TIME’s editors named eight final candidates for the 2014 Person of the Year on Monday.
TIME managing editor Nancy Gibbs revealed the shortlist on NBC’s Today show. Here are the eight still in the final running, in no particular order:
- The Ferguson protesters, who took to the streets in August following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer, and again in November when a grand jury declined to indict the officer in the killing.
- The Ebola caregivers, who are still fighting the biggest Ebola outbreak in history, that has so far taken the lives of nearly 7,000 people in West Africa.
- Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who has remained in the headlines throughout this year, from his country’s stewardship of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to its annexation of Crimea, and its role in the ongoing civil strife in eastern Ukraine.
- Taylor Swift, one of the world’s top-selling pop artists, who this year shook up the music industry by pulling her music from streaming service Spotify, which she believes should compensate artists more.
- Jack Ma, an English teacher turned founder and CEO of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant which debuted a $25 billion IPO.
- Tim Cook, who introduced Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple Watch, and Apple Pay this year, and whose decision to come out made him the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO.
- Masoud Barzani, the acting president of the Iraqi Kurdish Region since 2005, who has deftly threaded the region’s push for independence with the ongoing fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria.
- Roger Goodell, the National Football League commissioner whose leadership has been under great scrutiny this year as the league dealt with public incidents of domestic abuse by players such as Ray Rice, among other controversies.
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Gibbs will unveil TIME’s Person of the Year on Today on Wednesday morning, when it will also be shared on Twitter and Facebook. Readers have already made their choice, picking Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as their favored candidate in TIME’s online poll.
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