Table of contents for October 9, 2017 in TIME Magazine

What you said about ... STATE OF THE DEMOCRATS Philip Elliott’s Oct. 2 cover story inspired some readers to share their tips for the struggling Democratic Party. Leon Anderson of Doylestown, Pa., for example, said the party needs to look for candidates who can “electrify the electorate.” But others argued that the problem is with the system, not the party. Kyle Kinney of Boscobel, Wis., pointed to gerrymandering, whileWilliam Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, urged consideration of voter suppression. But Jane Calvani of Philadelphia saw a bright side for Democrats in media coverage of the party’s problems. “I see this as invigorating Dems,” she tweeted, “not defeating us!” ‘I am a Democrat and feel we certainly do need a new face to lead the party.’…

VERBATIM ‘We can make it harder. We can make it a lot harder. And that’s what we’re going to do.’ MARK ZUCKERBERG, Facebook CEO, vowing to take steps to reduce election interference after the social network revealed that Russian government agents had bought some 3,000 political ads that ran during the 2016 U.S. presidential election THERE ARE MANY FACTORS THAT drove Britain’s centuries-long quest for world domination. But one of the biggest, argues historian Lizzie Collingham in her new book The Taste of Empire, was a taste for better, more exotic food, from India’s pepper and tea to Barbados’ sugar. Over time, the pursuit of these far-flung delicacies led to large-scale oppression— evident not least in the slave trade— whose effects still linger in the excolonies today. But that’s…

THE QUIET AFTER A STORM IS A REAL THING. Stillness is drenched in humidity and scorched by a sun blasting down from the clear skies that will eventually follow a hurricane. But on this island of 3.4 million people, the quiet after Hurricane Maria had a distinct feeling of absence, an inattention bordering on obliviousness. The fifth strongest storm ever to strike the U.S. hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 with stronger winds than Irma brought to Florida and the kind of rain that Hurricane Harvey dumped on Houston. It made landfall on a Wednesday, and in the digital age, its effects were well documented by Friday: parts of San Juan, the capital of this U.S. territory, were underwater. The verdant island was stripped of its foliage. U.S. citizens lapped…

Finding Home This year TIME is following three refugee families fleeing the war in Syria. Each began 2017 with a new baby, in a transit camp in Greece. IN THE SUMMER OF 2015, A CURIOUS piece of world news brought a flicker of hope to the wretched Syrian city of Palmyra. Islamic State fighters had taken over the ancient town, toppling its monuments and executing anyone who resisted their draconian rules. And yet at one of the city’s darkest moments, rumors of a sanctuary far away began to filter in, generating dreams among a populace that had already lost everything. On Aug. 31 of that year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that her country was prepared to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war in the Middle…

LIKE A LOT OF SECOND-SEASON SHOWS, THIS IS US IS out to prove that there’s a reason to keep tuning in. “This season is informed by death and darkness,” says showrunner Dan Fogelman. “But we’re taking great pains to ensure that ultimately this is an uplifting season because that’s our life philosophy.” He’s not the only one trying to add new depth to a series this fall—here’s a closer look: THIS IS US The NBC drama that once seemed like a kitschy tearjerker has developed into an Emmy-worthy series SECOND SEASON DESIGNATED SURVIVOR The ABC show is ditching its many twists for a more grounded, timely approach to politics, à la The Good Wife RIVERDALE The CW’s addictive Twin Peaks–meets– Gossip Girl series leans in to its camp as it…

HARRY DEAN STANTON, WHO DIED ON Sept. 15 at age 91, always looked a little old and a little young. He had one of those no-age faces, so radiant in its ragged beauty that assigning a number to it always felt thankless, if not outright wrong. In Lucky, one of his final films— the feature directorial debut of actor John Carroll Lynch (Shutter Island, Gran Torino)—he plays a man living quietly but mindfully in a small desert town. Lucky’s day starts with a few cigarettes and a yoga interlude, segues into breakfast with a crossword puzzle at the diner and ends with a drink down at the bar, where his friends include an elegant, vaguely forlorn-looking geezer named Howard (David Lynch, quixotic and marvelous). Howard is mourning the departure of…

THE LEGAL BATTLE OVER PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s controversial March ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries has been put on hold. The day the order expired, Trump issued a new version that short-circuited a Supreme Court hearing on the ban scheduled for Oct. 10. Now the immigration and government lawyers readying for a fight at the highest court must help the Justices decide whether the case is even worth hearing. Trump’s new proclamation, unveiled on Sept. 24, imposes more tightly focused travel restrictions on five of the countries in the earlier ban—Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen—and adds three new nations: North Korea, Chad and Venezuela. Ever since Trump announced his original travel ban, just one week after taking office (and then revised it one month later), it has been…

THE POPULIST WAVE OF 2017 MAY NOT HAVE DESTROYED the European order in the way some predicted, but there are still many Europeans who want to upend the status quo. Look at what happened in Germany’s elections on Sept. 24: Angela Merkel, a leader best known for prudence and experience, won a fourth term as Chancellor. But just as anti-E.U. firebrands Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen pushed past Establishment parties to finish second earlier this year in Holland and France, respectively, Germany’s anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to win seats in the German Parliament since the Nazi surrender in 1945. In Spain, meanwhile, a different sort of anger is brewing. On Oct. 1, Catalans will cast ballots in an independence referendum that…

During a medical emergency, every second matters—including the ones spent driving samples to and from external labs for testing. But what if they could be flown instead? That’s the idea behind a new fleet of delivery drones, developed by California-based Matternet for deployment in Switzerland. When lab technicians are done testing a sample, they simply deposit it at a nearby drone-docking station; then the drone takes off on a predetermined route back to a hospital, flying far above traffic. The initiative, developed in partnership with the national postal service, is set to launch in several Swiss cities by the end of the year. But Matternet has grander ambitions. If the tech works, it may well deploy it for e-commerce delivery and more. For more on these stories, visittime.com/ideas…

THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL MAN picked a busy week to go to war with America’s most popular sport. Donald Trump was navigating a nuclear standoff with North Korea when he touched down in Alabama for a political rally on Sept. 22. In Puerto Rico, millions of Americans were without water or electricity in the wake of Hurricane Maria. A plan to revamp the nation’s health care system faced a pivotal hurdle in the Senate. But the President had another matter on his mind: the squad of football players who had protested racial injustice and police brutality by kneeling, raising their fists or locking their arms during the national anthem. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a…

‘I DON’T REALLY GET TRIGGERED ANYMORE, BECAUSE I DON’T ALLOW MYSELF TO GET TRIGGERED.’ —PAGE 54 PRESTIGE TELEVISION IS, IN THE main, notable for its seriousness of purpose and for its grimness. But what’s most exciting about HBO’s new drama The Deuce may well be its lightness. Which isn’t to say the series isn’t ambitious. The show is set in early- 1970s Times Square and assays the lives and livelihoods of bartenders, prostitutes, pimps and cops at a time when the concept of propriety had long since fallen away. Given that setup, TheDeucewould have to get a lot of things right in order to avoid cliche and keep viewers interested. And it does. David Simon and George Pelecanos, frequent collaborators who worked together on HBO’s The Wire and Treme, have…

THIS MORNING I WENT TO THE GYM, WHICH MEANS THAT sometime after I put on my running tights but before I actually broke a sweat I texted my 19-year-old son the following message: “At gym need music till 10.” Because the sun had been up for only three hours, it’s quite possible my college-student son was still sleeping. But I didn’t want to take any chances. You see, until you experience it, you can’t really understand the unique, hair-on-fire fury you feel when you are a middle-aged woman who has turned the treadmill up to 6.8, meaning you are basically sprinting, but you’re listening to Stevie Wonder and feeling really good about your muscle mass, stamina and life in general when— blip!—suddenly the music stops and your iPhone screen says,…

‘BOTH DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE GUILTY OF USING PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.’ —PAGE 14 LIKE A NOVICE WAITER FACING unruly diners, Steven Mnuchin has spent the past six months trying to entice Washington with what should be an appetizing offering: tax reform. Huddled in closed-door sessions in ornate conference rooms across the capital, the Treasury Secretary has offered options, and taken orders, in a chaotic search for consensus on the Republican Party’s long-sought legislative agenda item. But on Sept. 27, when Mnuchin and congressional Republicans emerged from the kitchen, what they put on the table amounted to a promise of dessert with little sense of when the main course would arrive, let alone what it would consist of. The tax-reform package Mnuchin and his allies presented would slash corporate…

‘IF SMOKING IS BANNED ON PLANES, WHAT’S WITH ALL THE ASHTRAYS?’ —PAGE 23 ASK MOST AMERICANS ABOUT THE greatest disaster threat and they’re likely to give the same answer: hurricanes—especially after the recent havoc they’ve wreaked. That awareness is valuable. But it’s just as important to realize how vulnerable we are to another kind of disaster: earthquakes. Consider the Sept. 19 quake near Mexico City. At least 333 people died and 38 buildings collapsed, and those tallies could rise. It was a grim reminder of just how devastating a seismic event can be. And it could have easily happened in the U.S.— not just in California but in cities like Memphis, New York, Anchorage, Salt Lake, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Large swaths of the U.S. are overdue for a seismic…

‘Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn’t know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes.’ JAN. 9, 6:27 A.M. ALSO HAPPENING: U.S. intelligence officials released a report on Jan. 6 concluding that Vladimir Putin had tried to influence the 2016 election. ‘Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!’ MARCH 4, 6:35 A.M. ALSO HAPPENING: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from government probes into Russian election meddling after potential conflicts were revealed. ‘James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!’ MAY 12, 8:26 A.M. ALSO HAPPENING: Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, leading to…

FOR SOMEONE WHO ROSE TO prominence thanks to the power of her voice, Pamela Adlon is remarkable at being silent. The actor, who won an Emmy for voicing preteen Bobby on King of the Hill and has been a key creative force on Louie, brings her whole self to Better Things, now in its second season on FX. And while the series will get your attention for the antic comic sensibility— Adlon’s character Sam, a single mom, is besieged by the demands of her family—it’s in the quiet moments where the show finds a center not quite like anything else currently on the air. Since the first season, Sam, always under a fair amount of strain, has grown more frustrated. Her three kids (Mikey Madison, Hannah Alligood and Olivia Edward)…

THE TRADEMARK TOM CRUISE CHARACTER IS THE cat that eats the canary, looks around to make sure everyone knows how awesome he is for getting away with eating said canary—and then eats 10 more. Cruise was practically born to star in Doug Liman’s American Made as Barry Seal, a onetime TWA pilot from Louisiana who smuggled drugs for the Medellin cartel before becoming a DEA informant. In real life, Seal got away with all kinds of audaciousness, though the odds did catch up with him: he was murdered, in 1986, by Medellin assassins. In American Made, Barry gets away with even more. We watch as he goes to work for the CIA—his handler is a classically inscrutable government foot soldier played by Domhnall Gleeson—then enters a deal with a wily…

IN THE PAST 100 YEARS, TECHNOLOGY HAS MADE OUR lives easier, safer, healthier and longer. So why does most of our science fiction spell doom and gloom instead of hope and cheer? Pessimistic fiction has thrived in recent years. Emily St. John Mandel was a National Book Award finalist for 2014’s Station Eleven, about a theater troupe in a postapocalyptic America. And dystopian novels like Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan and Omar El Akkad’sAmerican War—not to mention classics like George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale—have recently graced best-seller lists. In August, N.K. Jemisin won her second HugoAward, for The Obelisk Gate; its level of optimism can be gauged by the name of the series it belongs to, the Broken Earth. One finalist for the prize, Becky…