CATEGORIES

OUR COVID-19 LESSONS

More than three years into the COVID-19 pandemic and with America's public-health emergency expiring on May 11, it is clear that this moment is an opportunity not only to reflect on successes but also to grapple with the setbacks, pitfalls, and failures that defined our response. The responsibility to improve our response to future health crises lies in correcting our failures in this one

As police forces shrink, private security takes over

ANDRE BOYER ENTERS THE GAS STATION LIKE A SOLDIER— back straight, boots shined, AR-15 pointed toward the floor

Playing Magic: The Gathering with Senate hopeful Lucas Kunce

WHEN MISSOURI SENATE CANDIDATE LUCAS KUNCE logs on to Zoom for our game of Magic: The Gathering, he isn’t messing around

France is cracking down on the influencer industry

GLOBALLY, INFLUENCING WILL BE a $70 billion industry by 2029, according to Data Bridge Market Research

DIGITAL BLIND SPOT

The U.S. government's security-clearance process is struggling to keep up online

The Burnout Reset

Experts say employees can't eliminate burnout on their own. I set out to prove them wrong

Can Imran Khan Make a Comeback?

Pakistan's most popular politician is under attack-and vying for power once more

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - ARTISTS

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - ARTISTS

Why aren't there any houses to buy?

Mortgage rates are rising, and the housing market appears to be softening nationwide. But in many U.S. markets, would-be buyers are facing a big problem: there's just nothing to buy.

Saving The Seine

Inside the radical effort to clean up the world's most romantic river

America's life - expectancy map

THE AVERAGE U.S. LIFE EXPECTANCY HAS HIT ITS worst decline in 100 years, and America's standing is dismal among peer nations. But the average obscures a more complex story. The U.S. is facing the greatest divide in life expectancy across regions in the past 40 years. Research from American Inequality found that Americans born in certain areas of Mississippi and Florida may die 20 years younger than their peers born in parts of Colorado and California.

How Jenny Jackson wrote a best-selling novel while her kids were in the bath

Two decades ago, Jenny Jackson put aside her own writing dreams to become a book editor-but now her debut novel, Pineapple Street, is a New York Times best seller and a Good Morning America book-club pick, and has already been optioned for TV. The wildest part? She wrote it in four months, while holding down her job and raising a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old. She also managed to talk to TIME as part of our series on how parenting shapes the people who shape the world; find more at time.com/parent-files

IT'S A MEAN, MEAN WORLD

As a plot driver, the traumatic home invasion has long been a staple of both film pulp-movies like Cape Fear, Death Wish, and John Wick-and artier projects like Michael Haneke's Funny Games and Ari Aster's anxious new Beau Is Afraid. All play into our collective fears of lawless hooligans invading our personal space. But a plot device, as every sane person knows, is simply a tool for the creation of fantasy

Defending French Open champion Iga Swiatek plays for more than titles

WHEN IGA SWIATEK, THE WORLD'S TOPranked women's tennis player, travels to tournaments around the globe, her bag is filled with the usual accoutrements of superstars in her sport: racket, wardrobe, Legos. OK, Swiatek is likely the only three-time major winner toting around tiny plastic bricks. During the pandemic, Swiatek began toying with Legos; she finds the process of building the Disney World castle, or a Porsche, or the International Space Station relaxing.

What's next for misoprostol, the other abortion pill?

THE ABORTION PILL MIFEPRISTONE HAS been on uncertain legal ground since a Texas judge ruled on April 7 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s approval more than two decades ago should be suspended. After the Department of Justice appealed the decision and requested that the Supreme Court step in, the high court decided that mifepristone should remain available while courts continue to decide its legal fate.

CLEARING THE FIELD

Why a President most voters say shouldn't run faces no real party challenge

Pat & Candy & Allan & Betty

NOBODY WAS SUPPOSED TO GET hurt.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

Grappling with how to approach great works of art by bad men in the book Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

ARSENAL of DEMOCRACY

The race to arm Ukraine

Cheryl Strayed is Here for You

The Tiny Beautiful Things author revisits her advice column in a television series

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - ICONS

PEDRO PASCAL, SALMAN RUSHDIE, KING CHARLES III, BRITTNEY GRINER, SHAH RUKH KHAN + MORE

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - INNOVATORS

SEAN SHERMAN, KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, NATASHA LYONNE, WANJIRA MATHAI, JERROD CARMICHAEL + MORE

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - PIONEERS

S.S. RAJAMOULI, MIKAELA SHIFFRIN, BELLA HADID, SAM ALTMAN, ROBIN ZENG + MORE

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - LEADERS

LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA, MARGRETHE VESTAGER, FUMIO KISHIDA, JOE BIDEN, SHERRY REHMAN + MORE

TIME 100 The most influential people in the world - TITANS

LIONEL MESSI, BEYONCÉ, SHOU ZI CHEW, LAURENE POWELL JOBS, PADMA LAKSHMI + MORE

A heist gone wrong triggers a dark night of the soul

It's a wonder we didn't all go mad. How did we even survive the early days of the pandemic, a seemingly interminable epoch during which many of us spent long hours holed up in our sad little towers, captives in sweatpants gazing longingly at the outside world?

Great Expectations

How Bad Bunny bent global pop culture to his will-by refusing to compromise on anything

10 Questions

For this issue's profile of Bad Bunny, the global superstar spoke to TIME (mostly) in Spanish and inspired our first Spanish-language back-page interview

5 health benefits of houseplants

Collecting and caring for houseplants boomed in popularity during the pandemic, especially among younger adults without abundant outdoor space.

Alison Roman Won't Sugarcoat It

She cooked her way through a controversy. Now she's ready to talk about it