Table of contents for August 29, 2016 in TIME Magazine

Terrorism fears have led to crackdowns on garments worn by some Muslim women. In France, where full-face veils like the burqa are already banned, three seafront towns recently prohibited full-body swimsuits, or "burkinis." Other countries are pursuing their own bans: GERMANY Conservatives in Chancellor Angela Merkel's party want a ban on the full-face veil as a security measure, but on Aug. 11 her Interior Minister rejected demands. DENMARK Dansk Folkeparti's Kenneth Kristensen Berth cited security reasons in proposing a burqa ban on Aug. 10, the fourth time the populist party has proposed the ban in 12 years. BULGARIA On June 15, Bulgaria's National Assembly approved the first reading of a law, tabled by the nationalistic Patriotic Front party, that bans veils that partially or fully cover the face.…

STEPHEN BANNON The Trump campaign's new CEO is the impresario of Breitbart News, a hard-right outlet that champions the nominee, opposes illegal immigration and challenges GOP leaders. KELLYANNE CONWAY A veteran pollster and longtime Trump friend, Conway ascends to the title of campaign manager, a role that had gone unfilled since June. Her task will be to impose message discipline. PAUL MANAFORT The veteran GOP lobbyist and campaign chairman will lose some power in the shuffle, as others take over operational responsibility. He has come under scrutiny for his past ties to a pro-Putin Ukrainian strongman.…

July typically ranks as the hottest month of the year, but heat waves in several locations around the globe, along with human-influenced climate change, helped make last month the hottest month ever recorded. Average global temperatures reached nearly 62°F, beating the record set last year by a slim 0.1°F margin, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Temperatures reached much higher in many locations around the world, including Kuwait, where the heat topped 129°F. The July record left scientists with little question that 2016 will be the hottest year since record keeping began, given that every month since October 2015 has set a new monthly high. They warned that suffocating temperatures may become the new normal if global warming continues unchecked--and that although attributing any one weather event to…

The movements that have shaken America in recent years--the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter--are often assumed to be discrete, separate phenomena. But in fact they have fed one another and overlapped, as more people rediscover the fine art of direct action. This new wave of activism began in 2008. Although Americans have long experienced inequality, the financial crisis--which caused people to lose their jobs, evaporated retirement savings and evicted families from their homes--raised its profile. Faith in elites, particularly politicians, fell, and cynicism about our economic and political systems hardened. This anger and sense that the system is rigged primed people to notice other injustices. Among them: the police killings of black men, low minimum wages, the role of money in elections. These are…

In these lazy days of late August, we need to bear in mind that a reckoning is coming with the Russian Federation. It is easy to feel the slow burn in Moscow as an Olympics unfolds without the Russian athletes, who are justifiably barred from taking part. Russia is also frustrated by the ongoing sanctions that were imposed following its invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. And it faces increasing costs of its operations in Syria in support of Bashar Assad's regime, which continue to sour relations with the West. There are indications that Vladimir Putin is preparing to shake up the game as he has done during summer vacations of the past. Previous August surprises included the invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and Georgia in 2008; this year…

Old people aren't good at voting. I don't simply mean that they don't vote like I do, or I would also say that old people are bad at watching TV, picking restaurants and gauging my interest in stories about their friends' children. No, old people vote shortsightedly, choosing the least progressive outcome. In surveys in the U.S. and the U.K., people over 65--compared with people under 30--were nearly twice as likely to be against gay marriage; twice as likely to be pro-Brexit; half as likely to support legalization of marijuana; nearly five times less likely to want to spend money on education; 60% more likely to vote for Donald Trump; and nearly 50% more likely to say immigrants have a negative impact on society, despite the fact that they…

'It's all gone again.' Jeannique Branche, Baton Rouge, La., resident whose apartment was one of thousands of homes hit by floodwaters; she moved to the area, which rarely floods, after her home was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina 400 Lifespan, in years, of Greenland sharks found in the North Atlantic, making the species the longest-living vertebrate 20% Percentage of millennials who lean Republican, according to a USA Today/Rock the Vote poll; half the respondents lean Democrat 1,210 Number of tickets issued by Taiwanese authorities to drivers playing Pokémon Go 'The black people of Milwaukee are tired ... of living under this oppression.' Khalif Rainey, Milwaukee alderman, after violence erupted following the fatal shooting of an armed black man by a black police officer 'I'm not the next Usain Bolt or Michael…

Britain may be forced to push back its withdrawal from the E.U. by as much as a year, according to media reports. The government is said to be unready to negotiate the terms of Brexit and may now delay the formal notification for the two-year process until the end of 2017, despite Prime Minister Theresa May's signals that it would happen early next year. Here's why: TRADE WOES The government departments overseeing Brexit and global trade face a daunting series of tasks: not just legally disentangling the U.K. from the E.U. but creating a new free-trade agreement with the E.U. from scratch and re-establishing links with 163 other nations of the World Trade Organization. Tens of thousands of tariffs, quotas, subsidies and other arrangements stand to be renegotiated. EXPERT SHORTAGE…

DIED Khaled Omar Harrah, 31, Syrian rescue worker known for saving a 10-day-old "miracle baby" from a collapsed building in Aleppo in 2014. He was part of the Syrian Civil Defense force, which has saved more than 40,000 people in the country. Harrah's team says he was killed in an airstrike. DIED Fyvush Finkel, 93, actor who started in Yiddish theater before his Emmy-winning performance on the TV show Picket Fences. In recent years, he appeared in Boston Public and A Serious Man. DIED Kenny Baker, 81, who played R2-D2 in six Star Wars movies. The 3-ft. 8-in. actor said the filmmakers convinced him his stature made him perfect for the role: "You're small enough to get into [the R2-D2 suit], and you're strong enough to be able to move…

For thousands of years, humans have sought to develop the ideal seat, from the Song dynasty yokeback (one of the earliest uses of lumbar support) to the modern ergonomic desk chair. In his new book, Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History, architect Witold Rybczynski argues that the search will never end--because humans aren't built to sit. "We are good at walking and running, and we are happy lying down," he writes. "It is the in-between position that is the problem." Some seats are more helpful than others: the rocking chair famously helped alleviate President Kennedy's back issues, and the invention of the dentist chair made it easier to treat cavities. In the future, Rybczynski writes, humans may well invent a chaiselike seat designed…

A roundup of new and noteworthy insights from the week's most talked-about studies: 1 WORKING LESS MIGHT MAKE YOU MORE PRODUCTIVE An analysis of worldwide gross domestic products from consulting firm Expert Market reveals that seven of the countries with the highest GDP per capita--including Norway, Switzerland and Germany--are also among the 10 countries with the fewest hours worked. 2 SOCIAL MEDIA ISN'T REALLY THAT SOCIAL One study published as part of a report in the journal New Media & Society found that users spend only 3.5% of their time on social media interacting with others by commenting or chatting; the rest is spent browsing. 3 U.S. WOMEN ARE HAVING FEWER BABIES THAN EVER New CDC data reveals that fewer than 60 babies were born per 1,000 women ages 15…

What's the fundamental problem with Europe's common currency? The diversity of Europe is its strength. But for a single currency to work, over a region with enormous economic and political diversity, is not easy. A single currency entails a fixed interest rate, which means countries can't manage their own currency to suit their own needs. You need a variety of institutions to help nations for which the policies aren't well suited. Europe introduced the euro without providing those structures. Is the crisis political or economic? The two can't really be separated. The euro zone was driven by the neoliberal view that markets are always efficient. That in itself is political. There was no pressing economic need that the euro was required to solve, but leaders believed that it would foster…

Consider the tomato: Easy to grow, healthy to eat, tasty in just about any recipe and pleasant to look at. And come late summer, in steady supply. Though you can find a stalwart plum variety in produce bins during the coldest winter months, August is the tomato's season to shine. Farmers' markets and grocery stores are bursting with lesser-known but arguably more-flavorful varieties, including punch-colored cherries and big-mac heirlooms. "Heirlooms ripened on the vine are the tastiest of all tomatoes," says Amy Goldman Fowler, author of The Heirloom Tomato. "I think their beauty is more than skin-deep." Heirloom seeds have been around for at least 50 years, often passed down from generation to generation. You may hear cherry or heirloom used to describe a tomato at hand, but classifications are…

Jose Martinez knows trauma. As a U.S. Army infantryman in Afghanistan, he lost both legs, his right arm and his left index finger to a land mine in 2012. Recovery was challenging. "In my eyes, I had pretty much failed when I stepped on a bomb and lost three limbs," he says. "I was going insane because I did not understand why I was still alive." Then, last December, he broke his maimed left arm, his lone remaining limb, when his car flipped over after hitting black ice in the high desert near his Apple Valley, Calif., home. It's no surprise, then, that he also knows posttraumatic stress disorder. Doctors plied him with pills after both calamities. "I started taking so many prescription pills," he recalls, "I was numb to…

James Baldwin is everywhere. To account for the latest disasters around race in this country--grief over the death of another black person at the hands of police; the fact that we have vomited up the likes of Donald Trump--activists often reach for him. Baldwin circulates. His words inspire on social media; his phrases speak from T-shirts; his face covers a throw pillow on Etsy. But apart from his marketability--that people can use him as an avatar of supposed seriousness--what does Baldwin offer us in this moment? What does he force us, as Americans, to confront? In Teju Cole's brilliant new book of essays, Known and Strange Things, he writes of a trip to Selma, Ala. This essay, like much of the book, reveals Cole's extraordinary talent and his capacious…

When you read the script, did you gravitate toward the part of David? It's all in when these things come to you. I had just finished playing this boxer, Vinny Pazienza [in this fall's Bleed for This], and Vinny is a very larger-than-life character, so I was more interested in playing the straight character. It's nice to actually play a guy that you like. Did you get to meet Packouz? Yeah. Anytime you can meet the person you're playing, it's interesting, whether or not you're using that as part of your prep. By the time I met David, we had already been filming for a bit. A lot of times people aren't the most honest about themselves. David has his version of it, and we took his experience and pumped…

LOVE IT Detroit is putting small mailbox-like libraries in front of public schools to encourage more kids to read. Sanne Wevers won the Netherlands' first-ever individual gymnastics gold medal for her balance-beam routine. President Obama's annual summer playlist included a "nighttime" set. Among the featured songs: "Lady" by D'Angelo and Janet Jackson's "I Get Lonely." Rihanna will receive the prestigious Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at MTV's upcoming Video Music Awards; previous honorees include Beyoncé, Madonna and Justin Timberlake. Pennsylvania bride Jeni Stepien, who lost her father a decade ago, was walked down the aisle by the man who received his heart in a transplant. Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery said she would "wholeheartedly consider" returning to the Crawley family--for a film. Time's weekly take on what popped in culture LEAVE…