JULY 15, 2024

YOUR
OLYMPICS
GUIDE
HOW
ATHLETES
THRIVE
PARIS
MEETS
POLITICS
SIMONE
BILES
IS BACK

THE FLASH THE WORLD’S FASTEST MAN

NOAH LYLES IS BRINGING HIS
SPEED TO THE GAMES
BY SEAN GREGORY

time.com
 VOL . 204, NOS. 1–2 | 2024

CONTENTS

7 30 38 46 73
The Brief One Woman’s Trouble in Not So Time Off
Work Paradise Far Apart
23 Melinda French Ocean currents, The growing evidence
Gates talks about
The View her divorce, her life,
remote locations, that what actually
and the bottled-water irks most Americans
and her post–Gates industry have made is not one another,
Foundation plan to Fiji ground zero for but the hardcore
help the world by the global challenge partisans taking
helping women presented by plastic over politics
By Belinda Luscombe By Aryn Baker By Karl Vick

52 59
△
Ukraine’s Peace Broker Olympics Preview Unveiling Olympic
Presidential chief of staff Sprinter Noah Lyles leads the U.S. rings on the Eiffel
Andriy Yermak has been charged team to Paris for the 2024 Games Tower on June 7
with finding the terms that will By Sean Gregory Photograph by
finally end the war with Russia Plus: established legends, Gao Jing—Xinhua/
By Simon Shuster national pastimes, and new sports Getty Images

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2 TIME July 15, 2024

 CONVERSATION

On the covers

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Dana Scruggs for TIME

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Gear for the Games

At time.com/uniforms, catch a video preview of the Ralph Lauren Team USA uniforms athletes
will wear for the Summer Olympics, which kick off July 26. The looks for the opening and closing
ceremonies feature recycled polyester, and the polos are made without plastics via a low-carbon
process. If athletes like them, Ralph Lauren plans to incorporate the processes into all its lines.

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Participants included (from right) Mayo Clinic’s Andres Acosta; Nancy Brown,
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The Brief

THE KIDS
ARE FAR
RIGHT
BY YASMEEN SERHAN/BERLIN

Across Europe, right-

wing parties have
managed to find support
among young voters
S

A NEW WAY TO STOP EXTREME HEAT’S IMPACT THE WORLD’S MOST

AI ‘HALLUCINATIONS’ ON ENERGY BILLS SUSTAINABLE COMPANIES

PHOTOGR APH BY CHANG MARTIN 7

THE BRIEF OPENER

T
he writing was on the wall—or, at last year’s Dutch elections, in which the far-right fire-
least, in the polls. Despite the fact that young brand Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration Freedom Party
Europeans turned out en masse to prevent a won the largest share of votes, including 17% of voters
predicted far-right surge during the 2019 Euro- ages 18 to 34 (up from 7% in the previous election).
pean Parliament elections, they wouldn’t be compelled Far-right parties have made similar inroads with young
to do so again five years later. If anything, analysts voters in Portugal, Spain, and Finland.
warned, many would end up voting for the far right.
And vote they did. While the June European Parlia- These Trends presenT a stark shift from just five
ment elections ended in victory for Europe’s center-right years ago, when the received wisdom was that younger
parties, the radical right made historic gains—enough generations were more politically progressive and en-
to throw the bloc’s biggest powers off-balance. In France, vironmentally minded than those that came before
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally emerged victo- them. The reality is that younger people “are way more
rious in the elections with more than 30% of the vote— open in all directions,” says German political scientist
an electoral blow so devastating that French President Thorsten Faas. Indeed, the second most popular party
Emmanuel Macron called a snap legislative election ex- among young French voters was Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s
pected to conclude on July 7. In Germany, the extreme- leftist France Unbowed. Young German voters were
right Alternative for Germany (AfD) finished second split across various parties, largely the AfD, the Chris-
only to the opposition center-right Christian Demo- tian Democrats, and the Greens.
crats, trouncing Chancellor Olaf “There was this perception
Scholz’s Social Democrats and that young people are progres-
their coalition partners, the sive, and they’re not,” Krause
Greens and the liberal Free Demo-
crats, and throwing the govern-
ment’s stability into doubt.
‘Gen Z and says. But she notes that those
backing the far right aren’t nec-
essarily doing so for purely
Young people played their
part. Among French voters under
millennials ideological reasons. Rather, she
says, young people tend to be
34, the National Rally was the
most popular party, securing 32% are not overrepresented among what
she dubs the “Invisible Third,”
of their votes. Though the AfD
wasn’t the most popular party
among young Germans, it tri-
monoliths.’ a segment of society that isn’t
as socially or politically inte-
grated, and thus more suscep-
pled its support among 16-to-24- —LUCAS ROBINSON, tible to far-right talking points.
INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS,
year-olds from 5% in 2019 to 16% EURASIA GROUP “They don’t feel like they’re
today. Germany lowered its legal being talked to by politicians;
voting age to 16 from 18 ahead of like they don’t have a seat at the
the European elections. table,” she adds.
Such an outcome would have been unthinkable just None of this is to say that young voters represent a
five years ago, when young Europeans were thought to burgeoning far-right generation. “Youth support for
be more likely to throw a milkshake at a far-right politi- the far-right parties likely stems from the same fac-
cian than vote for one. While this shift to the far right can tors driving many of their peers to the left: frustrations
be explained by a number of factors—not least the cost- with political establishments and policies seen as ill-
of-living and housing crises that have hit Europe’s Gen Z equipped to address the structural causes of big issues,”
and younger millennials particularly hard—many observ- says Lucas Robinson of the Eurasia Group’s Institute for
ers credit the far right’s social media prowess for their Global Affairs. The institute’s recent study found that
success. Jordan Bardella, the National Rally’s 28-year- global challenges such as pandemics and climate change
old president and presumed successor to Le Pen, boasts are considered to be the biggest threats among young
1.6 million followers on TikTok, a platform he has used adults (ages 18 to 29) in France, Germany, the U.K., and
to communicate with young voters directly. In Germany, the U.S.; political elites making decisions that hurt the
“the AfD has more reach than all the other parties com- public was deemed the second biggest, whereas im-
bined,” says Laura-Kristine Krause, the executive director migration came in third. If there are any lessons more
of the More in Common think tank in Berlin. moderate political parties can take from the European
This phenomenon isn’t limited to France and Ger- elections, it’s that they can no longer presuppose their
many. Across Europe, far-right parties have been able to support. “Gen Z and millennials are not monoliths,”
strike a chord with young voters—not only by appealing Robinson says. “These election results showed that
to them on their favorite social media platforms, but by their views cannot be taken for granted.”
tying the issues young people care about—like a lack of
affordable housing—with their own signature policies: Reporting for this story was supported by the Friedrich
namely, restricting immigration. This was evident during Ebert Foundation (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung)
The Brief includes reporting by Olivia B. Waxman and Julia Zorthian
 NEWS

“Paris is France’s capital city.”)

The innovation in the paper is to
use a separate AI to group sentences
with the same meanings (not just the
same words) together. This clustering
allows researchers to calculate a score
indicating how consistent a handful
of answers to the same prompt are.
If the answers are all over the place,
the chatbot is likely to be hallucinating.
It’s not a perfect solution: a chat-
bot can still be consistently wrong,
for example because of bogus train-
ing data. (This method can’t help with
that.) And it’s not cheap: because it
requires prompting a chatbot multiple
times to compare different answers, it
uses about 10 times more computing
power, and thus electricity, than usual.
TECHNOLOGY
But unlike other ways of reducing hal-
Scientists find a new way lucinations, it’s generalizable. That’s
because it doesn’t rely on training an
to spot AI ‘hallucinations’ AI on sector-specific information—
BY BILLY PERRIGO a strategy that, say, can make a chatbot
smarter when it comes to medicine
but won’t help it ace a sports quiz.
Today’s generaTive arTificial inTelligence (ai) “My hope is that this opens up
tools often confidently assert false information. Computer ways for large language models to be
scientists call this behavior “hallucination,” and it has led to deployed where they can’t currently
some embarrassing public slip-ups. In February, Air Can- be deployed—where a little bit more
ada was forced by a tribunal to honor a discount that its reliability than is currently available
customer-support chatbot had mistakenly offered to a pas- is needed,” says Farquhar.
senger. In May, Google made changes to its new “AI over- Some experts caution against over-
views” search feature, after it told some users that it was estimating the immediate impact.
safe to eat rocks. And in June 2023, two lawyers were fined Arvind Narayanan, a professor of com-
$5,000 after one of them used ChatGPT to help him write puter science at Princeton University,
a court filing. The chatbot had added fake citations to the ‘This points out that the method may break
submission, which pointed to cases that never existed. down when applied to long strings of
But at least some types of AI hallucinations could soon would have logic, rather than individual facts, and
be a thing of the past. New research, published June 19 in saved him.’ that its cost may be a barrier to inte-
the peer-reviewed journal Nature, describes a new method gration into tools like ChatGPT. “It’s
—SEBASTIAN
for detecting when an AI tool is likely to be hallucinating. FARQUHAR, important not to get too excited about
The method is able to discern between correct and incor- AI RESEARCHER, the potential of research like this,” he
rect AI-generated answers approximately 79% of the time, ON A LAWYER says. “The extent to which this can be
O P E N I N G PA G E : S I PA /A P ; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P E T E R E Y N O L D S F O R T I M E

WHO WAS FINED

which is about 10 percentage points higher than other lead- AFTER RELYING
integrated into a deployed chatbot is
ing strategies. The results could pave the way for more- ON A CHATGPT very unclear.”
reliable AI systems in the future. HALLUCINATION But Farquhar has some ideas.
“There’s a simple check for when [an AI] language model ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI could, he
makes something up for no reason at all, which is if you ask says, theoretically add a button allow-
the same question multiple times, it will give you different ing a user to double-click on an an-
answers,” says Sebastian Farquhar, an author of the study swer and receive a certainty score.
and a senior research fellow at Oxford University’s depart- Or, it could be built into AIs used in
ment of computer science. AI researchers have long known high-stakes settings, where trading
this was true, but had struggled to turn it into a reliable al- off speed and cost for accuracy may
gorithm for detecting hallucinations. That’s because chat- be more worthwhile. Of the lawyer
bots might answer the same question (“What’s the capital who was fined for relying on a Chat-
of France”) in differently formulated sentences that still all GPT hallucination, Farquhar says,
mean the same thing. (“The capital of France is Paris” ... “This would have saved him.” □
9
THE BRIEF NEWS

GOOD QUESTION And it’s not just a summertime prob-

How will extreme heat lem. “When people think of extreme heat
they think very contemporaneously, like,
affect energy bills? ‘Oh, it’s a hot August. We need to help
BY SOLCYRÉ BURGA people in August.’ But financial distress
from electricity expenses comes after,
in September and October,” says Barreca.
AMERICAS HOUSEHOLDS CAS EXPECT TO SEE MORE
than a rise in the mercury this summer. From June to SOME SOLUTIONS HAVE been brought
September, the average cost of keeping a home cool forward on a federal level through the Low
is predicted to spike by nearly 9%—to $719. Income Home Energy Assistance Program
“There’s a cost to climate change,” says Mark Wolfe, (LIHEAP), which helps low-income
the executive director of the National Energy Assis- families cover heating and cooling costs.
tance Directors Association (NEADA), which forecast But funding for that program was cut by
the energy-cost rise in a report produced with the Cen- $2 billion for fiscal year 2024, limiting the
ter for Energy Poverty and Climate. “As temperatures number of families that receive aid. Only
rise, you need to use more electricity to run your cool- 17 states and the District of Columbia
ing systems, and it’s becoming more expensive—and have some shutoff protections in the
will be more expensive—as we go forward ” summer preventing people from having
With the rise in the earth’s ff during the hottest
quency and duration of heat ar.
And energy costs already hav communities set
over the past decade as peop centers for mem-
reprieve from the heat. The i he public to escape
pact on household finances c t, a short-term so-
be huge. “It’s very hard to get n at best. “Families
hit with a high bill,” says UCL move into the li-
professor Alan Barreca, lead a ry, and often their
thor of a study on the effects oblem is getting
increased summer temperatu it,” says Wolfe.
and electricity disconnection Advocates are

H E AT: I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R YA N C H A P M A N F O R T I M E ; H A J J : F A D E L S E N N A — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; J O H N S O N : S C O T T O L S O N — G E T T Y I M A G E S
“You end up thinking, ‘Oh, d lling for bigger
I have to cut back on other ex anges, including
penses, or do I just not pay an ore local programs
try to do some bill juggling?’ oviding discount-
Rising costs are particular e electricity for
overbearing to low-income income families,
households, which the U.S. pgrades to build-
Department of Energy says s des to require air-
larger percentage of their inc ning in apartment
home energy costs, or have a u don’t find 20% of
“energy burden” than others n New York have no
the U.S. Energy Information says Wolfe. “That’s
from 2015 shows that about allowed by law. But
reported reducing or giving up necessities such as many families don’t have cooling.” Wolfe
food and medicine to cover their energy bill. About is also advocating for increased fund-
14% of households surveyed said they had received ing for low-income households to install
a disconnection notice, and just over 1 in 10 said they heat pumps or solar rooftops to create
keep their house at unhealthy or unsafe temperatures more energy-efficient homes.
to avoid using more energy.
‘There’s “We need to think about how we retro-
Forgoing air-conditioning could prove harmful a cost to fit homes so they can be more energy effi-
for many—extreme heat is deadlier than any other climate cient and need less electricity for cooling,”
weather-related cause of death in the U.S., resulting he adds. “If you just focus on bill payment
in 207 fatalities in 2023, according to the National
change.’ without addressing energy efficiency, then
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Southern —MARK WOLFE, what you do is you make the situation
NATIONAL ENERGY
states are disproportionately affected by extreme ASSISTANCE
even worse, because you’re creating more
heat, topping the list of the states with the highest DIRECTORS emissions for the production of electricity
low-income energy burden. ASSOCIATION that contribute to climate change.” □
10 TIME July 15, 2024
Pilgrims’ peril
Muslims make their way to a stop on the hajj pilgrimage, using routes fashioned to prevent stampedes. This year, the main
danger came from temperatures reaching 120°F in Mecca. Saudi officials said most of the more than 1,300 people killed
by the heat lacked permits that would have given them access to refuge—exposing flaws in the system’s safeguards.

THE BULLETIN

Chicago commits to explore reparations

BLACK CHICAGOANS MAY SEE SOME POLICY STUDY The Black Repara- communities, to decide how to se-
form of reparations, after the city’s tions Co-Governance Task Force “will lect the task force, the executive order
mayor signed an executive order on conduct a comprehensive study and says. After its first meeting, the task
June 17 to form a dedicated task force. examination of all policies that have force will have a year to write a report
“Chicago still bears the scars of sys- harmed Black Chicagoans from the with “a series of recommendations
temic racism and injustices that have slavery era to present day,” and will that will serve as appropriate remedies
been inflicted on our communities,” then draft recommendations for repa- and restitution for past injustices and
Brandon Johnson (right) said during rations, Johnson’s office arm,” and identify issues that
a Juneteenth flag-raising ceremony. press release. Johnson si “reparative action,” such as
“It is now the time to deliver good on the order after $500,000 nd mass incarceration.
reparations for people of Chicago, par- the city’s 2024 budget w
ticularly Black people.” set aside to study repara G MOMENTUM Several U.S.
Nearly 30% of Chicago residents es have explored repara-
are Black, according to the U.S. SELECTION Over the nex ons programs. In 2019,
Census Bureau. During the Great three months, John- uburban Evanston, Ill.,
Migration—which is regarded as one son will work with the became the first to enact a
of the largest movements of people Chicago Aldermanic government-funded repa-
in U.S. history—about 6 million Black Black Caucus, compris- rations program, offering
people relocated from the South to ing city council mem- $25,000 payments to vic-
Northern, Midwestern, and Western bers who represent tims of redlining.
cities, including Chicago. predominantly Black —CHANTELLE LEE
11
THE BRIEF BUSINESS

CLIMATE

The companies succeeding

in sustainability
BY ALANA SEMUELS

IT’S ONE THING FOR A COMPANY TO GIVE LIP SERVICE TO HELP-

ing the environment; it’s another for it to make trackable, public
commitments to doing better for the planet—and follow through
on them. For the first time, TIME and data firm Statista have cre- 1
ated a rigorous methodology with which to measure the world’s
most sustainable companies for 2024. The compa-
nies at the top of the list have signed on to some 2
of the most respected climate programs, in-
cluding the 1.5°C target from the Science 3
Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and receive
high scores from CDP (formerly the Car-
4
bon Disclosure Project). TIME and Statista
further held companies to high standards for
their Scope 1 and 2 emissions and energy con- 5
sumption relative to company size, emissions reductions in 2021
and 2022 (the most recent years fully reported), and proportion 6
of renewable energy used by the company’s operations. And, per-
haps most importantly, many of the top companies have incor-
porated sustainability into their business models. (Scope 1 emis- 7
sions are directly caused by a company; Scope 2 are indirectly
created when a company purchases power.) 8
Schneider Electric, for instance, which tops
the list, creates software and services for en-
9
ergy management. It has not only set ambi-
tious targets to reduce its own emissions—
carbon neutral by 2025—but also helps its 10
customers reduce emissions and become more
energy efficient through its Sustainability Busi- 11
ness. “We’ve positioned the company to be an im-
pact company,” CEO Peter Herweck said on a recent earnings call.
While many companies that ranked highly are in industries 12
that don’t make many physical products—like banking, tech, and
consulting—there were companies that showed sustainability is 13
possible even if you make things. Illumina, the U.S. biotechnol-
ogy company, recently debuted its most powerful
14
gene sequencer while also reducing packaging
waste by 90% from the previous model. Mon-
cler, the Italian luxury fashion house, ranked 15
third on the list by using recycled materials,
recycling more than 80% of its nylon scraps 16
in 2023, and using 100% renewable energy at
its directly managed offices, stores, factories,
and logistics hubs. “While we take pride in this 17
achievement, we are aware much remains to be done,” said Remo
Ruffini, chairman and CEO of Moncler S.p.A, when the company 18
was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices in 2023.
While impressive, Schneider’s top score of 88.86 out of
19
100 on TIME’s list shows the distance even the most dedi-
cated companies have to go to be truly sustainable.
20
See the full list at time.com/most-sustainable-companies

12 TIME July 15, 2024

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THE BRIEF MILESTONES

◁ ISSUED
Assange leaving the Arrest warrants
for two Russian
U.S. courthouse in military officials,
Saipan on June 26 former Defense
Minister Sergei
Shoigu and current
military chief of staff
Supporters of Assange say Valery Gerasimov,
that the footage and cables by the International
that WikiLeaks released with Criminal Court on
the help of former U.S. Army June 25. The officials
soldier Chelsea Manning re- are accused of war
crimes for attacks on
vealed possible war crimes Ukrainian civilians.
committed by the U.S. mili-
tary in Iraq and Afghanistan, FLOATED
An additional 350
and that his prosecution by balloons filled with
the U.S. government is danger- trash, by North
ous for press freedom world- Korea into South
wide. “We believe that the Korea on June 24,
RELEASED publication by WikiLeaks in resuming a campaign
of antagonism that
2010 of classified information
Julian Assange was in the public interest and
has involved launch-
ing more than 1,000
After a 14-year battle against extradition informed journalism around airborne garbage
the world,” Rebecca Vincent, parcels over the
director of campaigns for border since May.
JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE London after the U.K. govern- Reporters Without Borders, NAMED
after more than a decade spent ment ordered him extradited told TIME. African elephants,
holed up in a London embassy, to Sweden to face separate Vincent is concerned that by one another,
then in British custody, largely sexual-assault charges. Those the Espionage Act, which according to a
June 10 Nature Ecol-
to avoid extradition to the U.S. prosecutions were eventually criminalizes sharing informa- ogy & Evolution study
On June 26, the WikiLeaks dropped, but the U.S. charges tion that harms national secu- that found the largest
founder appeared in a federal remained in place and As- rity, does not contain an ex- land mammals call
court in Saipan, a U.S. ter- sange remained a guest of ception for details that serve and respond to indi-
ritory in the Pacific, follow- Ecuador’s government until the public interest. “Anybody vidual names when
they communicate.
ing a plea deal with American 2019, when it revoked his who works on stories based on
prosecutors. leaked information could find DIED
Assange pleaded guilty to themselves targeted in this Civil rights strate-
a felony for conspiring to ob- ‘I hope you will way,” she said. gist and pastor
tain and disclose classified start your new However, Stuart Karle, a
James Lawson, who
taught nonviolence
national-defense information, life in a positive media lawyer who served as alongside Martin
in violation of the Espionage chief operating officer of Re- Luther King Jr.,
Act. In return, he was allowed manner.’ uters News and general coun- on June 9 at 95.
to return to his native Austra- sel to the Wall Street Journal, French actor Anouk
U.S. DISTRICT CHIEF JUDGE
Aimée, who starred
lia without serving any more RAMONA MANGLONA says that the Espionage Act in the Oscar-winning
prison time. “I hope you will has rarely been used against A Man and a Woman,
start your new life in a posi- asylum. He was then arrested reporters, and Assange’s im- on June 18 at 92.
tive manner,” U.S. District by British authorities and prisonment has not to date led
Chief Judge Ramona Man- held in prison. Earlier this to a noticeable surge in pros-
glona told Assange. year, a U.K. court ruled that ecutions of journalists. He ar-
U.S. authorities had pur- he could not be extradited to gues that some of the activities
sued Assange since WikiLeaks the U.S. unless prosecutors Assange allegedly engaged in,
published hundreds of thou- guaranteed that Assange, like conspiring to hack into
sands of unredacted classi- who is not a U.S. citizen, government databases, are
fied U.S. government docu- would receive First Amend- outside of the scope of jour-
ments and videos, most about ment protections and not nalism, making the case’s im-
the U.S. wars in Iraq and face the death penalty. He re- pact on press freedom unclear.
Afghanistan. mained in custody until the “It’ll depend what WikiLeaks
In 2012, he took refuge in plea deal with the U.S. gov- does now; does it continue?”
the Ecuadorean embassy in ernment was reached in June.
14 TIME July 15, 2024
 Only Cassius Clay’s emer- DIED
gence, in the 1960s, could
overshadow Mays in the
Donald
minds of Americans. Enter- Sutherland
ing the majors in 1951, just
four years after Jackie Rob-
A profound talent
inson integrated the game,
Mays roamed center field The Canadian actor
when baseball still reigned Donald Sutherland,
as America’s true pastime. who died on June 20 at
He grew up during the age 88, enjoyed such a
segregation era, in Alabama, long career that citing a
definitive performance
and soon emerged as one of
is impossible. He could
America’s first Black cross-
be subtly menacing one
over stars. His talent, and ef- minute, only to catch you
fervescent presence, seemed short with his quavering
to transcend existing preju- vulnerability the next.
dices. Fans couldn’t dare That’s what made him
look away when he came to so affecting in the 1978
the plate or took the field, Invasion of the Body
because something excit- Snatchers. Once alien
ing was bound to happen. pod people subsumed
His appearances on other- his character, you knew
wise lily-white TV programs humanity was over.
like The Donna Reed Show Younger audiences
played a landmark role in know Sutherland as Pres-
the culture. White America ident Snow in the Hunger
DIED
was willing to embrace a Games films, just one
Willie Mays Black sports star in their liv- indication of his range. In
Don’t Look Now (1973)
ing rooms—on television,
The “Say Hey Kid” who inspired at least. All in all, he helped and Ordinary People
(1980), he showed us
America take some step for-
what it means to stand
MILLIONS OF KIDS WHO the World Series. The score ward. Said President Barack up to the most chal-
watched Willie Mays play was tied, 2-2. Mays, play- Obama in 2015 at the White lenging human circum-
during the prime of his ing shallow in center field House ceremony in which stances and acutely feel
major league baseball ca- for the New York Giants, Mays received the Presiden- every minute. And his
reer, or were born after started running back toward tial Medal of Freedom: “It’s performance as a dutiful,
he retired from the game the wall as soon as Wertz because of giants like Willie
B E T T M A N N A R C H I V E /G E T T Y I M A G E S; S U T H E R L A N D : J E A N - L O U I S U R L I — G A M M A - R A P H O/G E T T Y I M A G E S

lovestruck detective in
A S S A N G E : C H U N G S U N G -J U N — G E T T Y I M A G E S; A I M É E : 2 0 T H C E N T U R Y F O X /G E T T Y I M A G E S ; M AY S :

in 1973, practiced mak- smashed a ball that would that someone like me could Klute (1971) is one of the
ing “The Catch,” just like travel some 420 ft. Mays even think about running finest of its era. Always,
Mays—who died peace- kept running, and running, for President.” he made complicated
fully on June 18, at 93—did and running, and made a mi- A day after Juneteenth, human feelings feel like
that afternoon back in 1954. raculous basket catch with Mays’ passing was an- everyday stuff—probably
Throw a ball up into the air his back to home plate. The nounced in Birmingham, because they are.
behind you, turn around and Giants won the game, and Ala., at Rickwood Field, —Stephanie Zacharek
chase it down, making an the World Series. where Mays once played for
over-the-shoulder grab with Mays was just 23 years the Birmingham Black Bar-
your mitt, and conjure up old, the reigning National ons of the Negro League.
the cheers of a packed Polo League MVP, and the most The crowd and minor league
Grounds. Those imaginary electric baseball player— players broke into a stand-
screams filled the vacuum if not athlete—of his time. ing ovation and chanted
of countless young minds. “Willie, Willie!”
Such was the power of It was a fitting tribute
Mays’ iconic World Series Mays was one to a man who moved genera-
play, in September 1954, of America’s tions. Mays, his “Catch,”
against Vic Wertz of the and his memory will live
Cleveland Indians in the first Black on, never to be duplicated.
eighth inning of Game 1 of crossover stars —SEAN GREGORY
15
 ADVERTISEMENT

CHINAWATCH
PRESENTED BY CHINA DAILY

BRIDGING THE GAP

BETWEEN THEN AND NOW
Safeguarding a city treasure ensures it remains a vibrant testament to history

BY ZHAO XU road grid was overlaid so that the

road traffic and the water traffic
“When you arrive in Suzhou always move hand in hand.”
you’ll see homes nestled by the These days those taking a boat
river’s edge,” Du Xunhe, a poet along the Pingjiang River still look
in the latter half of the ninth up to their pedestrian counter-
century, during the Tang Dynasty parts strolling alongside them on
(618-907), wrote to a friend. “The the stone-paved Pingjiang Road,
idle land is as scant as the water- the latter sandwiched between
ways and bridges are abundant.” the waterway and a row of black-
Ruan Yongsan, a lifelong Su- tiled, white-painted houses, most
zhou resident who has spent the of which date back to the late
past 55 years trying to preserve 19th and early 20th centuries.
the land’s memories — and his The best way to get an unob-
own as well — gets the drift. structed view of the Pingjiang
“Canals and bridges have visu- River is to stand on one of its
ally defined the city for as long dozen bridges, all of which are
as Chinese poetry can remem- short, given that the canal’s
ber,” he says. width is no more than 16 feet.
Occasionally he takes people If poems are to be believed, in
on tours that often start at the Tang-Dynasty Suzhou, red-paint-
southernmost point of the Ping- The Pingjiang Historic District in ed wooden bridges contrasted
jiang River in the northeastern Suzhou, Jiangsu province, maintains beautifully with the green water
part of the Old Town of Suzhou, a tranquil but vibrant atmosphere. running under them. This was
located in the heart of the city. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY before they were replaced by
There, a small bridge named their stone successors of the
the Yuanqiao Bridge — yuan have witnessed right here 800 Song Dynasty, some of which
means garden and qiao means years ago.” have survived, at least in part.
bridge — is fabled for being Of the 360 or so bridges the One example is Shou’an
where Helyu, king of the vassal map depicts, a dozen still straddle Bridge, which, on Pingjiang Tu,
state of Wu during the Spring the 1-mile-long Pingjiang River, appears over the canal under a
and Autumn Period (770-476 which is clearly shown, although different name. Certain sections
B.C.), once lounged, presumably not specifically named on the map. of the bridge are tinted by a
one agreeable spring day. In the The river, and Pingjiang Road slightly purplish hue.
fifth century B.C. the ambitious that runs alongside it, form According to Pei Hong, a local
ruler built a grand city in what the core of Pingjiang Historic amateur cultural historian, the
is now Suzhou, a watery land in District, a 287-acre zone that is color is typical of a native stone
the rice-producing Yangtze River essentially, as Ruan puts it, “an material that was widely used
Delta region. authentic, boiled-down ver- for construction during the
A few steps away from the sion of what Suzhou has been Song Dynasty.
bridge, under a small, pagoda- throughout history.” Between 1034 and 1035 Fan
shaped structure, stands a stone Among other things, the Zhongyan (989-1052), a Song
stele with a map inscription 78-year-old surveyor-turned-pres- poet and politician, served as
bearing the name Pingjiang Tu ervationist is referring to what the governor of Suzhou, his
(The Map of Pingjiang). he calls “the double-chessboard ancestral home, where his flood-
“The map was first made in layout” of the Old Town, which control efforts won wide acclaim.
1229 during the Song Dynasty first appeared during the Tang At a time when the only way for a
(960-1279), when Suzhou was Dynasty around the ninth century. commoner to enter officialdom
known as Pingjiang,” Ruan says. “Despite the region’s abun- was through excelling in exams
“The area it covered essentially dance of water, all the waterways at various levels, Fan set out to
corresponds with that of our Old you see inside the Old Town are provide free education to poor
Town. For all its reputation as the artificial passages — canals built school-age children.
earliest existing city map known as straight as a ruler to a chess- Those who managed to battle
to the world, it also serves as a board effect, with the ones running their way to the very top were
comforting assurance that what north-south intersecting with known as zhuangyuan, and
we are seeing today is not so dif- those running east-west. Upon this of the 114 zhuangyuan of the
ferent from what people would densely woven water network a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), 26

China Watch materials are distributed by China Daily Distribution Corp. on behalf of China Daily, Beijing, China.
 ADVERTISEMENT

were Suzhou natives. In 2014

a museum dedicated to their
Brushstrokes and colors
memory opened in Niujia Lane,
one of the small alleys extend- as a way of exchanges
ing westward from Pingjiang
Road, less than 330 feet from

‘‘
BY CHANG JUN
a two-story building in which
Ruan was born in 1946. Artists and community ac-
“It’s only fitting that this tivists are using arts to try to ALTHOUGH WE
museum is housed inside the connect people in China and DON’T SPEAK
one-time residence of a man the United States through THE SAME
named Pan Shi’en (1769-1854), exhibitions, seminars and LANGUAGE, WE
who became zhuangyuan at paintings. DO COMMUNICATE
only 25, before going on to Song Min, president of the THROUGH THE
serve three emperors as a top U.S.-China Culture & Com-
cabinet member,” Ruan says. munication Association in the UNIVERSAL
For Ruan Yisan, an elder broth- San Francisco Bay Area, says LANGUAGE
er of Ruan Yongsan and one of art has played an important OF ARTS.”
China’s leading preservationists, role in facilitating goodwill
REBECCA JO ALEX,
the waterways are time tunnels and dialogue between people. U.S. ARTIST
leading to much-cherished child- Last autumn he led eight
hood memories, when his family U.S. artists to visit the city of
was living on Niujia Lane. Xianning in Hubei province, kindness, hospitality of the
“In the summer, boatloads of and joined nine Chinese Chinese people there. Most
watermelons would be arriving artists there for an activ- importantly, I love the spirit
at our doorstep; in the winter, ity, “Chinese in the Eyes of of the people — their vision,
it would be stacks of soft hay Americans — Telling the their diligence, their hard
which we put underneath our Story of Xianning, Hubei, with work, their efforts to preserve
bedding,” he says. a Paintbrush”. the old neighborhood while
Ruan Yisan first became During the week, the art- building the new.”
involved in the planning for the ists mingled with each other Rebecca Jo Alex, another
Pingjiang Historic District as far through paintings and artistic participant, said there is no
back as the late 1980s. Later, expressions, Song said. better way to see and visit a
in the early 2000s, when work “Together they toured sce- place than when it is being
on the project was expedited, nic spots, visited schools and painted.
Ruan Yisan, who taught urban museums, checked street “I saw great details of the
planning at Shanghai’s Tongji vendors, talked to locals and beauty of China,” Alex said.
University, started to spend captured moments of signifi- “Their people are so warm;
more and more time in Suzhou. cance. They reflected their cuisines are diverse. The
“As an underwriter of the findings on canvas through best memories are about the
project, my brother makes sure brushstrokes and colors.” time with my fellow Chinese
that it’s an ongoing process. The collective works of the artists. Although we don’t
What he has been trying to do Chinese and U.S. artists were speak the same language, we
consistently is to retain the displayed in Xianning first do communicate through the
area’s many layers of his- before they were shown at universal language of arts.”
tory, without turning it into a an exhibition in late May at Dacia Xu, director and
showpiece trapped in a time a public library in Cupertino, co-founder of Qualia Contem-
capsule,” says Ruan Yongsan. California, which has been in porary Art, a gallery in Palo
“Around 20,000 people are a sister-city relationship with Alto, California, also believes
today living inside the historical Xianning since 2018. in the enduring power of art
district, of whom 60% are long- The Mayor of Cupertino, exchanges in building rela-
standing residents,” continues Sheila Mohan, said the exhibi- tions.
Ruan Yongsan. tion will improve collabora- On May 18, Qualia unveiled
It’s true that the neighbor- tion and exchanges between its first solo exhibition, Be-
hoods are no longer as quiet as the two cities through the neath the Golden Antlers, fea-
From top: An aerial they once were, yet, despite the medium of art. turing the Chinese contempo-
view of the Pingjiang availability of tap water, some Olivia Edwards, one of the rary ink artist Yang Jiechang,
Historic District of still prefer the time-honored participating U.S. artists, which ran until late June.
Suzhou, bisected by ritual of hoisting water from the said the Chinese artists Xu said: “While he works
the Pingjiang River. depths of a well, knowing all too impressed her with their “bril- in a variety of media, such as
PROVIDED TO perfectly that Pingjiang Road liant talents,” and “getting to painting, sculpture, instal-
CHINA DAILY was once named “Shi Quan Li,” know them is the highlight of lation, performance and
Tourists flock to meaning “Ten Well Lane.” this trip.” Being able to paint video, Yang is best known
the Pingjiang block “‘Row, row, row your boat, to together and communicate for his mastery of traditional
neighborhood during grandma’s bridge …’ that’s the through artwork is “some- Chinese media — brush and
the May Day holiday rhyme I grew up singing,” says thing that connects us.” ink painting, meticulous color
from May 1 to 5. Ruan Yisan. “As long as the “I have loved art all my life, painting and calligraphy. This
LENG WEN / waters and bridges are here, we and I was further inspired is a legacy and (Chinese)
FOR CHINA DAILY keep the memory of our grand- when I visited Xianning,” cultural tradition central to
mothers alive.” she said. “I remember the his work.”

Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

 LIGHTBOX

Amber haze
Smoke from the South Fork fire
in southern New Mexico blots out
the sun in Lincoln National Forest,
casting the area in an alarming
orange glow on June 17. After the
fire’s discovery that day, officials
in nearby Ruidoso implemented
a mandatory evacuation order
for thousands of residents.
By June 24, responders had
contained 37% of the blaze, which
had burned more than 17,550
acres and left two people dead.
The FBI offered a $10,000 reward
for information about its origins.

Photograph by Kaylee
Greenlee Beal—Reuters
▶ For more of our best photography,
visit time.com/lightbox
HELP THEM TASTE ALL H E A LT H

THAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER.

BY ANGELA HAUPT

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with every recipe.
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y B R O W N B I R D D E S I G N F O R T I M E

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 HEALTHFUL.
FLAVORFUL.
BENEFUL. ®
1. Add one glass per week

2. Start a ‘water log’

3. Refresh the flavor with herbs

5. Expand your definition of water Choose from a variety of

2
recipes at beneful.com
WORLD

CHINA’S
ROVING EYE
BY SIMONE LIPKIND

INSIDE

THE MEANING OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS HOW PATRICK HENRY

PUTIN-KIM CONNECTION AND 231 TRUMP JUDGES STOOD BY HIS WORDS

23
THE VIEW OPENER

For Israel, the trip was a reminder to

Washington that there are other super-
powers looking to deepen their ties
with Israel. For China, it was an op-
portunity to raise the costs of the U.S.’s
pivot away from the Middle East to Asia
by signaling that Beijing could fill some
of the void. Netanyahu’s ploy may have
worked. Biden reneged in September
and invited him to the White House.
That dynamic was upended in
the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Lately, Sino-Israeli ties will not be a
viable pressure tool for Netanyahu be-
cause China has other plans. Beijing
has distanced itself from Israel amid
marked international criticism of its
bombardment of Gaza—and China’s
move is playing well around much of
the world. It serves as a counterpoint
to Washington’s diplomatic and mili-
tary support of Israel, and supports
China’s goal of challenging its own rep- Happier times: Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, greets Israeli Prime
utation as a largely commercial player Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Beijing on March 21, 2017
and the U.S.’s as the Middle East’s dip-
lomatic heavyweight.
Since China successfully facili- chair Boaz Toporovsky said Israel the world’s second largest economy
tated the restoration of ties between and Taiwan “have much in common and was Israel’s third largest trading
Iran and Saudi Arabia last spring, it as small but strong democracies in a partner the year before Oct. 7. Today
has sought out further opportuni- harsh environment.” Chinese investors are facing a lagging
ties to position itself as an alternative domestic economy and pursuing in-
to the U.S.-led international order. In All thAt sAid, other geopolitical vestment opportunities abroad. The
the Israel-Hamas War, Beijing has at- interests could ultimately drive Bei- dynamic suggests a mutually benefi-
tempted to flex its diplomatic muscle, jing back toward Tel Aviv. China’s de- cial interest to boost commercial ties.
publishing a peace plan, hosting rec- sire to shore up ties with U.S.-friendly For Palestinians horrified with the

F R O M L E F T: E T I E N N E O L I V E A U — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; K R E M L I N P R E S S O F F I C E — H A N D O U T/A N A D O L U/G E T T Y I M A G E S

onciliation talks between the Palestin- Gulf States has been a key driver of U.S. and its largely unconditional sup-
ian Authority and Hamas, and hold- its Gaza policy. Yet its refusal to con- port for Israel, China’s emerging inter-
ing summits with Arab and Muslim demn Hamas and its labeling of Iran’s est in the conflict certainly seems like
Foreign Ministers aimed at ending the missile attack on Israel as “self-de- a positive development. But China’s
fighting. None of these efforts have fense” had the opposite effect, ex- current pro-Palestinian stance may
borne fruit, but they still look good in acerbating concerns in the UAE and simply reflect that today, a public re-
Arab and Global South capitals, allow- Saudi Arabia that the U.S. is an irre- lationship with Israel is more liabil-
ing China to exploit the growing wedge placeable partner. To advocate for a ity than asset in another contest, the
between the U.S. and key global actors. Chinese-led world order that resolves U.S.-China rivalry. Beijing’s support
These moves have sparked fierce Is- conflicts without military force, Bei- for Palestinians appears to be mostly
raeli backlash. About a third of Israeli jing casts the U.S. as a warmonger. superficial; its vague peace plan puts
Jews have reported a negative change But many Gulf countries see Biden’s most of the onus on the U.N., giving
in their perception of China since ironclad military backing of Israel as China the future flexibility to pivot on
Oct. 7, and some private-sector lead- the U.S. support they have long de- this issue and leave the Palestinians
ers have called for exacting financial sired. To strengthen its relationships once more without a great power.
consequences, such as temporarily with Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, China As Israelis have, Palestinians may
prohibiting Chinese companies from may adopt rhetoric more in line with too soon discover that China is a fair-
operating in Israel’s ports. Israel’s gov- theirs, and, in the process, the prefer- weather friend—and that a relation-
ernment has communicated its “deep ences of Washington and Tel Aviv. ship with it is a marriage that can al-
disappointment” to Beijing officials China and Israel also have finan- ways end in divorce.
and taken measures that have un- cial incentives to maintain a relation-
dermined relations, sending a parlia- ship. Israel’s war has shrunk its GDP Lipkind is a research associate at the
mentary delegation to Taiwan, where and hurt its credit rating. China is Council on Foreign Relations
24 Time July 15, 2024
THE RISK REPORT BY IAN BREMMER

25
THE VIEW INBOX

◁
Repainting a billboard
off I-71 in Ohio, on Nov. 7,
2023, Election Day

political callings rather than academic

exercises—stand to shape American
jurisprudence for a generation. And
the Supreme Court is the most obvi-
ous and durable of any of those levels
thanks to 56-year-old Neil Gorsuch,
59-year-old Brett Kavanaugh, and
52-year-old Amy Coney Barrett. Put
plainly: this cohort reasonably can
settle in for the long haul.

IHAI IRUMPIAN IRIO is why Loui-

siana’s Catholic governor sounded so
excited about being sued. While the
Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that
a similar Kentucky law was uncon-
stitutional, a majority of the current
Justices may see things differently.
They’ve already shown an openness to
the Christian conservatives’ argument
that faith and government can co-exist
The D.C. Brief if not thrive in a symbiotic relation-
ship. Notably, in 2022, Justices sided
By Philip Elliott with a high school coach who argued
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT his players had the right to pray at the
50-yard line and ruled Maine could
LOUISIANA GOVERNOR JEFF LANDRY of faith collide fatally with the First not block religious schools from re-
knew the score when he signed into Amendment’s prohibition from state- ceiving a state subsidy. A year earlier,
law a requirement that every class- sanctioned faith. But given the new in a unanimous ruling, the court said a
room in his state—from kindergartens tilt of the bench, conservatives’ Catholic group in Philadelphia could
to college chemistry labs—must post credo might be reduced to a simple refuse to work with same-sex couples
a copy of the Ten Commandments. profession: In Trump They Trust. on fostering children.
In fact, the ambitious Republican That’s right. Donald Trump has By one study’s count, parties argu-
seemed to be trolling his critics even been out of official power since early ing on the basis of so-called religious
before he sanctified the work of the 2021, but his presence continues to liberty found success 4 out of 5 times.
GOP-controlled legislature. be felt at every level of government, That’s no accident on a bench stacked
“I’m going home to sign a bill that from the halls of Congress to city com- by Trump with the explicit call to
places the Ten Commandments in missions. His legacy is most firmly arms to blend religion—specifically
public classrooms,” he said on June 15 established through his three picks Christianity—with law.
as he headlined a Republican Party to the Supreme Court, part of the This, in no small measure, helps to
fundraiser in Nashville. “And I can’t record-breaking 231 federal judges explain how self-described “values
wait to be sued.” Trump successfully nominated to voters” have fallen into line behind
Lawsuits were at the ready as federal roles. The Trump cohort of the less-than-pious Trump and his bid
soon as Landry signed the bill on judges—mostly young conserva- to return to power in this November’s
June 19, along with new laws that re- tives with a bent to treat the roles as election. A Pew Research Institute
quire schools to use the pronouns study finds 43% of Trump support-
of students that match their gender ers think government policies should
assigned at birth and allow public support religious values, and 69% say
schools to put chaplains on taxpayer- ‘I love the Ten the Bible should influence U.S. laws.
C A R O LY N K A S T E R — A P

funded payrolls. It is abundantly clear Commandments in A second Pew study finds Trump rid-
this effort seems on a glide path to- ing high among white evangelical
ward the Supreme Court, which for public schools.’ Protestants by 2 to 1.
decades has ruled such expressions —FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP While the Ten Commandments
26 TIME July 15, 2024
are important pieces of Jewish and
Christian teachings and compatible
with Islam, the play in Louisiana— 2
and elsewhere, to be clear—has clear
linkages to the current Republican
By Justin Worland
Party’s courtship of Christian con-
servatives, especially white Chris-
tian nationalists. That first Pew sur-
vey found 22% of Trump supporters
say the government should declare
Christianity the official national re-
ligion and 59% say the government
should promote Christian morality.
So while Trump is out of sanc-
tioned power—at least for the
moment—there is still no credible
way to argue that he’s without tre-
mendous sway over the Republican
Party and the laws it is passing. Lou-
isiana and its GOP-supermajority
legislature may be the first test case
of these omnipresent reminders of
religious teachings, but it most cer- ‘The
tainly will not be the last. Similar
pieces of legislation demanding the
challenge for
Ten Commandments’ display were us is to figure
introduced in West Virginia, Okla- out how to
homa, and Mississippi this year.
A measure allowing the display
go and create
passed the Arizona legislature but that energy.’
met the Democratic governor’s veto.
This isn’t simply a series of
coincidences. The current political
environment is one that rewards
such audacious acts, and it’s no
accident that Landry chose to
taunt his critics while signaling his
national ambitions during a dinner
more than 500 miles from home.
For any GOP politician looking
to make inroads with the party’s
conservative Christian base—be it
a first-term governor or a convicted
ex-President—pandering like this
works to build lists, credibility,
and fundraising tallies. If secular
voters—or even those who think
expressions of faith are better
served in a sanctuary than a
Nashville convention hall—stopped
rewarding such trolling, perhaps
the sanctimonious performance art
would stop. One can only pick up a
copy of the Constitution and pray.

For more from Washington, sign

up for TIME’s politics newsletter
at time.com/theDCbrief

27
The true
meaning of
‘give me liberty’
BY JOHN RAGOSTA

ALMOST 250 YEARS AGO, FOUR

weeks before the battles of Lexington
and Concord, Patrick Henry rose in
St. John’s Church in Richmond, Va., to
urge Americans to arm for a war that
he saw as inevitable. He famously con-
cluded his call to arms: “Give me lib-
erty, or give me death.”
Patriots embraced the refrain, and
militia members sewed it into their
shirts. Since then, his words have
echoed through the centuries. In 1845,
Frederick Douglass referenced Henry
when he wrote of the enslaved battling
for freedom. In 1989, when thousands
gathered for liberty in Tiananmen
Square, his words were invoked. But
they have also been embraced by some
as a radical call for opposition to al-
most any government action. In 2020,
signs attacking health regulations de-
manded, rather confusedly, “Give me upon Henry to lead their effort, he forever to representative government.”
liberty or give me COVID-19!” Pro- emphatically rejected such opposi- Even though his warnings had been
testers on Jan. 6, 2021, quoted Henry. tion, insisting that change must be ignored, even though he disagreed
His famous phrase has appeared on sought “in a constitutional way.” with the Sedition Act, Henry insisted
everything from AR-15 dust covers to Henry’s commitment to the com- that the people could not simply re-
a Tea Party manifesto. munity’s right to govern was never fuse to follow the law. The commu-
Rather than a call for democratic clearer than in his final political cam- nity had the right to voice dissent via
freedom, Henry’s mantra has become paign. In 1798, in desperation over elected representatives. That is the
a radical screed. But wrapping anti- the Sedition Act that criminalized po- very nature of a democracy: joining
government campaigns in Henry’s litical dissent, Thomas Jefferson pro- with our co-citizens to govern, even
words demonstrates a fundamental posed that states could nullify federal when we disagree with their choice.
historical misunderstanding. laws. George Washington saw that A modern fixation on “give me lib-
anarchy or secession were the likely erty” as a license for unbounded per-
HENRY WAS NEVER simply opposed consequences of Jefferson’s theories. sonal freedom is a historic lie, and
to taxes or regulation. The problem He begged Henry to come out of re- symptomatic of a broader problem.
was, as we learn in school, taxation tirement to oppose the dangerous The freedom that patriots fought for
without representation. Henry consis- doctrine. An ailing Henry agreed. In was not a ticket to do whatever one
tently recognized the right of govern- his last public speech, the great anti- wanted, but the right to participate
ment, empowered by the community, federalist warned that if we cannot live in a community that governed itself,
to make binding laws—even when he within the Constitution that “we the a government—to quote the Declara-
disagreed with the result. people” adopted, we “may bid adieu tion of Independence—“deriving its
In 1788, Henry led efforts to op- just powers from the consent of the
pose ratification of the U.S. Con- governed.” With such a government,
stitution, because he believed that Henry understood that a “loyal oppo-
it would create a government too The famous phrase sition” must seek reform “in a consti-
powerful and distant from the peo- is on AR-15 dust tutional way”: at the ballot box.
ple. When it was ratified, some anti-
federalists sought to undermine its covers and a Tea Ragosta is the author of For the People,
implementation. When they called Party manifesto For the Country
28 TIME July 15, 2024
 This series is a collaboration between Made by History and Historians for 2026, a group dedicated to shaping an accurate and
inclusive understanding of America’s founding ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Find more at time.com/history

BY REBECCA BRANNON

Monument removals
and revolutionaries
BY LAURA A. MACALUSO
AND KARIM M. TIRO

Four years ago, amid reinvigorated public

debate about historical monuments, stat-
ues began coming down across the coun-
try. Columbus and Confederates were at
- the top of the list. New monuments were
also created, adding American heroes
such as Harriet Tubman and Barbara
Johns to the commemorative landscape.
Today, however, public opinion on the topic
is still divided—and many monuments
remain in limbo.
Consider Philip Schuyler, a Revolution-
ary War hero who was also a slaveholder. In
2023, Albany, N.Y., Mayor Kathy Sheehan
ordered the removal of a bronze monu-
ment honoring him. Some welcomed the
decision, while others accused Sheehan
of “erasing history.” Is it unfairly modern to
consider Schuyler’s slaveholding against
his achievements? Hardly. Many in his
lifetime asserted the evil of slavery. Yet
Schuyler’s decisions contributed directly
to the patriot victory at the Battles of
Saratoga—a turning point in the war for
independence. We continue to grapple
with the fact that the things we admire
L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S ; J O H N C A R L D 'A N N I B A L E — A L B A N Y T I M E S U N I O N /G E T T Y I M A G E S

about the revolution are intertwined with

things from which we recoil.
Monuments have something to teach
us, even when they are gone. Philip Schuy-
ler might not appear again in front of Alba-
ny’s city hall, and monuments will continue
to go up and come down as Americans
ask questions about history, identity, and
shared memory. The upcoming 250th anni-
versary of the founding is a moment not
only to remember revolutionary ideals, but
also to confront failures to live up to them.
Although Google Maps tells us the Philip
Schuyler statue is “permanently closed,” it
is still open for conversation.

Macaluso is editor of Monument Culture,

and Tiro is a professor of history at Xavier
University

29
 SOCIETY

n
OHer
M E L I N D A F R E N C H G AT E S I S

Own HER NEXT CHAPTER

BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE/
K I R K L A N D, WA S H .
R E A DY T O TA L K A B O U T

▷
French Gates recently announced a billion dollars’ worth of giving for women’s causes
PHOTOGR APHS BY PAOLA KUDACKI FOR TIME
SOCIETY

The early days of

the pandemic were
a complicated time
for a lot of couples.
But it’s fair to say that in the sprawling, the kids, while still making certain de- three children,” she says. “But I certainly
Pacific lodge-style home of Melinda and cisions about how you’re going to dis- thought about the effect on the founda-
Bill Gates, the complexity was particu- entangle your life—thank God.” tion. Those are the three biggest buck-
larly acute. The foundation the couple Most divorces are not undertaken ets: me, the kids, and the foundation.
co-led had been running a flu study in lightly. They can blow a hole in a couple’s And I wanted to make sure that when
their hometown of Seattle, which had finances and health, the happiness of we came through it to the other side—
detected early cases of COVID-19 in their children, and each partner’s self-es- when I came through it on my side—all
the region. There were video calls with teem. French Gates didn’t have to worry of those pieces were intact.”
infectious- disease specialists they so much about that first issue. But unlike After a stint away from the spot-
funded, world leaders, epidemiologists, others, she did have to think about the light, French Gates seems to have
journalists, and public-health officials. effect her divorce, finalized two weeks reached the other side. In May, almost
Two of their three children were home before her 57th birthday in August 2021, exactly three years after news of the di-
from school full time. Plus, the couple might have on the world. It’s not an exag- vorce broke, she announced her depar-
was secretly separated, trading off who geration to say that if the Bill & Melinda ture from the foundation that began
lived at the family house and who was Gates Foundation were damaged by the above a pizza parlor with her and two
elsewhere while they tried to figure out collapse of the Bill and Melinda Gates other employees before it was officially
if they could stay married. marriage, it could affect the welfare of launched in 2000. As she leaves, she
“It was a super intense time for us millions of people around the globe. wants to make a few things clear. She is
as a foundation,” says Melinda French How do you factor that in when you’re doing well. She is not out of the philan-
Gates, sitting in her industrial-chic figuring out if your marriage is over? thropy business; she just announced her
office in Kirkland, Wash., three days “I would say it’s a personal thing,” second billion-dollar funding plan (her
after exiting the world-changing orga- French Gates says, after a significant first was in 2019). And she’s focused on
nization that bore her name for almost pause, of her decisionmaking process one issue: helping women thrive.
25 years. “The other thing I would say, at the time. Her office, while lush, is not French Gates no longer wants to be
though, is, unusually, it gave us the pri- showy. All warm wood and eggshell, its the soft humanist layer surrounding Bill
vacy to do what needed to be done in most prominent feature is a large poster Gates’ hard-data-driven core or a mod-
private. You know, I separated first be- spelling out the word joy. But there ern Eleanor Roosevelt, well-meaning but
fore I made the full decision about a are hints of her influence—among the powerful only because of her spouse. She
divorce. And to be able to do that in pri- family photos are notes from Bono and has never wanted to ride anybody’s coat-
vate while I’m still trying to take care of Barack Obama. “I thought a lot about my tails. On the cusp of turning 60, she’s
32 Time July 15, 2024
both looser and more direct than in our students who took AP classes were pe- the Presidential Medal of Freedom;
interviews in prior years, maybe because nalized. She had clocked that, unlike at in 2017, the French Legion of Honor.
she now has as unobstructed a view of her the more pricey all-girls school nearby, “She’s a very substantial person, and
goals as she does of the yachts in the lake only the valedictorian at her school was she brings that to her work,” says former
outside her office window. And she has accepted into a prestigious college. “I’m New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ar-
her own wealth plus $12.5 billion from like, Oh my God, if I’m not valedicto- dern, who first met French Gates at a U.N.
her ex’s personal stash to achieve them. rian, I don’t have a shot at getting in,” function in 2019. “This isn’t a side proj-
“I feel like, Wow, I’m 60. I better sur- she recalls. She got the scoring system ect. It’s not a moment in time. Every time
round myself with people and still travel changed. And she was valedictorian. I have seen her over the years, she has had
[so that] I’m still absolutely learning, be- Perhaps it was that combo of prag- a laser focus on what she can do to im-
cause the world is moving, the world is matism, ambition, and appreciation for prove areas of work that support women.”
changing,” she says. “I’m totally unen- data that drew Microsoft’s founder to
cumbered to work in any way I want.” her the evening they took the last two If you had to pInpoInt a moment
seats at a company dinner in New York when Melinda Gates, wife, mother, and
In a way, French Gates’ emergence as City in 1987. At first, says French Gates, philanthropist, began to turn into Me-
a woman making her own weather is a she wasn’t sure Bill was her type. He linda French Gates, powerhouse advocate
throwback to her Texan roots. Melinda tried to schedule a drinks date two for women, it was probably July 11, 2012,
Ann French, as she was known for her weeks in advance. After she declined when she co-hosted, alongside the U.K.
first 29 years, was a standout student at what sounded like an appointment, he government, the one-day London Sum-
her all-girls Catholic school in Dallas. The called and changed it to later that eve- mit on Family Planning. More than 20
nuns there were Ursuline, an order dedi- ning. They married in 1994. countries pledged $4.6 billion to help in-
cated to educating young women, whose It’s a sad symptom of how little re- crease access to birth control for women
Latin motto translates to “I will serve.” spect is given to parenting that French in developing nations. Three years later,
French Gates traveled to jails and hospi- Gates, who ceased paid work and fo- French Gates started Pivotal Ventures, an
tals and tutored at low-income schools cused on raising the couple’s chil- investment and charitable firm focused
as part of her education, and still feels dren after 1996, has been accused on the issues she cared about. Four years
that introduction to service shaped her. of not deserving her wealth. Indeed, after that, she published a memoir, The
She frequently tells the story of how both Bill and Melinda have acknowl- Moment of Lift. And now she’s going it
a foresighted teacher, Mrs. Bauer, per- edged that it’s unfair for them to have alone. “Once Pivotal Ventures was up
suaded the head nun to buy a smatter- so much money. They decided to give and running for three years, I knew
ing of Apple II Plus computers in the it away even before they were married I could do this on my own,” she says.
early ’80s and introduced them to 10 or and asked Gates’ dad Bill Sr. to help. The first billion in giving since leav-
so of her more math-minded students, After the William H. Gates Foundation ing the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda-
including Melinda. She was immedi- merged into the Bill & Melinda Gates tion offers some clues as to the direc-
ately fascinated, she says, by the logic Foundation in 2000, French Gates tion she now wants to go. Her focus is
puzzles that coding presented. began to take an increasingly large still getting women in power—in poli-
French Gates went to Duke Univer- role, primarily championing the data tics, in business, in tech, and, now, in
sity for a bachelor’s in computer sci- media, but she’s widening her lens to
ence and an M.B.A. while interning over work more globally, and being bolder.
summers at IBM. When she went for her ‘I’M TOTALLY She’s spreading $200 million among 16
rubber-stamp interview before accept- UNENCUMBERED organizations that work to advance the
ing a job there, she mentioned she still TO WORK rights of women and other underrepre-
had an interview at a newbie company, IN ANY WAY sented groups, including the Time’s Up
Microsoft. The hiring manager told her Legal Defense Fund and the National
to take that job, because there would be I WANT.’ Domestic Workers Alliance.
more opportunity for advancement. She’s also offered $20 million each
All along the way, French Gates’ path that showed that investing in women— to 12 individuals she believes are dis-
was lined by people who wanted a lit- assisting them to stay healthy, get ed- rupters and charged them to pass it
tle more for women: a better education, ucated, and plan pregnancies—helped along to others. These include friends
access to more advanced knowledge, a raise whole communities out of poverty. such as filmmaker Ava DuVernay, peo-
less obstructed career path. And she Somewhere along the way, the ple she has worked with like Ardern,
was easy to root for. The second of four Gateses became one of America’s fa- and people she has only met over
children, as a teenager she helped at her vorite couples. They were TIME’s Zoom, like Sabrina Habib, who runs
parents’ side hustle, a 14-home rental Persons of the Year in 2005, alongside low-cost childcare centers in East
operation, mowing lawns and “Easying- literal rock-star philanthropist Bono. Africa. The recipients get to request
Off the ovens.” She also campaigned In 2006, Warren Buffett entrusted the up to $5 million for their own insti-
to get the grading system changed at couple with more than $30 billion to tutions and invest the rest in other
her high school. Young Melinda felt disburse. In 2016, they were awarded people or organizations they admire.
33
SOCIETY

Two of these recipients are men, Rich-

ard Reeves and Gary Barker, who are
trying to help prepare boys for a world
where women are equal partners.
Ardern, who doesn’t yet know how
she will allocate the money she has been
assigned, except that it’s likely to be in-
vested in the geographic region from
which she hails, says the offer from
French Gates came in mid-April, totally
out of the blue. She was putting away
clothes one evening when she glanced
at her phone. “I got a personal message
from Melinda saying, ‘Here’s my areas of
interest. I believe you’re someone who
will have seen meaningful places where
we could have an impact. Will you help
me?’ And ‘I’m trusting you to hand this
over,’” says Ardern. “Who does that?”
A further quarter-billion dollars is
going to a kind of contest, for which
people will pitch ideas, using Lever for
Change, a model she used before with
another woman giving away her divorce
settlement, MacKenzie Scott (formerly
Bezos). While French Gates no longer
partners with Scott, she acknowledges
there are now some similarities in their
methods, which lean into trust in people
rather than pure adherence to data. But
she prefers to stay more involved than
Scott. “MacKenzie will literally do the
grantmaking to the organizations and
then she’s extraordinarily hands off,”
says French Gates. “I try and coalesce a
group of organizations around moving
something forward.”
That leaves $310 million to give
away. “I don’t know yet what I’m going president of the National Right to Life policy on family medical leave. One of
to do with the rest,” she says. “That’s ex- Committee, told a Catholic news out- the recipients of her largesse is New
citing. One of the things I feel like I’m on let. “Yet she has decided instead to pour America, which does advocacy work
is a learning journey.” She repeats those money into the abortion industry.” in that area. “I want to push on that
words, exciting and learning, often. But to French Gates, the Supreme policy in a huge way,” she says. Rich as
One of the things French Gates has Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade she is, she knows she can’t fund fam-
learned is that she’s more pro-choice is a symptom of a bigger issue. “To have ily leave for an entire nation; eventu-
than she thought. Previously, she had a law on the books since I was 9 years ally the government will have to step in.
spoken in favor of—and funded— old, and to have it rolled back, and all She’s just going to try to clear away the
contraceptive access for women in the downstream consequences—like obstacles, including the elected ones.
countries where availability was low. these women’s-health deserts now Which is why, noting that 60% of
Now, in part influenced by her daugh- when we already have one of the highest Americans agree that women should
ters, she’s funding abortion-rights orga- maternal-mortality rates of high- have access to abortion and 80% of
nizations, which the foundation never income countries—I can’t not speak up Americans agree that the U.S. should
did. This has put her at odds with some about that,” she says. “To see that my have a policy about family leave,
in the Catholic Church, a faith she es- granddaughter will have fewer rights French Gates is turning her atten-
pouses. “Melinda French Gates could than I do? That doesn’t make any sense.” tion to politics. She’s funding centrist
do much to help women and their pre- Another topic that has really got her candidates from both sides of the aisle,
born children on the national—and even goat over the years is that the U.S. is the especially women, and especially in
international—level,” Carol Tobias, only Western nation with no federal local and state government, and putting
34 Time July 15, 2024
 the dissolution of the marriage. Since
September 2022, Bill has been seen
frequently with Paula Hurd, the widow
of former Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd.
There is zero need to feel sorry for
French Gates. By all accounts she’s living
her best life. “Getting a divorce is a horri-
ble thing. It’s just painful. It’s awful when
you realize you need one,” she says, then
asked to correct herself from “horrible
thing” to “hard thing” a minute later.
But now that it’s over? “It has been won-
derful,” she says with a tiny chuckle. “I’ll
just leave it there.” She doesn’t leave it
there. She’s skiing. She’s traveling to see
her granddaughter and daughters (Jen-
nifer, 28, and Phoebe, 21) in New York
City and son (Rory, 25) in Washington,
D.C. She’s going to Paris to watch her
son-in-law Nayel Nassar compete as an
equestrian in the Olympics, and on sa-
fari in Africa, one of her favorite things.
She’s allowing a few close friends to
throw her a dance party for her 60th.
She has two spiritual groups she loves
(local mindfulness guru Tara Brach’s
podcast is a favorite topic of discussion)
and a long-term walking group with a
cluster of her besties. And she is smitten
with her new house, having never been a
fan of the massive one her husband had
built. “I live in a neighborhood. Now I
can walk to little stores. I can walk to the
drugstore, I can walk to a restaurant,”
she says. “I absolutely love it.” Alas, it
was considered imprudent for her to go
to any open houses—a favorite weekend
△ hobby in her 20s. Instead, she did a lot
money into turn-out-the-vote efforts “You think about all the factors,” says of searching on Redfin.
in swing states. And she’s gone further. French Gates, in her office, about ending French Gates might even be dat-
The Gateses long had a policy of not her marriage. “But you also have to look at ing. She says “of course” she’s willing
endorsing any politicians, on the the- what happens if you stay, to you.” to meet a new somebody, especially
ory that they must be able to work with “somebody who’s open to learning
any government that gets elected, but and who’s vibrant, and who’s smart,
she’s clear on whom she’ll be voting for 2019. He left the board in 2020. (“Bill and somebody who challenges me and
this year: President Biden. “There’s no Gates stepped down from the Micro- that I challenge.” It seems a remarkably
chance I could vote for Donald Trump. soft board in 2020 to dedicate more specific list, but when asked if there is
Not a single chance,” she says. “Not after time to philanthropic priorities in- somebody in the picture, she demurs.
what he has done to women’s reproduc- cluding global health and develop- “Not that I’m ready to talk about.”
tive rights, and not after the heinous ment, education, and his increasing The foundation French Gates has
things he has said about women.” engagement in tackling climate just left is richer than some countries.
change,” a foundation spokesperson It had an endowment of $75.2 billion
After 27 yeArs of marriage, the told TIME.) He also spent time with in December 2023. It has given away
Gateses announced their divorce, Jeffrey Epstein, even after the latter’s $76 billion or so since 2000, including
midpandemic, in May 2021. It later first conviction. (Gates has said he re- close to $8 billion in the past year. Its
emerged that Bill had had an affair grets those meetings.) While both of work reaches 48 states and 135 countries,
with a Microsoft employee in 2000, those were factors, French Gates has and while its focus is global health, it also
leading to an internal investigation in said there was no one thing that led to touches education, agriculture, water,
35
SOCIETY

△
climate, financial systems, gender equal- French Gates receiving the and access to tools and funding for all
ity, and family planning, among other Presidential Medal of Freedom the people they were working with. And
things. Pivotal Ventures, on the other in 2016; speaking out at the after the meeting, French Gates would be
hand, is not a nonprofit and has no en- conference in London in 2012 the one emailing them a thank-you note.
dowment, just whatever French Gates On the other hand, said one younger
has. That’s reported to be $11.3 billion, on aid worker, it was inspiring to see
top of the $12.5 billion she was given for she’s already announced for women’s French Gates embodying the auton-
philanthropic purposes when she left the health and economic empowerment, omy she had been trying to provide for
foundation—a stipulation of her divorce and hope we have the opportunity to women by choosing to forge her own
agreement. It’s not nothing, but scale is collaborate again in the future.” path, focus on issues she deemed most
crucial in funding if you want to take big vital, and distribute money in a way she
swings. Can she tolerate the downsizing? The sTruggle To bring equity to regarded as equitable.
“I don’t see it honestly as a down- women was already under way before French Gates’ mother Elaine often
sizing,” she says. “I was just ready to be French Gates was born. It would be a told her daughter that if she didn’t set her

M E D A L O F F R E E D O M : S A U L L O E B — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; L O N D O N S U M M I T: R U N E H E L L E S TA D — B I L L & M E L I N D A G AT E S F O U N D AT I O N
able to have full decisionmaking control mistake to call it a revolution, because own agenda, somebody else would. Sev-
about where all the funds go.” She also it has been very slow and things have eral decades later, French Gates may be
felt the foundation was in a good place, not fully turned around. But for many coming to terms with what that looks like.
and the work she was doing there on women in low-income countries, whose She no longer talks, for example, about
gender equity would continue. “I know position was and is precarious, the foun- empowering women. “I’ve stopped using
it will continue because of the board, dation’s programs made an enormous that empowerment language, because we
because of Mark [Suzman, the CEO], difference, especially to their health. aren’t giving women their power—they
and Bill believes now fi...”—she seems No country has ceased being grind- have their power,” she says. “What I’m
to be about to say finally, but stops—“in ingly poor without improving the lot trying to do is make sure that women can
women’s health, so it will continue.” of women; it is now a tenet of interna- step into their full power, that women see
When she told her foundation col- tional development that gender equality their power. It’s not something we give
leagues she was leaving, she says, none is macrocritical. French Gates is one of them. We have it. We’re born with it.”
of them tried to talk her out of it. Even the engines that have driven this work. When Bill and Melinda married, she
Bill was resigned to it. “I think he said People who have worked with the wrote in her memoir, his parents gave
he would be willing to make substantial funding giant, who did not wish to be them a sculpture of two birds “look-
changes if it would help me stay,” she named because it might jeopardize their ing out intently toward an unknown
says, but “they knew once I’ve made a relationship, say she will be missed, place with their gaze eerily together.”
decision, I’ve made a decision.” both in the programming and the orga- She loved it, she wrote, because it rep-
“I’m grateful to Melinda for all her nization’s culture. The Gateses’ differing resented a married couple looking to the
contributions to the Gates Founda- approaches made them a good team. Be- future together. She put it right by the
tion, where she was instrumental in cause French Gates was a co-chair, any- front door of the home. When they were
shaping our strategies and initiatives,” body coming to a meeting would know dividing up the assets, he got the sculp-
Gates told TIME in a written statement. that in addition to bringing technolog- ture. “I didn’t ask for it,” French Gates
“I’m certain she will have a huge impact ical options, and data to support their says. “I didn’t want it.” She’s looking at
through her future philanthropic work. approach, they’d be asked about how a whole new horizon. —With reporting
I’m impressed with many of the grants they were providing dignity, equity, by LesLie DicksTein □
36 TimefJuly 15, 2024
 COVER STORE

E N J OY T I M E AT H O M E
S HOP S OME OF T I ME’ S M O ST ICO N IC CO V E R A R T

T I M E C OV E R S T O R E . C O M
Asinate Lewabeka
burns trash near her
home on Viti Levu
island in Fiji on May 9
PHOTOGR APHS BY ADAM FERGUSON FOR TIME
 WORLD

PLASTIC
BURNOUT
Fiji is ground zero for the planet’s waste problem—
and the challenge of stopping it at the source
BY ARYN BAKER/LAUTOKA, FIJI
WORLD

W
Lewabeka’s bonfire is replicated dozens of times
daily in communities around the world, and across
the Fijian archipelago, creating a toxic burden on
human and environmental health that is only start-
ing to be quantified.
The evidence, however, is already apparent:
microplastics found in the flesh of almost every
marine species tested; certain plastic chemicals
identified in drinking water; others in the leaves
Whenever The groWing pile of plasTic of plants irrigated by polluted streams. And while
waste in front of her door takes up too much Fiji’s high rates of cancer and diabetes have not
space, Asinate Lewabeka has a simple solution. been scientifically linked to the presence of plas-
She sets it on fire. She prefers to do so at dawn tic in the environment, there is research elsewhere
when the air is still so that the smoke rises in a suggesting that it might yet be the case. “The data
black column. She says any later in the day, the is building that plastics have the potential to ad-
coastal breeze risks blowing the acrid fumes versely impact human health,” says Linda S. Birn-
straight into her home, a modest shack built on baum, a toxicologist and the former director of the
the edge of the Vunato dump site in Lautoka, Fiji’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sci-
second largest city. ences in the U.S. “Burning plastic waste releases di-
Lewabeka watches in satisfaction as flames con- oxins that stay in the environment forever and are
sume the haphazard pile of empty water bottles, linked to cancers as well as reproductive and de-
travel-size tubes of shampoo, juice cartons, wads velopmental impairments. We know plastics are a
of food packaging, a broken plastic fan, and coils problem; we know we’ve contaminated our world.”
of copper wire coated in PVC insulation, reducing
it all to carbonized lumps. “Plastic rubbish is the Humans Have produced more than 11 billion
worst kind,” she says. “It is everywhere. It makes metric tons of virgin plastic since 1950, when plas-
our country look so bad. I don’t want it to be a pol- tic first came into widespread use, according to
lutant in our neighborhood, so I collect it and burn Roland Geyer, lead author of one of the first sci-
it so I can get rid of it.” entific studies quantifying the global plastic habit.
It may no longer be an eyesore, but Lew- According to his research, only 2 billion
abeka’s problem is far from gone. Burning metric tons are still in use today, meaning
plastic releases toxic substances that will ‘WE KNOW WE’VE the rest—some 8.7 billion tons—is waste.
remain in the environment for hundreds of CONTAMINATED According to the U.N. Environment Pro-
years, with deleterious impacts on human gramme, the world produces 430 million
and ecosystem health. Yet open burning is OUR WORL D.’ metric tons of plastic annually, two-thirds
one of the most common methods for elimi- —LINDA S. BIRNBAUM, of which are short-lived products destined
nating unwanted waste in a remote island TOXICOLOGIST for disposal.
nation besieged by a plastic tide. Less than When researchers revealed the extent
a third of Fiji’s plastic waste is locally produced. of the world’s plastic-pollution crisis nearly a de-
The rest drifts in with ocean currents from as far cade ago, they spread the word with evidence
away as South Africa and Mexico. It must be dis- that packed a visual punch: dolphins entangled
posed of, wherever it comes from, and burning is in plastic bags, a viral video of a straw being re-
often the simplest option. moved from a turtle’s nose. The chemicals that go
After the final embers of Lewabeka’s bon- into plastic production, which are emitted when
fire flicker out, the smoke sinks into a choking it breaks down, are harder to see, but they carry a
haze that irritates the eyes as it ripples through far more pernicious threat to human life.
the community. Small breezes kick up the ashes, Cleaning up that pollution is all but impos-
coating in an oily soot the chassis of a long- sible, and so a global movement is under way to
abandoned car that has become a playground for stop production at the source. Fiji is leading the
the neighborhood children. The afternoon rains charge, championing a robust global treaty as
sweep the partially burnt remains into a nearby countries around the world convene this year in a
stream that irrigates several modest vegetable series of dedicated U.N.-sponsored meetings that
plots before emptying into the bay. When washed will conclude in South Korea in November. Fiji,
into the ocean, what’s left of the plastic detritus along with other so-called high ambition nations,
will break into microscopic particles that leach wants to see the Intergovernmental Negotiating
heavy metals and toxic chemicals into the marine Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC) produce a
environment, slowly poisoning the fish that resi- treaty that will substantially reduce the produc-
dents reel in for their evening meals. tion of unessential plastics, minimize plastic’s
40 Time July 15, 2024
 △
chemical load, and hold manufacturers responsi- Children play the business is important to a country like ours.”
ble for the sustainable disposal of their products. outside of But knowing the impacts of plastic pollution, he
Depending on how it is interpreted, such a Lewabeka’s says that as a Fijian, he feels uncomfortable con-
treaty could deal a blow to the country’s biggest ex- home tributing to the cycle. “This plastic-water-bottle
port: Fiji Water. The premium bottled-water com- thing has to stop.”
pany produces, fills, and exports more than half
a billion of its iconic square plastic bottles every Fiji has more than 330 islands, one sanitary
year. Fiji Water, owned by the California-based landfill, and two municipal dumps. While some
Wonderful Co., is one of Fiji’s’s biggest employers, high-end resorts ship their plastic waste back to
its largest single taxpayer, and a primary foreign- the main island for disposal, few communities can
exchange earner. Few would argue that the pricey afford to do the same. As a result, most of Fiji’s
bottled water, quaffed by celebrities and wealthy plastic waste is burned, buried, or tossed into the
Westerners, constitutes an essential use of plas- environment.
tic. But for Fiji, it’s an important financial driver. Rising sea levels and heavy rainfall sweep the
Fiji’s struggle to balance an economic need dumped refuse out to sea, where it joins plastic
for plastic production with a public-health plea refuse drifting in from other regions and is swept
for its reduction illustrates a complex relation- back to shore by circulating ocean currents. There,
ship with a product that has become the corner- it is collected in cleanup campaigns conducted by
stone of modern life. Fiji Water’s appeal comes, in a hospitality industry eager to keep the beaches
part, from the perception that its source is a para- pristine for tourists—the mainstay of the Fijian
disiacal land of pure waters, yet the very vehicle economy. And so, the cycle continues. Burning is
of that bottled dream is a global pollutant, says This story was seen as the best option for stopping the endless
Rufino Varea, a Fijian environmental toxicologist reported with return of a product that, while considered dispos-
support from the
and a member of Fiji’s delegation to the treaty ne- Pulitzer Center able, seems to last forever.
gotiations. “I know that it is a company that pro- Ocean Reporting “It’s just people trying to clean up their waste
vides jobs to many Fijians. And we can see that Network without realizing the damage that can be done,”
41
WORLD

says Dr. Ane Veu, Fiji’s leading oncologist. She un- “a couple of decades from now, researchers look
derstands the impetus to burn waste but worries back at us and say, ‘They were so naive. There was
that the invisible pollutants are taking a toll. Veu this huge uptick in neurological problems, in can-
has seen firsthand how cancer cases, even once rare cer, autism, ADHD, and whatnot. At the same time,
lymphomas and leukemias, have more than dou- everyone was using these crazy pollutants they
bled over the past decade; rates of asthma and met- didn’t understand and knew nothing about … How
abolic disease are also rising. While some of those could they not put one and one together?’”
numbers can be attributed to increasingly seden-
tary lifestyles, diet, and better monitoring, she sus- Varea, a Ph.D. canDiDate studying plastic pol-
pects that increasing exposure to plastics plays a lution at Fiji’s University of the South Pacific, is
role. If research were formally undertaken in Fiji, from the northernmost island of Rotuma, a re-
as has been done elsewhere in the world, she be- mote, palm-fringed paradise that, like every other
lieves it would likely “show that yes, there is a di- paradise in the archipelago, is choked with plas-
rect link between [plastic pollution] and the rising tic that has washed up on shore. Varea’s research
number of cancers.” focuses on testing soil, water, shellfish, and fish
She is not alone. A growing body of evidence samples from Fiji’s coastal areas for microplastics.
is linking plastics to adverse human-health out- A “very high percentage” come up positive, he
comes. Scientific research has long demonstrated says. That is a concern for a nation where 60% of
that burning plastic emits toxic and carcinogenic the population depends on the ocean for food. The
gases. More recent studies show that micro- and most frustrating part, he says, is that most of the
nanoplastics—tiny particles produced when plas- waste comes from somewhere else.
tic breaks down—can be found everywhere on the According to Eric Chassignet, an oceanogra-
planet and almost everywhere in the human pher with the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric
body, from blood to breast milk. Prediction Studies at Florida State Univer-
Scientific research on the effects of those ‘WE’RE DOING sity who models plastic-waste flows on global
microplastics in the human body is limited, WHAT WE ocean currents, only 28% of the plastic waste
at least in peer-reviewed literature. Still, the on Fiji’s shores comes from Fiji. A quarter
cumulative evidence is enough to raise an CAN. BUT IT comes from regional neighbors, and most of
alarm, says Dr. Philip Landrigan, a profes- NEEDS TO BE A the rest comes from Latin America. As with
sor at Boston College and the director of its the countries that suffer the most from climate
Program for Global Public Health and the G L O B A L E F F O R T . ’ change, while contributing the least, Fiji can’t
Common Good. He cites a recent study pub- —RUFINO VAREA, FIJIAN do much to stop the plastic tide. All it can do is
lished in the New England Journal of Med- TOXICOLOGIST clean up the mess. “We’re doing what we can,”
icine that found particles of polyethylene says Varea. “But it needs to be a global effort,
(used to make plastic bags and bottles) lodged and most of this effort must come from plastic-
in the arterial plaque of 150 out of 304 patients producing countries.”
participating in a cardiovascular study, correlat- Like most Pacific Island nations with limited
ing with a 4.5-fold increase in risk of heart attack, land and small economies, Fiji cannot even handle
stroke, or death in those patients—“nearly on par its own plastic waste, let alone an influx from other
with smoking a pack a day,” he says. Another study countries. Only about a third of the population,
in mice demonstrated that ingested particles can concentrated in the urban areas on the main island,
cross the blood-brain barrier, leading to behavioral has access to garbage collection. That leaves resi-
changes similar to human dementia. dents and resort owners everywhere else to fend
Most plastics are derived from crude oil, meth- for themselves. A 2021 report commissioned by
ane gas, or coal. Chemicals are added to create dif- the International Union for Conservation of Nature
ferent characteristics, such as flexibility or water estimates that a quarter of the country’s plastic
repellency. In March, a team of European scientists waste is mismanaged—either thrown into rivers
published a database of more than 16,000 chem- or straight into the ocean. Either way, it eventu-
icals found in plastics, only a quarter of which ally ends up back on shore.
have been tested for health impacts. Almost all of Shore cleanups can help reduce the plastic
those were found to be hazardous to human health, plague. However, local community organizations,
with links to inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, international conservation groups, and resorts
autism, and ADHD. PFAS—per- and polyfluoro- seeking to maintain their postcard-perfect beaches
alkyl substances that are often added for water face the same conundrum: What should be done
resistance—disrupt the endocrine system with with plastic waste once it is collected? In some
impacts on fertility, immunity, development, and countries, it can be transported to recycling facil-
increased risks of developing Type 2 diabetes. ities on the mainland via boat. That’s impractical,
Geyer says that he wouldn’t be surprised if and expensive, for a nation comprising hundreds
42 Time July 15, 2024
 WHERE IT COMES FROM
U.S.
While Fiji its od China Pacific
79 t ns of e Ocean Mexico 2%
en ing the r
Philippines 7% Nicaragua
Guatemala 2% 3%
AFRICA
Samoa
Indonesia 2% 6% Panama 8%
Indian
Ocean SOUTH
Solomon Is. AMERICA
10% Peru 19%
AUSTRALIA FIJI
South Africa 2% 28% Chile 3%

COUNTRIES 1% AND BELOW NOT SHOWN; WASTE COLLECTED OVER A YEAR

SOURCE: ERIC CHASSIGNET, CENTER FOR OCEAN-ATMOSPHERIC
PREDICTION STUDIES AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

of islands scattered over more than 500,000 sq. mi. those hydrocarbons could be turned into plastics
For some communities, the nearest landfill is more instead. “Everything around us is made from this
than a day’s boat journey away. finite resource. We have to accept that.”
The thousands of small waste fires lit daily Not everyone does. To reduce the impact of
across Fiji are a sign that plastic pollution is be- what is rapidly becoming the planet’s most ubiq-
yond the country’s ability to manage it, says uitous manufactured material, 175 nations agreed
Peter Thomson, a Fijian diplomat and the U.N. in March 2022 to draft a legally binding treaty to
Secretary- General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. end plastic pollution on land and in the marine
“Nowadays, everything comes in plastic. And as we environment. The first four phases of negotiations
know, it doesn’t degrade. So, what do you do with have produced a draft, but negotiators are still di-
all that plastic? It’s a huge problem for an island vided over the treaty’s scope: fossil-fuel-producing
economy.” He means that quite literally: for some nations, including the U.S., say the solution to plas-
island nations he has visited, landfills are the high- tic pollution lies in tackling the mess through bet-
est elevation. “The fact is, we just have to change ter recycling and cleanup efforts. But recycling is,
the global plastic system.” at best, a stopgap measure—less than 10% of the
world’s plastic is currently recycled—and at worst
DesigneD to last forever but cheap enough a well-orchestrated public-relations campaign de-
to be thrown away, plastic has become an in- signed to put the onus of plastic’s toll on consum-
dustry worth $712 billion a year, with no signs ers and communities, rather than producers.
of slowing down. The world is producing four The 127 nations that make up the High Ambi-
times as much plastic as it did in the 1990s, and tion Coalition—of which Fiji is a member, along
consumption—along with waste—is expected to with the E.U., most of Africa, Japan, Canada, Mex-
nearly triple by 2060, according to the Organisa- ico, and Australia, among others—are asking for
tion for Economic Co-operation and Develop- restrictions on the use of chemicals in plastic for-
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y L O N T W E E T E N A N D A R Y N B A K E R F O R T I M E

ment. That is by design. mulations, limits on plastic production, a plas-

The International Energy Agency (IEA) proj- tic tax, and bans on nonessential products like
ects that demand for fossil fuels will peak before single-use items.
the end of this decade as the world moves toward A strong treaty would curb the plastic flood by
renewable energy. That makes plastic, which is de- stopping it at the source, say proponents. A weak
rived from fossil fuels, a lifeline for an industry fac- one focused on cleanup would be like bailing out
ing global efforts to transition away from oil and an overflowing bathtub before turning off the tap.
gas to combat climate change. Last year, Sultan “Everybody’s heard about how there’s going to be
Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Com- more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 if we
pany, told the Guardian that if the company’s ex- carry on with our current course,” says Thomson.
panded production capacity of 600,000 barrels a “The motivation of the plastic treaty is to make
day were not needed in a renewables-fueled world, sure that does not happen.” More important, he
43
WORLD

says, is a treaty prioritizing human health, with

wording in the text that outlaws harmful chemi-
cals. “My prediction is that in 10 to 20 years’ time,
we will be in the position we were in with the to-
bacco companies a few decades ago, where coun-
tries are starting to legislate against plastics [be-
cause of the public-health impact].”
The best way to reduce production is to start
with figuring out what is, and is not, essential,
says Bethanie Carney Almroth, a professor of
ecotoxicology at Sweden’s University of Gothen-
burg and a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for
an Effective Plastics Treaty, which advocates for a
negotiation process informed by science. Medical
equipment, like blood bags and flexible tubing, is
vital. Disposable plastic forks, less so. The treaty,
she says, needs to be flexible enough to adapt to
a changing world. “If something is identified as
essential right now, but still problematic, then that
should trigger mechanisms to solve the problem
and make that product obsolete.”
Eliminating disposable plastics would go a
long way toward improving health, says waste-
management expert Costas Velis at the University
of Leeds. He estimates that some 2 billion people
worldwide lack dedicated garbage-collection ser-
vices. If space is limited, and there are no nearby
rivers for dumping, many will resort to burning,
in what he calls an overlooked health crisis. His
research estimates that some 270,000 premature
deaths result from the open burning of waste every
year around the world. “Open, uncontrolled burn-
ing of anything is bad enough for the health, but
open burning of plastics, with all their unknown
chemistry, is possibly orders of magnitudes worse.” △
Fijians pick intensive when it comes to production and
In 2020, to manage its own pollution prob- plastic out of transportation than aluminum or glass. (This as-
lem, Fiji implemented a ban on single-use plas- the landfill at sessment is based on a study commissioned by
tics. Water bottles were notably exempted, mainly the Vunato the National Association for PET Container Re-
because access to clean drinking water is limited disposal site sources). The company already uses recycled PET
outside the main cities. But also because banning plastic in 70% of its bottles, and by 2025, it says,
bottles would be impractical for a country that ex- all bottles will be made from RePET. It also sup-
ports them. Fiji Water directly employs some 800 ports a bottle-buyback scheme with Coca-Cola
Fijians; 300 suppliers employ hundreds more. The in three main island cities, paying 5 Fijian cents
company also sponsors the national rugby team, ($0.02) per bottle. “Frankly, nobody else in Fiji
and its philanthropic arm, the Fiji Water Foun- is doing as much as Fiji Water” in terms of man-
dation, spent $1.5 million last year on health, de- aging their plastic footprint, says Ashneel Naidu,
velopment, and education projects within the the director of plant operations. “Why should we,
country. That doesn’t mean the company should a developing island country, give up something
get a free pass, says Varea, the Fijian ecotoxicolo- that’s so important to us? Why can’t people in de-
gist. “We need to weigh job creation and invest- veloped countries turn their lights off for a few
ment against waste production and management. minutes? Wouldn’t that have a bigger impact [on
Corporations that are involved in plastic packag- the planet] than us giving up one of our most eco-
ing, including bottled water, need to have more nomically important drivers?”
accountability.” Sivendra Michael, Fiji’s Permanent Secretary
Fiji Water argues that from a sustainability for the Ministry of Environment and Climate
point of view, plastic bottles made from poly- Change and one of the lead voices calling for a
ethylene terephthalate, or PET, are less carbon robust plastics treaty at the INC negotiations,
44 TimefJuly 15, 2024
 Lewabeka, 64, says, hovering with her lighter
next to a pile of plastic bottles from other brands.
“Those people really should be paying for us to
bring in their bottles too, because it’s their bottles
you see the most.” She estimates that for every bag
of Fiji, Coke, and Sprint bottles she takes in for re-
cycling, she will burn another pile of trash at home.

Lewabeka’s bottLes won’t be recycled at the

buyback center. Instead, they will be shredded,
packed into pallets, and shipped to Australia,
where they will be melted down and turned into
RePET pellets, ready to feed the global demand
for recycled plastic in new products. It would be
better, of course, if Fiji Water could close the loop
by using its own bottles (or others) to create new
ones, but there is no recycling facility in Fiji. Mean-
while, the cost of shipping a ton of plastic abroad
for processing far outweighs the price per ton of
recycled PET on the market.
Only 23% of Fiji Water bottles are returned in
Fiji. It’s an abysmal rate, but still better than the
global plastic-recycling average, and a model for
how the country could start getting on top of its
plastic-pollution problem—especially if it’s im-
plemented across all brands. Fiji Water’s volun-
tary program is a precursor to a countrywide bot-
tle-deposit scheme under parliamentary review.
Kinks are still being worked out: 5 Fiji cents might
be enough incentive for residents to return bot-
tles if they live near collection centers, but prob-
ably not enough for remote island communities to
bring their plastics to a centralized location. The
alternative would be to build collection points on
each island, managed by a regional waste-collec-
recognizes that plastics have a role to play in the tion system—a costly investment.
economic development of many of the countries If recycled plastic, like aluminum or glass, had
that sufer most from its pollution, including his a high enough value, a recycling system would
own. Bans on nonessential plastics with easy alter- pay for itself. The problem is that virgin plastic is
natives makes sense, he says. Replacing Fiji Wa- cheap and abundant, so manufacturers have little
ter’s plastic-bottle exports with glass may not. In incentive to opt for higher-cost recycled materi-
cases where plastic alternatives are out of reach, als. One of the more contentious items supported
another approach is needed: making manufactur- by Fiji in the INC draft treaty to be finalized in
ers responsible for their products through the end November seeks to change that metric by propos-
of life, instead of just to the point of sale. ing a per-ton tax on virgin plastic. Such a fee, paid
That is what Fiji Water is already doing, on a by producers, manufacturers, or importers, would
limited basis, with its bottle-buyback program. be used to fund waste-collection systems and re-
On a recent Wednesday, Lewabeka returned from cycling infrastructure in areas that need it most.
the bottle-buyback center to her modest shack It would, essentially, encourage producers to use
near the Vunato dumpsite with 300 Fijian dollars less virgin plastic, while taking responsibility for
($133), proceeds earned from a few days’ worth their products.
of sorting through the trash to find recyclables. For Lewabeka, it seems like an obvious solution.
When she started as a waste picker 27 years ago, “The companies that are making this stuf should
glass bottles and aluminum cans were her primary be paying to clean it up,” she says as she sweeps a
source of income. Now, it’s plastic bottles, but only pile of ashes away from her front door. “If every-
ones from Fiji Water, Coca-Cola, and local drinks thing had a value, then I wouldn’t have anything
producer Sprint. None of the other companies pay left to burn.” —With reporting by Lice Movono/
for returns. “I will take what I am paid to take,” Suva, Fiji, and LeSLie DickStein/new York □
45
NATION

The growing evidence

that—even heading into
this year’s election—
Americans are less divided
than you may think
By Karl Vick

in Januari 2021, in The Tur

wake of the last presidential
a former professor named To
the
asked some 2,000 people a qu
The survey was, at least on the
designed to deduce what kind o
try Americans would like futu
erations to inherit.
Each person was presented
55 separate goal statements fo
nation—“People have individual rig
was one; “People have high-qua
health care” was another—and asked
rank them in order of importance. Ea
person was also asked how each goa
would be ranked by “other people.”
When the results were tallied, the
surprise was not that “People have in-
dividual rights” came in first, or that
“People have high-quality health care” i
finished second. The surprise was the
third highest priority: “Successfully wha
address climate change.” We know This
that’s a surprise because, on the list he wou
of what “other people” considered he was te
important, climate came in 33rd. In learning at
other words, no one thought their fel- think tank he
low Americans saw climate as the high- knowledge to p
priority item nearly everyone actually ble plays a promin
considered it to be. to undo what Rose c
That gap—between what we our- illusion” that American
selves think and what we reckon lessly divided.
46 Time July 15, 2024
 tainly think we across every segment of the U.S. pop-
ericans seem ulation, including, to a signifcant
ans cannot extent, among those who voted for
ly worth Donald Trump and those who voted
about for Joe Biden. On the few points where
pre- the survey registered disagreement
the (notably, on immigration and bor-
a- ders), the dissent was intense. But in-
tense disagreement was the exception,
not the rule.
Much of what news reports, pol-
iticians, and pollsters call polariza-
ion, Rose understands as “learned
ivisiveness”—division propagated
the assumption that it exists even
ere it does not.
t’s a bold, and boldly optimistic,
on, but a notion supported by
than just one survey. At univer-
across the U.S., researchers have
ooking hard at the mechanics of
ation. Picture them under the
ent over the engine that’s sup-
o be driving us, possibly over a
ery now and then, one reaches
ith something they’ve man-

myth pry loose, sets it on the fender.

tudies, hiding under titles like
ng Explicit Blatant Dehuman-
by Correcting Exaggerated
erceptions,” together make up
ng body of evidence that chal-
the received wisdom about this
al moment.
aybe, they suggest, America has
wrong idea about polarization.
ay not be nearly the engine we
ught. It’s possible that what it pro-
ces, as much as anything, is noise.

Consider:
-

In a 2021 study in the Journal

of Politics, researchers found that
when a person in one political party
was asked what they think of some-
one in the other party, their answer
was pretty negative. That certainly
sounds like polarization. But it turns
out the “someones” respondents had
in mind were partisans holding forth
on cable news.
If told the truth—that a typical
member of the opposite party actually
holds moderate views and talks about
politics only occasionally—the ani-
mus dissolved into indifference. And
47
NATION

if told that the same moderate person

only rarely discusses politics, the sen-
timent edged into the positive zone.
These folks might actually get along.
“There are people who are certainly
polarized,” says Yanna Krupnikov, a
study co-author now at the University
of Michigan. “They are 100% polar- 69%
ized. They deeply hate the other side.
They are extraordinarily loud. They are
extraordinarily important in American
politics.” But those people, she adds,
are not typical Americans. They are
people who live and breathe politics
38%
the partisans and activists whom a
demics refer to in this context as eli
“Elite politics is quite polariz
Krupnikov says. “So the questio
does that mean everyone else is?
Why not ask “everyone
whether America is really th
vided? Pollsters do, all the tim
there’s a problem.

In the sam
people grossly overestimated (
the size of the most polarize
within each party—that is, De 51%
who call themselves liberal a
publicans who call themselv
servative. At the same time, o
Americans grossly underest
(by 77%) the share of the othe
who are moderate. That share 22%
fact, at least half of either party.
ple probably are exactly right a
how polarized their leaders are,”
Robb Willer, a sociologist at Stanf
“They get it very wrong for the g
eral public.”
It gets worse: the more involved i
politics a person is, the more distorted
their view of the other side, a 2019 You-
Gov survey found. In other words, en-
gagement in civic life actually serves to
64%
narrow one’s perspective on the world.
That hardly recommends today’s
politics, and goes a long way toward ex-
plaining why many people avoid par-
tisans. “They dislike people who are
really ideologically extreme, who are
very politically invested, who want to 27%
come and talk to them about politics,”
says Matthew Levendusky, a University
of Pennsylvania professor of political
science. And it’s not as if they’re trying
to avoid confrontation, he adds: “It’s
also the case that people aren’t really SOURCE: JOURNAL TI

48 Time July 15, 2024

 “You change their media environ-
ment and their attitudes change pretty
meaningfully,” says University of Cal-
ifornia, Berkeley, political scientist
David Broockman.

But for those who don’t em-

brace an ideology, the “tug toward
the fringes” can be a source of stress.
Populace figured out a way to measure
this unease in another of its surveys—
one that helps explain how we know
moderates are inhibited about reveal-
g their views to pollsters.
This survey, in 2022, aimed to avoid
distortions of conformity bias by
king both the respondent’s identity
more subtly, the question being
d, by hiding the “target” among
es of multiple-choice questions.
se this method requires sev-
unds of polling to see which re-
e significant, it’s expensive and
nsuming—but it’s thought to
reveal information people
ot consciously choose to share.
RS uses this,” Rose says.)
ng the revelations of “Private
n in America” is that men are
pportive of abortion being a
between a woman and her doc-
n public surveys suggest, but
hat people are less concerned
other polls suggest about the
nt of time public schools spend
ng about race.
n many topics, the gap was fairly
all—a few percentage points—
ween the opinion someone held pri-
tely and the one publicly expressed.
And the results varied by demographic
and political party. Yet every group
polled registered double-digit gaps on
at least one issue.
One group in particular was re-
n vealed to have struggled mightily to be
ks. candid with ordinary pollsters. For po-
litical independents, people without a
party, the gap between private thought
and public expression ran to double
‘PEOPLE ARE RIGHT digits on more than half the issues—
a striking amount of dissonance. This
A B O U T H OW P O L A R I Z E D
discrepancy ought to seem odd. After
THEIR LEADERS ARE. all, political moderates still constitute
THEY GET IT VERY the majority in the U.S. electorate.
WRONG FOR THE But in a public sphere dominated by
G E N E R A L P U B L I C .’ extremes, independents are made to
Robb Willer, Stanford feel that they have no place.
49
 Stanford’s Willer says
for political violence is
y 300% to 400%.
s. In so many studies,
surprise that their as-
their rivals are wrong.
h, I didn’t know that,’
eel better about the
ays. “And then they go
world and everything
ike no, no, no, they’re
the effect doesn’t last,
e everywhere.”
ke a gulf may be more
dewalk—shared space
, just really hard to see.
spirations, more respon-
iticians should focus on
mon ground than said pol-
uld be fighting for them.
nough—they also thought
ple” felt the opposite.
f course November looms,
promise of cleaving the nation
he middle with a this-or-that
e. Yet face to face, most people
get along, especially if they’re po-
enough not to talk only about poli-
cs all the time.
But even if they do, look: In 2022, a
Berkeley study followed what scholars
have determined are the most insular
partisans of all—liberal Democrats—
as they knocked on doors in conser-
M AT T B L A C K — M A G N U M P H O T O S

‘ P O L A R I Z AT I O N vative neighborhoods, canvassing

APPEARS TO BE for votes. The activists didn’t change
L A R G E LY D R I V E N B Y many minds. But afterward, many re-
M I S P E R C E P T I O N S .’ ported a new respect for people who
feld, Carnegie saw things differently. —With report-
International Peace ing by JULIA ZORTHIAN □
50 TIME July 15, 2024
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JULY 12TH
 WORLD

A
VOLODYMYR
ZELENSKY’S
ADVISER ANDRIY
YERMAK AT THE
PRESIDENTIAL
COMPOUND IN
KYIV IN 2022

SHOW
The fleeT of helicopTers began To arrive

OF at the Swiss resort around noon on June 15, shuttling

world leaders toward the top of a mountain range
speckled with grazing cows and wildflowers. The
event had been sold to them as a global peace sum-
mit, the start of a process that would end the Rus-
sian war against Ukraine. But Russia and its allies,
notably China, would not be represented. Instead,
the Ukrainians would run the show, with Presi-
dent Volodymyr Zelensky in the starring role and

PEACE his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, the impresario.

Zelensky and Yermak, old friends from their
early careers in the entertainment business, have
been inseparable since Russia launched its inva-
sion in early 2022. For much of that year, they lived
together in a bunker beneath the presidential com-
pound in Kyiv, slept down the hall from each other,
Andriy Yermak shared meals in the bunker’s cafeteria, and lifted
has been President weights in its makeshift gym. They appeared side
by side during trips to the front and meetings with
Zelensky’s closest foreign allies. That fall, when Zelensky launched
wartime adviser. a peace process to end the war, he put his chief of
staff in charge of it.
Now he’s trying to Ever since, Yermak has tried to build the
find an ending. groundwork for a peace on Ukraine’s terms, rac-
ing to outwit Russia on the diplomatic front even
BY SIMON SHUSTER/ as his country’s armed forces lost ground in the
BÜRGENSTOCK, war. With his willful and often overbearing nature,
SWITZERLAND
he has succeeded in critical ways while failing in
others. Ukraine, through his efforts, has managed
to set the stage for talks, gathered a large group of
allies around it, and avoided getting dragged into
a peace process that Russia controls.
The summit that took place in mid-June at the
Bürgenstock, an Alpine resort where the likes of
Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn once spent
PHOTOGRAPH BY
MAXIM DONDYUK
their holidays, was the first real test of this strat-
FOR TIME egy. More than 80 countries agreed to attend,
representing every region of the world, but with a
52 Tife July 15, 2024
distinct preponderance of Western democracies. from any lasting conclusion. All along the front, the
As they arrived in their helicopters, some noticed killing continues on a barbaric, industrial scale, as
that the landing zone stood next to a rundown barn, each side seeks to exhaust the other’s willingness
its fence barely obscuring a large pile of manure. to sacrifice its stocks of men and money. So far, the
“It’s pretty symbolic,” remarked one of the Amer- closest thing we have to a peace process in Ukraine
ican guests. “There’s a lot of sh-t to shovel here.” appears to be the one that opened at the Bürgen-
Yermak has wielded the biggest shovel. He stock, and its success will depend on President Zel-
wrangled, shamed, and pressured foreign nations ensky and his indefatigable fixer, Andriy Yermak.
to make the trip to the Alps, all while rejecting the
idea that Russia, as the war’s aggressor, should take Though The ukrainians may wish to forget
part. What transpired from his efforts seemed bi- it these days, their first attempt to sue for peace
zarre on its face: a peace process with no medi- began as soon as the invasion started. At the time,
ators, no cease-fires, no actual talks between the Zelensky had two core priorities: appealing to the
warring sides. The U.N. kept a wary distance. world to help Ukraine defend itself, and urging
Rwanda somehow found itself at the negotiating Putin to call a truce. “We need to talk about the
table. So did the tiny island nation of Cabo Verde. end of this invasion,” he said the day after it began.
In Yermak’s telling, this was all part of the plan. “We need to talk about a cease-fire.” The following
“We want all the countries of the world to walk this week, the first round of peace talks commenced in
path with us,” he told me while preparing for the a secluded estate in southern Belarus.
summit last fall. “The whole world! Then it would The contrast between the two sides of the table
really be hard for the Russians to claim the pro- could hardly have been starker. The Russians F R O M L E F T: U R S F L U E E L E R — P O O L /A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; E V G E N I Y M A L O L E T K A — A P

cess isn’t fair. Then we can say, Excuse me, all the showed up in business suits and ties. The head of
countries of the world already agreed that it’s fair.” the Ukrainian delegation, Davyd Arakhamia, wore
Well, not all of them. Some of the world’s most a black baseball cap, cocked slightly to the side.
powerful nations, such as Brazil, India, Saudi Ara- “Our thing was antidiplomacy, starting with the
bia, and South Africa, sent envoys to the summit dress code,” Arakhamia, a senior lawmaker in Zel-
but refused to sign its final declaration. Other par- ensky’s political party, told me at the time. “They
ticipants complained that the event felt less like a would start with the legalese, and I’d be like, ‘I don’t
negotiation than an echo chamber for Ukraine’s need this bullsh-t, break it down in normal terms.’”
existing allies. Russia dismissed the whole thing Within six weeks, the negotiators reached the
as a farce. The day before it started, Vladimir outlines of a deal. In exchange for reliable “secu-
Putin issued his own demands for peace, a string rity guarantees” from Russia and other countries,
of ultimatums that would have amounted to Ukraine would agree to abandon plans to join the
Ukraine’s capitulation in the war and the loss of NATO alliance and accept the status of “perma-
one-fifth of its territory. nent neutrality.” The offer gave Putin a chance to
Ukraine rejected the offer out of hand, but Rus- claim at least a partial victory. His main excuse for
sia’s move underscored just how far this war remains launching the invasion had been to stop Ukraine
54 Time July 15, 2024
from joining NATO, and Zelensky offered to grant of Staff, said after the Russians withdrew from
him that wish. He was also ready to give up terri- Kherson in November 2022. “Seize the moment!”
tory in exchange for peace. But the Ukrainians rejected his advice. Milley’s
The Kremlin seemed willing to consider those counterpart in Kyiv declared that peace talks could
terms. But, by the end of April 2022, the peace pro- begin only after all Ukraine’s territory had been lib-
cess broke down for several reasons. Ukraine’s ne- erated. Zelensky felt the same way: Why stop when
gotiators were horrified by the mass atrocities Rus- he had the momentum? The string of victories in
sian forces had committed, especially in the Kyiv the first year of the invasion had convinced him the
suburb of Bucha, and they called on Zelensky to war would continue “along the same trajectory,”
pull out of the talks. The position of the U.S. and Eu- the President told me that fall. Still, he could not
rope did little to keep them going. Ukraine’s West- ignore the pressure coming from his allies, who
ern allies refused to make any firm promise to stop urged him to consider ways to reach a settlement
Russia from invading again in the future. “They ac- with Putin. As a compromise, Zelensky proposed
tually advised us not to go into ephemeral security an ambitious plan he called the Peace Formula.
guarantees,” Arakhamia later said. Without such It consisted of 10 goals, ranging from the rea-
guarantees from the West, the Ukrainians would sonable to the all but unattainable. Point four
be left to rely on the good faith of the Russians. called for the release of all Ukrainian soldiers and
The other reason for the failure of those talks civilians, including children, who had been ab-
had to do with the state of the fighting. Ukraine’s ducted by Russian forces. Point seven called for all
armed forces achieved some astonishing victories Russian war criminals, including Putin and his top
in the first year of the invasion. They defeated Rus- generals, to be brought to justice. Perhaps most im-
sia in the Battle of Kyiv that spring, forcing the in- portant, the formula demanded that Russia with-
vaders to withdraw from roughly half the land they draw from every inch of Ukrainian land, includ-
had occupied. In the fall, the Russians faced a fresh ing that which it had occupied since 2014. “I am
set of defeats in the northeastern region of Kharkiv convinced,” Zelensky said in announcing the plan
and the southern city of Kherson. in late November 2022, “now is the time when the
As Ukraine gained ground, its allies urged Zel- Russian destructive war must and can be stopped.”
ensky to resume the peace talks from a position of
strength. “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, A few dAys after that announcement, I went to see
when peace can be achieved, seize it,” U.S. General Yermak in his office on the second floor of the pres-
Mark Milley, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs idential compound, just down the hall from the Sit-
uation Room. Zelensky had placed him in charge of
implementing the Peace Formula, a Herculean task
‘WHEN PEACE CAN BE ACHIEVED, that might have made Yermak concerned about his
chances of success. But he seemed relaxed and con-
SEIZE IT. SEIZE THE MOMENT!’ fident. The day before, Yermak had celebrated his
—THEN CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS MARK MILLEY, IN 51st birthday, and a bundle of balloons hovered in
55
WORLD

his office, the biggest one in the shape of a missile. to support its plan for peace. The goal was to give
On a table near his desk, he showed me a ceramic Ukraine more heft and control in the peace pro-
skull he had received as a gift. It was painted with cess and to deepen Russia’s sense of isolation.
images of the Kremlin in flames. “That’s the goal,” Every nation in the world would be welcome as
he said with a smile. In other ways, too, he tried to a partner in the process, but not as a neutral ob-
project the image of a war fighter, not a negotiator, server or a mediator. “We don’t need mediators,”
even as he became the architect of the negotiating Yermak told me. “Mediators can no longer be al-
process. The task was not foreign to him. Before the lowed to take both sides.”
invasion, he held numerous rounds of talks with the In order to broaden this alliance, Ukraine
Russians in the hope of forestalling the war. packed the Peace Formula with points that other
Once the invasion started, Yermak negotiated countries could easily support. The first one calls
with the Russians to secure prisoner exchanges, for nuclear safety, the second for stable food sup-
which brought thousands of soldiers and civilians plies to Africa and Asia. The fifth references the
home from Russian captivity. “These swaps were founding charter of the U.N., which states that bor-
always on the edge,” he told me. “Always hanging ders cannot be changed by force. “It’s very hard to
by a thread.” The final sign-off on the Russian side argue with that,” Yermak explains. If foreign lead-
would sometimes go all the way up to Putin, who ers did not want to support the entire plan, he en-
could decide to cancel an exchange that had been couraged them to pick and choose which points
months in the making. The biggest one, arranged to endorse à la carte. “Every country can see their
in the fall of 2022, secured the release of 215 Ukrai- own leadership in at least one of the points.”
nian prisoners, including senior military officers, Starting last summer, Yermak convened a series
in exchange for 55 captives held in Ukraine. By all of meetings with foreign officials willing to sup-
accounts, the swap was a coup for Yermak, who port the formula. The first was held in Denmark in
went to meet the Ukrainian prisoners upon their June 2023, and it attracted more than a dozen coun-
release. It demonstrated that he could outmaneu- tries, mostly members of the NATO alliance but
ver the Russians at the negotiating table. also Brazil, India, South Africa, and others. After
A childless bachelor, Yermak was born and grew the talks ended, some of the participants went out
up in Kyiv. His father Boris worked as a Soviet dip- to a French restaurant in Copenhagen. “There was
lomat in Kabul during the 1980s, at a time when a lot of optimism,” said one of officials at the din-
the Soviet Union was bungling through a hope- ner. “This was obviously Yermak’s baby, and he
less war in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Union thought he could get the whole world behind it.”
collapsed in 1991, Yermak worked as a lawyer in At the next gathering, held less than two months
newly independent Ukraine. He avoided crimi- later in Saudi Arabia, the number of participating
nal law, he says, because of the rampant corrup- countries more than doubled. Even China sent a
tion in Kyiv’s legal system. Instead he focused on representative, signaling that Beijing did not want
intellectual-property rights and entertainment to be left out. Yermak was ecstatic. “Nobody be-
law. In 2010, he befriended Zelensky while they lieved we could pull it off,” he told me afterward.
were both working for the TV channel that broad- Soon he turned his focus to the plan for hosting
cast Zelensky’s comedy shows. a global summit of heads of state in support of
On the side, Yermak also dabbled in the movie Zelensky’s formula.
business, earning credits as a producer on a cou- But, as with every war, the terms of a possi-
ple of moody gangster flicks. Perhaps because of ble peace were defined by events on the battle-
that experience, he often veers into movie refer- field. Through the summer and early fall of 2023,
ences when describing his outlook on the war, Ukraine pushed ahead with its most ambitious
sometimes casting himself and the President as the counteroffensive, aiming to liberate vast stretches
good guys in some Hollywood production. When I of occupied territory using the weapons it had re-
asked about his life with Zelensky in the bunker, he ceived from the U.S. and Europe. Success would
brought up one of his favorite films, a classic shoot- have given Zelensky a chance to negotiate with
’em-up called Heat, starring Robert De Niro. “He Putin from a position of strength, potentially dic-
does this monologue,” Yermak said of the lead char- tating the terms of a deal to the Russians.
acter, who is a bank robber. “It’s about the samurai
principle, when your life is devoted to some kind of
goal. And our life right now is devoted to victory.”
‘[THE RUSSIANS] HAVE NO
Yermak’s work on the Peace Formula took
an unorthodox approach to wartime diplomacy.
PRESSURE WHATSOEVER TO SIT
Rather than making any offers to the Russians, AT THE TABLE RIGHT NOW.’
Ukraine set out to build a coalition of countries —CZECH PRESIDENT PETR PAVEL

56 Time July 15, 2024

 Russia found it easier to undermine his efforts.
By then it was too late for Ukraine to call off
the summit in Switzerland. Its Western allies had
pledged to attend, and Yermak intensified his ef-
forts to attract guests from other regions. He asked
celebrities for help, securing endorsements from
Bono and Madonna. Members of Yermak’s team
were assigned lists of countries to persuade, mostly
in Africa and Latin America. “These were the diffi-
cult cases,” one of them told me. “We had to work
the phones, come up with arguments.” A few of the
targets were swayed by the chance to schmooze
with powerful officials at a Swiss resort. Others
were too afraid of getting drawn into a fight with
Russia and its allies.

By the time the helicopters landed at the Bür-

genstock, it seemed clear that Yermak’s dream of
a truly global coalition had been dashed. China
didn’t show. Saudi Arabia agreed to send an envoy
only after Zelensky made a last-minute trip to the
kingdom and appealed to its ruler. Yermak was un-
daunted. At the start of the summit, he declared,
“It’s already a success.”
By his count, more than a hundred coun-
tries and international organizations were repre-
sented. Their final declaration, all 500 words of
it, did not directly call on Russia to stop its inva-
sion. Instead, the participants promised to avoid
“the threat or use of force” against any states. De-
spite the cautious wording, key envoys from the
Middle East and other parts of Africa and Asia re-
fused to sign it. South Africa expressed outrage at
Israel’s participation in the talks. India and Saudi
Arabia both said that without Russia, the process
By the middle of autumn, however, the coun- was not credible.
teroffensive stalled. Ukrainian forces took horri- Only on the sidelines did the delegates debate
fying losses as they tried to break through Rus- the question on everyone’s minds: What kind
sia’s stubborn defensive lines. When we met that of peace will Ukraine end up with? Among the
October, Yermak seemed far less optimistic about more sober projections came from Czech Presi-
the Peace Formula. “We’ll do everything to en- dent Petr Pavel, a retired army general who has
sure that this platform survives,” he told me. But been among Ukraine’s most dogged allies. In an
he knew the failure of the counteroffensive was interview at the Bürgenstock, he told me Rus-
not the only obstacle to peace. sia would likely remain in control of the lands it
Two days earlier, the world’s attention had had occupied, while the democratic world would
shifted to the Middle East as Hamas militants in- continue to condemn the occupation for years to
vaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of come. “Of course I don’t see a chance that Ukraine
them civilians, and taking around 250 hostages. would be able to turn the war into their fast suc-
Yermak sensed what the attack could mean for cess,” Pavel said. The Russians, he added, “have no
peace in Ukraine. “I really hope the situation in pressure whatsoever to sit at the table right now.”
Israel won’t get in the way,” he told me. “But of When the summit was over, perhaps its weighti-
course it has an impact.” Arab nations were ap- est outcome was Ukraine’s pledge to invite the Rus-
palled by the brutality of Israel’s response, which sians to the next one. They hope to organize it in
M A X I M D O N DY U K F O R T I M E

killed thousands of civilians in Gaza. Many Saudi Arabia before the end of this year. “No pauses
countries in the Muslim world refused to back now,” Zelensky said after returning to Kyiv. “We
the peace plan in Ukraine as long as Israel pur- have made the first tangible step toward peace.”
sued its war against Hamas. As a result, Yermak By then, Yermak was already preparing for his next
found it much harder to win broad support, and big test—meeting the Russians face to face. □
57
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FROM THE U.S. SPRINTER WHO COULD MAKE HISTORY TO
THE SPORTS THAT TAKE THE GREATEST TOLL
NOAH LYLES
 THE
PARIS
O LY M P I C S
THE
PARIS
O LY M P I C S

Noah LyLes shouLd be a miserabLe humaN oN This suf-

focatingly hot May morning near Orlando. Two nights ear-
lier, the U.S. sprint star was up until 3 a.m. in the Bahamas,
waiting on a delayed drug test after a race. You can still spot
fatigue under his eyes.
Lyles, however, can summon social energy on command,
and today he’s yapping away between stretches and sprints:
about his love of anime, how he needs a pedicure, how he’s
the most fashionable guy in all of track and field. He had been
absent from the past few practices while running in Nassau,
where he and his 4 × 100-m relay team took first place. “We
did miss you,” one of Lyles’ training partners, Paralympic
sprinter Nick Mayhugh, tells him. “But did we enjoy the peace
and quiet of the past two days? Yes.”
Lyles runs a 120-m practice sprint in 12.4 sec. “You don’t
have to run any faster than that,” says his coach, Lance Brau-
man. “You ran fast twice this weekend. You don’t have to do it
again.” Lyles isn’t feeling this advice. “My body’s turned on!”
he says. “I can feel the rust coming out of the legs! These two
are going to be faster.” Brauman rolls his eyes. Lyles runs the
next two in 12.2 and 11.9 sec., respectively.
Talk turns to Lyles’ competitors, including Letsile Tebogo
of Botswana, who won a silver in the 100 m and bronze in
the 200 m at last year’s World Athletics Championships in
Budapest. Lyles won gold in both races. “He’s definitely a
once-in-a-generation talent,” Lyles says. I ask Lyles if such a
threat worries him. “I’m here to race anybody who wants it,”
he declares. “The deeper the field, the better I run. I know
I’m going to win. Because I’m never going to break nerve.”
The Paris Olympics, which begin on July 26, are set to go
down as the Noah Lyles Games. If Lyles, 26, repeats his Buda- Lyles celebrates attention. He’s stronger, physically, than
pest feats and wins the 100-m, 200-m, and 4 × 100-m relay winning gold he was three years ago, when he won a
golds, he’ll be the first American track-and-field athlete since in the 100 m disappointing bronze in Tokyo. More
Carl Lewis, 40 years ago, to win that triple, and the first male at the 2023 important, he’s in a better headspace, no
athlete to do so since Usain Bolt in 2016. Now Bolt is no longer World Athletics longer fighting the demons that haunted
in the starting blocks, and Michael Phelps is out of the water. Championships him during the pandemic Games.
in Budapest
Katie Ledecky is in the pool but a more low-key presence, and “Being able to run with passion, and
everyone already knows Simone Biles is a legend. The stage a smile on your face, and turning a race
appears set for the World’s Fastest Man, the title Lyles took into something for everybody to enjoy,
with his 100-m win at worlds, to steal the show. He’s even that’s what I consider running with
made noise about chasing a fourth gold, in the 4 × 400-m soul,” Lyles says during an extended
relay. No male track athlete has ever won that many sprint conversation in the living room of his
golds at a Games. (Americans Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens, and four-bedroom house in Clermont, Fla.,
Alvin Kraenzlein each won a fourth, but in the long jump.) after training. He’s sitting under a white
If Lyles piles up golds in Paris, “we may have to recalibrate blanket on his couch, legs stretched out.
who is America’s biggest star,” says NBC analyst and four-time “It just means that I’m happy,” he says.
Olympic medalist Ato Boldon. “With the Olympics being next “I love to do what I do. And that’s a dan-
in Los Angeles and him being right in his prime for those four gerous guy.”
years leading up to LA28, look out. He’s going to be huge.”
Lyles, who has shot ads for Adidas, Visa, NBC, and oth- LyLes’ parents Kevin LyLes and
ers, seems tailor-made for this moment. An outspoken ex- Keisha Caine Bishop were both colle-
trovert with ICON tattooed on his torso, he’s begun a tradi- giate track stars at Seton Hall Univer-
tion of walking into track events in splashy outfits to attract sity. But they couldn’t envision Noah,
62 Time July 15, 2024
 which made school difficult for him. was a drain. It felt like you were almost
He gravitated toward art, drawing in a constant asthma attack. You know
Spider-Man swinging down a cityscape there’s more room in your lungs, but
and, later, designing the uniforms for you can’t physically use the muscles
his high school track team. Lyles at- to actually take that breath.” George
tended church dressed as Peter Pan and Floyd’s murder, in May 2020, added to
climbed on the shelves at Costco. “He his angst. “I just remember constantly
was that kid who was just always trying thinking, That could be me,” Lyles says.
to test things out,” says Kevin. Lyles started taking Zoloft, which
Lyles eventually found an outlet for lifted his cloud that summer, but
his rambunctiousness: sports. After Kei- weaned himself off the antidepressant
sha and Kevin divorced in 2008, when going into the next track season. He
Noah was around 11, the kids moved ran a world-leading 200 m at the trials
with Keisha from Charlotte, N.C., to for the postponed Tokyo Olympics and
Alexandria, Va., where Noah and his was the clear favorite for Olympic gold.
younger brother Josephus attended But when he got to the Games, his knee
T.C. Williams High School (now called started to swell up. Plus, there were
Alexandria City High School) and ran no fans in the stands to provide elec-
track. Noah practiced longer and harder tricity. “Noah thrives on crowds,” says
than anyone. “I have everybody else his sports psychologist, Diana McNab.
tired and throwing up, but I can’t get “He’s a performance athlete, meaning
him,” says Rashawn Jackson, Noah’s he loves the limelight, he loves show-
high school sprint coach. “This is not time. There was none of that in Tokyo.
right.” While watching the opening cer- So he was a fish without water.”
emonies for the 2012 London Olympics, “I was half-motivated,” Lyles says. “I
Noah and Josephus, just a year apart in feel like we just walked into an empty
age, made a pact to make the team for room, and they said, ‘Fight.’”
Rio. Noah finished fourth in the 200-m In his postrace huddle with report-
trials in 2016, just missing the cut; ers after finishing third, Lyles broke
Josephus was injured. down in tears. He opened up about his
Noah and Josephus both turned pro- mental-health struggles and expressed
fessional in 2016: they’re believed to be sadness that Josephus wasn’t with him
the first male sprinters in the U.S. to by- in Tokyo. “It burns my chest every time
pass college for the pros. (Josephus did I think about it,” Lyles says now about
not qualify for the Tokyo Olympics but his bronze. But in a way, he says, it’s
the oldest of their three children, fol- is seeking to make the team for Paris.) also “my greatest medal.” The failure
lowing in their footsteps—Lyles suf- Lyles broke the 300-m indoor world rewired Lyles’ approach and set him up
fered from such severe asthma as a record in his first pro season, in 2017. for the success of these past three years.
child that he didn’t have plush toys or But in the weeks before his first out- He still rewatches that final on You-
teddy bears, because they could gather door world championships in Doha in Tube. “It is physically very hard for me
dust and aggravate his condition. As he 2019, he grew homesick living out of to push play,” he says. “But every time
struggled to fill his airways, his cough hotel rooms in Europe. Keisha visited I look at it, I’m just like, ‘Yeah, I am not
sounded like a high-pitched bark. “One him in Amsterdam, bringing his favor- that guy anymore.’”
day I was on a conference call for work,” ite cereal, Raisin Bran Crunch. “I really
says Keisha, “and the supervisor said, learned at that point this is not a glam- Post-tokyo, LyLes had to dig out of
‘Could somebody take their dog out?’” orous life,” says Lyles. “This is a hard- a malaise. A session with McNab helped
They eventually found a medication fought, dog-eat-dog life that you’ve got persuade him to run a race in Eugene,
that helped him breathe comfortably. to get through.” Ore., a few weeks after those Olympics.
But as Lyles entered middle school, Winning the 200 m at those worlds “You get out there and just run for the
he faced another obstacle: bullying. did little to improve his morale. “I just joy of running and run your ass off,” she
His teeth had become discolored— remember crossing the line being so told him. “If you can’t do that, we’re
Lyles believes the medicine caused empty,” says Lyles. Then the pandemic, screwed for next season.”
them to yellow—and classmates, par- which hit a few months later, left him iso- He won. He entered the next sea-
M AT T H I A S S C H R A D E R — A P

ticularly girls, teased him. “They lated. “Noah has a twinkle,” says Cheryl son vowing to train not harder but
were ruthless,” he says. “An emo- Tardosky-Anderson, his longtime ther- smarter. Lyles worked with a biomech-
tional beating, that’s the stuff that re- apist. “He didn’t have that twinkle.” anist to revamp the weakest part of
ally breaks you down.” Lyles was also “I could barely talk,” says Lyles. “I his game, his start. “It’s a constant sci-
diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia, was so tired. All the time. Even thinking ence project,” says Brauman, his coach.
63
Lyles added at least 10 lb. of muscle to his frame, which has says Jamaican sprinter Junelle Brom-
allowed him to position his body at more efficient angles field, Noah’s girlfriend, who’s sitting
in the blocks, and generate more force and higher speeds nearby. “Ahhhhhhhhh,” Lyles responds.
at the outset of his races. Lyles already enjoys strong “top- “Maybe. But probably not.”
end,” or maximum, speed: this weapon, combined with a Lyles is prone to impulse. After
more technical approach to the start, has produced star- breakfast on the morning of the in-
tling results. He broke Michael Johnson’s U.S. record in the door national championships, Lyles in-
200 m—19.32 sec.—at the 2022 World Championships, run- sisted that he, Keisha, and her husband
ning a 19.31. He took the 100 m and 200 m double in Buda- needed to stop by an Albuquerque mo-
pest and ran a personal-best 6.43 sec. in the 60 m at the U.S. torcycle shop: he had to buy a helmet
Indoor Championships in February. to go with the red racing outfit he was
“Lots of guys want to be the man,” says Boldon, the NBC
analyst. “Noah is the one I see going back to the lab to figure
out what is going to make him the man. He’s going to be tough
to beat, because he has improved his weaknesses more than
‘TURNING A RACE INTO SOMETHING
anybody he is going to face in Paris.” FOR EVERYBODY TO ENJOY, THAT’S
Lyles works with McNab to pen scripts detailing exactly
how each part of a race—the warm-up, the start, the accel- WHAT I CONSIDER RUNNING
eration phase, the finish—should unfold. The night before
an event, he calls her from his bedroom. She rings her Zen
WITH SOUL.’
chimes three times, and he does a breathing exercise before
visualizing each element of the script. Before Lyles ran a going to wear for his entrance. When
100-m race in Bermuda, for example, they wrote, “You are ... Keisha questioned the wisdom of this
driving your knees into the track like a jackhammer. Crush- move, Lyles told her she didn’t under-
ing it ... through the finish line.” stand his vision. “I said, ‘You’re right,
Lyles won, again. babe, I don’t get the vision,’” says Kei-
sha. “I just roll with it. His sister said,
OLYMPIC ATHLETES RARELY DRIVE the sports-news cycle ‘Next, he’s going ride in on a horse.’”
in a non-Olympic year. Lyles, however, did so in August with He’s promising new hair and nail
comments he made at a world-championships press confer- styles at the Olympics. He wanted to
ence following his 200-m victory: “The thing that hurts me decorate his cuticles for the relay in the
the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals, and they Bahamas, but his nail tech, a high school
have world champion on they head. World champion of what? student in Clermont, had her prom.
The United States?” His point: Is it really fair for U.S.-based His house doubles as a dork shrine.
leagues, like the NBA, to call their title winners world champs? Games are stacked near the entry-
NBA players took it in stride. Just kidding! “Somebody way: Catan, Magic: The Gathering,
help this brother,” Kevin Durant wrote on Instagram. A furor the Chameleon (Lyles hosts weekly
ensued on talk shows and the web. “The problem with Noah game nights). Upstairs, short, stout
is in the delivery,” says Josephus. “It’s not always the most figurines—called Funko Pops—of char-
finessed. I think that I probably would have explained it a acters from The Office line one shelf.
little more than he did.” Noah stands by his words. He’s a Lego Bowser, playing a piano, sits below
world champion. The 2022–2023 Denver Nuggets, who them. Lyles hasn’t opened his Princess
never played a professional team from outside North Amer- Leia Lego set, but a Lego Star Wars Star
ica, were not. Destroyer takes up prominent coffee-
Taming Lyles’ candor has been an ongoing project. “I do table space in the upstairs TV room.
encourage him to use his filter sometimes,” says Tardosky- “I’ve been working on that thing for
Anderson. A couple of years ago, Josephus brought a date three months,” Lyles says. “Maybe four.”
over to the house he and Noah shared in Clermont. She made At his training track, Lyles boasts
cookies. Noah tried one. “Whoa, that’s a bad cookie,” he said. that his “random-knowledge generator
“Really bad.” is very big.” He fills me in on the aye-
I ask Lyles if, these days, he’d be less likely to offend aye, a lemur native to Madagascar. They
his brother’s date. “You’d probably say it in a nicer way,” have a middle finger, Lyles says, that’s

64 TIME July 15, 2024

 THE
PARIS
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“literally long enough to stick it up their All I’m asking is, ‘How could you not
nose and touch their brain. They use it see that for me?’” (Adidas declined to
for getting insects out.” He’s also ob- comment; in February, Lyles signed a
sessed with ants and sings the praises of new deal with the company, reportedly
AntsCanada, a YouTuber and ant enthu- the most lucrative track-and-field con-
siast with nearly 6 million subscribers. tract in the post-Bolt era.)
“It’s very interesting,” Lyles says. “I’ve This slight represents the problem
always enjoyed learning about animals.” with track and field in the U.S.: the The prerequisite for any track take-
“All right!” he says, his aye-aye and sport’s low visibility outside the Olym- over, of course, is success in Paris.
ants lecture a wrap. “Let’s get up to pics. Lyles can go to an Applebee’s or Lyles isn’t too concerned about that
the gym.” Texas Roadhouse in Clermont unrecog- part. “I will definitely win my first”
nized. And the Texas Roadhouse even Olympic gold medal, Lyles tells me,
WHEN LYLES WAS negotiating an has a picture from the 4 × 100-m relay legs still tucked under a blanket. How
Adidas contract extension last year, at the London Olympics, the Games that about two? “I definitely will.” Three?
the company, he says, threw him what first drew Lyles’ attention, on the wall. “I will definitely win three,” Lyles says.
it thought was a bone. Adidas invited Lyles has designs on fixing this issue. How about four? “That one is debat-
him to the shoe-release event for An- He swears he can be bigger than Bolt. able!” Lyles says with a laugh. It de-
thony Edwards, the rising Minnesota “Yeah, why not,” he says. “That’s my pends on whether the coaches put him
Timberwolves star who’s got plenty of plan.” While Bolt is an icon, by dint of on the 4 × 400-m relay team so he can
talent but, unlike Lyles, isn’t a six-time hailing from Jamaica, he couldn’t—or at make history.
world champ. “You want to do what?” least wasn’t willing to—grow track and Most of all, he’s guaranteeing a good
says Lyles. “You want to invite me to field in the U.S. “I have the personality, time. “I definitely advise you to indulge,
[an event for] a man who has not even I have the speed, I have the showman- because it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he
been to an NBA Finals? In a sport that ship,” says Lyles. “I have the marketing says. “And I can promise you if you’re
you don’t even care about? And you’re mindset. I’m willing to be uncomfort- watching me, you will not be bored.”
giving him a shoe? No disrespect: the able.” In March, he did a pair of shoots “If you need somebody to enter-
man is an amazing athlete. He is hav- with Adidas, filmed a spot for Visa, and tain you for this Olympics,” says Lyles,
ing a heck of a year. I love that they saw did another shoot for Omega, between smiling and pointing his fingers like a
the insight to give him a shoe, because training sessions and running in a meet. friendly bartender, “I got you.” —With
they saw that he was going to be big. He wants to host Saturday Night Live. reporting by LESLIE DICKSTEIN □

WITHIN ERRIYON MICHAEL NOAH LYLES YOHAN BLAKE USAIN BOLT

REACH KNIGHTON
19.49 sec.
JOHNSON
19.32 sec.
19.31 sec.
at the
19.26 sec.
at the 2011
19.19 sec.
at the
Here’s how Noah at the 2022 at the 1996 2022 World Memorial 2009 World
Lyles would finish in a LSU Invitational Summer Athletic Van Damme Championships
hypothetical race against in Baton Rouge, Olympics in Championships in Brussels in Berlin at
history’s top 200-m La., at age 18 Atlanta in Eugene, Ore., at age 21 age 22
sprinters running their 10.1 FT. BEHIND THE at age 28 at age 25 2.4 FT. BEHIND
WINNER 4.4 FT. BEHIND 4.1 FT. BEHIND
personal bests

200–M RACE

65
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occasions made decisions derided by

some as partisan—most recently, its
move to suspend the Russian Olympic
Committee in the aftermath of Mos-

THE POLITICS cow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The upcoming Summer Games

OF PARIS
BY YASMEEN SERHAN
are poised to be “the most politically
charged Olympics in decades,” says
Jules Boykoff, an international expert
in sports politics. Set against the back-
drop of two major ground wars—in
When French hisTorian Pierre de couberTin Ukraine, where Russia continues to
founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the occupy 18% of the country’s territory,
governing body of the modern Olympic Games, in the late and in Gaza, where Israel’s ongoing
19th century, he billed the competition as a peace move- war on Hamas has leveled much of
ment that could bring the world together through sport. the Strip and killed more than 37,000
“Wars break out because nations misunderstand each people, according to figures from the
other,” he said. Competition, the reasoning went, would enclave’s Hamas-controlled health
foster greater understanding and reconciliation between Protesters stage ministry, which are deemed credible
adversarial countries. a demonstration by the U.S. and the U.N.—the 2024
More than a century later, Coubertin’s vision hasn’t ex- on June 12 in Games, he and others warn, cannot be
front of IOC
actly borne out. Far from bringing an end to wars, the Olym- headquarters
held in a geopolitical vacuum.
pics have been embroiled in and even canceled by them. For in Lausanne,
while the Games are ostensibly apolitical, the world in which Switzerland, If recent InternatIonal compe-
they operate is not. Indeed, authoritarians past and present demanding titions are any indication, they aren’t
have used the spectacle of the Olympics for their own politi- that Israel be wrong. From the Eurovision Song Con-
cal propaganda. And despite Olympic officials’ insistence banned from the test to the UEFA Champions League,
that the Games be strictly neutral, the IOC has on many 2024 Games global events have been subsumed by

66 Time July 15, 2024

 the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But the responses haven’t
been identical: while Russia was summarily barred from
several international tournaments and matches following
its 2022 invasion of Ukraine—including the Paris Olympics,
where Russian and Belarusian athletes will be permitted
to compete only as neutral participants—activists’ calls for
Israel to be similarly excluded have largely fallen flat. The
IOC, which has previously dismissed such calls on the basis
that the situation in Gaza is “completely different,” cites
Russia’s violation of the Olympic Charter—specifically, the
Russian Olympic Committee’s takeover of regional Olym-
pic organizations in occupied Ukrainian territory—as the
reason for its ban. “This situation cannot be compared
with any of the other armed conflicts in our world,” an IOC
spokesperson tells TIME in an email.
Still, some critics argue that the IOC’s relative silence on
Gaza represents a double standard. For while Israel hasn’t Hannah Roberts of the U.S. in midair at the Olympic
annexed Gaza or taken over its sporting organizations, its qualifier series for BMX freestyle in Shanghai on May 17
military has destroyed much of its infrastructure, including
its sports facilities. What little remains, like Gaza’s iconic
Yarmouk Stadium, has reportedly been converted by the THE HARDEST
Israeli military into a space to hold Palestinian detainees,
a move the Palestinian Football Association denounced as SPORTS ON
a “clear violation of the Olympic Charter.” The Palestinian
Olympic Committee estimates that at least 300 Palestin-
THE BODY
ian athletes have been killed since Hamas’ attack on Israel BY ALICE PARK
on Oct. 7, including Palestinian Olympic soccer coach Hani
Athletes are competitive by nature, so when they
Al-Masdar and karate champion Nagham Abu Samra. For
get together for a massive sporting event like the
those who have survived, the prospect of sports returning Olympics, there’s likely a bit of good-natured one-
to Gaza is years, if not decades, away. upmanship over whose event is hardest. But while dif-
The war notwithstanding, a number of Palestinian ath- ficulty is somewhat subjective, there actually are ways
letes are expected to qualify for the Paris Games, as are to start isolating which sports take the biggest toll on
athletes from Israel, Ukraine, and Russia. What remains to the body—by the highest number of injuries racked up
be seen, however, is how the athletes are received. “I think by athletes, for example, by what types of injuries they
athlete activism will come out in ways we’ve not seen be- develop, or by which injuries have bigger impacts on
fore,” says Shireen Ahmed, a journalist who writes on the their long-term health.
intersection of sports and politics. “You will not only get That data is not as complete as it could be. For one
athletes refusing to compete against Israeli athletes, you thing, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee
will get protests in the streets, you will get people talking (USOPC) doesn’t track overall injuries experienced
P O L I T I C S : M U H A M M E T I K B A L A R S L A N — A N A D O L U/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; B M X : T Y R O N E S I U — R E U T E R S

about divestment. This is going to be incredibly polarizing, by Team USA athletes since those are collected by
and in an event that’s meant to unify, there will be push- individual national sport organizations—USA Rugby,
back at every level.” for instance. Still, during the Olympic and Paralympic
When asked about the prospect of athletes staging Games, the USOPC does have all U.S. athletes under
political protests or demonstrations during the Games, an its purview, and similarly, the International Olympic
IOC spokesperson tells TIME that “athletes cannot be held Committee (IOC) tracks injuries during the Games and
reports them in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
responsible for the actions of their governments” and that
Sports physiologists divide sports into two broad
if anything deemed discriminatory does occur, the IOC
categories: those that involve direct physical contact
will work with the national Olympic committee and the (the combat or collision sports), which can cause
international federation concerned to ensure that “swift traumatic injuries, and those that test the body’s
action” is taken. In a recent press conference addressing endurance, which are more likely to cause chronic
the potential impact the geopolitical landscape stands problems. Injury information collected by the IOC dur-
to have on the Paris Games, IOC president Thomas Bach ing the Games tends to be biased toward traumatic,
referred to Coubertin’s founding credo, noting that in times or acute, injuries, says Dr. Jonathan Finnoff, chief
of conflict it is “more important to have this link and to medical officer of the USOPC. According to the IOC, at
give this symbol of hope.” the Tokyo Olympics, the sport with the highest injury
Boykoff, for his part, isn’t convinced. “If they think this rate was boxing, with nearly 14% of boxers requiring
is going away,” he says, “they are living in even a more insu- medical care, followed by 12.5% of sport climbers and
lated fairyland than I could even imagine.” 11% of skateboarders. “Speaking generally, during

67
the Olympic Games, the high-speed, high-force and
big-air or combat sports cause more injuries,” says
Finnoff. At the Rio de Janeiro Games, BMX bikers
topped the list at 38%, followed by boxers at 30%
and mountain-bike cyclers at 25%. Among Team USA
athletes, more than half of rugby players experienced
injuries at recent Summer Games, while about half of
wrestlers and divers did.
That doesn’t mean swimmers or marathoners are
in the clear—chronic injuries due to repetitive motions
are more likely to cause problems that may not appear
until years later, because they are more challenging
to identify and treat. “Traumatic injuries like muscle
tears and broken bones are fixable,” says Dr. Alexis
Colvin, professor of sports medicine at Mount Sinai,
“whereas chronic overuse issues sometimes linger
and aren’t necessarily something that can be fixed.”
Both types can have long-term effects, though
it’s hard to quantify since no sports group collects
detailed information on Olympic athletes after their
competitive careers end. Research shows, however,
that even acute injuries can cause problems down the
line, especially if athletes experience them multiple
times. “Repetitive damage can lead to higher and
higher incidence of long-term bad outcomes, including
severe arthritis and even needing early joint replace-
ment,” says Finnoff.
If you consider sports by how many body parts are
at risk of being injured at any one time, says Dr. Robert
Gallo, a professor of orthopedic sports medicine at
Penn State University, gymnastics stands out for its
potential for both acute and chronic issues. “You can
land on your head, or land on your foot, and they also
have a lot of chronic injuries that people don’t see
a lot,” he says. “Every single joint in gymnastics is sub-
ject to problems.” Plus, most gymnasts begin training
at an early age. “If you’re starting a sport when you are
2 years old and participating until you are in your 20s,
that’s a lot of wear and tear on the body,” says Mary
Barron, associate professor of exercise and nutrition
at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at
George Washington University.
But injuries are not necessarily inevitable. “We talk
about the body of elite athletes in training in terms of
green, yellow, and red lights,” says Dr. Matthew Silvis,
director of sports medicine at Penn State University, HOW SIMONE
referring to the amount of pain athletes feel and their
ability to finish and recover from workouts. “Most
athletes live in yellow—they feel OK even though they
BILES CHANGED
hurt and ache while they are working out, but they can
complete their workouts and they don’t feel worse the
next day.” Knowing when yellow shifts to red is key to
GYMNASTICS
BY ALICE PARK
preventing injuries, and keeping the athlete training
at optimal levels. Barron notes that better technology
also helps athletes to protect against injuries. There are Two main feaTures any aThleTe earning
“The model for sports is to be active for life,” she the Greatest of All Time title needs to possess—longevity
says. “The way we take care of and try to avoid injuries and ability. Think Michael Jordan’s six NBA champion-
is very different now than it was four years ago. And ships over 15 seasons, Tom Brady’s seven Super Bowl rings
that will help them to stay healthier even beyond their across 23 seasons, and Michael Phelps’ 23 gold medals over
careers as Olympic athletes.” Which still doesn’t five Olympics. Then there is Simone Biles, who is not only
mean any of this is easy. training for her third Olympic Games as the most decorated
68 Time July 15, 2024
 THE
PARIS
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Biles prepares for a

balance-beam routine at the
Core Hydration Classic in
Hartford, Conn., on May 18

executed it in 2021. U.S. national- lawsuits and an effort to decertify the

team member Paul Juda, one of the organization as the sport’s national
handful who competes with that skill, governing body following the sen-
says “her ability to pop off the table— tencing of national-team doctor Larry
which is 5 to 10 cm lower than the one Nassar for child pornography and
men use—and the fact that she is a sexual-abuse crimes. Biles was among
couple inches shorter than me and she several hundred gymnasts abused by
is still able to go higher than I do takes Nassar, and her testimony, and com-
an immense, almost ungodly amount ments about the culture that discour-
of power.” aged gymnasts from speaking out, in
Biles’ influence on the sport goes far part triggered a shift to a more democ-
beyond the technical evolution she is ratized system for team selections,
leading. Since her early days compet- one that is less reliant on the subjec-
ing at the national and international tive opinions of a few. She also became

‘THE FACT THAT SHE IS A COUPLE INCHES

SHORTER THAN ME AND SHE IS STILL ABLE TO
GO HIGHER THAN I DO TAKES AN IMMENSE,
ALMOST UNGODLY AMOUNT OF POWER.’
—U.S. NATIONAL-TEAM MEMBER PAUL JUDA

level, her gregarious personality and a role model for mental-health aware-
nurturing instincts helped catalyze a ness after she suddenly developed the
much-needed culture change in the “twisties,” in which she lost her sense
elite program in the U.S. When Biles of orientation in the air, and withdrew
entered those ranks, Martha Karolyi, from most of her events at the Tokyo
then the national-team coordinator, Olympics in 2021. “I felt no, the men-
discouraged lighthearted interactions, tal is not there,” she said at the time.
let alone smiles, at competitions, and “I need to let the girls do it and focus
instead urged the athletes to remain on myself.”
focused and serious. Biles was differ- It’s that ability to see the bigger
gymnast in history—with 30 world- ent, however, and couldn’t help laugh- picture that will also be Biles’ legacy.
championship medals, nine national ing and joking between events—it “She was open and vulnerable in talk-
all-around champion titles, and seven was who she was, and she and her per- ing about putting her mental health
Olympic medals—but also changing sonal coach at the time didn’t think and safety first,” says Nastia Liukin,
the sport itself. she needed to change. “I think she’s al- 2008 all-around Olympic gold medal-
Though Biles could at this point lowed everyone around her to have a ist. “I’m inspired by the strength and
just continue competing with the little more fun, smile more, and enjoy humility she was able to show when
skills she’s perfected over her storied gymnastics,” says Jordyn Wieber, 2012 faced with the immense amount of
career, she keeps raising the stakes. Olympic gold medalist and now the pressure she felt that I don’t think any-
T I M C L AY T O N — C O R B I S/G E T T Y I M A G E S

She’s had five gymnastics moves head women’s gymnastics coach at body fully understood.”
named after her because she was the University of Arkansas. Biles has said that she instantly fell
first to perform them in international Biles’ accomplishments are all the in love with gymnastics and continues
competitions. Her latest, also known more impressive given that they’ve oc- to compete because it’s still fun, and
as the Yurchenko double pike vault, curred under the pall of one of the big- because of everything the sport has
had never been attempted before by gest sexual-abuse scandals in sports. given her. But it’s clear that this GOAT
any female gymnast, and by only a The Paris Olympics will be the first is already gifting the sport with so
few male gymnasts, when she first after USA Gymnastics weathered much more—and she’s not done yet.
69
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middle-aged women, men. I can’t lie. It was a good feeling.”

Water polo, a sport that receives scant attention in most
countries, is a national pastime for Hungarians. Hungary
has won nine men’s Olympic gold medals, more than twice
as many as the next most successful country, Britain (four,
most recently in 1920). It also owns four world champion-
ships, tied with Italy for tops on the planet.
WHY HUNGARY How did a landlocked Eastern European country be-
come so good at an aquatic sport that plays like soccer on
IS SO GOOD AT water, except that players can use their hands to pass and
shoot, saving their feet for kicking in chlorine? A key factor

WATER POLO
BY SEAN GREGORY
was its abundance of thermal springs. “If you can stay in
the pool to practice when the water temperature is 80, 85
degrees, your fundamentals, movements, and coordination
will improve a lot,” says Denes Kemeny, who coached the
team to three consecutive Olympic gold medals from 2000
Arriving hofe A world to 2008. “We had this advantage over countries who could
champion in the summer of 2023, play in sea, lake, or riverside only four, five months a year.”
Hungarian water-polo player Vince Hungary also innovated. According to Gergely Csurka,
Vigvari got a taste of the rock-star press officer for the Hungarian Water Polo Federation and
life. After a long flight from Fukuoka, author of a 500-page book on the history of the sport in
Japan, Vigvari and his teammates Hungary
the country, in 1913—a year after Hungary competed in its
hopped on a bus to a victory rally at battles the U.S. first Olympic water-polo tournament and lost in the first
a Budapest pool. A few weeks later, in the men’s round—some players went to a circus in Budapest. They
he attended a music festival at Lake quarterfinals saw the performers catching and throwing plates with their
Balaton. “At least 50 people came at the 2023 wrists and decided to apply that technique to their sport;
up to me to take a picture,” says World Aquatics at the time, players stiff-armed shots and passes. The next
Vigvari, 21. “Young girls and guys, Championships year, the Hungarian team toured Britain playing exhibition

70 Tife July 15, 2024

 matches. “The Brits were Olympic
champions,” says Csurka. “And Hun-
gary beat them like hell.”
Hungary first won Olympic gold
in 1932; from 1928 to 1939, it won
110 straight international matches.
After World War II, Hungary became
an Iron Curtain nation, and in the
weeks before the 1956 Olympics in
Melbourne, the Red Army brutally
suppressed an uprising in the coun- Montalvo competes in the Red Bull BC One world 2022 final in New York City
try. Some 2,500 Hungarians were
killed. It was amid such geopolitical
tension that Hungary and the Soviet The gold-medal matches will take
Union played the most famous game WHAT TO place a little after 3:20 p.m. E.T. on
in water-polo history: a violent clash
called the “Blood in the Water” match, KNOW ABOUT Aug. 9 (B-girls) and Aug. 10 (B-boys).

in which a Soviet player punched

Hungarian star Ervin Zador in the face
BREAKING What are some breaking terms to
know? Top rock is the foot-shuffling
BY SEAN GREGORY
and blood poured into the pool. The and arm-moving a breaker does
ref called the match, which Hungary standing up. Down rock is the action
was leading 4-0. Then Hungary beat The sport of breaking—competitive on the floor. Freezes are when dancers
Yugoslavia in the gold-medal game. breakdancing—will make its Olympic pause midroutine, often in a difficult
This legendary contest—also debut in Paris. “Breaking is awesome position, like on their heads. When
the subject of a 2006 documentary, because it’s part of hip-hop culture, I asked Montalvo to define a power
Freedom’s Fury—inspired future and [in] hip-hop culture, it doesn’t mat- move, he did a little top rock, spun on
ter what color you are, who you are, his hands, and froze upside down.
national-team players. The gold-
where you’re from, it’s inclusive,” says In other words, it’s a maneuver that
medal three-peat from 2000 to 2008
U.S. breaker Victor Montalvo. Here’s requires impressive strength. If a
also had a profound influence. “Every- a primer on the sport. B-girl slaps the floor, she thinks her
one loved that team,” says Vigvari. opponent is crashing, or screwing up.
“Even if water polo is not a big sport When’s the competition? The If a B-boy positions his arms parallel
worldwide, in Hungary, we had a team B-girls battle on Aug. 9 starting at across his body, and moves them up
we could root for that was successful 10 a.m. E.T. The B-boys go the next and down—like teeth chomping—
internationally. It’s a big thing, and a day, also at 10 a.m. E.T. he thinks his opponent is biting, or
lot of kids start to play water polo be- copying moves. If breakers point to
cause of that success.” Where will breaking be held? At the their ears, they’re saying an opponent
The Hungarian government has Place de la Concorde, the largest is dancing off-key. The smoking gesture
also chipped in. Since 2011, compa- public square in Paris, which is also is self-explanatory. “That means,” says
nies have been able to write off do- hosting BMX freestyle, skateboarding, Montalvo, “I smoked you.”
nations for sports infrastructure, and 3x3 hoops.
equipment, and youth-athlete train- Do the breakers pick their own
ing as tax deductions: water polo got How will it work? Unlike many music? No! The DJ selects the music
W AT E R P O L O : A D A M P R E T T Y— G E T T Y I M A G E S; B R E A K I N G : A N D R E S K U D A C K I — A P

some $270 million in investment dur- Olympic sports, breaking is pretty for a round.
ing the first 10 years of the program. easy to follow! On both the men’s and
“In my experience, and I have trav- women’s sides, 16 breakers face Who are the breakers to watch? For
off in a one-day tournament. They’re the B-girls, keep an eye on Sunny Choi
eled a lot because of water polo, we
broken into groups of four, and each (U.S.), Dominika Banevic (Lithuania),
have the best pools in all of Europe,” breaker battles the three others in and Fatima Zahra Elmamouny
says Vigvari. their pool. The two best in each pool (Morocco). For the B-boys, Montalvo
A 10th Olympic gold for Hungary advance to the quarterfinals, which is a threat, as are Nakarai Shigeyuki
is no sure thing. Vigvari calls Spain is when the knockout phase begins. (Japan) and Philip Kim (Canada).
the favorite; many Spanish players There, competitors face each other
play for the same club team in Barce- head-to-head. Each breaker alternates So where will breaking take place at
lona, giving them a chance to develop spinning, flipping, and shuffling their the L.A. Olympics in ’28? Surprisingly,
year-round chemistry. And Italy’s got feet for around 30 to 50 seconds. A breaking is not on that Olympic pro-
speed. But Hungary can hang with panel of nine judges decides who wins gram. Flag football will make its debut
anyone. “For Hungarian players, mak- each round, based on a combination there. But if it’s a success in Paris,
ing big things happen comes natu- of five factors: technique, vocabulary, breaking could return in 2032, in Bris-
rally,” says Vigvari. execution, musicality, and originality. bane. Start top-rocking now to qualify.

71
 Time Off
SUMMER
SCREAM
QUEENS
BY RICH JUZWIAK
AND MEGAN MCCLUSKEY

Mia Goth and Maika Monroe

anchor two of the
season’s most anticipated
horror movies

INMATES BECOME A SEARING NEW SEASON RASHIDA JONES TAKES

CASTMATES IN SING SING OF HOUSE OF THE DRAGON ON GRIEF AND ROBOTS

ILLUSTR ATION BY JIAYI LI FOR TIME 73

TIME OFF OPENER

PROFILE
mediately cemented its cult status and counts
Mia Goth prefers Martin Scorsese among its fans, has implicitly
argued that Goth is like something out of an-
to live on the edge other era. X is set in the ’70s, Pearl in 1918, and
BY RICH JUZWIAK MaXXXine in 1985, with Goth in a voluminous
blond wig. In person, Goth seems more Gen X
△ in spirit than the younger millennial she is at
iT’s one of The mosT indelible images in Goth as 30. Unlike many of her generation who are out-
recent cinema: “Please, I’m a star!” wails the title MaXXXine’s spoken about boundaries on set, the British actor
character of Ti West’s 2022 cult horror film, Pearl, hardened but likes to “romanticize” fraught stories of direc-
after she’s been rejected for a role at an audition. haunted starlet tors pushing their actors, as Stanley Kubrick did
But the actor behind Pearl cuts the precise negative to Shelley Duvall—to whom Goth is frequently
of that widely memed viral image inside a Manhat- compared—on The Shining. “Art needs to be a lit-
tan production studio one evening in mid-June. tle dangerous, and to get genuine moments, you
“I don’t feel famous at all,” says Mia Goth. This have to blur the lines a little,” she says.
despite having worked with auteurs like Luca Her effectiveness onscreen is reinforced
Guadagnino and Lars von Trier (2013’s Nympho- by her conduct off of it. She doesn’t use social
maniac was her debut); despite a bevy of acco- media, cultivating a “veil of mystery” that will
lades for her alternately fragile and furious work make her more believable in roles. (There’s much
in Pearl; and despite the paparazzi shots of her she is tight-lipped about—from her relation-
walking in L.A. with the father of her child, Shia ship with the embattled LaBeouf to an ongoing
LaBeouf, published days earlier. All of which is to $500,000 lawsuit filed against her, West, and
say nothing of the hot anticipation for MaXXXine, A24 in January by an extra who accused her of
out July 5, ostensibly the last film in the series kicking him in the head while filming and then
that began with 2022’s slasher X, continued with taunting him. “I can’t talk about that because it’s
prequel Pearl, and made Goth one of the pre- an ongoing lawsuit,” she says. “But I’m grateful
eminent contemporary scream queens. for A24’s support.”) She claims to have no aware-
West’s horror franchise, which almost im- ness of her steadfast gay following. And despite
74 Time July 15, 2024
 her rising star—she’s now in production on PROFILE
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein remake—she’s
not worried about keeping her ego in check. “My
Maika Monroe is giving
sense of self is actually quite low,” she says. “I’m evil a run for its money
actually trying to build myself up a little more.” BY MEGAN MCCLUSKEY

MNXXXINE IS A CITY SLASHER bookending X’s

rural spin on the genre. It finds Goth’s porn-star LIKE A SHAPE-SHIFTING SPECTER LURKING
character embarking on a horror sequel. She’s just out of frame, the title of “scream queen” has
mysteriously trailed by a PI (Kevin Bacon) and been trailing in Maika Monroe’s wake since her
haunted by accumulating deaths around her, starmaking turn in the 2015 breakout horror hit
while the city is terrorized by real-life serial killer It Follows. As Jay, the unassuming teenage pro-
Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker. tagonist of filmmaker David Robert Mitchell’s
Hardened but still reeling from surviving the indie cult sensation, Monroe cemented her place
porn-set massacre of X, she assumes an offensive in the horror pantheon playing a young woman
stance. Damsel-in-distress tropes are inverted; in pursued by a lethal supernatural entity after
one scene, she is chased down an alley then exer- contracting a sexually transmitted curse. It’s a
cises brutal vengeance on her assailant. bizarre premise that initially gave Monroe pause.
“Playing Maxine and Pearl has been the most “This can’t be good,” she remembers thinking
creatively fulfilling experience of my life,” she after reading the script.
says. “And one of many reasons why it’s been And she was right—in a sense. It wasn’t just
such a gift is because I’ve been blessed to play good. It was a commercial and critical smash,
grossing $23.2 million worldwide against a
$1.3 million budget and earning acclaim as a
‘I’ve been blessed to highly original genre gem. “I don’t think any of
us expected It Follows to blow up the way it did,”
play these characters Monroe says. “Never in a million years.”
that are so fearless.’ Nearly a decade later, Monroe, 31, is again
in the limelight as the lead in one of the year’s
most anticipated horror films, Longlegs, in the-
these characters that are so fearless and have aters July 12. With early reviews praising it as
such agency. Whereas in my day-to-day life “a disturbing descent into hell” and “the scariest
I need a lot of validation, I don’t need that on film of the decade,” the new feature from writer-
set. It’s a way for me to feel liberated.” director Osgood Perkins (I Am the Pretty Thing
West says Goth’s appeal comes down to au- That Lives in the House) debuted with a perfect
thenticity. “Part of the allure is that it’s not pre- ▽ 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of
tend for her,” he says. “She finds a way to con- Monroe’s rise its U.S. release—a rare feat for any film, but espe-
nect to the material. Sometimes it’s larger than has been tied to cially a horror movie.
life and crazy, but she finds a way to ground it a string of cult Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, who is
within herself.” He recalls that when he told horror hits Longlegs’ titular menace—a disfigured, rasp-
her he wanted her to play two parts in X, “she rial killer with mysterious means to his
G O T H : J U S T I N L U B I N — A 24; M O N R O E : M I C H A E L B U C K N E R — D E A D L I N E /G E T T Y I M A G E S

just stopped and I could see the wheels turn- —Monroe plays Lee Harker, a talented and
ing. Then she was just like, ‘I could kill that.’ ed FBI recruit whose cryptic psychic abili-
And I totally believed in her confidence.” ve her strange insight into her target’s
Goth’s career-defining trilogy may be wind- ods. “It was one of those scripts where I
ing down—MaXXXine is being marketed as the ke, ‘I need to be a part of this,’” she says. “I
“final chapter,” though West has an idea for an obsessed with the world that it’s set in.”
additional film. Either way, she’s ready to move That sinister setting, built around a se-
on from horror. “I’m tapped out in that area,” ries of occult murders, reminded Monroe
she says. “I’d love to make a romantic movie. of two iconic ’90s titles she came to love
I’ve been so focused on this end of the spec- when she was old enough to start watch-
trum of violence and gore, but I love love too.” ng horror herself, The Silence of the Lambs
Still, she’s grateful for the experience. 1991) and Se7en (1995). She recalls the
“There’s a reason certain characters come into visceral reaction she had watching that
your life,” she philosophizes. Plus, Maxine taught type of truly terrifying film for the first
her a lot. When asked what, she takes a beat for time. “I would close my eyes a lot, but I
nearly 30 seconds. And then, finally: “Just like, ust love that feeling,” she says. “You don’t
‘You got this.’” really get it from anything else.”
75
TIME OFF OPENER

Despite her early admiration for the power of covered in blood and running and screaming,”
cinema, Monroe didn’t grow up wanting to be an she says. “Then all these movies like It Follows,
actor. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, Calif., The Babadook, The Witch started coming out
she spent her preteen years pursuing dance and completely changed the genre. Now those
and learning how to kiteboard with her dad. It are some of the best roles out there.”
wasn’t until a local film production reached out Monroe is slated to star next in Maxime
to her dance company looking for extras that a Giroux’s crime thriller In Cold Light before reunit-
then 13-year-old Monroe took an interest. “Fun- ing with Mitchell for They Follow, a long-awaited
nily enough, it was a really terrible horror movie,” sequel to It Follows that she promises is going to
she says. “I just fell in love with being on set.” deliver “what people want and more.”
From there, Monroe got a manager and an Then, she says, she’d love to do something
agent and began to audition. But her attention more lighthearted, like a rom-com. “There’s a
was divided. Even as she pursued acting, she was lack of great rom-coms right now,” she says. “It’s
proving to be an unusually talented kiteboarder. time for another When Harry Met Sally.”
When she was 17, she moved with her mom to But as the buzz surrounding Longlegs builds
the Dominican Republic to train in the sport pro- to a crescendo, Monroe’s main (spoiler-free)
fessionally (ultimately ranking as high as 32nd in ▽ takeaway from the film speaks to why she’ll al-
the world). But she kept up with auditions here In Longlegs, ways be able to return to her roots in horror: for
and there. “I probably sent in four tapes during Monroe plays an better or worse, the pool of inspiration is bottom-
that nine-month period, and I ended up booking FBI recruit with less. “Evil isn’t going anywhere,” she says. “That’s
one of them,” she says in reference to her debut psychic powers just the reality. There really is no end.”
feature, the 2013 family drama At Any Price,
which took her back to Los Angeles.
Within the year, she had appeared in both Sofia
Coppola’s The Bling Ring and Jason Reitman’s
Labor Day. But it was the one-two punch of Adam

‘It was one of those

scripts where I was like,
I need to be a part of this.
I was obsessed with
the world that it’s set in.’

Wingard’s 2014 horror-thriller The Guest and

It Follows the subsequent year that linked her to
the genre and carved a path forward. While Mon-
roe has since taken on studio blockbusters like
Independence Day: Resurgence, it’s her enduring
success in the indie horror world—think 2019’s
Villains and 2022’s Watcher—that’s built the
foundation of a career.
M O N R O E : C O U R T E S Y O F N E O N ; S I N G S I N G : C O U R T E S Y O F A 24

Thanks To iTs somewhat reductive history, the

scream-queen label isn’t always a welcome one—
’80s gore-fest icon Barbara Crampton notably
derided the term as implying “that you’re good
at two things: howling at the top of your lungs
and being a woman.” Still, Monroe says she feels
“incredibly grateful” to be playing a part in the
moniker’s evolution.
“I think back to some of the horror movies
I would watch [as a kid] and it would be hot,
blond girls with half their clothes falling off
76 Time July 15, 2024
MOVIES

REVIEW

BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

77
TIME OFF TELEVISION

REVIEW

House of the Dragon’s

song of grief and guilt
BY JUDY BERMAN

“There is no war so haTeful To The gods as a war

between kin,” a wise character observes in the second sea-
son of HBO’s House of the Dragon. “And no war so bloody as
a war between dragons.” Sadly, by the time those words are
uttered, both kinds of war have come to seem inevitable.
King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine) is dead, and
his bratty son Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) has usurped an
Iron Throne that rightfully belonged to his older half-sister,
Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy). Season 1 ended with the spill-
ing of first blood, when Aegon’s brother Aemond (Ewan
Mitchell) watched his dragon, Vhagar, devour Rhaenyra’s
son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault).
It doesn’t matter that Aemond didn’t intend to kill
the boy. Lucerys’ death, which came so soon after that of
his peace-loving grandfather, sets off a wave of violence
that mounts as the second season of the Game of Thrones
prequel progresses. As Rhaenyra’s Black faction and
Aegon’s Green slide slowly toward all-out civil war, House △
of the Dragon cements its place in George R.R. Martin’s Rhaenyra his own out-of-control emotions—
dark universe by rejecting platitudes about honor and (D’Arcy) spends to push him toward war. In between
bravery that suffuse so many fantasy epics. Instead, this early episodes trysts with a new lover, Alicent ago-
harrowing season exposes the unique forms of grief and of Season 2 nizes over the choice she made, years
guilt that result when one nation—and the family that consumed earlier, to support her father’s ambi-
leads it—declares war on itself. by grief tions over those of her childhood best
In a welcome break with the relentlessly expository friend, Rhaenyra.
first season, which raced through decades’ worth of
traumatic births and deaths at a pace that made it tough to In a surprIsIngly subtle varia-
feel immersed or even invested in the palace intrigue, the tion on the first season’s obsession
first half of Season 2 unfolds patiently, in the immediate with the ravages of reproduction—one
aftermath of Lucerys’ fatal flight. His older brother, that takes the show out of tiresome
Rhaenyra’s heir Jacaerys (Harry Collett), is at Winterfell, Feminism 101 territory—generational
confirming the loyalty of the Starks. (Would they even be divides emerge. Elders like Otto and
Starks if they weren’t loyal?) At the Blacks’ home base of Rhaenyra’s cousin and ally, Rhaenys
Dragonstone, Rhaenyra’s bellicose husband and, er, uncle, (Eve Best), preach caution. Eager
Daemon (Matt Smith), is restless to storm King’s Landing though they are to prove themselves
and exact revenge on Aemond and Vhagar. Meanwhile, the on the battlefield, young men raised
valiant Rhaenyra—who suffered a devastating stillbirth just in peaceful times remain ignorant of
before losing Lucerys—has traveled to the site of her son’s the true costs of war. Innocent chil-
death to wail over his remains. Daemon isn’t particularly dren become cannon fodder in a con-
sympathetic. “The mother grieves as the queen shirks her flict they didn’t choose and are often
duties,” he sniffs. too young to even understand. In a
While the Blacks mourn, the Greens splinter into fac- sane world, parents would sacrifice
tions as the implications of what Aemond has unwittingly themselves to save their kids, but here
done sink in. Impressionable, insecure, and bitterly com- that dynamic is inverted. Caught in
petitive with his warrior brother, Aegon rebels against a the middle are Rhaenyra and Alicent,
mother, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), and a grand- whose disinclination to murder each
father, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), who had taken his other’s families seems insufficient to
obedience in the wake of Viserys’ death for granted. Rather prevent an explosion of violence.
than heed their self-serving but politically prudent advice, Indeed, the outbreak of civil war is
he allows the most hawkish members of his council—and depicted as something both horrific
78 Time July 15, 2024
 BY MEGAN MCCLUSKEY
helps to explain why the names of just
about every platinum-haired charac-
ter sound alike. These multiples rein-
force the impression that civil war is
an obscenely intimate tragedy, waged
among inbred aristocrats who couldn’t
be more alike, for a cause that is largely
irrelevant to the armies of commoners
who will die fighting. As one character
points out: “When princes lose their
temper, it is often others that suffer.”

House of tHe Dragon excels, in its

much-improved second season, at
keeping those anonymous hordes the
royals call “little people” in mind even
as it sharpens its focus on the fluc-
tuating relationships between a few
key characters. Rhaenyra, wounded
by grief but resolute in her decision
to defend her claim to the throne, is
becoming more than just a generic
strong female lead. Alicent’s guilt
may not redeem her, but it does hu-
manize a woman who betrayed her
dearest friend in order to align her-
and unstoppable—as simultaneously self with powerful men. Daemon is
natural and unnatural as Cain kill- brash but haunted. For all his aggres-
ing Abel. Twin brothers in the Kings- sion, Aemond, who spends idle hours
guard, Arryk and Erryk Cargyll (Luke curled up in the fetal position in the
and Elliott Tittensor), end up in op- lap of a favorite prostitute, remains
posing palaces. The accidental slay- the same isolated, brittle child who
ing of Lucerys triggers more deadly lost an eye to gain a dragon.
mistakes and misunderstandings. Showrunner Ryan Condal’s
Far from King’s Landing and Dragon- talky, character-driven approach
stone, we meet two clans whose feud has its downsides. There are still too
long predates the war of the Greens many names and subplots. To let
and Blacks. The factions use their so much political and personal fric-
split loyalties as an excuse to tear tion develop requires slowing the
each other to shreds. We don’t see the action to a pace that might frus-
battle that escalates out of their con- trate anyone who’s mostly here to
frontation. What’s more salient is its watch dragons brûlée people. (For
outcome: hundreds of lifeless bodies those who might be wondering, the
piled up on their adjoining properties. dragon riding still looks as goofy as
The Cargylls aren’t the only omi- ever.) But by de-emphasizing—and
nous doppelgangers we encounter this deglamorizing—combat, in favor of
season. Rhaenys, a would-be queen enriching central characters, closely
passed over for an inferior man, has tracking each side’s machinations,
always been a mirror for Rhaenyra. and questioning the very premise of
Aemond resembles a younger version a just war, the series harkens back to
of his similarly pugnacious kinsman the early seasons of Game of Thrones,
Daemon; their names are anagrams. In before the plot was reduced to filler
fact, Aegon and Aemond’s relationship between episode-length battles.
echoes that of Viserys and Daemon: Whether it takes place in our contem-
COURTESY OF HBO (5)

the weak king and the brother who porary world or a fantastical medi-
makes up in terror what he lacks in of- eval Europe, a solid political thriller
ficial power. The Targaryens are also, is worth a thousand big, dumb, fiery
of course, an incestuous family, which special-effects spectacles. □
79
 6 QUESTIONS

Rashida Jones The multihyphenate creator on

her new dark comedy Sunny, the complexity of grief,
and whether a robot can find its motivation

In Sunny, you play an American why we’re special. We can’t figure it

woman in Kyoto, reluctantly bond- out, so we’ve gone so far as creating
ing with a “homebot” gifted to her You’ve acted something that’s so much like us that
by her husband’s company after it might kill us, to see if we can figure
he and their son disappear follow- opposite out what makes us human. It’s such a
ing a plane crash. What about grief
were you hoping to explore in this
Muppets. What weird Greek tragedy.

story? When you grieve, there is this was it like You’ve directed, produced, writ-
sense that there’s so much left un-
said. There’s regret and confusion,
acting opposite ten, acted in every genre, worked
in podcasting and animation.
this lens looking backwards at your a robot? Is there a place where you feel
entire relationship. I lost my mom creatively most at home? When I
a couple years ago, and it was the get to write with [writing partner]
most complex emotional experience Will McCormack, immediately it
I’ve ever had. I had a baby, and then feels like home, because we’ve been
seven months later, my mom passed friends for 25 years. It’s like the cozi-
away. There’s the Kübler-Ross stages est couch that ever was. The last cou-
of grief, but it’s not cyclical. It’s not ple things I’ve done have not felt like
linear. It’s just chaotic. home, and I purposely pushed my-
self. I also feel very at home sitting at
Was the parallel cathartic, or do the monitor, whether in a writing or
you draw a line between your producing or directing capacity, and
experience and the character seeing the thing come to life. You
you’re playing? I’m not the kind know when something doesn’t quite
of actor who’s like, “I want to go work. And when an actor really has a
and leave it all on the field.” But I great moment, you’re there to see it.
think there is something I wanted
to process, or else I wouldn’t have In this age of reboots, is there a
picked it. It’s not the easiest thing to project you would want to revisit?
show up every day and scream and Actually, three. Parks and Recreation
cry and have to access that place in was the best job that ever was. We’re
real time. But there was probably still super close, and everybody
something in me that wanted to sit in would be so excited—it just has to
it a little bit more. be right, and has to come from Mike
[Schur] and Amy [Poehler]. I Love
The show’s themes around our You, Man was so much fun, but we
relationships to technology are might be too old. People might not
very timely. Your character can’t care. And Celeste & Jesse Forever.
trust the intentions of Sunny, her Will and I have talked about some
robot. What is your relationship sort of spiritual sequel because it de-
to technology? Are the robots out fined an era of relationship, and now
A X E L L E / B A U E R - G R I F F I N / F I L M M A G I C/G E T T Y I M A G E S

to kill us? With so many innova- we’re in a different era we have a lot
tions in the past, there was a sense to say about—kids, marriage, staring
of ownership, a person using a tool. down the barrel of your back half.
I don’t think anybody thought the
printing press was going to become Sequels get a bad rap, but they
sentient. I’ve always had a little bit really do justify their existence
of a nihilistic idea of the world since sometimes. It’s a great joy. All you’re
I was a kid. For all of humanity, as trying to do as a writer is get to know
soon as our needs were met, we the characters, and you never have
tried to figure out why we’re here, enough time. —ELIZA BERMAN
80 TIME July 15, 2024
 ®

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