Table of contents for September 4, 2017 in TIME Magazine

What you said about ... HATE IN AMERICA Editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs’ essay in TIME’s Aug. 28 special report on hate in the U.S. in the wake of violence in Charlottesville, Va., should be “read, reread and shared,” wrote Rita Mospaw of Clarence, N.Y. But Jody Reiss of San Francisco was disappointed that TIME’s coverage of an event at which Nazi chants were used— which also included pieces from Ilhan Omar, Tavis Smiley and others—didn’t include a Jewish response. Meanwhile, Dr. Dennis Moritz of Punta Gorda, Fla., echoed several others in expressing the belief that one item in the issue—a photo of people taking pictures of a beating rather than intervening—was a bad sign. “No greater danger to a democracy than mob rule,” he wrote, “and no greater dangers to…

Monuments come down across the U.S. At least 13 Confederate monuments were taken down across the U.S. in the wake of the violence at a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12. Monuments celebrating Civil War– era military figures have been removed or covered in six states, including a Robert E. Lee statue in North Carolina, three monuments on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin and a structure commemorating Confederate soldiers in Florida. South Africa cannibals charged Five people were arrested in South Africa on charges related to cannibalism after a man turned himself in to police in possession of human body parts, saying he was “tired of eating human flesh.” Police said one suspect, a traditional healer, was found with more human remains. Virginia priest…

Migrants prevented from leaving Libya A group of soldiers, police and armed civilians in Libya are preventing migrants from crossing the Mediterranean. They are thought to be the cause of a recent drop in migrant boats arriving in Italy by sea. Body of missing journalist found Danish police confirmed that remains discovered at sea were those of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, 30, who went missing on Aug. 10. Wall, a contributor to TIME, among other publications, was last seen boarding a submarine built by Danish inventor Peter Madsen. He is being held on manslaughter charges. Slender Man teen pleads guilty A Wisconsin teenager accused of stabbing a classmate to impress a fictional Internet character known as Slender Man pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree homicide as a party to a crime…

DIED Thomas Meehan, three-time Tonywinning co-writer of Broadway hits including Annie and Hairspray, at 88. Bruce Forsyth, British entertainer whose television career spanned more than 70 years, at 89. Forsyth hosted the U.K.’s version of Dancing With the Stars for a decade. U.S. Big Band singer Bea Wain, who was the first to record the Harold Arlen classic “Over the Rainbow,” at 100. NAMED Hard-liner Anatoly Antonov, as Russia’s U.S. ambassador, by President Vladimir Putin. Antonov replaces Sergey Kislyak, who has been in the role since 2008. ACCEPTED A place at Oxford University, by Malala Yousafzai, 20, the Pakistani human-rights and education advocate who became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2014. BOUGHT The oil-and-gas unit of Danish conglomerate Maersk, by French company Total, for $7.45 billion.…

AUSTIN RUSSELL HOPS IN A MOTORIZED CART AND GOES whizzing through a cavernous building on the edge of San Francisco Bay that is normally used to disembark cruiseship passengers. As the lanky 22-year-old CEO tools around, he passes a mannequin, a tire and a co-worker on a bicycle–all elements of a demonstration to show how well his company’s sensor can monitor the environment. On a nearby screen, those shapes appear in rainbow colors that signify exactly how far away they are. All of it is the result of laser beams shooting out of a black box and bouncing off more than a million points around the room every second. “It’s easy to make an autonomous vehicle that works 99% of the time,” Russell says later. “But the challenge is in…

‘It doesn’t make any sense. It’s happening, you guys. It’s happening!’ —SARAH JESSICA PARKER, narrating her awestruck response to the Aug. 21 solar eclipse in an Instagram video…

‘THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY THAT WE FOUGHT FOR, AND WON, IS OVER.’ STEPHEN BANNON, ex–chief strategist to the U.S. President, after leaving the Administration and retaking the helm of the conservative populist news site Breitbart ‘Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.’ ELON MUSK, Tesla CEO, and 115 other leading experts on artificial intelligence, calling on the U.N. to ban the use of AI in weapons manufacturing Bing The search engine claims to account for a surprisingly large 33% of U.S. search traffic GOOD WEEK BAD WEEK Bong London’s Big Ben went silent on Aug. 21 while it undergoes renovations 98% Rate of increased risk for poor sleep quality among people who watch threeplus TV episodes in one sitting right before bed ‘We will have to…

SHRINKING MIDDLE Macron, an avowed centrist, has energized foes on the left and right. His aggressive pursuit of $70 billion of cuts in federal spending by 2022 has angered socialists, while a proposed $1 billion cut to the military’s budget also alienated conservatives and led to the resignation of armed-forces head General Pierre de Villiers on July 19. GOD COMPLEX Macron raised eyebrows in July by comparing himself to the Roman god Jupiter and has been criticized for being egotistical and aloof. He has refused to do interviews, canceled a traditional press conference normally held on Bastille Day and faced pushback for his efforts to create an official First Lady position for his wife, Brigitte. STORMS AHEAD On Aug. 12, French pollster Ifop put Macron’s approval rating at…

To tackle its own economic and security problems, Nigeria needs a strong President IT WAS THE BEST POLITICAL NEWS STORY of 2015. When Goodluck Jonathan accepted election defeat at the hands of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria—Africa’s largest economy and a country of more than 180 million people—saw its first peaceful transfer of power between rival parties since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. Success wasn’t preordained. Despite the size of its oil-powered economy, Nigeria is still a poor country, its economy is in recession and attacks from extremist group Boko Haram have forced more than 2 million people from their homes over the past eight years. The country is deeply divided: between Christians and Muslims, south and north, haves and have-nots. Buhari’s peaceful victory boosted hopes that Africa’s giant had…

IT’S BEEN ALMOST A CENTURY SINCE THE 19th Amendment guaranteed American women the right to vote, an occasion now marked by Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26. But long before suffrage was extended in the Constitution, women were running for office—and winning. In fact, at least 3,586 women campaigned for elected positions in the half-century before 1920, according to Her Hat Was in the Ring, a database created by scholars Wendy Chmielewski, Jill Norgren and Kristen Gwinn-Becker. Among them: Marietta Patrick and Lydia Hall, who in 1855 were elected to the Ashfield, Mass., school board, and Susanna Salter, who became mayor of Argonia, Kans., in 1887. Those efforts were possible because state and federal qualifications for voting and holding office differed. Most of the states and territories that pioneered women’s…

“ESTO HAY QUE TOMARLO SIN NINGÚN apuro,” Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee implore in the first verse of “Despacito.” Take it slow, in other words. Which makes sense considering that’s what despacito means in Spanish. But the track’s rise to becoming the undisputed song of the summer this year— not to mention the most-watched video of all time—was anything but sluggish. “Despacito,” along with its remix, reigns by every conceivable music metric, topping Billboard’s charts for more than 14 weeks in a row. The Spanishlanguage hit—created by Fonsi, a classically trained Latin artist, and Yankee, the king of reggaeton, and later remixed by Justin Bieber—was first released in January. By the end of the school year, “Despacito” had achieved the kind of cultural ubiquity that’s made it a mustplay everywhere…

PEOPLE WHO LOVE TYPEwriters— you know who you are—shouldn’t tap the space bar once, let alone twice, before rushing to see Doug Nichol’s agile, deeply affectionate documentary California Typewriter. But anyone who loves machines, poetry or, better yet, the poetry of machines should see it too. Nichol has sought out people who cherish and use these marvelous machines regularly, including the late, great Sam Shepard (who loved his Swiss-made 1960s Hermes, which his son found at a swap meet) and Tom Hanks (who makes the case, upper and lower, for the typewritten thankyou note over the facile, dashed-off email). But the movie’s true star is Ken Alexander, ace repairman at the 68-year-old Berkeley, Calif., shop from which the film takes its name. Here Alexander explains why, if forced to choose,…

THE ACROPOLIS The costly Acropolis Restoration Project began in 1975 and is finally nearing completion. Repairs to the Parthenon, the temple on the Greek citadel, have taken longer than it took to build it in 447 B.C. TA PROHM The restoration of Ta Prohm, the temple near Angkor Wat in Cambodia, featured in the movie Tomb Raider, began in 2004 and is in its third stage. Indian archaeologists are leading the project. TAJ MAHAL Intense restoration work is under way at the Indian monument because of air pollution. Workers are applying marblecleaning mud packs to the entire surface of the Agra site, built in 1631.…

DICK GREGORY WAS ONE of the freest black men I have ever known. For American blacks of Gregory’s generation, freedom took some figuring out. But Gregory, who died Aug. 19 at age 84, knew that real freedom can come only from real truth. Sometimes he masked the truth with a joke, but you were always going to get the truth. Gregory once told me about the time Martin Luther King Jr., with a tear in his eye, told Gregory that he knew he was soon going to die. Gregory, trying to lighten King’s load, shot right back, “Better you than me, Martin!” But Gregory didn’t just tell jokes, he fought for justice. He was loved and respected by the lions of the civil rights movement because he wasn’t afraid to…

THANKS TO UNIVERSAL PRE-K programs in cities like New York and Seattle, more 3- and 4-year-olds have access to education than ever before. But one-third of American children are still underserved, and that’s a huge problem, argues child-development expert Suzanne Bouffard in her new book, The Most Important Year. Studies show that children’s brains develop at a much faster rate during pre-K years, meaning better schooling then can lead to better skills later on—in reading, math, selfcontrol and even parenting. That said, Bouffard stresses that public offerings could be even more effective if they prioritized features that help kids’ cognitive development— like highly trained teachers and open interactions with peers—over tests and heavy regulation. But in any case, she concludes, it’s critical that pre-K become universally accessible because the kids…

1 DRINKING CAN REDUCE RISK OF DEATH A report in the Journal of theAmerican College of Cardiology found that light to moderate drinking (14 or fewer drinks per week for men, and seven or fewer for women) was associated with about a 20% reduced risk of death, compared with no drinking at all, over the 13-year study duration. 2 AVOID SMILEY FACES IN WORK EMAILS A study in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that participants who received workrelated emails with smiley faces considered the senders less competent than senders of the same emails without smiley faces. 3 TAKING SELFIES MIGHT MAKE IT HARDER TO PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE A study in Cyber-psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that people are more likely to experience nomophobia— mobile phone separation anxiety—if…

BASKETBALL 1 dot = 291 players 541,000 boys play in high school... 1 in 99 Go on to play in NCAA Division I ... 1 in 1,860 Go on to play in the NBA SOCCER 417,000 boys play in high school... 1 in 73 Will play Division I 1 in 835 Will play in MLS BASEBALL 483,000 boys play in high school... 1in 47 Will play Division I 1 in764 Will play in MLB FOOTBALL 1.1 million boys play in high school... 1 in 41 Will play Division I 1 in603 Will play in the NFL NOTES: ODDS BASED ON THE NUMBER OF HIGH SCHOOL PLAYERS IN 2013, NCAA PLAYERS IN 2013 AND PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS IN 2015. ODDS ACCOUNT FOR THE NUMBER OF NON-U.S. PLAYERS IN PRO LEAGUES AND AVERAGE…

‘People say the last champion’s going to win the next tournament. It’s the classic way to see it. And it never happens.’ You’re 23 and have won two Grand Slam titles in two seasons. Serena Williams is taking a break for her pregnancy and nearing the end of her career. Is this your moment? That’s what everybody’s thinking. But it’s not easy. The more you win, the more expectations people have— they see you as a possible champion everywhere you go. You realize everyone’s watching you and expecting you to win. It’s hard. You beat Venus Williams in the Wimbledon final in July and Serena in last year’s French Open final. So what’s the secret to taking down the Williams sisters? [Laughs.] There’s no secret. Just go out there without…