Inhaltsverzeichnis für August 14, 2023 in TIME Magazine

“We didn’t call it a revolution,” says pastor Greg Laurie, of the surge in young people adopting the Christian faith in the ’70s, first in California, then across the U.S. and around the world. “TIME magazine coined that phrase. We called it ‘The Jesus Movement.’ But I think actually TIME editors had it right, because they saw something bigger.” In April 1966, TIME had published one of its most controversial covers ever, posing a not-so-simple question: “Is God Dead?” The issue was greeted with enraged sermons and more than 3,000 letters to the editor. A mere five years later, God’s son was the cover star, looking like the lead guitarist in a folk-funk band proclaiming that reports of a divine death were premature. “Jesus is alive and well and…

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors noticed that for what was originally described as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 seemed to have a strong effect on the brain, causing everything from loss of taste and smell and brain fog to, in serious cases, stroke. Years later, cognitive decline, changes in brain size and structure, depression and suicidal thinking, tremors, seizures, memory loss, and new or worsened dementia have also been linked to SARS-CoV-2 infections. In some cases, these longer-term problems occur even in patients who had mild COVID-19. The question now is what, exactly, is going on in the brains of people infected by SARS-CoV-2—and whether the damage can be reversed. Not long after the pandemic began, Dr. Avindra Nath, clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke…

On July 17, Russia suspended the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered last year by the U.N. and Turkey that has moved some 33 million metric tons of grain and oilseeds from Ukraine to foreign ports. That deal, which Russia also briefly suspended in October 2022, provides big benefits for poorer countries struggling with high food prices. Now, Moscow claims the right to treat any foreign ship heading for a Ukrainian port as a legitimate target of war, making it impossible for outsiders to protect grain ships, and pushing up shipping and insurance costs. Moscow is aware it now has real PR problems in poorer countries But there are several reasons Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s food exports probably won’t trigger an emergency for global food prices and the…

As the nation grappled with the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns in March 2020, a lot of public officials were desperate for information. Everyone, it seemed, had answers but not necessarily facts. Contradictions were as common as anxiety. So, in a remarkably unsexy manner, Bloomberg Philanthropies swung into action with the network it had quietly been building with city leaders for more than a decade. By the end of that March, the data-based arm of billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s charity operation was organizing weekly calls with mayors, public-health chiefs, and politicians to help thousands of officials trade information and ideas—and even blow off some steam. In a moment that lacked an obvious playbook, Bloomberg Philanthropies provided a lifeline to local leaders across the country. Yet that barely scratches the surface…

For decades, the threats that defined Israel arrived from without, and produced a basic cohesion. On security, Jewish Israelis spoke as one, historically giving the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) approval ratings near 90%. But the paroxysm convulsing the country in its 75th year is wholly internal. The current crisis rises not from any Arab neighbor—several of which now enjoy cordial relations with the Jewish state—but over how Jewish Israelis choose to live. The question is fraught, and appears to threaten the fabric of the nation. Like its borders, Israel’s government structure is not fixed. It’s a parliamentary democracy without a constitution. The Prime Minister sits in the Knesset, the legislature, and the only check on the majority is the Supreme Court, which at times decides its role for itself. Now,…

DIED Sinéad O’Connor Protest singer “I’m not a pop star,” Sinéad O’Connor, who died on July 26 at 56, wrote in her 2021 memoir. “I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then.” For many, the Irish musician was much more than that, including both a balm and a battery. Over her 10 studio albums released from 1987 to 2014, she lived as she sang, without compromise, electrified by the injustice and sadness she saw around her and deploying the excess acid in that battery to empower others. Most people found O’Connor via either the luminous music video for her 1990 cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” all bald head, oversize overcoat, and wide-eyed ferocity, or her shredding of a photo of the…

I was born missing my left arm. And while there really isn’t anything I can’t do, it felt like an obvious inadequacy in a world saturated with an obsessive desire for perfection. In 1986, at 18 months, I was fitted with a prosthetic device, a decision made by my parents and doctors so that I would blend in and develop “normally.” But there was nothing empowering about forcing a toddler to wear a heavy and at times painful device. I spent my entire childhood and adolescence trying to conform. I did just about anything to ease the agonizing pains of the stares, verbal taunts, and pointed fingers from my classmates. I wore long sleeves, I starved myself, I did whatever I needed to do to become invisible. By the…

ESSAY THERE’S NO RIGHT OR WRONG IN MOVIE LOVE If you’re like most people, you probably freeze when someone asks you what you think is the best movie of all time. What if you give a confident answer, only to wake up in the middle of the night, certain you should have said something else? And do you choose the movie you love most, or one you know is commonly identified as great? After all, if you go with one of the classic, default choices—Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Godfather—no one can accuse you of having bad taste, or strange taste. Or the wrong taste. After compiling and annotating my own list of the 100 best movies of the past century—broken down by decade, 10 pictures in each—I’m here to…

The patent on the tuberculosis drug bedaquiline expired on July 18. But while its manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, could use secondary patents to extend its exclusive right to sell the drug, it instead struck an innovative deal that will lower the drug’s price and expand access to it for millions of poorer people around the globe—a major public-health win against the world’s deadliest infectious disease. BY THE NUMBERS Tuberculosis infects approximately 10 million people per year, killing some 1.5 million. Over the decades, some strains of the bacteria that cause TB have evolved and can no longer be treated with the most common TB medicines. Roughly half a million people become infected with multidrug-resistant TB each year, requiring treatment with bedaquiline. The drug reduces the risk of death by…

There’s no shortage of recommendations about how to become happier. But how effective are they? A new study reports that the most popular strategies endorsed in the media, and therefore recommended by experts, aren’t supported by as much science as people may think. The analysis of thousands of happiness studies found that most of them were not conducted using the most scientifically rigorous methods to evaluate the five most popular happiness strategies—expressing gratitude, practicing mindfulness, becoming more socially engaged, spending time in nature, and exercising. The biggest issue, say the scientists from the University of British Columbia who performed the review, involved adjustments researchers made from how they originally planned to analyze the data and how they actually crunched the numbers after the data were collected. “It’s like throwing…

It’s hard for some people to reconcile reports of A-list stars commanding tens of millions in salaries with the news of an actors’ strike. Why has a union representing such an apparently lucrative profession taken such a dramatic step? Those big stars—they draw people into the theaters and allow everybody below them to make a living. But [most] people in this 160,000-members-strong union make not enough to even be eligible for health benefits. Most actors just want to pay rent, put food on the table, and be respected. Those are the people we must strike for. When the opposition says that if you’re a background person, we’ll scan your image [with AI] and pay you for one day, then own your likeness in perpetuity, where does that leave that performer?…