seriously. He’s been dubbed “the spy who loved travel” and started his career with “On the Continent,” a guidebook on Europe in 1936. His work would transform travel journalism from banal lists of monuments to insightful guide books that explicated a city’s transportation, food, culture and people.

Now 77 years old, the travel franchise continues that mission with its team of 700 travel writers across the globe. Starting today, you can flip through Fodor’s Travel on your Flipboard where its stories and entries come paginated for your browsing and travel pleasure.

~NajibA
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“Flipboard For You” is our bi-weekly series highlighting how different groups of people can make the most out of Flipboard. This edition is focused on anyone who loves to travel. Here are tips to help plan your next trip, inspire future ones or showcase your expertise. Or maybe your wanderlust is satisfied by just looking, in which case magazines can transport you to virtually any time and place.

(Click on the cover to see each magazine.)

1. Collect Ideas. A magazine can serve as an ideabook of all the countries, cities, restaurants, events and sights that you want to visit in the year or even in your lifetime. Get inspired by tapping on the red ribbon and browsing premier travel magazines (NatGeo, AFAR), guide books (Lonely Planet, Fodor’s) and blogs (The Everywhereist, Hotel Belle) in the Travel category of the Content Guide. Then, when it’s time to make vacation plans, you can quickly flip through your curated collection to remember all the places you wanted to go.

Get Outta Town: by Jeremy Slick

Adventure Trip Ideas: by National Geographic

Big’s Bucket List: by Stephen Garrett

2. Create a Travel Guide. OK, so you’ve got a trip coming up. Tap on the search field on Flipboard and type in the name of the place or other keywords, or browse the Content Guide for expert advice from publications like BBC Travel, Outside Magazine and Lonely Planet. Create the ultimate travel companion by collecting articles about the place into a magazine. Once there, you can always whip out your phone or tablet and flip for ideas about what to see, where to eat, where to shop, etc.

Turkey: by Joice

36 Hours: Europe: by The New York Times

Big American cities – insider tips by locals: by Spotted By Locals

3. Make a Memory Magazine. Showcase vacation highlights and pictures by creating a magazine and sharing it with friends and family. Host your photos on a service like Instagram or Flickr, or if you’re on an Android phone or tablet, you can also flip the photos on your device directly into the magazine. Incorporate articles from local media or tweets from your co-travelers, and use our Web tools to arrange the content in a way that best tells the story of your journey. Set your favorite photo as the cover and you can even flip in audio from SoundCloud to give the magazine more atmosphere. Tap the share icon on your magazine’s cover to either email it or share via social networks.

South Africa vacation 2008: by Mark Rietveld

4. Showcase Your Expertise. Industry insiders are already using Flipboard to educate travelers on everything from the ins and outs of the world’s airports to luxury travel, hotels and cuisine. Subscribe to their magazines to get the latest news in your Cover Stories. Even if you don’t work in the travel industry, you can put your own regional knowledge on display in a magazine about your hometown.

Elite Travel Style: by Stacy Small

The Airport Hub: by Elina Zheleva

5. Publish Original Content. If you have a travel blog, make sure it’s on a platform integrated with Flipboard, like Tumblr, or that it’s available as an RSS feed (here’s how to optimize your RSS for Flipboard). Then, search for it on Flipboard, or go to it on the Web, and flip any articles into your magazine. Add content from Flickr, Instagram, YouTube and other sites to custom publish a magazine on any topic of interest. In fact, a magazine gives you the tools to function just like a travel blogger—even if you don’t have a blog.

A CULINARY PHOTO JOURNAL: by A Culinary (Photo) Journal

How do you use Flipboard for travel? Please share your ideas and magazines with us at staffpicks@flipboard.com. And don’t forget to check out the last installment in the Flipboard for You series, Flipboard for Neighborhood Activists, Issue Advocates, Political Junkies and Pols devoted to anyone who’s politically active.

~CarolynG
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This week provided a rude awakening about the perils of life in the Information Age. On Wall Street, many were horrified this week to learn that Bloomberg journalists had used secret backdoors to monitor the activities of clients using the company’s ubiquitous Bloomberg terminals. In other cases, journalists were revealed to be the objects of snooping, after it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice had obtained phone records of calls made by AP reporters as part of of a government investigation into national security leaks.

These Flipboard magazines are dedicated to watching the watchers by focusing on surveillance, privacy and the information technologies that have become a fixture of modern life.

Surveillance, Privacy, Policy by Chris provides a thorough digest of news related to information access.

Surveillance Studies by Hugo Ramos is (somewhat paradoxically) dedicated to surveilling current trends in surveillance and data-management.

Drones by jeanchristophed collects articles about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles around the world.

Big Data & Analytics by George K. Mathew offers a curated view on large-scale information management techniques.

Privacy Oxymoron by Rich Gray examines government policy and the many ways companies use and share personal information.

Got a magazine we should know about? Share it with us at staffpicks@flipboard.com.

~ToddL
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Martin Dickson’s career with the Financial Times has taken him all over the world. After starting out as an African affairs correspondent in the mid-1970s, Dickson returned to the FT’s headquarters in London, then moved to New York, before again returning to London, where he became the FT’s deputy editor in 2005. Last September, Dickson packed his bags for another move to New York, where he now oversees FT’s North American editorial operation as the paper’s U.S. managing editor.

Now that he’s had a few months to settle into his new home, Flipboard spoke with Dickson to find out what makes the Financial Times unique, what kinds of people read it, and what’s the backstory behind the FT’s distinctive salmon-colored pages.

How do you define the FT’s editorial mission?
The Financial Times presents a coherent, neutral, unbiased worldview which primarily covers economics, politics, business and finance for readers around the world. Our readers rely on us to provide a filter for the news they need to do their jobs effectively.

What kind of jobs do those readers have?
They vary, but many are in business or finance. We have a large number of readers involved in politics. Many are in academia—and not just business schools. On weekends we have an even broader readership because of our arts, food and wine coverage—the kinds of things you want to read about when you’re relaxing.

The FT’s global perspective on business news is unique, yet we live in an era when anyone can access virtually any news source, anywhere around the globe. So what does it mean to take a global approach to business news?
It’s true: you can get news from anywhere in the world. But what you can’t get is a take that is sorted and presented for its importance. We don’t just provide news; we make clear why the news we present is relevant. We present a coherent world view that you don’t get by sourcing your news “cold” from various parts of the world.

Of course, the FT is also very British. How does Britishness shape the FT’s coverage?
Our staff is very international. Our Britishness helps, however, because Britain has for hundreds and hundreds of years relied on trade and interaction with the rest of the world to support itself. Britishness means we come to the news with a more global perspective.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job now?
Good question. The most challenging—and most important—is growing our readership. We need to be very tuned in to what our readers really want, and that goes back to our mission of presenting a coherent world view on economics, finance, business, politics and cultural issues.

What’s different about American business culture today compared to when you were here during the 1990s?
The pace is a lot faster, and it’s also much more global. The implication of things happening faster is that the speed of decision-making is also faster. The tenure of chief executives both in Europe and the U.S. has been diminishing, and that’s because people are given less time to prove their strategy works. That’s an important change.

Within America more generally, the country has become much more divided. America was much more bi-partisan in the 1990s, and the gridlock we see in Congress today is very much a reflection of that.

Amid the faster pace and more global outlook, is a new equilibrium for business emerging?
I’m not sure we will reach a new equilibrium — at least in the short term. We’re only in the early stages a major industrial revolution. New companies with disruptive ideas will continue to invade new territory, so I don’t see us reaching any kind of equilibrium soon.

Meanwhile, the entire field of journalism is facing similar disruptive pressure. How is the FT adapting?
We are becoming platform-neutral. Our ambition is to get the news in front of users in whatever form they want: PC, print, web or mobile — and that now includes Flipboard. We adapt according to the technology our readers require. We now have more digital subscribers than we have print buyers of the newspaper. We think readers will pay for news they really value, and if we give it to them on whatever platform they want, then we’ve got an exciting business.

No matter what technology readers use to access the FT, one thing remains: the salmon-colored pages. What’s the story with that?
It goes back to our origins in the 19th century. The color was a early marketing tool to distinguish the very young Financial Times from its competitors at the time. It turned out to be a brilliant coup, because it’s become synonymous with the FT ever since. Our plan is to maintain that tradition, no matter what platforms we use.

~ToddL
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Please join us for our first Skillshare class, called “Flip It! Make Magazines on Flipboard,” on May 28. Attendees will learn the basics of curating on Flipboard using both their mobile device and the new Flipboard Editor for the Web, and they’ll get a tour of the many personal and professional purposes a magazine can serve.

The class will also kick off a weeklong drive to find great magazines for featuring, giving new curators a head start on building their readership. The Flipboard editorial team will select at least three magazines created as a result of the class for top placement in our Content Guide and other promotional areas.

Enroll here today.

~MiaQ
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If it’s got two wheels, stylish looks and you can ride it, chances are you’ll find it in Bike EXIF or Cycle EXIF. The brainchild of former creative director Chris Hunter, Bike EXIF and Cycle EXIF are dedicated to the love of cycling, gorgeous design and beautiful photography. Bike EXIF is the home for bikes with motors, focusing on classic, custom and racing motorcycles. Cycle EXIF is pedal-powered, with an emphasis on commuter, custom, classic and fixed-gear bicycles.

Either way, Bike EXIF and Cycle EXIF both provide rich imagery and thoughtful commentary about some of the most lovely two-wheeled machines ever made. Plus, they both look better than ever on Flipboard, thanks to a new set of layouts that we’ve recently rolled out.

~ToddL
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Today’s update for iPad and iPhone offers several new features—including revamped profile pages and the ability to text a magazine to someone. But really it’s about friends. (Isn’t it always?)

There’s a new share menu that makes it easier to send items you find on Flipboard (or entire magazines) to friends; just tap and hold on the item or use the share button in the bottom right.

If you have friends creating magazines on Flipboard, there’s an exciting new place to discover what they’re curating. First, be sure you’ve connected Flipboard to your favorite social networks. Then tap on the red ribbon to check out your new Friends category. Its signature section is called “Flips by Friends,” an uber feed containing everything your friends—the people you follow on Flipboard as well as on other social networks—are curating into magazines. Below the section, you’ll see a grid of individual magazines that have been recently updated.

The Friends category is a good way to quickly learn about magazines being created or refreshed by people you care about. These magazines can fuel your own curatorial efforts or just your mind.

See Flips by Friends in action in this video, which also has a quick tour of the new profile pages and shows how SMS can be used to attract readers to your magazine.

If you haven’t already, update your Flipboard edition via the App Store.

~The Flipboard Team
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It’s the end of the week, and we have a hunch you may need a drink. Luckily, we have you covered. From organic juice to gourmet coffee to exotic cocktails, Flipboard users are creating gorgeous magazines dedicated to the liquids they love to sip. Grab yourself a glass and get a taste of these terrific magazines that can help satisfy your thirst for something delicious.

Caffeinated by Jason takes an invigorating look at coffee, coffee preparation, and coffee culture.

Juice Healthy West Coast Style explores the all-natural taste of organic cold pressed fruit juices.

Tea by byteforbyte offers a beautiful, photo-intensive look at tea, teaware, and tea cultivation.

Beer Times by jardmonkey is dedicated to the love of brewing and drinking craft beer.

Wine Now! by Nick calls itself “the essential magazine for winelovers and the wine trade.”

Handcrafted Cocktails by Bonnie Rush is a clever collection of inspiring mixology ideas.

Neat on the Rocks by jason.in.social is all about whisky — single-malt or blended, but always savored.

Got a magazine we should know about? Share it with us at staffpicks@flipboard.com.

~ToddL
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