Table of contents for November 13, 2017 in TIME Magazine

What you said about ... THE WRECKING CREW In response to the Nov. 6 cover story about President Trump’s Cabinet dismantling the federal government, Robert Colyn of Salinas, Calif., noted that to do so was to grant “many of the wishes of the winning electorate.” But James P. McGill of Reno, Nev., wrote that cutting programs that help citizens “is not a quest to ‘make America great again’ by any rational definition of the term.” Meanwhile, Martin L. Pomerantz of Pittsburgh argued that the story should have acknowledged the “more lasting and dramatic” changes that can be traced to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. ‘Love that @time thinks this is a negative for @realDonaldTrump as opposed to EXACTLY what his voters wanted. Thanks for acknowledging! #maga’ DONALD TRUMP JR.,…

The attack killed eight people: a project manager from New Jersey, a New York man who lived nearby, a Belgian mother of two and five Argentine nationals celebrating their 30th graduation anniversary.…

THIS FALL SAWTHE RETURN OF A PLETHORA OF PUMPKINspice- flavored products. But there are signs that the national pumpkin-spice infatuation may soon be over. With pumpkinspice flavors slowing, MarketWatch released a forecast backed by industry-wide sales data showing that the next seasonal flavor to sweep the industry is maple. According to 1010data, a New York–based analytics firm, sales and profits generated from pumpkin-spice products have slowed after years of rapid growth. While the number of pumpkin-spice foods sold online has increased 49% since 2016, overall sales have grown only 21% in the same time period. Maple-based treats, meanwhile, are getting hotter. Industry analyst Technomic reports that sales of mapleflavored nonalcoholic beverages are up nearly 85% since ’16. Alcoholic beverages featuring maple flavoring are up more than 14%; Crown Royal, Jim…

I worked for Bob Mueller for 12 years while he was the FBI director, running counterintelligence, espionage and cybercrime investigations. What I saw recently was a classic law-enforcement response to a suspected Russian intelligence or political-influence operation. And it was classic Bob Mueller. Already, he appears to have uncovered details of a far-reaching Russian political-influence campaign. Russian spy services use two main methods to run agents. Either they recruit people as traditional assets, where the targets know they’re working for a foreign government. Or they use unwitting agents—people targeted to exploit not just what they know, but who they know. That’s what seems to have happened here. Russian intelligence services have run political-influence operations since the beginning of time, and if you put a seasoned intelligence officer in front of…

The legal pooh-bahs are all aflutter, issuing statements as to how this is the classic first prosecutorial step. Surely, Paul Manafort will crack, say the cognoscenti, and, as part of a plea bargain, will give evidence against somebody more important, perhaps even someone whose last name is Trump. Not so fast. I project this scenario: Manafort, having already pleaded not guilty, clams up. He has no incentive to speak, because he has no fear. Months (or years) from now, just before trial, President Trump will issue some tweets to the effect of, “This is all an attack by Hillary Clinton supporters!” and pardon Manafort and anybody else who has been indicted by Robert Mueller. If Mueller then brings Manafort before the grand jury, Manafort will take the Fifth, because he…

AYAD AKHTAR WAS RAISED IN TWO WORLDS. HIS PARENTS, immigrants from the Punjab province of Pakistan, created a home in Milwaukee. As a kid in the Midwest, none of Akhtar’s friends could point to his family’s home country on a map. His grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins visited from Pakistan, from England, from Kenya—all the places where the family had dispersed—and he grew up hearing from multiple communities that their respective ways of life were best. So he is, he says, “an outsider-insider”—a person who understands being more than one thing. Even in his work, Akhtar plays many roles: actor, novelist, screenwriter and, most prominently, playwright. In 2013 he won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Disgraced. The play tackles that sense of simultaneous otherness and belonging, following Amir Kapoor,…

‘The policy regarding “inciting” violence was too vague.’ REDDIT, announcing the social network will delete any content that “encourages, glorifies, incites or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people” and animals; Nazi and white-nationalist threads were among the first posts banned $17.8 million Winning bid for actor Paul Newman’s Rolex watch, thought to be the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction, according to Phillips auction house 8,700 Miles traveled by a new United flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Singapore’s Changi Airport, now the longest nonstop service from the U.S. in terms of miles ‘North Korea’s nuclear state cannot be accepted or tolerated.’ MOON JAE-IN, South Korean President, in his second state-of-the-nation address 6 Number of chocolate-covered paper packages designed to…

Classified JFK records released The White House authorized the release of 2,891 classified records relating to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. One 1963 note suggested that the FBI knew of a death threat to Kennedy’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was fatally shot by club owner Jack Ruby. Kenya elects President, again Uhuru Kenyatta was elected President of Kenya for the second time in three months. The country’s supreme court nullified the results of the election in August, citing irregularities. Opposition supporters boycotted the second vote. Transgender military ban barred The Trump Administration was temporarily barred from instating a ban on transgender individuals in the military, which was set to take effect next year. A federal judge said the White House policy was based on “disapproval of transgender people…

NOVEMBER IS A TIME FOR CIVIC-MINDED men to participate in “Movember,” during which they grow mustaches to raise awareness and money for men’s health causes. But while this follicular fundraiser is a recent invention, it’s not the first time facial hair has served a public purpose in the U.S. In the 19th century, American men grew November ’staches to show support for something else: voting. Because of the sex and age requirement for casting a ballot—only men who were at least 21 could do so—voting was often seen as a rite of passage for a young man. Growing an impressive beard or mustache before Election Day became a way for new voters to prove they were adults and not “beardless boys,” says historian Jon Grinspan, author of The Virgin Vote.…

For people who like to hoard Halloween candy past Thanksgiving, here’s a piece of surprising advice: some dentists actually condone eating the candy all at once, rather than rationing it out over weeks. After you eat sweets, bacteria feed on the sugars and starches left on your teeth and form plaque. Eventually, the acid in plaque begins to wear away at the enamel coating your teeth, forming tiny holes—cavities—that grow larger and larger over time. For that reason, feasting on candy—and then brushing your teeth right after—is actually “less cavitycausing than spreading that candy out over the next three months and having sugar in your mouth day after day after day,” says Anna Berik, a dentist in Newton, Mass. (You could also minimize damage by dutifully brushing after each daily…

The indictment of former Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates and the guilty plea of former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos offer a fuller picture of the alleged ties between the President’s campaign and people connected to the Russian government. Here’s a timeline of key events, according to federal documents released on Oct. 30 and other publicly available records: MARCH 21, 2016 Trump announces that Papadopoulos has joined his campaign as a foreign policy adviser. APRIL 26, 2016 Papadopoulos meets a “professor” in London, who tells him that the Russian government has “dirt” on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in the form of “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos then attempts to arrange meetings between the Trump campaign and Kremlin-linked officials. MAY 19, 2016 Manafort, brought on in March to lead…

In the summer of 1787, the delegates to the constitutional convention in Philadelphia vigorously debated the question of whether the President should be impeachable. James Madison, the wisest of them all, insisted that impeachment was “indispensable,” because the President “might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression.” But the most eloquent delegate was George Mason: “Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?” Mason feared “the man who has practised corruption & by that means procured his appointment in the first instance.” At the same time, the framers of the Constitution wanted to limit the occasions for impeachment. They sought to ensure that the President could not be impeached or removed from office merely…

AGE 16 Auli’i Cravalho A VOICE OF HER GENERATION Even if you don’t immediately recognize Cravalho’s face, chances are you’ve heard her sing: the Hawaii native voiced the titular hero in Disney’s Moana, which grossed more than $640 million at the global box office. She also delivered a powerful rendition of its hit song “How Far I’ll Go” at the 2017 Academy Awards—despite getting hit in the head by a prop mid-performance. “It was a good little [knock] to remind me I was at the Oscars,” she later joked. Now Cravalho is taking on a new role. In January, she’ll star on NBC’s Rise, a drama about a high school theater department that lifts the spirits of a struggling steel town in Pennsylvania. Cravalho says the premise, which is based…

WRITER-DIRECTOR GRETA GERWIG’S SEMIautobiographical Lady Bird is both generous and joyous, but when it stings, it stings deep. At one point, Saoirse Ronan, as disgruntled high school senior Christine, begs her mother, Laurie Metcalf’s Marion, for a magazine at the supermarket: “It’s only $3! I’m having a bad week!” Marion brushes her off, and it could be the usual mom move of just saying no—until she reaches the cash register and you realize that this respectable-looking suburban woman can barely cover the family groceries. There’s no lingering, sentimental camera work, no telltale bummer music. Metcalf’s face betrays nothing so obvious as frustration or anxiety. Instead, it’s as if every molecule of her body has been, out of necessity, trained to count money. Meanwhile, when you’re a teenage girl wanting a…

IN THE 16 YEARS AFTER THE Twin Towers fell, the desolation of lowerManhattan in time gave way to a blossoming. When Sayfullo Saipov drove his rented Home Depot truck onto a bicycle path at 3:04 p.m. on Oct. 31, killing eight people beneath its wheels, he careened down the Hudson River Greenway, a lushly landscaped urban esplanade. At Houston Street, where he first steered onto the path, a pier now does service as a soccer field. His route south took him past trees, benches and charmingly inventive playgrounds with miniature golf and beach volleyball before he crashed into a school bus at Chambers Street under the glass and steel high-rises of the financial district. That six of the eight fatalities were tourists came as no shock to New Yorkers, who…

On Oct. 25, Honolulu became the first major American city to make it illegal to text—or look down at any electronic device—while crossing the street. The hope is to help solve a growing but unaddressed scourge: distracted walking. The problem has been apparent for years. A 2013 study found that more than 1,500 pedestrians were treated in hospitals in 2010 for injuries related to walking with a mobile device—exceeding those hospitalized because of distracted driving—although 9.1% were texting, while 69.5% were talking. That does not include those who refused treatment or died; the expected overall total is much higher. In 2011, legislators in Rexburg, Idaho, passed an ordinance similar to Honolulu’s— even though measures in Illinois, New Jersey and Stamford, Conn., have not succeeded. Citizens have criticized the nanny-state nature…

= indicted GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS Former campaign adviser Pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his attempts to set up meetings with Russian officials “THE PROFESSOR” Unnamed liaison Linked Papadopoulos to Russian nationals, including a Foreign Ministry official and another Russian woman PAUL MANAFORT Former campaign chairman Charged on nine counts of conspiracy, money laundering and acting as an unregistered agent for a pro-Russia party in Ukraine RICK GATES Former deputy campaign manager Manafort’s business partner and deputy on the Trump campaign was also indicted on eight charges VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH Former Ukraine President Led the Party of Regions, the pro- Russia political party for which Manafort worked for years SERGEY KISLYAK Russian ambassador Had contact with several campaign officials; the Washington Post reported that…

Having spent time listening to Donald Trump supporters all over America over the past year, I’ve gotten the message that the President’s voters do not care about scandals, real or perceived. The recent news is unlikely to put a dent in his popularity among the 33% of Americans who continue to approve of his job performance. What these developments do affect in the short term is Trump’s ability to get something—anything—done. His amateurish Administration will be more distracted than ever, and the resulting paralysis on Capitol Hill may finally shake his base’s faith. The Administration will continue to divert attention to Hillary Clinton’s ties to a uraniumextraction deal. And supporters will likely take Sarah Huckabee Sanders at her word when she blithely declares that Manafort’s indictment “has nothing to do…

TAIKA WAITITIWASWEARING A G-STRINGWHEN he decided to start making his own movies. It was 2002, more than a decade before Marvel plucked the director from his native New Zealand and tasked him with revamping the formulaic Thor series into a psychedelic romp for the God of Thunder’s third film, Thor: Ragnarok. Back then, Waititi was just an actor playing a stripper in an Australian television series called the The Strip. And he was not happy about it. “I was being paid money. So on the one hand, I was eating and paying rent,” says Waititi, 42. “On the other hand, I was creatively depressed, because I was getting my body waxed and having to eat tuna all day. I remember thinking, ‘I’m helping to make someone else’s bad idea. I’m…

Which of the facts in your book do you think is most amazing? The first African American was Juan Garrido, who joined Ponce de Leon’s expedition to Florida, searching for the fountain of youth—the fact that there was a black man present at that event. One of the most shocking facts to me is that there were black slaveholders. You write about how the 1957 book that inspired this one used genealogy to debunk racial purity. How does that square with your mission on Finding Your Roots? I have a couple of missions. One is to show that we’re all descended from people who came to this country from somewhere else. Secondly, that we’re all related. If you go back far enough, everybody came out of Africa. This idea still…