THE RISE OF DRIVERLESS CARS
Even readers who love to drive expressed appreciation for Matt Vella’s March 7 cover story on the coming age of self-driving autos, calling the piece timely, if bittersweet. Rick Ferrell of Centreville, Md., a former race-car driver who was also once hit by a car, would miss handling his “beloved ’97 BMW Z3 roadster,” he wrote, but called the safety gained by going driverless “a step in the right direction.”
But many others weren’t quite ready to trust the new technology. “If auto manufacturers cannot make the relatively simple electronics of today’s cars work reliably, how can they drive with them?” asked Robert Tugwell of Belton, S.C. And Mark Johnson, co-owner of an auto-repair shop in Fort Collins, Colo., warned that such cars “will only be as good as [their] electrical integrity, which always deteriorates over time.”
Even so, Suzy Heller Curtis of West Bloomfield, Mich., saw an upside to letting machines take the wheel: “As a widow looking for a nice guy who drives at night, the new technology could offer me some new prospects!”
KLEIN ON TRUMP
Joe Klein’s column on how Donald Trump became the GOP front runner by expertly reading the national mood and playing to primal fears prompted praise for its insight and fairness. But Richard Tremayne of Mesick, Mich., suggested that Klein had overlooked a legitimate reason for Trump’s appeal: “I don’t believe in everything Trump proposes,” he wrote, “but people want change, not a recirculated governor, Senator or Vice President.”
Back in TIME
March 3, 1923
THE FIRST ISSUE
As TIME marks its 93rd birthday, here’s a look back at some highlights from the first issue, which can be read at time.com/vault.
• The foreign news covers the occupation of the Rhineland–later a flash point in the rise of Hitler.
• The books page floats the rumor that T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was a hoax.
• The Milestones section made its first appearance. (You can find it in this issue on page 13.)
• The Health section reports on a blind boy who got a partial porcine eye transplant–and “a contract to appear in vaudeville with the pig.”
NOW ON TIME.COM
Will we ever beat the mosquito? To find out, TIME’s Alexandra Sifferlin went to Piracicaba, Brazil, where officials are waging war on the insects and the Zika virus. Read more at time.com/mosquito-war.
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