Table of contents for June 20, 2022 in TIME Magazine

FOR MANY OF US WHO ATTENDED, the 2020 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, will forever be associated with the first time we began to take in the potential scope of a mysterious virus that had infected what was then, by official counts, a few hundred people. As TIME’s delegation arrived in Davos, correspondent Charlie Campbell was traveling to report on the story from Wuhan, China. A police officer at the market that was considered ground zero in the outbreak told him that “analysis” was under way. But the takeaway was already clear: our very connectedness had become a global threat. Last month, we connected in person again with the world facing a new threat—and much of it aligned against a common foe—in the wake of Russia’s invasion…

IT’S BEEN 17 MONTHS SINCE A PRO–DONALD TRUMP mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Since then, scores of prominent Republicans, including Trump, have downplayed the deadly event, referring to it as merely “a debate about election integrity” or an “insurrection hoax.” Over six televised hearings in June, the House Select Committee investigating the attack intends to refute those dismissals in dramatic fashion. By providing the most comprehensive accounting of that day and the weeks leading up to it, committee members aim to make an unassailable case that there was an orchestrated conspiracy behind the worst attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812. And by organizing the events with an eye to audience—complete with prime-time slots for two of the hearings—they…

Michigan baby-formula plant reopens The baby-formula plant at the center of a national shortage has started production again—four months after it was shut down, following an agreement with the FDA. Abbott Nutrition said June 4 it hopes to release the first batch of the specialty formula EleCare from the plant in Sturgis, Mich., around June 20. Biden invokes defense act for solar panels President Biden aims to expand U.S. production of green technology like solar panels and their parts by invoking the Defense Production Act, the White House announced June 6. Tariffs on solar-panel imports will also be paused for 24 months while domestic production ramps up. Olympic gymnasts sue the FBI Survivors are seeking over $1 billion from the agency for failing to stop then team doctor Larry…

AS HURRICANE SEASON approached, Florida lawmakers in May raced to address a crucial gap in the state’s coastal defenses: property insurance. Insurance costs in the state increased about 25% in the past year, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Rampant litigation and fraud are part of the problem. So is climate change. Rising hurricane losses in recent decades drove most national property insurers out of Florida; they were replaced by small local players, which are more vulnerable to the whims of the reinsurance market (insurance for insurance companies). Storms also create opportunities for bad actors to take advantage of the system, like contractors looking for roofs to fix that may or may not have been damaged, and then charging insurance companies. “When it’s storms and fraud, which is what we’ve…

NAOMI KOSHI REMEMBERS HANDING OUT flyers outside a train station during her second mayoral campaign in 2016, when an older man walked up to her and said, “You are too strong for a woman,” and kicked her. She was shocked; she’d already spent four years serving as Japan’s youngest female mayor—one of just a few female mayors in the country—and ultimately won her second term. “I felt that sometimes people hate strong women,” she says, reflecting on a cultural dynamic that, by holding back half of its population, also holds back Japan. Koshi was determined to help change it. Japan is one of the world’s richest, most advanced societies; it’s the third largest economy, beating out countries with much larger populations. But its own population is shrinking, and the nation’s…

NO NOVELIST CAN KNOW IN ADVANCE WHAT kind of life a character might have beyond the page. When Tom Perrotta’s wry, perceptive comic novel Election was published in 1998, he couldn’t have known that the name Tracy Flick would come to signify a certain type of young—or even not so young—woman, an ambitious overachiever with a steamroller approach to conquering the world. In Alexander Payne’s Oscar-nominated 1999 movie version of the book, Reese Witherspoon played Tracy, a calculating senior hell-bent on becoming her school’s president, with equal parts sugar and vinegar. That portrayal burned the character’s most definitive traits deep into the public’s imagination. And since then, any intelligent, indefatigable, vocal woman who goes after what she wants—whether that’s a Hillary Clinton or a Kayleigh McEnany—has been at risk of…

In addition to writing the source material, you were the creator, a co-showrunner, and an executive producer on the series. What did you learn about making TV? It was a real jump in the deep end. I’d never worked in TV before. Filmmaking is kind of like a military operation where everybody knows what their job is. As a showrunner, you’re sort of the air-traffic controller. Lola Tung makes her debut as the teen protagonist, Belly. Tell me about the casting process: What did she bring to the role? I was looking for somebody who genuinely felt like a teenage girl going through this sort of awakening. We saw many young women and everyone brought something special, but I found that when I was watching Lola’s tape I was…

STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT IMMUNITY from the COVID-19 vaccine wanes in kids, just as it does in adults. But a booster restores protection from the most serious consequences of COVID-19 to 80% to 90% in kids as young as 5. Because of that compelling evidence, experts say kids ages 5 and up can and should get boosted. On May 19, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) authorized and recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech booster for this age group. (Previously, only kids ages 12 and older were eligible to get boosted.) With cases of COVID-19 rising in most parts of the country, doctors are urging parents to get their children vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible, instead of waiting until the start of the school year in the fall.…

“DUBAI IS THE WILD WEST,” SAYS TONY HABRE, SMILING. “In Dubai you either make it or you fail; there is no gray zone. You have to be perfect at everything.” The CEO of Addmind hospitality group is currently making it, operating some of the city’s most well-known restaurants and entertainment venues. But he has teetered on the edge of failure before, and he doesn’t want to go back there. In May 2020, during COVID-19 lockdowns, the business outlook was bleak and, according to a survey by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, half of restaurants and hotels expected to go out of business within months. Dine-in revenues fell by 52% in March 2020, according to a survey by JLL, an industry consultancy. Habre had just opened three new venues: Paradise beach…

History, when given to a lazy narrator, is merely a series of facts, strung together. In his new book, James Kirchick breaks those bad patterns and tells a meaningful history of his town. Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington is a sweeping tour of D.C. from the FDR Administration into the Clinton years. This isn’t so much a gay history of D.C. as it is a history of Washington as experienced by its gay power players. Our interview has been edited. One big theme that runs through this is that keeping secrets was a way of survival in Washington during the 20th century. Is that still the case? No. Because how long does the secret stay secret in this town? Just look at the Trump Administration. None of…

JULIAN MORENO WAS WATERING plants in his yard when he heard rapid, loud booms on the morning of May 24. At first, he thought it was noise from nearby construction. But people began screaming and running toward Robb Elementary School, a block away from his home. He dropped his hose and made his way toward the gunshots as quickly as his 80-year-old body could take him. “I knew Lexi was in there,” he says, his voice breaking. “It was like a punch in the gut.” By that evening, Moreno had confirmation that his 10-year-old great-granddaughter, Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, died in the mass shooting that took the lives of 18 other children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. The little girl he used to pick up from school each day,…

THIS WINTER, AS THE E.U.’S TOP OFFICIAL worked around the clock in Brussels, she hoped for something unusual: that it would all be for nothing. It had been just over two years since Ursula von der Leyen became President of the European Commission, and with Russian troops massed along Ukraine’s borders, her job was to coordinate with E.U. member states on potential sanctions against Russia. “We were working day and night,” she says “but we hoped we’d never, ever use it.” By then, the most powerful woman in Europe was used to living at the office. Her position doesn’t come with an official residence, and whenever she isn’t traveling for work or making rare trips home to see her family in Germany, von der Leyen sleeps in a 270-sq.-ft. room…

$3.5 billion Estimated value of contracts awarded by NASA for developing new space suits, the agency announced June 1 ‘Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction.’ ELON MUSK’S LAWYER, in a June 6 filing claiming Twitter hasn’t kept up its end of the deal for the Tesla co-founder to buy the company; Twitter said it has ‘The issue presented here is whether the bumblebee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls within the definition of fish.’ A CALIFORNIA DISTRICT COURT OF APPEALS, in a May 31 ruling that bumblebees can indeed be classified as fish for the purposes of being protected by the California Endangered Species Act ‘We have already lost too many people to simply cede our territory.’ VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, President of Ukraine,…

ISRAEL AND THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES deepened ties on May 31 with a historic free-trade agreement—the first of its kind between Israel and an Arab country—at a time of growing criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Both Israel and the UAE are touting the major economic benefits that such a deal could bring. But experts tell TIME that it’s too early to assess the economic impact of the agreement—and that its main value will likely be political in nature. BY THE NUMBERS The deal lowers or lifts tariffs on more than 96% of goods, and both Israel and the UAE are predicting annual bilateral trade will reach $10 billion—more than 10 times the current figure—in five years. However, a local Gulf expert, who asked TIME not to disclose his name…

DIED Ray Liotta An actor committed to the character By Lorraine Bracco  PEOPLE OFTEN ASK ME what the best part was about making Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film Goodfellas. The answer has always been the same—Ray Liotta. The opportunity to play Karen Hill alongside him in his iconic role as gangster Henry Hill was thrilling. It was a joy to watch him. Ray, whose death at age 67 was announced May 26, was totally immersed in finding Henry Hill. He was completely present every minute, every scene. If I had to describe Ray’s acting philosophy, I would say it hinges on not f-cking around: “This is the character. I’m going to eat and drink him alive.” We never left those characters in the months we took to make that movie. You know when you…

IT’S A GOOD TIME to be a populist. Just ask Colombians, who on May 29 for the country’s presidential elections voted through two political outsiders to the second round for the first time in 20 years. In a nation that has never elected a leftist President—a rarity in Latin America—leftist Senator and former M-19 guerrilla Gustavo Petro finished first with 40.3% of the vote. Populist former Bucaramanga mayor Rodolfo Hernández, a septuagenarian Trump-like construction magnate who ran as an independent and campaigned mostly on TikTok, came in second with 28.2% of the vote, edging out the centrist former Medellín mayor and elite favorite Federico Gutiérrez. Both Petro and Hernández ran on antiestablishment platforms promising sweeping change, tapping into the public’s yearning for change in a context of widespread dissatisfaction…

Sarah Lerner is painfully familiar with how teachers in Uvalde, Texas, must have felt as a gunman attacked their elementary school and fatally shot 21 people on May 24. In 2018, Lerner kept 15 students safe in her classroom at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., while a teenager armed with an AR-15-style rifle shot and killed 17 people and wounded 17 others on campus. “We get into education because we love children, we love our subject matter, and we love teaching. None of us go into education to be human shields, and to be bodyguards and makeshift police officers,” says Lerner, who still teaches English at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. “But when those kids are in your charge, no matter how old they are, even my 18-year-old seniors,…

We’re speaking before Davos, the theme of which is “History at a Turning Point.” Could you describe what kind of turning point that is? We are probably in the most challenging geopolitical and geo-economic situation in decades. The challenges we will discuss at Davos are climate change, the war in Ukraine, and making sure the pandemic recovery doesn’t end in a contraction. Global challenges need global solutions, but global solutions are more difficult than ever because of the polarization among the big powers. What role does the WEF see itself playing in resolving those tensions? Many of the most pressing challenges can benefit from a multi-stakeholder approach. In Davos, we will make sure, for example, on climate change, that we have the big companies of the world committing to going…

Iron Chef was, in its own way, as vital to the early Food Network as Emeril Lagasse. Imaginative, idiosyncratic, and awkwardly dubbed into English, the ’90s Japanese cooking showdown didn’t just pave the way for competitions like Chopped; it also made space for weird gastronomy on a platform that specialized in practical tips for home cooks. Next came Iron Chef America—a slicker, less whimsical adaptation hosted by Alton Brown. Among the cast of stateside Iron Chefs were such network stalwarts as Bobby Flay and Mario Batali. It’s a sign of shifting times for food TV that Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend arrives via Netflix, which has also, in recent years, scooped up global breakout The Great British Baking Show and debuted its own hit international baking-competition franchise…

What excites you most about returning to play Ellie Sattler in this new Jurassic installment? In 1993, it was rare to see women in any movie without makeup, not wearing the sexy outfit. Everyone [working on Jurassic Park] considered diligently how Ellie would dress, the stunts, her iconic feminist lines. It really mattered to us—and it really mattered to [Jurassic World: Dominion director] Colin [Trevorrow] how she would evolve. My interest in soil science and climate change, interests that Ellie would care so deeply about now, became a big part of her story. What is Dominion trying to say about the climate crisis? Ellie has turned to soil science because soil can save us all. She’s focused on how to protect us from the ills of industrial farming, petrochemicals, genetically…