Table of contents for November 12, 2018 in TIME Magazine

A THOUSAND MILES SOUTH OF THE RIO Grande, Lesly Xiomara Chirinos plodded along a Mexican road comforting her year-old son Murphy, her partner holding up an umbrella to shield them from the punishing sun. On Oct. 13, they abandoned their home in the Honduran city of La Ceiba to join several thousand people on the so-called migrant caravan heading north. Since then, they have been marching for long hours, jumping on pickup trucks, sleeping in parks, living on handouts of food. Chirinos, 31, says she fled because of death threats by gang members trying to shake down the family grocery store. In Honduras, extortion is often backed up by murder. “They wait in front of the shop with big guns, and we are scared to go out,” she says.…

WIN OR LOSE, A BALLOT INITIATIVE IN Washington State that would create a first-in-the-nation carbon tax has the potential to shake up the national debate about how to address climate change. The policy known as I-1631 would, if approved, require companies to pay $15 for every metric ton of carbon dioxide they emit, beginning in 2020. The fee, which would increase over time, would provide the state with around $1 billion in annual revenue, which backers say could be used for solar and wind farms, restoration projects and climate-education programs, among other things. Supporters calculate that the measure would also allow the state to meet its official goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2035. And perhaps even more significantly, it would jump-start a national debate about how…

THERE’S A MOMENT WHERE WORDS ARE SO LIMITING. TO SAY Ntozake Shange—who died at 70 on Oct. 27—was a playwright, novelist, poet and activist is limiting. Even to say she was fierce and funny and kind is limiting. She was a trailblazer, a fire starter, a queen. I met her through her work—specifically for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf—long before I dreamed of meeting her in person, and then many years later we were on a panel together. When someone asked a “stupid” question, she would slay them—wither, poof. I was a kid writer and didn’t understand yet what it was all about, but she assured me that one learns how to handle the praise-sayers and the naysayers. The range of ferocity…

INTENSE SPECULATION OVER WHO WILL win control of the House of Representatives on Nov. 6 papers over a troubling reality: the chamber is an embarrassment to democracy. And not just because of gerrymandering, dark money and so forth. It’s because there aren’t nearly enough seats to go around. For its first 130 years or so, Congress regularly expanded the size of the House from its original 65 seats as new states joined the Union and the population blossomed. But the total flatlined at 435 seats in 1929. The population of the country has more than tripled since, making it impossible for each member of Congress to represent even roughly the same number of people. We are due for a dramatic expansion. Specifically, by my calculations, there ought to be…

When Donald Trump was first elected U.S. President, there were few like-minded elected leaders in other countries. Seated next to unapologetic globalists like Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump always seemed the odd man out—and more so after President Emmanuel Macron’s election in France six months after his. Trump’s unapologetic, sometimes belligerent nationalism made him an awkward aberration and a problem the globalists wanted to solve. Things have changed. In one polarized nation after another, strongmen are now in vogue. While Macron suffers domestically and Merkel plans to wrap up her chancellorship of Germany by 2021, populist nationalists are thriving at the top of the world’s largest democracies—from Trump himself to India’s Narendra Modi to the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte to Italy’s strongman Deputy Prime…

JONATHAN LETHEM IS A BIG FAN OF RAYMOND Chandler’s, so it’s not by chance that his new novel, The Feral Detective, begins where Chandler’s The Big Sleep leaves off, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, on the section of old Route 66 called Foothill Boulevard. It no longer looks like it did when Philip Marlowe flirted with death outside a shady garage in the rain. But Lethem found himself called back to what he calls “the cradle of my prose” when he wrote the introduction to a wonderful recent volume, The Annotated Big Sleep. “How I learned to write sentences was in that sardonic, disappointed, romantic, first-person, hard-boiled voice,” he says. It’s the same voice that narrates Lethem’s 11th novel, a return to the genre that animated his…

“When I first saw the photo of the graffiti on the [Guns in America mural in New York City], I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know someone had sprayed it with the number 11. My eyes saw what I thought was a video about to be played with the ‘ll’ as an overlying red pause button. In many ways the mural project is a pause attempt ... How I wish for a magical ‘ll’ button that could have been pressed before a petty and troubled soul committed such a despicable act in Pittsburgh.” Dr. Michael Foreman Trauma surgeon “The alarming frequency with which we watch these terrifying scenes unfold in our communities is devastating—and it’s not normal. Every single day, nearly 100 Americans are killed with a…

RAIDED RELICS Two students spent the early morning of Christmas Day 1985 at Mexico City’s anthropology museum, swiping 124 pre-Columbian artifacts. Most of the goods were found four years later at a suburban house. PILFERED PAPERS Two men were jailed in 2012 for lifting a series of important documents from East Coast archives, including a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt and an 1846 letter sent by Charles Dickens to Edgar Allan Poe. LOOTED LUNCH BOX In September, two thieves in Hyderabad, southern India, stole a diamond-encrusted lunch box once owned by the region’s king. Police said they used it for their meals until they were found a week later in a Mumbai hotel.…

WHEN ANGELA MERKEL WAS elected to the helm of Germany’s Christian Democrats, 9/11 hadn’t happened, Lehman Brothers existed and the iPhone was just an idea. But after 18 years and four elections to the position of Chancellor, Europe’s most enduring politician announced on Oct. 29 that she will step down as party chair in December and not seek re-election as Chancellor in 2021. Merkel is a pragmatist: Germany needs new political blood, and she would rather jump than be pushed. Merkel presided over a period of peace, prosperity and stability—at least for Germany. As her counterparts came and went, she witnessed the 2008 financial crash, the euro-zone crisis, the Arab Spring, the conflict in Ukraine, the election of Donald Trump and Brexit. But after she opened borders to more…

I WAS AT A RESORT OUTSIDE PHOENIX preparing for an uncharacteristically—for me, that is—relaxing day. Armed with a stack of books (admittedly, most of them dealt with the Holocaust), I had planned a day of sitting by a pool and reading. As I crossed the grounds, a woman who had heard me speak the previous night about contemporary anti-Semitism, approached: “Your words were prescient.” Sensing my confusion, she added, “The shooting. Pittsburgh. The synagogue.” I immediately turned to CNN and learned of the unfolding tragedy. As we now know, 11 Jews at Tree of Life synagogue were gunned down. Some were probably there for spiritual reasons: to worship God, hear words of Torah and pray for the sick. Others were there for fellowship: to see fellow Jews and catch…

‘Believing that I could work with Trump and his administration to support our community was a mistake.’ CAITLYN JENNER, trans-rights activist and reality-television star, in a Washington Post op-ed, after a leaked memo revealed a Trump Administration proposal to narrow the legal definition of gender 4 Number of Big Bang Theory stars in the top five spots on the Forbes list of the highest-paid TV actors; Jim Parsons is top with pretax income of $26.5 million for the year that ended June 1 ‘We’re partners.’SHINZO ABE, Japan’s Prime Minister, on his country’s relationship with longtime rival China grout•i•er adj., meaning “more surly”The 68-point word that Nigel Richards, who lives in Malaysia, played to win the World Scrabble Championship in London on Oct. 28 ‘I URGE YOU TO STEP ASIDE.’JIMMY…

Venice submerged by deadly storms Famous piazzas and streets in Venice were left underwater on Oct. 29 after storms with winds of up to 110 m.p.h. hit Italy, leaving at least 11 dead and hundreds requiring rescue. Water levels in the historic canal city were up by 1.5 m, the fourth-highest levels ever recorded. Study finds major decline in biodiversity A new report from the World Wildlife Fund has found a 60% average decline in population size across thousands of kinds of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish since 1970. The growth of human consumption—specifically through agriculture and the overexploitation of various species—is the biggest driver of the drop in biodiversity. U.S. urges cease-fire in Yemen war Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Oct.…

DIED Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, at age 89 on Oct. 30. The former informant was beaten to death in prison, to which he had been sentenced for life after his conviction in 2013 for multiple murders. BREATHED Toxic air, polluted enough to endanger health and development, by more than 90% of the world’s children under age 15, per a new World Health Organization report. SMASHED The record for closest approach to the sun by a human-made object, by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on Oct. 29. The previous record was set by the Helios 2 probe in 1976. DROPPED China’s yuan, to its lowest point in a decade. The currency hit 6.97 to the dollar on Oct. 30 amid the nation’s ongoing trade war with the U.S. OVERTURNED A…

Testing gender Responding to news that the Trump Administration may define gender as a fixed biological trait—effectively rolling back protections for transgender Americans—TIME editor at large Jeffrey Kluger offers a scientific reality check: there is no genetic test that can definitively show gender. Blockchain’s limitations Blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, allows for the exchange of currency without banks—which has inspired optimism about its ability to empower unbanked people around the world. But, financial inclusion expert Alice Merry argues, such systems distract from proven means of improving inclusion. Politicalspeak Partisanship has seeped into our vocabulary, writes pollster Frank Luntz. In a focus group, many Republicans and Democrats agreed that America is “exceptional” but didn’t agree on what that means—just one example of how politics is informing our shared…

AMERICA REACHED A KIND of consensus around race after the street fights and legal battles of the 1960s. The naked racism of the previous generation was banished. The likes of the John Birch Society were made outcasts in our politics. But that didn’t mean that prejudice was stripped from the national discourse. The guardrails were simply shifted. “Niggers” were replaced by “welfare queens,” and defenses of segregation gave way to concerns about crime and affirmative action. Such coded speech and racial dog whistles allowed Janus-faced politicians to decry bigotry in one moment while exploiting hatred and fear in another. Their softened tone obscured what still lurked beneath: the belief that the country belonged, and always will belong, to white people. Donald Trump has done away with that politesse. Just…

Peeks inside the minds of geniuses—athletic or otherwise—are always worth our time. In Search of Greatness, a documentary hitting theaters on Nov. 2, features interviews with three of the best ever—hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky, wide receiver Jerry Rice and soccer legend Pelé—who share the secrets of their success. (The film also explores the excellence of Serena Williams and Muhammad Ali.) Rice, for example, talks about seeing the football slow down in midair, which is nice but may not come as news for sports followers. Many athletes recall similar sensations while they’re “in the zone.” Thankfully, the film explores a more pressing issue: how hyperorganized youth sports can be counterproductive for our children. Studies show that kids who play in unstructured environments, on their own, are more likely to thrive…

Earlier this year, the first trailer for Bohemian Rhapsody left out Mercury’s battle with AIDS, leading some to predict that the film would “straight-wash” his queer life. Fortunately it doesn’t do that—even if it does cover his colorful experiences more tamely than some fans might like. Compressing Mercury’s multitudinous sexuality—his style running the gamut from femme to butch, the fact that he reportedly preferred sex with men though his most enduring relationship was with a woman—into the Hollywood-biopic template proves too difficult to do without concessions. Screenwriter Anthony McCarten ends up tinkering with the timeline for dramatic effect: the film portrays his diagnosis with AIDS as occurring in 1985, in the days leading up to Live Aid, though Mercury reportedly was actually diagnosed in ’87. Yet there’s the distinct…

Lisbeth Salander, the punk hacker you play in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, is Queen Elizabeth II’s polar opposite. Did you intentionally take on something totally different after The Crown ? I have always tried to take on new roles in each step of my career, and Lisbeth is a rare character. Normally the protagonist is someone people instantly love. Lisbeth holds no store in what people think of her. If anything, she sees people liking her as a dangerous thing. What did you think of the character when you first encountered her in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series? She’s quite revolutionary—not because of the piercings or tattoos. She’s a person who knew she wasn’t going to get…