Contributors

TIMOTHY GREENFIELD-SANDERS, who recently won a Grammy for his documentary on rocker Lou Reed, had a different sort of star to photograph in Monica Lewinsky. Greenfield-Sanders, who is known for his elegant portraits, shot our cover story and the cover of her book, Monica's Story. How do you approach "that woman"? By treating Lewinsky to breakfast before the shoot. He was struck by "how genuinely funny she is."

SYLVESTER MONROE, our South bureau chief, reports this week on a crime syndicate that uses stolen airline tickets to smuggle illegal aliens into the country. He has been investigating this story on and off since November 1996, when he heard about a series of travel-agency burglaries. As he dug deeper, he says, the story "shifted from fraud to a real public concern." Monroe also reports in this issue on the recent hate crime in Sylacauga, Ala.

JANE WULF, our new chief of reporters, joins us after rising from clerk to reporter chief during her 22 years at Sports Illustrated. Her first week here was a TIME trial of sorts: the magazine had to be updated at 5 a.m. Sunday with the news of King Hussein's death. "It made me think, 'Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore,'" says Wulf, who managed the ordeal gracefully. But then, with four children, she's used to being on 24-hour call.

MARGUERITE MICHAELS, TIME's news director, writes this week on the conflict festering in Congo. "It was a difficult story to end, because there is no end," says Michaels, a former Nairobi bureau chief who has visited Congo often. "I see last week's murder of Americans in Uganda as an indication of the chaos that will continue until Africa reshapes itself." Nevertheless, she adds, "that reshaping of colonial borders will bring about the continent's renaissance."