Table of contents for July 8, 2019 in TIME Magazine

TWENTY-THREE-MONTH-OLD VALERIA and her father Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez drowned trying to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S., according to the Associated Press. After journeying from El Salvador on April 3, the family were unable to set a date to request asylum in the U.S. and instead attempted to cross the Rio Grande. The photo, taken on June 24 by journalist Julia Le Duc, has been shared internationally by news outlets and on social media, and sparked international outrage—both from migrant advocates who argue that such an image will galvanize action and by those who consider the photo exploitative. For an activist like Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, the photo is a turning point in the immigration debate, and he compared it…

PAUL SAUER SPINS HIS HEAD LIKE A HAWK, STANDING ON THE ROOF OF the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport, as jets whine and fume on the tarmac below. “Pretty straightforward today,” he shouts. “A little stratocumulus to the north. A little bit of middle clouds, which is still moving through us to the south. And a little bit of cirrus above that.” He turns on his heels and heads back down to his office, one floor below. “The machine is not going to see that,” he says. “The machine—well, we’ll find out.” Out on the runway, near the edge of taxiway DD, “the machine”—a ceilometer—sits on a small patch of grass, burnt to brown by jet exhaust. It measures cloud cover, but only directly above the airport.…

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE’S CUSTOMS. That could be the tagline for Ari Aster’s terror-round-the-maypole dread-fest Midsommar, if the movie had even the remotest sense of humor about itself. Dani (Florence Pugh), a young psychology student who has just lost her sister and parents in a horrific incident, accepts a reluctant invitation from her loser boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) to join him on the trip to Sweden he’s about to undertake with some buds from his graduate program. One of the guys, the excessively mild-mannered Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), has invited the group specifically to observe a traditional midsummer celebration hosted by the people of the small, cloistered community in which he was raised. There will be flowers, singing, men and women in white robes, and filleted human corpses flopping about. Skal!…

‘We promise that we’ll be good role models to society.’EKAPOL CHANTAWONG, at a June 24 ceremony in Mae Sai, Thailand, marking a year since he and the soccer team he coached became famous after their rescue from a cave ‘A government that roams the land … scrubbing away any reference to the divine will strike many as aggressively hostile to religion.’SAMUEL ALITO, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, arguing in a majority opinion that a 40-ft.-tall cross honoring World War I soldiers, which stands on state property in Bladensburg, Md., is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion ‘A Border Patrol agent came in our room with a 2-year-old boy and asked us, “Who wants to take care of this little boy?”’UNIDENTIFIED GIRL, describing how children were left to take care of one…

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT ROME IS the Eternal City—the passage of time palpable at every turn within its labyrinthine streets. But time seizes the city most immediately on the summer solstice, when the iconic Pantheon—named for “every god”—is transformed by the sun. On June 21, the sun perfectly aligns with the roof’s oculus and illuminates the whole space. For the past six years, Elizabeth Bick has embarked on “Every God,” a photographic exploration documenting visitors to the Pantheon at this annual moment. Bick calls the project a “celebration of humanity and their performance.” Her remarkable series of photographs calls to mind a complicated dance enacted by a host of visitors who find themselves spontaneously bathed in light and shadow. “It is one part endurance piece, and one part preoccupation with an…

When controversy over video replay overshadows soccer’s top tournament, the beautiful game can get ugly fast. That’s what’s happening with VAR—video assistant referee, or soccer’s instant replay—at the Women’s World Cup in France. VAR’s World Cup debut last summer, at the men’s tournament, was deemed a success: some top men’s pro leagues were already experimenting with VAR, so the players were familiar with it. FIFA, however, did not approve replay for the women’s event until less than three months before kickoff, so the women couldn’t benefit from advance preparation. What’s more, a new rule dictating how goalkeepers stand before penalty shots was instituted just days before the Cup, and refs have used replays to nitpick its enforcement, going against VAR’s stated intent to correct “serious missed incidents” and affecting the…

CLIPPED TO THE END OF A GIANT RED crane, the 25-ton panel—a marvel of stone and steel—begins its slow ascent. For the tourists gawking from the Barcelona street below, it’s an astonishing sight, this massive, chiseled slab dangling from a cord as it rises up the side of one of the world’s best known monuments. But it’s even more amazing for Jaume Oromí. As one of the heads of construction for the Sagrada Familia, Oromí has watched for months as, piece by piece, the towers that will one day remake the Barcelona skyline gradually rise into the heavens. “This is always the moment of maximum tension,” he says, gesturing to the panel as it sways 100 ft. above his head. “Intellectually, you know how it works, but there’s still something…

DIED Judith Krantz Writer of latter-day fairy tales JUDITH KRANTZ WROTE JUICY CINDERELLA STORIES IN WHICH a poor, plucky girl possessed of otherworldly beauty—and perhaps even a royal title—could, through hard work, climb to the top of her chosen world, acquiring a closet full of clothes and significant sexual satisfaction along the way. I swiped Krantz’s Princess Daisy off my mother’s bookshelf (probably when I was way too young for it) and fell into the world of Daisy, born Russian royalty and consigned to poverty through the machinations of an evil stepbrother. She talks her way into an advertising job and eventually makes it to the top of a perfume-and-cosmetics empire. The ladies crafted by Krantz, who died on June 22 at 91, were winners. Whether they flew planes…

WHEN WE TESTIFIED BEFORE THE HOUSE JUDICIARY committee in June regarding lessons from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, it became apparent from the questioning that misconceptions about Mueller’s findings still exist. The narrative was shaped by Attorney General William Barr, who issued his description of Mueller’s conclusions more than three weeks before the public saw the full 448-page report. In a letter to Barr, Mueller complained that Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his team’s work and created “public confusion.” Mueller will testify before Congress on July 17. In the meantime, here is our effort to dispel some of the most persistent myths. MYTH: Mueller found “no collusion.” RESPONSE: Mueller spent almost 200 pages describing “numerous links between the Russian government and…

COLIN GODDARD LAY IN A POOL OF HIS OWN BLOOD, HOPING HIS racing heart would not tip off the approaching gunman that he was still alive. The shooter hovered over Goddard, paused and fired two more bullets into him anyway. Goddard survived the April 16, 2007, massacre at Virginia Tech, which killed 32 people and was the worst school shooting in U.S. history. Twelve years later, he tries not to dwell on the day, but he has dozens of constant reminders: bullet fragments lodged in his body, leaching toxins into his blood. Like hundreds and possibly thousands of shooting survivors across the country, Goddard, a 33-year-old father of two, is suffering a lesser-known side effect of gun violence: lead poisoning. When he was shot in his French class that…