Table of contents for September 27, 2021 in TIME Magazine

ONE OF THE FEW BRIGHT SPOTS FOR PRESIDENT Joe Biden during a bruising August was the hope that, come September, Congress would pass his $4 trillion agenda. For months, Biden has been haggling with lawmakers to reach a deal on both a sweeping infrastructure package that would improve the country’s aging roads and bridges and a $3.5 trillion, 10-year spending plan that would create federal paid-leave programs, offer universal pre-K and expand Medicare in the biggest boost to the U.S. social safety net in over half a century. THE VOTES The infrastructure bill has bipartisan support, but Democrats want to pass the $3.5 trillion plan along party lines under a budgetary procedure known as reconciliation. Committees in the House and Senate are currently drafting language for the plan’s components; with…

SEEING DOUBLE Puerto Rican twins Madeline and Margaret de Jesús were pulled from the 1984 Olympics when officials discovered Madeline had posed as her sister in the 4 × 400-m relay event after Margaret was injured. WIN SOME, LOSE SOME Eight badminton players were disqualified during the 2012 Olympics after appearing to try to lose their matches on purpose in order to secure an easier pairing during the next round. HIGH HOPES American track-and-field star Sha’Carri Richardson was disqualified from the 2020 Olympics after testing positive for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which she said had she smoked in a state where marijuana is legal.…

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA • LIZ CHENEY NAYIB BUKELE • ELISA LONCON ANTILEO JOE BIDEN • MARIO DRAGHI MAMATA BANERJEE • RON KLAIN • STACEY ABRAMS XI JINPING • DONALD TRUMP ROCHELLE WALENSKY • NARENDRA MODI NAFTALI BENNETT • MAHBOUBA SERAJ TUCKER CARLSON • EBRAHIM RAISI • KAMALA HARRIS ABDUL GHANI BARADAR • JOE MANCHIN NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA THE UNIFIER BY PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN WHAT WILL it take to vaccinate the world? Unity, cooperation—and leaders like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. As the first African and first woman to lead the World Trade Organization, a 164-member group of nations that oversees trade across the world, Okonjo-Iweala took on the role of director-general this March at a watershed moment for our global health and well-being. Make no mistake, her job affects every person, family and…

Newsom wins out in Calif. recall election Governor Gavin Newsom successfully defeated a Republican-led recall effort—estimated to have cost the state nearly $300 million—on Sept. 14. Conservative radio talk-show host Larry Elder led among Newsom’s 46 challengers, but did not find enough support to overtake the powerful Democrat. Poll: Climate impacts Gen Z plans for kids Four in 10 Generation Z youth are “hesitant” about having children because of the climate crisis, according to a new survey of 10,000 people around the world ages 16 to 25. More than half said they were “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change, and said governments are not doing enough. Probe faults Capitol cops’ Jan. 6 actions Amid an ongoing internal investigation of the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, the…

BILLIE EILISH • SUNISA LEE FRANS TIMMERMANS • AURORA JAMES ADI UTARINI • FATIH BIROL ESTHER ZE NAW BAMVO AND EI THINZAR MAUNG OLIMPIA CORAL MELO CRUZ DOROTTYA REDAI • ROGER COX • BEN CRUMP INDYRA MENDOZA AND CLAUDIA SPELLMANT PHYLLIS OMIDO BÉNÉDICTE SAVOY AND FELWINE SARR ADAR POONAWALLA BILLIE EILISH POWERFUL VOICE BY MEGAN THEE STALLION BILLIE EILISH is a unique soul, with a voice, style and attitude all unapologetically her own. I first met Billie at the Grammys this year. She had already achieved worldwide stardom, which might make some people have airs about them, but not Billie. She was so real and laid-back, even though her personality isso big. She is a rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses. I knew I had…

SIMONE BILES • YOUN YUH JUNG KENNETH C. FRAZIER AND KENNETH I. CHENAULT NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES • TIM COOK • TOM BRADY ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO • TIMBALAND AND SWIZZ BEATZ SHONDA RHIMES • ALLYSON FELIX LUIZA TRAJANO SIMONE BILES DEMONSTRATING STRENGTH BY SERENA WILLIAMS THERE’S SOMETHING poetic about the way Simone Biles moves. She’s a master of precision, grace and dominance, and at the age of just 24, she has cemented herself as one of the most decorated American gymnasts of all time. But when she’s not on the mat or competing in front of the world, Simone strikes the powerful balance between humility and confidence—she’s enthusiastic yet stoic, believing in her strength, trusting her body and embracing her greatness. With a total of 32 Olympic and world championship medals, Simone’s athletic…

THERE IS A SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU IN THE U.S. MEDICAL community right now, a year and a half after COVID-19 first slammed into the health care system and knocked it down like a feather. Hospital beds are filling up, and most alarmingly, space in intensive-care units (ICUs) is at a premium. As of Sept. 14, 80% of ICU beds in the country were occupied, 31% of them filled by patients with COVID-19, according to data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In some states, hospitals already have more patients than beds available. In Alabama, for example, 100% of ICU beds are occupied, but Dr. Karen Landers, assistant state health officer at the Alabama department of public health, says in an email to TIME that the…

IN THE WAKE OF A RECENT BANKRUPTCY-court settlement, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the nation’s biggest art museum, will revisit its decision to keep the Sackler name on some of its most high-profile galleries. On Sept. 1, Purdue Pharma LP, the maker of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin, was granted court approval for a restructuring plan that includes roughly $4.5 billion in settlement payments from members of the Sackler family, who own the company. Purdue had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019 after being hit with thousands of lawsuits from states, towns and others over its role in fueling the deadly opioid epidemic. “With the recent action of the court, one can expect that all institutions, including ours, will be having a conversation about how to proceed,” the museum’s…

KATE WINSLET • CHLOÉ ZHAO N.K. JEMISIN • MARK BRADFORD SCARLETT JOHANSSON • STEVEN YEUN JASON SUDEIKIS • OMAR SY JESSICA B. HARRIS • DANIEL KALUUYA BAD BUNNY • BARBARA KRUGER TRACEE ELLIS ROSS • KANE BROWN BOWEN YANG • LIL NAS X KATE WINSLET MAGNIFICENT ACTOR BY KENNETH BRANAGH I FIRST AUDITIONED Kate Winslet when she was 17. I thought she was 25. Such was her self-possession, presence and concentration in the room. When she walked out the door, I turned to the casting director and said with certainty, “We have just met a star.” Three years later, I cast her as Ophelia in a film of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I did not ask her to audition. She brought a detective’s energy to rehearsals. She listened with superhuman acuity,…

JENSEN HUANG • VIYA SARA MENKER • ELON MUSK ADRIENNE BANFIELD NORRIS, WILLOW SMITH AND JADA PINKETT SMITH • BARNEY GRAHAM KENGO KUMA • VITALIK BUTERIN FRIEDERIKE OTTO AND GEERT JAN VAN OLDENBORGH KATALIN KARIKO • LIDIA MORAWSKA • MIMI AUNG MARY BARRA • JOHN NKENGASONG JENSEN HUANG CREATING THE FUTURE BY ANDREW NG ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is transforming our world. The software that enables computers to do things that once required human perception and judgment depends largely on hardware made possible by Jensen Huang. In 2003, amid great skepticism, Huang directed his company Nvidia to adapt chips designed to paint graphics on computer screens, known as graphics processing units or GPUs, to perform other, more general-purpose computing tasks. The resulting advancements—and powerful chips—laid a foundation that could accommodate much bigger neural…

PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN • SHERRILYN IFILL CYNTHIA CHOI, MANJUSHA P. KULKARNI AND RUSSELL JEUNG ALEXEI NAVALNY • LUIS MANUEL OTERO ALCÁNTARA DOLLY PARTON • NAOMI OSAKA • NASRIN SOTOUDEH MOHAMMED EL-KURD AND MUNA EL-KURD • SHOHEI OHTANI CATHY PARK HONG • BRITNEY SPEARS Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex TURNING COMPASSION INTO ACTION BY JOSÉ ANDRÉS THERE’S A famous TV interview of Harry, the Duke of Sussex, when he was an Apache helicopter gunner a few years ago. He’s sitting close to an airfield in Afghanistan, commenting on some royal news, when there’s a bang and a group of soldiers scramble behind him. In one swift motion, he stands up, rips off his microphone and runs toward the action. That same sense of urgency…