Time Magazine International Edition October 25, 2021

Ressa and Muratov remind us that we all have the agency to do something with the stories we tell 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…

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. It’s…

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 to…

‘Hello, literally everyone.’TWITTER, in an Oct. 4 tweet posted during a six-hour period in which Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down worldwide‘Everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes.’TOM TAYLOR, DC Comics author, announcing in an Oct. 11 interview that the series’ new Superman will come out as bisexual in a forthcoming issue‘Divorce, babe. Divorce.’ADELE, explaining what inspired songs on her forthcoming album, 30, in an Oct. 9 Instagram Live‘IT WAS A NICE BREAK FROM EVERYTHING.’LIVAE NANJIKANA, discussing the 29 days he and a fellow seaman spent lost at sea, in an Oct. 8 interview with the Guardian; the two men were rescued off the coast of Papua New Guinea on Oct. 2‘Trust and integrity are the cornerstones of the multinational organizations that I have faithfully…

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 magnanimity. With…

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 stay…