Table of contents for March 2019 in Rolling Stone

“My guidance counselor told me not to be an engineer, because it’s a male-dominated field and I’d struggle. [Now] I go to work to operate a robot on Mars.”—FARAH ALIBAY, NASA systems engineer ON JANUARY 11TH, just days after successfully regaining her position as speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi posed for the cover of ROLLINGSTONEwith three resilient members of the congressional freshman class: Jahana Hayes, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Despite chatter that incoming liberals would clash with the old guard, they all voted for her in the end and became strong supporters. “There was no sense that these were women who didn’t get along,” says Catriona Ni Aolain, ROLLINGSTONE’s director of creative content, who produced the shoot with photographer Zoey Grossman. “I felt no tension or weird…

TWO DAYS AGO, Billie Eilish celebrated her 17th birthday at a roller rink here in L.A., and yesterday she got right back to work, which meant hunkering down at “a random-ass hotel” to shoot a video for her new single, “Bury a Friend.” “It smelled like pee and horses,” she says of the hotel, “but we fucking nailed it, dude.” Wearing recently blue hair that she’s now dyeing gray, Eilish sits in the backyard of the bungalow she’s called home since birth. She wrote the new song, she says, “from the perspective of the monster under your bed. Anything could be the monster — it could be someone you love so much that it’s taking over your life. I think love and terror and hatred are all the same…

RANDOM QUOTE “Everyone commenting on Roger Stone’s Nixon tattoo has me reluctant to reveal my Lyndon Johnson tramp stamp.”—Conan O’Brien…

Maren Morris Girl COLUMBIA NASHVILLE MAREN MORRIS made her bones as one of country’s brightest new upstarts three years ago with her major-label debut, Hero. She introduced herself as a Texas songwriter with a sharp eye, a velvet voice and a mean streak, especially when it came to her irreverent attitude toward Nashville pieties. “My Church” was her profane hymn about hitting the highway and blasting Hank Williams on the car radio. From “Drunk Girls Don’t Cry” to “80s Mercedes,” Morris sounded fresh, wry, electric, full of hip-hop and R&B, yet down-home — the kind of voice people felt like they’d been waiting years to hear. The title track from her new one, Girl, sets the bar high right away. It’s the most ambitious and eccentric song she’s done…

“I never would’ve thought I’d say . . . that Jordan Peele would be on his way to becoming the black Hitchcock. What a time to be alive.”—CJ Baldwin, via the internet The Genius of Jordan Peele For our February cover story, Jordan Peele took senior writer Brian Hiatt to Universal Studios Hollywood, where the pair rode the Harry Potter ride, shared butterbeers, and talked about Peele’s rise from sketch-comedy star to one of Hollywood’s most important directors. The story [“The All-American Nightmares of Jordan Peele,” RS 1324] was the first significant piece of press Peele did for Us, the highly anticipated, extremely terrifying follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2016 debut, Get Out. Peele also talked about his upbringing, race and the Twilight Zone reboot he’s executive-producing. Readers responded: “Jordan Peele emerging as one…

AT THIS POINT, Cher is more than just a pop star; she’s the one-woman embodiment of the whole gaudy story of pop music. She’s a myth so huge that the new Broadway musical The Cher Show takes three different Chers to encompass her — Babe Cher, Lady Cher and Star Cher. She was just 16 when she got discovered by Sonny Bono, already a seasoned music-biz shark, and soon became his hippie bride in a blur of miniskirts and fringed vests. Everybody thought she was washed up by the time she turned 20, but she refused to go. “If I Could Turn Back Time” became her theme song because the battle of Cher versus Time turned out to be a mismatch. It’s Time that has trouble turning back Cher.…

AT 3:45 P.M. on October 6th, 2017, an unassuming man in his early sixties with a low, raspy voice and a thin, wide smile arrived at the White House. He had been here before, in the George W. Bush years, when he was one of the most sought-after fundraisers in the Republican Party. But a scandal had derailed his life, and afterward he had disappeared from politics. In early 2016, the opportunity arose to make his return. The man had helped Donald J. Trump’s long-shot campaign raise millions of dollars, and he could rightly say he played a role in the most improbable presidential victory in American history. Now, Elliott Broidy had come to deliver an urgent message. After a brief visit with Jared Kushner, he was summoned to…

You turn 80 in July. How do you feel? I feel good. When I was a kid, 80 was old, but I don’t feel old. I’m not as sharp as I used to be when I’m talking, but I feel like I’m ready for another 10 years. How are you going to celebrate on the big day? Oh, Lord. I told a friend of mine I want him to show me how to ride a skateboard, and I might want to go skydiving. Why skateboarding? I’ve seen my friend Ben Harper skateboarding and I said, “Ben, I’m scared for you on that.” And he said, “Well, Mavis, this is beautiful. You’ve got to try it.” If you could talk to yourself at age 20, what would you say? Get…

1. Luis Fonsi feat. Stefflon Don “Calypso” Two years after his smash success with “Despacito,” Puerto Rican star Luis Fonsi is finally back with a new studio album. The immediate winner? This dancehall party co-starring Hackney rap royalty Stefflon Don. It’s hot enough to make March feel like July. 2. Karen O “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” On a cover for Amazon’s new series Hanna, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer gives Smashing Pumpkins’ angsty 1995 hit a fantastic electro-goth makeover. She really makes you feel that rage-cage duality. 3. Neil Young “Olden Days” (live) It’s worth seeking out a bootleg to hear this sorrowful ballad from Young’s recent solo shows: “I think we’re living way too fast/I’m searching out for my old friends/Some say I’m living in the past.” 4.…

THERE ARE 19 white stickers arranged across Jenny Lewis’ fridge. Each one carries a stamped date, the logo of Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, the word VISITOR and, in Lewis’ handwriting, a different beguiling little phrase: I taught him how to 2-step; Rosey posey put your snake finger on; You are a sunshine in a fruit. “Every day that I visited my mom in the hospital,” Lewis says, “I’d get one of these and write down something she’d say to me. She got more and more psychedelic as we kept upping the meds, and she’d say the most amazing things.” Lewis points at one — Glue me to the ceiling so you never leave — and sighs. “She had liver cancer. From untreated hepatitis C. She was a lifelong…

IT WAS A BONE-COLD JANUARY DAY in the nation’s capital. The federal government — finally back in business after the longest shutdown in American history — opened three hours late due to a dusting of snow and a “flash freeze” in the forecast. Not that it mattered to anyone who worked inside the speaker’s office. Nancy Pelosi was there at her usual time, and her aides were expected to be there too. There was work to do: committees to finish assigning, a postponed State of the Union to organize, and less than three weeks to hammer out a deal with the White House on border security before funding was set to run out again. ¶ Pelosi is at the height of her power, having recaptured the House, dispatched an…