TIME Magazine March 27, 2023

On March 8, International Women’s Day, TIME hosted its second annual Women of the Year gala at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, honoring the 12 actors, activists, and artists recognized in 2023. The honorees used the event to call for pay equity, diversity in the film industry, and even read an original poem. As TIME CEO Jessica Sibley described the common denominator among the group: “You are all driving change and making history.” Read more about the list and watch video profiles at time.com/women-of-the-year The Parent Files In a new series, Charlotte Alter—senior correspondent and mother of a 1-year-old—talks to newsmakers about how parenting has shaped their work and life. Find her interview with Whitney Wolfe Herd on page 72, and the whole collection—including Mark…

The Biden administration’s March 13 decision to approve the Willow project, a multibillion-dollar oil-drilling development in the Alaskan wilderness, may have come as a shock to those accustomed to Joe Biden’s criticism of the oil and gas industry. But it didn’t come out of nowhere. In the past two years, unforeseen circumstances—including energy prices and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—have nudged the Administration to work with oil companies. The Willow project, spearheaded by ConocoPhillips, is just the latest development in the Biden Administration’s evolving relations with the industry. The dynamic was on full display earlier in the month at the world’s most influential oil and gas conference, CERAWeek by S&P Global. Biden entered office promising to phase out oil and gas, but top Administration officials still flew…

Sixty-six years ago, there was a single human-built object in earth orbit: Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. Today, there are 100 trillion objects circling the planet. That’s the jaw-dropping number cited by international researchers in an open letter published March 9 in Science, calling for a global treaty to curb the ever-growing debris belt in low-earth orbit. DANGEROUS DEBRIS The junk belt includes 9,000 active satellites. Then there are the spent boosters, stray bolts, and floating paint chips that go along with launching all of that hardware. Orbiting the earth at 28,200 km/h (17,500 m.p.h.), even the smallest pieces of rubbish can strike an object like a bullet. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station must routinely shelter in the attached Soyuz or SpaceX spacecraft to wait out a passing…

Mortgage rates are rising, and the housing market appears to be softening nationwide. But in many U.S. markets, would-be buyers are facing a big problem: there’s just nothing to buy. Housing inventory—the number of homes on the market—has been falling since the rebound from the Great Recession, as investors snapped up homes and more older Americans decided to age in place. Some housing analysts predicted that inventory would start to climb as builders scrambled to finish more new homes. But in markets where there’s not a lot of new construction, inventory is hovering near historic lows, according to data crunched by Redfin and provided to TIME. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this bad,” says Becky Koladis, who has been a real estate agent in Hartford, Conn., for 23…

DIED Judy Heumann Disability-rights activist BY REBEKAH TAUSSIG When I learned that Judy Heumann had passed away on March 4 at 75, I felt anxious in a way I struggled to explain. Judy became disabled by polio around the same age I became disabled by cancer—both as toddlers. Raised in 1950s Brooklyn, Judy grew up in a world that never expected her to join it. When her mom hoisted her up the stairs to their local school in her chair, the administrator refused to let her attend, saying Judy was a fire hazard. After a long fight and years later, Judy was allowed into a public-school basement classroom with other disabled kids ages 9 to 21. They did worksheets, took naps at their desks, and, if they graduated, were…

About 2,300 ft. above Beirut in the Matn District mountains, Roger Mazloum and his brother Elias greet me on an unusually balmy winter day as they chop wood to help keep their early 20th century home warm before the cold returns. I’m no match for these burlier Lebanese men, who grew up in Broummana, a town about a dozen miles east of the Lebanese capital, but I take my turn, meekly swinging an ax at the tree stump before us. After a lackluster start, and plenty of patience from the pair, something akin to firewood begins to splinter off. Roger takes me through the family home’s front door—past a living room with traditional Lebanese floor tiles and artwork dedicated to Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian titan of Arabic music—and up the…