Table of contents for November 20, 2023 in TIME Magazine

TIME feted the 2023 TIME100 Next list on Oct. 24 in midtown Manhattan, celebrating rising leaders in health, climate, business, sports, the arts, and more. From top left, clockwise: country singer Kelsea Ballerini; actors Rachel Zegler and Maya Hawke; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (at mic) and TIME CEO Jess Sibley (far right); actor Bella Ramsey; conversation flowing at dinner; trans-rights activist Dylan Brandt (at mic). Read about the honorees at time.com/time100-next-2023 TALK TO US SEND AN EMAIL: letters@time.com Please do not send attachments Letters should include the writer’s full name, address and home telephone, and may be edited for purposes of clarity and space FOLLOW US: facebook.com/time @time (Twitter and Instagram) On the covers Photograph by Ahmad Salem—Bloomberg/Getty Images Photograph by Brent Humphreys for TIME Photograph by Sarker…

A mass shooting that left 18 people dead at a bar and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, on Oct. 25 is putting a spotlight on the state’s legal laxity on gun safety. Specifically, Maine doesn’t have some measures that have been shown to reduce gun deaths or homicides, such as laws that require gun permits—which some research found was associated with a 60% reduced risk of mass shootings—or universal background checks for handgun sales. STALLED EFFORTS In recent years, efforts to enact gun-safety measures have floundered in Maine. In June, the state senate rejected a bill that would have required background checks for private gun sales, including at gun shows. Instead, the state enacted a law prohibiting people from buying guns for someone banned from owning them. Michael…

Is the U.S. in a lawyer labor shortage? A new study from Statista and TIME shows that the majority of surveyed lawyers are finding it difficult to find and hire competent recruits. The survey, to determine America’s Top Law Firms of 2024, was sent to more than 50,000 attorneys via company websites, publications, and job networks like LinkedIn. Participants were asked to recommend law firms they had worked with, excluding their own, and then answer questions about the greatest challenges facing their industry. The 150 law firms that made the final list include Sidley Austin; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; and Debevoise & Plimpton. But the survey participants’ biggest concern was a shortage of skilled employees for hire: 54% of respondents said it would affect their law firm going…

On April 22 (Earth Day) of 1998, my co-authors and I published the now famous “hockey stick” curve. It was featured on the pages of the New York Times and other leading newspapers, helping it garner worldwide attention. Here was a simple graph, derived from sources of “proxy” climate data such as tree rings, ice cores, coral, and lake sediment, depicting the average temperature of the northern hemisphere over the past six centuries. It resembled an upturned hockey stick, with the “handle” corresponding to the relatively constant temperatures over the preindustrial era, and the “blade” corresponding to the dramatic subsequent warming that coincided with the Industrial Revolution. A year later, we extended the graph back 1,000 years, conveying clearly the unprecedented nature of the warming taking place today. That made…

It’s unusual for a medication to become a household name; even more uncommon for its branding to become, like Advil, shorthand for an entire class of products; and rarest of all, for it to change not just U.S. medicine, but U.S. culture. Ozempic has done all three. Approved in 2017 as a Type 2 diabetes medication, Ozempic has largely made its name—and a fortune for its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk—as a weight-loss aid. Its runaway success mirrors that of similar medications, including Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Wegovy, another Novo Nordisk product and the only one in the trio technically approved for weight loss. Prescriptions for all of them are flying off the pad at an eye-popping rate: they’re up 300% since early 2020, with more than 9 million written in the…

THE ENDURING LOVE OF MY CHOSEN FAMILY BY ZOOEY ZEPHYR In August, I spent 10 days visiting my fiancée Erin and her son Andy in Maryland. Erin and I were celebrating our birthdays, and my soon-to-be stepson was about to start third grade. During my stay, Erin and I told Andy a series of collaborative bedtime stories: Erin would start, and whenever Andy wanted, he’d say “switch,” and I’d jump in to tell the next part of the story. Together we spun tales of siblings who defeated an oil dragon in a magical realm made of paint, solved puzzles in a world made of food, and more. On the night before the first day of school, the siblings had escaped from inside a giant cyclops, and as we tucked Andy…

Sheikh Hasina floats into the reception room of her official residence swathed in a luxurious silk sari, the personification of an iron fist in velvet glove. At 76 and silver-haired, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister is a political phenomenon who has guided the rise of this nation of 170 million from rustic jute producer into the Asia Pacific’s fastest-expanding economy over the past decade. In office since 2009, after an earlier term from 1996 to 2001, she is the world’s longest-serving female head of government and credited with subduing resurgent Islamists and a once meddlesome military. Having already won more elections than Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi, Hasina is determined to extend that run at the ballot box in January. “I am confident that my people are with me,” she says in…

A Murder at the End of the World is a tricky title. It might refer to a murder in a remote location or a murder amid the literal end times. In the case of FX’s smart, stylish new drama, it’s a true double entendre. The plot works on multiple levels too. Set up as a classic cozy mystery, the detective story grounds an investigation of technology and enterprise in the age of climate apocalypse. Are the world’s wealthiest innovators saving humanity or hastening our demise? This combination of thematic ambition and narrative complexity will be familiar to fans of creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s previous TV project, Netflix’s spiritual sci-fi puzzle box The OA. Murder is a more grounded show, trading heady speculation for terrifying reality. So-called “Gen…

A man grieves on Oct. 24 over bodies of Palestinian people killed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, a city located in the southern half of the Gaza Strip where the Israel Defense Forces had instructed residents to move for their own safety. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said more than 9,000 people had been killed as of Nov. 2, as Israel mounted a massive retaliation for the Oct. 7 surprise attack into Israel that killed some 1,400 people. ▶ For more of our best photography, visit time.com/lightbox Photograph by Mohammed Salem—Reuters…

One word tore Choi Joung-Joo’s world apart. He first heard about crowd trouble in Seoul’s nightlife district of Itaewon on evening news bulletins, but it was a call from his wife that made panic set in. Their 21-year-old daughter, Yujin, had set off to celebrate Halloween in Itaewon on Oct. 29, 2022, with a friend, who had phoned to tearfully explain that as the melee grew denser she had lost grip of Yujin’s hand and consciousness soon after. “After she woke, she had received a call from Yujin’s phone but there was no sound,” recalls Choi. “So she thought that maybe Yujin was injured.” Choi met Yujin’s friend in front of Seoul’s Hanyang University Hospital at 1:30 a.m. “There were lots of reporters and TV cameras,” Choi tells TIME, standing…

“MAGA is ascendant,” crowed Representative Matt Gaetz on Oct. 25. He had reason to be happy. After weeks of chaos, House Republicans had settled on Mike Johnson as Speaker. Johnson is thoroughly in line with nationalist-populist Republicans who engineered Kevin McCarthy’s fall, and the episode was another sign that the GOP is no longer Ronald Reagan’s party. It is Donald Trump’s. Since Reagan left office nearly 35 years ago, the GOP has defined itself negatively. The coalition comes together based not on an affirmative program but in protest over someone else’s. The party’s greatest moments have been acts of rebuke. First came the election of 1994. Republicans won control of Congress for the first time in 40 years in a rejection of Bill Clinton’s health care plan, tax hikes, and…

Volodymyr Zelensky was running late. The invitation to his speech at the National Archives in Washington had gone out to several hundred guests, including congressional leaders and top officials from the Biden Administration. Billed as the main event of his visit in late September, it would give him a chance to inspire U.S. support against Russia with the kind of oratory the world has come to expect from Ukraine’s wartime President. It did not go as planned. That afternoon, Zelensky’s meetings at the White House and the Pentagon delayed him by more than an hour, and when he finally arrived to begin his speech at 6:41 p.m., he looked distant and agitated. He relied on his wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska, to carry his message of resilience on the stage…

Max Verstappen is giggling like a third-grader while crashing a toy truck. The planet’s top Formula One driver, who’s won three straight world championships and crushed all comers during the 2023 season, is on the Austin campus of Oracle, the lead sponsor for his Red Bull racing team, in mid-October. As part of his responsibilities, Verstappen is pinballed from event to event, where he and his teammates must glad-hand Oracle employees and customers a few days before the United States Grand Prix, a regular stop on the F1 schedule that includes races in 20 countries. It’s the sort of stuff Verstappen, who’s happiest speeding more than 200 m.p.h. down a track, can grow tired of, fast. The day’s organizers have baked in a little childlike fun for the drivers, setting…