Table of contents for April 16, 2018 in TIME Magazine

LAUGH TRACK TIME’s entertainment team recently spoke with comedian Aparna Nancherla of Netflix’s The Standups. While people in the funny business have a reputation for concealing sadness, Nancherla incorporates her mental-health struggles into her routine. “Now it’s more of an open conversation in our household in a way that it might not be in other South Asian households,” she says. Read the profile—and other cultural conversations—at time.com/entertainment AVAILABLE NOW A new special edition from LIFE, Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later, considers the civil rights icon’s legacy a half-century after his death. “If it hadn’t been for Dr. King and Robert Kennedy, I would probably not be an elected official today,” Georgia Congressman John Lewis writes in the introduction. “I feel it now, almost 50 years later—that…

THE BIG THREE U.S. AUTOMAKERS HIT THE road early to ask the Trump Administration to hit the brakes on regulation. Not long after last year’s presidential Inauguration, the CEOs of GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler traveled to Washington, D.C., and made an in-person pitch to soften vehicle-emissions rules enacted under President Obama. A few weeks later, during a visit to Detroit, President Trump promised to take care of the auto industry. Now that Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt has delivered, however, carmakers are concerned that the rollback will bring a whole new set of challenges. Pruitt announced on April 2 that he would undo a regulation that would have required automakers to reach an average fuel economy of 54.5 m.p.g. by 2025, thereby preventing 6 billion metric tons…

Shooter wounds three, kills self at YouTube HQ A woman opened fire at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., on April 3, wounding three people before killing herself. The suspect’s family said they had tried to warn police that “she might do something.” Antarctica experiencing glacial retreat Using satellite tracking software, a British-led team of scientists found that 10.7% of Antarctica’s oceanfront glaciers are retreating at significant speed—faster than the threshold considered average—as warm ocean water melts the ice from below, contributing to rising sea levels. Local news anchors recite script on media bias Sinclair Broadcast Group, which operates nearly 200 TV stations in the U.S., required its news anchors to read a scripted message warning viewers about “fake stories,” echoing rhetoric about “fake news” used by President Trump,…

A Muslim politician and a Jewish leader in Berlin are raising funds to fix a synagogue wrecked by Nazis in 1938. Here, other communities that refurbished religious sites. MOSUL CHURCH Christian and Muslim neighbors came together in May 2017 to restore a Catholic church in Mosul, Iraq, that had been damaged while ISIS occupied the area. Volunteers cleaned the church’s walls and cleared rubble. TEXAS MOSQUE When a mosque in Victoria, Texas, was burned in January 2017, local churches and a synagogue offered space for congregants to pray, while an online campaign raised over $1 million to build a new mosque. SOUTHERN CHURCHES Muslim groups raised more than $100,000 to repair several historically black churches in the South that were burned after the 2015 Charleston, S.C., church shooting.…

DIED Johan van Hulst, a Dutchman who saved 600 children during the Holocaust, on March 22 at age 107. Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum named him one of the Righteous Among the Nations, an honor for non-Jews who rescued Jews during World War II. SELECTED The first Latin American and first Asian-American apostles, by the Mormon Church, over Easter weekend. The two men diversify the top leadership of the church, which had exclusively comprised nonminority men. ANNOUNCED The date for parliamentary and local district elections in Afghanistan, which have been delayed repeatedly since 2015. The country’s Independent Elections Commission said they will now take place on Oct. 20. ORDERED Florida Governor Rick Scott, to create a new system for restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time,…

NOTES: SOCIAL SECURITY AND OTHER ITEMS THAT ARE PAID OUT OF TRUST FUNDS (FINANCED THROUGH PAYROLL, EXCISE AND OTHER TAXES) ARE NOT INCLUDED. MEDICARE IS PARTLY FINANCED THROUGH TRUST FUNDS, AND THAT PORTION IS NOT INCLUDED. SPENDING CATEGORIES ARE LARGELY BASED ON THE NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT’S METHODOLOGY: THE MONEY IS GROUPED BY THE ACTIVITY IT SUPPORTS, NOT BY THE GOVERNMENT OFFICE THAT SPENDS IT. SOURCES: IRS; OMB’S PUBLIC BUDGET DATABASE; NATIONAL PRIORITIES PROJECT AT THE INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES TIME GRAPHIC BY EMILY BARONE AND LON TWEETEN…

One year ago, President Trump welcomed China’s Xi Jinping to his Mar-a-Lago estate. Despite predictions that different temperaments would make for an uneasy encounter, the meeting helped the nations work closely on North Korea and avoid a trade conflict. Still, this is an election year in the U.S., and Trump wants supporters to see that he’s keeping his promises to get tough on China and trade deficits. After he announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in March, he got a lot of pushback—from U.S. businesses that need cheap steel, allies who export steel as well as Republican governors and lawmakers. The Administration then announced exemptions from tariffs for Europe and countries including Canada, Mexico, Brazil and South Korea. But not for China, which has alienated many U.S. businesses…

There is a paradox in the ascension of autonomous vehicles (AVs). By eliminating the human driver, AVs can greatly reduce the number of crashes. But to reach this level of performance, driverless cars will first kill some of us. In fact, they must be allowed to do so. As we begin to see the first deaths from crashes caused by AV testing on public roads, we will need to balance encouraging companies to develop these technologies by not making the costs prohibitively high and also protecting the rights of those forced into harm’s way during testing. A bill pending in the U.S. Senate fails this standard. Instead, it eliminates individuals’ abilities to sue AV companies until the vehicles are governed by federal standards—likely years from now. There is a…

There may not even be a name for what the crown prince of Saudi Arabia has been doing in the U.S. for three weeks, but he has been doing a lot of it. By the time 32-year-old Mohammed bin Salman departs, he will have visited five states plus the District of Columbia, four Presidents, five newspapers, uncounted moguls and Oprah. America has not seen the like since Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev arrived in September 1959 in a Tupolev 114 with cracks in the fuselage to knock around the country for 13 days, putting a relatable human face on America’s most dangerous enemy. ‘We believe the practice today in a few countries, among them Saudi Arabia, is not the practice of Islam. It’s the practice of people who have hijacked…

WHEN TINASHE’S PANTS RIPPED AS SHE WAS STRETCHING before an invite-only February show in Brooklyn, there was no time to fix the split seam. “I ended up wearing the sweats I was wearing on the airplane,” she says, laughing. She went on to perform a high-octane, hour-long set to a small crowd of fans, dancing and singing to sinuous pop-R&B tunes like the single “No Drama,” taken from her new album, Joyride. No one blinked an eye at her choice of apparel; she sold the look. At 25, Tinashe is a pro at dealing with curveballs. She’s had to be. “There’s no Plan B,” she says. Tinashe has been in the trenches as a working artist for a decade. She’s banking on Joyride (out April 13) to…

“THE EGOS THAT I SAW IN PARLIAMENT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN TOLERATED FOR 30 SECONDS IN THE THEATER” You acted for 35 years and won two Oscars, and then you spent 23 years in the British Parliament. Now you’re acting again, at 81. Any fears? Absolutely. I didn’t think I would have the physical or vocal strength for it. So I swam every morning at my local baths until I could swim a half hour unbroken. It’s a small club, the people who have been successful in acting and in politics. How are the jobs similar? All great drama is essentially trying to tell the truth about what we are. All Shakespeare ever asks is, Who are we, what are we, why are we? And I think politics at its…

THE ENFORCER Molly Ball’s April 9 profile of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions generated plenty of talk among Washington observers. New York Times Justice Department reporter Katie Benner joked on Twitter that President Trump would be excited to read “that he’s the pitchman for Jeff Sessions’ ideas,” while the Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky said that even if many of the AG’s decisions match up with Trump’s desires, it doesn’t mean they are “ploys” for him to keep his job, since “Sessions has wanted to do this stuff way before he connected with Trump.” That said, some readers took issue with Philip Montgomery’s cover portrait of Sessions. The black-and-white photo makes him “look like a dark and sinister character,” said John R. Pierce of Rockville, Md. ‘“Nobody’s above the…

The EPA chief intends to undo a slew of Obama-era environmental policies. Here are a few. Emissions standards The agency plans to ease rules requiring passenger cars to average 54.5 m.p.g. by 2025. The Clean Power Plan The EPA is nixing a rule that limits power-plant emissions. Waters of the U.S. rule The EPA has started a process to scale back this rule to reduce pollution in small streams. Insecticide ban Pruitt rejected a proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, a potentially harmful pesticide.…

Costa Rica picks a liberal President Costa Ricans voted to elect Carlos Alvarado Quesada, the center-left candidate from the ruling party, as President. In the April 1 runoff election, Alvarado—who campaigned on his support for same-sex marriage—beat Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz, an evangelical pastor who vowed to restore “traditional values.” Rep. Esty will not seek re-election Democratic Representative Elizabeth Esty from Connecticut said on April 2 that she would leave Congress at the end of this year amid criticism of how she handled complaints of harassment against her former chief of staff, who was accused of threatening and harassing another staffer in Esty’s office. Labour leader responds to anti-Semitism charges Days after U.K. Jewish groups protested outside Parliament, accusing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn of ignoring anti-Semitism, Corbyn came under…

BEFORE SHONDA RHIMES OR Ryan Murphy, there was Steven Bochco, a star showrunner who came to prominence practically before the category existed. Bochco, who died on April 1 at 74, broke out with the NBC drama Hill Street Blues, a 1981–87 police procedural about city cops dealing with hard social realities. He went on to probe the justice system with projects as different as NBC’s glossy L.A. Law and ABC’s gritty NYPD Blue. His boundary-pushing instincts—engaging with hot social debates, often in graphic ways—were proof less of contrarianism than of a common touch. His shows were zeitgeist hits, winning over audiences, critics and the Television Academy. Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law both won the Emmy for Best Drama four times. In an era in which TV producers’ success…

Highlights from stories on time.com/ideas How to protect user data with coding “Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world in which you could specify exactly how—and for how long—your data may be used, no matter who the data is given to?” asks Jean Yang, professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon. Yang explains, in user-friendly terms, how software must change before we can regulate sites and apps as well as we wish. ‘The hunger for booze as the hunger for God’ In an excerpt from her new memoir, The Recovering, novelist and essayist Leslie Jamison shares how she found faith while getting sober for the second time: “I needed to believe in something stronger than my willpower.” There’s no such thing as ‘science people’ Former astronaut Scott…

THERE ARE PLENTY OF GENDER-NEUTRAL TERMS THAT people have tried to make a part of American English. Take upstart pronouns like xe or zir, which have been discussed for centuries and remain little-used. Consider first-year student, which has a long way to go before supplanting freshman. Or recall the discussions about genderless military titles, like midshiperson, which have yet to leave port. There have also been success stories, from flight attendant to alum. And it appears that “Latinx”—an alternative to Latino or Latina—is headed in that direction. Academic centers are adding the word to their titles. It is becoming de rigueur among artists and politically active youth. Media outlets like NPR are using it without remark. Another sign that this term has staying power: dictionaries have recently taken the…

ON U.S. TROOPS IN SYRIA We believe American troops should stay for at least the midterm if not the long term, because the United States of America needs to have cards to negotiate and to apply pressure. If you get these troops out, you lose this card. Two, you need to have a checkpoint in the corridor between Iran and Hizballah. If you take troops from east Syria, you lose that checkpoint, and this corridor could escalate other things around the region. ON IRAN If you see any problem in the Middle East, you will find Iran. Iraq? Iran’s there. Yemen? Iran is there. Syria? Iran is there. Lebanon? Iran’s there. Where is the stable country? Egypt? Sudan? Jordan? Kuwait? Iran is not there. But they are not a…

‘Knock yourselves out… We didn’t do anything wrong.’ CHARLES KUSHNER, real estate mogul, maintaining that his company and his son Jared Kushner, a White House adviser, haven’t broken any laws; the Kushner family faces multiple investigations into possible conflicts of interest ‘WE’RE GOING TO BE GUARDING OUR BORDER WITH THE MILITARY.’ DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President, stating during a meeting with Defense Secretary James Mattis at the White House that he plans to order the military to protect the U.S.-Mexico border until a wall can be built ‘IT IS STILL LIKE A DREAM FOR ME.AM I AMONG YOU?’ MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Nobel Prize winner, visiting her hometown of Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat Valley for the first time since the Taliban tried to kill her there in 2012 20 Number of colleges…

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT YOU DIDN’T GET clobbered by China’s Tiangong-1 space station when it fell to Earth on April 1. The not-so-good news is that there’s a lot more space junk where that came from. All the same, you can take off your hard hat, because your odds of getting conked are vanishingly small. At any moment, there are more than 500,000 pieces of space debris orbiting Earth. Some are no bigger than a millimeter or two; others—like Tiangong-1, which was the size of a school bus—are a potential menace. Left to themselves, the majority of satellites eventually tumble out of orbit. The principal cause is drag from the faint wisps of atmosphere that reach into what we consider the vacuum of space. The lower a spacecraft…

THE MARKETS LOVED Donald Trump when he was talking deregulation and taxes. But they don’t care much for his actions on technology and trade. Amazon stock took a beating after the President again attacked the online retailer over the pricing of its deliveries through the USPS. “Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon,” he tweeted. “They lose a fortune, and this will be changed.” But John Callan, an expert on the Postal Service, told the Wall Street Journal that it’s a symbiotic relationship: “Amazon would not exist if not for the USPS, and USPS now probably wouldn’t exist without Amazon.” Facebook continued to get clobbered and has lost nearly 20% of its value since it peaked. In an interview with…

The philanthropist emailed with TIME about the new book Factfulness, written by his late friend and trusted adviser Hans Rosling, the Swedish statistician. Rosling, who grew famous from his TED Talks and for his creative presentations of data, died on Feb. 7, 2017. You’ve called Factfulness “one of the most important books I’ve ever read.” What makes it so significant? Hans believed the world was making remarkable progress, and he wanted everyone to know about it. Factfulness is his final effort to help people identify areas where things are getting better and spread that improvement. It explains more clearly than almost anything else I’ve read why it’s so difficult for people to perceive progress. He offers clear, actionable advice for how to overcome our innate biases and see the…

The back-to-the-land fantasy has long been a staple of horror movies and literature. Dystopia is a bummer, but there’s an upside to being driven out of the city and into the country, either by nature or something eerily outside it: we get a chance to return to our more elemental innocence, and to find out whether our better impulses can triumph over our primal ones. That’s the essence of John Krasinski’s third film as a director, A Quiet Place, and he’s worked it out beautifully. Krasinski and Emily Blunt (who are husband and wife off-screen) star as the parents of three young children, all living somewhere in the country outskirts of New York City. But their lives are hardly Instagram worthy. They’re terrorized by speedy, moist mystery beasts with…