Table of contents for May 28, 2018 in TIME Magazine

CAN BAD MEN CHANGE? Readers of Eliana Dockterman’s May 21 cover story on sex-offender therapy answered the headline’s question in a variety of ways. “A better question might be ‘Can men who do bad things stop doing them?’ For many the answer is yes,” wrote Brooklyn social worker Steve Ashkinazy. But David Jackson, a therapist in Excelsior Springs, Mo., cautioned against seeing that work as the teaching of empathy, arguing that “one person’s empathy does not necessarily equal another’s.” Others had less hope that change is possible. “Isolation is one of the safest bets” for dealing with offenders, wrote Robin Robar of Paradise, Calif., while Twitter user @wordlass1 tweeted, “More important: would any of you be willing to take that chance?” ‘Bad men can change. But it’s their…

‘There’s no one better to turn out our Republican base than President Trump.’ CASSIE SMEDILE, GOP spokeswoman DONALD TRUMP WAS ABOUT HALFWAY through a campaign rally in Elkhart, Ind., on May 10 when he called Republican Senate nominee Mike Braun to the stage of the packed gymnasium. After the businessman praised the President, Trump lit into Braun’s opponent, Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly, with characteristic ferocity. “Sleeping Joe and the Democrats,” Trump said, would raise the crowd’s taxes, destroy their jobs and erode U.S. borders. “You can send a really incredible swamp person back to the Senate like Joe Donnelly,” he told them, “or you can send us Republicans like Mike Braun to drain the swamp.” It was a preview of what is shaping up to be a long,…

AN AGING STRONGMAN. A CORRUPT protégé. An opposition leader jailed on trumped-up charges. Each of the central players in Malaysia’s election on May 9 was making a return to the political theater, but recast allegiances made for an upset that few predicted. At almost 93 years old, Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad handed the ruling coalition its first defeat since independence, and returned to his old job, this time as the world’s oldest head of government. For his political encore, Mahathir defected from the ruling coalition he helped build to unite a fractious opposition in its bid to unseat the scandal-dogged incumbent Najib Razak. “I tried to advise him,” he told TIME in an interview on the campaign trail. “But it didn’t work. So eventually I decided I…

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT A picture changes the world, but the image of a 13-year-old boy shot by police during the June 16, 1976, student uprising in Soweto, South Africa, did. In preserving a moment of naked horror, photographer Sam Nzima, who died at age 83 on May 12, produced a potent weapon in the fight against apartheid: evidence of its brutality. On that day, Nzima set out to cover what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. But when police opened fire, he captured the carnage with a singular image of a bloodied boy in the arms of a visibly distraught teenager, his sister wailing at his side. Few local papers ran the photo, for fear of angering authorities, but the next day it was splashed on front…

Life after attempting suicide Mike Faist, who originated the role of Connor in the Tony Award–winning musical Dear Evan Hansen, shares a talk he had with the founder of Live Through This, an interview series with survivors of suicide attempts, who helped inform his performance. A CIA leader’s secret ethics Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times at a black site that CIA Director nominee Gina Haspel later oversaw. His counsel, Joseph Margulies, writes of her May 9 testimony: “Haspel sat before the American people and touted her ‘moral compass’—but refused to show us which way it points.” Whom historians should quote Scott W. Stern, author of the recent book The Trials of Nina McCall, explains how government officials in the U.S. locked up women for being “promiscuous” during the…

Last season, Chris Long made football history by winning a Super Bowl while playing for free. The Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman donated his entire 2017 base salary of $1 million to charity: his first six checks went toward scholarships for students in his hometown of Charlottesville, Va. His final 10 checks supported educational equity organizations in the three cities where he has played professionally: St. Louis, Boston and Philadelphia. Long, 33, has always aspired to be more than just a football player, even as he remains a key part of one of the NFL’s best pass-rushing teams. “I want to squeeze every drop out of my potential,” he says, “as far as affecting the world around me.” To that end, he has helped raise some $2 million to build…

Anthony Boyle’s mom says she knew he was going to be a star from the first moment she saw him onstage. It took Boyle a little longer to figure it out for himself. Growing up in west Belfast, Boyle struggled to find an outlet for his creative energy, so much so that he got expelled from school. “I had so many ideas and so many things that I wanted to do,” he says. Eventually, he settled on theater. Despite appearing in what he describes as some of the “worst plays imaginable” while he was a struggling actor, Boyle was recruited by the prestigious Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama at age 19. He spent nearly three years honing his craft before getting the part that would change his…

CALABASAS, CALIF., IS WHERE CELEBRITIES GO TO hide, which is exactly why Abel Tesfaye moved there last year, to a bright and airy home in nearby Hidden Hills, where his neighbors include Drake and Kim Kardashian West. The house isn’t fully settled—plaques need to be hung and a wine refrigerator is not yet fully stocked, though there is a marble bust of what appears to be his own head in a corner. He likes it here, especially compared with Beverly Hills, where he felt too exposed. “I don’t think I could ever do that again,” he says. “I always feel like someone’s watching me.” Tesfaye, better known to the public as the Weeknd, has made a career out of hiding in plain sight. When he began releasing music in…

Feeling down about dying polar bears, deforestation and the state of the world in general? Paul Schrader’s beautiful, bruising First Reformed is the movie for you. Ethan Hawke is superb as Toller, an ex–military chaplain reckoning with a painful past. He’s been made the pastor of a tiny, historic church in upstate New York, which should be a balm for him. But even though he spends his days trying hard to do the Lord’s work—extending particular kindness to an anxious young wife and mother-to-be, played with tremulous sensitivity by Amanda Seyfriedhis nights become intense sessions of journal keeping and destructive drinking. With First Reformed, Schrader—famously, the writer of Taxi Driver, though as a director he’s given us his share of terrific, sometimes underappreciated pictures like Forever Mine and Patty…

TIME and Rolex have partnered to present a new class of Next Generation Leaders who are blazing trails in art, activism, sports and entertainment. This group of emerging stars ranges from the Grammy Award–winning pop singer the Weeknd (bottom) to Adwoa Aboah (top), a fashion model whose battle with depression led her to start the support group Gurls Talk. Find out more in this issue (page 40), and see their video profiles—plus the list of past honorees—at time.com/nextgenleaders…

PENTACERATOPS A researcher discovered Pentaceratops aquilonius, a cousin to the triceratops, in 2014, in a Canadian museum where it had been stored—but not properly identified—for more than 75 years. OLINGUITO Scientists found remains of this raccoon-like mammal in a Chicago museum and then confirmed it lives in South America. In 2013, it became the first new carnivore discovered in the Americas in 35 years. ZEBRA RINGLET BUTTERFLY This species from Peru was uncovered at London’s Natural History Museum in 2011 by the institution’s butterfly curator. The specimen had been donated to the museum in 1904.…

DIED Actor Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in 1978’s Superman and its sequels, on May 13 at 69. She appeared in more than 130 movies and TV shows. Ernest Medina, a key figure in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, on May 8 at 81. He was charged with responsibility for the 1968 mass killing but was acquitted. RELEASED President Donald Trump’s annual financial disclosure, by the government ethics office on May 16. The form showed Trump reimbursed his lawyer Michael Cohen—who earlier paid a settlement to adult-film star Stormy Daniels—for more than $100,000. SETTLED Hundreds of lawsuits filed by women and girls who said they were sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar, by the sports doctor’s former employer Michigan State University. The school said on May…

The longer a deal is delayed, the more likely that Trump will decide to simply walk away from NAFTA altogether THE IRAN NUCLEAR deal isn’t the only major agreement that President Trump promised voters he would either rewrite or tear up. After nine months of talks, U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators remain deadlocked on how to rework, and save, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). There’s now a renewed sense of urgency, because time is running out to reach a deal to spare NAFTA, the pact that has governed cross-border trade since 1994. If no agreement is reached in May, things will become much more complicated. Here’s why: Even if the three sides come to an agreement this month, Trump can’t just sign it into law. The…

About 20% of children have permanent hearing loss caused mostly by exposure to loud noise, according to the Hearing Health Foundation. Still, “listening to music with earbuds is not a major cause of hearing loss,” says Dr. Robert Dobie, a clinical professor of otolaryngology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Instead, other common exposures to loud noise are much more likely to hurt your child’s ears, he says. “A lot more kids lose hearing from recreational shooting or hunting than from loud music,” Dobie says. That’s not to say earbuds are always safe. Playing music loudly—especially to block out background noise—can damage hearing. If children hear ringing in their ears when they pull out their buds, or if the world sounds a little muffled,…

Fewer children are achieving a higher standard of living than their parents The share of adults in the middle class is shrinking SOURCES: ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE; DC BAR JOURNAL; NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR LAW PLACEMENT; NEW YORK TIMES; CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS; WINNER-TAKE-ALL POLITICS (2010), BY HACKER AND PIERSON; CENSUS; THE EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY PROJECT; PEW NOTES: ALL HISTORICAL FIGURES ARE INFLATION-ADJUSTED. CEO COMPENSATION IS THROUGH JUNE 2016 AND INCLUDES SALARY, BONUS, RESTRICTED STOCK GRANTS, OPTIONS EXERCISED AND LONG-TERM INCENTIVE PAYOUTS FOR CEOS AT THE TOP 350 U.S. FIRMS BY SALES.…

‘There is more than one way to be beautiful and cool,’ Aboah has said of reshaping traditional beauty standards WITH HER SHAVED HEAD, FRECKLES AND jeweled tooth, Adwoa Aboah doesn’t look like most of the supermodels who came before her. And yet since her November debut on the cover of British Vogue(the first issue under the publication’s first black editor, Edward Enninful), Aboah, 25, has assembled a list of accomplishments that places her firmly in their ranks. She has fronted campaigns for major brands, such as Chanel, Burberry and Revlon. She has won awards, including the British Fashion Council’s highly coveted Model of the Year (a designation previously given to Kate Moss, among others). And in May, she appeared at the Met Gala alongside icons like Donatella Versace and…

The first time Sonita Alizadeh wore a wedding dress, it wasn’t for the arranged marriage she thought awaited her in theocratic Iran. Instead, it was for a music video. At 17, Alizadeh recorded “Daughters for Sale,” a rap song she wrote after learning her family intended to sell her into marriage for $9,000. The song—with lyrics like “I scream to make up for a woman’s lifetime of silence”—became an anthem in Afghanistan and elsewhere against the child-bride tradition. After the video garnered international attention, Alizadeh won a full scholarship to a music school in the U.S. Since then, Alizadeh, now 21, has emerged as one of her culture’s most powerful voices for women’s empowerment—not just through music, but through writing (she co-authored a curriculum on child marriage that has…

FONDA FIGHTS WORKPLACE HARASSMENT IN 9 TO 5 She starred with Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin in this 1980 comedy about a trio of fed-up worker bees battling a chauvinistic boss. Given the ongoing relevance of its themes, it’s not surprising there’s talk of a reboot. KEATON DOES DEADLINES AND DIAPERS IN BABY BOOM The actor earned a Golden Globe nomination for this 1987 film, in which she plays a consultant whose professional goals are derailed by the unwelcome news that she’s inherited an orphaned infant. BERGEN’S MURPHY BROWN BECOMES A FEMINIST ICON Bergen starred as a journalist in this sitcom, which ran for 10 seasons beginning in 1988; her character’s decision to raise a child alone sparked a national political debate over single motherhood. STEENBURGEN’S REBEL WIFE IN…

‘I posted the video just for my safety.’LOLADE SIYONBOLA, graduate student at Yale University, on why she chose to broadcast via Facebook Live an encounter with police officers that began when a white student reported Siyonbola, who is black, for napping in a common room ‘IF THE U.S. IS TRYING TO DRIVE US INTO A CORNER TO FORCE OUR UNILATERAL NUCLEAR ABANDONMENT, WE WILL NO LONGER BE INTERESTED IN SUCH DIALOGUE.’ KIM KYE GWAN, North Korean first vice minister of foreign affairs, threatening to call off a planned summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, in a statement broadcast on state media on May 16 ‘IF YOU’RE NOT ASKING GUYS TO WEAR HEELS AND A DRESS, THEN YOU CAN’T ASK ME EITHER.’KRISTEN STEWART, actor, on why she protested a no-flats…

WHO urges the end of trans fats The World Health Organization urged governments to eliminate trans fats from global food supplies by 2023 and released a wide-ranging plan for how to get there. The agency estimates that the artificial fats—often found in baked and processed foods—lead to half a million deaths from heart disease every year. First Lady has kidney surgery First Lady Melania Trump underwent kidney surgery on May 14 to treat what the White House called a “benign kidney condition.” The procedure was successful, and there were no complications, according to her communications director. China map causes trouble for the Gap Clothing retailer the Gap apologized over a T-shirt depicting a map of China that left out Taiwan and other Chinese-claimed territories. Hundreds complained after an image…

THE DAY I WALKED OUT OF A BOOKSTORE WITH TOM WOLFE’S The Right Stuff, I’d only meant to buy some gum. But there it was on the shelf, and it looked interesting, so I took my gum money and bought the book. As I lay on my unmade college dorm bed reading about the pilots who became the first U.S. astronauts, I discovered something I’d never had: an ambition. In his great works of fiction and nonfiction, Wolfe—who died at 88 on May 14—made you feel as if you were there in the moment. The characters in The Bonfire of the Vanities seemed like real people in New York City, and The Right Stuff made me want to be like those test pilots. About 18 years after that day…

A first, in a few ways Hirono is the first Asian-American woman to serve in the Senate, the first Senator born in Japan and the first Senator from a Buddhist background. Handling the volcano fallout “These communities will require additional resources to recover,” Hirono said, urging aid for the region’s small businesses, following the new phase of the May 3 Kilauea volcano eruption. Vietnam inspired her activism She credits the antiwar movement with lighting her political interests.…

The human brain is wired so that people see what they believe. It is a predictive organ—constantly guessing what will happen next. Because of this, face and body movements aren’t an actual language that conveys consent, rejection and emotion in general. Your experience that a person’s smile means “I’m happy” or “I consent” or even “I’m afraid” begins with your brain’s belief about what is true. This means that two brains can perceive the same events differently. Research from my lab shows that your mood can influence what you see; when you feel good, other people look more attractive, trustworthy and appealing. It’s human nature to sometimes see the world through desire-colored glasses. When men who are accused of sexual misconduct insist that their encounter was consensual, they may…

MUSIC Ariana Grande RAISING HER VOICE ARIANA GRANDE IS HAPPY, AND IT’S IMPORTANT to her that people know that. Still, it would be hard to miss her happiness on this sunny spring day at a ramshackle house in Beverly Hills. It beams out of her as she sprawls on the lawn, murmuring in baby talk to Toulouse, her rescue beagle-chihuahua, and it suffuses the way she vogues out of the house into the yard, spinning and twirling in a frilly gray tulle dress. She has a lot of reasons to be happy. At 24, Grande is one of the biggest pop stars in the world, and she’s coming out with new music two years after her last album, the blockbuster Dangerous Woman. Her latest single is called “No Tears…

Hou Yifan’s favorite chess piece is not the mighty queen but the humble pawn. “When the pawn gets to the other side, it can become anything except the king,” says the woman who at 14 became the game’s youngest female grand master and at 16 its youngest women’s world champion. “To me it shows that regardless of your background, if you stick to your goals and strive, eventually you will become a better version of yourself.” Hou, now 24, remains the world’s greatest female chess player—she has won multiple world titles since graduating from high school—and is also an accomplished student; she holds a degree in international relations from Beijing’s prestigious Peking University and is pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. That…

It all began with an after-school group. Dissatisfied with how students seemed unimpressed by the small on-site zoo at her school in Lima, Kerstin Forsberg started a nature club to engage her peers and teachers. She was 9 years old. Now 33, Forsberg is still devoting her life to creatures in need of attention. But her new club has a bit more clout: Planeta Océano, a volunteer-heavy NGO, aims to empower and educate coastal communities about their local marine environment, with a particular eye toward conserving northern Peru’s giant manta rays. “What really caught my attention was their vulnerability,” says Forsberg, pointing out that the mantas reproduce at the slow rate of one pup every two to seven years. “They were being eaten and sold, and no one cared.…

IN HIS HOODIE AND LOOSE-FITTING JEANS, Kevin Kühnert doesn’t seem like he would be a nemesis for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But this spring, the 28-year-old—dubbed Milchgesicht (“Baby Face”) by German tabloids—nearly managed to topple Europe’s most powerful leader. Kühnert first rose to prominence last November, when he was elected to run the Social Democratic Party (SPD) youth wing, a position that has long been a springboard into government. Soon after, the SPD—which had recently suffered a disastrous election result—broke its promise to lead the left-wing opposition and instead agreed to join the government of its conservative rival, Merkel. “They lost touch with our principles,” Kühnert says. Instead of clinging to power as Merkel’s junior partner in a coalition government, the SPD should return to its left-wing roots and…

LOVE IT Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman delivered a rousing commencement speech at Howard University in which he praised students at his alma mater for their on-campus activism. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch has pledged to refuse roles in any project for which his female co-stars wouldn’t receive equal pay. Rihanna launched a new inclusive lingerie collection, Savage x Fenty, featuring 36 different sizes and 90 different styles. LEAVE IT Who Wants to Be a Millionaire U.K. host Jeremy Clarkson accidentally told a contestant who had gotten a question wrong that he had answered correctly, leading to an awkward £15,000 loss.…

‘TRUMP IS THE OUTWARD MANIFESTATION OF WHITE MALE PANIC ’ You wrote your first play when you were 8 years old. What was it about? It probably had a prince and a princess in it, and it probably involved my brother, who was my first actor. And it was probably greeted with robust applause because the audience was my parents and their friends. You worked as the national press officer for Amnesty International after graduate school. Did you ever consider working as a reporter? I did contemplate a career as a journalist. I worked part-time for the Phoenix [a since-closed community newspaper in Brooklyn]. They had a section, “Amusing Crimes Committed by People,” that I gathered from police logs. We all come to those forks in the road. I…