DIED
A. Alvarez, British
poet and writer
known for helping
popularize the poetry
of Sylvia Plath, on
Sept. 23 at 90.
> Zine el-Abidine
Ben Ali, Tunisian
autocrat ousted in
the Arab Spring, on
Sept. 19 at 83.RESIGNED
Adam Neumann, co-
founder of WeWork,
as CEO of the office-
sharing company,
on Sept. 24, as its
IPO stalled.
> Kevin Burns, CEO
of Juul, as a series of
vaping-related deaths
raised concerns
about the safety of
e-cigarettes.ENDED
New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio’s
presidential cam-
paign, on Sept. 20.CHARGED
A 24-year-old soldier
in Kansas, on
Sept. 23, with alleg-
edly sharing bomb-
making instructions
on the Internet. The
FBI said he’d spoken
of plans to bomb a
U.S. news network.EXPANDED
Overtime pay to
1.3 million workers,
under new Labor
Department rules
finalized Sept. 24.SHUT DOWN
Pennsylvania’s Three
Mile Island nuclear
plant, on Sept. 20. It
will take 60 years to
fully decommission
the plant, which was
the site of the U.S.’s
worst commercial
nuclear accident.SUSPENDED
Gunmaker Colt’s pro-
duction of the AR-
and other “sporting
rifles” for consum-
ers, according to a
Sept. 19 company
announcement.When this Thomas Cook holiday to Italy embarked from Victoria Station
in London in 1937, the company was already nearly a century oldWhen english cabineTmaker Thomas cook sTarTed a
travel company in 1841, it sold only day trips from Leicester to
Loughborough, via steam train, at a shilling each. More than 178
years later—after surviving 36 U.S. presidencies, two world wars
and the reigns of six British monarchs—one of the world’s oldest
travel companies derailed in spectacular fashion. After Thomas
Cook collapsed into liquidation on Sept. 23, having failed to
secure the $1.37 billion it needed to stay afloat, its bookings were
canceled and hundreds of thousands of travelers were stranded.
In the intervening years, Thomas Cook had revolutionized the
travel industry. In 1872, the company was the first to offer passen-
gers a packaged around-the-globe tour; in 1919, just 16 years after
the airplane was invented, it was the first to advertise “pleasure
flights.” When the U.K. economy boomed after World War II, so
did Thomas Cook; by the 1950s, more than a million Britons went
on holiday each year. In 2003, the company launched its own
airline and, having taken on a form that would have been unrec-
ognizable to its Victorian founder, soon began selling all- inclusive
trips with Thomas Cook–branded agencies, hotels and planes.
But the company struggled in recent years, battered on
all sides by the ease of online travel planning, debts resulting
from a 2007 merger, competition from lower-cost rivals like
Jet2holidays and the uncertainty of a looming Brexit. Now,
with Thomas Cook gone and its beleaguered customers finding
routes home without its help, travelers are making their own way
once again. —rachael bunyanCOLLAPSED
Thomas Cook
The U.K.’s oldest travel companyMilestonesDIED
Jason McManus
Eminent editor
By Howard Chua-Eoan
in 1985, i Was a loWly
fact checker at TIME and
Jason McManus was busy
running the magazine, when
a colleague showed him the
company softball team’s
yearbook. He read the open-
ing essay in the photocopied
booklet and asked, “Who
wrote it, and should we hire
him?” With that wee recog-
nition, I was on my way to a
writer’s job at the magazine.
Jason, who died at 85
on Sept. 19, was a prince of
TIME. With his Ivy League
degree, Rhodes scholar bona
fides and experience report-
ing abroad, he had the cred
that, in that era, helped a
man rise to boss of the mag-
azine (which he was from
1985 to 1987). He then over-
saw the whole Time Inc. sta-
ble (as editor-in-chief from
1987 to 1994) during a reign
that witnessed the onset of
the titanic mergers and cor-
porate ambitions— including
the marriage of Warner and
Time Inc. in 1990—that
would shrink the power of
his office and remake media
forever.
Beset by immense forces,
Jason still never ceased to
be a master of the generous
gesture. One small kindness
helped make my career. So
many more of my colleagues
were the beneficiaries of his
giant heart.Chua-Eoan, TIME’s news
director from 2000 to
2013, is deputy editor of
Bloomberg BusinessweekMcManus
FUNGI: TOM BRUNS, UC BERKELEY; SPONGEBOB: GETTY IMAGES; THOMAS COOK: J.A. HAMPTON—HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; MCMANUS: TED THAI—GETTY IMAGES in 1987