Table of contents for November 6, 2017 in TIME Magazine

THE GODDESS MYTH Claire Howorth’s Oct. 30 cover story on the high expectations that new moms face won praise from Mount Pleasant, Mich., obstetrician Robin O’Dell, who said she would be sharing it with her patients. And Pritish De of Waukesha, Wis., wrote that the story was timely, given the way social media amplifies “pressure to be a perfect mother.” The cover image, however, drew mixed reactions. David Beckman of Onalaska, Wis., wrote that the photograph by Erik Madigan Heck captured “the profound intimacy of motherhood,” but Susan Berg of Port Jefferson, N.Y., argued that the image only further fuels the goddess myth the article tackles by showing a “perfect, unblemished, ideal” nude figure of a “‘natural’ mother.” ‘ME TOO’ Laurie Penny’s Oct. 30 essay on the #MeToo social-media campaign—sparked…

Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona announced he would not seek re-election next year. In a speech on the Senate floor, Flake condemned President Donald Trump, calling his behavior “reckless, outrageous and undignified” and “dangerous to democracy” and saying he would “not be complicit.” Flake joins Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, also not seeking re-election, in challenging Trump in recent weeks. Nicaragua signs Paris climate pact Nicaragua signed the Paris Agreement, leaving the U.S. and Syria as the only countries yet to give the accord their support. The Central American nation’s leaders had previously refused to sign the pact because they felt it did not do enough to protect the climate. President Trump decided to withdraw the U.S. from the accord in June. Einstein happiness note sells for $1.56M…

Tiny firm to help rebuild Puerto Rico A tiny Montana firm founded just two years ago was given a $300 million contract to help restore power in hurricane-struck Puerto Rico, where 75% of the island is still without electricity. Whitefish Energy Holdings is based in the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, but the company denied benefiting from political favoritism. Stricter rules for some refugees The Trump Administration agreed to resume refugee admissions into the U.S. but announced stricter screening rules for nationals from 11 unnamed countries, mainly in the Middle East and Africa, identified as high risk. Reality-TV star to challenge Putin Russian journalist and former reality-television star Ksenia Sobchak announced she would run for President in Russia’s elections in March. President Vladimir Putin has not yet announced his…

DIED Retired astronaut Paul Weitz, who commanded the first flight of the Challenger in 1983 and logged a total of 793 hours in space, at 85. > Nonagenarian marathon runner Harriette Thompson, who in 2014 ran a marathon in just over seven hours, the fastest time in the U.S. for a woman age 90 or over, at 94. TRIGGERED Article 155 of the Spanish constitution by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which allows for direct rule over the region of Catalonia after a disputed independence referendum. Upon approval by the senate, the government could fire Catalonia’s lawmakers and take control of its institutions. NAMED Veteran civil rights activist Derrick Johnson as the new president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. > French model Ines…

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Heart transplants by the numbers 3,991 Number of people in the U.S. currently on the national waiting list for a heart transplant 312 Median number of days people in need of a heart transplant spend on the waiting list 3,191 Number of heart transplants performed in the U.S. in 2016 FOR TWO LONG YEARS, TOM GIANGIULIO JR., 58, WAS ON THE national waiting list for a heart transplant. He had cardiomyopathy, a condition that can weaken the heart muscle, and although he’d taken medication and had surgery to fix the problem, his doctors said there wasn’t much more they could do. He would have to wait for a new heart—and hope that he wouldn’t become one of the 20 Americans to die every day while waiting for a transplant. “You…

WITH THREE DAUGHTERS AND AN OLD HOUSE FULL OF FLAKING paint, Michele Stewart and her husband couldn’t afford to protect their children from lead poisoning. But then help arrived in the form of a $19,433 grant from the federal government for new windows, doors and trim. It was followed, one sunny June morning, by a visit from the nation’s most famous former brain surgeon, who arrived at Stewart’s Baltimore house with reporters in tow. “It was my house, but now it’s my home,” Stewart, a dental-hygienist student, told the assembled crowd. Ben Carson, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), had come to trumpet the roughly $100 million his agency sets aside each year to remove toxic lead-based paints (outlawed in U.S. construction since 1978) from the…

’TIS THE SEASON OF THE POLITICAL MEMOIR, even for those who avoided last year’s election glare. Barbara Bush and Jenna Bush Hager are the latest to jump on the bandwagon with Sisters First, a book that couldn’t be called a tell-all—it’s revealing, not shocking—but that breaks ranks with their Republican dynasty. In alternating chapters, the former First Daughters recount stories about everything from their childhood in Midland, Texas (with visits to their presidential grandfather George H.W. Bush), through their father George W. Bush’s White House years to Jenna’s current career as an NBC News correspondent and Barbara’s work as CEO and co-founder of the nonprofit Global Health Corps. The 2016 election prompted them to write the book. Barbara, already well on the record in favor of same-sex marriage, voted for…

You talk about a new generation of “homecomers.” What does that mean? By homecomer, I mean somebody who’s gone away and come back to the farm or to the local community. To rural America. Somebody who followed the universal advice that they couldn’t amount to anything where they grew up and have gone away and have found reason to come back. I visited a cheese co-op in Vermont. The members were not getting rich, but you could say they were thriving or prospering in a modest way, which would be quite enough if everybody were doing that. What do you say to environmentalists who believe it would be better for more people to live in cities? The more people who live in cities, the fewer there are who have knowledge…

‘MR. PRESIDENT, I RISE TODAY TO SAY: ENOUGH.’ JEFF FLAKE, Republican Senator from Arizona, announcing he won’t run for re-election in 2018 in an unusually candid speech on the Senate floor denouncing President Trump’s “undignified” behavior and the “complicit” Republican Party leadership ‘This may not be the first time we go to jail.’ JOSHUA WONG, pro-democracy activist, maintaining his commitment to standing up to communist suppression after Hong Kong’s highest court released him and fellow activist Nathan Law on bail to appeal their prison sentences for their roles in organizing the 2014 pro-democracy protests Nemi A stolen mosaic from one of Caligula’s Lake Nemi ships was returned to Italy GOOD WEEK BAD WEEK Nemo The French President’s dog interrupted a meeting by urinating on a fireplace in the Élysée Palace…

VULNERABLE NATION One of the world’s poorest countries and more than 80% covered by the Sahara, Niger shares ill-defined borders with Libya, Mali and Nigeria and is vulnerable to spillover of terrorist activity by extremist groups. EXTREMIST THREAT While ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram has run riot in Nigeria, Niger has seen more activity from splinter groups such as the Islamic State of the Sahel, thought to be behind the Oct. 4 attack, and al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, which has launched assaults and kidnappings. General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Oct. 23 that ISIS is “leveraging” local insurgencies in Niger. YEARS OF HELP Niger relies on military assistance from France and the U.S. to defend itself, and the U.S. has been in Niger intermittently for more…

FOR THE WEST’S STRONGEST LEADER, look East. After his party’s landslide victory in the parliamentary elections on Oct. 22, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is poised to become his country’s strongest and most successful leader in the postwar era. Abe’s center-right coalition retained its two-thirds supermajority in Japan’s lower house of parliament, and his Liberal Democratic Party won an absolute majority on its own, allowing it to control the legislative agenda. Although Abe’s ratings sank to a record low earlier this year, his opposition proved to be as fragmented as ever. Rising star Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s governor, kept her distance from this race, and the new Constitutional Democratic Party, rather than her newly minted Party of Hope, will now be the largest in opposition. Lawmakers will reinstall Abe as…

ROCK ’N’ ROLL BEGAN SO LONG AGO NOW THAT ITS genesis is practically the stuff of myth. But Fats Domino, who died on Oct. 24 at age 89, wasn’t just there at the beginning: he was one of its beginnings, a veritable human bridge between the traditional rhythms of New Orleans and all—Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Prince—that would come after. The man who would became Fats Domino was born Antoine Dominique Domino Jr., the youngest of eight, in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the city he called home his entire life. His first recording, “The Fat Man,” released in 1949, showed an artist both radically, dangerously free and completely in control—it’s a sassy, rollicking walk of a record. From…

DESPITE ITS ORIGINS IN PAGAN AND Christian tradition, the modern American Halloween is often a purely secular celebration centered on candy and costumes. But in fact, one of the most frivolous aspects of the holiday has a serious religious past. Medieval Christian tradition held that on Hallowtide, the eve of All Saints’ Day, the poor went to the homes of the wealthy and offered to pray for the recently departed in that household; it was believed that more prayers meant a soul was more likely to be saved. The rich then rewarded the poor with food and beer, explains historian Nicholas Rogers, author ofHalloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. But after the Protestant Reformation (coincidentally, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on Oct. 31, 1517), the idea that souls…

For most of the year since Trump’s stunning election win, his pronouncements have commanded the public’s attention the way an unexpected announcement does on a long plane ride. But on the ground, things have been happening. Quietly, the Administration has taken thousands of actions, affecting everyone from the poorest day laborer to the richest investment banker. And it’s touting its work. “No President or Administration has deregulated or withdrawn as many anticipated regulatory actions as this one in this short amount of time,” says White House communications director Hope Hicks. How you feel about those efforts may depend on how you vote. An October 2017 Pew Research Center report found that 66% of Democrats believe government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest, compared with just 31%…

NINA LANGTON THOUGHT SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO BE DEPRESSED. She had a great group of friends, lived in a prosperous neighborhood and was close with her parents. Like most 16-year-olds at her Connecticut high school, Nina spent much of her free time on her smartphone. But unlike many of her classmates, she was never “targeted” on social media—her word for the bullying and criticism that takes place daily on apps like Snapchat. “Part of what made my depression so difficult was that I didn’t understand why I was feeling so sad,” she says. Later, after her attempted suicide and during her stay at a rehabilitation facility,Nina and her therapist identified body-image insecurity as the foundation of her woe. “I was spending a lot of time stalking models…

KELLY CLARKSON MAY ONCE have been America’s singing Cinderella. But the 35-yearold is well past her fairy-tale beginning. Since winning the inaugural American Idol 15 years ago on the strength of her powerful pipes and candidly endearing persona, Clarkson hit snags in her career, including spats with her former record label. Not that it really shows on her eighth album, Meaning of Life, out now. Clarkson’s debut with Atlantic Records finds her as fans prefer: a confident artist with a sense of humor and sass to spare. “I’m a whole lotta woman, from the sound of my voice to the gloss on my lips,” she and her backup vocalists rap-sing on the aptly titled “Whole Lotta Woman.” “I’m a strong badass chick with class and confidence.” That confidence lets Clarkson…

THE CZECH REPUBLIC’S SECOND RICHEST MAN, Andrej Babis, is set to become Prime Minister after his ANO party came out on top in the Oct. 20–21 parliamentary election. Here’s what to know about the populist billionaire often compared to President Donald Trump: THE TYCOON The son of a communist Slovak diplomat made his billions through an agrochemical empire built from the spoils of the Soviet Union’s collapse. He founded ANO (Yes in Czech) in 2011, and it became the second largest party in Parliament in 2013 after running on an anticorruption ticket. One of his country’s biggest newspaper owners, Babis has been accused of using his media properties to smear critics and gain influence. THE POPULIST Having initially won support on his pro-business credentials, Babis positioned himself as an ethno-nationalist…

HEADDRESS In 2016 a California high school declined to print a portrait of a student who had no ties to the Middle East wearing a traditional kaffiyeh. He said he wore it to “provoke” the system. BOW A Pennsylvania high schooler had her photo rejected in 2015 because she was drawing a hunting bow toward the lens. Officials said they considered it to be a weapon, even without arrows. TUXEDO In 2010 a teenager filed a discrimination lawsuit against a Mississippi school district for excluding her from her senior yearbook because she had chosen to wear a tuxedo in her photo.…

Thirty years ago this week, while the world was still wondering whether the worst stock-market crash since 1929 would lead to a 1930s-style economic bust, I wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal with the headline “A Silver Lining to the Crash?” I mention it not only because it’s one I got right (I am less likely to remember those I got wrong) but also because it points to an important parallel between then and now. Alan Greenspan was new at the Fed, having followed the legendary Paul Volcker, slayer of inflation. The markets were nervous that the new Fed chief might let inflation return. The crash punctured the markets’ inflationary fears and cleared the way for an easier monetary policy and a healthier economy. President Donald Trump is…

IN 1979, A PROFESSOR THOUGHT HE had the answer to the nation’s crime surge: the color pink. Specifically, as Kassia St. Clair writes in her new book, The Secret Lives of Color, “a sickly shade of bright pink” akin to Pepto-Bismol. In a study, he showed that just looking at it weakened men. (Subsequent studies had mixed results.) Not long after, two commanding officers at the U.S. Naval Correctional Center in Seattle doused their holding cells in the color, which would take their names: Baker-Miller pink. For the next five months, the violent episodes that had plagued the prison ceased. Soon the shade popped up in other prisons, as well as public housing, buses and visiting football teams’ locker rooms. So why is Baker-Miller pink rare today? Chalk it up…

On Oct. 19, Senators John McCain, Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner introduced a bill to require Facebook, Google and others to keep public records of electioneering-ad purchases over $500, including information on the buyers. The tech titans are pushing back. Here are the competing arguments. HISTORY’S VIEW Foreigners aren’t allowed to spend money on U.S. elections, so TV and radio networks report who buys the election ads they air. In 2006, an FEC vote decided the Internet was “unique.” In 2011 and 2016, modifying its position, the FEC tried but failed to apply stricter rules. TECH’S VIEW Ahead of the 2016 election, Facebook and Google each sold at least $50,000 worth of political ads, possibly to Russian buyers, but they insist that most ads weren’t strictly election related. Moreover, they…

BONNIE WIRTZ WAS TENDING TO HER MINNESOTA FARM ONE SUMmer evening in 2012when a crop duster buzzed lowoverhead. The aircraft sprayed chemicals on her property, missing its target next door. Soon the fumes seeped into her home through the air conditioner, and Wirtz wound up in an emergency room, coughing and bewildered and worried about the health of her 8-month-old son. She had been sickened by a reaction to a pesticide called chlorpyrifos, which the agriculture industry uses to kill insects and worms on everything from cotton to oranges. A growing body of scientific evidence has linked the pesticide to health problems in children. Indeed, Wirtz’s son was diagnosed in 2015 with a developmental disorder that affects the functioning of the brain. It was the kind of episode that pushed…

“Pretending that we can just blow up the whole campus court system and there’ll be justice is another mess. I believe we can resolve many Americans’ hesitation about whether the courts should be involved in this issue if we admit that some of the behavior on campus may be immoral rather than criminal. Then it makes sense for the campus court to come into play, because campus courts generally deal with immoral behavior such as plagiarism. This is a way of handling episodes that involve profound thoughtlessness. American schools today are interested in thinking about this issue in this way. This is part of why they have enacted new sex rules on campus— I’m specifically talking about ‘Yes Means Yes,’ the idea that you’d have to ask for permission for…

Keep devices out of kids’ bedrooms There is strong data linking bedroom screen time with a variety of risks—particularly sleep loss, says David Hill, director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media. Even among adults, before-bed media use is associated with insomnia. And kids need more sleep than grownups. Taking away a child’s phone at bedtime can be a battle, but it’s worth the fight. Set online firewalls and data cutoffs It’s unrealistic to expect teens to stay away from illicit content or to moderate their social-media use, says Frances Jensen, chair of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. A young person’s brain is wired for exploration and, to some extent, thrill-seeking—not restraint. Most devices and Internet providers, as well as some apps, offer…

HOSTILE TERRITORY Kilcher’s next film is the period drama Hostiles, which won raves at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals. It follows an Army captain escorting a dying Cheyenne chief back to his tribal lands. WHEN Q’ORIANKA KILCHERWAS A BUDDING ACTOR OF 6, an interviewer asked her what roles she dreamed of playing. She couldn’t decide between her two heroes, so she named them both: Pocahontas and Hawaiian Princess Ka‘iulani. By the time she was 19, she had played both. At 27, Kilcher is adding another historical figure to her roster: storyteller and actor Mary Thompson Fisher, who became famous in the 1930s under the stage name TeAta (Maori for “bearer of the morning”). A citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, her talents won her fans including President Franklin D. Roosevelt,…

PROJECT 11 Jorja Smith Rising U.K. star Jorja Smith’s voice is expressively rich and fluid, a feature that is evident on her 2016 debut EP and ensuing singles. She’s featured on rapper Drake’s latest mixtape, More Life, twice. BISHOP BRIGGS Bishop Briggs Layering her darkly alluring voice over trap beats and emotive acoustic melodies, the London-born Bishop Briggs brings soulful gravitas to infectious, strippeddown pop ballads on her self-titled debut EP. FREUDIAN Daniel Caesar Canadian singersongwriter Daniel Caesar finds a sweet spot between R&B and soul. His 2017 album is filled with gospelbacked slow jams, and his honeyed voice is like a warm embrace.…

‘I cried at the end.’ KIT HARINGTON, actor, revealing that he shed tears during the script read-through for the final season of Game of Thrones…

SURPRISINGLY, A LOT OF REPORTERS HAVE SOCIAL ANXIETY. Although it’s actually not all that surprising when you consider how nerdy and awkward all the kids were at your high school newspaper. And how those who didn’t blossom then spent nights editing college papers. And how those who didn’t gain confidence are now professionals high-fiving each other every time an actor or a politician agrees to talk to them. My social anxiety manifests in having trouble asking other people for things, which is a problem because I really like when people give me things. I have asked only one woman out on a date in my entire life, and it was with the less-thanperfect pickup line, “Do you go on dates?” When I need to get a quote from someone in…