Time Magazine International Edition August 23, 2021

EARLIER THIS SUMMER, TIME SENIOR correspondent Justin Worland traveled to the Mahoning Valley, an area of northeast Ohio once teeming with manufacturing and now better known for plant closings. There he met William “Doug” Franklin, who grew up in the Valley, where his father worked in a local steel mill and his mother at a local auto supplier. Franklin himself worked 25 years at the now shuttered local General Motors facility. Today he’s the mayor of the town of Warren, focused on turning the area into an epicenter of electric-vehicle manufacturing. Even though he knows it’s not certain where the new jobs will emerge and whether they’ll equal the jobs he and his parents had, he’s optimistic. “We know how to take a punch and how to recover; that’s just in…

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT … WORK IN PROGRESS The “Rethinking Work” cover package in TIME’s Aug. 2/Aug. 9 issue left readers thinking about job prospects in a post-pandemic world. Many shared their thoughts about calls for a $15 minimum wage in the U.S. “This is long overdue,” wrote Rita Ballone of Carmichaels, Pa. “Workers that struggle to pay bills are fed up hearing about the pay of CEOs and are demanding more.” “This emphasis on $15 per hour is sad,” added Elizabeth Harmon of Wayne, Pa. “It is not a living wage in most parts of the country … and this nation should be ashamed to offer it as such.” But “wage increases that are the product of an uncontrolled epidemic … will likely be temporary and of little benefit to…

‘He always protected others. He just didn’t protect himself.’BAZHENA ZHOLUDZH, partner of Belarusian dissident Vitaly Shishov, in an Aug. 5 interview; Shishov was found dead on Aug. 3 in Ukraine, in what European Parliament members have since said “looks like a political killing”‘I didn’t want to leave, but I have to. And I want to keep winning. That’s my mentality.’LIONEL MESSI, in a tearful Aug. 8 press conference confirming his exit from the Spanish soccer team FC Barcelona after 21 years with the club; on Aug. 11, Messi signed with French team Paris Saint–Germain‘IT WAS AN ERROR TO SIGN THAT LAW. I ADMIT THAT.’ASA HUTCHINSON, Republican governor of Arkansas, in an Aug. 8 interview acknowledging regret over his approval of a law banning mask mandates in the state‘A code red…

EXPERTS PREDICTED, FROM THE START, THAT THE pandemic would end with a whimper, not a bang. That is, COVID-19 won’t so much disappear as fade into the background, becoming like the many other common infectious diseases that sicken people, but also can be controlled with vaccines and drugs. “This can become a livable pathogen where it’s there, it circulates, you’re going to hear on the evening news about outbreaks in a dorm or a movie theater, but people go about their normal lives,” former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb predicted in an April 2020 interview with TIME. For a while, it felt like the U.S. was closing in on that point. Highly effective vaccines made their way into millions of arms. The U.S. Centers for Disease…

EVEN BEFORE SIMONE BILES THREW THE Tokyo Olympics off their axis, Jessica Bartley knew mental-health issues were weighing heavily on athletes. Bartley, a psychologist and the director of mental-health services for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, says her team received about 10 support requests daily during the Games. “The Games are really an incredible opportunity to start to have those conversations,” says Bartley, whose group was the first to travel with Team USA specifically to support athletes’ mental well-being. Taking place amid a pandemic that’s had a massive impact on global mental health, the Tokyo Olympics were always going to present additional challenges for competitors. But once Biles pulled out of the women’s gymnastics team event, the issue became a defining theme. Her decision, magnified by a global spotlight, created a…

SUE BIRD & DIANA TAURASI The two Team USA veterans each scored their fifth gold in Tokyo—a record for any basketball player. Their victory extended the team’s Olympic winning streak to 55 games; its last loss was in 1992. NESTHY PETECIO The boxer’s silver medal makes her the first woman to win a medal in the sport for the Philippines. “This fight is also for the LGBTQ community,” Petecio told reporters after losing the gold-medal bout. TOM DALEY The openly gay British diver finally won gold in the men’s 10-m synchronized platform diving competition at his fourth Olympic Games—and knitted between events, crafting a pouch for his medal. QUINN Canada’s first gold medal in women’s soccer was also history-making for the team’s midfielder, who became the first transgender and nonbinary Olympic athlete to receive a medal of…