Índex per September 2, 2019 a TIME Magazine

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT … IT’S HIS COUNTRY Andrew R. Chow’s Aug. 26 cover story on how Lil Nas X is revolutionizing country music prompted documentarian Ken Burns—whose newest film is about the genre—to tweet that the rapper is a great example of how country music “has always been an expansive art form rooted in our diverse background and history.” Even people who don’t love Lil Nas X’s hit song “Old Town Road” embraced his story. “I don’t care for his music but you gotta give him credit,” wrote Facebook user James Lashway. “To have a hit that crossed over from hip-hop to country as a gay black man is quite the feat.” William Smith, also on Facebook, said he hoped the cover would empower others “to come out…

A FIGHT IS BREWING OVER THE LUNGS OF the planet. Since taking office in January, Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has overseen a surge in logging in the vast Amazon rain forest—and on Aug. 15, Norway suspended a $33 million donation to a Brazilian sustainability fund because Bolsonaro had interfered in it; Germany froze its payment five days earlier. Bolsonaro responded with mockery, telling the Europeans to go “reforest Germany” instead, but what may lie ahead is no laughing matter. UNDER SIEGE Bolsonaro has delivered on campaign promises to weaken protections for the environment and indigenous communities, freeing up more land for cattle. Over 870 sq. mi. of the Amazon was cleared in July—a 278% increase from July 2018—according to satellite monitoring by Brazil’s space-research agency. Scientists say the…

DIED Peter Fonda Counterculture star PETER FONDA WAS THE SON OF OLD HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY, AND although he rejected the mantle of tinselly fame he stood to inherit from his father Henry Fonda, his own personal glamour was always something to behold. Fonda, who died on Aug. 16 at age 79, got his start in small television roles in the early 1960s. But it wasn’t until the end of that decade that he found his true path forward, in the iconoclastic 1969 road drama Easy Rider, directed by and co-starring his friend and fellow free spirit Dennis Hopper and written by Fonda, Hopper and Terry Southern. (The script would earn the three an Academy Award nomination.) Easy Rider, with its plot involving free love, a cross-country motorcycle trip and lots…

In the 1940s, the U.S. began adding fluoride to public water to prevent tooth decay. Since then, studies (some in animals) have suggested that high doses of fluoride could cause serious side effects like bone cancer and cognitive impairment. For a new study in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers measured fluoride levels in urine samples of 512 expectant Canadian women during each trimester. Their children later took IQ tests at age 3 or 4. After adjusting for factors such as maternal education and household income, the researchers found that higher fluoride corresponded with lower IQ scores, most strongly in boys. The relationship was not statistically significant among girls. Dr. Dimitri Christakis, editor in chief of JAMA Pediatrics, stresses that this was a single, observational study. “I’m not advocating, on the basis of…

ON A MARCH DAY ON NEW YORK CITY’S UPPER EAST Side, producers huddle on the narrow first floor of an art gallery, studying their monitors and surrounded by pictures of flora and fauna. Eagles and herons adorn the walls, but the bird that serves as the focal point of this big production is much daintier: small enough to perch on a finger, yet still beautiful enough to start a sensation. The bird, of course, is a goldfinch—or rather a painting of one from the 17th century by the Dutch artist Carel Fabritius. That indelible image was the inspiration for Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 2013 novel, The Goldfinch, which tracks the winding coming-of-age story of a teenage boy who steals the painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the…

You found your voice as a poet in 1973, a time when a lot of Americans found theirs. How much was that a factor? I didn’t set out to be a writer. I was shy, quiet, and I loved art because I didn’t have to speak with anyone. At one point, my spirit said, “You have to learn how to speak.” I think poetry came to me because there was a lot of change. In 1973, I was 23, a mother of two children, and I was in a very active Kiva club [that was raising awareness about Native American issues] during the native-rights movement. We were dispersed Americans, totally disregarded, and I felt our voices needed to be heard. I started writing poetry out of a sense of needing…

‘I am sorry for harm I have caused.’ELIZABETH WARREN, U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, at an Aug. 19 forum on American Indian issues in Sioux City, Iowa, six months after her controversial announcement that she’d taken a DNA test to prove her Cherokee ancestry 30¢ Cost of a gallon of gas at a Santa Monica, Calif., station on Aug. 15; the ’50s-era pricing, a promotional stunt for Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, was nixed by authorities when it caused traffic jams ‘I am her free bird. So why would I come back and be caged?’RASHIDA TLAIB, U.S. Congresswoman, at an Aug. 19 press conference, after Israel denied entry to her and Representative Ilhan Omar; Tlaib refused an offer to be allowed to visit her grandmother in the West…

El Salvador rape survivor acquitted A 21-year-old Salvadoran woman who served 33 months of a 30-year prison sentence for homicide, after giving birth to a stillborn child she said was conceived when she was raped, was cleared of all charges at a retrial on Aug. 19. The case drew international attention to El Salvador’s strict abortion laws. CDC probes lung illnesses’ link to vaping The CDC said Aug. 17 it was investigating a mysterious “cluster of pulmonary illnesses linked to e-cigarette use,” with 94 possible cases reported recently across 14 states. Symptoms include chest pain and difficulty breathing; the CDC says there is no evidence of links to an infectious disease. Secret Chinese social-media accounts axed Hundreds of Twitter accounts with suspected links to the Chinese state were suspended…

As the humanitarian crisis at the southern border has grown, the President and his allies have called for the U.S. military to be deployed in greater numbers. I commanded the U.S. Southern Command, overseeing all forces south of this country, for a few years, and I am skeptical that there is a military solution to these challenges. In July, it was reported that the Trump Administration was calling up over 2,000 more troops to support the approximately 5,000 already on duty there. To put that in perspective, we have fewer than 1,000 troops in Syria and only 14,000 in Afghanistan, where there is a clear-cut need for such combat capability. The military can help the Border Patrol with logistical support, intelligence gathering and construction of physical barriers. But U.S.…

IN FEBRUARY, NEVADA BECAME THE FIRST STATE IN THE country with a female-majority legislature. By June, with the help of the state’s Democratic governor, there were stronger laws ensuring equal pay for women, tougher penalties for domestic violence, better protection for sexual-assault survivors, more money for family-planning services, an end to a requirement that forced doctors to ask women their marital status before performing an abortion and an increased minimum wage. If anyone needed proof that having more female lawmakers benefits women, Nevada certainly makes a compelling case. And yet female voters have often rejected the idea that women should vote with gender in mind. In 2016, Nancy Pelosi told Politico podcasters, “I don’t think that any woman should be asked to vote for someone because she’s a woman.”…

UPSTAIRS AT THE BEACON THEATRE IN New York City, little girls were bouncing in like grounders, but JoJo Siwa knew how to field them. She caught their smartphone cameras in her right hand, scooped in their tiny shoulders with her left. The girls cracked smiles. They squinted. They screamed. Siwa bared her own teeth, looked into the front-facing lens and took a photo. “Awesome!” she said, and moved on to the next. At this particular meet and greet, arranged for the children of Viacom executives, she’d average about eight selfies per minute. Siwa, 16, has spaghetti blond hair and a voice like a wooden roller-coaster track—fun but rough, with unexpected undulations. She began her rise to fame around 2015 as a hammy preteen with a machinating mom on the…

ON HIS WAY TO AN AUG. 1 CAMPAIGN EVENT in Ohio, President Donald Trump was asked about America’s position on the months-long pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. “That’s between Hong Kong and that’s between China, because Hong Kong is a part of China,” Trump said. But as tensions mounted in the self-governing enclave in the following weeks, Trump’s aides and allies took different positions, with his State Department, National Security Adviser and supporters in the Senate backing the protesters and warning Beijing against intervention. The mixed messages left U.S. and foreign officials struggling with basic questions about American policy, such as to what extent the U.S. considers Hong Kong autonomous and how Washington might respond to the use of force to quell the demonstrations. More broadly, the confusion captures an…

EACH YEAR, THE FEDERAL TITLE X PROgram provides $286 million in grants to groups across the U.S. that provide family-planning care to low-income patients. But on Aug. 19, Planned Parenthood walked away from its share of the money rather than comply with new Trump Administration regulations that prevent referrals for abortion. In the wake of the decision, the organization will be left to try to bridge a funding gap so that patients can get the care they need, including cancer screenings, STD testing and birth control consultations. “We’re trying to do all we can to ensure that the care continues,” acting Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said on a call with reporters the day of the announcement. “Using fundraising to do what should be a state responsibility, a…

THE ECONOMIC warning signs are flashing yellow. In Germany, the U.K., Italy, Brazil and Mexico, growth has stalled. In Japan, business confidence has turned negative for the first time since 2013. China’s industrial output is growing at its slowest pace in 17 years. An inverted yield curve has U.S. economists on recession watch. But the real uncertainty is coming from the biggest surge in decades of the kind of political volatility that is relevant to markets. Politically motivated trade fights are under way between countries that make up half the global economy—from the U.S. and China, to the U.S. and Europe, to South Korea and Japan. The most worrisome of these economically damaging political fights is the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, which shows no signs of…