Table of contents for June 18, 2018 in TIME Magazine

THE DRONE AGE The June 11 cover story on the state of drones worldwide resonated with many readers. Rex Hayes of Toms River, N.J., said W.J. Hennigan’s feature on military use of drones was “spot on,” and B.A. Tilton of Middleton, Mass., wrote that she would use an aerial photo of surfers to explain riptides to her great-grandson. And while Maren Wryn of Salem, Ore., missed TIME’s usual red border, she admired the “cutting edge” idea of using drones to create the cover. But Michael Soutter of Boynton Beach, Fla., while moved by Aryn Baker’s story on drones delivering medicine in Rwanda, was also reminded that who is using a machine matters as much as what it can do. “Technology,” he wrote, “can be used for good or ill.”…

There was a moment when everyone carried a Kate Spade bag. As a handbag designer starting in the 1990s, she had taken preppy shapes and images and twisted them into a contemporary must-have accessory that influenced a generation of women designers. Her energetic, colorful personality matched that aesthetic. She seemed to be the epitome of happy, carefree and upbeat, especially during the heyday of her career. It feels unbelievable that someone like Kate Spade, who was found dead on June 5 at age 55, would take her own life. She had not been “out there” so much as of late, but she had started a new collection, called Frances Valentine. She was a creative person, and after she spent about a decade raising her daughter, I’m guessing she felt…

ROTH PUTHY DOESN’T HAVE A PLANE TICKET or a suitcase, but on a recent Sunday afternoon she boarded the airport shuttle in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, anyway—just for fun. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” says the 20-year-old student. Since opening in April, the train has attracted some unusual patrons. In a city sorely lacking in public space, the single-car air-conditioned train—free until August—offers a rare respite from 90°-plus temperatures. Its launch, described as a source of “national pride” by the transport minister, also marks a milestone in the country’s rapid development. Cambodia’s national railway network, built in the 1930s, gradually fell into disuse following the rise of the Khmer Rouge, a genocidal agrarian regime that killed a fifth of Cambodia’s population between 1975 and ’79. Guerrilla ambushes…

IN HER MEMOIR OF THE CULINARY ARTS IN NEW ORLEANS, Ella Brennan proclaimed, “I don’t want a restaurant where a jazz band can’t come marching through.” At Commander’s Palace, her vibrant stage for creole cuisine, such bands not only could but did often march through‚ with Miss Ella second-lining with them. Dining with her was like watching a choreographer control a stage with glances, hand signals and glares, as she noticed a half-empty water glass four tables away or a pecan-crusted pompano improperly plated. With her passion and compassion, she cared deeply about every detail of her diners’ experience, and she was a pioneer among restaurateurs who stressed local ingredients and cuisines. During her 72 years (yes!) in the business, before her death on May 31 at age 92…

How a role changed an actor’s view of his race Ari’el Stachel, a Tony Award nominee for his role in the musical The Band’s Visit, recounts how growing up after 9/11 and as he started his career, he tried to hide his Middle Eastern heritage— until getting cast changed his thinking. The NFL gets tackled by Trump The President uninvited Super Bowl champions the Philadelphia Eagles from the White House, ostensibly over the NFL’s national-anthem protests—which the league recently said it will ban. TIME’s Sean Gregory writes that team owners now have a “self-inflicted Trump problem.” By trying to play the President’s public relations game, they no longer have the last word on the league’s rules. A different way Cynthia Nixon is catching on Author of the new book…

The idea that the special counsel is a runaway agent biased against Trump is a feverish dream concocted by those who are afraid of where the investigation is leading PRESIDENT TRUMP DECLARED ON JUNE 4 THAT the “appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!” Like many of Trump’s utterances, it was made with all the deliberation of a tweet. But unlike some of his targets, which are susceptible to a dashed-off gurgitation, this is an intricate constitutional issue worthy of sober reflection. Happily, there is a clear answer: virtually no one believes the appointment of the special counsel is unconstitutional, and there has been a long-standing bipartisan consensus to the contrary. A little background: After Watergate, Congress passed the Independent Counsel Act, which created a supercharged independent prosecutor…

HORMONAL GEL Researchers plan to launch the largest trial of a male contraceptive yet, for a hormonal gel that reduces sperm count, in July. Four hundred men will rub it on their shoulders daily. MALE PILL A recent study of 83 men showed that a pill successfully suppressed the hormones needed to produce sperm with no serious side effects. NONHORMONAL METHOD In India, a polymer gel method called RISUG blocks sperm when injected into the vas deferens. It was 98% effective in trials and is awaiting government approval.…

LOVE IT Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is being hailed as a hero after he reportedly jumped out of an Uber ride to come to the aid of a cyclist who was being mugged by four assailants in London. Jimmy Fallon delivered a surprise keynote address at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s graduation, in which he thanked the students for their courage and bravery in the wake of the shooting. LEAVE IT Solo: A Star Wars Story plummeted in its second weekend at the box office, earning just $29.3 million domestically, which may put it on course to become the first movie in the franchise to lose money.…

THE PRESIDENT IS ABOUT TO BE IMPEACHED. A progressive Southerner with a common touch, he’s squaring off against a conservative House that is trying to remove him from office. “Savagery in the quest for power is older than the Bible,” he gripes, “but some of my opponents really hate my guts.” It’s hard to miss the parallels between the fictional President Jonathan Duncan and a certain co-author of The President Is Missing, a new thriller out June 4 by James Patterson and former President Bill Clinton. Clinton faced his own impeachment scandal in the 1990s, in the aftermath of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and his fumbling responses to recent questions about his behavior have turned the book tour with Patterson into a fresh referendum on…

KANYE WEST’S PROJECTS SINCE HE teamed up with his now wife Kim Kardashian West in 2012—including the abrasive Yeezus, the sprawling The Life of Pablo and the series of personal appearances punctuated by top-of-the-head singles—have had varying stylistic contours. The one thing they’ve consistently focused on is contrast: light and dark, ugly and beautiful, self-aggrandizing and self-loathing. West might be uniquely qualified to grapple with this. In the public mind of 2018, he is “Kanye,” shorthand for an outspoken black man who says a lot of outré things in a world that still struggles mightily with its racial politics, someone whom Barack Obama has called a “jackass” and who is married to a similarly polarizing figure. He’s also Kanye West, a rapper and producer from Chicago who is happy…

‘ TRUMP’S SPEECH AT THE U.N. SOUNDED LIKE THE CHINESE OR RUSSIAN VIEW OF THE WORLD ’ In your book The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, you seem to be more than the Deputy National Security Adviser or a speechwriter. What was your relationship with Barack Obama? I think by the end, we’d been through so many things together, all of his foreign travel and all of these intense crises, and you do just develop a shared experience, shared points of reference. I was someone he could talk to about movies, or what did he really think about this foreign leader, or what’s annoying him. And there are not many people when you’re in the bubble of…

RAGING BULL When a 550-lb. bull escaped a slaughterhouse in Brooklyn last October, it spent several hours running in a local park before police found it. Authorities sent it to a sanctuary in New Jersey. FREE SWIM A Humboldt penguin broke free from a Japanese aquarium in 2012 and spent 82 days frolicking in Tokyo Bay before keepers caught it. Despite officials’ fears, the penguin had been eating well on its own. MONKEY TAKEOVER In 1935, more than 170 rhesus monkeys got loose from an animal park on Long Island, thanks to a forgetful employee. The monkeys stopped a train, and police had to ask local residents for help catching them.…

MISS AMERICA NEEDS GRIT and hustle, but she doesn’t need to be able to model a swimsuit on prime-time television. It’s not surprising that the organization decided on June 5 to scrap the swimsuit contest. In order for Miss America to stay relevant and to adhere to the cultural revolutions of the #MeToo movement, it does need to make some changes. These changes will be tough—the pageant has been around for almost 100 years and has a deeply ingrained place in people’s hearts—but things are moving in the right direction. Since winning Miss America in 2015, my life has been a whirlwind. I’ve traveled the world, from Afghanistan to South Korea, visiting children’s hospitals and our military. It has been really empowering. To be honest, swimsuit contributed to that.…

HAD VICTOR CHA BEEN NOMINATED AS U.S. ambassador to South Korea, he might have spent his spring preparing for the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un scheduled for June 12. But the former Bush Administration official was dropped as a candidate in January after voicing opposition to pre-emptive military action on the regime. He tells TIME about his expectations for the summit. South Korean President Moon Jae-in credited Trump’s “maximum pressure” for bringing Kim to the negotiating table. Do you think this policy of heavy sanctions was a key driver? I do. In 2017 they were able to get more economic pressure on the regime than it’s ever felt before. I was always of the view that that policy would work, because…

Any damning information Mueller has amassed is sure to come out—in a report, or by leaks or congressional subpoena “THE PRESIDENT IS TO HAVE THE LAWS executed,” wrote the Chief Executive. “He may order an offence then to be prosecuted,” but if he “sees a prosecution put into a train which is not lawful, he may order it to be discontinued.” That’s not a tweet from Donald Trump. It’s a letter from Thomas Jefferson, in 1801, explaining the President’s broad authority to supervise and control federal criminal prosecutions. As special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation heats up, Jefferson is a better guide to presidential prerogatives than the Trump critics who decry his Executive power claims as reminiscent of King George. For better and worse, the Constitution gives the President…

‘I WAS NOT LOOKING TO DO A FILM LIKE THIS. I HAD SPECIFICALLY SAID, “I’M SICK OF HEAVY.”’ How did you come to this role? I was not looking to do a film like this. I had specifically said, “I’m sick of heavy—I don’t want to cry all the time at work anymore.” My agent called and said, “I know what you said, but you need to read this.” And he was right. I loved it. I don’t know if love is the right word—it was more of a knowledge that I had to do it. Did you see yourself in this character? No! I mean, it’s quite extreme. Ultimately, it’s about a woman having an awakening after having a distant, destructive, unnurturing relationship with her mother. Often, we…

THE APPARENT SUICIDE OF DESIGNER Kate Spade on June 5 did more than shock and sadden her fans across the country. It also reignited a conversation about the many faces—and causes—of suicide. The circumstances around Spade’s death remain unclear, but the tragedy underscores a disturbing reality in the U.S. Suicide is a growing public-health problem that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of demographics. “This is not a condition that is related to success or failure,” says Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “No one is immune.” Federal data shows that suicide rates have increased steadily across nearly every demographic over the past two decades, rising by 28% from 1999 to 2016. Almost 45,000 Americans died by suicide in ’16,…

Equal rights for same-sex spouses in E.U. The European Court of Justice, the European Union’s top court, ruled that member states must recognize the residency rights of all married couples, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. The ruling responded to a case brought by a Romanian native after Bucharest barred his American husband from receiving residency. McConnell shortens August recess Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said on June 5 that Senators will not take their full break in August, blaming the need to stay in D.C. on “historic obstruction” by Democrats and approaching deadlines for appropriations bills. The move will leave legislators in tight re-election races with less time to campaign. Scores killed in Tunisia migrant wreck At least 112 people died after a boat carrying some 180…

RATIFIED The Equal Rights Amendment, by Illinois on May 30. The move puts the ERA one state short of the 38 an amendment requires to be added to the Constitution—but the original deadline passed in 1982. SWORN IN Spanish Socialist Pedro Sánchez as the country’s new Prime Minister on June 2, after leading parliament to oust his predecessor, Mariano Rajoy, over a scandal involving his Popular Party. CANCELED The Philadelphia Eagles’ June 5 White House visit, by President Donald Trump, who has been harshly critical of NFL players’ protesting during the national anthem. Most of the team had already said they would boycott the event. RULED President Trump must sit for a deposition in a defamation case brought by Summer Zervos, a judge said on June 5. The President’s…

TOP REPUBLICANS ON CAPITOL HILL ARE INCREASINGLY skittish that heir apparent Kevin McCarthy lacks the support to succeed House Speaker Paul Ryan, paving the way for an ugly leadership fight. McCarthy is working behind the scenes to line up backers. But his ascension is unlikely to be smooth, according to interviews with 16 senior Republicans, who believe the divisions in the party may create an opening for a member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus or a compromise candidate such as Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, or Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina. Ryan has backed McCarthy, the House majority leader, as his successor. The White House also seems to support him. McCarthy is close to President Trump, whose daughter Ivanka will…

Appointed by Trump’s Deputy Attorney General to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election, former FBI chief Robert Mueller is a lifelong Republican who has been lauded by both parties for his career of public service. Mueller has indicted 19 people, including five guilty pleas, and three companies, with a trial slated in July for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. In response, the President has leveled a series of attacks on the special counsel, not all of which are accurate. MAY 8, 2017 ‘The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?’ JUNE 15, 2017 ‘They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story.’ JUNE 18,…

DANIEL DUDLEY, 28, IS A BUSY MAN. The medical resident at Valley Medical Center in Washington is an active hiker, an amateur chef—he’s currently learning how to cook Indian cuisine—and a proud “father” to two dwarf rabbits, whose antics he chronicles under the Instagram handle @bunnyzaddy. He’s also at least partly responsible for the creation of a new male contraceptive. Over the past five years, Dudley has volunteered for three separate clinical trials of three male contraceptive methods. He’s taken a daily pill, rubbed a hormonal gel on his chest and received an injection of hormones into his left butt cheek. If all the methods were available today, he says, he would “totally use” the injection for its long-lasting convenience. Dudley, who is in a long-distance relationship with his…

This is likely soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo’s last shot at winning a World Cup. The 33-year-old Portuguese captain has won the European Champions League five times with two teams, yet the World Cup trophy remains elusive. Leading fourth-ranked Portugal to victory would cement his place as one of the game’s greatest players of all time. The only South American team to win a World Cup on European soil was Brazil in 1958. This year, there are five teams from South America in contention. Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia all look likely to make it out of their groups, with Peru the underdog. If the Brazilians live up to their tag as tournament favorites, few would bet against them in Russia. France and Germany are also considered front runners. But…

GEORGE BLUTH (JEFFREY TAMBOR) On Arrested Development, which just returned for a fifth season on Netflix, Tambor plays a corrupt real estate developer. LUCIOUS LYON (TERRENCE HOWARD) The founder of a record label, Howard’s Lyon on Fox’s Empire is as scheming as his family as he searches for a successor. J. PAUL GETTY (DONALD SUTHERLAND) On FX’s Trust, based on the true story of the Getty kidnapping, the veteran actor steps into the role of the oil baron.…

THE WORD IS MURDER By Anthony Horowitz The prolific English writer puts a meta-fictional spin on a classic Holmesian mystery by placing himself in the middle of his own story, which follows a brash former detective as he investigates the murder of a London aristocrat. (June 5) BEARSKIN By James A. McLaughlin Seeking solace in his work as a caretaker for an Appalachian nature preserve, an environmentalist escaping a dark past puts his life in jeopardy when he tries to stop an illegal bear-poaching ring in this rustic-noir slow burner. (June 12) SOCIAL CREATURE By Tara Isabella Burton Beneath a veneer of glamorous uptown debauchery lurks a sinister reality in Burton’s frenetic debut novel, which encircles a twisted friendship between a struggling New York transplant and…