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Sexual Harassment at the U.N.

24.08-31.08.2018
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INTERNATIONAL EDITION
AUGUST 24-31, 2018 _ VOL.171 _ NO.06
FEATURES
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

Even John Boehner is now extolling the
health beneits of marijuana. It might have
something to do with hooking young voters.
20 30
What Are Dust to Dust
COVER CREDIT Republicans India’s killer drought has
Photograph by Federico Borella
Smoking? claimed the lives of over 59,000
farmers. With temperatures
Suddenly conservatives
rising, the fear is that
are high on legalizing
suicide rates will climb.
cannabis.
For more headlines, go to
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Photo illust rat ion by C . J . B U R T O N 1

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR _ Michael Goesele
INTERNATIONAL EDITION DEPUTY EDITORS _ Mary Kaye Schilling,
AUGUST 24-31, 2018 _ VOL.171 _ NO.06 R.M. Schneiderman

SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR _ Fred Guterl
OPINION EDITOR _ Laura Davis
EDITORIAL
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06 Yangzhou, China P. 14
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Adult Swim talk show
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host Eric Andre, a Argentina The Long Activist Owen Matthews
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lifelong Simpsons
fan, is voicing a
Hopes Dashed Arm of Peter Staley Coordinating Editor _ Jeff Perlah
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Groening’s new show,
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Rewind
The Archives
He had appeared on our cover many times before, but never
1998 like this. As President Bill Clinton prepared to testify about an
“improper physical relationship” with Monica Lewinsky, Jonathan Alter’s
cover story deconstructed his dual sides: “the responsible one with his
sleeves rolled up,” and “the heedless one with another piece of clothing
apparently zipped down.” Newsweek correctly predicted that Clinton’s
presidency would survive the scandal; the man, however, might be “recalled
by future generations mainly when the subject is sex.”
1957
Pat Boone—the “wholesome 23-year-old
who thinks vocal art means singing, not
writhing” was on his way to being the
second-most popular singer of the late ’50s,
after Elvis Presley. If you asked Frank
Sinatra (which we did), “Boone is better….
He’s the one who will last longer.” Well, true:
Boone is 84, Elvis is 41 years gone.
CLO C KW ISE FROM LEFT: RO N HAV IV SABA; ED WE RGELE S; ILLUSTR ATION BY BILL NELSON
1981
The adolescent home delivery system
promised “a brave new world…that will
enable the viewer to shop, bank and vote
with his television set.” Curiously, the
story didn’t mention MTV, launched that
same month. It did highlight the rise of
pay-per-view pornography—TV’s “hottest
controversy”—and one thrilling innovation:
a nationwide 24-hour “Weather Channel.”
4 NEWSWEEK.COM AU G U S T 31, 2018

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In Focus THE NEWS IN PICTURES
6 AU G U S T 31, 2 018
YANGZHOU, CHINA
Dunk in
Doughnuts
The country’s high humidity continued to lure
throngs of people to a Jiangsu province water
park on August 5. Only one person (and a leg)
ventured outside the designated swimming
area—an impressive example of crowd control.
AFP
AFP/GET T Y
7
In Focus
COX’S BAZAR, BANGLADESH BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA SDEROT, ISRAEL
A Moment of Peace Comfort, No Joy A Striking Attack

A Rohingya boy stands on a ishing Pro-choice activists console The Iron Dome air defense system ires at rockets
boat at the Shamlapur camp on one another outside the launched from the Gaza Strip on August 9.
August 9. Hundreds of thousands National Congress on August 9, Although more than 30 rockets were intercepted
of Rohingya Muslims have led minutes after a bill to legalize by the Israelis, several exploded inside the
their homes in neighboring abortion—approved by the country, severely wounding one woman.
Myanmar, where the military is lower house in June—was Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks,
accused of horriic acts of violence. rejected by senators. including the son of a Hamas commander.
CHANDAN KHANNA EITAN ABRAMOVICH AMIR COHEN
8 NEWSWEEK.COM AU G U S T 31, 2 018

CLO CKWISE FROM LEFT: CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/GET T Y; EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/GET T Y; AMIR COHEN/REUTERS
NEWSWEEK.COM
9
Periscope NEWS, OPINION + ANALYSIS
PROTEST ART
“My activism has
always been based
on optimism. I truly
believe that activism
means overcoming
pessimism.”
“The cultural norms are about not

questioning authority.” » P.16
POLITICS
Soul
Survivor
Senator Jesse Helms called Peter Staley a
‘radical homosexual,’ like that’s a bad thing: He saved
millions of lives during the AIDS crisis. A new
memoir could double as a blueprint for today’s activists
on a fall day in 1988, at the height of for AIDS research and the tripling of the National
the AIDS epidemic, hundreds of activists Institutes of Health research budget in three years.”
descended on the Food and Drug Administration In the three decades since, Staley, 57, has helped
headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. Blocking the save millions of lives (including his own), with ACT
doors and walkways, they chanted, “Hey, hey, FDA, UP and then TAG (the Treatment Action Group),
how many people have you killed today?” his nonprofit focused on accelerating treatment
The death toll in America had reached nearly research, founded in 1991. Once again, Staley knew
62,000 people, and the protesters were demand- how to make headlines: At a TAG launch event, he
ing that drugs be developed and approved faster. draped a giant condom over the house of North
“A friend launched me onto the overhang of the Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms, an out-
front door of the building,” says Peter Staley, who spoken opponent of AIDS research. The massive
hung a huge banner with the now-iconic slogan, sheath read, “A condom to stop unsafe politics—
“Silence = death.” Helms is deadlier than a virus.” (Years later, Staley
As a member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to revealed that the event was sponsored by entertain-
Unleash Power), Staley was among those leading ment mogul David Geffen.)
the protest. He was 27 at the time and had been Long an icon of the LGBT community, Staley
diagnosed with AIDS three years earlier. Staley was became a national star with the release of How to
TOP RI G HT: MAC MI NI /G E T T Y
certain the disease would kill him too. Survive a Plague, David France’s 2012
That day at the FDA was the begin- Oscar-nominated documentary, in
ning of changing the hearts and BY
which he is featured prominently.
minds of the American people, he says A moving portrait of the power of
now. “We gave them a gigantic guilt KASHMIRA GANDER protest, Plague shows how ACT UP
trip, and that led to federal dollars @kashmiragander members like Staley and their relent-
Photog raph by C E L E S T E S L O M A N NEWSWEEK.COM 11

Periscope POLITICS
less pressure on government agen- no viable treatment and the mysteri- extra months or years. That’s all we
cies transformed the way drugs were ous disease was killing young, pre- did.” He and his ACT UP comrades
researched in the U.S. and sped up dominantly gay men and intravenous lived as though they might die tomor-
the rollout of AIDS treatments. drug users in slow and horrifying row: “We didn’t know if we’d see the
Now, Staley is writing his memoir ways. The challenge was to make the fruits of our activism.”
(due in 2019 from Chicago Review country care about a group rejected Staley was on his way to work
Press), not only to document his and feared by much of America. That when he was handed a flyer for the
“wild ride” in the AIDS movement but required gaining the public’s atten- first demonstration. For a “crazy”
also because he fears that democracy, tion with often sensational methods. year, he was a Wall Street bond trader
liberalism and pluralism are under As a former J.P. Morgan bond by day, radical activist at night. “It
threat in a way they haven’t been in trader (his brother is the CEO of Bar- took a collapse in my immune system
decades. Social activism can create clays bank), Staley was an unlikely to force my decision to go full-time
remarkable change when the world radical, but he was a longtime trou- activist,” says Staley.
feels like a “very scary place,” he says. blemaker. “I was a bit of a prankster By 1991, AIDS was killing more
“My activism has always been based in high school,” he says. He joined J.P. young men than almost any other
on optimism, and I truly believe that Morgan after college, and two years disease in the U.S., and Staley was
C LO CKWISE FROM LEFT: BU RAZIN/GET T Y; BET TMANN A RCHIVE/G ET T Y; SHEPARD SHERBELL/CORBIS SABA/GET T Y; SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
activism means overcoming pessi- later received his diagnosis. “When learning that protest is a long game.
mism. That’s what I hope comes out people are handed a death sentence, Helms supported the politicians
of this memoir.” there are two paths they can take,” he who defined AIDS as a “gay plague”—
Consider that ACT UP accom- says. “They can curl up and wait for punishment for what they regarded
plished radical change without the the inevitable, or they can fight for as immoral behavior. Those with the
benefit of social media. Indeed, it disease were therefore unworthy of
is often used as a blueprint to effec- having tax dollars spent on research-
tively change policy through pro- ing life-saving drugs. “We have got to
test. “There are many, many lessons
for today’s activists [from that era],
“We turned our call a spade a spade and a perverted
human being a perverted human
regardless of what they’re fighting grief and anger into being,” Helms told the Senate in
for,” says Staley. “I’m a loyal and angry action” as one of 1988. He was backing a bill denying
member of today’s resistance.”
the most despised federal funding to AIDS programs
and argued that such programs “pro-
act up was founded in march 1987, communities in the mote, encourage or condone homo-
and AIDS activism obviously has a country. sexual activities.”
very different face today. Those in As one of the most despised
their 20s are savvier politically and groups in the country, “we turned
better organized, and thanks to the our grief and anger into action,” says
preventive drug pre-exposure pro- Staley. Yet the death toll kept climb-
phylaxis (PrEP), the disease no longer ing; campaigners were winning the
equals death. Lobbying lawmakers to battle but losing the war.
ensure treatments are widely acces- By 1997, over 6.4 million people
sible has replaced headline-worthy had died worldwide. It wasn’t until
stunts. And protesting has become 1998 (a decade after ACT UP’s FDA
less effective than regional cam- protest) that scientists came up with
paigns, like the one that persuaded the cocktail of drugs that would pre-
Mayor Bill de Blasio to make New vent HIV from replicating and devel-
York the first U.S. city to pilot needle oping into AIDS. With that discovery,
exchanges, preventing the spread of “the death rate in U.S. and Europe
HIV and other contagious diseases dropped by 80 percent in one year,”
among drug users. says Staley, “which was an extraordi-
But when ACT UP began, there was nary medical advance.” Most notably,
12 NEWSWEEK.COM AU G U S T 31 , 2 018
Staley is still an activist. He and his

partner and their dog divide their
WAR OF WORDS time between rural Pennsylvania and
Clockwise from
top: A 1987 ACT
an apartment in New York City’s West
UP demonstration; Village, not far from where ACT UP
Senator Helms, who first recruited him. There’s still plenty
opposed federal
funding for AIDs
to be done: He and his TAG colleagues
research; clean continue to push for increased test-
syringes at a needle- ing; they help the HIV-positive find
exchange center in
Queens, New York.
treatment and make sure PrEP is
available for the most at-risk com-
munities, including gay people,
African-American men and trans
people—all those disproportionately
affected because of a prejudiced sys-
tem, says Staley. “We could end AIDS
today if we made the effort, and that’s
the huge change from the early years,”
says Staley.
He sees groups like Black Lives Mat-
ter as the descendants of ACT UP, but
he has mixed feelings about the inter-
net and social media. “They should
be viewed as very powerful tools but
not as your solo platform,” he says.
“There is nothing that replaces get-
ting a group of like minds in a room
and brainstorming how to change
the world. If you try to replace that
by staying at home on the computer,
you’ll never get anything done.”
The pro-gun control teenagers
of the March for Our Lives cam-
the release of HIV-blocking protease them to fellow patients, including a paign—who combine the reach of
inhibitors (used in PrEP) meant that trans woman played by Jared Leto. social media with traditional boots-
you could be exposed to the virus that Staley is rumored to have salvaged on-the-ground activism—have filled
causes AIDS and survive. the initial script, which he admits was him with real hope. “I think they are
Staley’s moments in How to Survive troubling (he is listed as a consultant). extraordinary,” he says. “They are
a Plague are memorable, particularly When the movie was released, critics showing wisdom beyond their years.”
footage of his brilliant evisceration complained of the inaccurate depic- This is “a terribly frightening time”
of Pat Buchanan, Ronald Reagan’s tion of Woodroof ’s life, as well as the to be alive, he says, with legitimate
LO G O ON P I N: C OURT E SY O F ACT UP
White House director of communica- casting of a cisgender, straight man to fears about the rise of nationalism and
tions, during a televised debate. It led play a trans woman. even fascism, both here and around
to an invitation to appear in the 2013 Staley, who found the final film the world. But Staley, ever the optimist,
Oscar-winning film Dallas Buyers Club. underwhelming, considers it a vic- is convinced that the just shall over-
That film is about AIDS patient Ron tory of sorts. “A major Hollywood come. “Social movements are always
Woodroof (played by Matthew McCo- AIDS movie is pretty rare,” he says, “so two steps forward, one step back,” he
naughey), who smuggled unapproved when one gets made and wins Oscars, says. “We are in an inevitable path
drugs into the U.S. and distributed it’s a plus for the cause.” towards greater equality.”
NEWSWEEK.COM 13
Periscope
O P I N ION
Foreign
Correspondent
President Trump has taken aim at the sanctity
of democracy. Putin provided the gun
what’s the most worrisome In fact, Trump has it backward.

foreign intrusion into the Illegal immigration isn’t the problem
United States: unauthorized immi- he makes it out to be. Illegal border
grants, Chinese imports or interfer- crossings have been declining for
ence in our democracy? years. And if the Chinese want to con-
For President Donald Trump, it’s tinue to send us cheap imports that
immigrants and imports. He doesn’t we pay for with U.S. dollars and our
care much about the third. “Border own IOUs, that’s as much of a poten-
security is national security,” Trump tial problem for them as it is for us.
said on July 13 as he threatened a But Russian attacks on our democ-
government shutdown if Congress racy are a clear and present threat
didn’t come up with money to build aimed at the heart of America. Face-
a wall along the Mexican border (at book recently announced it had
an estimated cost of uncovered a major dis-
between $21 billion and information campaign
$80 billion). Meanwhile, BY
with the hallmarks of
Tr u m p o r d e r e d h i s the same Kremlin-linked
administration to con- ROBERT REICH Internet Research Agency
sider raising tariff rates @RBReich responsible for election
already proposed on interference in 2016.
$200 billion of Chinese goods, from Trump’s own Department of Home-
10 percent to 25 percent, prompting land Security found that in the 2016
China to threaten higher tariffs on presidential race, Russian hackers tried
$60 billion more of American goods. to breach election systems in at least 21 “Russians are looking
Yet Trump continues to assert that states, likely scanned systems in all 50 for every opportunity
talk of Russian meddling in Amer-
ican elections is “a big hoax.” And
states, stole the private information of
hundreds of thousands of people, and
to continue their efforts
his White House still has no plan for infiltrated a company that supplies vot- to undermine our
dealing with it. On August 1, Senate ing software across the nation. These fundamental values.”
Republicans rejected a Democratic findings led to the July indictment of
proposal to spend $250 million to 12 Russian intelligence officers.
replace outdated election equipment The meddling continues. Kirstjen machines. FBI Director Christopher
and upgrade election security ahead Nielsen, secretary of homeland secu- Wray warns that “Russia…continues
of the midterms. House Republi- rity, sees Russia’s ongoing “willing- to engage in malign influence opera-
cans voted down a similar measure. ness and a capability” to hack into tions to this day.” Dan Coats, director
Trump didn’t threaten to shut down the American election infrastruc- of national intelligence, says that the
the government over this. ture, including voter rolls and voting “Russians are looking for every oppor-
UNCONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
Trump seems to care more about
unauthorized immigrants and
Chinese imports than protecting
our most precious legacy.
Trump’s pockets. When Congress

threatened to reinstate the penal-
ties on ZTE, Hogan Lovells turned
its sights on lawmakers. The firm’s
political action committee made fat
donations to legislators who had the
power to reduce the penalties. The
strategy seems to have paid off. On
August 1, the Senate passed a bill con-
taining far weaker sanctions on ZTE
than lawmakers originally intended.
All this raises the fundamen-
tal question of what we mean by
national security. Yes, our borders
should be secure, and yes, our trad-
ing partners should play fair. But the
essence of America—the attribute
we must hold most secure because
it defines who we are and what we
strive for—is a system of government
“of the people, by the people, for the
people,” as Lincoln put it. If Putin
or a Kremlin-connected Ukrainian
strongman or even a giant Chinese
company undermines this, they rob
us of our most precious legacy.
Trump seems to care more about
FROM L EFT: MIKHAIL SVETLOV/GE T T Y; FABRIC E C OFFR INI/AFP/GE T T Y
unauthorized immigrants and Chinese

tunity…to continue their pervasive spring after Chinese telecom giant imports than about the sanctity of our
efforts to undermine our fundamen- ZTE was caught red-handed violating democracy. This is a tragic mistake.
tal values.” international sanctions on Iran. When
Russia isn’t the only foreign source the Commerce Department imposed Ơ Robert Reich is the chancellor’s pro-
of danger to our democracy. The trial penalties on the company, ZTE hired fessor of public policy at the University
of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former the big Washington law firm Hogan of California, Berkeley, and a senior
campaign chairman, reveals another. Lovells. The Trump administration fellow at the Blum Center for Develop-
Manafort is accused of hiring a small then lifted the sanctions. ing Economies. He served as secretary
army of American lawyers and lobby- The timing was curious. Just before of labor in the Clinton administration,
ists from both parties to influence U.S. Trump came to ZTE’s rescue, Chinese and Time magazine named him one
lawmakers on behalf of Viktor Yanu- state enterprises agreed to give $500 of the 10 most effective Cabinet secre-
kovych, a Kremlin-connected former million in loans to a project in Indo- taries of the 20th century. His latest
Ukrainian strongman, and hiding the nesia that included Trump-branded documentary, Saving Capitalism, is
money. hotels, residences and golf courses— streaming on Netflix, and his new book,
Another example occurred last funneling millions of dollars into The Common Good, is available now.
Photo illust rat ion by G L U E K I T NEWSWEEK.COM 15

Periscope
alleged victim who filed the original

accusation. Speaking from her home
in London, Sanghera calls Karkara “a
predator” and says that “what’s finally
coming to light is a long pattern of
inappropriate sexual behavior.”
Aashish Khullar, the former orga-
nizing partner of the United Nations
Major Group for Children and Youth,
says he personally spoke with “seven
or eight” young men who reported
varying levels of sexual misconduct
by Karkara. He also spoke with inves-
tigators from the U.N. Development
Programme’s Office of Audit and
SCANDAL Investigation. Reached by phone in
Boston, he says, “There was a prevailing
A Cancer in
sense among all who had worked with
him that misconduct was his modus
operandi. No one was surprised when
the U.N.’s Corridors this was formally raised.”
Eight men have accused a senior adviser of sexual ‘PREPARE…AND PRACTICE’
misconduct. He’s still on the payroll. steve lee, a 25-year-old policy

activist who has addressed the
United Nations and was a member
of the Major Group for Children and
the united nations entity men. The sexual misconduct allega- Youth, is among Karkara’s accusers.
for Gender Equality and the tions include obscene comments and Lee spoke to Newsweek and gave his
Empowerment of Women, also gestures, and touching or grabbing a name in hopes that the U.N. would
known as U.N. Women, is the young- subordinate’s genitals in a hotel room. invest more in sexual harassment
est division of the U.N., founded in Karkara is also being investigated for policy enforcement, as well as human
2011, to set global standards for seek- nonsexual harassment and abuse of resources and hiring practices.
ing gender equality. power with subordinates, both in and Lee originally met Karkara in
So it was jarring to learn of an out of the workplace. (Karkara did not 2009, as a 16-year-old delegate for
ongoing 13-month sexual misconduct respond to requests for comment UNICEF. They were just acquain-
investigation into a senior adviser. A starting in December 2017.) The U.N.’s tances until January 2016, when Kar-
U.N. Women spokesperson did not sexual assault spokeswoman, Purna kara invited Lee to join a policy group
name the subject of the investigation Sen, said the organization has “a job he co-chaired. As Lee began to work
but acknowledged the individual is of work to do” to reform its culture more closely with U.N. Women and
still on its payroll, though “not cur- and restore trust. Karkara’s group, he began to feel both
rently performing any active function.” Mandy Sanghera grateful and uncomfortable. Lee says
But Newsweek has learned, from and Kerry Gibson, he was naïve, a devout Christian who
five sources with knowledge of the international human BY was inexperienced in relationships—
investigation, that the subject is Ravi rights activists and facts that Karkara would harp on, in
RORY LAVERTY
Karkara, senior adviser to an assistant U.N. Women Planet texts, by Skype, on social media and
@rorylaverty
U.N. secretary-general, and that he is 50-50 Champions, every time they saw each other. Lee
accused of using his prestige and posi- tell the magazine it JAMES LAPORTA says the two men met up at 10 events
tion to sexually harass at least eight was Gibson and an @JimLaPorta in New York City and across Canada
“This is an elitist can do this and they can’t really do

anything about it.”
U.N.-related events in other cities
around the world. National secu-
organization that was Lee pulled away and was leaving the rity lawyer Mark Zaid, an expert in
very hush-hush about room when Karkara asked a disturb- international law, says diplomats
everything on the ing question: Was I your first? are usually “the best of the best of
their country,” which makes this
pretense of protecting COMMAND AND CONTROL U.N. probe into a senior staffer more
the greater entity.” the news of a sexual misconduct notable and surprising. “There’s a big
investigation into a senior official difference between U.N. peacekeep-
comes at a precarious time for the ers and U.N. diplomats,” he says. “The
United Nations. The Guardian and peacekeepers, they are basically some
over the next 15 months. PBS’s Frontline have investigated U.N. local nation’s military who could
At one point, Lee drove several peacekeepers this year over the sex- be completely uneducated and just
hours from Ottawa to Montreal to ual abuse of vulnerable people in war as brutal as anybody else. I would
clock in with Karkara, whom Lee con- zones. Frontline identified more than hope to never see it or hear about it,
sidered his mentor. Karkara, in town 2,000 victims worldwide and con- especially from Blue Helmets, but it
to speak at McGill University, was cluded that it is hard for those victims wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
staying at the Hotel Omni Mont-Royal, to get help, with the “unacceptable” But when you tell me about an actual
and, Lee tells Newsweek, he helped him U.N. response falling short of justice. diplomat? That’s a problem.”
to his room with his luggage. When Karkara’s sexual misconduct probe, Purna Sen, appointed for a six-
the door closed, Karkara and Lee by contrast, is looking inside the U.N. month position at U.N. Women in
were alone, which made Lee nervous. headquarters in New York and into March, would not comment on Kar-
Whenever they were isolated, he says, kara or the investigation. But she says
Karkara would make inappropriate she was saddened during her first
remarks and gestures, sometimes BLUE MAN GROUP U.N. troops in three months on the job to hear so
Juba, South Sudan. PBS’s Frontline has
asking for oral sex—the implication identiied , icti s o se ual a use many horror stories from U.N. staff-
being that it was payback for all that orld ide at t e ands o eacekee ers ers, most of them female. “I would
Karkara had done for him. In screen-
shots viewed by Newsweek, Karkara
texted Lee on WhatsApp: “Prepare.
“Practice. See videos…and send me links
that you like.”
In the Montreal hotel room, Kar-
kara asked Lee, Do you look at porn?
What kind? What do you think of it?
Are you sexually active? Do you mas-
FROM L EFT: PANACE A D O LL/GET T Y; GILES C LARKE/GET T Y
turbate? Have you been practicing?

Lee says he laughed and asked the
senior diplomat to please stop talking
that way. Karkara had grabbed Lee’s
laptop and was looking through it.
When Lee reached across to take it
back, Karkara grabbed Lee’s genitals
through his pants.
“He does this with a lot of young
men, and I don’t really think it’s sex-
ual favors he’s looking for,” says Lee.
“He enjoys the fact that he’s at a posi-
tion of such high authority that he
NEWSWEEK.COM 17
Periscope SCANDAL
argue there’s a link between the sexual INEXPERIENCE, AMBITION AND FEAR shut. “The perception at least was that
exploitation that goes on with civil- on december 16, 2017, u.n. women if you’re shunned out of the space,
ians and others outside the U.N. and issued a press release that announced then you won’t be able to continue
what goes on within the U.N.,” Sen tells an internal sexual misconduct inves- your advocacy,” she adds. “You might
Newsweek. “There are cultural issues tigation into an unnamed “staff be ruining your career chances.”
in common with this organizational member.” Sanghera and Gibson tell Karkara worked at U.N. Women
behavior.” Newsweek the probe actually began under Lakshmi Puri, the then–U.N.
To move forward and regain the almost six months before that release, assistant secretary-general for inter-
trust of its staffers, says Sen, the in June 2017, when the Office of Audit governmental support and strategic
U.N. needs to limit confidentiality and Investigation interviewed the partnerships. Puri was appointed
restraints on witnesses and victims in first alleged victim. After issuing the by then–U.N. Secretary-General
internal investigations and institute December release, U.N. Women said Ban Ki-Moon in March 2011. Her
greater transparency, accountabil- it “recognizes the gravity with which husband, Hardeep Singh Puri, is a
ity and timeliness in its hiring and such cases should be treated.” top Indian government official and
investigations processes. The U.N.’s Many of the U.N.’s lower-level staff- senior adviser to Indian Prime Min-
emphasis on seniority and hierarchy ers and interns are 16 to 23 years old, ister Narendra Modi.
makes sexual misconduct problems with little professional experience. Four sources close to the investiga-
worse, she adds, especially when One such former staffer, now the tion tell Newsweek that they perceived
investigators are seen to be close to executive director of a nongovernmen- Karkara to be almost untouchable
senior leaders and other people being tal organization, says she started like because of his close relationship with
investigated. them, in what would later be called the Puris and that alleged victims kept
“I do think there are big questions U.N. Women. “Imagine what it’s like,” quiet because they feared retaliation. A
about making due process work for she says. “You’re an 18-year-old person, U.N. Women spokesperson says Puri’s
victims,” she says. “There’s growing you come from maybe an underprivi- resignation in January 2018 was not
evidence that organizations which leged area of the world, it’s your first related to the sexual misconduct inves-
have a command and control struc- time to New York, it’s your first time tigation and had to do with supporting
ture with a particularly strong hierar- in the [U.N.] corridors that you have her husband’s political career in India.
chy are witnessing a higher number of aspired to. You feel like you’re chang- Karkara stopped posting to his
sexual harassment reports that are not ing the world—you’re making a huge social media accounts in December
dealt with, because the cultural norms difference—and then you come across 2017, but he still casts a long shadow
are about not questioning authority, this individual who on one hand tells online. He has years of experience
about some degree of excusal from you he can open all the doors but on working on youth issues for inter-
examination, and some of that is the other hand behaves inappropri- national diplomatic organizations,
reflected inside the U.N. too.” ately. What are you left to do? Who are including the U.N., where he was
Gibson, the U.N. Women 50-50 you going to talk to if there is no clear an expert adviser on children and
Champion and president of Eco- mechanism to do that?” youth issues in the Partners and
Century Technologies in Vancouver, She says inexperience, ambition Youth Branch of the United Nations
British Columbia, says the “patri- and fear keep young people’s mouths Human Settlements Programme (aka
archal and hierarchical” nature of U.N.-Habitat) and a global adviser on
the United Nations makes it ripe youth for the program. Earlier, he
for misconduct by the powerful. worked as a youth issues consultant
“There’s an entire culture within the
United Nations that allowed this to
“There was a with UNICEF and Save the Children.
In 2014, the government of Sri Lanka
happen,” Gibson says. “This is an prevailing sense appointed him a global adviser to the
elitist organization that was very among all who had World Conference on Youth.
hush-hush about everything on the
pretense of protecting the greater
worked with him that In August 2017, with the U.N.
investigation into his conduct
entity. That allowed for many scan- misconduct was his already underway, Karkara attended
dalous behaviors to occur.” modus operandi.” and gave a keynote address to a Youth
UNITED FRONT e atriarc al and

ierarc ical nature o t e , sa
critics, akes it ri e or a use o o er
senior sta ers like arkara elo
tary manslaughter and sentenced to

between seven and 21 years.
While diplomatic immunity can be
waived by the U.N. or by a diplomat’s
home country (as in the Makharadze
case), Zaid says it is extremely rare for
either entity to do so, because it means
allowing free range for prosecution by
local authorities. “The level of diplo-
matic immunity [a U.N. staffer] has is
obviously going to make a difference,”
he says. “It is possible [such a staffer] is
immune from prosecution from any
crimes, up to and including murder.”
United Nations policy, at least, is
clear. The Standards of Conduct pol-
icy forbids sexual harassment and has
“zero tolerance” for sexual abuse and
exploitation, including “any actual or
threatened physical intrusion of a sex-
ual nature, whether by force or under
unequal or coercive conditions; any
Assembly held at the U.N. headquar- actual or attempted abuse of position
ters in New York. of vulnerability, differential power
The Office of Audit and Investiga- or trust, for sexual purposes.… This
tion probe is now in its 14th month. includes acts of transactional sex,
Karkara was offered the opportunity solicitation of transactional sex, and
to be interviewed; it’s not known exploitative relationships.”
whether he spoke to the investiga- Purna Sen says the U.N. should be
tors. At the conclusion of the probe, above reproach and set an example
the audit and investigation office will for other hierarchical institutions on
FROM TOP: PHIL ROE DER/GET T Y; DE VRA BERKOWITZ/UN PHOTO
submit its findings to the U.N. Devel- how to adapt to a new era. “It should
opment Programme’s Legal Support be a beacon, it should be leading,” she
Office for possible further action. the subject, Zaid, the national security says. “The values of dignity, respect
Like all high-level U.N. officials and lawyer, says. “The U.S. could declare and autonomy need to filter through
staff members, Karkara, who has not him persona non grata and require the fabric of everything we do. I think
been charged with any crime, likely him to leave the country.” we are very much wanting.”
has immunity from state or federal Zaid recalls a 1997 case in which the
charges, and even from civil liability, Republic of Georgia waived diplomatic Ơ How to get help: In the U.S., call
under the authority of the United immunity for Gueorgui Makharadze, the National Sexual Assault Hotline:
Nations or of his home country, India. the first secretary of Georgia’s embassy 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). For
For those reasons, he could avoid pun- in Washington, D.C., after he killed a international assistance, the
ishment. In diplomatic immunity Maryland teenager while driving University of Minnesota has produced
cases, the only legal action available drunk. Makharadze was tried in fed- a handbook on s exual assault
to the host country is the expulsion of eral court, pleaded guilty to involun- resources, available on its website.
NEWSWEEK.COM 19
WHAT
ARE
REPUB
SM
AU G U S T 31 , 2 018
LICANS
SMOKING? Die-hard conservatives like John Boehner and Greg Abbott
are suddenly high on the legalization of cannabis. Is it about the potential
health benefits, as they suggest, or hooking young voters?
BY Alexandra Hutzler
ILL U STR ATIO N S BY ALE X FINE
NEWSWEEK.COM 21
ason isaac, a fourth-

generation Texan and conservative
state representative, has a clear memo-
ry of his first mind-expanding encoun-
ter with marijuana.
It was January 2015, and the Texas
state Capitol building was swarming
with lawmakers returning to work. Two
women were sitting on the stairwell
opposite his office, waiting for him. He
sat down with the pair—his constitu-
ents—and heard their stories. One had
a child with intractable epilepsy, the
other a child with severe autism. Both
said their young kids suffered uncontrol-
lable seizures, hurting themselves and family
members. Prescription medications had consistently
failed to treat the symptoms. The moms were asking
for the freedom to try something new. Cannabidiol
(CBD)—a chemical compound in marijuana that
does not make people high—is believed to alleviate
seizures. But giving it to their children in any form
would put the women on the wrong side of Texas law.
And raising the issue, Isaac knew, would put him
FROM TOP: ROBERT A LTMAN/M IC H A E L O C HS ARC HIVE S/GET T Y; RIC KY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST/GET T Y
on the wrong side of the Republican Party.
For decades, marijuana legalization was a non-
starter in Washington, and particularly in Repub- seizures. A viral video showed the girl repeatedly
lican politics. In a viewpoint still embodied by At- punching herself in the face until her father admin-
torney General Jeff Sessions, the party considered istered the drug. She calmed down almost instantly.
cannabis a dangerous gateway drug; it contributed “Do you think he’s a criminal?” Isaac asked his col-
to the degradation of Christian morals and needed leagues after presenting the video during a 2017
to be controlled through strict policing. “Good peo- legislative session. “Because the state of Texas does.”
ple don’t smoke marijuana,” Sessions has said. Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas,
Just a few years ago, being a conservative lawmak- signed the Compassionate Use Act into law later that
er and wanting to talk about marijuana made you year. It allowed qualifying patients to have access to
an outsider, and to support legalization was a kind low-tetrahydrocannabinol cannabis. (THC is the
of political suicide, seen as an abandonment of the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.)
Republican Party’s deeply entrenched identification Then, at the state’s 2018 Republican Party conven-
with traditional values and the war on drugs. And tion in San Antonio in June, nearly 10,000 conser-
nowhere was that stigma more intense than in Texas. vative politicians voted to revise the party platform
But as state experimentation with legalization on marijuana. The changes included supporting
grew, media coverage of marijuana’s supposed industrial hemp, decriminalizing small amounts of
health benefits increased, and public opinion and marijuana possession and urging the federal govern-
demographics shifted, Republicans—some of whom ment to reclassify cannabis from a Schedule 1 to a
had touted their hard-line stances as unalterable— Schedule 2 drug.
began to soften. These planks, while still some of the most con-
In another case that moved Isaac, Child Pro- servative approaches to marijuana policy in the
tective Services investigated a father for giving his country, were a marked departure from the party’s
17-year-old daughter marijuana vapor during violent position a few years prior. And they’re indicative of
POLICY
the transformation happening with Republican vot- A ‘Culture Under Attack’

ers and officials nationwide. republicans—especially texans—have a long
The motives are mixed. Some, like Isaac, were history of trying to eliminate marijuana. El Paso was
moved by arguments about its medical uses. For oth- the first city in the United States to ban the drug,
THIS BUD’S FOR YOU ers, the shift is an attempt at criminal justice reform approving a measure in 1914 strictly prohibiting the
A member of a 1969 Be-In after years of racial discrimination. Some conserva- sale or possession of cannabis in any form. It was the
at Golden Gate Park in tive lawmakers tout marijuana policy changes in state’s panicked response to the flood of immigrants
San Francisco. Phillip
and Kevin Goldberg the name of federalism and small government, and crossing the southern border, fleeing the upheaval of
of Green Leaf Medical others say it might be the only bipartisan issue left the Mexican Revolution, leafy plant in hand.
tour t e o er roo o in Congress. Regardless, Republicans can’t deny that Soon, cannabis became a symbol of the fear of the
their Maryland facility,
ic ro s strains marijuana legalization is popular among younger, Spanish-speaking newcomers. It wasn’t long before
of medical marijuana. more diverse voters who could help the party survive. politicians and newspapers began calling Mexican
cannabis use a “marijuana menace.” A New York
Times article from July 1927 highlighted the sup-
posed plight of a widowed mother who allegedly
went mad from marijuana use, running under the
headline “Mexican Family Go Insane.”
The drug became federally defined as a Sched-
ule 1 narcotic in the early 1970s, just as African-
Americans gained greater equality through the civil
rights movement. Prosecutions of nonviolent drug
offenses decimated black communities, and today
nearly 80 percent of people in federal prison for
drug offenses are black or Latino. Over 50 percent
of all drug arrests in 2010 were marijuana-related.
Few issues move quickly in Washington, D.C., but
experts and lawmakers generally agree that support
for marijuana grew improbably fast: Since 2012,
about 30 states have legalized marijuana in some
form, and nine states have allowed recreational
use. Residents of Washington state can have legal
marijuana delivered to their front door as easily as
“Do you think he’s a CRIMINAL?”

Isaac asked his colleagues about a father
who administered medical marijuana
to his daughter. “Because the state
of Texas does.” — J A S O N I S A A C
NEWSWEEK.COM 23
POLICY
a pizza for dinner. Pot shops now outnumber Star- and Latino, were arrested for selling marijuana.
bucks stores in states such as Colorado and Oregon. Boehner tells Newsweek that during his tenure
William Weld, the former Republican governor of in the House he watched as state after state passed
Massachusetts, calls the sudden conservative change referendums approving the use of medical—or, in DEEP IN THE WEEDS
of heart on the drug a “tectonic shift.” And he would some cases, recreational—marijuana. Despite the Below: A medical grade
marijuana display at a
know. Weld now serves on the board of a cannabis spreading support, he says he never thought about MMJ Dispensary in Denver.
company alongside John Boehner, the former house doing anything at the federal level. As of February, Colorado
speaker who famously said in 2009 that he was “un- “But I kind of feel like I’m just like most of Ameri- has the largest number of
dispensaries in any state:
alterably opposed” to decriminalizing the drug. ca, who found myself adamantly opposed years ago 505 medical facilities
In April, Boehner and Weld announced their new and over the years have begun to change my outlook,” and 520 recreational.
JON PACIARONI/GET T Y; MAP : NEWSWEEK

I’m just like most of America
who found myself ADAMANTLY
opposed years ago and have
begun to change my
outlook. — J O H N B O E H N E R
role in Acreage Holdings, a multimillion-dollar cor-

poration involved in cultivating, processing and dis-
pensing operations across 12 states—with plans to
keep on expanding. The company touted the duo’s
“unmatched experience.”
Weld was a natural fit. The former governor
emerged as a lonely voice for marijuana policy
change in 1991. He was so alone in his support of
cannabis that national Republicans didn’t even both-
er to react. It would be decades before the grassroots
mobilization for legalization would seriously start to
turn heads in conservative circles.
Boehner, on the other hand, spent his career in
federal government as a formidable foe of marijua-
na. In 1999, he voted yes on prohibiting medical
cannabis in Washington, D.C., and told constitu-
ents he was vehemently opposed to legalization of
cannabis or any other Schedule 1 drug—a distinc-
tion marijuana shares with heroin and ecstasy. The
Ohio congressman reiterated his resistance in the
waning days of his tenure as speaker, in Septem-
ber 2015. In the four years that Boehner ran Con-
gress, nearly a half a million people, mostly black
ALTERED
WA
STATES
ME
MT ND
MN VT
OR
NH
ID
WI NY MA
SD
WY MI RI
IA PA CT
NE NJ
NV OH
IL IN DE
UT
WV LEGEND
CA CO MD
KS MS VA
KY DC Ơ None
NC
TN Ơ Marijuana is
AZ OK
NM AR SC decriminalized
to some degree.
MS AL GA
LA Ơ Medical
TX
marijuana
laws have been
AK FL enacted.
Ơ Allows
legalized
HI marijuana for
personal use.
he says. He didn’t think he would join the board at from California who championed his state’s legal-
Acreage Holdings, but he says he changed his mind ization effort, tells Newsweek he went through a
at the last minute because it’s “the right thing to do.” two-year stint in his early 20s of smoking weed on
(Boehner also likely stands to make a decent profit a regular basis. (Not every single day, he quickly clari-
from the venture as the marijuana market grows.) fied, joking that he was much more of a “tequila man”
Ninety-four percent of Americans support medi- than a pothead.) Rohrabacher says he hadn’t touched
cal marijuana, and two in every three adults say they the drug again until recently, when he used canna-
believe that cannabis should be legalized for recre- bidiol to ease the pain of a shoulder replacement.
ational adult use. Some recent polling shows over a Elected officials are quick to say the increase in
30 percent increase in marijuana favorability since support is a direct reflection of growing belief in
2000. Over 60 percent of Republican voters younger its health benefits. For decades, Rohrabacher notes,
than 40 approve of decriminalizing marijuana use, the singular federal lab responsible for conducting
though middle-aged conservatives are split down the marijuana research was at the University of Missis-
middle on legalization, and the older generation op- sippi. Now, more clinical labs are slowly popping up
poses it by more than two to one. around the country, testing things like how the drug
One of the simplest reasons for public support treats pain and its effect on everyday tasks, like driv-
of marijuana is that a lot of people use it. And those ing or using an iPad.
who don’t almost always know someone who does— Pot advocates preach the drug’s versatile uses.
sometimes even their elected Republican politicians. Adherents claim the plant can stimulate appetite,
Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative or serve as an anti-inflammatory, an analgesic or a
NEWSWEEK.COM 25
bronchodilator. Some say they need it to fall asleep ended up caught in the crossfire of what the con-
at night. Others even use it to cure problems as gressman calls the party’s “irrational reaction.”
harmless as the hiccups. But many of the rumored It doesn’t help, he adds, that Congress always re-
health benefits haven’t been scientifically tested, flects what the norms were a decade earlier. Today, it
as the drug’s illegal status makes research difficult. seems the government is catching up on a drug policy
Lawmakers who espouse the little-researched that Americans have wanted for years.
medical advantages, like Boehner and Rohrabacher,
say Republicans need to “get out of the way” and The ‘Federalism Experiment’
allow the scientific experimentation to take place. amid the flood of controversial comments
Even so, Rohrabacher’s admission of using canna- from Donald Trump on the 2016 campaign trail,
bidiol while in office was jarring. But the congress- marijuana advocates were heartened by his seem-
man says he has always believed that the conserva- ingly open-minded position on cannabis. In an in-
tive fight against the drug has never had anything terview on a small radio program in Michigan, he
to do with government or politics: It was a battle- said he supported medical marijuana. Any other pol-
ground of the culture wars. icy platform, he added, should be left up to the states.
“Frankly, I’m a Christian, and I lead a conservative After four months in the Oval Office, Trump made
lifestyle. I’m married, and I don’t cheat on my wife, his first statement as president about the issue of
and we have three lovely children,” Rohrabacher marijuana at the federal level. Desperate to get a
says, offering the defense anti-weed Republicans had $1.1 trillion spending bill passed, Trump approved
been using for decades. The counterculture move- a measure—created by Rohrabacher—that disal-
ment had alienated conservatives, and marijuana lowed the Department of Justice from prosecuting
POLICY
to press cases against pot growers, sellers or users

for violating federal law.
The posture outraged leading lawmakers in states
where residents had overwhelmingly voted to legal-
ize the drug. Senator Cory Gardner, a Colorado Re-
publican, vowed to block the president’s Department
of Justice nominees until he received a commitment
that his state’s rights would not be infringed. Gard-
ner tells Newsweek that in a sit-down meeting with
the president in April, Trump said leaving cannabis
laws up to the states was “the right thing to do and
that we’re not going back.”
Gardner then went on to create the Strengthen-
ing the 10th Amendment Through Entrusting States
(STATES) Act, along with Massachusetts Democratic
Senator Elizabeth Warren. The bill would eliminate
any federal prosecution of marijuana users or sell-
ers in states that had legally authorized such actions.
“We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up sup-
“GOOD PEOPLE don’t

smoke marijuana.”
— JEFF SESSIONS
medical marijuana businesses in states that legalized porting that, yes,” Trump told reporters in June,
the drug. The rest of 2017 proved to be fruitful for striking a big blow to Sessions.
the legal market, as sales hit nearly $10 billion—a 33 In a polarized era, the bill is impressively bipar-
FROM LEFT: SPENC ER PLAT T/GET T Y; DEU /GE T T Y
percent rise from 2016. tisan. Five conservatives and four liberals co-
Only Sessions stood in the way. Rohrabacher says sponsored the legislation in the Senate, including
the attorney general has been nothing short of a “ca- names you would never expect to be on the same
SMOKE SIGNALS
Above: Steps to a joint. tastrophe”; others say Sessions’s appointment was an side—like Jeff Flake and Cory Booker. It has signif-
Left: A woman at the 2016 obvious, immediate obstacle for any marijuana mar- icant “cross-cut appeal,” Gardner says. He hopes the
Democratic National ket. After all, Sessions once commented about the bill will gain momentum after the midterm elections.
Convention in Philadelphia.
Medical marijuana is Ku Klux Klan, “I thought those guys were OK until I But for Republicans, the effort to ensure states’
supported by 94 percent learned they smoked pot.” rights when it comes to marijuana policy is more
of Americans; two in every The former Alabama senator sent the industry important than a bipartisan collaboration. “It’s
three adults say cannabis
should be legalized for into a tailspin when he announced that federal a federalism experiment,” Gardner says. “Repub-
recreational adult use. prosecutors could decide for themselves whether licans who have long been champions of states’
NEWSWEEK.COM 27
POLICY
rights can choose this as a moment to prove it.”

What he means is that conservatives can finally
showcase the success of small government. Libertari-
ans, Republicans and right-wing traditionalists hope
the bottom-up nature of marijuana policy changes
will pave the road for states to stand up on other
issues. For conservative lawmakers not persuaded
by the states’ rights argument, there’s always the
reminder that legalizing the drug comes with the
benefit of being able to place a tax on it. Colorado
has already cashed in over $130 million in marijuana
tax revenue during the first six months of 2018—
most of it spent on improving the state’s schools.
Gardner says chances like this don’t present
We’re looking at letting states

decide legalization. I will
probably end up SUPPORTING
that, yes. — D O N A L D T R U M P
themselves very often. Even still, there are lawmak- their control, Republicans are willing to take all the
ers in states like Missouri who continue to oppose help they can get. Boehner says he’s “watching can-
bills with the word marijuana attached. Gardner didates take positions you would not have seen two
remembers one senator saying to him, “Well, Cory, years ago, four years ago, certainly not 10 years ago.”
you might have potheads in your state, but I’ve got “It’s politically advantageous right now to be a Re-
Baptists.” Officials like that should look at the polls publican supporting marijuana,” says David Flaherty,
and “really get to know your voters,” Gardner says. a former Republican National Committee member
and current Colorado political strategist.
How the Republican Party The expanding public support for legal weed is
Will ‘Survive and Thrive’ its own type of lobbyist, exerting much of the same MONEY CHANGES
EVERYTHING
the speedy growth of support for marijuana pressure on politicians. But the cannabis industry A sales associate at Good
legalization among Republicans in the past few is no Big Pharma, spending hundreds of millions of Meds, a medical cannabis
years—and particularly in the past few months— dollars on lobbying efforts. It’s not anywhere near center in Lakewood,
Colorado. Sales reached
comes as the GOP gears up for a highly contested as influential as the tobacco industry or on the same $9 billion in the U.S. in
midterm election cycle. political playing field as the oil industry. 2017, and could climb
The Democratic Party hopes November will help But experts say it could be one day. The emerging to $21 billion in 2021
with the addition of
them regain some power in Washington and primary industry cashed in around $9 billion in sales last recreational markets in
elections have shown promising results. To maintain year. With the addition of recreational markets in California and other states.
HEAD SHOP
THE STRAIGHT DOPE ON MARIJUANA TYPES AND USES
California and other states, the sector could make as

much as $11 billion in 2018 and $21 billion in 2021. THC terpenes are also in
As states like Michigan, Maryland and Rhode Island Tetrahydrocannabinol cannabis. They are partially
all strongly consider legislation—with some Repub- is the psychoactive responsible for energizing
chemical ingredient in
lican support—to establish regulated adult-use mar- or sedative effects.
cannabis. Patients in
kets, lawmakers want to get in on the ground floor. states where medical
Already, politicians are beginning to see the marijuana is legal report HEMP
benefits of supporting the cannabis industry that the drug helps relieve This byproduct of the
symptoms such as anxiety, cannabis plant contains
through campaign fundraising. Rohrabacher,
depression and chronic virtually no THC. It’s
who is facing his toughest re-election campaign cultivated separately and
pain, and some studies
in three decades and is seen as one of the most support those claims. looks strikingly different
vulnerable Republicans in the House, has been from medical or recreational
rewarded for his pro-weed stance. The congress- marijuana. Hemp fibers are
CBD used to make rope, fabric and
man has gained $5,000 checks from companies Cannabidiol is the paper. It’s still illegal to
and organizations including Weedmaps, Scotts second active ingredient produce hemp in some states.
Miracle-Gro and the National Cannabis Industry in cannabis, but it is
not believed to have
Association. Since 2016, Rohrabacher has received DABBING
psychoactive properties: It
more than $80,000 in marijuana industry money. doesn’t make you high. CBD A smoking method of
In the long run, Republican lawmakers may sup- superheating a glass or
is often extracted into its
metallic instrument and
port marijuana decriminalization for the simple fact own form; it can be purchased
inhaling the vapor. It uses a
that it may help them get elected as they play a catch- in drops, smoked, applied
very strong wax concentrate
topically or consumed
up game with young, nonwhite voters. An estimated made by extracting THC.
orally. In June, the FDA
24 million people ages 18 to 29 cast votes in the 2016 approved the first marijuana- Wax has anywhere from 60
election. In that demographic, Donald Trump lost to to 90 percent THC, while
based prescription drug,
flowers average 20 percent.
Hillary Clinton by an 18-point margin. Millennials which uses CBD as a treatment
are about to inherit the kingdom as the largest vot- for rare forms of epilepsy.
HASH
ing block in the country, and, according to one poll,
Cannabis buds have
over 80 percent believe the drug is safer than alcohol. STRAINS
trichomes, the tiny
There are different
Weld says the decriminalization of marijuana is hairs of kief, or resin
types, or strains, of
also a “direct appeal to communities of color,” as cannabis—some THC-dominant, crystals, coating the
black Americans are almost four times more like- flower. The collection
others CBD-dominant and
of trichomes makes a
ly to be arrested for weed-related offenses than some an even blend.
concentrate known as hash.
their white counterparts. Think of cannabis as a
political olive branch extended to diverse voters INDICA VERSUS SATIVA
Indica strains tend to have EDIBLES
in an attempt to soften what many consider to Food products infused with
higher concentrations of
be an unwelcoming party image. “If you want the CBD, while sativa strains cannabis, such as butters,
Republican Party to survive and thrive over the tend to be dominated by oils, brownies and gummy
next 50 years, we have to do things that appeal THC. Yet sativa and indica worms. If prepared and
MAT THEW STAVER/THE WASHINGTO N POST/GE T T Y
largely define the plant dosed correctly, edibles

to other populations that aren’t older, white and
species’ physical traits can be a safe alternative
male,” says GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser. to smoking and provide
rather than effects, which
With Texas, as well as some of the nation’s are largely unique to longer-lasting effects.
deepest-red states, like Utah and Oklahoma, moving each strain. It’s more
forward with marijuana policy changes, all Republi- important to examine a VAPING
cans will have to pick a side on legalization, as well as strain’s exact THC level Vaporizing is a method of
than rely on classifications consumption that uses an
affirming states’ right to choose what works for them.
to predict an effect. electronic device to heat
“This is not something that is going to stop at the edg-
cannabis’s active compounds
es of Colorado or California,” Gardner warns. “This TERPENES at low temperatures. It’s
is going to march across the country. It’s an opportu- Aromatic compounds found gained popularity for
nity for Republicans to practice what they preach.” in plants and fruit, being fast and discreet.
NEWSWEEK.COM 29
FACING DISASTER
Rasathi’s husband, a
rice farmer, took his life
in 2017. Tamil Nadu is
experiencing its lowest
percentage of rainfall
in 140 years. Opposite:
A farmer walks through
his banana plantation
ravaged by three
years of drought.
Dust to
Dust
St o r y b y mary k aye schilling
India’s killer drought has
claimed the lives of over
59,000 farmers. With
temperatures rising, the fear
is that suicide rates will climb
Ph o t o g r a p h s b y feder ico bor ell a
NEWSWEEK.COM 31
A few months after radha krishnan took his life,

his wife, Rani, was holding her husband’s skull in her sun-beaten
hands—the most powerful evidence she could find of a growing
disaster back home. She had joined 1,000 farmers in traveling thou-
sands of miles to New Delhi to demand a drought relief package for
the farmers of Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state.
Krishnan’s public suicide was a last, hopeless protest. In Febru-
ary 2017, after his crops had failed for the third year in a row and
with no chance of repaying his loans, he sat on the street outside
the local bank and drank from a bottle of pesticide. He died a few
hours later, leaving his wife and four children.
An estimated 59,300 farmers in India have taken their lives in
similarly overt ways since 1980. Italian photographer Federico
Borella believes the number could be much higher. “There is a great
deal of shame associated with suicide in India, and I suspect many
don’t report it,” he says. Shame is also associated with failure, par-
ticularly among men. In 2011, a study of farmer self-harm in the
state of Andhra Pradesh found that even failing at suicide brought
ridicule; unable to bear the “disgrace,” they would try again.
In May, Borella was invited to Tamil Nadu by the South Indian
Farmers Association, the group that had organized the demon-
stration in New Delhi. Borella was introduced to four families in
the Tiruchirappalli area, each of whom had lost the head of their
household to self-harm. Two of the men hanged themselves in
their fields. Another, like Krishnan, drank poison.
Similar stories are told across India. The cycle of drought, debt
and suicide is spreading like a plague.
Agriculture is still a major source of income, accounting for 14
percent of India’s gross domestic product. Tamil Nadu, a leading
producer of bananas, mangoes, rice, turmeric, sugarcane and
coffee, among other crops, is dependent on the monsoons that
recharge the local water sources: the southwest monsoon, from
June to September, and the northeast, from October to December.
Beginning in 2014, the rains stopped coming. The state is now
facing its worst drought in 140 years. The government has prom-
ised aid, but little has come. In many cases, farmers are forced to
sell their products to companies far below market value. When
farmers do lose their crops, minimal compensation is offered.
Over half of India now faces high to extremely high water stress,
according to the World Resources Institute. Levels in the sacred
Ganges, which supports 1.3 billion people and is the country’s larg-
est river, are declining precipitously—some say by a fourth. Erratic DEATH VALLEY
and nonexistent monsoons mean the country’s reservoirs are at An aerial view of land
their lowest in a decade. And nowhere in the world are ground- near the village of Lalgudi.
water declines greater than in northern India, with much of what The retreating northeast
monsoon, which hasn’t
remains containing toxic levels of arsenic and fluoride.
come since 2014, is the
It is estimated that 15 million Indian farmers have already source of 60 percent of the
abandoned their land, and more will follow as tempera- annual rainfall in many of
tures rise. The current prediction: an increase of another India’s coastal districts.
CRISIS
5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) by 2050. Imagine the

chaos and destabilization that will occur if agriculture collapses
and potable water disappears in just India. “The impact of cli-
mate change goes beyond Indian boundaries,” says Borella. “It
threatens mankind as a whole.”
Every inhabited continent is facing high water stress. All it takes
is a few bad rainfall years, or poor management of resources (not
to mention pollution), to wreak havoc. The World Health Organiza-
tion estimates that climate change is causing 12.6 million deaths a
year—a figure estimated to rise by 250,000 between 2030 and 2050.
The correlation between suicide rates and rising temperatures
was long suspected but never uncovered in large-scale data un-
til research released in July 2017. Tamma Carleton—then a Ph.D.
candidate in agriculture and resource economics at University of
California, Berkeley—made the connection in a study published
by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Suicide is a
stark indicator of human hardship, yet the causes of these deaths
remain understudied, particularly in developing countries,” Car-
leton wrote. In India, where one-fifth of the world’s suicides occur,
according to Carleton, “the climate, particularly temperature, has
a strong influence over a growing suicide epidemic.”
Using nationally comprehensive panel data over 47 years,
Carleton showed a link between suicide and higher temperatures
that occurred only during India’s agricultural growing season,
when heat lowers crop yields. A temperature increase of a single
degree Celsius in one day, she found, corresponded to about 67
suicides, on average.
In Tamil Nadu, a land once crisscrossed by majestic rivers, there
are highways of sand as far as the eye can see. “The heat there is stag-
gering,” says Borella, who experienced temperatures approaching
120 degrees Fahrenheit at 8 p.m. Local children, in search of relief,
dive into what little standing water remains—all of it dark, stinking
and fed by sewage. “One of the problems is that there are no facil-
ities to catch rain when it does fall. And the adjacent state of Kar-
nataka, which has a dam, refuses to reroute any of their resources.”
There are more entrenched challenges too. Borella remembers
watching a group of people enter a temple to pray. “Before you can
go in, you must cleanse yourself with clean water,” he says. “I noticed
Where majestic that the water ran from the spout even if no one was there. I was
shocked by the waste. I asked why they would do that and was told
that religion is always more important.”
rivers used to In each of the four homes Borella visited, people prayed to
a photograph of the deceased. “Since I was there,” he says, “one
crisscross the family placed three photographs on the wall of their home in one
day: a father and his two sons.”
landscape, now An ancient Tamil poem, “Pattinappaalai,” tells of the Kaveri

River, which would keep flowing even in warmer months, an
there is only sand. expression of the gods’ mercy. But the gods, it seems, as well as
the Indian government, have abandoned their farmers.
NEWSWEEK.COM 33
CRISIS
Similar stories are

told across India. The
cycle of drought,
debt and suicide is
spreading like a plague. 1
A NEW NORMAL
As the drought continues, local on a construction site,
7
farmers, unable to pay off making roughly 400 rupees
debts, have come under intense (or $6) a day. [6] Inside the
inancial and e otional strain Jambukeswarar Temple in
Many must abandon their land Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu.
in search of work in construction [7] Former agricultural
or de olition [1] A view of the workers now doing day
en ennai i er, no dr labor at a construction site.
[2] A commemorative photo of [8] A scorched riverbed.
Selvarasy, who, at 65, hanged [9] Amsom prays to a portrait
i sel in is ield, lea in of her husband, Rengasami,
his wife, Rasathi, and three o drank oison in is ield
sons [3] Karthik, an activist in May 2017. As he fell into
with the South Indian Farmers debt, she had to pawn her
Association, gestures to his jewelry—an unthinkable act
arren ield [4] An abandoned in a country where jewelry is
oe [5] Karpule now works associated with family honor.
34 NEWSWEEK.COM
2 3
5 6
8 9
1 2
3 4
LAND OF THE LOST

Water shortage has led [2] Pennachiamal, the mother ield ere er us and,
to rocketing pollution of Krishnan. [3] A group of alanisa , an ed i sel
levels. [1] What remains women attend a religious in Januar e as
of the Kaveri River, where offering in a small village near tried to kee t e ar oin
children take dips to cool Tiruchirappalli. The suicides, it t e el o a il , ut
off, has prohibitively high largely committed by men, t ere as not een a cro
levels of fecal coliform, a mean that agrarian towns in t ree ears [5] a il
bacterium that occurs like this one are becoming li ts candles inside t e
from agricultural runoff or disproportionately female. Ja ukes arar e le,
failures in water treatment. [4] Mallika in the sugarcane reno ned or its ater deities
CRISIS
“The impact of climate change

goes beyond Indian boundaries.
It threatens mankind as a whole.”
5
Horizons SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY + HEALTH
HEALTH since early july, muslims from around the world have
been arriving in Saudi Arabia for the hajj, the annual Islamic
pilgrimage to Mecca and one of the world’s largest recurring mass
Pilgrims’ gatherings. Along with the pilgrims arriving from over 180 coun-
tries—an estimated 2 million by the time the annual ritual ends
in late August—are 25,000 health workers to monitor their health.
Progress
Health workers have come up with a
In recent years, infectious disease outbreaks have spiked because
of civil unrest, conflict and mass migration across the Middle East
and North Africa. “Wars, and the chaos
they leave behind, often provide the
optimal conditions for the growth and BY
savvy strategy for combating infectious re-emergence of communicable diseases,”
disease in conlict ridden countries wrote Rasha Raslan of the American Uni- JESS CRAIG
KAZU YOSHI NOMAC HI/GET T Y
versity of Beirut in a 2017 article pub- given rise to simultaneous outbreaks World Health Organization (WHO).
lished in Frontiers in Public Health. In of tuberculosis, cutaneous leishman- These conflict-prone environments
Syria, for instance, the seven-year civil iasis, rabies, hepatitis, enterovirus, have given rise to some uncommon
war has caused the public health sys- shigella, salmonella, upper respira- diseases as well. Villages destroyed by
tem to collapse. Hospitals and clinics tory tract infections, and epidemics firefights and airstrikes have become
have been destroyed, medical staffers of influenza. breeding grounds for insects and stray
have fled, and medications such as In Syria, Iraq and South Sudan, animals, which leads to increased
antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs once-eradicated or near-eradicated transmission of diseases such as leish-
and even intravenous fluids are in and vaccine-preventable diseases, such maniasis, rabies and scabies. Diseases
short supply. Childhood immuniza- as polio and measles, have re-emerged. like brucellosis, toxoplasmosis, men-
tion programs have come to a halt, Yemen and Somalia recently wit- ingitis and listeriosis also tend to rise
and a breakdown of sewage systems nessed the deadliest cholera outbreaks because of food and water contami-
and a lack of access to clean water have in recent history, according to the nation.
NEWSWEEK.COM 39
Horizons HEALTH
In recent conflicts, humanitarian Saudi Arabia’s 13 land, air or sea entry ventions and international health
aid organizations have had extremely ports. The teams will check pilgrims’ security efforts, as well as insight into
limited access to afflicted regions, immunization records and adminis- new or emerging pathogens, which
which makes it difficult to fully ter prophylactic medication and polio may help the global health commu-
understand the scope of the prob- vaccinations as needed. nity prevent pandemic-level outbreaks.
lems. “In view of the disruption of During the hajj, hundreds of Understanding what types of diseases
public health systems in conflicted mobile surveillance teams, consisting are prevalent in a country will allow
regions and countries, mass gath- of trained clinicians, have traveled health workers to more precisely
ering events [offer] one-stop senti- through temporary camps looking prepare medical stockpiles and treat
nel surveillance and public health for individuals displaying symptoms populations.
interventions,” according to a recent of an infectious disease. In addition In the past, hajj research studies
commentary in The Lancet by authors to permanent hospitals in Mecca and examined the presence of drug-
including former Saudi Deputy Medina, about 25 temporary hospitals resistant pathogens, providing critical
Health Minister Ziad Memish. and clinics with over 5,000 hospital information about disease transmis-
Memish is considered a pioneer beds are opened every year. sion patterns. Because Saudi Arabia’s
of mass medicine—he founded the Through these combined efforts, Ministry of Health cannot continue
WHO Collaborating Center for Mass Memish estimates that robust epide- monitoring pilgrims once they return
Gatherings Medicine in 2012—and miological data will be collected for to their home countries, it is not clear
Saudi Arabia is credited with formal- approximately 60 percent of those how diseases are transmitted during
izing the specialty. Over the years, the attending hajj, with all data sent to their trip, though public health
Saudi government has received input a command center for real-time researchers recognize that pilgrims,
and technical assistance from the U.S. surveillance and data analysis. Any especially those who are immuno-
Centers for Disease Control and Pre- surveillance data collected will be compromised, are at greater risk to
vention, the WHO and other public published and shared with the WHO contract an infectious disease because
health agencies. And, says Memish, and broader global health community. of the high population density and
Saudi Arabia is directing and funding The research is invaluable: It will close social interaction.
the public health effort at the hajj. inform ongoing humanitarian inter- Although Saudi Arabia’s disease sur-
The 25,000 health care workers veillance efforts are extensive, there
are deploying throughout eastern are some limitations, noted Yara Asi,
Saudi Arabia to treat sick pilgrims as
“Mass gathering a lecturer at the University of Central
events [o er] one-

well as collect epidemiological data Florida who has conducted research
and, in some cases, biological sam- among conflict-affected populations.
ples. Health inspectors, nursing staff,
public health experts and physicians
stop public health Some of the world’s most vulnerable
populations—the sickest, oldest and
will maintain checkpoints at each of interventions.” poorest—will not be attending the
hajj. That means some epidemiolog-
ical patterns that emerge may not
reflect what’s going on in entire pop-
ulations. Still, says Memish, “I don’t
think there is any forum that can do
give a better understanding of what’s
going on in conflict-affected and hard-
to-reach countries than this very orga-
nized annual gathering.”
YAWAR NAZI R/G E T T Y
A BLESSING IN DISGUISE The

research gained during hajj is invaluable.
Among other things, it can help
prevent pandemic-level outbreaks.
NEWSGEEK
Blizzard’s Perfect Storm

The exploding esports industry has its roots in a South Korean PC craze from the ’90s
new york city ’s barclays developing Blizzard, South Korea was WATCH THIS Just some of the characters
Center hosted a new set of ath- building high-speed broadband. The in the Overwatch universe, now stars
on ESPN, which broadcast the OWL
letes on July 27: two dozen people play- government invested heavily in tele- rand inals or t e irst ti e in Jul
ing the video game Overwatch. More communications during the ’90s, and
than 10,000 fans of Blizzard Enter- thousands of internet cafés, known as Deft StarCraft commanders, often
tainment’s highly successful online PC bangs, sprang up across the coun- applying hundreds of keyboard and
shooting game gathered to watch try. Often open 24 hours, these arcades mouse commands a minute, gained
two teams, the Philadelphia Fusion offered inexpensive hourly access to notoriety and wealth. Soon, compa-
and the London Spitfire, compete for high-end PCs and soon became thriv- nies like LG and Samsung spent mil-
the $1 million prize in the Overwatch ing social hubs. The game everyone lions sponsoring players. “It took us all
League (OWL) Grand Finals. was playing? Blizzard’s StarCraft. by surprise.… We didn’t even localize
Professional gaming, known as “It was a perfect storm of events that the game into Korean,” Morhaime says.
esports, has surged in popularity over StarCraft was in the middle of,” Mor- “I didn’t understand the popularity of it
the last decade. In 2017, the global haime tells Newsweek. “People started until I was there in person. We’ve been
market grew to $696 million, accord- paying attention to who the best play- supportive of esports ever since.”
ing to gaming and mobile analytics ers were. Top players became celebri- Disney has entered into a multi-
firm Newzoo, and market revenue is ties.” Half the total copies sold, more year agreement with OWL, which
expected to hit $1.5 billion by 2020. than 4.5 million, were in South Korea. began with July’s event broadcast live
This isn’t an overnight success story, Set in the distant reaches of the on ESPN: Ten hours of coverage aired
however; the roots of modern esports Milky Way, StarCraft is a sci-fi mil- across four networks over three days,
tournaments stretch back decades. itary strategy game centered on a with 45 percent of the audience in the
And Blizzard was there. conflict between three intergalactic coveted 18-to-34 demographic. An All-
An Orange County–based game species. Released in 1998, the game Star Weekend is planned for August 25.
developer and publisher, Blizzard was pioneered a key feature for esports: Esports blurs the boundaries
founded in 1991 by Mike Morhaime built-in software that connected between the gaming world and tra-
and a handful of developers. Along- players directly to the internet ditional athletic leagues like the NBA
side Overwatch, games like Warcraft, so they could compete against any- and NFL. Soon, there may not be
Hearthstone and Diablo have made one around the world. much distinction. Morhaime cred-
C OURTE SY OF BLIZZARD
the company a dominant force in An evolved version its StarCraft with sparking the craze.
esports for more than 20 years. But it of this type of online BY
“The popularity of esports was inevi-
all started by accident, in a place Mor- multiplayer experience table,” says Morhaime, “but without
haime had never been: South Korea. remains at the core of STEVEN ASARCH StarCraft, we may not have caught
While Morhaime and his team were today’s gaming scene. @IAmAsarch onto it this early.”
Yo u r s o u r c e f o r i n - d e p t h , p a s s i o n a t e c o v e r a g e o f t h e w o r l d o f g a m i n g a n d g a m e r c u l t u r e . PLAYER.ONE 41
Culture HIGH, LOW + EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
BOARD OF
DIRECTOR
Liu, center, with
the subjects of his
documentary, Keire,
left, and Zack.
42 NEWSWEEK.COM AU G U S T 31, 2 018

TURNING IT BACK ON
Interpol releases a new album » P. 45
MOVIES
Lost and Found

Minding the Gap is Bing Liu’s moving and rare portrait of
growing up poor and male in America’s Midwest
filmmaker bing liu would prefer that with the death of his father and being the only Afri-
you don’t call his documentary “the Boyhood can-American in their skate crew. He spends hours
of skate videos,” as one Indiewire headline described alone in his house, his mother shut in her bedroom.
it. Not that he doesn’t hold Boyhood director Rich- Zack, charismatic and irreverent, ran away at 16
ard Linklater in the highest regard (Liu’s particularly and is now facing the birth of his first child with his
fond of 1990’s Slacker); it’s just that the comparison 21-year-old girlfriend, Nina. The two party, drink and
only “highlights the time aspect of Minding the Gap.” smoke as they struggle with their dead-end present
Like Linklater, Liu filmed his subjects over a period and not much hope for the future.
of years (four, so not Boyhood’s remarkable 12), but, Early on, Keire confides to Liu that his late
he says carefully, “I was going for something a little father used to beat him. “Did you cry?” Liu asks
LE FT SO URCE IMAGE: C OU RT ESY OF HULU ; TOP RIGHT: STIL L IMAGES/GET T Y
more emotionally and thematically fresh.” from off screen.

It’s Liu’s polite way of saying that his movie— “Yeah, sure,” says Keire. ”Wouldn’t you?”
which premiered at Sundance and comes out in the- “I did cry,” says Liu.
aters and on Hulu August 17—contains none of the The 28-year-old director, it turns out, shares a lot
rose-colored nostalgia evoked in the work of Link- with his subjects. He, too, was a skateboarder who
later, which often features coming-of-age scenarios. grew up poor. Liu’s intention was to remain behind
Liu’s movie follows two struggling young skate- the camera, but a year or so into filming, Nina con-
boarders, 17-year-old Keire and 23-year-old Zack, from fessed that Zack was hitting her. Later, Zack casually
the director’s hometown of Rockford, Illinois. Rock- reveals to Liu that his father “kicked his ass” when he
ford was once the state’s second-largest city, but like misbehaved. “I realized these were generational cycles
many in the Rust Belt, it has rapidly declined since the of behavior,” says Liu. “That really resonated with me.”
late 1980s. As the film details, 47 percent of its workers Liu called his mother, Mengyue Bolen, who emi-
earn less than $15 an hour, and since 2010, grated from China when he was 5, and
its population has decreased more than asked if he could interview her about
any other Illinois city. BY his own abuse, at the hands of his step-
We first meet Keire and Zack skating father. It’s the only time that Liu—who
through Rockford’s ghost town streets. ANNA MENTA served as director, cinematographer
Keire, gentle and open, is reckoning @annalikestweets and co-editor on his film—hired extra
Photo illust rat ion by G L U E K I T NEWSWEEK.COM 43

Culture MOVIES
crew. With one camera on his mom

and another on him, Liu presses
In addition to capturing lives with
little economic hope, Minding the Gap
“Your whole life,
her to process the trauma they had is a moving portrait of young men society tells you,
both experienced. “I tried to have
this conversation with her when she
growing up in Middle America at a
time when they are getting a rough
‘Be a man. You’re
divorced my stepfather four years ride in popular culture. At the begin- tough. You’re strong.
ago,” Liu tells me. “But it never lasted
longer than 15 minutes before it got
ning of the film, Zack says, “You’re
whole life, society tells you, ‘Be a man.
Margaritas are gay.’”
too upsetting. The camera allowed us You’re tough. You’re strong. Margari-
to finally have a conversation.” tas are gay.’ You don’t grow up think-
Similarly, the camera became a ing that’s the way you are. You just act.” focused on understanding ‘the white
kind of therapist for Zack. Liu cap- Zack didn’t vote in the last election, working class.’ Even if they are white
tures shouting matches between the but he was a Donald Trump supporter, and make a working-class wage, that’s
frequently drunk Zack and Nina, and and you see why that happened: He not how people from Rockford label
she has a scar that she attributes to and Nina are the “forgotten men and themselves.” Such classifying, he adds,
one of his blows. For much of the women” Trump was appealing to in comes with a “lack of empathy” and “a
film, Zack denies abusing her, but his 2016 campaign. “At first,” says Liu, lens of judgment.”
toward the end he says to Liu, “You “we had Zack’s political arc. He ran Zack got a lucky break after the Sun-
can’t beat up women, but sometimes away from his father’s house because dance debut. Another director offered
a bitch needs to get slapped.” he thought his dad was too conserva- him a lead role in a low-budget film.
“Zack likes to be the center of atten- tive. Then, over time, things didn’t go Nina, meanwhile, is working two jobs;
tion,” says Liu. “Me and the camera his way. His car broke down. He’s wait- she and Zack have split, and he pays
were an outlet for that, but it shifted ing on his tax returns. He blames the child support for their 4-year-old son.
over time.” Later, when he showed government—all these things piled up, She has spoken to survivors of domestic
Zack the finished film, Liu saw he had and you understood his reasoning for violence at screenings of the film.
tears in his eyes. Zack was relieved supporting Trump.” Keire works at a Denver salad shop
because he thought it would be a Ultimately, Liu adds, he didn’t refer- and plans to move to Phoenix with his
worse portrayal, says Liu. “We had a ence that support in the film. “It took girlfriend. Near the end of Minding
long conversation. It wasn’t all about away from the evergreen quality,” he the Gap, Liu tells Keire, “I’m making
him; it was him reacting to Keire’s and says. “It would have colored the film’s this because I was physically disci-
my stories. I asked him if he wanted other themes too much.” plined by my stepfather and it didn’t
anything changed, and he said no.” Liu wasn’t interested in adding to make sense to me. I saw myself in your
the deluge of patronizing Trump-coun- own story.” Keire is visibly taken aback.
try exposés, nor did he want to turn “Wow, Bing,” he finally says. “I had no
BOYS TO MEN The charismatic Zack,
right, with Keire in Rockford, Illinois, a Rockford into “poverty porn.” Since the idea, dude. That’s really cool.”
city in steep decline since the 1980s. election, he says, “the media has been Liu, now living in Chicago, has
gone on to direct an upcoming epi-
sode for the Starz series America to Me
(from Gap executive producer Steve
James). He says he’s doubtful he’ll
make a film as personal as Minding
the Gap again. “People move into their
30s without processing their late
teens and early 20s, when you start
C OURTE SY OF HULU
losing people—whether you just lose

touch or lose them to drugs or suicide,
which happens a lot in Rockford,” he
says. “This was a way to make sure I
didn’t fall into that trap.”
AU G U S T 31, 2 018
PLAY IT AGAIN, DAN Kessler performing

in Los Angeles in 2017, on the Turn On
the Bright Lights anniversary tour.
later, Interpol has been reduced to

a trio (bassist Carlos D departed
in 2010 to become an actor), yet it
remains one of the few surviving
standard-bearers of a scene that
included the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah
Yeahs and the Walkmen. And on
August 24 comes the group’s first
album in four years, Marauder—a
very good record that’s also reassur-
ing to any fans who feared Interpol
had slipped into a nostalgia coma.
There was a dive into the retro-
spective deep end with a 2017 tour
honoring the 15th anniversary of
Turn On the Bright Lights—a fan-
friendly indulgence—but the band
MUSIC vowed to work on new material as
soon as it wrapped. “We were writing
Leading Lights this record when we did that tour,”

Banks says. “It felt like we had one
leg in two worlds: revisiting our first
Interpol was once accused of ripping off historic post- album, which still feels exciting to
punk icons. Now they are post-punk icons me, balanced by [a] leg in the future.”
For a 21st-century legacy act, the
tour audiences were heartening. “I
interp ol’s debut album, in 2002—Bright Lights had a moody saw teenagers who were probably
Turn On the Bright Lights, is one urgency that caught the ear of crit- not even born, or barely born, when
of those mysteriously great records ics eager for a new authenticity. “I [Bright Lights] came out,” says guitar-
that landed in precisely the right felt a magic when we were writ- ist Daniel Kessler. “I saw people who
place at the right time: early-2000s ing the record,” frontman Paul were there in 2002. And I’ve heard
New York City. Banks says. “Whatever that thing is, I those stories: ‘My girlfriend and I
Turgid nü-metal was on the decline think we had it.” started dating around the time you
and rock was on the rise. Interpol had The magic resided somewhere released that record, and now we have
been gigging, releasing EPs and amass- between Banks’s melancholy baritone kids who are 10 years old.’”
ing hype since 1997. CBGB was still a and the band’s knack for swooning
club and not yet a branding exercise post-punk hooks, and it helped make a few years ago, interpol got stuck.
GABRIEL OLSE N/FIL MMAGIC /GET T Y
appropriated by Target. The city was Interpol into dapper icons of the Literally stuck. In November 2014,
affordable for bands: Hypergentrifi- city’s post-9/11 rock rebirth. Bright the band’s tour bus became trapped
cation had not yet rendered Manhat- Lights became a crit- on I-90 somewhere outside of Buf-
tan a playground for bankers and real ical touchstone, and falo, New York, during a formidable
estate vultures. Interpol an influence BY
snowstorm. For more than 50 hours,
And then the towers fell. Recorded on bands like the Kill- the three musicians (plus tour mates)
just two months after the World ers and the xx. ZACH SCHONFELD subsisted on dry goods and vodka.
Trade Center attacks—and released A decade and a half @zzzzaaaacccchhh “It was serious,” says Kessler. “People
NEWSWEEK.COM 45
Culture MUSIC
died in the vicinity. Every night, we’d tual advancement. But then, abstrac-
go to bed and there’d be some opti- tion and noir imagery have been
mism. Then there’d be more snow central to Interpol’s appeal since the
that would bury us further. Mentally, beginning. To wit, “The subway, she is
that sort of does something to you. We a porno,” from “NYC.”
were trapped.” Eventually, after being The band formed two decades ago
forced to cancel two Canadian shows, in and around New York University,
Interpol escaped to resume a tour pro- where Kessler and Carlos D (née Car-
moting their fifth album, El Pintor. los Dengler) met in a World War I his-
So it was with some terror that the tory class. Kessler knew Banks from a
band returned to upstate New York summer program in Paris. Banks was
during the bleakest months of win- several years younger—a pot-smoking
ter to record Marauder. “Every time hip-hop fan who had spent his child-
it would start to snow, which was hood bouncing between England,
nearly daily, the band would be like, America and Spain. “He was just out
Is it going to stop? Are we going to be of high school,” Kessler says. “When
OK? Are we gonna be able to get out of you’re that age and you’re around
here?’” says producer Dave Fridmann, people who are 21 or 22, you can be
who recorded the album at his studio kind of intimidated. Paul was not.
in Cassadaga, New York. There was something about him—
Perhaps that accounts for Maraud- he’s got a lot to express.”
er’s bristling intensity—the most com- The three started a band with a
manding and forceful music Interpol drummer named Greg Drudy, who
has released in well over a decade. Or quit in 2000, to be replaced by Sam
maybe it’s because Fridmann insisted Fogarino. Years older, with 10 years’
on recording the music directly to experience playing in punk bands,
2-inch tape. “It’s a very different men- Fogarino met Kessler in a bar. “Daniel
tality as a musician,” Fridmann says, gave me this EP,” he says. “I listened to
when you need to nail the take instead it and thought: I have to be in this band. earnest one,” the de facto peacemaker.
of asking the producer to fix it later. This is the music I’ve been wanting to In those early days, “the music
“We liked that we weren’t being overly play for I don’t know how long.” scene in New York had a giddy feel
precious,” adds Kessler. “It was a raw The drummer was thrilled by the to it,” Lizzy Goodman writes in her
record-making experience.” music, if confused by his new band- juicy-as-hell oral history, Meet Me in
As anyone who has listened to Neil mates. “Paul, with his double B.A. at the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and
Young’s last half-dozen records can the age of 21, was cocky. I didn’t get Roll in New York City 2001–2011. “It
tell you, analog fetishism can’t replace the sense we were gonna bro down felt both expansive and intimate—
inspired songwriting. And Marauder anytime soon. And Carlos was so pre- forgotten by everyone else, it seemed
has some excellent songs: the pummel- tentious.” Kessler, he adds, was “the to belong only to us, to the drugs, to
ing first single, “The Rover”; “Number the music.”
10,” a dark take on office romance; and Interpol was part of that new wave,
“Stay in Touch,” a hypnotic rocker that restoring the city’s vitality after 9/11.
appears to chronicle a ghostly rendez-
vous with a forbidden lover. The lyr-
“Paul was cocky. I Less garage than the Strokes and
gloomier than the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
ics, says Banks, are more direct than didn’t get the sense the four, who dressed in Dolce & Gab-
in the past, though still maddeningly we were gonna bro bana suits (a sartorial rebellion against
obtuse by radio standards; discern-
ible themes include lust, remorse and
down anytime soon. grunge), played melancholic art-rock
that never let the “art” sabotage the
what the singer describes as “a tension” And Carlos was rock, even with erudite references to
between personal failings and spiri- so pretentious.” Norse explorers and suicidal models.
Bright Lights arrived late in the sum- “Evil”—and got the band a gig opening THREE AMIGOS From left, Fogarino,
Banks and Kessler. The band’s new
mer of 2002, featuring “NYC,” one of for the Cure (career highlight: hang-
album, Marauder, is its best in a decade.
the decade’s two great rock tributes ing with Robert Smith). After Antics,
to the city (the other being the LCD the gaps between albums stretched
Soundsystem sing-along “New York, longer, and the band’s early peers port waiting to get to another city,” he
I Love You but You’re Bringing Me faded into indefinite-hiatus land. says. “It’s so much bigger than it really
Down”). Banks’s morose, Ian Cur- Interpol’s era-defining first album was after the fact.” Still, “I’m proud to
tis–esque voice and Kessler’s jagged is now as old as the Smiths’ The Queen have been a part of it, whether there
guitars meant they were frequently Is Dead was when Bright Lights was were too many drugs or not.” Were
lumped with a late-’70s band from released. Which is not to suggest that there? “Probably.”
Britain. “They bitch because every- Paul Banks is the new Morrissey— If people are over-fetishizing that
body compares them to Joy Division,” thank God, no—but to say that Inter- time, he adds, it’s “no more than they
sniped critic Robert Christgau, “and pol has aged gracefully. did with the mid-’70s music scene in
they’re right. It’s way too kind.” It was serendipitous that Meet Me New York.” A part of him, “the little
The acclaim (Christgau notwith- in the Bathroom arrived to iconicize fanboy,” still can’t believe it even hap-
standing) extended to 2004’s Antics, New York City’s rock rebirth just in pened. “I never thought I was going to
JAMI E JAME S ME DI NA
a great and seductive LP recorded time for last year’s anniversary tour. have a career playing music, no matter
quickly after Bright Lights “just to not Fogarino says he had to be reminded how much I could taste it. Like I want
overthink it,” Kessler says. The album of a lot that happened, in part because to call my mom and go: ‘Guess what? I
contained three charting singles— the band was on tour for much of the play in a band! They make money! And
including the murder-inspired classic early 2000s. “I was always in an air- people like us!’”
NEWSWEEK.COM 47
Culture Illustration by B R I T T S P E N C E R
P A R TING SHOT
Eric Andre
he’s been pushing the boundaries of comedy on his eponymous How did you get the part in
Adult Swim show since 2012—and pushing hard. Andre’s delusional, Disenchantment?
sociopathic talk show–host persona drops his guests into what critics have Matt and [co-creator] Josh Weinstein
called a “torture chamber” of organized chaos: often disgusting, occasionally were fans of my Adult Swim show, so
disarming and pretty much always exasperating to the likes of Jimmy Kim- that might have helped. I wish there
mel or Krysten Ritter, or unsuspecting folk on the street. In one segment, he was a crazier story, like we met at a
stripped down to a thong made of peanut butter in a New York City park. As an bar in Ti uana and got into a knife ight.
actor, he’s a little tamer, with regular sitcom work (Don’t Trust the B— in APT
23, Man Seeking Woman) and, as of August 17, his own character in Matt Groe- What was it like working with
ning’s latest animated show, the adult comedy-fantasy series Disenchantment. Groening and his team?
Andre plays Luci, a nihilistic “personal demon” to Abbi Jacobson’s boozy medieval Twenty episodes in and I’m still
princess Bean. “It’s somewhere on the spectrum between The Simpsons and Monty quoting Simpsons lines to their faces.
Python,” Andre tells Newsweek. “It’s Groening’s attempt at Game of Thrones.” My mom used to watch The Tracey
Ullman Show, with Matt’s Simpsons
shorts. It’s 1988, I was 5 years old,
so I literally grew up on the show. It
shaped my worldview and humor. I’d
“I’d like to say my biggest inluences are rusty
prank that the Clown, WWF wrestlers—Hulk
Hogan, Macho Man—and Chris Farley.
scumbag
e ore e i t ere e a t season o The
spends the Eric Andre Show?
rest o is I’m not allowed to say, but things are

looking good.
i e in ai .
How muc o Eric Andre t e
c aracter is ou
It’s just my inner child—my id. When
people meet me in person, they’re
usually disappointed. I’m way more
grounded: I meditate twice a day, go to
the gym, I journal, I go to therapy twice
a week, I eat a macrobiotic diet. I’m an
incredibly boring person.
Who’s your dream guest?

Bill Cosby. [Laughs maniacally.]
I’d like to prank the shit out of that
scumbag before he spends the rest
of his life in jail. —Christina Zhao
AU G U S T 31 , 2 018
Tinalbarka wants to be a lawyer.

She and her family fled violence in Mali.
We stand together
#WithRefugees
PHOTO: © UNHCR / A . DRAGA J
www.refugeeday.org

@malu320. Newsweek International - 24-08-2018

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