Time Magazine International Edition March 24, 2025

The 2025 Women of the Year Gala was held in Los Angeles on Feb. 25 to celebrate TIME’s list of women fighting for equality. Below, clockwise, from left: Feeding America’s Claire Babineaux-Fontenot called for ending world hunger; actor Nicole Kidman gave a toast to hope; Avery Colbert accepted an award for L.A. wildfire-relief efforts; actor Olivia Munn, who is raising awareness about breast cancer, led a toast to health; honorees including Anna Sawai, Raquel Willis, Jordan Chiles, Laura Modi, Laufey, Fatou Baldeh, Purnima Devi Barman, and Amanda Zurawski posed onstage with TIME CEO Jessica Sibley; A’ja Wilson called for equity in sports. Jazz musician Laufey, above, performed. Read more at time.com/woty On the covers Photographs and composite by Scandebergs for TIME Seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton strikes a…

Perhaps the clearest distillation of President Donald Trump’s sprawling first address to the new Congress came when he brought up Social Security. Politicians usually mention the program to assure Americans that they will protect it, or to claim the other party won’t. Trump proceeded to lay out the premise for cutting it. “Over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are aged over 160 years old,” Trump asserted. He added that 1,041 of these people are over the age of 220. The figures he quoted had been thoroughly debunked, with even his own Social Security chief explaining that the numbers are a misreading of an ancient federal database. In other words, there’s no proof any of those “people” are getting monthly checks. But facts were not the point. The…

Donald Trump Chooses his words carefully when it comes to Taiwan. “I never comment on that,” the President said at the White House on Feb. 26 after being asked if the U.S. would ever allow China to forcefully take control of the self-governing island it claims as its own. “I don’t want to ever put myself in that position,” he said. AMBIGUITY Avoiding clarity isn’t a new approach—the U.S. has long observed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan—but observers say there are other clues as to how the Trump Administration may deal with Taiwan. Recent dealings with Ukraine, for example, reflect a transactional approach to foreign policy and conflict resolution. Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te said his government “is willing to cooperate with the U.S. in every aspect” and…

Clarksburg, W.Va., has lead pipes scattered throughout the city, which has caused elevated levels of lead in some children’s blood, resulting in health issues like developmental delays. In 2023, the environmental-justice division of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced a new program designed to increase lead testing for local children and families so that officials could catch elevated lead levels early and prevent long-term health complications. Partnering with cash-strapped state agencies, the EPA bought kits that could measure lead levels in children with just a finger prick, gave out gift cards to incentivize testing, and offered testing opportunities in offices where families picked up benefits and received breastfeeding support. The program invested $150,000 in lead-testing kits for Harrison County, where Clarksburg is located, which raised testing rates in children from…

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, many states have moved to protect the right to abortion, and several have turned to a new tool to do so: abortion shield laws. Enacted in 18 states and Washington, D.C., abortion shield laws are “novel protections,” according to Lizzy Hinkley, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which helped draft some of them. The laws are meant to protect providers practicing in states where abortion is legal, from civil and criminal actions taken by states with bans or restrictions on abortion. The laws also cover patients and people who help a patient access abortion. The protections vary by state, but can include the shield state’s refusal to comply with another state’s…

Extinction is typically for good; When it comes to the woolly mammoth, however, that rule has now been bent. It’s been 4,000 years since the elephant-like beast walked the earth, but part of its DNA now operates inside several litters of mice created by scientists at the Dallas-based Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences. The mice don’t have their characteristic short, gray-brown coat, but rather the long, wavy, woolly hair of the mammoth. They also have the beast’s accelerated fat metabolism, which helped it survive earth’s last ice age. Both traits are the result of gene editing that Colossal’s scientists hope will hasten the reappearance of the mammoth itself as early as 2028. Colossal has been working on restoring the mammoth ever since the company’s founding in 2021. The animal’s relatively recent…