Table of contents for October 30, 2017 in TIME Magazine

What you said about ... HARVEY WEINSTEIN The Oct. 23 cover package about the revelation of extensive sexual-harassment and assault allegations against the movie mogul left Judith Bulau of Brentwood, Mo., moved by Jill Filipovic’s “acute and accurate” observations about men who are “complicit in their silence” on this issue. Broadcaster Piers Morgan tweeted that the cover was “powerful,” but some felt otherwise about the image of Weinstein. Kayla McCarnes of Denver and Mary Heine of Princeton, N.J., both said it was “creepy,” while Rebecca Alwin of Middleton, Wis., argued that it would have been better to show “the courageous women who are speaking out.” ‘I wish the cover showed the beautiful faces of the 10 Next Generation Leaders.’ SUSAN SCHNEIDER, Chicago AMERICA’S NIGHTMARE The Oct. 16 cover story…

HOLDING IRAQ TOGETHER without the common enemy of ISIS looming over it was always going to be tough. President Donald Trump is not going to make the task any easier. The rise of the Islamic State in 2014 forced many factions in Iraqi society to paper over their differences against a common enemy. In the contested areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, Kurdish authorities took control of oil-rich Kirkuk after the Iraqi army fled as ISIS advanced. On Oct. 16, Iraqi forces returned to take back Kirkuk and its surrounding areas by force, in response to Iraqi Kurds’ overwhelmingly voting for independence in an unsanctioned referendum on Sept. 25. The Iraqi Kurds might feel hard done by. For the past three years their peshmerga fighters, trained and armed by the U.S., have…

FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP, THE AFFORDABLE Care Act is already dead. “Obamacare is finished,” he said in off-the-cuff remarks before a Cabinet meeting on Oct. 16. “You shouldn’t even mention it. It’s gone. There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore.” But while he may wish that his recent executive actions to undercut the law were fatal, it remains on the books. And members of Congress from both parties are working on a way to keep it healthy at least through midterm elections. Just a day after Trump’s remarks, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee (below) and Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington announced that they had reached a deal on a short-term plan to keep the individual insurance marketplaces regulated by the ACA stable through 2019. Like Trump, Republicans in…

NOBODY WAS HERE TO WITNESS THE collision of two neutron stars in a distant galaxy 130million years ago. But when the signals of the cataclysm reached Earth just recently, they taught us a lot, as reported in several newly published studies. Here, four key insights: Neutron stars are insane. A neutron star is an ordinary star squeezed down to just 12 miles across, a single teaspoon of which would weigh a billion tons. When two of them collide, as this instance confirmed, they produce gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, visible light and gravitational waves—a bounty for astronomers. Neutron stars are armed. The universe sometimes flashes with blasts of radiation known as gamma-ray bursts that could wipe out life on any planet in the way. Astronomers suspected the source of the…

When the Roger Ailes sexualharassment scandal broke in July 2016 and he was forced out of Fox News in disgrace, I thought we might be at the beginning of a sea change. When Silicon Valley began erupting with similar stories this past spring, I thought, Yes, here we go. Now that we are in the midst of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, many are proclaiming, “This is it. It ends now.” My take? Maybe. But we have a lot of work to do. First and foremost, the victim blaming must stop. Often it seems there is almost a presumption that those who get harassed must have done something to invite it, which leads too many victims to stay silent. Actress Mayim Bialik thought this was the time to discuss the virtues…

FOR 30-ODD WEEKS, MY BARISTA AND I HAVE HAD ROUGHLY the same routine. I order my morning coffee and he pretends he hasn’t heard me, filling in the blank with a joke. “Mocha double-shot no-fat soy latte?” I laugh every time. I like the line. I like that we can agree that that’s a terrible coffee order. And I like these small moments that can make life in a big city feel a little more intimate. Only this time, he leaves me hanging. “You’re allowed to have espresso?” He’s looking at my belly, which, at 7. months pregnant, is well outside of the “Is she or isn’t she?” arena that tends to make people nervous. Allowed? I start babbling. “Oh, that’s not really true anymore, the thing about coffee. When…

THE GOLDEN COMPASS Orphan Lyra travels to the Arctic to rescue kidnapped children THE SUBTLE KNIFE Lyra meets Will, a boy who discovers the means to travel between worlds THE AMBER SPYGLASS Lyra and Will witness a battle between heaven and earth, and fall in love LYRA’S OXFORD Set two years after the trilogy, this short volume introduces us to a teenage Lyra still living in Oxford…

PIECING ME TOGETHER By Renée Watson “It’s a brilliant look at the role that art plays in the lives of young people, but also all of these different ways that race and gender and privilege intersect in the life of this one really extraordinary young woman.” THE HATE U GIVE By Angie Thomas “It should be a book that’s being read in every high school English class in the country. It’s such a special book.” WE ARE OKAY By Nina LaCour “This poetic, character-driven meditation on grief and isolation made me cry like a baby. But it’s also a profoundly hopeful novel, and it beautifully portrays the last days of adolescence, when ‘we were nostalgic for a time that wasn’t yet over.’” THE MAN WHO COULDN’T…

TIME’S WEEKLY TAKE ON WHAT POPPED IN CULTURE LOVE IT The train that appeared in the Harry Potter movies as the Hogwarts Express made an unscheduled stop to rescue a family of six who were stranded in the Scottish Highlands after a storm washed away their canoe. Chance the Rapper bought all the opening-day tickets for the movie Marshall, in which Chadwick Boseman plays the late Supreme Court Justice, at two Chicago theaters so viewers could see it for free. ‘If anyone is going to announce big news about your private life, Oprah Winfrey is the person.’ MINDY KALING, actor and writer, who revealed that she is expecting a baby girl nearly three months after Oprah confirmed her pregnancy A group of Bangladeshi acid-attack survivors walked the runway at a…

‘I didn’t think they would have any reason to search for one private.’ SERGEANT BOWE BERGDAHL, the U.S. soldier captured by the Taliban, pleading guilty to charges that he endangered his colleagues by walking off his base in Afghanistan in 2009 $53,863 Amount of money for Hurricane Harvey relief that 6,663 Texas inmates donated from their commissary accounts, according to the state’s criminaljustice department 16 Number of U.S. states that have enough cash to weather the next recession, according to a new report from Moody’s Analytics ‘There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable.’ KENNY HOLLOWAY, school-board vice president in Biloxi, Miss., explaining why Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird—one of the most challenged books of all time—was removed from the eighth-grade language-arts curriculum ‘I actually felt…

SEBASTIAN KURZ, 31, IS SET TO BECOME Austria’s next Chancellor after his center-right People’s Party (OVP) gained the biggest share of votes in the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections. Here’s more about the politician known as the wunderwuzzi (whiz kid). FAST RISE The only child of a teacher and an engineer, he soared through the ranks of Austria’s conservative establishment after joining OVP’s youth branch in 2003 and later became Foreign Minister by age 27. In 2016, Kurz defied the E.U.’s leaders to mastermind the closure of the Balkans’ borders to refugees, winning him the support of Austria’s rightleaning electorate. CAMPAIGNING IN POETRY Kurz was anointed OVP’s leader in May, and he set about revitalizing the party’s brand. He mixed a severe anti-immigrant message, pledging tougher controls on migrant access to…

CHOCOLATE A 22-ton cargo of chocolate, including Kinder eggs and Nutella, worth at least $59,000, was stolen from a truck’s trailer in the town of Neustadt, Germany, in August. MAPLE SYRUP In April three men were sentenced in connection with the theft of almost 540,000 gal. of maple syrup valued at $18 million from a depot in Quebec. CHEESE Last year a New Jersey teenager was charged with stealing more than $160,000 worth of Jamaican processed cheese from a warehouse in Bergen County.…

I have been assaulted and harassed more times than I can recall, and that’s not just because I work in Hollywood. Abuse is everywhere— #MeToo has proved that. And I’m not the first to use those powerful words: Tarana Burke, an activist, began calling for people to share their stories years ago, after a young girl told her about being abused and she couldn’t bring herself to say, “Me too.” The phrase takes attention away from the predator and brings it back to the victims. To give women a platform enables us all to feel how enormous of an issue this kind of abuse is. We’ve been so silenced, we don’t realize there is a community out there that’s ready to embrace us. Milano is an actor…

GETTING YOUR CHILDREN TO STOP LYING IS challenging. There are many influences (TV, movies, video games and some great books) in which lies are common. Children see parents lie to others, if only to be polite. Most parents add to that with tales about the lives and activities of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, or to allay fears. (“This will not hurt!”) Parents do this out of love, but for some children, lying can become a problem. The most common reactions to children who lie are explaining why it is wrong and punishment. As ways of changing behavior, these are ineffective. Here are three better tools supported by research to use instead. PRAISE: You could ask your child to say something that happened at school that is true. It…

THESE DAYS “THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER” is most likely to make news at a football game, where NFL players use it as a moment for protest. But a milestone in the sporting history of what is now the national anthem happened on the baseball diamond, during the 1918 World Series. The contest had almost been canceled, as baseball officials planned to nix the whole thing out of deference to soldiers fighting in World War I. They changed their minds after hearing that troops overseas were eager to know who’d win. (Babe Ruth’s Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs.) It was at Game 1 that Red Sox third baseman and furloughed Navy sailor Fred Thomas offered a rendition of the patriotic song. Although it wasn’t the first time it was sung…

ARIZONA Senator Jeff Flake is among the GOP’s most endangered incumbents. Bannon wants to take him out in the primary, throwing his weight behind state senator KelliWard. MISSISSIPPI Senator Roger Wicker ran the committee to defend the GOP majority in 2016, yet now finds himself in Bannon’s crosshairs. State senator Chris McDaniel is eyeing a second bid for a U.S. Senate seat, this time with Bannon’s blessing. WYOMING Senator John Barrasso is a member of the GOP leadership in the Senate, and that’s enough to make him a marked man. Bannon is urging Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who owns property in Wyoming, to challenge Barrasso in the primary. NEVADA Senator Dean Heller is among Trump’s favorite Twitter targets. Bannon is wooing repeat candidate Danny Tarkanian, the son of a fabled…

WILLIAM BLAKE Pullman has said the work of the Romantic poet and artist helped him “discover what I believe in.” OXFORD The city where he studied and lives is a constant muse, Pullman says. “You could never get tired of it.” ROBERT KIRK The Scottish pastor’s treatise on folklore, The Secret Commonwealth, helped inspire the Book of Dust. JOHN MILTON His Dark Materials takes many of its themes—and its name—from Milton’s Paradise Lost.…

‘When Putin goes, I think Russia is not going to stay within its current borders. There is going to be some kind of redrawing of the federation.’ Your book looks at Russia through the perspectives of seven people, old and young. A phrase that comes up repeatedly is budushchevo net— “there is no future.” Why is that so important? I started out trying to tell a story of Russia’s trauma. And one of the hallmarks of trauma is the loss of the ability to plan for the future. It’s really about the loss of control. This sense of having no control over your own life is very important to creating a totalitarian subject. People express that with the phrase budushchevo net. The word totalitarian is usually reserved for repressive regimes…

Trump denies ‘insensitive’ call President Trump denied claims that he told the widow of a U.S. serviceman killed in Niger that “he knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.” Democratic Representative Frederica Wilson, who was present during the call, originally reported the comment, which she described as “so insensitive.” Maltese journalist killed by car bomb Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist from Malta who worked on the Panama Papers revelations that exposed the nation’s links to offshore tax havens, was killed after a bomb exploded in her rented car. No suspects have been identified. Huge oil spill in Gulf of Mexico Authorities are investigating the causes of a spill of up to 9,350 barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill may be the…

AT THE BEGINNING OF A CHAPTER IN Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith pose a question: “Why do you use your computer so much more than your bike?” The answer seems obvious. Your computer does many things well; your bike, just one. But “what if we could make all of your stuff like the computer?” The Weinersmiths posit that it’s possible. As they do for several nascent technologies in the book, the Weinersmiths draw from (and sometimes actually draw) promising research and proofs of concept like fingertip-size origami robots and shape-shifting furniture. But they counterbalance curiosity with concern. What if your programmed belongings are hacked? “Maybe you wake up one day and the dish has run away with the spoon,” the authors write.…

Nine hundred ten. That’s how many of the annual 33,000 gun-related deaths in the U.S. could be prevented if all states enacted waiting periods between the purchase and acquisition of handguns, according to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (That total doesn’t include the suspected decrease in suicides.) The 2012 Sandy Hook shooting inspired the study’s researchers to analyze politically viable policies. They note such measures limit gun violence but not ownership; opponents say delays endanger those needing urgent defense. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have handgun waiting periods, ranging from a day to more than a week. The authors estimate these regulations prevent about 750 homicides yearly. The researchers linked the policies to a 17% drop in gun homicides and 7% to…

WHEN PHILIP PULLMANWAS 10 YEARS OLD, HE witnessed a vision that has stayed with him ever since. The year was 1956, and he was living in South Australia, where his stepfather was a pilot with Britain’s Royal Air Force. The River Murray floods that year had left huge parts of the region underwater, and he remembers being driven out to see it. “It was astonishing,” the 70-year-old British author says now. “It was an immense mass, as wide as the sea, of gray water whipped up by a cold wind. The power of it. It was an impression that never left me.” It’s this memory that inspired the flood at the center of La Belle Sauvage, the first volume of the Book of Dust, Pullman’s new trilogy set in the…

The YA author, 40, just published his first novel since the release of his 2012 phenomenon The Fault in Our Stars. The new book, Turtles All the Way Down, is about 16-year-old Aza Holmes’ struggle with a form of mental illness that Green has grappled with in his own life. Where did the idea for a story about a teenage girl struggling with mental illness come from? There are so many detective stories about obsessive people who are brilliant detectives because of their obsessiveness, and my experience with obsessiveness has been more or less the complete opposite. I wanted to write a detective story where the plot keeps getting interrupted by this person’s inability to live in the world in the way that she wants to. Was it difficult to…

MOVIES ABOUT POLITICAL activists tend to put the politics first and the human second. Not so with French writer-director Robin Campillo’s BPM (Beats Per Minute). Set in early-1990s Paris, the film follows a group of ACT UP members as they launch AIDS-awareness demonstrations, squabble during meetings and let off steam on the dance floor, all in the service of keeping themselves, and anyone else at risk, alive. Campillo, who co-wrote the script with AIDS activist and educator Philippe Mangeot, captures the mood of an era with a specificity that’s by turns somber and joyous. The love story between guarded HIVnegative activist Nathan (Arnaud Valois) and the more politically aggressive—and HIV-positive—Sean (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) is the story’s strongest magnet. A tender and captivating sex scene between the two suggests that falling…

WHENHE LEFT SATURDAY Night Live in 1993, Dana Carvey was at the top of the entertainment industry. His new sketch-comedy show on ABC would be bolstered by rising talents like Louis CK, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell. What could go wrong? Everything, obviously. Hulu’s new documentary Too Funny to Fail examines the almost instantaneous collapse of The Dana Carvey Show, a would-be smash that began with Carvey impersonating President Bill Clinton … while breastfeeding puppies. Carvey wanted to move past conventional comedy to edgier, more surreal stuff, even though, as Colbert tells the audience, “all people wanted to see was Dana Carvey doing an impression of Bill Clinton!” Carvey’s show was both an incubator of talent and a precursor to what would come later. Today its absurdism would fit right…