Table of contents for July 22, 2019 in TIME Magazine

A LOYAL ALLY OF GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel emerged on July 2 as the surprise candidate to become European Commission president, one of the most powerful positions in Europe. Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s Defense Minister, was nominated by France’s Emmanuel Macron after negotiations among E.U. leaders reached an impasse. With a confirmation vote by the E.U. Parliament set for July 16, von der Leyen is set to shape the union’s political agenda for the next five years. SOCIAL REFORMER As the daughter of a former European Commissioner, von der Leyen embodies the European project: she was born and raised in Brussels and speaks fluent French and English. She entered politics in her 40s after a career as a gynecologist and has since become the longest-serving member of Merkel’s…

DIED Ross Perot The independent I ONCE ASKED ROSS PEROT, WHO DIED JULY 9 AT 89, TO TELL ME the secret of his success. He said that he sells umbrellas when it’s raining. He knew there was a right place and a right time to take advantage of an opportunity. And boy, did he ever! I’ll never forget the day he came on Larry King Live in 1992 to talk about President George H.W. Bush’s economic policies. As he was a wildly successful businessman, a lot of people were pushing him to run for Bush’s job himself. When he told me he wasn’t suited for it, something in me didn’t believe him. So I asked again later. Still no. Toward the end of the interview, I asked a third…

IT’S A HOT DAY IN UKIAH IN MID-JUNE, WITH TEMPERAtures in the mid-’90s, and fire crews are chainsawing and bulldozing their way through thick trees and brush, racing to reduce the dangerous combustibles. Crews in this rural area north of San Francisco have done this kind of fuel reduction in past years, yet not at this pace nor with this much support. The work they’re doing—clearing and thinning 100-ft.-wide swaths of land to help hold back flames—is one of 35 projects fast-tracked by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has made wildfires a high-profile focus since taking office in January. Locals are on board too: this project cuts through hundreds of parcels of privately owned land. Getting access to residents’ property used to take convincing, says Ukiah battalion chief Michael…

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU IS PACING THE STAGE AT A CYBER-CONFERENCE IN TEL AVIV, and he is not happy. For the past seven minutes, he’s been making the case that his policies have launched a booming tech industry in Israel and enabled the tiny country that once fought for its existence to become a security force around the globe. He’s holding his shoulders up and back, a stage tip he got from Sean Connery. His red tie, white shirt and dark suit mirror a certain American President who has emerged as a massive Netanyahu ally. But there’s a problem. Graphics on the giant screen behind him keep popping up at the wrong time. “Who’s dealing with the slides? Get that person out of there,” Netanyahu says, with the sweep…

YOU NEEDN’T BE A RAP SNOB TO APPRECIATE RICK RUBIN, THE SUPERproducer who shepherded the careers of hip-hop pioneers like Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys. He’s helped shape classic albums in every genre, from Slayer’s Reign in Blood to Tom Petty’s Wildflowers to Adele’s 21. And with his flowing white beard, chill vibe and minimalist ethos, Rubin’s sagelike persona—or, depending on your level of cynicism, personal brand—is as distinctive as that of any icon he’s produced. His calm pervades Shangri-La, a four-part docuseries named for his storied Malibu studio that premieres on Showtime on July 12. Though it traces the 56-year-old Rubin’s life and career, it’s not a standard bio. Director Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) lets episodes meander like trains of…

‘People can misunderstand anger for strength.’NAOMI OSAKA, tennis player and 2018 U.S. Open winner, in a text message to Serena Williams, who was penalized for lashing out at a referee when they played each other in the tournament final; Williams shared the note in a July 9 personal essay in Harper’s Bazaar 1 in 4 Approximate ratio of Americans who say they don’t plan to ever retire, according to a poll published on July 7 ‘People are really hungry for stories, hungry for stories of people who look and feel like them.’MICHELLE OBAMA, former First Lady, on what she learned on the book tour for her memoir Becoming, on July 6 at the Essence Festival in New Orleans ‘THE SUPREME COURT DECISION WAS WRONG.’WILLIAM BARR, U.S. Attorney General, saying July…

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW FOCUSED TERRY Gou is on the campaign trail, look at his pants. When the billionaire Foxconn CEO gives televised interviews, senior aides crouch by his feet, just off camera. If he strays off message, they’re primed to steer the presidential contender back on course by giving his pant legs a quick tug. Gou’s cuffs remained unruffled as he spoke to local news stations on June 15 at Kun Shan University in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan before greeting students with running high fives like a WWE wrestler. His platform in the 2020 presidential election in the island territory, he says, is how to profit from a trade war. As the U.S. and China have ramped up tit-for-tat tariffs on a range of…

The aftermath of an early-morning airstrike, which killed at least 53 at a migrant detention center near Tripoli, is seen on July 3. The country detains thousands of migrants and refugees in government-run facilities in conditions human-rights groups say contravene international law. The strike at the Tajoura Detention Center, for which Libya blamed a rebel group, came two months after the U.N. warned that detainees there were at risk. For more of our best photography, visit time.com/lightbox…

Hong Kong has a long-standing, admirable protest culture that is peaceful, but recent acts of vandalism have jolted the city. Its people can peacefully protest in enormous numbers because they are pragmatic and gentle souls. Hong Kong people may be frustrated, but there has never been much appetite for instability and disruption. Hong Kong people want a more democratic system, but they can also see it is not a full solution to their problems. They are disappointed with the establishment and opposition political elites, who have not been able to provide inspiring leadership. The territory needs to have a deep dialogue of reconciliation in order to move forward within the policy of “one country, two systems.” Beijing needs to allow it because it needs to hear the concerns of Hong…

TIME: You are on track to surpass David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister. How does Netanyahu’s Israel look different from Ben-Gurion’s? NETANYAHU: Where I’ve tried to contribute to the country—and I think it’s changed dramatically—is in the development of Israel as a global technological power. TIME: What are the factors that contributed to that shift? NETANYAHU: Turning Israel into a free-market economy, I think, was the second critical factor that made Israel the rising power that it is among the countries. The first was the high-intensity use of our most gifted men and women in our military for intelligence purposes. TIME: What can be done to help the millions of people who live in the occupied territories who haven’t benefited from that rise? NETANYAHU: Well, I’d separate Gaza…

AMERICAN POLITICIANS ARE USED TO catering their pitches to various demographics, focusing on African-American workers or suburban women. Yet they don’t often talk about people with disabilities—even though those who ignore disabled Americans may be missing out on a growing group of voters. One in 4 adults in the U.S. has a disability, but obstacles such as inaccessible polling places and a lack of engagement from politicians have kept their turnout numbers low. That started to change last year, according to a July 10 report. Researchers at Rutgers University found that voter turnout among people with disabilities surged by 8.5 percentage points in last year’s midterms, reversing a trend of stagnant or decreasing rates. In 2018, which saw historic turnout across the board, more people with disabilities reported voting…

A DECADE AGO, JUST FIVE STATES HAD ANY LAWS that mentioned dyslexia. Now if AB-110—a modest bill about developing a dyslexia guidebook—passes the Wisconsin senate and is signed by the governor, that state will become the 46th to have legislation specifically addressing the needs of children with that condition. This year alone, according to the website Dyslegia, more than 75 dyslexia-related bills are expected to be introduced in state legislatures. Why the wave of laws around this learning disability? Legal experts, teachers and literacy advocates point to one organization in particular: Decoding Dyslexia, a decentralized group of parents who have used social media and online resources to mobilize, raise awareness, and lobby state and federal legislators. “They’re well organized,” says Jasmine E. Harris, a professor at University of California,…

Americans love their children, agonizing about offering them a hopeful path to the future. But since the nation’s beginnings, we have been at once sympathetic to images of childhood and unkind in our treatment of “other” people’s children. For migrants at the southern border, this seeming paradox is playing out once again. In late June, about a year after the Trump Administration officially ended its family-separation policy, a group of lawyers who visited a Texas detention center housing migrant youth were so appalled by what they saw—toddlers without diapers, older children taking care of younger ones, flu outbreaks—that they alerted the media. Since then, we’ve heard from others who have observed the situation at the border. A pediatrician told the Atlantic of kids with signs of trauma. The New…

HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE FAIRS FELT A LITTLE DANGERous? Since carnies lounged beside the greased sprockets of rickety rides, speaking their secret language so the rest of us—the “marks”—would not understand? Midways trafficked not only in plush toys but also in dark impulses that seemed even darker against the glare of bright lights. State fairs always seemed a little safer than the county kind, and way more than those carnivals that just showed up on the edge of town. From the start, which was in 1841 in Syracuse, N.Y., the state fair convened to showcase the glories of the jurisdiction’s livestock and agriculture. Today shiny new tractors and combines still stand atop Machinery Hill in St. Paul. Teenagers still sack out on sleeping bags in livestock barns…

Who is Brett Kavanaugh? That may seem like an odd question. For a few weeks last September, the world learned almost everything about Kavanaugh: his tenure as a judge on the D.C. Court of Appeals and as a White House lawyer for President George W. Bush; his privileged education in Maryland and New Haven, Conn.; and most of all, the allegation that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when they were in high school. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings left few Americans without an opinion about him. But now that Kavanaugh is on the court, who he is matters more than ever. The 54-year-old lifetime appointee replaced Justice Anthony Kennedy, who for decades occupied the swing seat on the bench, casting the decisive vote on legalizing same-sex marriage, protecting…

LYNN SHELTON, DIRECTOR OF MOVIES like Laggies and Your Sister’s Sister, has a knack for locating the approaching turns in characters’ lives; then she stands back, observing quietly but astutely as they figure out how to round them. In her wily, laid-back comedy Sword of Trust, a young woman, Jillian Bell’s Cynthia, inherits a Civil War–era sword from her grandfather, an item with a possibly unsavory past that she has no desire to own. With her high-strung partner Mary (Michaela Watkins), she heads off to a pawn shop. The mildly cantankerous owner, Mel (played by comedian and podcaster Marc Maron), hems and haws as he examines the hoary old weapon. He passes on it—only to have his hapless shop assistant Nathaniel (Jon Bass) inform him, after some random Googling, that…

IMAGINE A TEST THAT COULD TELL you exactly which foods you, and you alone, should eat to stay healthy and maintain your ideal body weight. It could guide you through the breakfast buffet—eggs or toast?—and spare you precious months on the latest trendy crash diet; your doctor could even include it in your medical records to improve treatments. This one test could, in theory, save you years of calorie counting, trial and error, and frustration. The allure of this kind of personalized diet is clear, and companies are already cashing in on direct-to-consumer tests that claim to offer customized diet advice based on genes, biomarkers and more. There’s Habit, which says it can identify your optimal foods using lifestyle information and lab-verified cholesterol readouts; Viome, which analyzes your gut…