Table of contents for May 27, 2019 in TIME Magazine

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT … “I HAVE A PLAN” Fans of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren saw Haley Sweetland Edwards’ May 20 profile as a victory for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. “She’s FINALLY starting to get the media attention she deserves after what’s been an incredible early-stage campaign,” tweeted activist Adam Best. Conservative pundit S.E. Cupp tweeted that the story was right to point out that Warren “definitely has real policy plans, where many other candidates don’t. Now it’s up to voters to decide if they make sense.” (For her, she added, “they don’t.”) Rodney W. Hanson of Lacey, Wash., wished the article mentioned even more of Warren’s policy positions, particularly those on climate change, but to Facebook user Paul Dukich, all those policies ran together as “more and…

POSTCARD The Godfather of Brexit returns to rile up the U.K. WHEN THE SUN SHINES ON CLACTON-ON-SEA on the east coast of England, the town comes alive with sunbathers, kids playing arcade machines and shopkeepers hawking beach balls on the sand-swept promenade. But the sky on a recent spring morning was overcast, and it hung over a different sort of crowd. Hundreds gathered at Clacton’s pier on April 23, many bearing pro-Brexit placards and wearing Union Jack pins. As the man they had come to see, Nigel Farage, stepped up to speak, a local politician hailed him by a nickname: the Godfather of Brexit. Farage’s lobbying was indeed instrumental to the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union in the referendum of June 2016, especially his vociferous anti-migrant sentiment.…

The filmmaker discusses the 200-acre farm he and his wife Molly started, with the support of investors, to grow food in a way that regenerates the land; it is the subject of his documentary The Biggest Little Farm. What’s wrong with how America grows its food? In the last 260 years, we’ve lost a third of our topsoil. We’ve destroyed 46% of our forests. It would be very shortsighted to think that the ecosystem of this planet will be able to support any kind of farming, let alone any type of economy. Eggs from your farm are $15 a dozen. What would we do about people who need to eat for less money? We’ve become O.K. with a $3 carton of eggs and treating chickens inhumanely and eating eggs that…

DIED Peggy Lipton Counterculture icon PEGGY LIPTON’S PERFORMANCE AS JULIE BARNES ON THE MOD Squad made a huge impact on my whole generation. The show was decidedly not meant for our parents, and Peggy, who died on May 11 at 72, was a revelation. She represented a type of person not seen on television before, the quintessential example of a new kind of woman, young and hip, with a resilience that complemented a truly gentle spirit. Later, she played a more personal, yet equally influential, role in my life, when we worked together on Twin Peaks. Peggy brought mystery and strength in equal measure to the character of Norma, who ran the Double R Diner. She radiated a sense of purpose, and her performance on the show in many…

Nearly three decades after the Cold War’s end, it’s no longer clear that American-style liberal democracy has carried the day. Xi Jinping has consolidated power in China on a scale not seen since Mao. Vladimir Putin has served longer than any other Russian leader since Stalin. Even many democracies are being undermined by populism. Democracy remains the form of government most likely to create lasting security and prosperity. A few oil-producing nations aside, the world’s wealthiest countries are democracies, and democracies are also less likely to go to war with one another. For these reasons, Americans have long believed that if all the world’s countries were to become democracies, everyone would live safer and more prosperous lives. But is U.S.-style democracy the right path for all? A new study…

GAME OF THRONES FANS HAVE WITNESSED countless deaths in its final season, but the show’s most painful casualty is yet to come. As Netflix firehoses content and streaming services keep emerging to spin media giants’ intellectual property into gold, critics like me have been fretting over the slow demise of television as mass cultural event. That panic has crystallized around Thrones—a series that remains both hugely popular and acclaimed at a time when ratings and prestige sometimes seem mutually exclusive. This kind of consensus hit can be really healthy for a society as fragmented as ours. Divided by class, politics and identity, 43 million of us can at least come together to watch Thrones. If fantasy buffs, academics, proponents of Strong Female Characters, the Gay of Thrones recappers, Black…

JEOPARDY! HAS BEEN A RELIABLE nightly fixture on TVs across America for decades. But current contestant James Holzhauer is showing it’s never too late to teach an old show new tricks. Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler from Las Vegas, had won 22 straight games by the time the show took a break in early May for its Teachers Tournament. That’s the second longest streak since Jeopardy! lifted a five-game cap for returning champions back in 2003. He’s smart and fast, but his crushing money strategy sets him apart, particularly on Daily Doubles. Anyone can wager large sums on those clues, but few have the stomach for it. “In gambling, we say you are ‘on tilt’ when your mood gets in the way of making your best decisions,” he says. “And…

CASUAL MOVIEGOERS WHO know Doris Day only from the early 1960s comedies she did with Rock Hudson or James Garner would have enough reasons to love her. In those pictures, Day—who died on May 13 at age 97—was a sunny, carbonated presence whose understated carnality bubbled just under the surface. Part of it was her speaking voice, a mysterious elixir viewed through amber-colored glass. Her singing voice magnified that magic. Day, born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, was so charming as a presence that it was sometimes easy to lose sight of what a phenomenal actor she was. In Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), she’s a devoted mother who is practically feral, so distraught over her son’s kidnapping that she reverts to a state of…

TRADE The real trade war: Whose rules will reign? RAY GAESSER, A SOYBEAN FARMER IN CORNING, Iowa, is on the front lines of the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China. Last fall, he was optimistic that the world’s two largest economies would seal a deal that would keep his crops moving to market in China. But as tit-for-tat tariffs have made his soybeans less competitive, Gaesser, 66, says it will be hard for many growers to turn a profit this year. “Farmers’ patience is growing thin,” he tells TIME. The question that really scares him: “Are we going to be in this for a long, long time?” ‘If someone thinks their own race and civilization is superior and insists on remolding or replacing other civilizations, it would…

You believe that District of Columbia v. Heller, which held that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to bear arms—and from which you dissented—was the worst decision the court made during your tenure. Why is that? It’s quite wrong on the merits. But beyond that, it seemed to me quite outrageous to depart from a settled rule of law. As history has demonstrated in recent years, the tragedies are multiplying one after another. And the decision of the court in Heller has contributed to that. Are there any decisions you personally regret? One of the death-penalty cases in my first year on the court. We should have put [the statute in that case] in the group of mandatory death-penalty statutes that we held unconstitutional. So, I think I got…