Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Celebrates Winning a Second Three-Year Term

MELBOURNE, Australia — Anthony Albanese claimed victory as the first Australian prime minister to clinch a second consecutive term in 21 years on Saturday and suggested his government had increased its majority by not modeling itself on U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future,” Albanese told supporters in a victory speech in Sydney.

“We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else. We do not seek our inspiration overseas. We find it right here in our values and in our people,” he added.

His center-left Labor Party had branded Albanese’s rival Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, “DOGE-y Dutton” and accused his conservative Liberal Party of mimicking Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency.

Read More: Australia’s Leader Takes On Social Media. Can He Win?

Dutton had earlier conceded his alliance of conservative parties had been defeated at the election and that he had lost his own parliamentary seat that he had held for 24 years.

Dutton’s plight parallels that of Canada’s opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, who lost his seat after Trump declared economic war on the U.S. neighbor to the north. Poilievre had previously been regarded as a shoo-in to become Canada’s next prime minister and shepherd his Conservative Party back into power for the first time in a decade.

Analysts argue that mirroring Trump switched from a political positive for Australian conservatives to a negative after Trump imposed global tariffs.

Trumpet of Patriots, a minor party inspired by Trump policies with an advertising budget funded by mining magnate Clive Palmer that eclipsed the major parties, attracted only 2% of the vote.

Zareh Ghazarian, a lecturer in politics at Monash University, in Melbourne, questioned the significance of the “DOGE-y Dutton” lable in the election result.

“We won’t know. But I’m not sure it had a massive impact,” Ghazarian said. “It is a huge win for Labor and it’s a massive rebuke for the Liberal Party.”

U.S. congratulates Albanese on re-election

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Albanese on his election to a second three-year term.

“Australia is a valued ally, partner, and friend of the United States. Our shared values and democratic traditions provide the bedrock for an enduring alliance and for the deep ties between our peoples,’ Rubio said in a statement.

“The United States looks forward to deepening its relationship with Australia to advance our common interests and promote freedom and stability in the Indo-Pacific and globally,” he added.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a fellow center-left leader, congratulated Albanese on his victory.

“The U.K. and Australia are as close as ever – which goes to show that long-distance friendships can be the strongest,” Starmer said. “I know that we will continue to work together on our shared ambitions, including on trade, investment and energy, working towards a better life for working people in the U.K. and Australia.”

Labor had held a narrow majority of 78 seats in the 151-seat house House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties form governments.

Australian governments are usually elected for at least a second term, but are expected to lose seats at the second election. But Labor is on track to increase its majority in its second term.

High prices are a major election issue

Energy policy and inflation have been major issues in the campaign, with both sides agreeing the country faces a cost of living crisis.

The Liberal Party blamed government waste for fueling inflation and increasing interest rates, and has pledged to ax more than one in five public service jobs to reduce government spending.

While both said the country should reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Dutton argues that relying on nuclear power instead of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind turbines would deliver less expensive electricity.

Labor argued Dutton’s administration would slash services to pay for its ambitions to build seven government-funded nuclear generators. Australia currently has no nuclear power.

Opposition senator Jacinta Nampijnpa Price would have been responsible for cutting 41,000 public service jobs in Dutton’s administration. She attracted media attention last month when she told supporters her government would “make Australia great again.”

Echoes of Trump

Price told reporters at the time she didn’t recall using the words reminiscent of the Republicans’ “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Price, who said she was photographed wearing a MAGA cap “in jest at Christmas time,” on Saturday blamed the news media for focusing on Trump in the election campaign.

“You made it all about Donald Trump,” Price told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We really couldn’t care less about the way Donald Trump is governing for America. We were concerned with the way Australia is being governed under an Albanese government.”

The election took place against a backdrop of what both sides of politics describe as a cost of living crisis.

Foodbank Australia, the nation’s largest food relief charity, reported 3.4 million households in the country of 27 million people experienced food insecurity last year. That meant Australians were skipping meals, eating less or worrying about running out of food before they could afford to buy more.

The central bank reduced its benchmark cash interest rate by a quarter percentage point in February to 4.1% in an indication that the worst of the financial hardship had passed. The rate is widely expected to be cut again at the bank’s next board meeting on May 20, this time to encourage investment amid the international economic uncertainty generated by Trump’s tariff policies.

—Lavalette reported from Perth, Australia

source https://time.com/7282399/australian-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-reelected-second-term/

10 Surprising Facts About Papal Conclaves

After the death of Pope Francis on April 21, Catholics across the globe mourned as hundreds of thousands descended on Rome, along with global figures and political leaders, for the Pontiff’s funeral.

Now, the Catholic Church must decide on who will succeed the late Pope Francis. This election is one of the most secretive and important processes for the Vatican. On May 7, cardinals will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect the next head of the Catholic Church.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

133 cardinals will take part in the private voting process—referred to as a conclave—with a two-thirds majority needed to confirm a new Pope.

Here are ten surprising and interesting facts about Papal conclaves.

The longest conclave lasted almost three years

There is no limit as to how long a conclave can last when electing a new Pope. One vote will be held on the first day of voting. If this vote is not decisive, over the next two days, two votes will be held in the morning, and two more in the afternoon.

If a decision still has not been made after three days, a break of up to one day is permitted, allowing for prayer and discussion amongst cardinals. But this process can continue indefinitely, until a majority is reached.

The longest election took place in 1268, when the death of Pope Clement IV led to a conclave of 1,006 days. Political, religious, and family motivations divided the cardinals, preventing a majority, during a time when cardinals were not cut off from the outside world.

This drawn-out conclave led to complete isolation for the cardinals, finally leading to a decision in 1271. Pope Gregory X was elected, and a new format of the conclave was born.

Read More: Pope Francis, the ‘World’s Parish Priest’ Who Led in an Era of Crisis, Dies at 88

Cardinals will be on a strict diet to prevent secret messaging

In an attempt to influence cardinals and establish communication between the conclave and the outside world, messages have previously been hidden in food coming into the Sistine Chapel during the voting process.

Foods that could conceal messages such as pies and chickens, as well as cutlery and glasses, have been prohibited. Following tradition for the upcoming conclave, nuns will prepare local food such as lamb skewers, spaghetti, and boiled vegetables for cardinals.

Smoke will tell the world when a new Pope has been chosen

After every round of votes, all ballots submitted by cardinals are burned. If a majority has been achieved and a new Pope elected, white smoke will rise from a chimney atop the Sistine Chapel. 

If a majority is not met, then the ballot papers will be added to a mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulfur to create the black smoke.

A different recipe of potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin will be added to the papers and burned to create white smoke if a Pope has been elected.

On May 2, firefighters were seen installing the special chimney in preparation for the conclave. 

The conclave typically draws  hundreds of thousands of spectators to Rome

The Italian capital is expected to host hundreds of thousands of visitors who will be eagerly watching the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.

According to Forbes, flight searches to Rome from the U.S. have surged by 345%, with the rate even higher from Mexico, with flight searches up by 1000% between May 5 and 14.

An estimated 250,000-strong crowd was present at the funeral of Pope Francis on April 26.

More than 100,000 people were in estimated to be in attendance for the last conclave, in which Pope Francis was elected in 2013.

Read More: The Enduring Connection Between Pope Francis and a Parish in Gaza

The next Pope does not have to be a cardinal

Whilst every Pope over the last few centuries has been a cardinal, it is not a requirement. This is extremely rare however, and the last Pope to be appointed that was not previously a cardinal was Urban VI in 1378.

In fact, it is technically possible for any baptised Catholic male to be appointed as Pope.

“Conclave” originates from Latin

It was the three-year long conclave from 1268-71 that led Pope Gregory X to adjust conclaves in 1274, making the election of a new Pope extremely secretive and free from outside influence.

In 1274, Gregory X declared that for future elections on a new Pope, cardinals should be locked away in seclusion “cum clave,” the Latin for “with a key.”

Without any political or personal interference, cardinals could focus on their task of electing the next head of the Catholic Church. Over centuries, “cum clave” has evolved into the modern term “conclave.”

The conclave has not always been held at the Sistine Chapel

Although every conclave has been held at the Sistine Chapel since 1878, it was not always the fixed location for cardinals to decide on the next Pope.

The first conclave to be held at the Sistine Chapel was in 1492. But elections were held at various locations before a fixed setting was decided upon. Most were still held within Rome, but 15 have previously taken place outside of the Italian capital.

Some conclaves have even been conducted outside of Italy. The conclave of 1314-16 was held in France, and a century later, the conclave of 1415-17 was held in Germany.

Only Cardinals under the age of 80 participate in the conclave

There are currently 252 cardinals serving in the Catholic Church, but only 135 are eligible to vote in the conclave. This is because a cardinal over 80 is not permitted to participate in the process at the Sistine Chapel. 

This restriction came into place in 1970, under Pope Paul VI, who also recommended a maximum of 120 cardinals when electing a new Pope. 

For the conclave starting on May 7, 133 cardinals will vote at the Sistine Chapel.

Read More: Pope Francis’ Legacy Is Celebrated by Mourners at His Funeral: ‘His Tolerance and Humility Changed the Catholic Church’

Eligible cardinals can choose not to participate 

Despite being 76, Cardinal Angelo Becciu will not be part of the election for the next head of the Catholic Church.

Becciu formally withdrew from the papal conclave on April 29, saying he would not participate “for the good of the Church” and that he will “obey… the will of Pope Francis.” This comes after the cardinal was convicted of embezzlement charges in December 2023. He maintains his innocence.

In 2020, Pope Francis ordered Becciu to step down from his role as head of the Vatican’s saint-making office when the allegations came to light. Becciu was also stripped of “his rights connected to the cardinalate.”

Papal conclaves have inspired several books and films

Released in 2024, the movie Conclave, based on the 2016 novel of the same name, focuses on the fictional death of a Pope and the subsequent election process. After the passing of Pope Francis on April 21, viewership spiked by 283%.

Conclave received largely positive reviews from religious experts for its largely accurate portrayal of the election process, and also won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. 

Similarly, The Two Popes—a film released in 2019, which documents the change of Pontiff from Pope Benedict XVI to Pope Francis—saw a sharp rise in viewing of 417%.

source https://time.com/7282265/papal-conclaves-surprising-facts-history/

Trump Posts AI-Generated Image of Himself as Pope, Days After Joking He’d Like to Be the Next Pontiff

Just days before the papal conclave is set to begin—and a new leader of the Catholic Church will be chosen—President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as the Pope.

Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, late on Friday, May 2, to share an image of himself in the traditional papal clothing. The official White House social media account later reposted the image on X.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The image garnered a mixed response, with one critic saying it was “rather offensive for Catholics.”

Since the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday, the Catholic community—along with the rest of the world—has been eagerly waiting to see who will succeed him. That decision will be made during the papal conclave, which is set to begin on May 7.

pic.twitter.com/x2HrR939tn

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025

Read More: Pope Francis’ Legacy Is Celebrated by Mourners at His Funeral

Trump’s post of himself as the Pontiff comes just days after he teased he would choose himself to succeed Pope Francis.

“I’d like to be Pope,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on April 30, when he was asked about the next Pontiff. “That would be my number one choice.”

The quip was then bolstered by others—including Sen. Lindsay Graham, who joked on X that he was “excited” that the President is “open to the idea of being the next Pope.”

Trump went on to more seriously suggest New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, as a contender to be the next Pope. Dolan has been seen as Trump’s preferred cardinal and delivered traditional prayers at both of his inaugurations.

“I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good,” Trump said.

On May 1, Trump signed an Executive Order establishing the “Religious Liberty Commission,” and named Cardinal Dolan as one of the individuals who will serve as a member.

Read More: President Trump Pays His Respects at Pope Francis’ Funeral After ‘Private and Productive’ Meeting With Zelensky

The President attended Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, April 26, but the two notably had a complicated relationship, as the Catholic Church leader sharply disagreed with Trump’s mass deportation efforts, saying that the practice “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.”

Pope Francis also notably referred to Trump’s first term efforts to build a wall on the Southern border between the U.S. and Mexico as “not Christian.”

source https://time.com/7282376/president-trump-as-pope-image-social-media-papal-conclave-comments/

How to Watch the 2025 Met Gala

On Monday, May 5, celebrities and artists will showcase their designer outfits at the 2025 Met Gala. This year’s event focuses on “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” giving guests the opportunity to create their own interpretations of the theme.

Famously, those who do not attend the Met Gala cannot actually watch what takes place inside the event, but there is plenty of action to be seen beforehand.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The Met Gala serves as a fundraiser for The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and viewers eager to see the red carpet can tune in a couple of different ways.

First, they can follow along via Vogue’s livestream on their YouTube channel, which will be hosted by singer/actor Teyana Taylor, TV personality/actor La La Anthony, and Saturday Night Live’s Ego Nwodim. Internet personality Emma Chamberlain will also return as the red carpet correspondent for the night. Vogue’s livestream will start at 3 p.m. PST/6 p.m. ET, and viewers do not require a subscription to enjoy the event.

E! News is also hosting a livestream of the Met Gala, which will be hosted by journalists Zanna Roberts Rassi and Elaine Welteroth, sports host Maria Taylor, actor Yvonne Orji, and fashion designer Christian Siriano. The Live From E! Stream will be available on E! Online, Peacock, TODAY ALL DAY and All Fast partners, as well as on the YouTube channels for E! News, E! Insider, E! Entertainment, Today, and Access Hollywood.

source https://time.com/7282226/how-to-watch-the-2025-met-gala/

Miss Austen Turns the Jane Austen Marriage Plot on Its Head

No novelist in the English language is more closely associated with the marriage plot than Jane Austen. That literary trope turned rom-com convention gives structure to all six of her masterworks—which goes to show that the romance genre, far from mere escapism, can be an ideal lens through which to observe a society’s values. But another truth universally acknowledged about Austen complicates the happy weddings that conclude each book: The author never married. She spared her heroines the social and financial precarity she suffered.

The realities of single womanhood in Regency England, and for the Austen family in particular, are at the center of Miss Austen, a four-part BBC adaptation of Gill Hornby’s 2020 novel that will premiere stateside May 4 on PBS’s Masterpiece. Set more than a decade after Jane’s untimely death, this bit of historical fiction follows her beloved older (and only) sister, Cassandra, sensitively portrayed by executive producer Keeley Hawes, and imagines the circumstances that led her to destroy thousands of the author’s personal letters. Its primary characters are unmarried women. If you can get past the mannered stiffness typical of Masterpiece fare, it loosens up as it evolves into a perceptive and affectionate portrait of the kind of life Austen lived but barely wrote about.

Solitary in middle age, Hawes’ Cassandra—also never married—is roused from a cozy routine of talking to goats and reading in bed when a letter arrives informing her of a family friend’s imminent death. Against the advice of her correspondent, she hastens to Fulwar Fowle’s (Felix Scott) bedside. Cassandra has a history with the Fowles; she was betrothed to Fulwar’s brother Tom (played in flashbacks by Calam Lynch) before he died on an expedition to the West Indies. But it isn’t sentimentality, for the most part, that motivates her to make the trip. “There are certain items there of a personal nature that belong here,” she tells the servant seeing her off. Namely, the letters Jane wrote to Fulwar’s late wife, Eliza, a close friend of the Austen girls.

Of course she finds them, and the letters transport her back to the girls’ youth, with the young Cassandra played by Synnøve Karlsen and Jane by a wonderfully animated Patsy Ferran, reviving precious memories but also revealing the author’s unvarnished thoughts about her sister’s choices. There are perhaps too many costume-drama boilerplate shots of Hawes gazing tearily at yellowed sheets of stationary. But they’re worth it as a conduit to Cassandra’s and Jane’s 20s, a period when both women fielded suitors; the younger Austen grew into her voice as a writer, thanks in part to the encouragement of the elder; and each emerged as the most important person in the other’s life. What seems to wound the grown-up Cassandra most, in the letters, is Jane’s frustration at her sister’s rejection of a love match worthy of Pride and Prejudice. “She chose insecurity,” Jane writes to Eliza. “I did it for you, too,” Cassandra murmurs, half a lifetime later. Would we even know the name Jane Austen if she hadn’t taken such good care of the vivacious but also fragile, depressive writer in life and her work in death?

Elsewhere at the Fowles’ home, Kintbury, Mary Austen (Jessica Hynes), the haughty widow of Cassandra’s brother James, is bustling around with notions of commissioning a joint biography of Jane and her late husband—whose undistinguished poetry she prefers to Jane’s already-renowned prose. And in the wake of Fulwar’s death, his conscientious daughter Isabella (Rose Leslie) is preparing the residence for the arrival of a replacement vicar (Thomas Coombes’ lightly ridiculous Mr. Dundas), as she looks ahead to her own uncertain future. Cassandra has promised Fulwar that she’ll set her up with one of his other two daughters, but neither situation seems ideal. (One bizarre Fowle sister is a highlight of the show.) She also notices romantic tension between Isabella and the local doctor, Mr. Lidderdale (Alfred Enoch).

With its contrived conclusion, the latter storyline puts a somewhat ill-fitting bow on the series. What lingers after its giddiness dissipates are the experiences of so many single women, some widowed, others never married. Isabella’s unceremonious ejection from the home where she grew up. Mary’s fixation on commemorating James’ dubious talents. The genuine bond between Isabella and her servant, Dinah (Mirren Mack). The adversity Cassandra, Jane, and their mother face after the Austen patriarch’s death. Jane’s inability to accept a loveless marriage that would finance a high lifestyle but rob her of time to write. Cassandra’s lifelong protection of Jane—a devotion so fierce, in Hornby’s scenario, it drives her to destroy thousands of pages of writing by one of the greatest authors who ever walked the earth. Austen’s marriage plots reward her righteous heroines, granting them love and companionship they crave as well as wealth and respectability they need in a society that places too much value on superficial things. Particularly in chronicling the sacrifices Cassandra happily made for Jane, Miss Austen suggests that there was always more than one way for a woman to lead a fulfilling life.

source https://time.com/7281893/miss-austen-review-pbs/

The Four Seasons Reveals a Side of Tina Fey That’s Been Hiding in Plain Sight

Warm. Wistful. Tender. Empathetic. These are not words typically associated with Tina Fey, whose humor has a reputation for being brutal. But they all apply to The Four Seasons, a new Netflix dramedy series co-created by and starring Fey that follows three apparently settled middle-aged couples through a year of upheaval. Absent are the absurd characters, rapid-fire jokes, and dryly pessimistic social commentary with which Fey made her name on Saturday Night Live, and that have defined her career, from Mean Girls to 30 Rock. In their place is a moving depiction of marriage and friendship among Gen X empty nesters.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

A partial explanation for the shift in tone is that The Four Seasons wasn’t entirely conceived by Fey and her collaborators, Lang Fisher (Never Have I Ever) and Tracey Wigfield (Great News). It’s based on writer-director-star Alan Alda’s 1981 film of the same name—an urbane box-office hit that has since been overshadowed by quintessentially ’80s rom-coms like When Harry Met Sally. As in Alda’s version, the title refers to four seasonal group vacations (two half-hour episodes apiece in the series), each set to the appropriate Vivaldi concerto. Alongside a cast stacked with fellow A-listers Steve Carell and Colman Domingo, Fey plays Kate, a responsible, high-strung pragmatist married to a passive, philosophical man, Jack (SNL alum Will Forte); Carol Burnett and Alda originated the roles.

Fey is well aware that this all represents a left turn for her. In a recent appearance on her old friend and sometimes comedy partner Amy Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang, she described it as “a very, very gentle program” whose reception she’s curious to observe. So compassionate is her approach, in fact, that it casts the nearly three decades’ worth of work that preceded it in a new light. Beneath the veneer of misanthropy and the din of controversy her perspective has often incited lies a more generous sensibility that was always present but is only now coming to the fore.

“Authenticity is dangerous and expensive,” Fey counseled Bowen Yang in a 2024 interview for Las Culturistas, the podcast that the current SNL star co-hosts. Yang had gotten too famous, she said, to keep broadcasting blunt opinions on people with whom he might someday have to work. “Are you having a problem with Saltburn?” Fey asked. “Keep it to yourself. Because what are you going to do when Emerald Fennell calls you about her next project, where you play Carey Mulligan’s co-worker in the bridal section of Harrods and then Act 3 takes a sexually violent turn and you have to pretend to be surprised by that turn?”

Both the substance of Fey’s playful excoriation—that when you’re a celebrity, anything you say can be used against you—and the fact that it went viral are telling. For most of her career, and certainly since her portrayal of the harried, unglamorous sketch-show head writer Liz Lemon in 30 Rock coincided with the rise of pop feminism in the late aughts, her every plot and utterance has been widely scrutinized. Tina Fey superfans may be legion, but she’s also absorbed more than her share of misogyny as well as criticism for her button-pushing approach to identity politics.

Plenty of the latter pushback has been not only justified, but necessary. Before the Black Lives Matter movement forced a reckoning in Hollywood, Fey made the poor decision to show white performers in blackface on 30 Rock. While the joke was always at the expense of an ignorant white character or a racist entertainment industry, context couldn’t outweigh the images’ hurtful impact. In 2020, she apologized and had those episodes pulled from streaming services.

Yet the hair-trigger sensitivities of audiences predisposed to judge Fey harshly have also fueled ridiculous backlashes. Following 2017’s white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the UVa alum caught flak for an SNL “Weekend Update” bit in which she jokingly urged viewers to drown their rage in cake instead of getting into fistfights with Nazis. No one watching in good faith could’ve mistaken her for excusing the marchers. (She even sneaked in unusually progressive opinions for broadcast TV: “It’s not our country. We stole it from the Native Americans. And when they have a peaceful protest, at Standing Rock, we shoot at them with rubber bullets. But we let you chinless turds march through the streets with semiautomatic weapons.”) Nor was it hard to see she was playing an exaggeratedly naive version of herself. Still, she was self-critical enough to judge the segment as a failure. “If I had a time machine,” she said on David Letterman’s Netflix show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, “I would end the piece by saying… ‘Fight [the Nazis] in every way except the way that they want.’”

When Fey gets in trouble, whether for legitimate or specious reasons, it’s usually because her darkest humor is built atop a layer of cynicism about society—and Hollywood as a mirror of it—that isn’t always easy to unearth. Viewers got that her acclaimed SNL portrayal of an airheaded Sarah Palin reflected the then VP candidate’s pandering to a demographic that wanted women in politics to be “Caribou Barbie.” But they sometimes missed that the stars of 30 Rock’s show-within-a-show, Jenna Maroney and Tracy Jordan, embody certain awful stereotypes about white women and Black men not because Fey was saying they truly represented those groups but because showbiz rewards performers who reflect audiences’ prejudices.

It’s not hard to imagine why—at this point in her prolific career, but also at this toxic moment for the cultural conversation—Fey might want a break from satire. (She has long been rumored to be a top candidate to run SNL should her mentor Lorne Michaels ever retire, but her disinclination to keep wrestling the zeitgeist makes it seem doubtful she’d want the job.) Indeed, she appears to be making an effort to avoid stress in her professional life. Her current comedy tour with Poehler reportedly finds the duo bantering in pajamas. She spoke on Good Hang about making time, after years of overwork, to “just be a person in this world and maybe, like, watch a program.” In the same episode, Fey explained her approach to making The Four Seasons. “I worked hard to build it to be a really healthy set and really, like, humane hours,” she said. “I was also extremely purposeful about bringing together people who I believed were good people who would not make any trouble for me.”

The disproportionate share of criticism Fey attracts is, in a way, a testament to how effectively she’s caricatured herself over the years—as a schoolmarmish killjoy, a mousy prude, a blithely self-righteous white feminist—for an audience prone to conflating comedy with reality. She’s copped to having been a “caustic” judge of her peers as a teen, but the characters she usually inhabits, onscreen and as a public persona, are, to borrow words Fey frequently uses herself, “square” and “obedient.” A recent talking point has been her Enneagram personality test type: the Achiever.

Fey’s character in The Four Seasons is a more grounded, sympathetic version of this uptight woman. Kate can micromanage her friend group and her marriage, but when she errs toward officiousness, it’s because that’s her way of caring for people. “You’ve gotta always be the good guy,” she complains to Jack. “And that only leaves one other part.” The series is similarly generous with other characters. The revelation that Carell’s Nick plans to leave his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) after a gathering for their 25th anniversary drives the plot, throwing off both the other two couples and the overall group dynamic. But Nick comes off as less of a jerk than he is in Alda’s movie and more of a man struggling with his mortality. While Anne fades into the background of the film post-split, Fey goes to great, sometimes a bit clumsy lengths to honor the perspective of the jilted wife.

Where was she hiding this humanism, after years of depicting characters at their vain, stupid, oblivious worst? In plain sight, actually. There is no better indicator of a writer’s worldview than how they end their stories. In that regard, Fey has always been sneakily optimistic. Mean Girls is often likened to the pitch-black high school satire Heathers, but Heathers concludes, after multiple murders, with its villain’s suicide, while Mean Girls leaves us with a reformed queen bee and a utopian teenage social order. Whereas Seinfeld, another deadpan NBC sitcom about self-absorbed New Yorkers, notoriously condemned its characters to prison, 30 Rock let Liz finally have it all: the career, the baby, the hot husband. Fey’s next big project, the Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, wrung humor out of an abused, traumatized kidnapping victim’s adventures in a cruel city plagued by economic inequality. But—and here the clue is right there in the title—Kimmy’s tenacity won out.

The Four Seasons is probably not destined to become a classic like 30 Rock and Mean Girls; it offers neither the many madcap highs nor the occasional tone-deaf lows of Fey’s best work. Still, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable watch, one that reflects the wisdom and patience of age rather than the merciless genius of youth. Best of all, it reveals a hidden, humanizing dimension of the most fascinating character Tina Fey ever created: Tina Fey.

source https://time.com/7281530/the-four-seasons-netflix-tina-fey/

TIME Unveils Special Report: “Five Years Later: America Looks for a Way Forward After George Floyd”

TIME to Host ‘TIME Impact Dinner: The Road to Justice’ in Washington, D.C. on May 20, in Partnership with the Center for Policing Equity

May 1, 2025—Today, TIME publishes “Five Years Later: America Looks for a Way Forward After George Floyd,” a special report released ahead of the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. In the wake of Floyd’s death, millions of Americans took to the streets, launching the largest protests in U.S. history and marking a watershed moment that demanded safety, dignity, and an end to anti-Black racism. Produced in collaboration with the Center for Policing Equity, the special package features a collection of interviews and essays from scholars, activists, artists, and more, exploring why the pursuit of racial justice remains so challenging in America.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

–Read the special report: here

“Few periods have influenced the course of American history in the last century as the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and the worldwide protest movement that sprung from it the following summer,” said TIME Editor in Chief Sam Jacobs. “We are grateful to partner with the Center for Policing Equity to publish work from artists, photographers and writers, each reflecting on the impact of this moment and the work that remains undone.”

The new cover for the project is a painting, Holding On (Blue), by Tajh Rust for TIME. On the painting Rust writes: “I’ve been using this water motif to speak to a shared history and a collective memory across the Black diaspora. The water gives us a chance to reflect, but it can also be a flood. Our stories, challenges, and triumphs are connected by oceans. This family unit is inundated by the rising water, yet they stay above it. The hope may be found in the younger generation.” 

–See the cover by painter Tajh Rust for TIME: here

The TIME Special Report “Five Years Later: America Looks for a Way Forward After George Floyd” 

 features perspectives from:  

• Former basketball player Carmelo Anthony and former basketball player and social justice advocate Maya Moore: How Sports Can Advance Racial Justice
• Scholar Imani Perry: Art Is a Powerful Tool to Fight Racial Injustice
• Civil rights advocate Kimberle Crenshaw: The Battle for Our Memory Is the Battle for Our Country
• Center for Policing Equity co-founder and CEO Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon: Building a Moonshot for Racial Justice
• Philosopher and author Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò: Why Protests Should Be Promises
• African American studies scholar Brandon Terry: What the Reconstruction Era Can Teach Us About the Politics of Shame
• Historian and professor Dylan Penningroth: Police Power Affects All of Us
• Activist and #MeToo movement founder Tarana Burke: What Sustains Her Lifelong Fight for Racial Equity
• A photo essay, featuring Carrie Mae Weems, Mikael Owunna, and other artists, on processing police brutality and spotlighting humanity in the era of Black Lives Matter: The Artist as Witness in the Era of Black Lives Matter

As an extension of the special project, TIME will host the TIME Impact Dinner: The Road to Justice with presenting partner the Center for Policing Equity in Washington, D.C. on May 20. The evening will be dedicated to elevating the perspectives of the leaders featured in the “Five Years Later: America Looks for a Way Forward After George Floyd” special report and those who are striving to reshape public safety systems to drive equity and better support marginalized communities.

###

source https://time.com/7281847/time-unveils-special-report-five-years-later-america-looks-for-a-way-forward-after-george-floyd/