Time Magazine International Edition January 17, 2022

ON DEC. 13, TIME MARKED THE RELEASE of its 2021 Person of the Year issue by bringing together TIME100 honorees, CEOs, activists, storytellers and other global leaders in their fields. Rousing performances bookended the vaccines-required event, which was held in New York City’s Times Square: Alicia Keys opened with “Old Memories,” from her latest album, Keys, and the Northwell Health Nurse Choir—formed in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic—closed out the night with “You Will Be Found” from the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. TIME correspondent Alice Park spoke with Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen and Pardis Sabeti, one of the Ebola fighters whom TIME recognized as 2014’s Person of the Year, about their work combatting misinformation. And editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal interviewed 2021 Person of the Year Elon Musk. On the topic of how…

TIME’S PERSON OF THE YEAR picks always spark spirited conversations, and the magazine’s 2021 choice of Elon Musk was no exception. Perhaps the most notable back-and-forth occurred on social media, with U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, tweeting on Dec. 13: “Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.” Musk responded by claiming he will pay “more taxes than any American in history this year.” TIME’s other selections also got people talking: interim National Institutes of Health director Lawrence A. Tabak tweeted “well deserved” to the vaccine scientists being named Heroes of the Year for “developing a technology that has transformed the way we will prevent other diseases.” Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump applauded gymnast Simone…

‘What was ahead of us is not just pouring rains or blowing winds, but hurricanes and tsunamis.’CITIZEN NEWS, an independent news site in Hong Kong, announcing on Jan. 2 that they would stop publishing the next day, amid a rise in suppression of press freedoms in the territory $500,000 Amount paid to Virginia Giuffre in 2009 to settle her lawsuit accusing now deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager, per records unsealed Jan. 3 $250 million Estimated sale price of David Bowie’s music catalog, in a deal announced Jan. 3 ‘WHEN A MAYOR HAS SWAGGER, THE CITY HAS SWAGGER.’ERIC ADAMS, in a Jan. 3 press conference two days after being sworn in as New York City’s new mayor‘What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove…

HE’S PRESIDED OVER THE ROLLOUT OF $2 trillion in health care funding and stimulus payments, seen the unemployment rate drop to 4.2%, made COVID-19 vaccines available for free to everyone in the country over 5 years old, and signed a trillion-dollar infrastructure law. But voters, fatigued by the uncertainties of the ongoing pandemic, have seemed reluctant to give the President credit; Joe Biden enters the New Year down in the polls, with nearly a quarter of Americans still hesitant to get vaccinated, and a recovering economy strained by inflation and an unpredictable supply chain. That puts him in a precarious position at the start of 2022. With an evenly divided Senate and a narrow majority in the House, Democrats may lose control of Congress in the midterm elections on Nov. 8.…

Vehicles stranded on U.S. Interstate 95 in Caroline County, Virginia, wait for traffic to be cleared on Jan. 4, after ice and snow from a fast-moving winter storm closed a 48-mile stretch of the highway a day earlier. Hundreds of accidents were reported amid the dangerous conditions, furthering the gridlock. Some drivers chose to abandon their cars while others, including U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D., Va.), slept in their vehicles overnight. —Madeleine Carlisle OPENING PAGE: AFP/GETTY IMAGES; THIS PAGE: STEVE HELBER—AP…

THE LAST TIME THE U.S. BOYCOTTED THE Olympics, China joined in—withdrawing from the 1980 Moscow Games along with at least 44 other nations. (The Soviet Union and its allies withheld athletes in turn from the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.) Four decades later, China is now the subject of a boycott. In December, the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia announced a “diplomatic boycott”; no government officials will attend the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, though their athletes will still compete. OLYMPIC OUTCRY Calls to boycott the Beijing Games over China’s human-rights record came to a head in November after Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai leveled a sexual-assault allegation against a former top official of the Communist Party and then disappeared from public view, sparking international concern for her safety. Peng later re-emerged…