Outrage Mounts After Cell Phone Footage Surfaces of Ahmaud Arbery’s Fatal Shooting in Georgia, But No Suspects Have Been Charged. Here’s What to Know

May 7, 2020
A Georgia prosecutor has called for a grand jury investigation into the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was killed after being chased by two white men in February while out running in a residential neighborhood outside Brunswick, a city on the state’s southeast coast. “After careful review of the evidence…

How Nancy Pelosi Saved the Affordable Care Act

May 6, 2020
As she pleaded with her Democratic sisters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had tears in her eyes. She knew they hated what they were being asked to do. She hated it, too. But if they didn’t relent, the whole thing could fall apart. They had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to accomplish something truly monumental, a goal that…

Trump Told America’s Governors They Were On Their Own. So Maryland’s Larry Hogan Is Taking Charge

May 5, 2020
Larry Hogan has got another of his ideas, and this one cracks him up. “I’m gonna call Pence!” says Hogan, startling his chief of staff, Matthew Clark, who sits across a large, round faux-wood table. Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, is meeting with his coronavirus command team, a skeleton crew of state officials still…

Africa Dangerously Behind in Global Race for Medical Equipment Amid Coronavirus

May 5, 2020
(JOHANNESBURG) — As Africa braces for a surge in coronavirus cases, its countries are dangerously behind in the global race for scarce medical equipment. Ten nations have no ventilators at all. Outbid by richer countries, and not receiving medical gear from top aid donor the United States, African officials scramble for solutions as virus cases…

‘It Conjures Up Every Racial Stereotype.’ For Black Men, Homemade Masks May Be a Risk All Their Own

May 3, 2020
For 24-year-old Quinten Hoskins, new federal guidelines suggesting that people wear homemade face coverings in public to fight the coronavirus outbreak seemed like a joke, and not a very funny one at that. “Can y’all imagine me walking in here with a bandana on my face?,” he asked a group of colleagues at the Milwaukee…

They Were There as the Modern Environmental Movement Began. As Earth Day Turns 50, They Say the Planet’s Problems Have Gotten Worse

May 3, 2020
Dorothy Bradley was 23 when she decided to run for the Montana House of Representatives. Her decision was made on the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970 — when she was one of roughly 20 million Americans who participated in some of the day’s 12,000 events raising awareness of environmental problems in society. At…

Trump to Order U.S. Meat Plants to Stay Open Amid Supply Fears

April 30, 2020
President Donald Trump plans to order meat-processing plants to remain open, declaring them critical infrastructure as the nation confronts growing disruptions to the food supply from the coronavirus outbreak, a person familiar with the matter said. Trump plans to use the Defense Production Act to order the companies to stay open during the pandemic, and…

‘We’re Catching It Double.’ Amid Coronavirus Lockdowns, Gun Violence Continues to Plague Chicago

April 28, 2020
Despite a statewide shelter-in-place order to help limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, the city of Chicago is still facing high levels of gun violence. “It’s like a double whammy. We are catching it double. We have the virus and the violence to worry about,” Rodney Phillips, a violence prevention outreach worker in Chicago…

New York City Exposes the Stark Disparity in How COVID-19 Affects Low-Income Communities

April 27, 2020
Consider this for perspective: with 107,263 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the five boroughs as of April 14., if New York City were a sovereign nation, it would be the sixth worst-hit country by the coronavirus. The city accounts for nearly 18% of all cases in the United States, which leads the world in infections…

How the Civil War Changed the Way Americans Thought About Economic Inequality

April 24, 2020
In the run-up to the 2020 election, some Americans are increasingly worried about the immense power that wealth plays in the country’s democracy. Those concerns would not have surprised Americans in 1776 — they assumed that property and political power were intertwined. Indeed, one had to own property to vote, although in America (unlike England)…

Republicans Could Use the Coronavirus to Suppress Votes Across the Country. This Week We Got a Preview

April 24, 2020
In 1946, Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo instructed his followers that the way to keep black people from voting was to get “the tar and feathers and don’t forget the match.” In the Jim Crow South, African Americans faced bullets, beatings, lynching and more for trying to cast a ballot. Over the years the weapon has…

Sundar Pichai on Big Tech’s Role During Coronavirus Crisis

April 20, 2020
In recent weeks, governments and citizens alike have turned to Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, for help with the COVID-19 pandemic. In a rare partnership with Apple, the company is working to turn smartphones into contact-tracing devices, on an opt-in basis, to help notify people if they’ve been exposed to the virus.…

ESPN’s New Michael Jordan Documentary Is Exactly What We Need Right Now. Here’s How They Made It

April 18, 2020
ESPN has taken noble swings at programming a sports network with no sports. But there are only so many airings of marbles races, old games and gabfests about the April 23–25 NFL draft—an event that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, feels as significant as a speck of sand—that viewers can take. That’s why fans clamored so…

How New Efforts Are Recovering the Stories of People Who Were Deleted From History

April 15, 2020
There are holes in the stories we tell ourselves about history, gaping blanks that stand out like missing teeth in a broken smile. Certain types of people are often relegated to the background, or have been deleted altogether. Recently, a doctoral student at Duke University discovered that the oldest known copy of the Bible’s Gospel…

We Need to Rethink Our Food System to Prevent the Next Pandemic

April 13, 2020
Once a dangerous new pathogen is out, as we are seeing, it can be difficult if not impossible to prevent it going global. One as contagious as SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to infect the whole of humanity. Eighty per cent of cases may be benign, but with such a large pool of susceptible hosts, the…

‘I’ve Been Missing Caring for People.’ Thousands of Retired Health Care Workers Are Volunteering to Help Areas Overwhelmed By Coronavirus

April 11, 2020
Dr. Jane Bedell was less than a month into her retirement and was looking forward to hiking and visiting her son. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on retired health care professionals and students to help care for the state’s rapidly rising confirmed COVID-19 cases, the 63-year-old New…

Bill Withers, Writer and Singer of ‘Lean On Me,’ Dies at 81

April 9, 2020
Bill Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including “Lean On Me,” “Lovely Day” and “Ain’t No Sunshine,” has died from heart complications, his family said in a statement to The Associated Press. He was 81. The three-time Grammy Award winner, who…

The Future of Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Could Depend on Michigan

April 7, 2020
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has a critical mission on Tuesday: beating former Vice President Joe Biden in Michigan. On a day when 352 of the remaining delegates in the Democratic presidential primary will be awarded, Michigan is the biggest prize, allocating 125 pledged delegates. But that’s not the only reason the Midwest state is crucial…

Joseph Lowery, Veteran Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 98

April 6, 2020
(ATLANTA) — The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a veteran civil rights leader who helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and fought against racial discrimination, died Friday, a family statement said. He was 98. A charismatic and fiery preacher, Lowery led the SCLC for two decades — restoring the…

Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett Enshrined Into the Basketball Hall of Fame

April 6, 2020
Kobe Bryant was already immortal. Now he’s officially a Hall of Famer as well. And he’s got plenty of elite company in the 2020 class. Bryant and fellow NBA greats Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett headlined a nine-person group announced Saturday as this year’s class of enshrinees into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.…

9 Women from American History You Should Know, According to Historians

April 4, 2020
With Women’s History Month underway and International Women’s Day approaching on March 8, classrooms and museums across the United States will be focusing on famous women who shaped the world we live in. But not everyone who did so has gotten the recognition she deserved. This week, TIME is telling the stories of women who…

Women With Access to Higher Education Changed America—But Now They’re Bearing the Brunt of the Student Debt Crisis

April 4, 2020
Higher education policy has taken center stage in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary, with candidates proposing big ideas including free college and student debt cancellation. Candidates’ focus on this issue stems from a very real change in the experience of paying for college. One in five U.S. households was burdened by student loan debt, as…

I Feared My Enslaved Ancestors Had Been Dishonored in Death—But the African Burial Ground in New York City Tells a Different Story

April 2, 2020
The oral history of my family says that President James Madison, a Founding Father of our nation, was also a Founding Father of my African American family. In 1992, when I realized I knew a lot about how the president had lived his life but little about how his slaves had lived theirs, I took…

The 5 Best New TV Shows Our Critic Watched in March 2020

March 30, 2020
The entertainment industry essentially ground to a halt in mid-March, as coronavirus swept the nation, rendering everything from concerts and movie theaters to publicity events and film shoots unsafe, if not illegal. We have to take our distractions where we can get them in these anxious times, so I for one have never been more…

The ‘Exhausted Majority’ Wakes Up for Joe Biden

March 28, 2020
As recently as two weeks ago it looked like American politics had settled into a divisive new reality. The aggressive ideological wings so dominated the two political parties that they guaranteed that the general election contest would be between two most polarizing candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The battle would be fought between one…

The Trump Administration Is Stalling an Intel Report That Warns the U.S. Isn’t Ready for a Global Pandemic

March 28, 2020
An annual intelligence report that has been postponed without explanation by President Donald Trump’s administration warns that the U.S. remains unprepared for a global pandemic, two senior government officials who have reviewed a draft of the report tell TIME. The office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was scheduled to deliver the Worldwide Threat…

Let Ms. Tina Explain Why Solange Was Always Destined to Win a Prize for Social Impact

March 27, 2020
On Friday night, singer-songwriter and multimedia artist Solange Knowles received the first Lena Horne Prize for Artists Creating Social Impact, celebrating at New York City’s historic Town Hall theater and memorializing Horne, the trailblazing actress and activist. There to mark the occasion: Horne’s daughter, the author and activist Gail Lumet Buckley and granddaughter Jenny Lumet;…

Resurgent Joe Biden Starts Super Tuesday With Big Virginia Win as Bernie Sanders Takes Vermont

March 26, 2020
(WASHINGTON) — A resurgent Joe Biden scored sweeping victories across the country with the backing of a diverse coalition and progressive rival Bernie Sanders seized Super Tuesday’s biggest prize with a win in California as the Democratic Party’s once-crowded presidential field suddenly transformed into a two-man contest. The two Democrats, lifelong politicians with starkly different…

Sanders and Biden to Face Off in Debate on Sunday, Amid a Winnowing Primary and COVID-19. Here’s What to Know

March 26, 2020
What a difference a few weeks can make. Since the last Democratic presidential debate on Feb. 25, former Vice President Joe Biden has emerged as the party’s presidential primary front runner, cementing a clear path towards his nomination. Only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders remains a viable opponent to the former Delaware senator, and his candidacy…

7 Democrats Take the Stage for the Last Debate Before the South Carolina Primary — And Super Tuesday: Follow Live

March 25, 2020
We’re in the endgame now. On Tuesday night, seven Democrats faced off in Charleston for the last Democratic debate of February, just a few days before the South Carolina primary. Crucially, it is also the final debate before Super Tuesday on March 3, when more than a third of all delegates for the Democratic National…