Time Magazine International Edition

conversation

THE CHOICE RE “PERSON OF THE YEAR” [Dec. 21–28]: I’m sorry, what was it that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris accomplished in 2020 to deserve this prestigious honorific? They got themselves elected? The electorate did that. They still have to actually do something (in my mind) to justify being a Person of the Year. Seems to me Dr. Anthony Fauci was hands down Person of the Year. He battled not only the virus, but also his boss, who was often working at cross purposes in this epic war of the pandemic. Gary W. Miller,SARATOGA, CALIF. THANK YOU FOR OFFERING us loyal readers a glimmer of hope with your Person of the Year issue—it was exemplary journalism as always. And thank you for recognizing the amazing artistic talent that worked on the different covers…

for the record

‘Today he broke my life again.’MOHAMMED KINANI, on Dec. 23, after President Trump pardoned four men convicted of killing his 9-year-old in Baghdad in 2007 as Blackwater security guards‘Because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick someone else’s cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States Senator.’THE REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK, during his Jan. 5 victory speech after defeating incumbent GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler in a special election in Georgia‘I’LL BE FIERCE FOR ALL OF US, FOR OUR PLANET AND ALL OF OUR PROTECTED LAND.’DEB HAALAND, U.S. Representative (D., N.M.), in a Dec. 19 speech after her nomination as Biden’s Interior Secretary; if confirmed, she would be the first Native American Cabinet member‘Who is to say what you’re allowed to absorb…

what trump wrought

WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP, WE WILL NEVER CONcede!” President Donald Trump told the crowd of supporters he had summoned to Washington on Jan. 6. They heard him and obeyed. Within hours, a mob of self-styled revolutionaries waving Trump flags had stormed the Capitol. Scaling scaffolding and breaking windows, they filled the marble halls. Shots were fired inside the building as lawmakers and their staffs scrambled for cover and tear gas filled the Rotunda. For the first time since the Civil War, America would not have a peaceful transfer of power. Before the riot interrupted it, Trump’s last-ditch attempt to steal the presidential election that he unambiguously lost was not going well. Vice President Mike Pence announced he would fulfill his ceremonial role of counting the states’ electoral votes, rejecting Trump’s…

trump supporters besiege the capitol

A MOB WHIPPED UP BY THE PRESIdent stormed police lines, smashed windows and broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to block lawmakers from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. The violent scene, which called to mind images of coups in foreign lands, was a culmination of two months of “Stop the Steal” rallies, fueled by Donald Trump’s baseless allegations that widespread voter fraud had cost him the election. The President has repeatedly incited his supporters to challenge the peaceful transfer of power, the essential marker of democracy. Two hours before the assault on the Capitol, Trump had vowed that he would “never concede,” and urged them to pressure Republican lawmakers “to take back our country.” When he finished, a crowd chanting, “Storm the Capitol!” proceeded to…

anthems anew

AUSTRIA In 2012, Austria’s national anthem, “Land der Berge, Land am Strome,” was made more gender-inclusive, with lyrical changes including “great sons” to “great daughters and sons,” and “brotherly choirs” to “jolly choirs.” SOUTH AFRICA Postapartheid South Africa in 1997 blended a previous national anthem and a popular hymn into a single song, which features verses in the country’s five most spoken languages: Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English. CANADA After 18 months of debate, Canada made its English-language national anthem, “O Canada,” gender-neutral in 2018, changing the words after “true patriot love” from “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command.” ANTHEMS: ILLUSTRATION BY BROWN BIRD DESIGN FOR TIME; CARDIN: KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES; URQUHART: EVAN SCHNEIDER—UN PHOTO…

what could climate change mean for the world’s weather in 2021?

2020 WAS A YEAR OF EXTREME WEATHER. Hot and dry conditions drove wildfires across vast areas of Australia, California, Brazil and Siberia. A record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season landed a double blow of hugely damaging storms on Central America. Droughts pushed millions of people into hunger in Zimbabwe and Madagascar. A supercyclone unleashed grave floods on India. And 2020 may end being up the hottest year on record—despite the impact of La Niña, an ocean-atmospheric phenomenon that tends to have a cooling effect on global temperatures. While in the past it’s been difficult to say if single weather events were directly caused by climate change, scientists have proved that much of 2020’s weather would have been far less likely, or even impossible, without the warming of the earth. As we have released heat-absorbing…