CONTRIBUTORS

JEFFREY KLUGER flew to Tucson and drove 35 miles along rough, rutted roads to a remote corner of the Arizona desert to interview America's most visible health guru, Dr. Andrew Weil, for this week's cover story. Kluger, who joined TIME's science staff last August, toured Weil's home, a converted horse stable, and found Weil to be energetic, engaging and quite sincere in his belief that he is helping improve America's health. Weil faithfully follows most of his own good-health gospel, says Kluger, although like many fiftysomethings, he has a hard time keeping his weight down. And he does, from time to time, violate his own prohibition against alcohol, with half a bottle of imported beer or a thimbleful of sake.

HILARY HYLTON, TIME's stringer in Austin, Texas, has been monitoring the activities of the group that calls itself the Republic of Texas for more than a year, interviewing its enigmatic leader, Rick McLaren, as his group grew more active, establishing, for example, a system of courts (one in an air-conditioning repair shop). When McLaren declared himself at war with the U.S. last week, we naturally turned to Hylton for the inside story. "He's a Pied Piper figure whose rhetoric is so confounding that you're tempted to dismiss him," says Hylton. "But it's evident that McLaren has been able to tap into that nagging insecurity in America that has helped fuel the militia movement."

CLAUDIA WALLIS, managing editor of TIME FOR KIDS, has good reason to be proud. Her magazine, which is read every school week by 1.2 million students, just completed its second year of publication and has received the industry's equivalent of straight A's: a 50% jump in circulation and five Educational Press awards. "But our greatest satisfaction," says Wallis, "comes from seeing the enthusiasm of our young readers. We get a thousand letters and E-mails a week." Schools may call 1-800-777-8600 to learn more about TFK.

DAVID RUBINGER has been a TIME photographer in Israel for nearly a half-century, covering major wars (and not a few small ones) and documenting the lives of statesmen and ordinary citizens. Next week the Israeli government will honor his work with its prestigious Israel Prize for lifetime achievement. Perhaps his most memorable photograph is one of young Israeli paratroopers at Jerusalem's Western Wall in 1967, just minutes after fighting had ceased. It quickly became an emblem of Israel's stunning victory in the Six-Day War.