TIME - Double Issues - August 2022

DOUBLE ISSUE

J U N E 2 0 / J U N E 2 7, 2 0 2 2

EUROPE’S POWER BROKER HOW URSULA VON DER LEYEN IS LEADING THE E.U. THROUGH YET ANOTHER CRISIS

BY NAINA BAJEKAL

The President of the European Commission, photographed in Brussels on May 27

time.com

CONTENTS

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Time June 20/June 27, 2022

VOL. 199 NOS. 23–24 | 2022

9

The Brief 19

The View 26

One Nation, Under Fire Will Congress overhaul gun laws?

By Brian Bennett Mourning in Uvalde

By Jasmine Aguilera The rage of teachers from Sandy Hook and Parkland

By Katie Reilly A recipe for change

By James Densley and Jillian Peterson 34

Europe on the Brink Ursula von der Leyen prepares the E.U. for its next crisis

By Naina Bajekal 40

Landing a House How three couples managed wins in a brutal real estate market

By Ronda Kaysen 46

Just Kids Young Americans challenging the gender binary—and the politics targeting them

By Madeleine Carlisle 59

Future Tense Better batteries and boardrooms Plus: Leaders’ decisive moments 77

Time Off People pray at a makeshift memorial in a park near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 26 Photograph by David Butow—Redux for TIME

For customer service and our general terms and conditions, visit timeeurope.com/customerservice, or call +44 1858 438 830 or write to TIME, Tower House, Lathkill Street, Market Harborough, LE16 9EF, United Kingdom. In South Africa, write to Private Bag 1, Centurion 0046. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS: Visit time.com/joinus38. REPRINTS AND PERMISSIONS: Visit time.com/reprints. For custom reprints, visit timereprints.com. ADVERTISING For advertising rates and our editorial calendar, visit timemediakit.com. TIME is published twice a month by Time Magazine UK Ltd, Suite 1, 3rd Floor, 11-12 St James’s Square, London, SW1Y 4LB. TIME is printed in the Netherlands and the U.K. Le Directeur de la Publication: Mike Taylor. C.P.P.A.P No. 0122 C 84715. Editeur responsable pour la Belgique: André Verwilghen, Avenue Louise 176, 1050 Bruxelles. EMD Aps, Gydebang 39-41, DK-3450 Allerod. Rapp. Italia: I.M.D.s.r.l., via Guido da Velate, 11 – 20162 Milano; aut. Trib. MI N. 491 del 17/9/86, poste Italiane SpA - Sped. in Abb. Post. DL. 353/2003 (conv. L. 27/02/2004 -n. 46) art. 1 comma 1, DCB Milano, Dir. Resp.: Tassinari Domenico. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at additional mailing houses. Additional pages of regional editions numbered or allowed for as follows: National S1-S2. Vol. 199, Nos. 23–24 © 2022 TIME Magazine U.K. Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. TIME and the Red Border Design are protected through trademark registration in the U.S. and in the foreign countries where TIME magazine circulates. ISSN 0928-8430.

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FROM THE EDITOR

Before and after

Potential turning points are all around us. It’s not always easy to spot them, or to know what the ‘after’ portends

4

AS WE WORKED to put together these stories about crisis and opportunity on a global level, we were once again confronted with one of the FOR MANY OF US WHO ATTENDED, THE 2020 hardest of those questions. The tragic massaWorld Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switcre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, zerland, will forever be associated with the first brought the U.S. to 213 mass shootings this year— time we began to take in the potential scope of and 27 shootings at schools. a mysterious virus that had infected what was The word enough is one that we have used then, by official counts, a few hundred people. As several times on the cover when, with painful TIME’s delegation arrived in Davos, corresponfrequency, we are left to tell the story of such a dent Charlie Campbell was traveling to report on tragedy. We used it after the shooting at Marjory the story from Wuhan, China. A police officer at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the market that was considered ground zero in in 2018, and in 2019 after a week in which 35 peothe outbreak told him that “analysis” was under ple were killed in El Paso, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; way. But the takeaway was already clear: our very and Gilroy, Calif. Now, we use it again, in the afconnectedness had become a global threat. Last termath of what were three major mass shootmonth, we connected in person again with the ings in just 10 days—from Buffalo, N.Y., to Laguna world facing a new threat—and much of it aligned Woods, Calif., to Uvalde. Creative director D.W. against a common foe—in the wake of Russia’s inPine turned to John Mavroudis, who created that vasion of Ukraine.

2019 cover, to draw the But while crisis is a list of cities that suffered On the covers terrible thing to waste, those 213 shootings, the world’s track record based on data from the over the past few years Gun Violence Archive, is not encouraging. The which defines such inciincrease in global carbon dents as having at least emissions, of over 2 bilfour people injured or lion tons in 2021, was killed, excluding the the largest on record. Inshooter. equality, staggering even “So many familiar Illustration by Illustration by Photograph by before COVID-19, has places to draw again.

Tim O’Brien John Mavroudis Dana Lixenberg grown deeper. Even the Chicago. Baltimore. Las for TIME for TIME for TIME lessons of the pandemic Vegas. Louisville. Housitself seem to have been ton. Jacksonville. Stocklost: while 80% of people in high-income counton. And so many new places,” says Mavroudis. tries are vaccinated, only 16% of those in low“In the time it took me to carefully write the income countries have gotten a shot, according to words UVALDE, TX, that gunman extinguished so Oxford University’s Our World in Data. many beautiful lives. I could feel the sadness and So, in producing a special edition for attendfear and horror overwhelm me again.” ees in Davos—a project made possible with the And just in the time it took that digital-first support of our partners at SOMPO, and which is cover to go to print, the sadly unsurprising hapexcerpted in this issue—we looked for voices to pened: those 213 shootings have already been offer pathways forward. The meeting also gave exjoined by about three dozen more. The bigger ecutive editor Naina Bajekal a second opportunity question, of course—far more important than to interview European Commission President Urwhat words we use—is what we as a society do. sula von der Leyen for this issue’s international The gavel shape formed by the word enough cover story. Von der Leyen is leading the E.U. on our new cover is meant to signify the need through a major turning point—the theme of this for action. And that’s what the vast majority spring’s World Economic Forum meeting. of Americans want, with 81% supporting closBut, as she told Naina, “a democracy can aling background-check loopholes, according to a ways fail if we don’t stand up for it on a daily Pew survey conducted last year. To try nothing basis.” Potential turning points are all around us. in the face of routine massacre is unconscionaIt’s not always easy to spot them, or to know what ble. As our cover asks, “When are we going to do the “after” portends. The people and stories in something?” this issue remind us that the answer is not at all Edward Felsenthal, predetermined, that we have the power to shape EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & CEO it—and the responsibility to ask the hard ques@EFELSENTHAL tions about how we will get there.

TIME June 20/June 27, 2022

SPONSOR’S WELCOME LETTER

THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS

EVERYONE’S BUSINESS THE JAPANESE CONCEPT OF “SEIKATSUSHA” CAN HELP BUSINESS LEADERS BALANCE PROFITABILITY AND THE COMMON GOOD

Despite all our efforts to build a better world, global instability is on the rise. The pandemic persists. Russia has invaded Ukraine. The tests we are facing include dealing with unknown viruses, fostering cooperation among nations with different values, and acting to halt climate change. However, many of the tools we used to overcome problems in the past are falling short today. With this “history at a turning point,” the most critical mission of business leaders is to address social challenges. We must change the world for the better through our businesses.

My country Japan is a country contending with serious issues: an aging and declining population, lack of diversity, and a paucity of innovation, among others. Its public debt is ballooning, and its economy has been stagnant.

Considering our difficulties, one might question what advice or wisdom a Japanese business leader could offer the world.

Yet, Japan has also achieved much to be proud of. It remains the world’s third-largest economy, and its strengths include hi-tech manufacturing, and soft power such as animation, culture, and, cuisine.

This mix of challenges and achievements makes it all the more necessary for business leaders to think deeply about the future. We can play a crucial role in charting our direction, in solving social issues and in creating values.

As a key to concrete action, I would like to offer the Japanese concept of “Seikatsusha.” Essentially, “Seikatsusha” means that as individuals we are all multifaceted. If asked, “what kind of person are you?” what would you say? I am a CEO of a company, and a member of the Japanese Prime Minister’s advisory board. But I am also a citizen who loves Kendo and a consumer who buys gifts for my lovely grandchildren.

We are more than our job titles. We can’t be defined by demographics alone.

As an individual “Seikatsusha,” business leaders should pursue traditional economic growth, but also growth that enhances people’s security, health, and well-being.

They must strive for the sustainability of the earth and human society. The fruits of growth must be available to all. This aligns with another Japanese concept: Bushido.

As described in my book Bushido Capitalism, Bushido is a code of conduct that prioritizes the common good, and emphasizes the balance between self-interest and altruism.

I believe that Japan, where Bushido is deeply rooted, can be a unique, sustainable model of a society that achieves total optimization if each individual acts as “Seikatsusha,”.

In Japan, SOMPO is working to address a global social issue: an ageing population. We are doing this through our nursing care business. Nursing care places a heavy burden on the elderly, and on the caregivers. Elder care is a challenge for society as a whole. My goal is to create sustainable nursing care and, more than that, foster

KENGO SAKURADA Group CEO Sompo Holdings, Inc.

healthy ageing where people stay vital and happy to the end; the Japanese concept called “pin koro.”

Through digital technology, data and co-creation with various partners SOMPO is generating new solutions in many fields. SOMPO does not reap large short-term financial returns from the nursing care business. But its actions are as “Seikatsusha,” contributing to a sustainable future and people’s well-being. SOMPO is trying to prove that solving problems and providing value to society are profitable and sustainable.

Today, stakeholders are demanding that business leaders commit to solving social issues by leveraging the strengths of their enterprises. We should heed their calls. Business leaders must act to realize a better future for all through their work and their companies. Because the fate of the world is everyone’s business.

CONVERSATION

TIME at Davos TIME and SOmPO hOSTed a dinner to kick off Davos 2022, the annual World Economic Forum conference in Switzerland, as the world’s most influential leaders convened May 22–26 to strategize about how to solve the most pressing global challenges. Attendees included U.S. investor Ray Dalio and His Excellency Omar Al Olama of the United Arab Emirates. “TIME has become everyone’s storyteller,” TIME co-owner Marc Benioff told attendees at the May 22 dinner.

Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum, noted a newfound urgency. “It really is a special meeting,” he told the audience. “We never have been confronted with so many crises at the same time.”

TIME also helped lead the conversation at the conference; on May 24, Credit Suisse hosted a discussion between TIME executive editor Naina Bajekal and Amanda Nguyen, who was nominated for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for advocating for sexual violence survivors. Read more from TIME’s special Davos issue at time.com/davos-2022

Clockwise from top: TIME’s Davos 2022 cover; Nguyen with Bajekal; climate activist Vanessa Nakate speaks about empowering girls worldwide

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ▶

In “Chasing nostalgia in New York City” (May 23/May 30), we misstated the age of a character in Cult Classic; Lola is 38.

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Time June 20/June 27, 2022

Please recycle this magazine, and remove inserts or samples beforehand

C A R O L I N E DY E R - S M I T H (4); N G U Y E N A N D B A J E K A L : D AV I D B I E D E R T — C R E D I T S U I S S E

Predinner mingling; and, from right, TIME co-owner Benioff, editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal, and Mikio Okumura of SOMPO Holdings

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FOR THE RECORD

‘Mr. Musk reserves all rights g resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction.’ transaction ’

$3.5 billion Estimated value of contracts awarded by NASA for developing new space suits, the agency announced June 1

‘The issue presented here is whether the bumblebee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls within the definition of fish.’

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

‘We have already lost too many people to simply cede our territory.’

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

Average number of aerosol particles per minute that people release during high-intensity exercise—about 130 times the rate at rest—a measure of the risk of spreading COVID-19 in gyms, according to a May 23 study

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY,

President of Ukraine,speaking at a conference on June 7

BORIS JOHNSON,

U.K. Prime Minister, ahead of a no-confidence vote on June 6, which he won by a narrow margin

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

‘TOMORROW, I’M GONNA WAKE UP AND BE REALLY PROUD OF MYSELF.’’ MYSELF COCO GAUFF,

U.S. tennis player, after being defeated by Poland’s Iga Swiatek at the French Open on June 4

S O U R C E S : T H E V E R G E , A P, R E U T E R S

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y B R O W N B I R D D E S I G N F O R T I M E

‘I will lead you to victory again.’

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76,200

The Brief

HEARINGS WORTH WATCHING

BY ERIC CORTELLESSA

The committee investigating the Capitol attack has a prime-time plan to captivate the nation

INSIDE

BIDEN’S CALCULATION ON SENDING WEAPONS TO UKRAINE

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT COVID-19 BOOSTER SHOTS FOR CHILDREN

PHOTOGR APH BY NINA BER MAN

FIGHTING WILDFIRES—AND CLIMATE CHANGE—FROM CONGRESS

9

THE BRIEF OPENER

I

t’s been 17 months since a pro–donald trump “They had days to collect information. We’ve had mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to block Congress months to gather evidence.” from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. Since Yet questions abound about what the tangible impact then, scores of prominent Republicans, including might be: Will the Department of Justice follow up with Trump, have downplayed the deadly event, referring to it prosecutions of the former President and his confidants? as merely “a debate about election integrity” or an “insurWill the hearings, and the committee’s subsequent report, rection hoax.” be regarded as the definitive historical record of what Over six televised hearings in June, the House Sehappened? lect Committee investigating the attack intends to refute those dismissals in dramatic fashion. By providing in many ways, the proceedings will test whether the the most comprehensive accounting of that day and the public still cares about that fateful day, or whether they are weeks leading up to it, committee members aim to make too fatigued by the ongoing saga to unpack it. They will an unassailable case that there was an orchestrated conalso test whether anything can move most Republicans in spiracy behind the worst attack on the Capitol since the Congress beyond their current position that the assault on War of 1812. And by organizing the events with an eye to the Capitol was simply a protest that got out of hand. audience—complete with prime-time slots for two of the The nine-member committee includes just two hearings—they hope to engage Republicans: Representatives even those who feel the country Liz Cheney of Wyoming and should move on.

Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

“To my mind, it is absolutely Both were among just 10 House riveting,” Jamie Raskin, a DemoRepublicans who voted for cratic Representative for MaryTrump’s impeachment. They land, tells TIME of the plans have both paid a political price. for the hearings, which will inCheney lost her leadership clude both live and taped testiposition in the House GOP and mony from members of Trump’s is in the midst of a bruising inner circle, including at least primary fight. Kinzinger chose one of his children. “Because it to retire. is a story of the greatest politi“People must pay attention,” cal crime ever attempted by an Cheney recently told CBS News.

American President against his “People must watch, and they own government.” must understand how easily our The assault on Jan. 6, 2021, democratic system can unravel if left several people dead, includwe don’t defend it.” ing four police officers who Stephanie Murphy, a Demotook their own lives after the cratic Representative for Florida, attack. Dozens of additional echoed other committee mem—JAMIE RASKIN, DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE FOR MARYLAND law-enforcement officers were bers in insisting that the hearinjured. Members of Congress ings have the potential to change from both parties have said they hearts and minds. feared for their lives. The event “Think about it like a Netflix led the House to impeach Trump for a second time during or a documentary miniseries of sorts where, in one comhis last days in office. The Senate later acquitted him. pressed period of time, we’re telling a fulsome story, pullSince then, more than 800 people have been charged ing together all of those threads that have been coming for storming the Capitol, and nearly 300 have entered out drip, drip, drip, over the last year,” she says. guilty pleas. Hours of footage from the riot have become While the committee hasn’t released a full witness list, public, fueling multiple documentaries. people close to former Vice President Mike Pence are exNonetheless, the hearings remain highly anticipated, pected to testify, including advisers Greg Jacob, J. Michael as the committee members have signaled they’ve saved Luttig, and Marc Short. The committee is acutely aware the most eye-opening and jaw-dropping information. that conservative groups and personalities will try to disThe proceedings are the culmination of 10 months of credit findings that may implicate Trump or his allies. “I work, including the collection of more than 130,000 expect them to counterprogram,” says Murphy, “but all of documents and testimony from more than 1,000 the members also have a platform outside of the hearing witnesses, all of which gives the panel a chance to itself, to reinforce what was presented in the hearings and advance the public’s understanding of Jan. 6 far to tell the American people the truth.” beyond what was unveiled during the impeachment That is part of why, Aguilar says, committee members trial. “We’ve got a lot more material,” Pete Aguilar, a are keeping so much of the strategy around the hearings Democratic Representative for California, tells TIME. close to the vest. “You’ll have to tune in to see.” 

‘It is a story of the greatest political crime ever attempted by an American President.’

The Brief is reported by Eloise Barry, Tara Law, Sanya Mansoor, Ciara Nugent, Billy Perrigo, Nik Popli, Olivia B. Waxman, and Julia Zorthian

NEWS TICKER

Michigan baby-formula plant reopens The baby-formula plant at the center of a national shortage has started production again—four months again— 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

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : R E D U X ; T H I S PA G E : D A N I E L L E A L— A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

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 Nassar for more than a year after agents were informed of sexual assault allegations against him, victims’ lawyers said on June 8. More than 90 claimants joined the suit, including Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, and Aly Raisman.

A raucous Jubilee Four generations of British royals gathered on the balcony at Buckingham Palace in London on June 2 as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrating 70 years on the throne— but it was the Queen’s great-grandson Prince Louis who stole the show with his consternated response to the booming noise of a flyby. Pictured from left: Prince Charles, the Queen, Prince Louis, Kate Middleton, Princess Charlotte, Prince George, and Prince William.

THE BULLETIN

The realities behind the Israel-UAE trade deal 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 out of fear that he could lose his livelihood for challenging the information of regional governments, says that number is a stretch: “Look, if the governments are the source, then they usually exaggerate.”

WALKING A TIGHTROPE Hasan Alhasan, a

Gulf expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, sees the deal as part of a wider Emirati strategy to hedge against Iran. The UAE has sought to improve relations with Iran, dispatching its top national-security adviser to Tehran in December. But if diplomacy fails, the UAE can fall back on its relationship with Israel to contain Iran’s regional influence.

THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION Days before

the agreement, the UAE Foreign Ministry condemned what it called Israel’s “extremist settlers” for storming Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, during a provocative far-right “flag march” on Jerusalem Day. The comments are a reminder of major obstacles to budding UAE-Israel ties. “Arab-Israeli deals [like the free-trade agreement] will not reach their full potential without resolving the root causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” says Bader Al-Saif, an expert on the Gulf at Kuwait University. —mat nashed 11

THE BRIEF NEWS

immunocompromised children—which would be a fourth dose—based on their age.

Children ages 5 to 17 years old with weakened immune systems should get a booster dose three months after receiving their threeSTudieS have Shown ThaT immuniTy dose primary series. Immunocompromised from the COVID-19 vaccine wanes in kids, children ages 12 and older should also get just as it does in adults. But a booster reboosted a second time—a fifth dose—four stores protection from the most serious months after the first booster dose to keep consequences of COVID-19 to 80% to 90% their immune responses as active as possible. in kids as young as 5.

Studies have shown that the PfizerBecause of that compelling evidence, ex- BioNTech vaccines and boosters are safe perts say kids ages 5 and up can and should in children. Research has found that a very get boosted. On May 19, the U.S. Centers small number of older kids have experifor Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) enced multisystem inflammatory syndrome authorized and recommended the Pfizer(MIS-C), a rare disorder in which the BioNTech booster for this age group. (Prebody’s immune system generates an aggresviously, only kids ages 12 and older were sive inflammatory response, after getting eligible to get boosted.) vaccinated, and MIS-C is currently listed With cases of COVID-19 rising in most as a potential adverse event in the CDC’s parts of the country, doctors are urging par- vaccine safety monitoring system. But it’s ents to get their children vaccinated and not clear whether the vaccine is associated boosted as soon as possible, inwith the condition, or whether stead of waiting until the start the children developing it have ‘Delaying of the school year in the fall. also been infected with the “When there is enough virus in vaccination virus—since SARS-CoV-2 itself the community—which there is linked to MIS-C. makes no is now—and the risk of getThe vaccines have also sense.’ ting infected becomes higher— been associated with a small which it is now—delaying vacnumber of cases of inflamma—DR. STAN SPINNER, CHIEF MEDICAL cination makes no sense,” says tion of heart tissues—called OFFICER AND VICE Dr. Stan Spinner, chief medimyocarditis—mostly in adoPRESIDENT OF TEXAS CHILDREN’S cal officer and vice president lescent males. But children are PEDIATRICS of Texas Children’s Pediatrics far more likely to experience and Texas Children’s Urgent myocarditis from COVID-19 Care. “Kids are out and about, fewer people itself than from the vaccine, which is why are wearing masks, kids are going to camps the CDC continues to recommend COVIDand play groups, so they are going to get ex- 19 vaccination for children, based on the posed during the summer. Why wait to imevidence that the benefits of immunization munize your child?” outweigh these potential risks.

Health officials have not determined Kids ages 5 to 11 should get a booster dose whether children (or adults, for that five months after finishing their primary matter) will have to continue to receive COVID-19 vaccination series of two shots, boosters every few months. But publicthe CDC says. For children in this age group, health experts at the CDC are reviewing the Pfizer-BioNTech booster is one-third the data to answer this question. So far, the dosage of the adult booster. For chilevery authorized COVID-19 vaccine has dren ages 12 and up, the booster is identical been developed using the original strain to their primary-series shots (which is the of SARS-CoV-2. Fortunately, they’ve resame dosage given to adults). mained effective at generating strong imThe CDC recommends a slightly different mune responses to the different viral variregimen for children with weakened immune ants. But vaccinemakers have recently systems. Their primary series is actually three developed new, not-yet-authorized shots doses instead of the two for other children, targeting the latest variants, including which gives them the strongest immune reOmicron, and are studying whether those sponse possible and can reduce their risk of might produce even stronger, and hopebeing hospitalized or dying from COVID-19. fully longer-lasting, protection against seriThe CDC also encourages booster shots for ous disease. —aLiCe PaRK GOOD QUESTION

NEWS TICKER

E.U. mandates change to iPhones European officials reached an agreement on June 7 that tech devices must use standard USB-C connectors by fall 2024—a blow to Apple, as its products charge instead with the company’s Lightning cables. Apple has claimed the rule would stifle innovation, but the European Commission said it would help consumers.

Russia selling stolen grain, U.S. warns U.S. diplomats alerted 14 countries, mostly in Africa, in May that Russian cargo ships are setting sail filled with plundered Ukrainian grain. Some of the nations being asked to turn away the purloined commodities are experiencing rising food prices, shortages, and the risk of famine due to drought and armed conflict.

Dozens killed in Nigerian g church attack Gunmen who murdered at least 50 people, including children, during a service at a Catholic Church in the town of Owo in southwest Nigeria are still at large, officials said on June 6. No group has publicly claimed responsibility, although experts said that the attack was likely terrorism.

12

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

When should kids get COVID-19 boosters?

MILESTONES

RESIGNED

Sheryl Sandberg Meta mogul

BY ROGER MCNAMEE

As the person who helped Mark Zuckerberg recruit Sheryl Sandberg to Facebook, I take no joy in the news, announced June 1, that Sandberg will leave her post as COO of Meta.

For shareholders, she was the best thing to haphappen to Facebook. She led the effort transforming it from a compelling product with millions of users but poor monetization into one of the most profitable comcompanies ever. But that wealth came at great cost to socisociety. In the absence of rules requiring safety for users and others, Facebook greengreenlighted business practices with obvious harms. SandSandberg had many opportunities to prevent or mitigate them, and did nothing—a decision that may end up defining her legacy.

L I O T TA : A A R O N R A P O P O R T — C O R B I S/G E T T Y I M A G E S; S A N D B E R G : J O E R A E D L E — G E T T Y I M A G E S

McNamee is the author of Zucked

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 im-

mersed 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 see dancers dance and they’re

so seamlessly in sync with each other? That’s what I had with Ray. I first saw Ray when Scorsese asked us to come up to his apartment to talk.

I was like, “Whoa—this guy is beautiful.” Those eyes.

He was very sexy.

We became extremely close when Ray’s adoptive mom died as we were filming. Something about what we were doing, while he was going through all of that heartache, really solidified our relationship. My kids were in Goodfellas— mostly because I worked long days. Stella was 5 at the time and in several scenes with Ray. He really took to her. He would play with her, sing with her, skip with her. She was heartbroken to learn that he had passed.

I always loved that whenever we would bump into each other after the movie, he would yell out, “KAAAREN!” He would yell it out loudly, without caring if we were in the streets of Beverly Hills or on a red carpet. I would scream back, “HEEENRY!” There was such a sense of fun about him.

Above all, Ray was a great actor, a great father, and a great dancing partner. He was great at his job, and he loved it.

Bracco is an actor

DIED

DROPPED

CHARGED

RECALLED

Bollywood singer KK, at 53, on May 31.

Chaokoh coconut milk, by Walmart, amid allegations that it was produced using monkey labor, per June 7 reports; the company that produces it has not issued a response statement.

Enrique Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders, by the Justice Department, with seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack.

Progressive San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, in a June 7 vote, amid anger over rising crime.

THROWN

Cake, at the Mona Lisa, in an act of attempted vandalism at the Louvre, on May 29.

WON

A 14th French Open title, by Spanish tennis icon Rafael Nadal, after

beating Casper Ruud of Norway on June 5.

SIGNED

A state law increasing the minimum age to buy a semiautomatic rifle in New York from 18 to 21, by Governor Kathy Hochul.

13

THE BRIEF NEWS

cluding from Zelensky himself, that HIMARS would be used solely as a defensive weapon and not fired into Russian territory, the officials say.

As a safeguard, the rockets that the Administration decided to provide have a maximum range of around 48 miles, the officials said, rather than more advanced HIMARS munitions, some of which can travel up to 300 miles.

The HIMARS rocket system in use during multinational exercises in Morocco on June 9, 2021

WORLD

Biden balances military aid and escalation risk in Ukraine

BY W.J. HENNIGAN

14

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

‘We’re focused on what we think the Ukrainians need for the current fight.’

—COLIN KAHL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

M O S A’A B E L S H A M Y— A P

PresidenT Joe Biden’s decision June 1 To provide Ukraine with advanced rocket systems that can strike targets from dozens of miles away gives Kyiv a new, much-needed advantage in its hard-fought war with Russia. After months of imploring the U.S. to send long-range missiles, President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian military will soon have a weapon with roughly twice the range of the current artillery pieces they are using to fight the better-armed Russian troops that have invaded the eastern part of their country.

Moscow noticed. Speaking with reporters after the announcement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the U.S. of dangerously escalating the war, not only raising the specter of increased fighting in the nation, but also potentially spreading it beyond Ukraine’s borders.

“The U.S. is deliberately and diligently pouring oil on the fire,” Peskov said.

In fact, the decision to provide four U.S.made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) was debated for weeks before Biden felt comfortable sending the weapons, Administration officials say. Even then, the President wanted multiple assurances from Ukraine, in-

Such deliberation haS become a recurring theme in Washington’s engagement in the three-month-old fight in Ukraine. From the start, Biden has been pushed to send additional shipments of sophisticated American-made arms. Every few weeks, he faces the same dilemma: How far can the U.S. go to provide military aid without escalating to open war between its NATO allies and Russia? Finding the balance is the driving factor behind every aid decision inside the White House and Pentagon since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Feb. 24 invasion, officials say. “We are mindful of the escalation risk,” Colin Kahl, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, told reporters at the Pentagon after the decision to provide the HIMARS systems to Kyiv. “But in the first instance, we’re focused on what we think the Ukrainians need for the current fight.”

Around 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads belong to Russia and the U.S., and these arsenals loom large as the Biden Administration seeks to keep pressure on Putin to stop his military campaign. The White House wants to maintain a posture that can prevent or limit escalation. “So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this confict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces.

We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to infict pain on Russia,” Biden wrote in a New York Times op-ed, explaining his decision to send the HIMARS rockets.

It remains unclear what repercussions Ukraine faces if it uses HIMARS to strike Russia either accidentally or on purpose. It will take around three weeks for the U.S. to train the Ukrainians on the rocket systems, which will double the range of Ukraine’s artillery from the current 20 miles with the U.S.-provided M777 howitzers. The additional range will be key in the Donbas, where the war has become an artillery duel with the two nations exchanging fire each day. But the decisive factor, Washington believes, lies not with any single weapons platform. “It’s a grinding confict,” Kahl said.

“No system is going to turn the war. This is a battle of national will.” □

BUSINESS

FOOD

Opening restaurants in a glitzy ‘Wild West’

BY ROB CHILTON

N ATA L I E N A C C A C H E F O R T I M E

“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 club and restaurants Iris and La Mezcaleria. Paradise closed permanently, but the two restaurants reopened after the lockdown and have survived. Keeping venues afloat took tremendous creativity.

“The first moments of COVID were crazy and terrifying,” Habre says. But they adapted, and to keep business going, Habre and his team started doing deliveries from their restaurants and pop-ups serving food and drinks, and kept an active social media presence to stay connected to customers. “I think survival is the essence of creativity, and we were beyond creative during COVID,” he says.

That creativity got Addmind—and Dubai—back into expansion mode. Habre plans to open three more eateries in Dubai this year: Babylon and Rasputin in Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), as well as Lenia on the Palm. All three are apt to be as influential on the local nightlife landscape as his past ventures have been.

HABRE OPENED his first nightclub, Pulse, in 2001 in his native city of Beirut, and two years later he set up Addmind to create brands around the venues he was planning to open. Although quality is essential to the success of any metropolitan venue, Habre says social media and marketing have been just as vital, if not more so. It has been a way for Addmind to connect with customers, many of whom are “communities of hyperconnected world travelers.” Each venue has its own unique identity on social media to “keep the conversation going” after a guest visits.

Addmind brought what Habre describes as “a flavor” to the entertainment scene in Beirut and in 2013, he opened his first venue in Dubai. “This is where I always wanted to be because it’s the strongest international city in the region for hospitality,” he says. Now Addmind operates more than 20 restaurants, bars, and clubs in Dubai, London, Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Beirut. They have a reputation for combining quality food with creativity and theatrics—dramatic interiors with glass decanters dangling from the ceiling, open kitchens with up to 30

△ Habre at Sucre, one of Addmind’s Dubai restaurants

‘Survival is the essence of creativity.’

—TONY HABRE, CEO, ADDMIND

chefs, waterfalls, and roof-terrace venues overlooking the Dubai skyline.

“They attract the right crowd from the beginning, and the entertainment offering is always on point,” says Yousra Zaki, editor of Caterer Middle East magazine.

Although restaurants open at an astonishing pace in Dubai, they turn over just as quickly, with high rents meaning a business needs to be a fast success. Habre never lets his guard down. “You have to be quick, you have to follow the trends, you have to know what’s the next thing,” he says.

The next thing for Addmind is to continue expansion internationally in London but still with a focus on Dubai. “This city makes you hungry for more,” he says. “It never stops.”

TIME’s Destination Dubai series is presented by See the video at time.com/DestinationDubai

15

THE BRIEF TIME WITH

Joe Neguse didn’t come to Congress to fight wildfires. But climate change had other plans

challenging it becomes to get to the root of the problem.

BY JUSTIN WORLAND/SUPERIOR, COLO.

DespiTe clear DirecTions from my Gps, I felt certain I was in the wrong place as I drove the last mile to meet Colorado Representative Joe Neguse in March. We were meeting in the city of Superior at the site of a recent devastating wildfire in his district, and yet the subdivisions I sped past seemed to be buzzing along normally. Shoppers drove into a shopping complex while parents ferried kids to school. But then, in the middle of idyllic suburbia, it appeared: a 30-acre subdivision in ruins. Every single home in the neighborhood, once home to nearly 200 houses, burned to the ground in the Marshall Fire in December.

Now a visitor can see the outlines of where the homes used to stand and the frame of a burnt-out car here and there, but not much more remains.

Waiting at the entrance to the Sagamore subdivision stood Neguse. While I moved ploddingly through the wreckage to take it all in, Neguse, 38, jumped briskly from one spot to another, not quite cheery but not morose either.

For him, touring fire wreckage has become a ritual, following three major fire events that rocked this part of the state over the past three years.

He’s done variations on the tour more times than his office can count—with journalists, residents, and local officials, even with Joe Biden. It’s just one small indicator of how addressing wildfire fallout has become, in his words, the “primary occupation” of his office. “Because there is no fire season, this wildfire work is year-round,” he says. “It is every month, every week, every day.”

Neguse, a lawyer by training who previously oversaw Colorado’s consumer-protection agency, seems like a good fit for this bleak job. He likes to dig into details (he spoke for 16 minutes in response to one of my questions), and in the district I watched him dive into the particulars of federal recovery programs for displaced residents— from insurance policy to EPA soil-quality rules— without breaking a sweat. Still, despite his attention to the details, he says lawmakers need to pay attention to the bigger picture. “We have to fundamentally deal with the disease, not just simply the symptoms,” he says. “The disease is climate change.”

But there are only so many hours in a day.

And the more time Neguse and other elected officials need to spend putting out fires, the more 16

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

NEGUSE QUICK FACTS

Making history Neguse, the son of immigrants from Eritrea, is the first Black American to represent Colorado in Congress.

Prosecuting the President Neguse rose to national prominence serving as a prosecutor in President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial after last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection.

Lawmaking Neguse introduced 56 bills in his first term, nine of which became law; only one member of Congress passed more legislation than Neguse that term.

Fleet afoot Neguse is a trail runner near his home in Lafayette, Colo., with his wife Andrea and their dog Teddy, a pugAussie mix.

Neguse, who has lived in Colorado since he was 6, is the first to admit wildfires are nothing new for the state.

He recalls hearing about wildfires as a child, but in his recollection they didn’t come close to what the state is experiencing today. Since voters in this part of the state first elected Neguse to Congress in 2018, wildfires have become an increasingly central challenge. Nine of the 20 largest fires in the state have taken place since then, and thousands of people have been displaced. The damage from the Marshall Fire alone totaled $1 billion. Neguse’s district, which includes the suburbs northwest of Denver and stretches all the way to the state’s northern border, has been hit particularly hard.

Neguse says this reality has made addressing wildfires a nonstop job.

“I knew going into my service as a member of Congress that wildfires would be something that I would work on,” he told me. “But I certainly did not anticipate that it would become the defining issue of my time in Congress.”

Increasingly, frequent and deadly wildfires are a frightening reality across much of the U.S. Climate change has brought warmer temperatures and, in turn, drier forests, creating ideal conditions to spark a fire. Meanwhile, humans have built closer and closer to the wilderness where wildfires generally start. The result is an unpredictable year-round fire season with annual acreage burned creeping up dramatically over the past three decades. More than 10 million acres burned in 2020, an area more than twice the size of Connecticut; in the 1990s the average year saw just over 3 million acres burn. And while Western states like Colorado may be the hardesthit now, scientists expect other places to follow, particularly in the Southeast.

“I am doing everything I can to ring the alarm,” Neguse says. “If a fire can ultimately tear through and destroy these suburban communities, it can happen in New Jersey, it can happen in Georgia, it could happen in Seattle—and I think that that’s a paradigm shift.”

An on-the-ground tour definitely helps him make that case. Save for the

THEO STROOMER — REDUX F OR TIME

Rocky Mountains in the background, driving through Neguse’s district felt like we could have been anywhere in the U.S. In a few short hours, we bounce from one wildfire-razed subdivision to another. Only one of them bordered open land. The rest were doomed by the vagaries of the wind, which carried flames across the highway and into neighborhoods, seemingly at random. Some large buildings stand undisturbed.

Others were destroyed altogether—a new 120room hotel is now little more than an elevator shaft and some steel beams.

Neguse says he’s making headway getting lawmakers across the political spectrum onboard with meaningful wildfire policy. He succeeded in pushing for more than $5.75 billion in funding as part of last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law to invest in forest management that will reduce the risk of wildfires in some high-risk zones. With a Republican counterpart from Utah, he launched a congressional wildfire caucus.

But his most urgent initiatives may be the work his office is doing to help residents and

‘It can happen in New Jersey.

It can happen in Georgia.’

—JOE NEGUSE

local officials navigate the maze of federal programs and support as they try to rebuild. After my tour, Neguse dropped by a recreation center across the street from a burned-down subdivision to meet with displaced residents. One sounded angry. Another teared up. But for the most part, the gathered residents had entered a new stage of response, defined less by emotion over the wildfire and more by frustration with their efforts to rebuild. Snarled supply chains meant long waits for construction materials.

A stretched housing stock meant finding a temporary place to stay was expensive. “It’s just making everything more difficult,” said Neguse.

To truly address the root cause of the spike in wildfires would mean cutting emissions, but in the meantime there are all these other fires to put out. To that end, Neguse promised to take his constituents’ challenges back to Washington.

The next day, before he could leave town, yet another stumbling block got in the way: he tested positive for COVID-19, and those burning concerns would have to wait just a little longer.  17

THE BRIEF BUSINESS

RETAIL

applicators—are also hard to find. This is the third straight year that demand for cotton has exceeded production, says Sheng Lu, a professor in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware.

The great tampon shortage of 2022

BY ALANA SEMUELS

18

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

10.8% HOW MUCH THE PRICE OF FEMININECARE PRODUCTS HAS RISEN FROM A YEAR AGO

4.3%

THE INCREASE IN PRICE FOR ORALHYGIENE PRODUCTS OVER THE SAME TIME SPAN

Shelves at a CVS in Croton-onHudson, N.Y., are almost empty of tampons ▽

AL ANA SEMUELS

mosT of The Things ThaT seemed to disappear during the pandemic—the toilet paper, the yeast, the flour—have returned to shelves. Not so for products used primarily by women, like baby formula, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs used to treat symptoms of menopause, and even tampons, essential hygiene products to the roughly 40% of U.S. women who use them.

“What’s been going on for a couple months is that organizations call us up and say, ‘We need tampons,’ and we go to our warehouse and there’s nothing there,” says Dana Marlowe, the founder of I Support the Girls, which provides feminine products for people experiencing homelessness. Her group, which depends on donations, has received half as many tampons this year as during the same span last year and 61% fewer than in 2020.

“To put it bluntly, tampons are next to impossible to find,” says Michelle Wolfe, a radio host in Bozeman, Mont., who is one of the many women to have vented on the internet about the tampon shortage.

The companies that make tampons say supply-chain issues are causing the problem. Procter & Gamble, which makes Tampax, America’s most popular tampon brand, is having trouble sourcing raw materials for femininecare products and getting the finished products to retailers. Edgewell Personal Care, which makes O.B. and Playtex, experienced a severe staff shortage at its Dover, Del., facility because of Omicron, the company says.

Tampons are Class II medical devices, which means that because of qualitycontrol regulations, companies can’t put just anybody on the assembly line, so production lagged behind demand.

The raw materials that go into tampons—cotton, rayon, and sometimes pulp and plastic for

Increased demand, staffIng shortages, rawmaterial shortages—none of these factors is unique to tampons. What makes this shortage particularly problematic is that people who get their periods every month have to keep buying tampons just as regularly. That steady demand has allowed companies to raise prices. Overall, the price of feminine-care products in the U.S. has risen 10.8% from a year ago, according to scanner data from NielsenIQ, which tracks prices from point-of-sale systems. “Tampons are a staple product—a life necessity,” Lu says. Companies “will consider more price increases for these necessity products.”

P&G posted its biggest sales gain in decades in the most recent quarter, and the amount of money it made from sales in its feminine-care division was up 10%.

One female CEO argues that it’s no coincidence that the country and America’s big companies are mostly run by people who don’t need to buy the products in question. The CEOs of Procter & Gamble, Edgewell, and Unilever are men.

“I challenge you to go to a business that doesn’t have hand sanitizer. That happened overnight,” says Thyme Sullivan, who worked for 27 years at consumer packaged-goods companies including PepsiCo and Nestle before co-founding TOP the Organic Project, a menstrual-products company.

But there’s been no push to solve this supply problem, she argues, because many of the people determining prices and availability for feminine-care products do not use them.

“It is just a matter of who is asking for it. And who are the decisionmakers,” she says. “It’s why we need to bring men into the conversation, because in many places, they’re still the decisionmakers, and this wasn’t on their radar.” 

NATION

THE ‘PERFECT VICTIM’ MYTH

BY ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

One would hope, five years after #MeToo went viral, that our culture would have developed a nuanced understanding of assault.

Domestic abuse, in particular, is messy and complicated. The victim, fearing economic or physical repercussions, often stays with the perpetrator. Sometimes the victim fights back. And victims can be flawed: they don’t need to be pure or sober to tell the truth. ▶ The View is reported by Simmone Shah

19

THE VIEW OPENER

20

Amber Heard waits for the jury to announce the verdict in the Depp v. Heard civil defamation trial at the courthouse in Fairfax, Va., on June 1

the conclusion was “a case study in how women who fall short of our expectations are disadvantaged.”

Heard was attacked on many fronts. She was blamed on social media for not leaving Depp after the first instance of alleged abuse. Heard admitted to fighting back, emotionally and physically, defying expectations of the meek woman under the sway of a powerful man. Depp fan accounts were particularly vicious when dissecting how Heard behaved on the stand. “Victims are expected to represent the right amount of emotionality,” says Tuerkheimer, who calls it the “perverse Goldilocks” scenario.

“If they’re too emotional, they’re perceived as hysterical and untrustworthy. If she’s too calm and her affect is flat, that too is held against her.”

These tactics for undermining accusers aren’t new. “The defense strategy in cases involving intimate-partner violence or sexual assault is to always depict the other side as liars, opportunists, money-hungry, jilted, delusional witch hunters, and to claim the other person is perverting #MeToo or is the real abuser,” says Carrie Goldberg, a lawyer specializing in sex crimes.

Depp also has ardent fans: his Pirates of the Caribbean movies rank among the most successful ever made.

“It’s easy to believe survivors in the abstract,” says Brodsky. “It’s a lot harder when [people] like the accused, when they like the movies he was in.” In text messages about Heard, Depp fantasized about murdering his then wife: “I will f-ck her burnt corpse afterward to make sure she’s dead.” Yet the main sentiment on TikTok seemed to be that Depp was justified in speaking about her this way.

One post with more than 222,000 likes wrote over Heard’s bruised face, “He could have killed you ... He had every right.” “A lot of people just didn’t like her,” says Brodsky. “They thought she seemed irresponsible or too wild, and that meant that in their eyes she was literally incapable of being abused—either Depp never laid a hand on her, or if he did, she deserved it.”

Legal experts say suing for defamation has become a viable strategy for alleged abusers. “I’ve already started hearing, ‘If you speak out, I’m going to Johnny Depp you,’” says Brodsky.

“A defamation suit doesn’t have to be meritorious to work.” Just the threat of exposing their human imperfections may be enough to ensure a victim’s silence. □

E V E LY N H O C K S T E I N — P O O L /A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

But social media strips away nuance. We’re left instead with myths.

One such myth is that of the “perfect victim.” The perfect victim is an innocent. She doesn’t drink or do drugs. She has a clear memory of her assault. She has corroborating evidence—but not too much, because that would indicate she’s vindictive. She cuts off contact with her abuser as soon as the abuse takes place. She does no wrong—at the office, in relationships, as a mother or daughter. She’s never lied about anything, ever, in her entire life. She dresses “appropriately.” She’s virginal.

She’s simplistic. She does not exist.

Johnny Depp accused his ex-wife Amber Heard of defaming him by publishing a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” without ever naming her abuser. Since the trial began in April, users on TikTok have compared Heard to this mythical perfect victim and found that she did not live up to that impossible standard.

For weeks, the public (and, possibly, the jury, which was not sequestered) was bombarded with videos of Heard testifying about her alleged abuse, paired with disinformation to paint her as a harlot, a drunk, a liar.

They accused her of faking evidence of bruises and of persuading witnesses to lie. (There’s no evidence to support these claims.) They called her Amber Turd and mocked the #MePoo movement. “They discredited Heard based on conduct that had nothing to do with whether she was abused or not,” says Alexandra Brodsky, a civil rights attorney. “I had really naively thought that we were past that after #MeToo.” Depp had already lost a suit against the Sun in the U.K., where a judge found that the tabloid’s claim that Depp was a “wife beater” was “substantially true” and that Depp had physically abused Heard at least 12 times. In both cases, her legal team presented extensive documentation of the alleged abuse. And yet after weeks of social media picking apart Heard, a verdict in favor of Depp seemed inevitable. According to Deborah Tuerkheimer, author of Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers,

Healthy. Educated. Safe.

Let’s get there together.

THE RISK REPORT BY IAN BREMMER

Colombia’s election shows staying power of populism IT’S A GOOD most conservative and moderate time to be a popvoters who consider the ex-rebel ulist. Just ask Co- too far left. And because he has lombians, who just come into national politics, on May 29 for the his name recognition is bound to country’s presisoar. Petro, in contrast, has much dential elections voted through more limited room to grow— two political outsiders to the secmainly by moderating his tone to ond round for the first time in attract the few center-left voters 20 years. who went for other candidates in In a nation that has never the first round. elected a leftist President—a The latest polls have Hernánrarity in Latin America—leftist dez narrowly in the lead, but a Senator and former M-19 guerPetro victory in the June 19 vote rilla Gustavo Petro finished first is within the margin of error. with 40.3% of the vote. PopuWhereas Petro has had a long list former Bucaramanga mayor political career as a member of Rodolfo Hernández, a septuageCongress, mayor of Bogotá, and narian Trump-like construction now three-time presidential canmagnate who ran as didate, Hernández is an independent and an unknown quanThe next campaigned mostly tity. He’s refused to President on TikTok, came in participate in presisecond with 28.2% of dential debates and will the vote, edging out has never been the represent the centrist former subject of much pubMedellín mayor and lic scrutiny, meaning a rebuke elite favorite Federico that voters haven’t of politics Gutiérrez. been exposed to his as usual Both Petro and liabilities—including Hernández ran on a corruption invesantiestablishment platforms tigation, an assault that got him promising sweeping change, tapsuspended from his mayoral post, ping into the public’s yearning for and a record of controversial change in a context of widespread statements. Moreover, in recent dissatisfaction with the status days he has reaped endorsements quo on the back of the COVID-19 from the ruling class and the busipandemic and worsening socioness elites, which could dull his economic conditions. This disantiestablishment shine. content was on display last year Whoever wins, two things are when a failed tax-reform proposal certain. The next President will triggered massive street protests represent a significant departure against the government. Petro from recent Colombian history and Hernández will now face off and a rebuke of politics as usual. in a runoff on June 19.

But lacking congressional majorities and bound by high inflaON PAPER, the ideologically amtion and fiscal constraints, he will biguous Hernández should have struggle to deliver solutions for the advantage, since he can apthe problems Colombians will peal to Petro’s own base of antihave elected him to fix. Change is establishment voters but also to easier said than done. 

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PRESENTED BY CHINA DAILY

LEGENDARY LAND OF MYSTERY Three rivers provide the lifeblood of an enchanted area that is a natural wonder

BY YANG YANG and LI YINGQING

It is a story transcending time, a witness of sea changes, a land with “mystery rivers”, an ark of life, a symphony of natural wonders, a museum sheltering the eternal and the transitional, a piece of evidence showing that life can be both tough and frail, and a history that records people’s changing perceptions of nature.

It is the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas in northwestern Yunnan province of Southwest China, which shares a border with Myanmar.

The TPR’s story began about 40 million years ago, when the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate, lifting the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and creating the rumpled Hengduan Mountains.

The roof of the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, cradles the sources of the longest rivers in Asia. In between the precipitous north-south ranges of the rippling Hengduan Mountains run a mighty trio of waterways — the Nujiang in the west, the Lancang in the middle and the Jinsha in the east.

Respectively they are the upper streams of the Salween River, which runs through Myanmar, the Mekong River and the Yangtze River, the world’s third-longest watercourse.

One singular thing about the three rivers is that they run abreast 106 miles in Yunnan before the Jinsha River turns drastically northeast and finally meets the East China Sea. Another is that they run unusually closely to each other.

The shortest distance between

Lancang and Jinsha measures 41 miles, and between Lancang and Nujiang the distance is less than 12 miles.

That was how in 1985, on a satellite map this geographical wonder drew the attention of an expert from UNESCO, which marked the commencement of a long journey to apply for the World Heritage List.

UNESCO selects world heritage sites according to four criteria: aesthetic importance, outstanding examples representing major stages of Earth’s history, exceptional examples of significant ongoing ecological and biological processes, and the most significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity. Meeting one of them is adequate.

The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas went on the list in 2003. Liang Yongning, a professor of geology from Kunming University of Science and Technology in Yunnan, says it is the only world heritage site in China that meets all four criteria.

Covering 6,564 square miles, the site consists of 15 different protected areas that have been divided into eight clusters, each providing a representative sample of the full range of the biological and geological diversity of the Hengduan Mountains, Shangri-La included.

Back in the autumn of 2002, Liang, an expert in the team preparing the Three Parallel Rivers’ application for the list, received two experts from UNESCO who were sent to investigate the area.

Two decades ago in the area lived the poorest people in China, blocked by the unscalable mountains and rushing

HAVEN OF FAUNA & FLORA The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, refers to the area in the northwestern part of Yunnan province featuring three rivers: Jinsha (upstream of the Yangtze) Lancang (known as Mekong outside of China) and Nujiang (known as Salween in Myanmar) They run roughly parallel, north to south, for more than 106 miles. The shortest distance between the Jinsha and Lancang rivers is 41 miles, while that between Lancang and Nujiang is less than 12 miles.

With an altitude ranging from 2,490 ft. to 22,110 ft. above sea level, the area includes 15 protected areas categorized into eight geographical clusters.

Here are 10 iconic species found in the area:

03

MI SHM I TAK IN

The Mishmi takin is an endangered goat-antelope of the Bovidae family. In the Gaoligong Mountains, it’s the largest wild animal species. With “face of a horse, horns of a deer, hooves of an ox, tail of a donkey”, it is considered one of the country’s most precious animals living in mountain forests alongside the giant panda and snub-nosed monkey.

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SAUSSUREA MEDUSA MAXIM.

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YUN N A N S N UB -N OSE D M O N K EY

The Yunnan snub-nosed monkey lives at the highest altitude of any primate, apart from humans. The primary forests, 9,840 ft. above sea level in Yunnan Baima Snow Mountain National Nature Reserve, are its main habitat.

Recognized by its pink, pouting lips and “punk hairstyle”, it’s a social animal with strong family bonds and is considered to be the “elf of the snow mountains”.

Saussurea medusa Maxim. is a precious flowering plant in the Saussurea genus in the Asteraceae family. It grows on the alpine subnival belt, an area just below the permanently snow-covered zone and the highest of all terrestrial ecosystems inhabited by seed plants. Its furry leaves serve to absorb and preserve warmth as well as protect the pollen.

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MECO N O PSIS PSEUD OV EN USTA

Meconopsis pseudovenusta is a flowering plant found in the high-altitude meadows or on talus slopes. To protect itself from ultraviolet rays, the flower needs to accumulate more anthocyanidins, hence appearing blue or purple. Because of the adverse high-altitude environment, most plants of the Meconopsis genus conserve energy by blossoming only once in a lifetime.

rivers. Roads were carved into escarpments and some bridges were merely cables along which people slid over roaring torrents together with their animals.

“We thought it would take one month to complete the expedition because we needed to cross the three rivers and the divides and watersheds in between, to see all of them,” Liang says. “At that time there was no highway connecting the rivers.”

However, no matter how big the sites are, UNESCO allows at most two-week investigations.

With the help of locals, they planned an east-west route that

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EMERALD DRAGON LIZARD

The emerald dragon lizard is a squamate reptile unique to China. Discovered in 2016, it has only been found in the dry-hot valleys of Dechen and Weixi counties in northwestern Yunnan province. With a length of less than 11.8 inches, the males are marked by a bright emerald color, while the females are mostly yellowish or grayish brown.

started from the Jinsha River and ended west of Gaoligong Mountains located on the west bank of the Nujiang River.

“We tried everything,” Liang says. “If there was a highway we took off-road vehicles, if there was no highway we rode horses, and if even horses couldn’t go on, we went on foot.”

It was a hard expedition. In the Three Parallel Rivers area, a world of sierras, stand 118 glaciated peaks of more than 16,400 ft. above sea level. The highest is Kawagebo Peak (22,110 ft.) in Dechen county of Dechen Tibetan autonomous prefecture,

China Watch materials are distributed by China Daily Distribution Corp. on behalf of China Daily, Beijing, China.

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Nujiang River Lancang River Jinsha River

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SC LATER’S MONA L

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Sclater’s monal, a pheasant also known as the crestless monal, is famous for the male’s dark upper plumage with iridescence. The females are mostly streaky brown. In the Gaoligong Mountains, the bird lives more than 10,500 ft. above sea level and is considered one of Gaoligong’s three treasures along with big tree rhododendron and the hoolock gibbon.

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The Gaoligong hoolock gibbon is a branch of hoolock gibbons unique to the Gaoligong Mountains and first got its name in 2017. A critically endangered animal, less than 200 individuals are known to exist.

With their distinctive white eyebrows and long arms, they are able to jump across branches 49 ft. apart with speed up to 34 mile/hour.

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BI G TREE R HODODENDRON

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A PR I COT ORA NG E PAP HI O PED I LU M

Big tree rhododendron is the largest of all rhododendrons. Unlike the common azalea shrubs, big tree rhododendron is a critically endangered plant that can grow up to 98 ft.

A single leaf can reach a length of 15.7 inches and its pink flowers blossom in clusters of dozens.

It is mainly found in forests on the Gaoligong Mountains at an altitude of over 6,560 ft.

This is an endangered flowering plant of the orchid family. In northwestern Yunnan, it grows in rock crevices or well-drained stony meadows, 4,590 to 6,900 ft. above sea level.

Its flower bud appears green and gradually transforms to a canary yellow in blossom.

in the Lancang River Grand Canyon, one of the protected areas inhabited by the endangered Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys.

Weather kept changing when they climbed over the Biluo Snow Mountains located in the Lancang-Nujiang divide, Liang says. Biluo’s snow-capped range extends 88 miles with 15 glaciated peaks at more than 13,120 ft. above sea level. The 14,760-ft.high Laowo Mountain stands out as the most beautiful one.

Elevation drops 10,500 ft. before reaching the Lancang River.

The expedition lasted 12 days.

When the experts departed, one

Taiwania flousiana Gaussen is a precious evergreen tree and one of China’s first-level protected plants, marked by its longevity and height. A Taiwania flousiana in the Gaoligong protected area, towering 236 ft., was once recorded as the tallest tree in China. In this file photo, researchers with the Chinese National Geography magazine climb the tree to measure its height.

TEXT BY CHENG YUEZHU / CHINA DAILY & PHOTOS BY WANG BIN, ZHANG YAZHOU AND MU ZHAOHONG / FOR CHINA DAILY GRAPHICS BY MUKESH MOHANAN & SHEN WEI / CHINA DAILY

of them, Jim Thorsell, a Canadian, gave Liang a book as a present.

It was a copy of an excerpt from The Mystery Rivers of Tibet by the English botanist and explorer Francis Kingdon Ward, who traveled across the three parallel rivers and the watersheds in 1913 to collect plant species for British gardening businesses and scientific research.

Liang found their route overlapped in many respects with the one Ward traveled nearly 90 years ago. “Thorsell read the book and told me the natural conditions of Three Parallel Rivers area had not changed much

over the years,” Liang says.

Ward devoted the whole fifth chapter to the sacred mountain of Kawagebo. It was also a visiting spot of the UNESCO expedition. Kawagebo and other glaciated peaks, such as Biluo, Baima and Haba snow mountains, represent the spectacular beauty of the area.

In addition to the magnificent skyline of the glaciers, the area is also granted with other outstanding scenic landforms, such as alpine karst, especially the Stone Moon above the Nujiang Grand Canyon and the “tortoise shell” of the alpine Danxia, a

Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

landform characterized by its reddish sandstone features.

As the elevation drops from more than 22,110 ft. to 2,490 ft., the area presents every kind of natural views in the Northern Hemisphere except those of oceans and deserts — glaciers, alpine valleys, alpine lakes, alpine meadows, broadleaved and coniferous forests and so on.

Having witnessed a literal sea change, the area is a museum of geology, housing a collection of diverse rock types, such as alpine sandstone landforms, granite monolith and the range of karst.

Despite bordering tropical Myanmar to the west, the area provides various climates for creatures living in subtropical, temperate and frigid zones, making it the richest biodiversity region in China.

Such unique geographical locations and hydrogeological and weather conditions create diverse atmospheres, which is summarized by locals as “the weather changes every three miles”.

Being located at the juncture of East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the area not only provides a corridor for the migration of species, endemic or otherwise, but also preserves species that can rightly be called living fossil — for example, the Cyathea tree ferns which hark back to the time of the dinosaurs.

This area, described by locals as “tens of thousands of creatures living on one mountain”, shelters more than 20% of higher plant species (of relatively complex or advanced characteristics) and 25% of animal species in all of China.

Big tree rhododendron is native to the Gaoligong Mountains. Since 2015 people have sought to cultivate the critically endangered plant.

The good news is that 60% of the 80 saplings planted in the wild in 2017 have survived. So have the 200 saplings planted in May last year.

Today as more creatures perish at an ever-increasing speed around the world, in the inaccessible mountains of the Three Parallel Rivers, new species are discovered, almost every year. This, alone, makes it an authentic natural wonder.

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PRESENTED BY CHINA DAILY

Farming hits the high life With rooftop cultivation, residents reap harvest

BY YANG FEIYUE

It’s space utilization that will harvest a new crop of ideas about urban living. In the concrete jungle, a patch of bountiful greenery seems almost contradictory.

Yet residents in a youth apartment building in downtown Shenzhen, Guangdong province, have planted the seed from which a new approach to city living is growing, cultivating an unusual lifestyle.

They till their own land, which can be accessed just an elevator ride away to the top of their building. There they grow vegetables while socializing with other tenants and taking in the city skyline.

Huang Suyun, 32, has seen positive changes in her own life since farming and other social activities were introduced to the rooftop of the youth apartment building she has managed for the past three years.

Huang gladly provides a sample of the farm produce she has nurtured with her own hands over the past three months. This includes green beans, cucumbers, chilis and eggplants.

Additionally, the experience of tending the gardens allows people to make friends and get to know others who either live in the building or visit from outside.

For the space to plant, tenants need to pay 300 yuan ($44) per square meter (10.76 sq. ft.) a year.

Those who do get to live a double life as an urban farmer, regularly watering, fertilizing and managing their own green patch, which offers solace and some rural charm high above the traffic and bustle of the city.

Over the past few months, since the rooftop green space

opened, about 20 people have claimed their spots.

Events such as open-air performances are staged on weekends, drawing in residents from the neighborhood who may have the seed of a similar idea planted in their own mind.

The rooftop garden is one of 10 community gardens whose construction was initiated by the urban management department with the city’s Nanshan district last year.

The other gardens are mostly on the ground close to the streets. The rooftop garden is the only floating green land and has turned out to be a success, bringing young people together and enhancing their sense of community.

It is open to the public in the daytime, visitors needing only to register at the reception on the first floor to get access.

The rooftop idyll covers 4,840 sq. ft. and consists of a sightseeing zone, a shaded leisure area and the urban farming section.

“There’s space to exercise, such as doing yoga at the leisure zone, and then to walk over to check the vegetables,” says Xie Jing, an architect with 11 Architecture of Shenzhen, a company that undertook the project.

Xie’s company applied a modular design. Her team had more than 700 plastic logistic containers, each customized as a small plantation. They were all colored green and then arranged to create a variegated landscape that is pleasing to the eye.

“The casing soil in the container is very light, and wouldn’t put too much of a burden on the drainage system of the roof,” Xie says.

Thanks to the container, the roots of the vegetables do not interfere with the roof’s waterproof layer. The porous bottom of each container is laid with fil-

Visitors enjoy time in a green space featuring vegetable patches in a high-tech park in Bao’an district of Shenzhen, Guangdong province. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

A performance is held marking the opening of a rooftop garden in Nanshan district, Shenzhen, in December.

Residents take care of their crops.

tering layers of ceramic particles and nonwoven fabrics.

“When too much water is applied to the plants, or there is heavy rain, the overflow can be purified and is discharged through the original drainage system of the building,” Xie says.

The shaded area is also an important part of the rooftop design.

“The summer is smoldering hot in Shenzhen, and exposure to the sun for 10 minutes will be too much,” Xie says.

So the team brought in a modular steel ceiling with solar panels, which ensure both a

comfortable respite from the midday sun, while also harvesting solar energy for residents.

As for the sightseeing area, plants with small flowers and leaves, as well as thin branches that wave in the breeze, were chosen to create a soft and uplifting experience for visitors.

An increasing number of urban residents at home and abroad have started to seek a social life that promotes environmental protection and personal health, which is good news for sustainability and community activity development, experts say.

China Watch materials are distributed by China Daily Distribution Corp. on behalf of China Daily, Beijing, China.

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People from across China fly kites at the 38th Weifang International Kite Festival in April 2021.

SUN SHUBAO / XINHUA

KITE CAPITAL SOARS Heritage and industry credentials shine on high

BY ALEXIS HOOI and ZHAO RUIXUE

In April, crowds in Weifang, Shandong province, looked to the skies in awe. High above them, replica spacecraft reenacted the breakthrough docking procedure that had set a milestone in China’s space program.

The spectacle was complete with a station module and an astronaut spacewalk, all made up of a huge, complex structure of kites soaring on the wind.

The China Space Station kite, put together by more than 20 craftsmen over two months and combining traditional techniques with state-of-the-art digital modeling technology, attracted a huge deal of attention on the internet.

Weifang is widely known as the world’s kite capital. The city acknowledges this with kitethemed landmarks including a railway station depicting a fluttering butterfly, public sculptures portraying the popular pastime, and streetlights along the main thoroughfare leading to the sprawling venue for an annual international kite festival.

At Weifang Kaixuan Kite Manufacturing Co., workers make kites ranging from gleaming aircraft

and beautiful landscape paintcontinued to grow, with the ings to lifelike marine creatures festival being held every year such as whales and octopuses. since 1984. There are now more “More than 95% of these kites than 400 kite companies in the are exported and have been city, and they employ more than sold in more than 40 countries 80,000 people. Each year more and regions, including Denmark, than 220 million kites are made, France and New Zealand,” said with the value of sales totaling the company chairman, Wang more than 2 billion yuan ($297 Xiaoping. million) a year, municipal authoriAccording to local historical ties said. records, Weifang kites were “Weifang kites account for popular during the Ming Dynasty more than 75% of the interna(1368-1644) and were a major tional kite market and nearly folk art in the Qing 85% of the domestic Dynasty (1644-1911), market,” said Zhang with many artists Jianwei, director of becoming widely the comprehensive known for their service center at the exquisite, high-flying Weifang Internationcreations. al Kite Association.

Weifang kites At least 29 kite took off after the export companies country’s reform and Yang Hongwei, an intangible are registered in the cultural heritage inheritor of city, with markets on opening-up began Weifang kite-making. in the late 1970s. five continents.

ZHU ZHENG / XINHUA In 1984 Weifang “Weifang’s kites kites were sent not only bring to Shanghai to take part in an economic benefits to the local exhibition, impressing officials people, they also carry traditional of an international kite associaChinese culture to the world,” tion who immediately suggested said Wang, chairman of Weifang that the city set up a global Kaixuan Kite Manufacturing Co. platform for the art. This led to A traditional Weifang kite is the first Weifang International made of bamboo and features Kite Festival that same year. Kite Chinese painting. Traditional enthusiasts from 11 countries kite-making focuses on the four and regions took part in the arts of tying (using bamboo for event and were amazed by the a frame), pasting (placing paper, intricacy, vividness and grandeur silk and other material onto the of Weifang kites. frame), painting and “letting go” The city’s kite industry has (flying). In 2006 Weifang kites

Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

were added to China’s intangible cultural heritage list.

Yang Hongwei, 56, is a leading inheritor of Weifang’s kite tradition. Born into a kite-making family, she often saw up close the brightly colored kites of different shapes and sizes in her grandfather’s workshop. When she was 16 she learned kitemaking skills from her grandfather, and after 10 years’ practice of the craft Yang set up her own workshop in 1992.

Yang’s creations include common butterfly and swallow patterns, as well as patterns and images from Chinese mythology, legends and history.

Weifang’s villagers are also reaping the rewards of the kite industry. The city’s Wangjiazhuangzi village is known as the No. 1 kite village in China. More than 100 companies make kites, with many villagers involved in processing kite fabric and the kites’ hand-held line wheels.

The village reports an annual output of more than 90 million kites at a value of 300 million yuan, accounting for more than 80% of Weifang’s total kite sales.

From design and raw materials to accessories and tying, the village has formed a relatively complete industrial chain. There are 4,700 people in Wangjiazhuangzi, nearly 3,000 of whom are engaged in kite or kite-related sectors, said Wang Zhenhua, a Party official of Wangjiazhuangzi.

Families gather in Uvalde, Texas, near the school where a gunman used a semiautomatic rifle to kill 19 children and two teachers PHOTOGR APH BY DAVID BUTOW

NATION

AFTER THE SHOOTING EVEN AS AMERICA’S FIREARM MASSACRES PROVOKE PROFOUND SHOCK, CHANGE SEEMS OUT OF REACH

NATION

In D.C., another cycle of inaction on guns Can anything end Congress’s gridlock?

By Brian Bennett

As PresidenT Joe Biden sAT wiTh new ZeAland Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Oval Office on May 31, the juxtaposition was hard to miss: the leader of a country who had robustly tackled gun control after one horrible mass shooting, beside another who remained incapable of such action after hundreds.

It was a little over three years ago that a whitesupremacist gunman armed with AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles and shotguns murdered 51 people and injured 40 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, livestreaming the killings on Facebook. Within a month of the massacre, Ardern led an overhaul of New Zealand’s gun laws that included banning most semiautomatic and military-style weapons and starting a buyback program that brought in some 50,000 weapons. Only one New Zealand lawmaker voted against the legislation.

Such a national response remains the stuff of political fantasy in the U.S., even after the massacre of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, which came about just 10 days after racist killings in a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., two of hundreds of mass shootings in the U.S. over the past year. Turning in his yellow armchair, the U.S. President asked his guest about the politics of that accomplishment. “I want to talk to you about what those conversations were like, if you’re willing,” he said.

The President then gave voice to a growing anxiety that the sheer number of mass shootings in the U.S., and the cycle of inaction, has made too many in power numb to the devastation. As he often does, Biden paraphrased an Irish poet; this time it was William Butler Yeats. “Too long a suffering makes a stone of the heart,” Biden said.

“Well, there’s an awful lot of suffering,” he continued, adding, “Much of it is preventable.”

After reporters filed out of Biden’s office, the two leaders talked for nearly an hour and a half, on the rise of China’s influence in the Pacific Rim and on trade initiatives. At one point, Biden indeed pressed Ardern on how she rallied her fellow New Zealanders to take forceful action to rein in assault weapons after the Christchurch 28

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

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If Congress won’t ban the sale of military-style assault weapons, as it did for a decade starting in 1994, the President hopes to at least raise the age limit for buying semiautomatic rifles

shooting. She told reporters outside the West Wing that she “reflected on our experience with gun reform, but it is just that, it is our experience.”

The American experience is proving to be quite different.

For one, there’s no sense of urgency. The House and Senate did not cancel the late-May and early-June recesses after the shootings. A group of five Republican and five Democratic Senators started up phone calls and video meetings about whether any new gun restrictions could draw the support in the Senate of at least 10 Republicans and all 50 members of the Democratic caucus, the most plausible path to reaching the

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : R E D U X ; T H I S S P R E A D : D AV I D B U T O W — R E D U X

votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell tasked Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas and the minority whip, with bringing together some Republicans for the talks. Cornyn told reporters in San Antonio on May 30 that he was discussing with Democrats a “basic framework about how we go forward.” The next day, Cornyn wrote on Twitter that making gun laws more restrictive was “Not gonna happen.”

There is some bipartisan interest in a few efforts to address the mass shooting epidemic, including helping states pass and fund red-flag laws that would allow courts to impose restrictions on

the purchase of firearms by people believed to be a danger to themselves or others, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who is helping organize the talks, said June 5 on CNN’s State of the Union. There has also been discussion about improving background checks, increasing mental-health resources, and putting more funds toward school safety, he said. “Republicans realize how scared parents and kids are across this country,” Murphy said. “The answer this time cannot be nothing.”

But anything that passes will be more modest than steps Biden called for during an impassioned prime-time address on June 2, like broad bans on

assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. “Right now, people in this country want us to make progress,” Murphy said. “They just don’t want the status quo to continue for another 30 years.”

In the meantime, Democrats who control the House are moving forward with a raft of gun-control measures, including the Protecting Our Kids Act, a bill that could include provisions to raise the age limit for buying semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21, and ban the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Those proposals are likely to face stiff resistance in the Senate, prompting lawmakers to refrain from seriously broaching more restrictive measures such as banning assault weapons like the AR-15, the main weapon used by the gunmen in both the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings. The last time Congress approved such a ban was 1994, when Biden was a crucial Senator in the discussions. Lawmakers allowed those provisions to expire in 2004.

American politics has become even more “dysfunctional” since then, says Timothy Naftali, a historian at New York University.

“There is no reason to be hopeful at the national level now about the possibility of any gun control,” Naftali says.

“The pandemic showed that issues of life and death are politicized now in a way that would have been hard to imagine 10 years ago.”

The current political environment, Naftali says, undermines the American political tradition of lawmakers being problem solvers. “Right now our political class is incapable of solving major domestic challenges at the national level,” he says, leaving any possible efforts to curb access to guns to state and local leaders. But that response will be inherently uneven and less effective than sweeping, national measures.

As the press was ushered out of Biden’s meeting with Ardern, one reporter shouted a question to Biden about whether he would meet with McConnell about guns. “I will meet with the Congress on guns, I promise you,” Biden said. He didn’t say when. —With reporting by Mariah Espada  29

NATION

‘There is an emptiness.’

Uvalde shooting victim Lexi Rubio’s greatgrandfather remembers her 10 years of life

By Jasmine Aguilera/Uvalde, Texas

▷

Moreno sits at the Primera Iglesia Bautista in Uvalde, Texas, on May 28, four days after his greatgranddaughter Lexi Rubio was killed 30

Time June 20/June 27, 2022

aspired to become a teacher, family members told the Los Angeles Times.

Lexi, a fourth-grader, wanted to someday attend St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Moreno says.

If she could visit one place in the world, it would be Australia to “see a kangaroo and a bunch of fun stuff,” Lexi wrote in her journal, which her

D AV I D B U T O W — R E D U X F O R T I M E

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 greatgranddaughter, 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, whom he’d watch play baseball, and who dreamed of being a lawyer, was gone.

“There is an emptiness,” Moreno says, putting a hand toward his chest.

“Heartache. Trying to process why or how it happened.”

Moreno is far from the only person in the community processing grief. Almost no one in Uvalde, a small town of about 16,000, was untouched by the elementary-school massacre.

In the days after the shooting, Uvalde residents built makeshift memorials throughout town in parks, parking lots, and storefront windows for the victims—mostly 9- and 10-yearold children, and the teachers, ages 48 and 44. Some of the kids were on the honor roll and loved TikTok and YouTube. Alithia Ramirez, 10, dreamed of going to art school, according to her obituary, and Eliahna “Ellie” Garcia, 9,

mother Kimberly Rubio shared on Facebook. “And I can try new foods that are not in Uvalde.” Her favorite food was pasta Alfredo. She was a bit of a tomboy who loved baseball and fishing. She was a proud fourthgeneration Texan, and was close to her tight-knit Mexican American family.

Moreno used to pick Lexi up from Robb Elementary School every day.

“That was my full-time, nonpaying job,” he says. “One that I enjoyed completely.”

Earlier on May 24, both of Lexi’s parents, a journalist and a sheriff deputy, were at Robb Elementary School to watch her receive an honor roll award.

They celebrated her achievement, and

then her parents left the school and Lexi returned to her classroom. It was the last time they’d be together.

“My sweet Lexi. Love of my life.

Keeper of my soul. I carried you inside me. I’m you. You are me. I want to be with you,” Kimberly, Moreno’s granddaughter, wrote in a Facebook post on May 25. “Now. Not later.”

Moreno was a pastor at the Primera Iglesia Bautista for 50 years. Now he’s preparing the sermon he’ll deliver at Lexi’s funeral on June 11.

He tries hard not to cry in front of people, especially his family. Not for old-fashioned machismo’s sake, he says, but to try to be a stable and helpful presence. His wife, Lexi’s greatgrandmother, is the same. “We have moments that we collapse, of course,” he says. “But when I’m dealing with people and their pain, I have to be strong for them, because if I break down with them, I don’t accomplish a whole lot.”

On the afternOOn of May 28, four days after the shooting, Moreno sits in the front pew of his church, a modest building just three minutes’ drive from Robb Elementary School, while people work in the background to prepare free lunches for the community.

Here, he seeks lessons from his faith.

“Every fiber of my human emotions, in my mind, cries out to hate. To be angry,” he says, looking at the pulpit in front of him. “But then I remember that I have preached a number of times the words of Jesus. He said that we must learn to love our enemies ... This experience has taught me to live those words.”

His decades as a pastor have also positioned him to listen and support his granddaughter and her husband, who he says are suffering immensely. He believes they too will learn from this agony, so that someday they and the other grieving parents may guide others through life’s darkest moments.

“I tell them that one of these days in the future, you may be having a friend or a couple come to you after having lost a loved one,” Moreno says. “And you’re going to be able to share, not something you read in a book, not something that you got from a counseling course. You’re going to be sharing your pain, and how you survived.” □

E D UC A T IO N

TEACHERS WHO SURVIVED SCHOOL SHOOTINGS FEEL ABANDONED

By Katie Reilly

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-15style 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, you are responsible for them.”

‘I’m so sorry for them that we did not fix this.’

—ABBEY CLEMENTS, A TEACHER WHO SURVIVED THE 2012 SHOOTING AT SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

As efforts to pass comprehensive gun-safety laws stall, many educators who survived mass shootings feel as if they’ve been left to deal with the problem on their own, forced to protect students from the relentless threat of gun violence in schools.

In the wake of the shooting, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has indicated he’s not willing to support stricter gun laws. Instead, he sent a letter to the Texas education agency that puts the onus on educators: instructing districts to conduct weekly door inspections, ordering administrators to identify actions they can take to make campuses more secure before the new school year, and encouraging schools to increase the presence of law enforcement officers.

But police were inside Robb Elementary minutes after the Uvalde gunman entered the building, and their response has drawn intense scrutiny.

The police waited more than an hour to enter the classrooms where the gunman had barricaded himself and killed 19 children and two teachers.

“How do we continue to function when kids are killed in an elementary school?” says Abbey Clements, a teacher who huddled with 17 secondgrade students in her classroom on Dec. 14, 2012, when gunshots rang out at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. She recalls how she read a picture book about polar bears and tried to sing holiday songs to keep her students calm.

When she heard about the shooting in Uvalde, she thought immediately of those educators and children, thrust into a similar situation a decade later.

“Your mind goes right to that time, and you think about those teachers and those poor students,” she says.

“I’m so sorry for them that we did not fix this.”

In December, Clements, Lerner, and another teacher launched Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, aimed at amplifying the stories of educators who have survived school shootings and advocating for solutions to stop gun violence across the country. Lerner wants safe-gun-storage laws and strict background checks on purchases. She would also like to see age restrictions that prevent those under 21 from buying handguns, and laws that limit access to military-style assault rifles like the ones used by the gunmen in Uvalde, Parkland, and Newtown.

In the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook, Clements says she leaned on teachers who had survived the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, who could relate to the trauma she had experienced. She plans to reach out to Uvalde teachers to offer similar support. But she’s frustrated that the gesture is still necessary.

“I mostly feel shame. I also feel outrage,” says Clements, who now teaches fourth grade at another school in Newtown. “How pathetic is this that we let this go on this long, tragedy after tragedy?”

NATION

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Law-enforcement officers in Uvalde, Texas, on May 26

VIE W POINT

HOW TO STOP A MASS SHOOTING We can all train ourselves to take action

By James Densley and Jillian Peterson

Mass shooters are not them. They are us—boys and men we know. Our children. Our students. Our colleagues.

Our community. This fact may make mass shooters seem harder to stop.

The reality is quite the opposite.

Nearly half of all mass shooters, and 80% of school mass shooters, communicate intent to do harm ahead of time. They post threats on social media or tell their family and friends in person. This is a crucial opportunity for intervention, but many people don’t know what to do with that information or where and how to report it. By training ourselves to say something if we see or hear something that gives us pause, and by lobbying for behavioral intervention and threat-assessment teams in our

A person in crisis is like a balloon ready to pop. All we must do is let a bit of the air out

Densley and Peterson are the co-founders of the Violence Project and co-authors of The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic

D AV I D B U T O W — R E D U X F O R T I M E

Amid A recent spAte of horrific mass shootings—at a Buffalo supermarket, a Texas elementary school, and a Tulsa hospital—it feels as if little has changed since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. In fact, things have gotten worse: mass shootings are more frequent and deadlier than ever.

It’s hard not to feel numb. When comparable nations have suffered deadly mass shootings—Australia, Canada, Germany, Britain, New ZeaZealand, Switzerland—they responded with new laws curtailing firearm access, and rarely experienced another mass shooting. In America, we wait for decisive action that never comes, while mass shootings continue unabated.

Five years ago, we started researching the lives of mass shooters. To our genuine surprise, talking to mass shooters in prison and people who knew them, people who planned a shooting but never went through with it, victims’ families, shooting survivors, and first responders gave us reason to hope. We learned there are things we can do right here, right now, as individual concerned citizens, to stop a mass shooting before it ever starts.

It begins with a shift in mindset.

schools and workplaces, communities can proactively respond to these warning signs.

A mass shooting is intended to be the final act of a person who has reached a breaking point. No one thinks they’ll get away with a mass shooting; mass shootings end one of three ways: with the shooter taking their own life, law enforcement taking it for them, or the perpetrator spending the rest of their life in prison.

This all means classical deterrence mechanisms like harsh punishment or armed security at the door do little to prevent mass shootings. A suicidal shooter may in fact be drawn to a location if they know someone on site is trained to kill them. Rather than giving desperate people incentive to die, we must give them a reason to live.

Like CPR, suicide prevention and crisis intervention are skills anyone can learn. We’ve trained thousands of people in verbal and nonverbal deescalation techniques like active listening and focusing on feelings, not facts.

A crisis overwhelms a person’s usual coping mechanisms. A person in crisis is like a balloon ready to pop. All we must do is let a bit of the air out. We don’t have to completely deflate the balloon, or figure out then and there how and why it got so full, or make sure it can never get inflated again.

The problems in the lives of mass shooters feel so massive and overwhelming, but sometimes the smallest thing can get someone through a moment. Likewise, if people can’t get their hands on the easiest tools to harm themselves or others, there will be fewer tragedies. Most school shooters get their guns from home, which means parents of school-age children can prevent death simply by locking up their firearms.

Mass shootings are not an inevitable fact of American life; they’re preventable.

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Into the Breach WORLD

HOW URSULA VON DER LEYEN IS LEADING THE E.U. THROUGH YET ANOTHER CRISIS BY NAINA BAJEKAL/DAVOS, SWITZERLAND 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 right by her desk. That unusual decision proved to be convenient when, 102 days into her term, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020. It soon seemed like the E.U. might fall apart, with fierce disagreements over border closures and tense negotiations on an economic rescue package. “It was very much crisis mode,” she recalls.

It was hardly what von der Leyen was expecting when she became the first woman in history— PHOTOGR APH BY DANA LIXENBERG FOR TIME

and the first German in more than 50 years—to lead the European Commission. (The Commission functions as the E.U.’s executive branch but is also the sole body capable of proposing new laws.) The President’s day-to-day job is to get the College of Commissioners—the representatives of the 27 E.U. member states, taking in 477 million people—to agree on E.U. policy and budgets, and to propose legislation. When she took office in December 2019, her focus was on digital and green policies, as well as gender equality.

Instead, the agenda has been dominated by war and disease. Just as the pandemic was beginning to recede—Europe’s COVID-19 death toll now surpasses 2 million—the next crisis began, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. “It was a nightmare,” she says, “but we were prepared, and then we really could act rapidly.”

How rapidly took the world by surprise. Within a week of the invasion, Brussels had already approved three packages of sanctions against Russia, targeting everything from Russian banks to Kremlin-controlled media outlets. For the first time ever, the E.U. said it would send weapons to a country under attack. Dynamics on the

President Ursula von der Leyen at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels on May 27

WORLD

Continent have continued to shift dizzyingly fast, with Germany shedding decades of pacifism to send heavy weapons to Ukraine, and Finland and Sweden abandoning their long-standing neutrality to apply for NATO membership.

As in the pandemic, von der Leyen has demonstrated “her ability to be a kind of fixer-leader, in terms of brokering solutions and finding a consensus between member states,” says Susi Dennison, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Others see her as not just a consensusbuilder but a voice of moral clarity. In April, she was the first Western leader to visit Ukraine after the Russian invasion, addressing President Zelensky as “dear Volodymyr” and handing him an initial questionnaire to join the E.U. “Your fight is our fight,” she said. In Strasbourg the next month, she demanded accountability for Russian war criminals, insisting that President Vladimir Putin must “pay a very high price” for his brutality.

During the course of our two conversations in May, she refuses to even entertain future relations with Moscow.

“Without a change in leadership, I do not see an improving relationship,” she says. “Trust is completely broken.”

Critics say Brussels could still do more; that member states paying a total of some $1 billion a day for Russian oil and gas are funding Putin’s brutality. Even so, many acknowledge that the bloc has acted with uncharacteristic speed. “We proved that democracy can deliver,” von der Leyen says.

Given years of deep divisions in Brussels, how long until all this newfound unity frays is an inevitable question.

Yet just as the E.U. was born out of the wreckage of the Second World War, a new revitalized European order could well emerge from the current devastation in Ukraine—one that inspires idealism, rather than exhaustion. For von der Leyen, who is leading the bloc at a more significant inflection point than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the task is momentous: “A democracy can always fail if we don’t stand up for it on a daily basis.”

Born in Brussels in 1958, von der Leyen says she grew up taking democracy for granted. Her father Ernst 36

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Albrecht worked for the organization that would eventually become the E.U., and she spent her childhood cocooned in an elite world, attending the European School in the Belgian capital and later spending her free time riding horses. As the third of seven children— who would go on to have seven children of her own—she became an expert in balancing competing interests. “What I learned from early on is that I’m doing best if the group is fine,” she says. “I’m a deep believer in constant negotiation.”

In 1971, the family moved to a divided Germany; her father was later elected to state parliament as a politician for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. Even now, von der Leyen can recall the fear she felt crossing from West Germany into Berlin. “God, you were just scared that anything might happen,” she says, with a shudder. “You felt no protection where the rule of law was concerned.”

‘What I learned from early on is that I’m doing best if the group is fine.’

Von der Leyen, who moves easily between English, German, and French, is very much a product of the postwar European order. But for a brief period, she was more likely to be found at a Soho pub or a punk concert than hobnobbing with the children of politicians. In 1978, with her father facing threats that she would be kidnapped, she adopted the pseudonym “Rose Ladson” and went to study at the London School of Economics. “I lived far more than I studied,” she told German newspaper Die Zeit in 2016. Cosmopolitan London gave her “an inner freedom” that she still treasures—though she tells me her love of punk has now waned in favor of classical music and, most of all, Adele.

She eventually returned to Germany, where she met her future husband, physician Heiko von der Leyen, in the University of Göttingen choir. They

married in 1986; soon after, she graduated from Hannover Medical School and began working as a gynecologist.

In 1992, the couple moved to California with their three children when Heiko was offered a role on Stanford University’s faculty. Ursula had given up work by then, but was surprised at how ready Stanford was to support them with childcare. Back in Germany, she says, the expectation was that a good mother stays home with the kids. (That stigma persists to this day; in 2019, two-thirds of working mothers in Germany with a child under 18 worked part-time, rather than full time.) “It was very modern and what I took back home was: never again will anybody give me a bad conscience about wanting to work and have kids.”

She became involved in local politics for the CDU after they returned to Germany in 2006. Though she disliked being compared to her father, she says his experience in politics meant it always seemed like a viable career path. In 2005, Angela Merkel appointed her the Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. A protégé of Merkel, von der Leyen became a rising star in Germany and proved to be an unexpectedly radical force for the center-right party. She introduced a paid parental-leave scheme that offered two additional months for fathers who took leave, and increased the number of state-funded day-care centers for children under 3. As her career took off, her husband assumed much of the childcare responsibilities. She was always under pressure to explain how she did it: “Never would you ask a male minister, How are you managing with your seven children at home? I hated that.”

In 2013, she was appointed Germany’s first female Defense Minister, widely considered the hardest job in Berlin, not to mention the most stereotypically “male.” The woman who was touted as Germany’s next leader—indeed, her 2015 biography had the title Chancellor in Reserve—was in a precarious position by 2019, tainted by a series of scandals. It was French President Emmanuel Macron who saved her career, putting her name forward when negotiations for a new President of the European Commission were blocked.

Von der Leyen emerged as a surprise

E F R E M L U K AT S K Y— A P

winner—thanks to a controversial backroom deal that got her one of Europe’s top jobs when she hadn’t even campaigned for it. By then, she was such a divisive figure at home that Germany was the only E.U. member state to abstain from the vote to nominate her.

She is reluctant to dwell on that period. “You learn a lot where leadership is concerned by not only being successful, but also if things go wrong,” she says simply. Though she’s the first woman to serve as President of the Commission, she says the world she now inhabits is “much easier” than the defense ministry. Even so, she isn’t immune from workplace sexism. Last year, video footage went viral showing Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan taking two chairs laid out at a summit, while von der Leyen was left standing, her discomfort clear. She later made an impassioned speech calling out the sexist implications of the “Sofagate” incident. “It is a situation that women face a zillion times silently,” she tells me.

She learned to deal with these “small humiliations,” in part by watching Merkel cope with intense misogyny over the

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On April 8, von der Leyen became the first Western leader to travel to Bucha, the site of Russian atrocities

years: “She was always better in the topic; she always knew more. And later on, nobody questioned her.”

It’s a strategy von der Leyen deploys now. She seems preternaturally calm, no matter how tough things get around her.

(Resorting to national stereotypes, British media have even called her a “German ice queen.”) She credits age, but also knowledge and experience. The more she reads—on vaccine production, on energy, on export controls—the easier it is to be confident of her position.

“Being calm does not come as a gift. It comes with hard work.”

EvEn bEforE taking officE, von der Leyen knew hard work would be needed to transform the E.U. What she proposed back in September 2019 was a new “geopolitical Commission”—a stronger E.U. that would be more assertive on the international stage, including leading on the climate crisis and expanding its security role. The challenge is that the E.U. is fundamentally

a rules-based organization, which makes it less nimble for the kind of geopolitical maneuvering von der Leyen might envision. The clearest example is her latest push to fast-track Ukraine into the E.U., which she has framed as a moral duty. During her April visit to Ukraine, she declared: “Ukraine belongs in the European family.” Yet the way the bloc is set up means the process will almost certainly take years.

Experts say that after a few stumbles during the pandemic—including over a slow COVID-19 vaccine rollout—von der Leyen has emerged as a leader adept at judging what Europe needs in a given moment. “She’s much more comfortable in this multilateral atmosphere,” says William Drozdiak, an expert in European affairs at the Wilson Center and author of the 2017 book Fractured Continent: Europe’s Crises and the Fate of the West. “She recognizes the limits of the role and is playing it very effectively.”

Those limits are that her job is often as much about having a bold vision as it is about being flexible enough to reach a compromise—something she tells me she loves. “I am only powerful as long as I create majorities. That’s the humbling 37

WORLD

part in democracies, and the wonderful part of it, because you always look for solutions that are good for many.”

All that talk of democracy doesn’t sit well with some. “The E.U. is a profoundly undemocratic community of democracies,” argues Hans Kundnani, director of the Europe program at London-based think tank Chatham House. The union’s executives are appointed by governments, not put in office by the votes of citizens; its institutional proceedings— including its court—are shrouded in secrecy; and its rules are astonishingly bureaucratic. (The acquis communautaire, the “rule book” of the E.U., runs to 90,000 pages.) Voters across the continent are profoundly disengaged as a result. Turnout at European elections fell steadily for the past four decades before rebounding in 2019 to its highest levels since 1994—a still low 50.7%. One in 3 European voters now backs parties that are critical of, or outrightly hostile to, the E.U., a doubling in the past two decades. Crisis mode has become something of a default for the bloc, which has struggled to stay united in the face of a debt crisis at the turn of the decade, an influx of refugees, the shock of Britain’s vote to leave, and the pandemic.

Von der Leyen believes the answer to all this is ever closer integration, wheeling out a metaphor popular in Brussels: “The E.U. is like a bicycle. If it stands still, it will fall.” If integration stops, the argument goes, the European project itself will collapse. She points out that Britain’s departure from the bloc hasn’t spurred other countries to do the same and that public opinion of the E.U. has grown warmer in recent years. As she sees it, the future of the union depends on Ukraine. “The Ukrainians, in an incredibly brave way, are fighting for our values and democratic principles,” she says. “We’re never perfect in democracies, but to have principles—the protection of minorities, the dignity of the human being, freedom of the press—is beautiful.”

Exactly what makes those values European, as opposed to ones embraced by all kinds of liberal democracies, is murky. In 2019, von der Leyen provoked outrage when she proposed a new E.U. role—“vice president for protecting our European way of life”—for the position 38

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overseeing migration policy. The language was criticized for echoing xenophobic tropes that view refugees from nonwhite, non-Christian countries as a threat to European identity. (The position now uses the word promoting rather than protecting.) Kundnani believes that what has really come to define the E.U. in the past decade is not a common set of values but a shared perception of external threats—from refugees to Trump to Russia—and that von der Leyen has framed those threats in explicitly “civilizational terms.”

Others say von der Leyen’s tenure has been defined more by her pragmatism than by a focus on European identity. Analyst Dennison cites Brussels’ warmer approach to Poland since the war began, despite its violation of judicial independence, as an exam-

‘I am only powerful as long as I create majorities. That’s the humbling part in democracies, and the wonderful part.’ ple of how von der Leyen is simply trying to secure the necessary votes to push through deals. “She has been part of ensuring that these very complex structures have been able to gear up during a series of quite unprecedented crises,” Dennison says, “but I don’t think she can ever be the figurehead for a rebirth of European democracy.”

A rebirth of European democracy doesn’t seem imminent. Every day is a new test for the union. Faced with the biggest movement of people on the continent since the Second World War, countries are struggling to provide homes and jobs for the 6.9 million mostly women and children who have fled Ukraine. Sanctions are starting to bite, energy costs and food prices are soaring, and inflation in the euro area is hitting its highest level since the currency was created in 1999. Already

Brussels has had to effectively exempt Hungary—whose right-wing, Putinfriendly leader, Viktor Orban, just won a fourth term—from its plan to embargo Russian oil.

Even so, von der Leyen is reassured that the priorities she set at the start of her term—digitalization, economic resilience, and climate action—are still urgent today. This is especially true of the European Green Deal, the strategy she launched that led to all 27 member states committing in 2020 to making the E.U. a net-zero emitter by 2050. “The whole world, including the E.U., should have acted yesterday,” she says. “But we are a world leader.” In July 2021, the E.U. adopted proposals to ensure that the bloc’s policies set it on the path to reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels.

Von der Leyen says the conflict in Ukraine has pushed politicians who are usually lukewarm on climate action to act fast. “One thing is for sure: this war means that the E.U. is completely diversifying away from Russian fossil fuels,” she says. “Russia is losing its biggest client, and for good.” Even so, she’s aware that the war is not only having a devastating impact on the climate—waging a war is highly fossil-fuel intensive— but also that soaring energy prices can quickly turn the tide of public opinion.

Ideally, she says, high prices nudge consumers to choose something else, like renewable energy. But vulnerable, lowincome households and businesses don’t have that kind of flexibility to maneuver, and governments need to subsidize them. “The transition will only work if it’s socially balanced,” she says.

For now, balance in Europe seems hard to maintain. Amid all the turmoil, she struggles to take the long view— whether envisioning how the next weeks or months of war might unfold, or imagining where her own career might go once her term at the Commission is up in 2024. She is instead focused on the day to day. “It is stressful and a lot of pressure,” she says. “But whenever I feel like, I’m exhausted, I’ve had it, my next thought is: the people in Ukraine cannot say, I’m exhausted, I’ve had it. I am here to manage this crisis. Then we’ll see.” — With reporting by LesLie DicksTein/ new York □

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ECONOMY

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Tony and Katie Mancilla at their new home in Tampa on May 24

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M T H E M S A H

A K I N G E L V E S T O M E

3 couples share the stories of how they beat the most brutal housing market in decades

By Ronda Kaysen

Shopping for a home theSe dayS iS a miSerable Slog.

The buyers who walk away with a set of keys succeed against long odds, prevailing despite skyrocketing prices and relentless competition. Even as the U.S. housing market shows signs of cooling, buyers are still feeling enormous pressure to move quickly before interest rates rise further, pushing more homes out of reach. At the center of this overheated market is a historic supply shortage. Simply put, there are nowhere near enough houses for all the people who want to buy them.

The shortage could be described as a collapse, according to Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants, who tracks 40 housing markets around the country. Even if inventory tripled in some markets, home buyers would still be scrambling. “This is bordering on anarchy,” he says. “Demand has obliterated supply.”

The seeds of the crunch were planted in spring 2020, when Americans found themselves unshackled from their commutes and collectively decided the time was ripe for a move as they spread out in search of more space. At the same time, existing homeowners opted to stay put, while cashflush investors snatched up single-family homes at a startling clip. By March 2022, buyers had half as many homes to choose from as they had two years earlier. The homes sold twice as fast and cost 34% more, with buyers twice as likely to pay above list price, according to Redfin.

Yet a bidding war also produces a winner. Often it’s a battered veteran of the pandemic market, couples who honed their negotiating strategies over the course of multiple disappointments, finally finding a house when success seemed hopeless. Along the way, they learned valuable lessons about how to outflank the competition and come away with not another defeat, but a home of their own.

These are the stories of three buyers who prevailed and how they did it.

PHOTOGR APH BY CHRISTOPHER MORRIS FOR TIME

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ECONOMY

FINDING A HOUSE BEFORE IT HITS THE MARKET

WHO THEY ARE

Katie and Tony Mancilla WHAT THEY WANTED

LasT year, KaTie manciLLa was Living with her husband Tony Mancilla in Los Angeles, but her heart was in Tampa. “I moved there during a very tough time in my life,” she says of the Florida city where she’d resided in 2014. “It helped me get through a lot.”

But she didn’t want to live just anywhere in Tampa. She wanted to live in Palma Ceia, a coveted neighborhood of homes well over $1 million, but with a pocket of small bungalows, some listed within the couple’s $800,000 budget.

“I love a home with a little bit more character,” Katie, 38, says of the bungalows, many built in the 1920s. She works in digital marketing; Tony, 35, works in health technology.

House hunting in one of the hottest markets in the country is hard. Doing it while living 2,500 miles away is even harder. How do you find a home when all you have to go on are the Zillow pictures?

So they leaned on their real estate agent, Devan Weisser of Century 21 List with Beggins. She became their eyes on the ground,

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A bungalow in Tampa for under $800,000 WHAT THEY GOT

A three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow for $725,000 HOW THEY DID IT

They swept in and made an offer on a house, sight unseen, before it hit the market.

By working with a local broker, they were able to get details and information they would not have gotten on their own. “Bottom line, find someone to trust in the area,” Katie says.

giving them FaceTime tours of properties and making snap decisions on their behalf. “She would walk into some of these properties and say, ‘This just isn’t you,’” Katie says.

In October 2021, the couple flew into Tampa for a weekend, touring half a dozen properties. None was right. Many were new construction that felt sterile and lacked the character Katie craved. Ready to give up on the idea of a single-family home in Tampa, the couple looked at a condo apartment. But it was run-down and felt depressing. They left Tampa dejected and raw. “I was kind of at my wit’s end,” Katie says. “I had mentally backed out.”

But the next day, Weisser spotted another real estate agent’s Instagram Stories teasing a bungalow that she had not listed yet.

Located across the street from where Katie once lived, and a block from a park, it was perfect for the Mancillas, Weisser knew. At a private open house exclusively for brokers, Weisser gave the Mancillas a FaceTime tour, urging the couple to make an offer fast.

“It was very, very charming,” says Weisser, who had helped Katie find her first home in Tampa back in 2014. “It had an old-school feel about it.”

During the open house, Weisser spotted a photograph of the sellers and realized they were family friends with her husband. Now she had an edge: she knew what made the seller tick.

The property, which would soon be listed for $659,000, had five offers within three hours of the broker’s open house. But Weisser knew that the sellers were a family-oriented couple invested in the historic nature of the community, details she thought would give her clients a leg up.

“This is a very special place to me, and I wanted to keep it that way,” Katie says. “A lot of people would have taken that lot and built a $2 million home on it.”

Weisser is convinced that commitment helped put the Mancillas’ $725,000 offer over the top. “How do you stand out in a market?” she says. “We went a step further.”

The sellers accepted. They closed in November.

PR E V I O US PAG ES A N D O P P OS I T E: CH RISTO PH ER M O R RIS — V II F O R T I M E; T HIS PAG E: B R EN T HU M PH R E YS F O R T I M E

WHO THEY ARE

AN ALL-CASH BUYER WITHOUT ANY CASH

John and Sarah LeNoir WHAT THEY WANTED

On Dec. 27, 2021, JOhn LenOir was ceLebrating his 31st birthday at home in Austin with his wife Sarah LeNoir. Over a couple of beers and chicken korma, the subject of buying a house came up. Curled up on the sofa, Sarah scrolled through Zillow listings on her phone and started to imagine the impossible.

“It’s been something that I personally did not believe was plausible,” says Sarah, 29, who works in nonprofit management. But that night Sarah saw a crack opening, one that might be large enough to squeeze through.

The couple was chipping away at $18,000 in credit-card debt, and they’d had a two-year reprieve from $600 monthly student-loan payments because of the federal pause on them.

Feeling giddy, they logged on to a local credit union’s website and applied for

A house in Austin for $300,000 WHAT THEY GOT

A three-bedroom, two-bath house in Kyle, Texas, for $319,000 HOW THEY DID IT

With little in savings, they used an online home seller to turn their FHA loan offer into an all-cash one.

“We thought it was completely out of reach before we dug deeper,” Sarah says.

preapproval for a mortgage. A week later they learned that they qualified for a $300,000 home. But $300,000 doesn’t go very far in Austin, where the typical home value was $681,000 in April 2022, according to Zillow.

In late February, a house came on the market in Kyle, about 30 minutes south of Austin.

Listed for $280,000, with three bedrooms and two baths, it seemed within reach. But in less than 24 hours on the market, it had multiple offers. They called their credit union and got the green light to raise their borrowing limit.

But to be competitive, they needed to offer more than preapproval on a Federal Housing Administration loan. So they turned to Opendoor, one of a number of startups that help buyers make cash offers. In this case, Opendoor would buy the home and sell it back to the LeNoirs at the same price. To qualify, they had to use a real estate agent affiliated with Opendoor, so the company would get the commission. Even without up-front costs, there were risks. If they backed out after the close, the company would keep their escrow deposit, and it could charge them if they took too long to transfer the property to their name.

But before this could even happen, the couple needed cash to set aside in an escrow account if their offer was accepted. And in February, they had less than $2,000 in the bank.

“I got spooked,” Sarah says. “I don’t want to make this offer and then not have the money.”

Cash for the 3.5% down payment required for FHA loans would be coming. John, a supervisor at an insurance call center, was expecting a bonus, and they planned to supplement that with a loan against his 401(k). Home buyers can borrow up to $50,000 or 50% of the balance of their 401(k), whichever is lower, but must pay back the money with interest and cannot contribute to their 401(k) until the debt has been repaid. But neither sum was in hand.

Their agent called the seller’s and explained that the LeNoirs could put only $1,200 in escrow, far less than is typical. The seller’s agent told them to put in an offer anyway. That night, before they’d ever seen their house, they offered $319,000 for it. The next day, they went to see what they’d just bid on. Sarah was smitten by the trapezoidal kitchen and large yard.

“We were on pins and needles,” Sarah says.

The next day, their offer was accepted.

Opendoor closed on the sale within 30 days.

Before the couple’s lease expires this summer, they’ll buy it back at the same price—or they’ll forfeit the $1,200 they put down. For now, they drive by frequently, waiting for the day they can call the little house in Kyle home.

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ECONOMY

A LOVE LETTER TO WOO A SELLER

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Rauvynne Sangara and Natalia Alvarez WHAT THEY WANTED

A three-bedroom house in Los Angeles for around $1 million WHAT THEY GOT

A three-bedroom house with a den in Pasadena for $1.05 million HOW THEY DID IT

Their buyers’ letter convinced the sellers that they would make good neighbors. “Don’t get discouraged,” says Sangara.

“There are nice people out there that want to sell their house to good people and not just to the highest bidder.”

A LY S O N A L I A N O F O R T I M E

On a Thursday mOrning in January 2022, Natalia Alvarez and Rauvynne Sangara saw seven houses and bid on two: a dated singlestory stucco house in Pasadena, Calif., and a three-bedroom in Highland Park, Los Angeles.

They didn’t think they had much of a shot at the Pasadena house. It was listed for $1 million, the top of their budget, and the couple figured the price would spiral in a bidding war, particularly since it had just hit the market. Besides, they had their heart set on the Highland Park house, which had been on the market for a few months already. They offered $1.08 million, more than $100,000 over the asking price.

“We thought we had a great chance at this home,” says Alvarez, 32, an emergency physician. “We were really excited.”

By then, they had been house hunting for three months, and had lost seven bidding wars. Their roughly $1 million budget didn’t go very far in Los Angeles, where the typical home value is just under $1 million, according to Zillow. They were also up against a deadline: Sangara, an ob-gyn, was pregnant with

WHO THEY ARE

their first child, due in May, and they wanted to be out of their rental well before then.

A few hours after they made the offers, Sangara, 32, refreshed her Zillow app and saw that the Highland Park listing had changed to “pending.” They knew they hadn’t gotten the house, because their real estate agent had not called them with any news. “We were heartbroken,” Alvarez says. Despondent, the couple went to brunch.

“I had a full rack of ribs and a glass of rosé,” Alvarez says. “How do we move on from this?”

They were back at home that evening licking their wounds when their real estate agent, Jeromy Robert of the Agency, called to confirm that they had indeed lost the Highland Park house. But he had surprising news. Their offer on the stucco house in Pasadena had been accepted. No counteroffer. No conditions. The sellers had simply accepted their offer of $1.05 million.

Alvarez and Sangara were stunned. “We were like, why?” says Alvarez. “How did that happen?”

Their agent said the sellers were struck by the letter the couple had included in their offer. Alvarez and Sangara hardly remembered this letter, written so long ago and included in every offer they’d made. “What was this magical letter that can get us a home?” says Sangara.

Sangara dug up the letter she had written months ago. “We can picture our French bulldog, Jackson, running around the back yard and our first child (due in the spring!) sitting in the front yard saying hi to the neighbors,” it read.

Alvarez could see why it worked: “It just made us sound like very wholesome people."

The three-bedroom house, set on a quiet street, with views of the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance, needed work. The kitchen was small and outdated with narrow cabinets and no dishwasher. The bathrooms were dated. But once Alvarez and Sangara moved in, they knew they’d landed in the right spot. “I didn’t realize it in the moment,” Alvarez says. “But this was the best home for us.” □

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Freedom, a two-spirit 13-year-old, poses for a portrait in Watertown, S.D. At last year’s Pride parade, he dressed up as Freddie Mercury; this year, he wants to dress as a rainbow king. The past year hasn’t been easy, and he’s had to deal with bullies. But he’s also had classmates come out to him, and he says he likes that people know “I’m someone they can trust.”

‘WE A R E N’T G OI NG A N Y WHERE’ The pain and pride of a generation changing how America sees gender

By Madeleine Carlisle Photographs by Annie Flanagan

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For trans and gender-expansive American adolescents, the past school year has been a paradox.

Never before have diverse gender identities and expressions been celebrated so openly and inclusively, with Generation Z leading new conversations that challenge traditional conceptions of the male-female gender binary. Young people are embracing a wide range of gender identities and coming out as transgender, nonbinary, or the panIndigenous umbrella term two-spirit, among other identities, at earlier ages.

There’s been an “explosion of language” in how young people express their gender, as Jonah DeChants, a research scientist at LGBTQ suicide-prevention nonprofit the Trevor Project, put it to TIME. The Williams Institute at UCLA, which 48

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researches sexual-orientation and gender-identity law and policy, estimates that 150,000 Americans ages 13 to 17 are trans. A national survey released in May by the Trevor Project found that 67% of LGBTQ youth surveyed did not identify as cisgender. Visibility and representation have never been higher, and acceptance and understanding of gender diversity continue to climb.

But at the same time, these young people have experienced escalating attacks from statehouses around the country. Conservative lawmakers have turned the full force of America’s fiery “culture wars” on trans and genderexpansive youth, unleashing a torrent

Above:

Asher, 16, left, and Blake, 15, celebrate Asher’s birthday at a roller-skating rink near Asheville, N.C. For his next birthday, Asher says he wants to invite all his friends to a dinner party where the dress code is “fancy—whatever that means to you.” He wants to make it special. “I really like having reasons to dress up,” he says.

of antitrans state-level legislation that limits whether they can play sports, use a bathroom aligned with their gender identity, study LGBTQ issues in school, or access medical care to affirm their gender. After Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed several of such policies into law in April, she said she believes “very strongly” that “if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl.” LGBTQ advocates argue such laws seek to legislate trans and gender-expansive people out of existence. NBC News calculates roughly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in 2022 alone, half of which targeted trans people specifically.

Childhoods—which can be difficult to navigate in the best of circumstances— have been disrupted for the kids being vilified and pathologized by lawmakers. Advocates say they’ve seen a spike in bullying in schools. Families in Texas, Alabama, and elsewhere are

Above:

Zuri, 19, creates a TikTok video in Alabama. She says the platform has been a haven. Through her account, Zuri talks about her trans experience and lessening her dysphoria, discusses beauty and makeup, and works to combat stereotypes. “My goal is to make sure people’s voices are heard,” she says. “It’s OK to come out. It’s OK to be yourself.”

contemplating moving to states less hostile to their children’s rights. And with the midterm elections approaching, the political fervor is likely to intensify, as conservative politicians continue to leverage their attacks to rally their base.

The photographer Annie Flanagan spent a year documenting genderexpansive young people across the U.S. as they experience adolescence at a fraught political and cultural time.

Flanagan’s subjects are supporting one another, thriving, and finding joy.

They’re getting ready for summer vacation. They’re hanging out with their friends. They’re maneuvering the social dynamics of prom. They’re walking across the stage at high school graduation and getting their diplomas, looking to the future, and planning for better days. These moments send their own message. Says Zuri, 19, a trans woman in Alabama: “We aren’t going anywhere.” —With reporting by Annie FlAnAgAn and KArA Milstein 49

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Attendees dance at the Fiesta Youth LGBTQ Youth Prom in San Antonio. Each spring, the group holds a prom specifically for LGBTQ teens.

Léo, not pictured, who is qariwarmi, a two-spirit gender from their father’s Quechua culture in Peru, likes the sense of community they find there. “There’s no judgment,” the 18-year-old says. “You’re not a spectacle—unless you want to be a spectacle.”

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Evan, 18, in her bedroom in Florida before high school graduation. Last fall, she was crowned her school’s first out trans homecoming queen. “It’s like a new season of a show,” she says about graduating.

“It feels like something good is going to come from this next chapter.”

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Above:

From left, Tiana, 19; Yani, 31; Tiffany, 19; and Marlo, 23, at Stafford House, a drop-in space serving LGBTQ people in Orlando. To Tiana, the local trans community feels like home; activist Mulan Williams, who runs the group Divas in Dialogue to help support other Black trans women, has become her de facto mother, Tiana says. Williams connected her with a support group, gave her resources on transitioning, and pushed her to graduate from high school. “I really don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have her,” Tiana says.

Left:

Maya, 11, swims in Houston. State law prohibits Maya from playing girls’ sports in school, but she swims on a private team.

It’s not the first time being trans has prevented her from competing—she quit gymnastics years ago because she didn’t want to risk disqualifying her teammates.

The experience made her “mad and sad,” she says. But she finds swimming on her new team “really fun and relaxing.”

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Austen, 17, sits by a bonfire with his parents in South Dakota. Austen has loved storytelling ever since he was a kid, when he and his dad would tell each other scary stories on walks, “popcorning off of each other.” Now, with dreams of being an author, he makes a point of fighting stereotypes by representing diverse genders and sexualities in his writing—including a book project already in progress.

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SOCIETY

T H E G OP ST R AT EGY T O USE TR A NS SPORTS BA NS FOR POLITICAL GAIN

By Madeleine Carlisle IN SPRING 2020, IDAHO BECAME THE FIRST STATE IN THE U.S. to ban transgender girls and women from participating in women’s sports. Two years later, 17 states have enacted similar laws. Trans athletes—particularly trans girls—are now in the midst of America’s raging “culture wars,” as bills targeting trans and gender-expansive young people proliferate across the country.

Sports bans have often served as the first move in a larger assault on trans rights. In 2021, Texas, Florida, and Alabama each enacted a sports ban. This year, Texas has taken steps to deny trans youth access to gender-affirming care, Florida has banned classroom discussion about gender identity and sexual orientation in primary grade levels, and Alabama has done both.

“Trans people are either full members of society or we are not,” says Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The moment our civil rights start coming with asterisks and exemptions, it leaves the door open for a lot of the very hostile and cruel legislation we’ve seen introduced this session.”

The reason for this explosion in sports bans isn’t a surge of trans student-athletes dominating the playing field, political strategists and LGBTQ advocates say. It’s politics. Conservative groups and lawmakers realized that the issue could excite Republicans and potential swing voters, drawing them into broader cultural debates surrounding trans rights in the U.S.—battles that tend to serve Republicans electorally.

The idea of trans girls and women competing against cisgender female athletes tends to trigger emotional responses in people who don’t know an out trans person, playing on stereotypes about gender and biology. The issue acts as “sort of a gateway drug for people into the larger debate around gender and who gets to call themselves a woman,” says a conservative who works on Title IX issues, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the rise in legislation.

The bans “are gaining steam for the same reason that election audits and [critical race theory] bans have been popular over the past year,” says Republican strategist Sarah Longwell, who had been critical of the GOP under Donald Trump.

“They are PR campaigns masquerading as legislation, designed to keep culture wars at the center of the conversation.”

A March 2022 YouGov poll found that 77% of Republicans oppose allowing trans student-athletes to play on sports teams that match their gender identity, compared with 24% of Democrats. Just as same-sex marriage was used as a wedge issue for Republican voters in the 2000s, these are the “new wedge culture-war issues that help drive GOP enthusiasm and, more importantly, alienate Democrats from swing voters when they fail to provide a coherent counternarrative,” Longwell says.

“Republicans are on offense on these issues, and it’s working.

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EXCLUDED ATHLETES 17 states have banned trans student-athletes from teams aligned with their gender identity since Idaho did in 2020 WASH.

SAFE HAVEN California leads the country in genderequality laws; it mandates protections such as LGBTQinclusive curricula

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alone an offense strategy of their own.”

While GOP lawmakers claim the bans are designed to “protect women,” rather than to discriminate against a vulnerable group, LGBTQ advocates argue they are a solution in search of a problem. There are vanishingly few examples nationwide of trans athletes attempting to compete at all, and those who do are subject to local policies. There isn’t reliable national data on the issue, but in Michigan, for example, the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) reviews whether trans athletes can play on a case-by-case basis, and the MHSAA told the Detroit Free Press it’s had an average of two requests a year out of 180,000 high school athletes in the state. In that context, expansive statelevel bans are both unnecessary and cruel, argues Cathryn Oakley, state legislation director and senior counsel at the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, which has challenged state-level sports bans in court.

MEDICAL BANS Arkansas was the first state to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth; Alabama and Arizona have since followed

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“DON’T SAY” LAWS Teachers in Florida and five other states are not allowed to teach about LGBTQ issues in some grades

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TARGETED FAMILIES Texas began investigating genderaffirming care as child abuse in February

But if the small number of trans athletes makes statewide bans seem irrational, it also may be what makes them possible. The lack of visibility trans people still have in the U.S. is part of why these laws are getting passed, says Delaware’s Sarah McBride, the first openly trans state senator in the country. “People perceive the harm that they’re committing against trans kids to be narrow,” she says.

In reality, the effect of these laws on trans youth could be devastating.

A Jan. 10 poll by the LGBTQ suicideprevention nonprofit the Trevor Project found that 85% of trans and nonbinary youth said recent debates about antitrans bills had negatively affected their mental health.

THE RISE of antitrans legislation can be traced back to June 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry. With the marriage question seemingly settled, gender

identity became the next theater in the battle over LGBTQ rights.

The following year, the first wave of antitrans legislation crashed across the country in the form of bathroom bans. Most famously, North Carolina’s HB2 in 2016 banned trans people from using public restrooms aligned with their gender identity. The backlash was fierce and immediate. Companies boycotted the state en masse, raising the specter of $3.76 billion in lost revenue, according to an AP analysis. (The law was partially repealed and has since expired.) The state’s Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, lost his re-election bid that November. “It was viewed as a losing issue ... And so no one wanted to touch it,” says Terry Schilling, the president of the conservative advocacy group American Principles Project (APP), which has promoted antitrans rhetoric.

That same year, Trump won the presidency promising to be a friend to the “LGBT community.” But once he took office, his Administration began to roll back protections for trans people, including the Obama Administration’s policy that Title IX protected trans students’ access to a restroom, locker room, or sports team aligned with their gender identity.

THEN, IN 2018, two trans girls won Connecticut state high school championship track titles. News outlets throughout the U.S. ran stories scrutinizing the bodies of the two Black trans athletes, pointing to them as the exemplars of the threat to women’s sports.

Both Connecticut runners were later named in a lawsuit filed by the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, on behalf of four cis female runners, alleging Connecticut’s transinclusive school sports policy was unfair. (The case is pending before the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.)

By 2019, the issue had become a political tinderbox. Schilling had seen conservatives, including Donald Trump Jr., tweeting about trans athletes, and he began urging Republicans to run on the issue. APP says its affiliated super PAC spent about $600,000 that year on ads in the Kentucky governor’s race, arguing that Democratic candidate Andy Beshear was a threat to women’s sports. APP

contracted with the data-science firm Evolving Strategies to track the impact of its messaging and estimates 25,000 voters were moved to the GOP by the advertising. (Beshear won the race.)

The following summer, Politico reported that those in the Trump orbit was split over the issue. Some in the then President’s camp reportedly felt campaigning against LGBTQ rights would hurt Republicans, while others shared Schilling’s perspective: the issue had the power to rally the base. “It was a hunch,” Schilling says. “We knew it was popular with the people, and we thought this could be something that politicians actually talked about.” APP says it began spending bigger on the topic, cashing out more than $5 million combined with its super-PAC affiliate on ads in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia that argued that Democrats threatened women’s sports, among other talking points.

By the end of 2020, 20 antitrans sports bans had been filed in legislative sessions. And compared with North Carolina’s bathroom bill from four years earlier, these laws were met with a much more muted response from the left and the corporate world—not a single major company has boycotted a state over such a law—emboldening Republican legislatures to go further.

Trans-athlete bans have since exploded in state legislatures and begun to dominate national political discourse. By May 2021, Fox News had aired more segments on trans athletes that year than it had in the previous two years combined, according to the nonprofit Media Matters.

Schilling’s APP says it has already raised more than $6 million for an upcoming midterm campaign that will focus on the athlete question.

But McBride, the Delaware state senator, thinks the GOP will ultimately lose on the issue, as it has in debates over LGBTQ rights of the past. “The more the country understands how the policy impacts trans people, the more they begin to understand and learn about who trans people are,” McBride says, “the clock will begin ticking on the political effectiveness and possibility for this type of legislation.” —With reporting by SIMMONE SHAH  57

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WAY FORWARD

ALL ABOARD

BATTERY VISION

4 leaders share turning points in their lives

Naomi Koshi is bringing more women into Japan’s boardrooms

By Amy Gunia

Tesla co-founder JB Straubel has moved to cleaning up batteries

By Alejandro de la Garza

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BORGE BRENDE

7 Questions for the president of the World Economic Forum

By Billy Perrigo

Solar modules at the Colbún plant in Chile’s Atacama Desert A L E X F. C AT R I N — P I C T U R E A L L I A N C E / GE T T Y IMAGES

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WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

IN OUR LIVES

Four leaders share their most pivotal moments—and the changes that followed

PADMA LAKSHMI

TV host, producer, author

I HAD INTENDED A LIFE IN THE THEATER, BUT THROUGH TOP CHEF I GET TO PLAY ON THE WORLD’S STAGE

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JOSEF ASCHBACHER Director general, European Space Agency

We all have our own memories throughout our lives that can be evoked by a distinct smell, a familiar voice, the mention of an old friend we haven’t thought of in years. Where we can remember exactly what we were doing, wearing, thinking, or feeling.

Core memories.

It might not surprise anyone to know that the most defining core memory in my childhood was the first

N A K AT E : A P ; G E T T Y I M A G E S (3)

In 2005, I was working on my second cookbook, called Tangy, Tart, Hot, and Sweet. I had hosted a couple of programs on the Food Network, but I was mostly making a living by acting and writing columns for the New York Times syndicate and fashion magazines.

I had pitched a concept to Bravo about a dinnerparty talk show, but the network felt my idea was too niche and highbrow.

They wanted something with mass appeal in food and asked if I’d like to partner with them on that. It was Top Chef.

Because I was contracted to act in a film, I couldn’t join until the second season. I never imagined it would become a cultural behemoth, still going strong after 16 years and racking up 37 Emmy nominations.

Top Chef is not just a part of pop culture. It has changed food culture around the world. My greatest pleasure has been seeing how engaged so many young people are with the culinary arts today. Tweens routinely come up to me to quiz me with culinary terms I didn’t even know the meaning of when I was their age. After 16 years, our show continues to amaze with its staying power. It airs in 176 territories, and 23 countries have produced their own local versions. Top Chef’s legacy is something I will always be proud to be a part of.

Name recognition from Top Chef has afforded me a platform to amplify awareness of endometriosis by co-founding the reproductivehealth nonprofit Endometriosis Foundation of America (EndoFound) in 2009, and since then we have educated over 35,000 youth and funded a research center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as doubled federal funding for endometriosis research in 2021. This led to my work speaking out on global equality as a U.N. goodwill ambassador, and on women’s and immigration rights for the ACLU in the U.S. After working on immigration issues for several years, I longed to merge my television work with my advocacy, and Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi on Hulu was born. This documentary series is the most artistically rewarding

experience of my creative life. I try to tell stories from communities in the U.S. you don’t often hear from.

And I’m still writing: a memoir, a food encyclopedia, and a children’s book with Asian characters about food. All were no doubt helped in sales by the visibility [of my TV work].

In the early years, I was worried that doing a food show would prevent me from getting legitimate acting work, or that folks would pigeonhole me, but I realize now that my life was meant to be immersed in food.

I’m so glad I said yes to Top Chef.

When I was deciding whether to do the show, a very smart person told me, “Push against the open door.”

I had intended a life in the theater, but through Top Chef I get to play on the world’s stage. And since Taste the Nation first premiered, I’m able to use this amazing platform I’ve been given to reach out to communities that have been waiting in the wings for their moment in the spotlight, and grant them the attention they so rightly deserve.

Now, when I am offered acting roles, the problem is that I have no time to do them.

VANESSA NAKATE

Climate-justice activist Before the World Economic Forum in 2020, I was a little-known youth climate activist from Kampala,

Uganda, though I was part of a global movement that had brought millions of young people to the streets. On the last day of the forum, I took part in a press conference with four other young climate activists, all of whom were white Europeans. When I scrolled through the coverage on my phone afterward, I was stunned by what I saw: the Associated Press had cropped me out of the photo it used for its article, and it had failed to even mention my presence at the press conference in the text.

I had come to Davos to tell the brutal story of what the climate crisis is doing to Africa already. It felt like in cropping me out of the picture, the Associated Press had cropped a whole continent out of the conversation.

The Associated Press has since apologized several times. It told me last October how that incident had led to big changes inside the organization and in how it covers the climate crisis. Last month in Davos, I took part in a live conversation with the Associated Press, discussing how global media outlets can better cover climate stories from the global south.

The story of that photograph went viral, and while it shouldn’t have happened that way, more people became interested in what I had to say. There now seems to be interest from the media in my opinions on different topics. But that incident was reflective of a world that has still not properly woken up to the climate crisis, and especially not to the suffering it is already causing in Africa and other mostaffected areas.

It is my hope that I can keep lending my voice to these voiceless victims. And I will continue to use my profile to pressure governments, companies, and investors to provide funding to help the world’s most vulnerable communities deal with the climate losses and damages we are already experiencing.

IN CROPPING ME OUT OF THE PICTURE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAD CROPPED A WHOLE CONTINENT OUT OF THE CONVERSATION

I LOOKED IN WONDERMENT AT THE MOON, WHICH WAS ILLUMINATING THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS IN SILVER

moon landing, in July 1969. I was just a little kid. I can still smell the freshly cut grass as I lay down on the steep field behind my family’s farmhouse in Tyrol and looked in disbelief and wonderment at the sky, at the moon, which was illuminating the mountain meadows in silver. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that humans were walking on that shiny rock in the sky.

How on earth did they get there?

I was filled with so many different feelings at the time. On the one hand, I felt in awe of the fearlessness of those men on the moon. I also felt an enormous interest and longing to get to know space better. What was it made up of? What was out there?

Something began stirring in me. A curiosity flame had been lit that would inspire and drive me for the rest of my life.

I studied natural sciences and went on to choose a career in space, which eventually led me to the role of director general of the European Space Agency. But it was that warm night in July—in Tyrol, on a farm, with the smell of grass—where the foundation was laid that would steer me in a new direction, away from the fields and toward the stars.

WALLY ADEYEMO Deputy Secretary, U.S. Treasury

Since being confirmed as Deputy Treasury Secretary in March 2021, in the midst of a historic publichealth and economic crisis, I often think about the early days of my first tour of duty at the U.S. Treasury.

I entered government in February 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis, when I received a firsthand education in crisis management. I quickly learned the importance of rigorously examining data to ensure policy choices are grounded in fact, and the need for careful consideration of the alternatives in every decision. Over many late nights that often turned into early mornings, my colleagues worked to save the economy from what we feared could be a second Great Depression.

But I also learned a great deal about the impact of the financial crisis from my family and friends back home. I grew up in a region of California called the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles, where unemployment peaked at more than 14% and foreclosures spiked. Hearing about friends and neighbors losing their jobs and homes, and seeing the impact of this crisis on my community, is something I will never forget.

These two sides of the financial crisis—the global policy response and the economic pain that hit so close to home—left an indelible imprint on me as a person and as a policymaker. I try to carry the lessons I learned with me each day and to never forget the people whose lives and livelihoods depend on the choices we make in Washington and in halls of government around the world.

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ECONOMY

A SEAT AT THE

TABLE

Naomi Koshi is on a mission to revitalize Japan’s economy by bringing more women into the boardroom

BY AMY GUNIA

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 economic growth has been stagnant.

Household income is down. Fumio Kishida, who became Prime Minister in late 2021, has promised to usher in an era of “new capitalism” to drive faster economic growth and higher wages, but it’s not yet clear how he will address what Koshi believes to be the linchpin of the problem: Japanese women are woefully underrepresented in business.

Koshi, a lawyer who now sits on the boards of two companies, has seen this firsthand. Only 8% of company board members are women, and they hold less than 15% of managerial roles—one of the lowest rates among the world’s large economies.

(In the U.S., about 30% of S&P 500 board directors 62

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are women.) The country is ranked 120th of 156 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index. An April 2019 Goldman Sachs report found that closing the gender employment gap could lift Japan’s GDP by 10%, and if women’s working hours rose to the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the boost might be as big as 15%. Now Japan’s main business association, the Keidanren, has called for 30% of board members and corporate executives to be women by 2030.

“One of the reasons Japanese companies, the Japanese economy, hasn’t been good for 30 years is [the] decisionmaking process. They’ve been doing the same thing for 30 years,” Koshi says.

“We need different viewpoints. Not only women, but also young people, foreigners, LGBTQ people. The important thing is to diversify the people making decisions.”

So last year, with fellow lawyer Kaoru Matsuzawa, Koshi founded OnBoard, a company that trains and places women in corporate board positions across Japan, with a focus on companies that plan IPOs soon. Her first seminar drew more than 65 attendees, and she says OnBoard has now trained more than 230 women. But to meet the Keidanren goal, Koshi says, Japan will need about 9,000 new female directors within the decade.

In a 2021 podcast interview, she didn’t mince words: “I have to work very hard.”

Koshi’s work on gender equality began more than a decade ago. After attending Harvard Law

meetings. (“If we increase the number of female board members, we have to make sure their speaking time is restricted somewhat; they have difficulty finishing, which is annoying,” Yoshiro Mori reportedly said.) In 2018, top ruling-party politician Koichi Hagiuda said raising infants and toddlers is a job for mothers. He’s now the Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry.

Although Koshi did not marry or have children, and did not have to make this choice herself— “I could work the same as a man, so I didn’t feel any discrimination,” she says—she decided to run for mayor of her hometown to try to enact change for others. In 2012, the then 36-year-old was elected mayor of Otsu City, at a time when barely any mayors in the country were women. In her two terms, she built dozens of nurseries to give Otsu women more childcare options.

School, she worked as an attorney in New York, where she began noticing the different ways women in business were treated. She was shocked when a male colleague told her he was planning to take paternity leave, and it made her wonder why women in Japan often had to decide between having children or careers. (Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s decision to take a 12-day paternity leave in 2020 made headlines in Japan.)

Men in Japan do fewer hours of domestic work than those in any other wealthy nation, and a culture of long workdays means Japanese women are often forced to leave their careers when they have children. The cultural sentiment was underscored last year when the head of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee said women talk too much in PHOTOGR APH BY KENTO MORI FOR TIME

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Koshi, a lawyer, connects women with leadership positions at preIPO startups and large companies in Japan

Koshi has always stood out. She recalls speaking up a lot in class as a child—something that is uncommon in the country. “There’s a popular saying in Japan: ‘The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.’ In Japan, doing things differently than others is a bad thing,” she says. “I just did what I really wanted to do, and I didn’t compare myself to other people.”

It wasn’t always easy, and she was bullied in school. Perhaps it prepared her for the difficulties to come. Once, while she was trying to persuade her subordinates—mostly men in their late 50s— to adopt her childcare policies, one colleague got so mad that he shouted, punched the desk, and left the room. “At the time, I thought they were mad because I was a young woman and the previous mayors were old men,” she says. “But now I realize that it was because I had a different viewpoint.”

For the more than 340,000 residents of Otsu City, though, that viewpoint was invaluable.

Ayako Toshinaga, a lawyer, moved there from the neighboring city of Kusatsu in 2015 because she couldn’t find a nursery for her baby in Kusatsu.

“I love my job, so I wanted to go back to work,” Toshinaga says.

OnBoard launched at an inflection point for corporate gender equality. In 2020, feeling that she’d accomplished her goals as mayor, Koshi declined to run for a third term and took a position practicing corporate law at Miura & Partners. A year later, the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) updated its corporate-governance code to encourage companies to improve diversity and bring Japan more in line with global standards, with the hope that it would make Japanese companies more attractive to foreign investors. (Since March 2022, Goldman Sachs Asset Management has opposed Japanese companies’ proposals to elect directors if at least 10% of their directors aren’t already 63

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women.) A reorganization of the TSE in April 2022 required that at least one-third of the board members at companies listed in its top tier be independent directors. Recent years have also seen an increasing focus on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing.

In a speech in March to mark International Women’s Day, Minister of Gender Equality Seiko Noda, one of the nation’s most prominent female politicians, acknowledged Japan’s gender-equality issues and called for the country to make improvements at “an unprecedented speed.” She said the government will “do its utmost” to achieve goals set out in its Fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equality, which calls for raising the proportion of women in leadership positions to about 30% of the total “as early as possible during the 2020s.”

But though empowering women is an obvious way to improve the nation’s productivity, “there hasn’t been the level of focus on gender diversity as much as prior administrations,” says Kathy Matsui, one of three women who run MPower Partners, Japan’s first venture-capital fund focused on ESG investing. Matsui is credited with coming up with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Womenomics” policies during her time at Goldman Sachs. While a government goal to increase the proportion of women in leadership positions remains in place, “there has not been much discussion about exactly what needs to change for that target to be reached,” Matsui says.

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often “just a bunch of men standing on a stage and meeting shareholders; there are pretty much no women.” Although she was struggling at work at the time, she’d never considered a move into corporate governance. “In relation to my career, I felt that being an outside board member was a very risky job, with a lot of legal responsibility,” Nomura says. She found OnBoard while searching online, and attended several seminars, including one in which female board members talked about their experiences. They’d also felt overwhelmed and alone in corporate Japan at times, and shared advice on how to navigate it. “One of the teachers said, ‘Not taking risks is a risk itself,’ which was an eye-opener for me,” says Nomura.

After her OnBoard training, Nomura was matched with an entertainment company and appointed as an outside director, a role she started in late April. It’s turned out to be a great fit. “Outside directors are not expected to contribute to a company by the length of time they spend in office, but expected to come up with certain results.

So I feel that outside boards are actually good job opportunities for those who are mothers, because working mothers are always seeking to make the most out of the limited time we have every day,” she says. “I read articles and research papers in my spare time, and take online courses from home. Recently, I was listening to an e-learning course at double the speed while I was watching my kid’s soccer game.”

The two face different challenges, but Koshi is a role model for Nomura. “I imagine becoming so successful like her; she’s a very impressive woman,” she says of Koshi. “I’m really glad that a person like her is leading the way for women in Japan.” —With reporting by mayako ShibaTa/ Tokyo and eloiSe barry/london □

S T R /J I J I P R E S S/A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

OnBOard is nOt the first or only company working to improve board diversity in Japan. For example, the investment firm Oasis and the Board Director Training Institute of Japan announced in March a new initiative to sponsor director-training courses for women. But Matsui says OnBoard’s work is vital. “The common excuse many companies give for why they can’t increase diversity is because they say, ‘There are not enough qualified women.’ And so I think through [Koshi’s] efforts, through other organizations’ efforts, to identify qualified candidates—or, frankly, if they’re not qualified, to train them ... every effort in that direction is a positive step.”

Koshi herself sits on the boards of SoftBank Corp. and the telecommunications company V-cube Inc. So far, OnBoard has introduced 160 candidates to 29 companies. The plan for 2022 is to introduce over 500 more, and put around 30 on corporate boards. Not everyone introduced is appointed, but corporate lawyer Aya Nomura is among those who were. The 44-year-old, who lives in Tokyo and has two children, ages 6 and 11, says she often attended shareholder meetings as a lawyer, and what she saw upset her. There were

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Koshi, center, celebrates her election in 2012 as the youngest woman to serve as a mayor in Japan

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

JB STRAUBEL HAS A FIX FOR

ECOPRENEURS

THE BATTERY PROBLEM The Tesla co-founder is trying to get ahead of a materials crunch that could hold up the green transition

BY ALEJANDRO DE LA GARZA/RENO, NEV.

JB StrauBel haS Spent the paSt two yearS covering a hillside with solar panels and rigging them up to cryptocurrency projects in his Carson City, Nev., mansion. Much of the equipment is essentially junk—the panels were all but worthless when the 46-year-old Tesla co-founder got them from a Texas solar plant, after a hailstorm voided their warranties. He’ll work on them alone for a whole weekend, spooling wire and rigging hardware in the rolling scrubland. Sometimes he thinks through his company’s latest engineering obstacles while he works. Other times he daydreams how best to divert cascades of photons from the sky, convert them, and suddenly there’s sunlight singing through the electrical grid, charging up cars, spinning a complete, beautiful system around and around: unlimited energy, for everyone, forever.

“What are you doing?” an employee said to Straubel once, arriving at the house to find him hauling solar panels outside. “You need to be getting ready for an interview right now.”

Straubel’s day job has attracted a lot of attention: he’s trying to head off a looming shortage of PHOTOGR APHS BY SPENCER LOWELL FOR TIME

materials that the world needs to transition away from fossil fuels. Institutional investors last year signed over $775 million for his new venture, Redwood Materials, and in April the U.S. Senate called Straubel to give expert testimony on resources needed for the energy transition. He doesn’t much like the spotlight, though. “The engineering challenges are the fun part,” Straubel says in an interview. “This is more difficult.”

We need massive quantities of batteries to power a global energy transition and avert cataclysmic climate change. To produce them, we

will need to mine more metals like lithium and cobalt than have been extracted in all of human history. U.S. companies have started planning huge new battery factories, but Straubel thinks we won’t have enough materials to supply them, not to mention that nearly all the world’s facilities to process those materials are in Asia, meaning they will have travel 10,000 miles before we can use them. To that end, Redwood Materials is building a gargantuan facility outside Reno, which will process new minerals, recycled batteries, and manufacturing scrap into enough copper foil and

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Straubel with the vintage Porsche he rebuilt as an electric car in the ’90s

powdery, mineral-rich cathode active material to build batteries for about 1 million electric cars a year by 2025. To completely transition the U.S. to electric vehicles, we’ll need about 10 facilities of that size, with mining operations on an unheard-of scale to supply them. But once more old batteries start being retired, Straubel says, his facilities will switch to pure recycling, creating a closed, clean system in which we reuse minerals in one battery generation after another, forever.

The last part might sound like techno-optimist hyperbabble—but it doesn’t feel that way coming 67

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Straubel leanS over a bright red 1984 Porsche that his staff pulled out of his personal Carson City Airport hangar. “Man, this is in bad shape,” he says, looking under the hood. “It makes me feel old.”

As a Stanford University student in the 1990s, Straubel bought the car for $800. Its engine was shot, and he dragged it back to the university and began ripping it apart. Long before the first 2008 Tesla Roadsters rolled off the line, he had remade this junker into an electric supercar. Its top speed: 110 m.p.h.

Straubel has always had a project going. As a young child in 1970s-era Green Bay, Wis., they mostly involved Legos. In sixth grade, he built a miniature hovercraft, and in eighth grade rebuilt an old electric golf cart. In high school, he made a miniature blast furnace to melt down metal scrap out of a pony keg, a leaf blower, and an acetylene torch.

Once, while trying to break down hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen, he set off an explosion in his parents’ basement. Carol Straubel, his mother, was outside doing yard work at the time. “I knew it was JB,” she says. “I went running in the house about the same time he came running up the stairs with blood streaming down his face.” Straubel still has a faint scar on his left cheek from the accident.

Straubel became a darling in Stanford’s engineering department—“one of the most amazing students to cross my path in the past decade,” a professor wrote, endorsing Straubel’s plan to pursue a self-designed major in energy systems. He began racing solar-powered vehicles with a student group, and started his electric-Porsche project. The rebuilt car had incredible performance—electric motors are able to transfer torque to the wheels of a car much more efciently than combustion engines—but with its heavy, low-yield lead-acid batteries, it was barely able to make it 30 miles on a charge. As Straubel roved between projects and consulting gigs after college, he began thinking about a way to fix the problem: using new, lightweight lithium-ion cells to make an electric car that could travel for hundreds of miles.

Straubel founded Tesla Motors with Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning, Ian Wright, and 68

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‘[CLIMATE CHANGE IS] GOING TO BE A LOT WORSE THAN PEOPLE EXPECT.’

from Straubel. For one thing, he’s not blithely optimistic about the current climate situation (“It’s probably going to be a lot worse than most people expect,” he says). For another, his conversation lacks corporatist sheen; he has an anxious energy about him, and when he talks about himself, he almost physically winces. But when you ask him about an engineering system or a business plan, he’ll seize the question with almost adolescent animation, dive like a marlin, and then resurface after a while with an apologetic smile, asking, with a bit of concern, “Does that make sense?”

Elon Musk in the early 2000s, with a plan to sell electric sports cars. They soon hit a wall: lithiumion cells—approximately the size and shape of AA batteries—could explode if they got too hot, and Straubel’s team was packing thousands of them together. If a single defective cell overheated, the entire battery pack could go up like a chain of firecrackers. After months of work, Straubel and his team figured out a system to dissipate excess heat and prevent disaster. Then, following a series of lengthy meetings in 2007, Straubel managed to convince engineers from Japanese electronics giant Sanyo that the tiny startup had developed a way to produce lithium-ion battery-powered cars that wouldn’t be rolling chemical bombs.

Eberhard left Tesla under acrimonious circumstances in 2007, and Tarpenning exited soon after, leaving Musk and Straubel as the only remaining co-founders when Tesla’s Roadster launched in 2008 (Wright had left in 2004). Then came the Model S in 2012, and the white-knuckle rampup to produce vast quantities of the mass-market Model 3 from 2017 to 2019, an effort that brought Tesla into the automotive big leagues and crystallized, in the boardrooms of every carmaker, that internal-combustion vehicles were on their way out. Musk was the public face of the company, while behind the scenes Straubel developed some of Tesla’s most crucial projects, like its charging network and first battery plant. “He didn’t compete with Elon for attention,” says Gene Berdichevsky, an early Tesla employee. “He doesn’t care for it. As long as he got to achieve the mission, he was willing to let a lot of things go.”

An illustrative example of the dynamic between the financier-CEO and his top engineer came at a 2014 meeting of Tesla executives at the company’s Fremont, Calif., auto plant. For about five years, Straubel and his team had been developing batteries meant to store renewable electricity and release it onto the grid when the sun wasn’t out or the wind wasn’t blowing, and an executive at the meeting asked Musk about the project. Apparently Musk hadn’t heard of it: “What are you talking about?” he said to about 50 members of Tesla’s top leadership, according to Mateo Jaramillo, former head of Tesla’s energy division. The executive who raised the issue then pointed out a window, toward a set of prototype batteries installed in the factory’s parking lot. Musk looked out the window, then turned to address the room: “Let me be very clear: absolutely no one should be working on that right now.”

Straubel pressed ahead with the grid battery project anyway, providing “cover” for his subordinates to keep working on it, according to Jaramillo. One former Tesla employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity because he continues to work in the industry, says Musk barely

knew anything about the Tesla energy division until the staff briefed him on it before the official reveal in 2015. Then, at the launch, Musk strode onto a stage and billed Tesla Energy as the “missing piece” of the global energy transition. (Musk did not return multiple requests for comment.)

Straubel says Musk supported Tesla Energy and was involved before the reveal, though it “certainly wasn’t his focus” earlier on. Straubel doesn’t remember the Fremont incident, but he says similar situations occurred from time to time, with Musk attempting to pull resources from projects Straubel supported, like Tesla’s Supercharger network, to address concerns he considered more urgent. “It’s always my approach to try and somewhat calm things down, and say, ‘OK, great, we’re stopping, we understand,’” Straubel says. Later he would talk to Musk and “more calmly” explain the reasons to keep the program going.

Straubel is reluctant to get into too much detail about how things worked between him and Musk.

“Some of this stuff is a lightning rod of controversy that I just do not want to wade into, frankly—I’m tiptoeing around how we even talk about this stuff,” Straubel says. “I know people are fascinated by [my relationship with Elon], but there’s no real benefit in trying to thread the needle on this. You’ll risk

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The future Redwood batterymaterials processing facility, under construction outside Reno, Nev.

finding a way to piss him off on something that you say, probably unintentionally, and then have him more frustrated at you, or who knows what.”

Musk’s success has left behind a series of disgruntled partners, silenced critics, and investors who have taken him to court. Straubel’s tenure created no such controversies, and though he was known as a loner, former employees say he showed a great deal of personal warmth, and he tried to insulate employees from stress coming from the top. Meanwhile, Musk, the extrovert, would rain down arbitrary-seeming demands. “Another term for Elon—I won’t attribute it, it’s not mine—is that Elon is a random-number generator,” says Jaramillo. “You’re like, ‘Well, what did the random-number generator spit out today?’”

Musk was also known for his coldness. “Elon just doesn’t like people,” says Kurt Kelty, Tesla’s former director of battery technology, now an executive at Sila Nanotechnologies, a battery firm. Other former colleagues say Straubel would shield employees from Musk’s disfavor by keeping staff members who might slip up out of meetings with him. Many former Tesla workers jumped at the chance to talk about Straubel, as if they’d been waiting all this time for somebody to finally ask about him, instead of Musk. “[JB has] a passion to do better for the 69

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planet because it’s the right thing to do … Elon is driven by something else,” says Kelty. “There’s no heart in it. There’s no passion in it. Whereas with JB, there’s this concern for people.”

Straubel left Tesla in 2019. The ramp-up to produce the Model 3 in massive numbers had been excruciating, and Straubel says he wanted to develop something new, instead of focusing on mass production of a relatively proven technology. There may also have been a personal element to the decision: “JB always felt he was able to work with Elon, but I think there became a point in time where he just couldn’t,” his mother says. “I think the relationship fractured.” Straubel says that he was on good terms with Musk when he left Tesla, and that the two still talk often. (Redwood is an independent company from Tesla.) “He’s exceptionally demanding and can be a very difficult guy to work for,” Straubel says of Musk. “But at the same time I had a ton of respect for him.”

Musk certainly demands respect. But some insiders imply that Straubel never got his public due for making possible everything that Tesla accomplished. “The difference between Tesla and every other car company is the power train; it has been from the very beginning,” says Jaramillo, referring to the batteries, software, and power electronics that underpin the EVs. “That’s the core of the business—and that’s what JB was responsible for.”

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step hasn’t yet begun at scale, but Redwood says it will start happening in the coming months.)

Inside a converted warehouse, workers feed old batteries into a contraption that squats above the floor like a gigantic beetle. Straubel conceived of the machine himself, and he says it can sort different kinds of used batteries a thousand times faster than a human being can. But he deflects my questions about how exactly it works, and declines to go into much detail on two-story-tall industrial contraptions that are pulverizing batteries before chemical processing. He says he doesn’t want competitors to learn about Redwood’s technology. “We’re in a situation where I’m trying to explain things poorly to you on purpose, which I hate doing,” he says. Thanks to the advent of EVs, the battery industry in the U.S. has grown tremendously in recent years, and become fiercely competitive. “There’ll be some blood on the streets when this is over,” says Trent Mell, the CEO of Electra Battery Materials.

On the short tour, Straubel tells me he worries Redwood is getting too much attention before it is ready. “I’m really not a media person; I’d much rather be in the engineering and the data,” he says as we remove our safety vests and goggles afterward. “I get more antsy as the day goes on.” He looks at his communications rep Alexis Georgeson, who’d chaperoned us the whole day, and seems to become aware that mentioning his discomfort had been some kind of slip: “I can see Alexis cringing.” Straubel’s wife Boryana used to help balance out some of his introversion. A Bulgarian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 2005, she worked in Tesla’s HR department, where she

M U S K : PAT R I C K T E H A N — M E D I A N E W S G R O U P/ B AY A R E A N E W S/G E T T Y I M A G E S; C O U R T E S Y (2)

STRAUBEL STARTED THINKING about battery materials when he was building Tesla’s first major battery factory in the mid-2010s. He realized that if it sparked the transformational change he hoped for, it would become increasingly difficult to find those crucial components, not to mention that the society-wide battery transition would generate gargantuan quantities of waste, with no good way to dispose of used EV batteries when they got old.

Recycling could solve that problem, and also help fill some of the world’s looming shortage of battery materials. Straubel founded Redwood in 2017 while still at Tesla, and hired a small team to quietly work on that challenge. After Straubel left his old job, Redwood began taking investment, and in August 2020, funders poured $40 million into the small company. Meanwhile, Straubel set to work building out a facility to start processing used batteries.

There are two steps to recycling batteries: First they have to be sorted according to the minerals they’re made of—nickel-metal hydride, lithium manganese oxide, or lithium iron phosphate, for instance—then separated from their plastic casings and ground down into powder. Second, those pulverized batteries have to be turned back into usable materials.

The first step is under way when I visit Redwood in April 2022. (The second “hydrometallurgical”

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From left: Straubel, far left, with Musk, center, in 2012; unwrapping a motor in 2004 at Tesla’s first industrial facility; in the Mojave Desert observing the first X Prize attempt by SpaceShipOne in 2004

met JB. They married in 2014 and had twin sons.

“She was the really outgoing one,” Kelty says.

“You wouldn’t normally laugh much with JB, but when Boryana was around it’s a lot of laughter.”

In June 2021, Boryana was cycling north of Carson City when a car veered across a double yellow line and hit her. She died at the scene, and Straubel’s life entered the realm of the unimaginable. “I feel like a third party looking in sometimes,” he says.

“We go about our lives with a framework of things we think can and can’t happen. It reminds me also of how important it is that we focus on taking care of each other, and also the climate around us, and the environment. We think of the framework we live in as so stable, and it’s not. We just think it’s stable so we don’t freak out on a daily basis.”

Boryana ran a sustainability nonprofit she and Straubel had started, and had founded a company that made jewelry from recycled metals. After she died, Straubel gave a speech to Redwood’s staff saying that he would redouble his efforts toward the company’s mission of supplying battery materials for the world’s energy transition, because it was what she would have wanted. A month later, the company closed a $775 million Series C funding round. A deal to supply Ford with battery materials and recycle scrap from its battery factories came soon after, followed by a contract to supply copper foil, an essential battery component, to Panasonic and Tesla. Straubel began building the U.S.’s first battery-materials processing complex on a 175-acre site in the scrubby hills of Sparks, Nev. WHEN I VISIT, cranes and trucks trundle through an industrial ballet at the site, heaving soil and

‘WE THINK OF THE FRAMEWORK WE LIVE IN AS SO STABLE, AND IT’S NOT. WE JUST THINK [THAT] SO WE DON’T FREAK OUT ON A DAILY BASIS.’

Ecopreneurs, a new TIME series, introduces the innovators taking risks to protect the planet’s future

building materials around a huge expanse of carved-up dirt. On a leveled section of earth the size of four or five football fields, pallets of old batteries—from cell phones, EVs, power drills, and every other sort of electronics—stretch into the distance. Bulldozers methodically slice off sections of a hillside as if it were a gigantic cake.

Straubel plans to install an 8-megawatt solar array there, enough to supply a quarter of the facility’s power.

Straubel seems more at ease as he talks about the company’s higher-level plans, and shows me where various chemical-processing lines will be assembled inside massive, partially completed structures, explaining the environmental value of moving battery materials between these buildings, rather than across an ocean and back. “Six or seven years ago, I was trying desperately to convince people that there would even be enough market to build a giant [battery] cell factory,” Straubel says. “[Building this facility] will be equally obvious in hindsight.”

In my time at Redwood, I got the sense that those who work with Straubel are a bit in awe of him. “I feel very fortunate that I’ve gotten to learn from [Straubel] and work alongside him and in support of him,” says Kevin Kassekert, a longtime Straubel lieutenant from Tesla who now serves as Redwood’s COO. Kassekert and others also seem somewhat protective of Straubel, as if their jobs were not only to help realize his vision, but also to insulate their boss from the evils of the world. Most public figures know how to dodge a hard question. Straubel takes them like a punch. His communications manager actually cried when Boryana came up, and I couldn’t help but feel that those surrounding Straubel actually love him. There’s a sensitivity and guilelessness to him, as if he never quite learned to trade in the world’s economy of small lies, notwithstanding his money and intellect. When Straubel describes his vision for a clean, beautifully engineered future, it starts to feel like the best thing to do with your life would be to drop everything and go help him get it done.

He would probably be trying to figure it out even without anyone’s help. To him, wasteful systems and poor engineering are like bad music. Good engineering feels like art. That impulse has spread Straubel’s vision across the world, accumulated capital and fellow travelers, and to some extent swept Straubel along with it. He’s surprised about where he’s found himself. But there’s no stopping now, not with so much left to do. “It is surreal,” Straubel says, as workers and heavy equipment carry out his latest civilization-scale project. “This is a lot. But it’s still just scratching the surface of how much there’s going to be.” □ 71

CONTENT FROM SOMPO HOLDINGS

DELIVERING ON THE PROMISE OF

SECURITY HEALTH & WELLBEING JAPAN’S SOMPO HOLDINGS IS WORKING TO BUILD BETTER MORE SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES

BY PAIRING NEW TECHNOLOGIES WITH SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. “The times they are a-changin’,” Bob Dylan sang during a turbulent decade long ago. Today, as global leaders gather in Davos for the World Economic Forum 2022, Dylan’s words ring truer than ever. Our world is in a time of profound and complex change. Advances in science and technology are improving lives and creating new global possibilities. At the same time, existential risks are rising; deadly pandemics, military aggression, cybercrime and warfare, and the most dangerous threat of all – climate change. In these uncertain times, people are naturally searching for safe havens. More than ever, they feel the need for security, health and wellbeing.

SOMPO can deliver on those needs. While it may be a new and unfamiliar name to some, SOMPO Holdings is one of the largest insurers and nursing care providers in Japan.

And it has a long and proven history of helping people.

The SOMPO story began in 1888, over 130 years ago, with the founding of its predecessor, the Tokyo Fire Insurance Company. It was Japan’s fi first rst fi fire re insurance fi firm, rm, which represented a bold innovation at the time. But what truly distinguished the company was what it did next.

Rather than just pay compensation after losses, the firm decided it would also work to prevent disasters. It created the Tokyo Fire Brigade. As the only private-sector firefighters of their day, they were always at the ready, responding to countless blazes, saving homes, businesses and lives.

That proactive approach became part of SOMPO’s DNA. Today, that approach is guiding the group’s transformation into a new and unique type of enterprise beyond that of an insurance company. “SOMPO’s Purpose” is to create a society in which every person can live a healthy, prosperous, and happy life in their own way. SOMPO is doing that by building what it calls a “Theme Park for Security, Health and Wellbeing.”

If that sounds like an ambitious goal, SOMPO is wellpositioned to achieve it. Along with its pioneering vision, SOMPO’s strengths include its size, product diversity, global reach, distribution networks, industry-leading technologies, breadth of experience and an incomparable corps of talent. Since its early days, the company has steadily grown through merging with other insurance firms and groups. In the process, it expanded its base of customers and broadened its range of services. Partnerships have also been vital, taking the fi firm rm into new fields and new countries. In 2010, it founded SOMPO Holdings to manage its increasingly diverse portfolio. To advance its global goals, in 2017, it acquired Endurance Specialty Holdings and established SOMPO International with a footprint in 29 countries and over 74,000 employees.

SOMPO’s core businesses are domestic property and casualty insurance, overseas insurance and reinsurance, domestic life insurance, nursing care and digital businesses.

SOMPO and its subsidiaries are financially financially strong, their balance sheets fi filled lled with high-quality assets and excellent liquidity. That solid financia financial footing provides the foundation for SOMPO to venture into new businesses with new technologies and to operate with a social conscience.

These are exemplifi exemplified ed by the company company’s s foray into nursing homes and care in Japan. SOMPO’s nursing homes do more than tend to the elderly. They employ technological

CONTENT FROM SOMPO HOLDINGS

innovations to predict and prevent illnesses and provide the most advanced care despite a national shortfall in healthcare staff. The company also invests in and supports research into health and disease prevention, particularly dementia prevention.

As an insurer, SOMPO knows that our roads pose many risks. To safeguard and protect travelers, the company is also investing in artificial intelligence and other cuttingedge digital technologies to accelerate the development and adoption of driverless transport. Digital driving can prevent accidents and provide mobility and freedom for elderly drivers and others with physical challenges. That improves quality of life and wellbeing, not just for those behind the wheel but for all of society.

SOMPO makes the good of society a top priority. But to provide health, security and well-being, a society must be at peace. To promote peace, SOMPO has pledged up to $780,000 in humanitarian aid to Ukraine and refugees in neighboring countries through the United Nations, Save the Children, the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Japan Platform. The donations will come from SOMPO and its employees, and from visitors to the SOMPO Museum of Art, where Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” is on permanent display. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.

Today, it is a symbol of peace. SOMPO hopes van Gogh’s masterpiece will lead people to think more deeply about peace – especially global leaders.

SOMPO’s Purpose With “A Theme Park for Security, Health and Wellbeing,” create a society in which every person can live a healthy, prosperous and happy life in one’s own way.

SOCIAL VALUE DELIVERED by SOMPO • Protect people from future risks facing the society • Create a future society for healthy and happy lives • Foster the ability to change the future society with diverse talents and connections

Ethics and responsibility are the bedrock of leadership. The 2,000-plus business and political powerbrokers meeting in Davos will be debating ways to make the World Economic Forum’s theme of “Shaping an Equitable, Inclusive and Sustainable Recovery” a reality. If we are honest, it hasn’t been working out that way so far. The rich have gotten richer while the poor have suffered suffered disp disproportionately oportionately during the COVID-19 crisis. And it’s not the only crisis we are facing.

SOMPO believes that we can enhance positive trends and reverse negative ones despite these difficult times.

In Japan, our core businesses are acting on our belief by working to solve social issues, such as caring for and thriving with an aging population, among others. We hope our example will inspire others in societies facing similar challenges. Innovations and breakthroughs in technologies can make life better for everyone if matched by a vision and commitment to sustainability and the common good.

Everyone wants security, health and wellbeing. SOMPO has been delivering those for its clients and Japanese society.

But more needs to be done. For SOMPO, that means moving beyond our original business of insurance. We are becoming more agile, innovative and diverse in the services we provide and the types of businesses we engage in, all to meet the changing needs of those we serve. SOMPO will always be committed to its customers in Japan. But in these changing times, we will also continue to expand to new and growing markets to deliver security, health and well-being to more people around the world.

Follow us

CONTENT FROM SOMPO HOLDINGS

WRITING THE NEXT CHAPTER FOR THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

PROTECTING AGAINST GLOBAL RISKS TAKES GLOBAL REACH AS THE WORLD BECOMES MORE CHALLENGING AND COMPLEX, GLOBAL P&C INSURER SOMPO INTERNATIONAL IS GROWING ITS PORTFOLIO OF SERVICES AND SOLUTIONS TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE GLOBAL ISSUES WE FACE TODAY. At SOMPO International, our story starts with people.

With a focus on collaborative and productive relationships with each other and our clients, brokers and business partners, we value the contributions of every person. We seek to build long-term partnerships, stay disciplined in our underwriting while finding ways to take on new risk in a constantly changing world.

SOMPO International has grown to become a leading global provider of commercial and consumer (re) insurance that makes up $13.8B of the $40B Gross Premiums Written for SOMPO’s insurance business.

Today we offer cover across a diverse portfolio of over 30 lines of business.

We’re a top player in many insurance and reinsurance product lines and as the largest multinational crop insurance organization in the world, we’re proud to keep farmers growing year after year.

With operations in 29 countries in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, Europe, UK, Brazil, and Asia Pacific - and access to over 100 countries through our multinational platform, Sompo International is ready for geographic expansion and profitable growth.

SOMPO International’s diverse mix of products and service solutions include: • Global Agriculture, offered through its integrated AgriSompo platform, which delivers traditional and innovative crop insurance and productivity tools to farmers, ranchers, farm suppliers, other insurers, and agribusinesses around the world.

• Global Claims Services delivered by empowered, experienced and dedicated claims professionals who are an integral part of the underwriting process.

• Global Commercial Insurance offering Property and Casualty insurance products and solutions through Regional platforms in North America, EMEA, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

• Global Consumer Insurance, including high-quality, personal lines solutions tailored to local markets.

• Global Reinsurance, including a broad range of specialized and multiline capabilities across a wide range of reinsurance products in key markets worldwide.

We’re ready for the next chapter SOMPO International has ambitious growth plans. We believe that an inclusive culture is a key enabler for innovation, better decision making and attracting the best talent. And it’s the right thing to do. We’re making better use of data and investing in technology so that our empowered teams can spend more time with our brokers and clients. SOMPO International will continue to be the growth engine for the SOMPO Group.

At SOMPO International, our ring is more than a logo, it is a symbol of our promise.

We’re committed to improving and trying to make things better for everyone.

We’re ready to write the next chapter with you. Let’s connect.

Visit us at Sompo-intl.com

7 QUESTIONS

PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM 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.

M AT E U S Z W L O D A R C Z Y K — N U R P H O T O/G E T T Y I M A G E S

What role does the WEF see itself playing in resolving those tensions? Many of the most pressing challenges can benefit from a multistakeholder approach. In Davos, we will make sure, for example, on climate change, that we have the big companies of the world committing to going net-zero by 2050 through the CEO Climate Alliance. We are also getting the big companies of the world, what we call the First Movers Coalition, to commit to green their supply chains. This is the Apples and the Amazons of the world saying to their suppliers: if you don’t reduce your CO2 footprint, we will just not buy from you.

Vladimir Putin has addressed the WEF many times. Russian oligarchs, many of whom have now been hit by sanctions, regularly threw lavish parties at Davos. Will any of them be welcome ever again? We don’t have any Russian companies in Davos this year, nor any sanctioned people. We will have a big focus on the totally unacceptable war in Ukraine. When we’re in the middle of a war, it’s very hard

‘RISING INEQUALITY IS CHALLENGING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE SOCIAL MARKET ECONOMY.’

BY BILLY PERRIGO

to think about what the situation will be in the future, but with the way we’re seeing Russia acting? No. With the current approach, I don’t see any kind of potential rapprochement in the years to come, unfortunately.

During the pandemic there has been a surge in global wealth inequality. Is that healthy for the world? The short answer is no. For the first time in two decades, we are now seeing an increase in the amount of people living in extreme poverty, ending a period of historic poverty eradication.

What’s the best way to redress that inequality? For developing countries and emerging economies, the past three decades have definitely been very positive in the sense that they have given them unique opportunities. That economic model is something that we will have to try to continue. But the growth has to be more inclusive and sustainable. Inside countries, this is a domestic issue that can and should be addressed with tools such as redistribution and taxes. In my view, rising inequality is challenging the legitimacy of the social market economy.

Do you see rising polarization as an outcome of this increase in inequality? [Inequality] is definitely part of the reason, exacerbated by social media. In the beginning, social media was a way for ordinary people to have more say with leaders. But for some state actors and other people with a clear agenda, using social media is a low-cost way of creating conspiracy theories.

The theme of Davos last year was “The Great Reset,” which spawned lots of conspiracy theories. What did you learn from that experience about communicating your message?

It’s very unfortunate. I’m flabbergasted. The Great Reset was really about using the postCOVID situation as a way of getting it right when it comes to growth, inclusiveness, and climate change.

The planet is burning. We can’t stop talking about business’s responsibility for taking care of the environment. We will not change that message because some people on the fringes are spinning this into something bad when it’s really the right medicine for getting the planet back on track. But we might have to fight back tougher in the future. □ 75

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Time Off THE IMMORTAL TRACY FLICK

BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

More than two decades after publishing the hit novel Election, Tom Perrotta returns to his iconic character

INSIDE

YA AUTHOR JENNY HAN STEPS BEHIND THE CAMERA FOR A BUZZY ADAPTATION

ILLUSTR ATION BY JEFFREY DECOSTER FOR TIME

THE 10 BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR SO FAR

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TIME OFF OPENER

N

o 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 being branded, derisively, a Tracy Flick. The name has become a kind of misogynist shorthand.

That was far from Perrotta’s intent. If you read or reread Election today, you’ll see that, even as he delights in Tracy’s most irritating quirks, his sympathy for her runs deep. He’s as attuned to her loneliness as he is to her iron will. And with his eighth novel, Tracy Flick Can’t Win, to be published June 7, Perrotta catches up with Tracy as an adult, rescuing her from the fate of being used as an easy symbol of, well, anything. She’s much too complex for that.

“Tracy never went away, for me or for the culture,” Perrotta said recently, speaking from his home outside of Boston. “That never happened with anything else I wrote.”

And he’s written a fair amount. In addition to his bestselling novels, Perrotta also co-wrote the screenplay for an adaptation of his 2004 novel Little Children, which earned him an Oscar nomination, and he helped make his 2011 and 2017 novels, The Leftovers and Mrs. Fletcher, into acclaimed series for HBO. Tracy Flick Can’t Win is his first sequel, and he didn’t exactly set out to write one. Initially, he wanted to examine the messy state of modern American masculinity by inventing a faded former high school football star, Vito Falcone, who’s called back to his old stomping ground to receive an award. Only once Perrotta had really dug into the writing did he realize that Tracy needed to be a part of the story.

“Because this guy is her worst nightmare. And once I added her to the mix, the story had this other center of gravity.”

△ Tracy Flick Can’t Win is the first sequel in Perrotta’s body of work

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BEN E. KING — HBO

For Perrotta, creating Flick was a leap of faith.

He’d grown up in New Jersey, in a working-class family, and though it had never occurred to him that he might attend an Ivy League university, a careers teacher at his high school persuaded him to try. He ended up at Yale, graduating in 1983, and enrolled in the graduate creative writing program at Syracuse University a few years after that. Though Election was one of the first books he wrote, it wasn’t the first to be published; that was Bad Haircut: Stories From the Seventies, in 1994, which was followed by The Wishbones in 1997. But both of those books were largely about men; Election, he says, “was the first book where I really tried to write women characters,

in a central way. And I was scared.”

Perrotta had come to think of himself as “kind of a guy writer,” he says.

“Bad Haircut is all about male friendships, and The Wishbones is about these guys in a band. I knew I had to stretch beyond that. That was the reason I tried to write Election with those multiple viewpoints. I felt I had to be on the side of every character, and to see them as full people. And to give them parts of myself, I think.”

If it took Tracy Flick a while to emerge in the world, she’s now here to stay. In Tracy Flick Can’t Win, the teenage overachiever we once knew— the one who was almost cheated out of her high school presidential win by a meddling history teacher, the one who had an afair with another teacher that led to his downfall, while she simply moved on—is now a dedicated but beleaguered assistant principal at a suburban New Jersey high school. The law degree she’d always dreamed of never came to be; her promising trajectory at Georgetown was cut short when she left to care for her ailing mother, who has since died. Now she’s raising

a daughter of her own, Sophia, the product of a brief affair she had with a married professor while she was pursuing a Ph.D. in education. Nothing has turned out as planned. But Tracy’s sense of ambition reignites when she learns her boss is about to retire. Why shouldn’t she step right into the top job? She’s earned it.

In considering where the modernday Tracy Flick would end up, Perrotta says, “I didn’t think she had taken over the world. I’m much more interested, anyway, in thwarted ambition and midlife malaise than I am in people who are running the world.”

It made sense, he says, “that Tracy would end up in her old battleground, still fighting for these small prizes.”

After all, this is still a world where mediocre men often have an advantage over smart, hardworking women. And if Perrotta was cognizant of that injustice in Election, he’s even more keyed in to it now.

While Perrotta doesn’t dig into Tracy’s politics in the new book, he notes that she’s probably rather

conservative. Yet he’s sure that she is still, in some sense, a feminist. “I don’t think she’d use the word patriarchy,” he says. “But she’s aware that these men get all these unearned advantages, and that she’s constantly being put in the shadow of men who are her inferiors. She’s appalled by unearned male advantage. She wants to compete on an equal playing field. That’s what feminism would be for her.”

And in the midst of her career quandary, Tracy Flick has something else to contend with: the memory of her sexual relationship with a teacher when she was still a teenager. If that plot development was eye-opening enough in 1998, in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, it has taken on a whole new dimension today.

In Election, Tracy adamantly insists she wasn’t victimized by that relationship: she was in control; she ended the relationship; he was the one who fell apart afterward. But the Tracy Flick of 2022 is more reflective. She still won’t call herself a victim, yet she does wonder what on earth her illicit paramour was thinking, embarking on a relationship with a teenage girl. And she wonders if maybe the experience damaged her in ways she doesn’t even see.

Perrotta says that when he wrote Election, in the early 1990s, he “was drawing on these currents in feminism at the time. These brash Madonnaesque ideas that women can have everything men can have. They can have sex whenever they want to and be unapologetic about it and walk away from it and go on to the next thing.

Tracy was embodying this particular early-’90s sex-positive ‘girls can have it all’ mentality.”

But there’s no denying the power imbalance between an adult teacher and a teenage girl, a reality Perrotta

‘As I get older, I’m so aware of the way we constantly alter the narrative of our past.’

—TOM PERROTTA

reckons with in the new book. “There were so many #MeToo stories of often prestigious private high schools where teachers had abused their students for years and years. There were some people blowing the whistle and saying, ‘I was abused by this teacher.’ And there were other women who would say, ‘I thought at the time that it was a consensual relationship,’ and now they’ve had to revisit that from an adult perspective, in a very different cultural climate.”

That was another reason Perrotta was drawn, even if only subconsciously, to revisit Tracy Flick’s story.

“One of the really fascinating things about writing a book like this almost 30 years later is you realize just how powerful these cultural lenses are,” he says. “Tracy’s an administrator. She’s in charge now of policing these sorts of things. As an administrator she feels one way, but she does not want to surrender her narrative completely.”

It would be a different book, Perrotta says, if Tracy simply said, “I was a victim.” But her feelings are more complicated than that. “She’s a middle-aged person with regrets,” Perrotta says. “She’s trying to figure out, How did I get here, when I expected to be somewhere else entirely?” Not even Tracy Flick can have it all.

“As I get older, I’m so aware of the way we constantly alter the narrative of our past and choose to leave out whole chunks of it, or turn something complex into a simple thing,” Perrotta says. “You say, ‘Oh, that was my 20s! That was when I had terrible jobs!’ And you just leave it at that. But we also know that those simple narratives leave out a lot of rich experience and decisive moments and often a lot of pain.” Young people are, after all, unfinished people. When Perrotta is asked if maybe the ending of Election—in which Tracy reaches a kind of accord with the man who tried to cheat her out of her presidential victory—was an inadvertent setup for a sequel, he considers the possibility. But the answer he ultimately gives is—like Tracy Flick herself— multidimensional: “I would say that any story that ends when a character is 18 is just crying out for a sequel.” □ 79

TIME OFF TELEVISION

REVIEW

An Old Man on the run from a lifetime of bad choices

BY JUDY BERMAN

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△

Fugitive Dan Chase (Bridges) flees the feds, flanked by his loyal attack dogs, Dave and Carol

survivor—believably vanquishes, or at least evades, pursuers half his age.

AS EXCITING AS The Old Man generally is in the four episodes provided for review (out of seven total), it’s also too sloppy to be a great political thriller. There are plot twists that create plot holes big enough to pilot a C-5 through. It takes a frustratingly long time to get a sense, via flashbacks to his CIA tenure, of who Chase is, what matters to him, and what he did to blow up his life all those years ago— suspense that doesn’t serve much of a thematic purpose.

The show flirts with sexism. In the course of his journey, the widower meets a divorced woman, Amy Brenneman’s Zoe, who seems desperate for companionship and can’t

Why should one man’s survival justify so much suffering?

stop talking about her ex. Yet as she becomes entangled in Chase’s crisis, the character deepens, and what initially comes across as a thoughtless, one-dimensional depiction from creators Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine gains purpose. Zoe becomes an avatar for everyone Chase has endangered to serve his own aims. During one tense sequence, he envisions how he might escape apprehension by killing her and fleeing the scene.

The question that coalesces, midway through the season, applies to so many stories about the lone action heroes whom viewers never stop rooting for, even when their crusades leave an enormous body count: Why should one troubled man’s continued survival justify so much suffering? It takes on extra urgency in the case of Chase, who has already lived a full life, made some catastrophic choices, and whose motivations may turn out to be more personal than political. Maybe, The Old Man suggests, there are more important things than survival.

THE OLD MAN premieres June 16 on FX

FX

LIVE LONG ENOUGH, AND CIRCUMstances will force you to take stock of the big decisions you’ve made. Did they turn out how you’d expected? What did you sacrifice? Whom did you hurt, and was the pain you inflicted on others, or the pain you caused yourself, worth it?

For the title character of FX’s The Old Man, known as Dan Chase (among other aliases) and played by a weathered to perfection Jeff Bridges, that overdue moment of reckoning has finally come. A rogue CIA agent who has been hiding off-grid but in plain sight for decades, he is haunted by nightmare visions of his late wife—and by his paranoid conviction that he’s suffering from a cognitive decline similar to the one she experienced. It turns out that the real threat to his life is external, emerging without warning from his past to put him back on the run and endanger his connection with his adult daughter. But what makes this adaptation of Thomas Perry’s 2017 best seller more than just another boomer actionadventure epic is its interrogation of the selfish, destructive, and self-righteous Chase’s claim to heroism.

His survival has come at a high cost to the people around him. One such person is Harold Harper (John Lithgow), a former colleague turned adversary at the agency who has ascended to a top position at the FBI and is called in to lead a manhunt for the fugitive Chase. Lithgow, portraying an erudite company man with an adoring protégé (Alia Shawkat), makes the ideal foil for Bridges, whose all but feral Chase can still switch on the rugged charm when necessary. Harold’s ambivalence about capturing his old cohort adds pathos to the beautifully shot show’s many imaginative action scenes. In cozy homes as well as in dark, deserted stretches of road, Bridges—who in real life is a 72-year-old lymphoma

QUICK TALK

Jenny Han The author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before on the TV adaptation of her 2009 novel, The Summer I Turned Pretty, which premieres June 17 on Amazon Prime

The Chairman returns to his iron throne REVIEW

I R O N C H E F : N E T F L I X ; H A N : TAY L O R M I L L E R — B U Z Z F E E D N E W S/ R E D U X

IRON CHEF DINES AGAIN 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 in Nailed It! While the streamer has tweaked the new season for binge value, it mostly resembles the U.S. remake. Brown returns, joined by affable Top Chef winner Kristen Kish. “Chairman” Mark Dacascos is as gamely campy as ever. Culinary heavy hitters like Dominique Crenn join the typical roster of overexposed stars (Curtis Stone, Marcus Samuelsson) as Iron Chefs. A more casual judges’ table and the lack of commercial breaks further update the show for streaming. It isn’t the Japanese original, but nothing ever will be. —J.B. IRON CHEF: QUEST FOR AN IRON LEGEND is on Netflix on June 15

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 just really rooting for her. I felt like a proud mom at the Olympics, waiting to see if she would nail the landing—and she did.

A major new plot point of the show is an annual debutante ball. Why did you add that to the story?

◁

Han makes the jump to television for the first time

As I was adapting Summer, I was thinking a lot about visual representations of coming of age and how many different cultures celebrate that moment, like a quinceañera or a coming-out ball or a bat mitzvah. To me, [the setting] being this sort of wealthy world, it felt like a great opportunity to bring that to life. And I do love a ball.

You’ve talked about pitching To All the Boys and hearing suggestions that Lara Jean be made a white character. Do you feel we’re past that now? It wasn’t so much that some specific nefarious producer was saying the character should be white—it was that nobody wanted to make the movie with an Asian lead.

Did those conversations go differently for Summer? Yes, and I think To All the Boys was a big part of that difference. In the teen space we hadn’t seen the lead be an Asian American girl, and that movie was successful. So it was a lot easier to move forward.

A character tells Belly that no one ever really gets over their first love. Do you agree? I agree in the sense that you never really forget your first love. I have a stronger memory of high school love than I do of some people in my 20s. There’s something so potent and powerful about being really young, never having been bruised by love before, and going into it so wholeheartedly without fear—you can get a lot more hurt by the experience, but I also think there’s so much you gain.

It’s not even just that person you remember, but it’s who you were in that moment.

—Lucy Feldman

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The best albums of 2022 so far

KEHLANI

BY MAURA JOHNSTON

Kehlani broke through in the mid-2010s with deeply personal soul. Their third album opens with the declaration that they’re “workin’ on bein’ softer,” and the album bears out that idea both sonically and lyrically, with Kehlani ruminating on queerness, grief, and love over splendid grooves.

Blue Water Road

CATE LE BON

Pompeii

Welsh musician and producer Le Bon takes on personal and global apocalypse in her sixth album, and she’s wellequipped to do so: her gift for making songs sound as if they’re on the verge of falling apart pairs perfectly with the subject matter.

HARRY STYLES

Harry’s House The third album from boybander turned grownup pop icon Styles, Harry’s House is a laid-back affair that showcases the British singer’s easy charm and unbounded curiosity. The glossy synths of “As It Was” are well-paired with Styles’ breathy voice.

EARL SWEATSHIRT

SICK! Enigmatic MC Earl Sweatshirt’s pandemic album SICK! succinctly and cleverly shows how he’s shaved down his lyrics to their absolute essence, with compressed rhymes and idiosyncratic metaphors that mirror the wallsclosing-in feeling of the lockdown era.

JANE INC.

Faster Than I Can Take

Carlyn Bezic’s musicianship and expressive voice make the second album from Jane Inc. a gripping trip to pop’s frontier. The pummeling “2120” is one of the most pleasantly overpowering dance-pop tracks of the year.

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PEANESS

World Full of Worry U.K. trio Peaness have a winking approach to indie pop that energizes their peppier tracks and leavens their more contemplative cuts. On World Full of Worry, their first proper full-length album, they master this balance in hooky, terse guitar pop, balancing existential malaise with an ebullient chorus on “What’s the Use?”

MIRANDA LAMBERT

Palomino For her ninth solo album, Texas troubadour Lambert built on the promise of her 2016 track “Highway Vagabond” and hit the road, spinning tales of hard-living women while playing with prevailing notions of what country music can be. Lambert’s forays into bluesinformed new wave and dream pop show her versatility.

REMA

Rave & Roses

The debut album from Benin, Nigeria–born vocalist Rema introduces Afrorave, which fuses West African rhythms and melodies with elements borrowed from genres around the world, to riveting results. See the low-lit synth-pop cut “Addicted” and the undulating, lovestruck “Mara.”

ROSALÍA

MOTOMAMI

Spanish singer Rosalía’s third album brings precision-grade rhythms into a catchy, if at times unsettling, depiction of the not-so-distant future—one where she grapples with the darker elements of fame while immersing herself in the finer things.

WET LEG

Wet Leg Last year, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers became streaming sensations with their thudding, surrealistic single “Chaise Longue.”

The duo’s full-length album casts a sidelong glance at modern life’s rubbish, from bills to bad parties and worse dates, over elliptical riffing and galloping bass lines.

Sign up for More to the Story, our weekly culture newsletter, at time.com/newsletters

7 QUESTIONS

Laura Dern The Jurassic World: Dominion star on revisiting an iconic character, radical filmmaking, and one real-life hero she’d love to play onscreen 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 modified seed, and the corporate greed around our food table.

Why do you think so many people have connected with this character? Little girls and boys have come up to me and said, “You were the first female character I saw onscreen equal to the men.” Recently, a woman I deeply admire, the first female Congresswoman in her district, who’s a committed supporter of a bipartisan gun bill, told me Ellie Sattler was the reason she went into politics.

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I’m longing to play former Senator Wendy Davis. I’d love to tell her story and remind a generation of young women about that kind of fearless determination to stand up for other women, particularly around the choice issue.

Have you ever talked to David Lynch about Jurassic Park? Steven and David have a profound kinship as fellow radicals in the world of cinema. I believe in addition to Hitchcockian, the next two cinema names that are now in our dictionaries are Lynchian and Spielbergian.

I love that you consider Spielberg radical on par with Lynch. David is thought of as such an insane radical, and I remember one day doing a scene [in Jurassic Park] with Steven and I was like, “You’re completely insane! You and David, only you two could do something like this.” He was like, “Are you kidding? That’s such a compliment, comparing me to David Lynch. Why is this insane?” I said, “Dude, I’m standing in a basement, terrified, a beast is coming at me, and finally I feel a man put his arm on my shoulder. I feel so relieved that Sam Jackson has shown up—and it’s his dismembered arm! Who else is going to put me in that circumstance?”

After playing Ellie Sattler again, are there any other characters of yours you’d like to revisit? I would want to play Ruth Stoops from Alexander Payne’s 1996 film, Citizen Ruth.

That movie, which focuses on one woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, feels even more prescient now. I am begging any streamer, anybody, please, get that movie out there right now.

It’s the most important movie I could have made for this moment. I think for my kids’ generation, teenagers, new voters to see that movie is really powerful. I’m so proud of that movie, and as a first feature [for Payne], it’s so radical. —SHANNON CARLIN

STEFANIE KEENAN — GE T T Y IMAGES FOR CDG A

When you made Jurassic Park you were an Oscar-nominated indie actor working with the likes of David Lynch. What was it like to then work with Steven Spielberg and all these dinosaurs? I worshipped Steven Spielberg. Jaws and Close Encounters to this day are two of my favorite movies. Without even knowing what the movie was about, I was already in. It felt as radical and indie as anything else I had made. It wasn’t yet a franchise or a

You have been working steadily in Hollywood since 1980.

What is still on your career bucket list?

blockbuster; it was a bunch of people standing around going, “How are we going to do that?”

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5,500 MILES On 5th October 1931 Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon, Jr., two daring American aviators, completed the world’s first nonstop, transpacific flight from Japan to the United States. They took off and landed 41 hours later in Wenatchee, Washington, having covered a distance of 5,500 miles. At the time, it was the longest flight ever made over water.

PIONEERING TIME ZONES LONGINES SPIRIT ZULU TIME