Índex per October 25, 2021 a TIME Magazine

TWO YEARS AGO, JUST BEFORE WE MOVED into TIME’s new headquarters in midtown Manhattan, we invited our team to suggest names for a large conference room near the entrance—the first thing you see on the way into our offices and the last on the way out. There were many inspiring ideas drawing on TIME’s century of history, but we settled on a choice from the much more recent past: “Guardians,” after the name we gave to our 2018 Person of the Year, a group of fearless journalists who risked their lives in pursuit of the ultimate mission of our profession: truth. On Oct. 8, one of those journalists, Maria Ressa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a stirring announcement for us at TIME, and for all who…

U.N. punts on climate-change lawsuit A U.N. committee announced on Oct. 11 that it will not rule on a lawsuit filed by a group of youth climate activists—including Greta Thunberg—against five countries for violating their rights by failing to adequately fight climate change. The committee said the suit must first be filed in national courts. Navy engineer charged on sub secrets After a FBI sting that involved the couple hiding memory cards in sandwiches and chewing gum, on Oct. 9 a U.S. Navy engineer and his wife were arrested for selling classified information about “the design of nuclear-powered warships to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power.” Trove of tax-shelter docs unveiled The largest-ever leak of offshore data, the release of the “Pandora papers” on…

SINCE 2018, SARA WAHEDI HAS MADE IT her business to help keep fellow Afghans safe. Her mobile app, Ehtesab, crowd-sources verified reports of bombings, shootings, roadblocks and city-service issues—giving residents of Kabul clarity in moments of chaos. That work became even more essential when the Taliban began making rapid advances across Afghanistan, eventually taking control of the capital on Aug. 15. It has also become dramatically more perilous for the 20 Ehtesab employees in Afghanistan, many of whom belong to ethnic minority groups and so face increased threats from the Taliban. Within hours of the Taliban takeover, Wahedi, 26, shut down Ehtesab’s office and had the team working remotely. Despite the risks, Wahedi says, “they want to keep working and serving Afghans.” Wahedi says that because the app can largely…

BUDDHIST MONKS ARE TYPICALLY trained to live austerely, wearing plain robes and few accessories. Kodo Nishimura does anything but. He tends to his family’s temple in Tokyo while working as a makeup artist and LGBTQ activist. “I am both ancient and trendy,” Nishimura says over Zoom from his home in the Japanese capital, wearing a Buddhist robe and just a little tinted lip balm. The day before, he worked 13 hours as the makeup director for the Miss Universe Japan finals, leading a team of six assistants to ensure contestants, judges and former winners all looked fabulous. His makeup career and activism landed him an appearance on Netflix’s Queer Eye: We’re in Japan! in 2019, and his clients include the musical sister duo Chloe x Halle and Christina Milian. In…

YOUR NEW BOOK OH WILLIAM! RETURNS TO THE WORLD OF LUCY BARTON. WHY DID YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO THAT STORY? Laura Linney played her in the stage adaptation of My Name Is Lucy Barton, a one-woman show on Broadway and in London. I was in rehearsal with her one day, and she murmured something about Lucy’s ex-husband William. All of a sudden, I thought, Oh, William! The relationship between Lucy and William, two people who used to be married and now are not, is not totally definable. What was exciting to you about exploring that? It was so interesting for me to realize the complexities. They’ve known each other a lifetime. They were married for 20 years, and now they’ve been separated but have had contact with each…

After TIME named you a Person of the Year in 2018, as a Guardian in the War on Truth, you talked about the practical effect the international recognition had in protecting you and your work from the government of President Rodrigo Duterte. It was a shield. And it actually helped us survive because that was December 2018, and my arrests began like two or three months later. And it was going to get worse. Imagine if you hadn’t done that. So what does a Nobel do? The statement the Nobel committee made is exactly the same the Guardians did in 2018. The platforms that deliver the news are biased against news. And we are being insidiously manipulated. All of that is breaking down trust. Journalists are the target of this.…

AS SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL mulled blocking Democrats from raising the nation’s debt ceiling, he faced two scenarios. Neither was good. In the first, the U.S. could default on its debt, triggering a global recession and costing Americans millions of jobs. In the second, Democrats could get rid of the filibuster to raise the ceiling without GOP help and create a Senate where the party in power—notably, not McConnell’s—could prevail with a simple majority vote. So McConnell relented, agreeing on Oct. 6 that Republicans would allow a temporary extension of the debt ceiling to the end of the year. (A vote to that effect passed in the Senate on Oct. 7, and in the House of Representatives on Oct. 12.) But the deal McConnell offered shouldn’t be confused with…

STANLEY A. MCCHRYSTAL’S ONLY CHILD SAM used to be in a punk-rock band. Two, actually: the Welfare Babies and the Lucky Scars. They played the circuit a bit back in the early 2000s, when McChrystal was doing his own kind of tour. He was climbing the ranks to become leader of the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the nation’s elite Special Forces teams. By 2009, just as the Lucky Scars were winding down, the older McChrystal was in charge of all operations in Afghanistan. These days, father and son have almost switched roles. Sam McChrystal now works in “the intelligence community,” as it’s referred to in Alexandria, Va., where both men live, attempting to protect America from real, potential or perceived threats, including those originating in the…

FIVE YEARS AGO, I EMBARKED ON A MISSION TO HELP FACEBOOK change its culture, business model and algorithms. I had been involved with the company in its early days as an adviser and investor. Since then, I and countless others have pressed its founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg to reform Facebook. I communicated with them privately. I spoke out in public. I wrote for TIME in 2019, urging Facebook and Silicon Valley to adopt human-driven technology over addictive algorithms. Nothing happened. The past month has changed the game. The courageous whistle-blower Frances Haugen has accomplished more than what I and others have achieved in years of effort. The documents she provided to the Wall Street Journal’s “Facebook Files” series confirmed that harms from Facebook’s business model are…

He may have made it to the NBA a decade ago, but Bismack Biyombo’s heart never left home. Biyombo hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation rich in natural resources like cobalt and copper, but still plagued by extreme poverty. More than 70% of the Congolese population, or around 60 million people, live on less than $1.90 a day. “I’ve seen so much suffering from our people,” says Biyombo, a 6 ft. 8 in. center who has played in Charlotte, Toronto and Orlando, and was a free agent going into the 2021–2022 season. “Every day, you go home, you go back in your room, you’re by yourself, crying. You’re trying to find an explanation to certain things you don’t understand. Why? Why? Why? Then it gets to the…

RINA SAWAYAMA CALLS HER FAVORITE songs her “problem childs.” They’re the Japanese British singer-songwriter’s deeply personal tracks that record labels are wont to reject. Take 2019’s “STFU!,” which rages against the racism Sawayama often faces as a woman of East Asian descent. The song hit multiple walls before Dirty Hit, the indie record label she now calls home, agreed to release it. Other times, it’s Sawayama who says no. After presenting her 2018 single “Cherry,” a proud coming-out song about her pansexual identity, she recalls one label praising its “gay stuff.” “I was like, Yeah, you’re not signing it,” she says, laughing. For Sawayama, it’s crucial to partner with the right people to amplify her stories—especially since she devotes her songwriting to crafting ones that rarely get told. “If it’s…

SUCCESSION IS BACK, AND WITH IT THE COMPLICATED pleasures of watching an obscenely rich, morally odious family scream and scheme and feud its way through some of the most exclusive spaces on earth. While 2019’s Season 2 finale found the show’s fractious, Murdoch-like Roys managing a crisis in their cruise division while drifting around the Mediterranean in a yacht the size of a city block, the Season 3 premiere, airing Oct. 17 on HBO, hinges on private planes. Only a tiny fraction of fans will ever experience such luxury, which is part of why we watch. But at a time when massive wealth often reeks of corruption, it’s easier to vicariously enjoy TV characters’ lush lifestyles when those characters are incapable of enjoying anything themselves. While filming in Tuscany, Jeremy Strong,…

THE ENDURING HOPE OF JANE GOODALL In response to Ciara Nugent’s Oct. 11/Oct. 18 cover story, readers shared both awe and appreciation for all the 87-year-old naturalist has accomplished. “She has been for decades a world treasure,” wrote Tim Ackert of Orlando, while Stephen Joseph Shellshear of Brighton, Queensland, Australia, added, “Jane Goodall is one of the few who can persuade individuals to accept their own responsibilities for slowing climate change.” Many saw the profile as a much-needed call to action. “How inspiring given this time in history,” wrote Brigida Johnson of Middle Island, N.Y. “Activism at its best!” And as John A. Gover of Rancho, N.M., put it, “We should listen and heed her wisdom to preserve our planet and the life on it.” ‘This beautiful article is one…

NOBODY HAS DOMINATED THE PHILIPPINE political landscape in recent years like President Rodrigo Duterte. But as jockeying begins in earnest for the country’s 2022 presidential and vice-presidential elections, there are signs that the onetime strongman has become a liability. Limited to a single presidential term under the Philippine constitution, Duterte had intended to stand for Vice President but was seemingly wrong-footed by a sharp backlash, with critics accusing the instigator of the nation’s bloody drug war of angling to hold on to power. STEPPING BACK On Oct. 2, Duterte appeared to bow to the inevitable, withdrawing his vice-presidential plans and announcing his retirement. But he has announced retirement plans before—in 2015, only to win a landslide victory in presidential elections a year later. And Duterte certainly has every motivation to…

One message included a racist trope about NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, another an antigay slur directed at NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: recent reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have documented Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s use of racist, homophobic and misogynistic language in emails denouncing female referees, an openly gay player, and athletes calling attention to social inequalities during the national anthem. Gruden resigned on Oct. 11. Over the past decade, the NFL has confronted crises including revelations about players’ head trauma, the mishandling of the Ray Rice domestic-violence investigation and rows over Colin Kaepernick’s activism, but still continued to expand its reach—and revenue. In 2010, the NFL generated some $8.5 billion; by 2019, the figure had nearly doubled to…

WHEN FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT TOLD HIS ECONOMIC ADVISERS HE was about to take the U.S. off the gold standard, they freaked out. The President was leading the country into “uncontrolled inflation and complete chaos,” one of them said. Another said it was “the end of Western civilization.” Roosevelt’s aides weren’t wild-eyed reactionaries; their view was conventional wisdom. The gold standard, almost everybody agreed, was the natural way to do money. Under its rules, anybody who wanted to could trade in paper money for a fixed amount of gold. In the U.S., $20.67 got you an ounce of gold, year in and year out. That unchanging value was the whole point of the gold standard. Take away the gold, and money would obviously be just worthless paper. This worldview turned out to…

AT THE BLACK BLOCKCHAIN SUMMIT, THERE IS ALMOST NO conversation about making money that does not carry with it the possibility of liberation. This is not simply a gathering for those who would like to ride whatever bumps and shocks, gains and losses come with cryptocurrency. It is a space for discussing the relationship between money and man, the powers that be and what they have done with power. Online and in person, on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., an estimated 1,500 mostly Black people have gathered to talk about crypto—decentralized digital money backed not by governments but by blockchain technology, a secure means of recording transactions—as a way to make money while disrupting centuries-long patterns of oppression. “What we really need to be doing is to…

Talking to Erika Hilton is like attending your own private rally. Hilton, who last November became the first trans woman elected to the city council in São Paulo, speaks loudly and rhythmically, the words tumbling out so quickly that you think she might lose track. But she never does; each sentence builds to an inspiring crescendo, whether she’s talking about anti-Black discrimination or happy memories of childhood. “I’ve always been like that,” she says, laughing and shrugging her shoulders over Zoom. “As a kid, it caused me problems sometimes. People told me to speak slower, speak quieter. But it’s how I communicate.” Hilton says her propulsive style came from growing up with “very strong women” in a working-class neighborhood on the edge of the city of 22 million—the largest in…

CHIKA STACY ORIUWA WAS ON A CLINICAL rotation in the emergency department one day in 2018, wearing her scrubs and stethoscope when she felt a tug on her shirt. It was a patient, who said: “Excuse me. You forgot to clean the vomit off the floor.” Oriuwa is a medical resident, on the path to becoming a psychiatrist, but that path has been strewn with microaggressions like being mistaken for a custodian, and overt racism: she has also been asked to leave the room. In 2020, Oriuwa became the only Black woman ever selected as sole valedictorian at the University of Toronto’s medical school after earning a medical degree and a master of science in systems leadership and innovation. The only Black graduate in her class of 259, she soon…

I REMEMBER MY COLLEGE ACTING TEACHER telling us that audiences love to watch people eating, drinking or smoking on stage and screen. He was right. There is something very compelling about watching someone carry out a necessary, mundane task. It’s probably one of the reasons why there are so many cooking shows now. We want to see the process, as well as the reaction to the result. Was all that effort worth it? Could I do that? Does it taste as good as they’re saying it does? Just as certain actors led me to acting, certain cooking-show hosts are partly to blame for my heightened interest in the subject of food. The first is of course Julia Child, the queen of culinary TV. Child changed not only what Americans cooked…

BLACK FOOD More than 100 Black cultural figures celebrate food and community in this book curated by chef and editor Bryant Terry. FILIPINX Chef Angela Dimayuga explores her love of Filipino food and shares stories about her family’s home cooking. ZOE’S GHANA KITCHEN Zoe Adjonyoh’s U.S. debut invites more home cooks to experience the flavors of West Africa. THE KOREAN VEGAN COOKBOOK TikTok cooking star Joanne Lee Molinaro, a lawyer by day, offers her spin on traditional Korean cooking. —Annabel Gutterman…