Índex per November 2, 2020 a TIME Magazine

We stand at a rare moment, one that will separate history into before and after for generations I DON’T OFTEN USE THIS SPACE TO DIRECT your attention to other publications, but I do recommend you check out an article Science published online on Sept. 24. Titled SINGING IN A SILENT SPRING, it adds a new entrant to the list of uplifting changes in the natural world that occurred when we humans went into temporary retreat at the start of the pandemic. It appears that in the relative hush of the San Francisco Bay Area this past April and May, the song of the white-crowned sparrow became quieter and sweeter than it had been before. This has been a year of so much pain, hardship, chaos and loss. And yet…

LESS THAN TWO WEEKS FROM ELECTION DAY, Senate Republicans are caught in a political vise. More and more members of their party are realizing that President Donald Trump is hurting their chances for re-election—and very possibly for control of the chamber. “We are staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami,” Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse said on a recent call with constituents, published by the Washington Examiner. GOP Senators are in a catch-22: standing by the President could hurt them, but straying too far risks losing support from his stalwart base. As Democrats’ chances of netting enough seats to wrest outright control of the Senate rise, Republican Senate candidates are adopting a variety of strategies to save their political skins. Some are old standbys for politicians trying to distance themselves…

MORE THAN 12 MILLION AMERICANS ARE unemployed, COVID-19 infections are spiking, and thousands of schools and childcare centers have yet to reopen in person. The group bearing the brunt of all that? Women. From August to September, 865,000 women—compared with just 216,000 men—dropped out of the U.S. labor force, according to a National Women’s Law Center analysis of the latest jobs report. Meanwhile, 1 in 4 women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce altogether, per an annual Women in the Workplace study published in September by McKinsey & Co. and the advocacy group Lean In. “There’s no historic parallel for what’s happening here for women,” says Nicole Mason, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “We have nothing to compare it to: not…

I STOOD, GARDENING GLOVES STILL COVERED IN dirt from digging out the last of the hole with my hands, and let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. My husband walked over and put his hand on the small of my back. “I guess that’s deep enough,” I said. “I think so.” He rubbed my whole back then. I leaned into him, glancing up at the sliding glass door. Our three daughters, two my own and one his, sat at the dining-room table covered in paints and canvases—something I made sure to supply them with since we’d hunkered down in March. The oldest looked up at me, but I quickly looked down at the fresh dirt again. “Should I go get it?” he said. We’d talked through…

IN FEBRUARY, CITI PRESIDENT Jane Fraser, 53, will become the first female CEO not only of Citi but of any major Wall Street bank. She spoke with TIME to discuss building a diverse workforce, the changing responsibilities of corporations and expanding the economic pie. Your promotion to CEO has been rightly celebrated, but we know that moves like this require intention. Can you address the myth of the pipeline problem? The talent exists, full stop. What we’ve really tried to do at Citi is make sure diverse candidates see us as a place where they can thrive and advance their careers. Things like strong parental-leave policies and maintaining an inclusive culture can make a huge difference. But to see results, you need transparency and accountability. A few years ago, in…

“THERE ARE DECADES where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, this quote says a lot about the impact of the novel coronavirus in an already fast-changing world. There is no history-changing revolution on the horizon, but the past few months of the pandemic have turbocharged four of the most significant geopolitical trends of recent decades: growing inequality, eroding legitimacy of democratic institutions, antiquated global architecture and ever faster levels of technological disruption. THE MOST INNOVATIVE PARTS OF OUR ECONOMIES HAVE SUFFERED THE LEAST DAMAGE GLOBAL INEQUALITY Inequality within countries was a problem long before any of us had ever heard the term COVID. In the pandemic’s early days, the U.S. Congress responded with strong fiscal stimulus, but the contentious election season…

WHEN MARCOS GALPERIN founded Mercado Libre in 1999, less than 3% of the population of Latin America was online. But the Argentine’s e-commerce platform flourished as the region became more connected, and now claims to be the market leader in all its major economies. Like other online sellers, it has thrived during the coronavirus pandemic, doubling sales in the second quarter year on year. Galperin spoke to TIME about the future of e-retail and the economic potential of the Americas. What’s different about doing e-commerce in Latin America compared with Europe or the U.S.? We had to create everything from scratch. The logistics for e-commerce and the infrastructure for digital payments—we had to create it all. Some of our international competitors, like eBay and Amazon, grew [much faster than us]…

DOUG MCMILLON STARTED AT the nation’s largest retailer as a teenager, unloading trucks for an hourly wage. He explains how he has positioned Walmart during the pandemic to make sure the $500 billion–plus company thrives in the new landscape that emerges going forward. What pandemic-induced changes in how you run your company do you expect to persist beyond the pandemic? When the pandemic hit, there was no question that we needed to put all our attention on the safety of our associates and serving our customers who needed access to food and critical supplies. It became clear there were a lot of meetings that didn’t need to happen and, also, that not everybody needed to be involved in every decision. That kind of rigorous prioritization was kind of a…

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT … TRAILBLAZERS Readers inspired by the rising stars who made up TIME’s 2020 class of Next Generation Leaders (Oct. 19) took to Twitter to sing their praises. “One of the most powerful voices for good in our times,” @amitdsinha wrote about para-badminton player and disability-rights activist Manasi Joshi. “Her values of inclusion, equality, endeavour and humility make her a people’s champ.” While @m_xol called Latin America’s youngest lawmaker, Ofelia Fernández, the “pride” of Argentina, the politician’s critics argued that she doesn’t represent all the country’s voters. @EwaJesu got at the essence of the series when she tweeted that the cohort captures a generation “not bound by conventional ways of doing things.” ‘Thank you for drawing … attention to these folks.’BARBARA J. SCHEFFER, Palm Beach Gardens,…

THE NIGERIAN ARMY AND POLICE SHOT dead at least 12 peaceful protesters in two suburbs of Lagos on Oct. 20, an Amnesty International investigation confirmed. Authorities disputed the report, though video footage that had emerged online appeared to show authorities firing live rounds at participants in nationwide #endSARS protests over police brutality, which are calling for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden urged Nigeria to cease the “violent crackdown on protesters.” NOTORIOUS FORCE The #endSARS hashtag dates back at least to 2017, when it was used to share experiences of assault and violence. SARS was formed in 1984 to combat an increase in armed robbery and crime, but it has been widely accused of abusing its power. Amnesty reported at least 82…

THE STORY STARTED WITH LITTLE MORE THAN A vague rumor. “They found six ballots in an office yesterday in a garbage can,” President Donald Trump told a Fox News radio show on Sept. 24. “They were Trump ballots. Eight ballots in an office yesterday in a certain state.” Four hours later, the White House hinted to reporters that state was Pennsylvania. And by that afternoon, the rumor had become official in the form of an announcement by the U.S. Justice Department. In a press release, federal prosecutors declared that nine discarded ballots had been found in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and that seven of them were votes for Trump. It is exceedingly rare for federal prosecutors to publicize an investigation that has barely started and rarer still for them to reveal…

IF YOU’VE EVER VOTED, YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN A poll watcher: they’re the quiet, modestly dressed folks standing to one side, observing the orderly process of democracy unfold. It’s a service provided by your neighbors, Democrat and Republican alike, that is supposed to give us all a little extra confidence that our elections are free and fair. “We’ve done it every election year as far back as I can remember,” says Steve Knotts, a veteran Republican organizer in Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County. Properly trained to follow local election rules, “they’re simply another person at the polling place,” says Knotts. And then there’s President Donald Trump’s version of a poll watcher. In recent months, official Trump campaign advertisements have adopted the stark language of wartime recruitment, calling on supporters to “enlist today”…

PERHAPS MORE THAN ANY other city, Tokyo bet big on 2020. Japan’s capital had earmarked $12.6 billion for hosting an Olympic Games that would rejuvenate run-down neighborhoods and turbocharge the country’s tourism industry. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, postponing the Games and throwing the city’s plans into uncertainty. Despite spiraling costs, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike says her city is ready for next year’s rescheduled Games and sees opportunities to leverage the crisis to improve governance. This interview has been translated from Japanese and was edited for length and clarity. Given the huge sums spent on the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, how important is making the rescheduled Games a success? It is extremely important. You can feel the power of sports is even stronger because of the current situation—and Tokyo…

KRISTALINA GEORGIEVA, AN environmental economist by training, took office as the managing director of the International Monetary Fund in October 2019, intent on greening the financial system. A year on, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a whole new set of challenges for her—and what the Bulgarian-born economist calls a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to rebuild the economy sustainably. The IMF said on Oct. 13 that the world economy will shrink by 4.4% this year. What needs to be done to drive a return to growth quickly? What we have reported is less dire than just a couple of months ago, but this is still the worst recession since the Great Depression. The road ahead is going to be steep. There are three actions we recommend. The first one is recognizing that…

IN APRIL, AS OFFICE WORKERS ACROSS THE WORLD stared down months of being stuck at home while juggling childcare, their jobs and general anxiety about a global pandemic, Lisa Kribs and Gavin Thomas, the co-founders of a marketing firm in Rochester, N.Y., decided to try an experiment to make life more pleasant for their stressed-out employees. They implemented a four-day workweek at their eight-person company, TGW Studio, and cut the number of meetings by about 50%. By paying everyone their same salaries while expecting them to work less, they hoped employees would be more productive during the hours they were actually on duty. They were right. Two months later, productivity had increased, and employees were generating the most creative work they’d done in a long time. A shorter workweek was…

THE POWER OF FANTASY By N.K. Jemisin THE WORLD IS STORIES. Consider the “flat-earther” who constructs elaborate chains of causation and meaning from facts that have little to do with each other. Consider bigotry, which does the same—and yet we have built entire school curricula, legal systems, infrastructure and industries around such ideas as “women can’t handle pressure” and “poor people are lazy.” Why do we believe one set of paranoid, questionable hypotheses and not another? Why do we designate some people as “heroes” and others as “villains,” and why are we so loath to change those designations when the people in question turn out to be just … people? How is it that we lately seem to have become a society that cares more about compelling nonsense than about…

‘As a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all, we are too small to lose sight of other people’s perspective.’JACINDA ARDERN, New Zealand Prime Minister, after winning re-election by a landslide vote on Oct. 17 $25,000 Prize money awarded Oct. 14 to 14-year-old Anika Chebrolu as part of the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, for research that could lead to a potential treatment for COVID-19 ‘You can hold me responsible.’RODRIGO DUTERTE, Philippine President, speaking on television Oct. 19, on the nearly 6,000 killings reported by police since he launched a drug war after taking office in 2016 17,000 m.p.h. Orbital speed of an old Chinese rocket booster and a defunct Soviet satellite that narrowly missed hitting each other in orbit on Oct. 15. A collision could have created a huge…

Thai pro-democracy protests rage Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha vowed to protect the monarchy on Oct. 19 after several days of student-led protests. For months, protesters have called for monarchy reforms, a new constitution and Prayuth’s ouster. Thousands have rallied in October, despite dozens of arrests and a ban on protests. U.S. to execute female federal inmate The U.S. will carry out its first execution of a female federal prisoner in nearly 70 years, the Justice Department announced on Oct. 16. Lisa Montgomery, 52, who was convicted in 2007 of killing a pregnant woman in order to kidnap the baby, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Dec. 8. Khashoggi’s fiancée sues Saudi leader In a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court on Oct. 20, Hatice…

SIGNED Mental health’s new number IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE having a heart attack, you wouldn’t hesitate to call 911. The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act now aims to make it just as reflexive to seek help during a mental-health crisis. Signed into law on Oct. 17 by President Donald Trump, the act means people experiencing suicidal ideation or a mental-health emergency will, by July 2022, need to dial only three digits—988—to connect with someone at a crisis center. The system offers access to specialists while being easier to remember than the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s existing 10-digit phone number. Regina Miranda, a suicide researcher at Hunter College, says the new hotline could make people more comfortable getting help—particularly people of color, who may hesitate to call 911 given…

On Oct. 13, the White House confirmed it was embracing a strategy that involves deliberately letting the novel coronavirus rip through the population while attempting to shield the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions. This approach is roundly rejected and discredited by scientists worldwide. This new strategy is also at the heart of a controversial new statement, titled the Great Barrington Declaration, written by three academics with views far outside the scientific mainstream—Jay Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta. They believe that if enough people get infected, survive and develop antibodies (natural protections from reinfection), then the virus will no longer be able to spread through populations; society will effectively have developed a natural “herd immunity” from SARS-CoV-2. They want most Americans to…

IT’S WINTER IN THE SOUTH OF POLAND, BUT THE ground is clear of any snow, and the thick clouds don’t carry any precipitation. Instead, the skies have been darkened by a layer of smog. The culprit is coal, and if there was any doubt, it would be dispelled by the 50-mile drive across the countryside from historic Krakow to the industrial city of Katowice. Lining the highway, there are the coal-processing facilities, where the rock is cleaned and prepared for use. Smokestacks jut into the sky, marking the country’s coal-fired power plants. Even the homes, visible from the highway, have a faint gray-colored exhaust, the result of the coal being used for heat. The pollution is a blight; Katowice ranks among the most polluted cities in Europe, and locals complain…

IN THE IMMEDIATE MONTHS THAT FOLLOWED THE outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world as we knew it was turned upside down. Like most people, I was constrained to observing the situation from inside my home and the World Economic Forum’s empty offices, and I relied on video calls to know how others were doing. Since those early moments of the crisis, it has been hard to be optimistic about the prospect of a brighter global future. The only immediate upside, perhaps, was the drop in greenhouse-gas emissions, which brought slight, temporary relief to the planet’s atmosphere. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that many started to wonder: Will governments, businesses and other influential stakeholders truly change their ways for the better after this, or will we go…

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA Amid the catastrophic ruin left by the pandemic, I believe there are reasons to be positive. I have hope that the post-COVID world could yet be fairer and more equitable. The pandemic has brought into clearer focus the need to do things differently. Our decade will be pivotal for determining whether we can keep the impact of climate change to a manageable level. This can be achieved only if businesses, governments and civil society pull together to make the investments that will determine the shape of our future. COVAX, the international effort to develop and equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccines across the globe, is a sterling example of this kind of collaboration. If we seize the opportunity now, in years to come we will be able to look…

So much has changed since What the Constitution Means to Me ran on Broadway last year. Do you feel like the show, which is now on Amazon Prime Video, has taken on an increased urgency? Though the show is designed to feel spontaneous, it’s very carefully constructed and hasn’t really changed much over 10 years, because everything that’s happening right now is a result of decisions that were made 400 years ago. The big reckonings we’re having in terms of race and the original crimes of slavery; of women’s bodies and the law; of the coequal branches of government and whether those are functioning well right now—these are all current, topical issues, but they were all set into motion so long ago. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg came to…