Table of contents for September 5, 2016 in TIME Magazine

INTERNET TROLLS Joel Stein's Aug. 29 cover story on the rise of Internet trolling, from the alt-right in particular, sparked discussions everywhere from Fox News to the New York Observer to Twitter, where Andrew Stroehlein observed, "We're not just in danger of losing the Internet to hate but of losing democracies to it too." Sheldon Prial of Goose Creek, S.C., a World War II veteran, wrote that trolling reminded him of the "hate stirred up by the Nazi party." To combat the abuse, Monique Bondeux, who called the piece "chilling," suggested boycotting affected social-media sites, while Peter Guerin of Hadley, N.Y., advocated the introduction of new legislation "to reflect this frightening reality ... before more people are hurt." SENIORS AND STEIN "Was this written tongue-in-cheek, or were you serious? Either…

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari relaunched a controversial "war against indiscipline" program on Aug. 15, a move seen as an attempt to reset his flagging presidency. Here's why: STRIKE FORCE Buhari first tackled public conduct in 1984, when he ruled the country as a military dictator. The brutal campaign saw soldiers armed with whips beat offenders for minor infractions such as being late for work or failing to wait in line properly. BATTLE RESUMED Officials say this version will not be so punitive. The new scheme aims to reduce social ills like corruption and violence with 170,000 enforcers, mainly volunteers. But experts say the government-backed brigade could exacerbate discontent. MOUNTING TROUBLE The attempt comes as Buhari's Cabinet is accused of failing to tackle corruption or reform an ailing economy and as…

Since 2014, India has been the emerging-market world's most positive story. That's mainly because Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have cut red tape to make it easier to do business in this historically closed country. Modi's government has lowered barriers to foreign investment and dramatically simplified the tax system. India's economy has taken off, with growth forecast at 7.8% this year. Yet this is probably the last major piece of positive reform news we'll hear from India for the next couple of years. There are two crucial proposals that aren't going anywhere until after the next national elections, in 2019. First, change is needed to create a much more flexible labor force. Laws meant to protect workers make it extremely difficult to fire employees in…

That a book looks and works as it does is an easy thing to take for granted, but it took a thousand disruptions over the course of millennia to make those bound objects what they are. In his new history of the book, written in a moment when those analog objects have an uncertain future, author Keith Houston traces the evolutions of writing, illustrating and papermaking from the ancient world to today. The attendant tales in The Book--of warring Greeks, backstabbing Chinese courtesans, of religion, pride, domination, failure and ingenuity--prove that the book's story is a reflection of human beings too. As Houston notes amid his explanation of how written language came to be: "The letters in this book are the offspring of ancient Egyptian writing, filtered through 4,000 years…

A roundup of new and noteworthy insights from the week's most talked-about studies: 1 BREADWINNING IS GOOD FOR WOMEN AND BAD FOR MEN A study from the University of Connecticut, which analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics data, found that acting as the primary breadwinner in a family has a negative impact on the mental and physical health of men. For women, however, there was a positive psychological effect. 2 LOW EXPECTATIONS MAY AFFECT BREAST-CANCER TREATMENT A study in the journal Annals of Oncology found that women with low expectations during hormonal therapy for breast cancer experienced twice as many side effects from the treatment as those with less negative thoughts. 3 DOGS MAY PREFER PRAISE OVER FOOD In a study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, researchers who analyzed…

Every night for 20 years, Gino Rodriguez knelt beside his three daughters' beds and whispered an incantation. As rats the size of footballs skittered along the floor of the basement apartment on the South Side of Chicago, he repeated the same five words into each girl's ear as she slept: "I can and I will." The message was always the same, and the audience was always asleep. "You talk to the subconscious. You don't talk to the conscious," Rodriguez says. "That's the one that really listens." The girls slept "hot-dog style," cocooned in tightly wrapped sheets to keep out the vermin. They occasionally woke up during their father's nightly pep talks, rolled their eyes and then went back to sleep. But each morning, they did a series of jumping jacks,…

When did this story come to you? I was a person who thought I knew what was best for everyone else, but I had this epiphany where I realized the more I'm focusing on other people's lives, the less I'm looking at myself. That led me on this journey of being a less harsh critic to the people around me. You've talked about the value of therapy. Did your own therapy influence the screenplay? Oh, 100%. I was going to therapy and reading so many books, trying to educate myself on what was going on with me but also what might be going on with people around me to gain a perspective different from my own. That helped me create these three-dimensional characters having a very authentic emotional experience. Your…

Amy Schumer's The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo covers a lot of territory. There are funny anecdotes--about sex, about shoplifting, about drinking--but the overall tone is bittersweet. While many celebrity memoirs read like raucous meditations on the performing life, Schumer's tests the bounds of dark humor. She has struggled with her father's physical deterioration from multiple sclerosis, abusive relationships and a hefty dose of sexism. Her parents influenced her worldview: her father was too honest, sometimes to the point of cruelty; her mother was so upbeat that she denied when things went amiss. Her mother had an affair with the father of Schumer's best friend, which split up her parents. (Each married three times.) Later, Schumer endured an abusive relationship and a sexual encounter she describes as "nonconsensual." Schumer's…

LOVE IT Kanye West wrote a poem about McDonald's for a magazine delivered alongside Frank Ocean's new album. Among the best stanzas: 'The salad bar and the ketchup made a band/Cus the French fries had a plan.' Rihanna took a photo with a giant headless statue of herself at the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. J.K. Rowling plans to release three new collections of Harry Potter short stories on her interactive fan site Pottermore in September. Panda Express may introduce a hybrid utensil called the Chork--a tweezer-like chopsticks-fork combination. Pizza Hut U.K. debuted a pizza box that turns into functional DJ turntables, complete with a working mixer and controls. Zac Efron flew to Rio to surprise one of his biggest fans: Olympic champion gymnast Simone Biles. Time's weekly take on…

How well do you think the average American understands the Constitution? Not at all, alas. It's a shame because it was designed to be read. Here's an analogy: I like baseball, but baseball's a little boring unless you're into it. The Constitution is no more forbidding than baseball, but we have to get into it. You wrote in 2008 that Hillary Clinton is to Bill Clinton as Hamilton was to Washington. Do you still think she's like him? She's like Alexander Hamilton and, believe it or not, Martin Van Buren. Both New Yorkers, both in effect handpicked successors of very popular two-term Presidents, both lowborn. So who's Trump? I don't think we've ever seen someone like Trump. You're asking people to look to a document written by dead men for…

'What the hell do you have to lose?' Donald Trump, trying to court black voters--among whom he's polling at less than 1% in many states--by claiming that things could not get any worse than they are right now BORDER PATROL 1,500 The number of rafters and boaters in the St. Clair River who were blown from Michigan into Canada by high winds on Aug. 21; Canadian police brought them back to the U.S. by bus 22 The number of months NASA had lost contact with the STEREO-B spacecraft, which is studying the sun; contact was restored on Aug. 21 'Maybe we'll just ... decide to separate from the United Nations.' Rodrigo Duterte, Philippine President, after the U.N. criticized his antidrug campaign as a human-rights violation; since Duterte took office on…

Donald Trump has called NATO "obsolete," threatening in July to renege on the U.S. commitment to protect allies under attack. Some leading figures in Europe also question the alliance's value: JEREMY CORBYN The leader of the U.K.'s opposition Labour Party said on Aug. 18 he wouldn't aid NATO allies under attack if elected Prime Minister. BEPPE GRILLO The founder of Italy's antiestablishment Five Star Movement wrote in May that NATO pandered to Washington's "strategic designs." PABLO IGLESIAS The leader of Spain's left-wing Podemos party has long called for a referendum on NATO membership. MARINE LE PEN The far-right National Front party leader wants France to withdraw from NATO and has called for a better relationship with Russia.…

BOGOTÁ Since 1976, Colombia's capital has welcomed millions to walk or bike through 75 miles of car-free roads every Sunday (as shown above). The event, called Ciclovía, led cities in Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Ecuador to hold similar days. SAN FRANCISCO Inspired by Ciclovía, the City by the Bay has shut streets on select Sundays throughout the year since 2008 for cycling, yoga and other activities. It's one of at least 65 U.S. cities to stage similar events. OSLO The Norwegian capital wants to take the Ciclovía concept to the next level: last year it unveiled plans to become the first European city to ban cars completely from its center by 2019.…

Most of us feel more productive than ever. Between wi-fi and mobile data, smartphones and apps that let us do everything from hail a ride to order groceries, we can get more done, in more places, more of the time--whether we want to or not. So why does the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) keep telling us that's an illusion? Not only is productivity in America declining, but it's been falling for over a decade. Even during the booming mid-2000s, according to the government's statisticians, productivity began to flatten and fall. Since economic growth is the product of productivity and demographics, the BLS numbers are a big deal. With birthrates falling and immigration down, productivity needs to go up--or we'll soon be worse off economically than our parents. The slowdown…

"Atlanta is a Trojan horse," says Donald Glover, the creator and star of the dramedy, which premieres Sept. 6 on FX. The show is ostensibly about an Ivy League dropout and new dad (Glover) who helps his cousin launch a rap career. But in reality, it's a bold exploration of race and class that feels like nothing else on television--partly because the writers are all black, as are the stars. "The thesis was: How do we make people feel black?" says Glover. "It turned into something more attainable than that, but that was the idea. I was like, 'Let's make something that shouldn't be on the air, something controversial.' If it's canceled in 10 episodes, I'll be happy with those episodes." In the first episode, a white character tells a…

Here's a number that might come as a surprise: According to a Pew Research survey released in August, most American men--56%--think sexism is over and done with. More than half believe that "the obstacles that once made it harder for women than men to get ahead are now largely gone." As in disappeared. Past tense. Ancient history. Of course, most women--63%--disagree. So might anyone who has been paying attention to the details emerging from the lawsuits and allegations from women currently and formerly at the Fox News network. One plaintiff described an environment run like a "sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion--like cult" under former Fox chairman Roger Ailes, who resigned in July amid accusations of sexual harassment and suggestions that he fostered an atmosphere where women were judged by looks and pliability…

The crown prince of Bahrain is not Hillary Clinton's friend, at least not in the way most people use that word. Nor is he particularly friendly with Huma Abedin, a top Clinton deputy, or the co-founder of the Clinton Global Initiative Doug Band. And yet for some reason, in June 2009, Band wrote an email to Abedin asking for a meeting between the Secretary of State and Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. "Good friend of ours," Band said of the crown prince. Abedin, who would later work for Band's consulting firm while still drawing a public salary at the State Department, promptly set up an appointment with Clinton three days later. At that point, Salman had already announced he would fund a scholarship program through the Clinton Initiative, to…

DIED Toots Thielemans, 94, Belgian jazz harmonica player who collaborated with music greats from Benny Goodman to Paul Simon. His playing was featured on the opening theme of Sesame Street and on the soundtracks for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and The Getaway (1972). Lou Pearlman, 62, former manager of boy bands like 'N Sync, Backstreet Boys and LFO. He died in jail, having spent his final years incarcerated for a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of an estimated $300 million. CLOSED The website Gawker, after its parent company was sold to Univision. The site was created in 2002 as a media gossip blog and became known for its mixture of salacious tittle-tattle and in-depth reporting. Its parent company, Gawker Media, declared bankruptcy in June after the site lost a $140 million…

It's natural to want to be happy all the time. But it's telling that most of what many consider to be our seven basic emotions--joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, contempt and disgust--reflect the dark side of the human experience. These emotions are still with us because they've helped us survive through several million years of evolution, and they are an integral part of what makes us human. It's troubling, then, that so many of us try to avoid them. We use default behaviors that we hope can deflect or disguise them. We settle deeply into them, refusing to let them go. Or we attempt to ignore them entirely through cynicism, irony or gallows humor, refusing to admit anything in life is worth taking seriously. As Nietzsche once said, loosely translated,…

In the summer of 1980, Donald Trump faced a big problem. For six months, undocumented Polish laborers had been clearing the future site of Trump Tower, his signature real estate project on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, where he now lives, maintains his private offices and hosts his presidential campaign. The men were putting in 12-hour shifts with inadequate safety equipment at subpar wages that their contractor paid sporadically, if at all. A lawyer for many of the Poles demanded that the workers be paid or else he would serve Trump with a lien on the property. One Polish worker even went to Trump's office to ask him for money in person, according to sworn testimony and a deposition filed under oath in a court case. For help, Trump turned to Daniel…

How many presidential first dates could actually make a watchable movie, let alone a fine one? Here you go: writer-director Richard Tanne's beautifully wrought Southside With You is a vivid, imaginative portrayal of the first date between the woman then known as Michelle Robinson and her hardworking suitor, the young Barack Obama. Michelle (Tika Sumpter), a few years into her career as a lawyer at Chicago's Sidley Austin, accepts an invitation from Barack (Parker Sawyers), a summer associate at the firm and her advisee, to attend a community meeting at a South Side church. She insists it isn't a date. Barack has other ideas. Sawyers and Sumpter are both terrific: He captures both the easy, loping rhythms of our future 44th President's speech and the long-stride elegance of his carriage.…

In The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe offers an analytical history of humankind's struggle to understand the origins of what he calls its "superpower": speech. In Wolfe's telling, the often dry, esoteric realm of academia is rife with coups, Martians and disease. And the driving conflict is the power struggle over the legacies of Charles Darwin and MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, the intellectuals who claimed to best understand man's special ability. Each one sought to answer how we came to possess speech. Darwin theorized that humans learned it from birdsong, while Chomsky believes we have a special organ, evidenced by the common structure of oral communication. The two have dominated how we think of language for a century and a half. Yet for all their effort, Chomsky himself confessed…