Inhoudsopgave van April 11, 2022 - TIME Magazine

ONE YEAR AGO, WE LAUNCHED TIME BUSINESS, a new franchise devoted to exploring the growing influence of business not only on our economic lives but also as a force shaping society and our collective future. Led by executive editor John Simons, we’ve chronicled everything from the future of work to how American shoppers broke the supply chain. We’ve brought you inside the C-suites with interviews of major figures in the business world through our weekly Leadership Brief, and inside the rise of crypto and NFTs through staff writer Andrew R. Chow’s Into the Metaverse newsletter. Along the way, business has grown from a very small portion of our coverage to about one-fifth of all the content we publish. That’s as it should be. From the vaccines that are pulling…

THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS PREPARING for a possible new surge in COVID-19 cases and has already started the political blame game in case the response falls short. The White House has called out Republicans in Congress for not authorizing new funds to make a fourth round of booster shots free and pay for therapeutics and other ways to reduce the impact of another surge in cases. “Our primary concern right now is that we’re about to run out of funding,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on March 21, warning Americans that they may have to pay for their next booster shots if more funding isn’t passed. Two days later, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients echoed: “The consequences of congressional inaction are severe, and they are immediate.”…

Russian newspaper stops its run Novaya Gazeta, the last remaining major independent newspaper in Russia, suspended operations on March 28. The newspaper, headed by 2021 Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, cited warnings from the government linked to a new law criminalizing “fake news” about the Ukraine conflict. Fines for U.K. lockdown parties London’s Metropolitan Police said it had issued 20 fines to individuals for breaking restrictions during parties at 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence, during COVID-19 lockdowns from 2020 to 2021. The police did not name those fined; Downing Street said Johnson was not among them. Oligarch Abramovich ‘poisoned’ Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and two others reportedly suffered symptoms consistent with poisoning after attending peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in March. The reports said all recovered,…

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, THE TRAILBLAZING public servant who immigrated to the United States as a refugee and went on to become the first woman to ever serve as U.S. Secretary of State, died March 23 of cancer. She was 84. Albright, who was born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague in 1937, and whose family fled both Nazis and communists, became an expert on foreign policy during a career that eventually brought her around the world as the highest-ranking woman in U.S. government history at the time. Those who worked with Albright and chronicled her career remember her as an effective communicator who explained complex international issues with clarity, a “gatherer of people” who believed in fostering bipartisanship through conversation, a “no-nonsense” negotiator who often employed her eclectic pin collection to…

Nobody wants to go back to the office quite like white dudes. This doesn’t mean all white dudes are pushing this return—or that everyone in this camp is white or a dude—but just over 30% of white men want to go back full time, compared with around 22% of women (Black and white) and 16% of Black men. For working moms especially, remote work has brought a new level of flexibility and self-determination. And studies show flexible work can increase our sense of belonging—particularly for Black workers. But for two years, the office advocates have put us through the same “When can we get back?” conversation, ignoring the more important one: Is there an office that working moms would be excited to go to? If so, why aren’t men fighting…

AFTER A RECORD-HIGH REVENUE year for Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the privately held company that oversees children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel’s estate, Susan Brandt was promoted to president and CEO in January. Brandt, who has been with the company for 24 years, oversaw a surge in book sales after the company announced in March 2021 that it would no longer publish or license six of Seuss’s books, including his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937), because of racist and offensive imagery. More recently, she’s credited with spearheading ventures that fulfill Seuss’s wish to spread his work across “all media throughout the world”—from an animated Netflix series based on Green Eggs and Ham to a forthcoming trio of movies adapted from The Cat in…

HYBE THE POP POWERHOUSE By Raisa Bruner This April, Las Vegas might feel a little different. For two weekends, the stars of South Korean supergroup BTS will play concerts to sold-out audiences at Allegiant Stadium, filling the city with tens of thousands of passionate fans of their brand of high-energy K-pop. It’ll be a return to live-performance form for BTS, whose global touring schedule has been mostly stalled in the face of the pandemic. Despite the setbacks, the group has thrived. That ongoing success is a direct product of the shrewd management agency behind the world’s most popular musical act. Initially founded as Big Hit Entertainment in 2005 by musical mastermind Bang Si-hyuk, the company listed publicly on the Korean exchange in 2020 as HYBE; it’s valued at $9.5 billion…

RIVIAN ELECTRIC DREAMS By Eben Shapiro There is a decent chance Rivian delivers on the enormous expectations it faces. Or it might not. The California automotive startup, which aspires to be the Patagonia of electric vehicles (EVs)—rugged, hip, simpatico to consumers willing to pay a premium to buy from a company that emits a halo of eco-friendliness—is at a critical juncture. The person trying to make it all work is lifelong car geek Robert “RJ” Scaringe, who spent much of his childhood tinkering on cars in a neighbor’s garage. “I had hoods under my bed, windshields in my closet, and engine parts on my desk,” he says. His vision of stylish electric pickup trucks, SUVs, and commercial delivery vans has attracted over 180,000 orders and heavyweight backers including Amazon and…

THE CANDY HOUSE By Jennifer Egan Egan’s 2010 novel A Visit From the Goon Squad hooked readers with its imagination and intellect and won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, more than a decade later, many of its characters return in The Candy House, which centers on a new technology, “Own Your Unconscious,” that allows people to save and share all their memories. (April 5) OF BLOOD AND SWEAT By Clyde W. Ford Black Americans have long helped white people get—and stay—wealthy, but instead of their fair share, they’ve received brutality in return. That’s the central argument that Ford, a psychotherapist and the author of Think Black, makes in this deeply researched book. He illustrates the many ways Black labor has been essential to agriculture, politics, medicine, law enforcement, and more, and…

THE DUBAI-BASED ARTIST EL SEED, WHO DRAWS upon Arabic calligraphy’s looping and curved shapes to create mesmerizing and often massive installations of wood, metal, glass, and more, believes words are powerful—and that’s why he incorporates them into his work. One of his most recent works, for example, took the form of a giant colorful installation of painted fabric across the rooftops of the Nepali village of Giranchaur, which was leveled by an earthquake back in 2015 and rebuilt mostly by local women. “There is nothing between us, nothing at all,” read the Arabic script on the piece, which quoted Nepali poet and activist Yogmaya Neupane. “Your eyes have tears, just like my own.” Seven years after opening his Dubai studio, eL Seed, whose projects have appeared everywhere from the favelas…

READERS WERE MOVED by the 148-ft.-long image of 5-year-old Ukrainian refugee Valeriia, photographed in Lviv for the March 28/April 4 cover of TIME, a feat orchestrated by artist JR. “This is a ‘WOW’ cover,” said John A. Gover of Rio Rancho, N.M. “Thank you so much for the inspiration for all Ukrainians,” Kyiv-based artist Irina Bashuk commented on JR’s Instagram post of the cover. Hollywood, Fla., lawyer Khila Khani also commented on JR’s post on Instagram: “You always find a way to highlight the best aspects of humanity.” On Twitter, creative director Adam Levine described the artwork as “a beautiful example of public art, meeting performance art, meeting the moment.” There were also heartfelt comments from readers on TIME’s other cover story—photographer Maxim Dondyuk’s photo essay documenting the war…

TIME WAS, THERE WERE ONLY nine known planets in the entire universe—the gaggle of worlds that orbit our sun. That number was reduced to eight in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union busted Pluto down to a dwarf planet. But even before Pluto was pink-slipped, the planetary census far deeper in space began to grow, with the discovery, in 1992, of a planet orbiting a rapidly spinning pulsar; and later, in 1995, of a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a sunlike star. Since then the planetary population has exploded, and, as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently reported, the official total of known worlds beyond our own has now topped 5,000. The majority of the discoveries were made by the Kepler space telescope. Launched in 2009, it hunted for planets using the so-called…

ACROSS THE GLOBE, POLITICIANS are fuming about record-high gas prices and proposing a range of policy mechanisms to bring down costs, including cutting gas taxes and offering drivers rebates. These policies make political sense as everyday people suffer at the pump, but they help mask the true cost a gallon of gas imposes on society—from the risk of traffic accidents to the contribution to climate change. Calculating the damage is a fraught process, and economists don’t necessarily agree about all the variables. But one thing is definitely true: driving costs society much more than you’re paying to do it. These unpaid costs to society—what economists call externalities—are fairly easy to understand. Cars cause gridlock, which reduces productivity. Accidents kill tens of thousands in the U.S. each year. Cars generate air…

IN 2017, KARUNA NUNDY WROTE AN OPEN LETTER TO INDIAN WOMEN, LAYING out the protections in the country’s constitution if they are raped, assaulted, seeking an abortion, or demanding fair treatment from an employer. “I write to you today so you will know your power,” she wrote. “The State must enforce your basic rights, but you are in charge of your flourishing. Promise me you’ll back yourself when nobody else will.” “I was thinking about my niece, my friend, my cousin, my client,” recalls the 45-year-old lawyer at the Supreme Court of India, sitting on her leafy green balcony in South Delhi in March. “What I wanted to say to them is that they deserve to be who they are, without having to fit into a box.” Her readers seemed…

AMAZON THE EVERYTHING COMPANY By John Simons / Seattle Andy Jassy, who speaks in quiet tones and moves through Amazon’s Seattle headquarters in jeans, untucked button-downs, and sneakers, appears to be the polar opposite of his predecessor, who over the years transformed into a larger-than-life billionaire. But now it’s Jassy who’s nevertheless managing an ever expanding empire. With a $1.7 trillion valuation and a global workforce of 1.6 million, Amazon’s reach is nothing short of colossal. It delivers next-day provisions to your doorstep and serves up millions of daily video streams that will soon include live NFL games and a new Lord of the Rings series. Amazon Web Services—the biggest cloud-computing provider on the planet—powers myriad other companies, including its biggest streaming competitor, Netflix. And then there’s Amazon’s global logistics…

KALING INTERNATIONAL FUNNY BUSINESS By Eliana Dockterman Women want to be Mindy Kaling's best friend. This is an actual problem in her life. Fans approach her in airports to solicit not just a photo but also companionship. Maybe it’s her candid memoirs, in which she talks about everything from being the first woman and person of color in the writers’ room of The Office to anxieties about what people write about her online. Maybe it’s that they see themselves in the characters she’s written on The Mindy Project or Never Have I Ever. Maybe they want to prove to this unabashedly ambitious person with great comic timing that they’re smart and funny too. Kaling is gracious about it, but her calendar is full. Plus, she’s an unrepentant workaholic. “I never…

You’re starring in Everything Everywhere All At Once, a title that might also describe your career lately. You just appeared in Shang-Chi, are currently filming American Born Chinese, and have other projects. But the movie is about a laundromat owner who discovers alternate realities and amazing skills. It’s a good thing, right? Who would have thought, at my age, to be busier than ever? I’m very, very lucky. I loved the film. What drew you to this project? When was the last time you saw a woman like this become a superhero? So I immediately said, “I need to meet these two directors [Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert].” They had me with their passion, the clarity of the story that they were telling. They have very strong women in their…

PROTESTS DISRUPTED A TOUR OF FORMER British colonies in the Caribbean by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton. The tour began March 19 amid growing calls to cut formal ties with the Queen and a reckoning with the region’s colonial past that includes calls for slavery reparations. Queen Elizabeth II is the monarch of 14 countries outside the U.K., including Canada, Australia, and Papua New Guinea, that are known as the Commonwealth realms. TIMING Officially, the trip was meant to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, celebrating 70 years on the throne. But many observers say the trip was to persuade Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas to keep the Queen as head of state. On the second stop of their trip, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew…

DIED > Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters drummer, on March 25, at 50. > Stephen Wilhite, creator of the GIF animated image, on March 14, at 74. BROKEN Temperature records in Antarctica, as amid rapid climate change, a high of 11.3°F was hit on March 18, 70°F warmer than normal. STEPPING AWAY Bruce Willis, from acting, after being diagnosed with aphasia, which his family revealed on social media on March 30. BARRED Employees without beards, from working for the Afghan government, by the Taliban, from March 29, sources told Reuters. AWARDED $14 million, to protesters injured in George Floyd demonstrations after a verdict March 25 that police used excessive force. WON Best Picture at the Oscars by CODA, about the hearing daughter of a deaf family, the first streaming film…

EVGENY CHICHVARKIN IS LOOKING AGITATED. He’s just heard a whisper about some potential stock going cheap and so politely declines my suggestion we leave his bustling wineshop in London’s tony Mayfair district in search of somewhere quieter to chat. But Chichvarkin isn’t dashing off in pursuit of another 1774 Jura vin jaune, which sells for a precise £72,553.80 ($95,308) at Hedonism Wines, the store he set up in 2012 to be “the world’s best wineshop.” Instead, he is preparing to inspect a consignment of military fatigues and battle wear at a warehouse in the nearby town of Slough—worth some $650,000, he tells me conspiratorially. “It belongs to a rich Russian who had his assets frozen and needs to sell. If it works out, I’ll send it straight to the Ukrainian…

IF VLADIMIR PUTIN hadn’t ordered an invasion of Ukraine, the headline-making story right now would be the intensifying war between China and COVID-19. In Shanghai (pop. around 26 million), state officials announced on March 27 that the eastern half of the city would be locked down until April 1 for mass COVID-19 testing. When that’s accomplished, the western half will be locked down until April 5. Health officials conduct tests across shut-down areas, and an infected resident can be forced into a quarantine facility. Tens of millions in Jilin province and the tech-hub city of Shenzhen (pop. 17.5 million) have already been locked down. But the closure of Shanghai, the commercial and financial heart of the world’s second largest economy, is the most drastic move yet taken as part…

It’s entirely reasonable that most of Washington missed the development. After all, it’s been a busy few weeks with a Supreme Court nomination, a war in Europe, and a lingering pandemic. But the March 21 breakdown in peace talks between Russia and Japan may demand D.C.’s attention if not properly managed. You see, the Soviet Union and Japan never actually signed a peace treaty after World War II ended in 1945, much like how the U.S. still technically remains at war with North Korea even though active fighting ended in 1953. Moscow at the moment lacks the capacity to credibly fight a second front, but that doesn’t mean the geopolitical trap isn’t one that has D.C. worried. Because technically post–World War II Japan isn’t allowed to have a military and nominally…

Which businesses and corporate leaders are shaping our future? That’s the question at the heart of TIME100 Most Influential Companies, an annual list that highlights businesses making an extraordinary impact around the world. To assemble it, TIME solicits nominations across sectors including health care, entertainment, technology, and more from our global network of editors and correspondents, as well as from industry experts. Then we evaluate each on key factors, including relevance, impact, innovation, leadership, ambition, and success. The result is a diverse array of 100 businesses helping chart an essential path forward.…

ENGINE NO. 1 THE CLIMATE CAPITALIST By Vivienne Walt It was an irresistible David and Goliath tale: last May, a handful of activist investors from a tiny San Francisco investment firm named Engine No. 1 took on the $350 billion behemoth ExxonMobil—and won. Barely 18 months old, the firm spent just $12.5 million pushing climate action at Exxon, and won three seats for its candidates on its board of directors—a victory that stunned the financial industry and shook Big Oil. Leading Engine No. 1’s campaign was CEO Jennifer Grancio, who had spent years as an executive at BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset-management company. For weeks before the meeting, Grancio lobbied Exxon’s major shareholders, arguing that the company would face serious financial problems without far-reaching environmental change. The shareholders were convinced,…

IN MARCH 2019, THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE publication of Ocean Vuong’s novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, he called his agent from the hallway of a Hartford, Conn., hospital. “There’s no way I can go on tour,” he said. “My mother has cancer. It’s over.” The first time his mother Hong had gone to the emergency room with terrible back pain, he wasn’t with her. The hospital sent her home with an adhesive heat patch. Vuong, who lives in Northampton, Mass., with his partner Peter, went to see her and took her back to the ER; this time, doctors ran tests and returned with a diagnosis: Stage IV breast cancer. It was in her spine, the marrow of her bones. “When she went herself, she got a heat pad. When…