Índex per February 15, 2016 a TIME Magazine

The rules of presidential politics shifted on Feb. 1 from fun house to schoolhouse. As so often happens, the voters of Iowa imposed a tug of gravity on a campaign that long ago seemed to break its own bounds, as Ted Cruz's traditional turnout and message discipline trumped the Trumpapalooza. And the raw political talents of Marco Rubio gave him a clear shot at the Establishment lane that the GOP has used to pick nominees. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was able to slay her 2008 demons--barely. Iowa has never been great at picking nominees, but a state known as "the Big Sifter" separated the wheat from the chaff. Within hours of the results, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Martin O'Malley had all suspended their campaigns; the rest of the…

One of the most disturbing things about our current economic era is its juxtapositions. Wages are flat, yet corporations are flush. Interest rates are at nearly unprecedented lows, yet investment lags. The economic gap between Main Street and the markets, which are increasingly volatile, is as big as it's ever been. In The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability and Avoiding the Next Collapse, Mohamed El-Erian aims to make sense of this bifurcated world and where it's headed. The former CEO of investment-management firm PIMCO and chief economic adviser for insurance giant Allianz explains how, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession, central banks pumped unthinkable amounts of cash into the global system--around $29 trillion total--and slashed interest rates to zero. The result: rather than…

First of all, I want to say that no one has loved Barbie as much as I do, or for as long as I have. From the moment I first set eyes on her in 1961, she has been the light of my life, the fire in my--well, let's not overstate things here. Let's just say she has been the light of my life and the source of an unspecified warmth somewhere at the center of my body. And after more than 50 years of being pretty much the same, the woman I love has changed. But I do not plan on loving her any less. I hope that you won't either and that the following words will help serve to let Barbie know we honor and support her courageous…

Did you hear the one about Leonardo DiCaprio being sexually violated in The Revenant--by a bear? The one Jonah Hill mocked at the Golden Globes and the Onion lampooned with the headline "Leonardo DiCaprio Hopes He Screamed and Cried Good Enough in The Revenant to Win Oscar"? The one the Drudge Report said was true and 20th Century Fox (accurately) said was false, but got the star more buzz than 10 Kardashians locked in a Room? In the 2016 Oscar race, truth and fabrication grapple like actors and bears, and attention is always welcome--unless it's to point out that for the first time in 36 years, no actors of color were nominated for two years running. It has been a strange Oscar season. Before the late-breaking Revenant took a commanding…

The people who know the most about terrorism are pretty much all on the same page, and in Peter Bergen's United States of Jihad, that page is the last one. It's where the author strives to put into perspective the sense of peril that has kept the reader turning the previous 279 pages, a pulsing urgency that propels TV series like Homeland, much of cable news and the smack talk of the Republican presidential field--this feeling that something's going to happen, something terrible. Except it's probably not, Bergen concludes. There is terrorism, and there is fear of terrorism, and only one of those is actually rampant in the U.S. "I don't worry about it very much," says a former top counterterrorism official from the FBI, Philip Mudd, in the nuanced…

Allegations that Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari accepted bribes from a construction company have sent shock waves through the country's political class. Amari was a central player in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic-reform drive, known as Abenomics, and a key figure in the government's bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an enormous trade pact. Then there was the unprecedented decision by Japan's central bank on Jan. 29 to apply a negative interest rate to bank reserves, forcing banks to pay for money in reserves, and so encouraging them to get it into circulation. Are these signs that reform and Japan's economy are in trouble? Not likely. Although Amari has denied wrongdoing, he accepted responsibility for the alleged actions of his staff and resigned on Jan. 28. Government critics and…

CLAIMED By Google, the top spot among the world's most valuable public companies. The market capitalization of the search giant's parent company, Alphabet, briefly surpassed that of Apple after a better-than-expected quarterly earnings report. AGREED To be purchased for $43 billion in cash, Swiss pesticide and seed giant Syngenta. The buyer is chemical company ChemChina. If the transaction is completed, it will mark the largest foreign takeover by a Chinese company to date. WON His sixth Australian Open championship, by Novak Djokovic. The No. 1--ranked male tennis player defeated No. 2 Andy Murray in three sets and tied Roy Emerson's record for the most men's singles titles at the tournament. ANNOUNCED By Cindy Crawford, one of the highest-paid supermodels, that she will retire from modeling after she turns 50 on…

The American approach to preschool tends to fit one of two molds: direct instruction, with rigorously scheduled lesson plans, and free-form, in which kids learn on their own whims. In her new book, education scholar Erika Christakis argues that both approaches are lacking. A better method falls in the middle, helping kids "exercise their deductive muscles" without boring them or giving them too much agency, writes Christakis, who resigned from her Yale teaching post Dec. 7 after an email she wrote ignited a campus debate about racial insensitivity. Instead of drilling kids on vocabulary, for instance, teachers and parents should focus on how well they can carry on a conversation. They should also ensure that structured activities like team sports do not replace playtime, especially for kids under 5, who…

Mobile-analytics firm OpenSignal recently measured the top 4G download speeds in major U.S. cities across all four major carriers. Here's a sampling of the results--which all trail the rate of 25.2 megabits per second (Mbps) that has been recorded in Spain: 1 Miami 18.9 Mbps Verizon 2 Chicago 18.8 Mbps Verizon 3 New York 16.6 Mbps T-Mobile 4 San Francisco 15.9 Mbps Verizon/T-Mobile 5 Philadelphia 13.0 Mbps T-Mobile 6 Houston 9.8 Mbps AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint 7 Washington, D.C. 9.2 Mbps Verizon/T-Mobile --Sarah Begley…

When Marco Rubio landed in New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses, he looked more like a new father than the surprise third-place Iowa finisher. "Turnout was massive," he declared at a diner in Manchester, all smiles and handshakes. Someone eating breakfast tried to give him celebratory cigars, an offer he could not refuse. "Let's hide them, guys," he said to reporters. "I don't want my kids to see." No candidate in the Republican race does coy quite like Rubio, and no campaign has operated with such stealthy, even efficiency. When he entered the race in April 2015, the big Establishment money had gone to his former mentor, Jeb Bush. The Tea Party that Rubio once claimed had gravitated to Ted Cruz. And no one had foreseen the Donald Trump phenomenon.…

It's got to be hard to attempt to follow one of the most successful drama series of all time. But Jimmy McGill is a striver. Last year Jimmy, a con artist who dreams of success as a lawyer, entered viewers' lives on AMC's Better Call Saul. He's the younger version of the Breaking Bad lawyer Saul Goodman, before he changed his name and realized he could use the law to pull off even better scores. Yet too often, the series felt like a set of delicious ingredients that didn't add up to a nourishing meal. Lacking Breaking Bad's relentless forward momentum, Better Call Saul noodled around the Albuquerque, N.M., legal scene and showed us, again and again, how much fun it is to pull off a score, whether against a…

It would hardly be hyperbolic to say that inside a nondescript office in London on Feb. 1, a small group of scientists and patient advocates made a decision that could potentially change the future of humanity. Since 2012, scientists have been experimenting with CRISPR-Cas9, a powerful tool that works like an editor for DNA--allowing them to find and correct mutations that can lead to deadly diseases. Now, for the first time, a researcher has the green light to test this tool on viable human embryos. Kathy Niakan is expected to start trials in London at the Francis Crick Institute--known as the Crick--within the next several months. Scientists have manipulated the genomes of many animal species, but no sanctioned studies on human embryos have been done using CRISPR. Last year, to…

If you are near retirement age and watch even a little TV, you've almost certainly seen Henry Winkler or the late Fred Thompson promote reverse mortgages. You may also have heard watchdog groups blast both actors for hawking a complicated product to seniors in need of cash. What you likely haven't heard is that the reverse mortgage has gotten a substantial makeover since the financial crisis. Experts now argue that this type of loan can be safe and even wise--as well as a key source of income that homeowners short on savings and planning to stay put should set up the minute they become eligible at age 62. "The strategic use of home equity in a retirement-income plan is the next hot topic," says Wade Pfau, professor of retirement income…

To some Republicans, it looked like the smoking gun they'd been imagining for years. When the State Department released another batch of Hillary Clinton's emails in early January, her GOP opponents said they had found proof she broke the law by knowingly keeping classified intelligence on her unsecured personal server as Secretary of State. GOP candidates declared her unfit for office, and the prospect of Hillary under federal investigation apparently helped spur aides to billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to float word of a possible White House run. But behind the smoke there is, so far, just more smoke. A quiet, deliberate investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department is reviewing the potential mishandling of classified information found on Clinton's server. The good news for Clinton…

Roads don't get much prettier than sections of U.S. Highway 12 in the northern Rockies. Near Kooskia, Idaho, it's a narrow two-lane byway that winds above the Clearwater and Lochsa rivers, framed by craggy bluffs of Douglas fir and ponderosa pine. For the past few years, global energy companies have been fighting to use this remote sliver of asphalt to carry oversize industrial equipment to mining sites in the interior U.S. and Canada. Neighbors weren't keen on a scenic patch of wilderness's becoming a corridor for so-called megaloads, which can be nearly the length of a football field and too tall to fit beneath interstate overpasses. In conservative Idaho County, residents toted signs blasting the Axle of Evil and flooded a Forest Service website with so many comments that the…

LOVE IT Florida's Legoland is hiring 20 people to build Lego things all day. They'll be called "master model builders." Dutch National Police are working with a local company to train eagles that hunt down illegal civilian drones. Zayn Malik is releasing his solo album on March 25, the one-year anniversary of his leaving One Direction. Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan revealed that David Bowie auditioned for a part, possibly that of Gandalf. Thousands of Snoop Dogg fans have signed a petition to get the rapper to narrate a season of Planet Earth. One day after losing her dad to cancer, Vanessa Hudgens delivered a showstopping performance as Betty Rizzo in Fox's Grease: Live. Time's weekly take on what popped in culture LEAVE IT A 99-year-old Florida woman…

Were you worried about what would happen when people Googled Full Frontal? Honestly, it did not occur to me that people would sexualize it. I don't know why my head is in the sand. The world has a dirty mind. Not me. Why did you decide not to sit behind a desk? It just feels so passive, and I get bored with it. I want this show to feel like an attack, or at least more active, especially because I'll be doing a lot of fieldwork. Some people accused The Daily Show of editing field interviews to make people look bad. Was that the case? The best interview subjects are speaking authentically about the things that they're most passionate about. I feel I never took anyone's words out of context.…