Table of contents for July 25, 2022 in TIME Magazine

READERS THANKED TIME for devoting the July 4–11 issue to the central role of oceans in climate change. In response to Hugh Kretschmer’s cover art of an ocean wave made out of plastic bags, @monicaebennett tweeted, “Beautiful and scary at the same time!” On Instagram, Kretschmer posted, “My Plastic ‘Waves’ project was always meant to bring awareness to the masses, but I never expected anything as humbling as this.” Twitter user @martahari said Elijah Wolfson’s opener was “the best news article I’ve read in eons (and poetic).” After reading Aryn Baker’s feature on the mangroves that shield Karachi from the effects of climate change, Andrew Julian Mahiga of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, concluded, “These trees are so vital to our coastal cities. We should do more to preserve and…

THE SUPREME COURT RULED AGAINST the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power-sector emissions on June 30, a major blow to what was once considered a promising avenue for cutting U.S. emissions. Ye despite the ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, Gina McCarthy, President Joe Biden’s national climate adviser, remains optimistic. “We’ve set very solid goals; we’re making significant progress on the transition to clean energy,” she told TIME on June 28. “And that is not going to live and die by the Supreme Court’s decision.” To meet the White House’s goals, she said, the Administration must get “creative”—a word she used at least 10 times during the conversation—and find novel ways to galvanize the energy transition. This means relying on a range of laws and authorities outside the…

About 30 miles west of Grand Junction, Colo., aspiring paleontologists can sidle up next to working professionals and guides from the Museums of Western Colorado. There, they offer half-day, full-day, and multiday visits to the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, which has been pulling up dinosaur bones with regularity since the early 1980s. The visits aren’t cheap, can be hellishly hot and dusty, and guests can’t keep what they find—this is protected land—but it’s a great way to get up close to an extinct species like the allosaurus. For those looking to save a few bucks but see a similarly past-its-heyday species, one could also dust off what remains of the Colorado Republican Party. Once mighty, it has atrophied in recent years. Although not yet extinct, no one would accuse it of being…

I OFTEN GET ASKED ABOUT what could have been. If I hadn’t met with constituents at a Congress on Your Corner event on Jan. 8, 2011. If I hadn’t been shot in the head, leading to partial paralysis, aphasia, and a decade-long journey to regain the ability to walk and talk. Would I now be a Senator, instead of my husband? What might have been? What I say in response, every single time, is: Move ahead. We can’t rewrite the past with our wishing or our wanting. But the future? Now, that’s something we can play a role in shaping. We’ve been living through two years of a pandemic and are now watching the Supreme Court overturn long-established precedent. And yet, while we are collectively processing and coming to terms,…

OLENA ZELENSKA, THE FIRST LADY OF UKRAINE, got to bed late on the eve of the Russian invasion. Her kids were long asleep in the presidential residence south of Kyiv, a vast mansion of yellow stone that the family had always found a bit too grand, bordering on ostentatious. They had moved there in 2020 because the gated grounds contain a separate building to house their security detail. For days, Zelenska had sensed the bodyguards were nervous. The talk of war, she says, “was everywhere, just kind of hanging in the air.” The government in Kyiv had urged civilians not to panic, but that had become harder as the Russians massed an invading force that surrounded Ukraine to the north, east, and south. Blogs brimmed with advice for would-be refugees.…

CJ HAUSER HAS ONE OF THOSE FACES. SHE JUST looks like someone you could talk to—and strangers tend to do exactly that, stopping her on the street or unloading their life stories on her on airplanes. It only adds to the phenomenon when, the day we meet in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Hauser brings along her 6-year-old Bernese mountain dog, a gentle giant named Moriarty. Within minutes of setting foot into the park, a man approaches Hauser to tell her about the time he was attacked by a dog, and how the bright orange of Moriarty’s harness reminded him of his trauma. Later, while we’re sitting on the grass, a woman stops and shares the story of how she came to adopt her mutt. Hauser laughs off these interruptions, a part…

THE POLICE KILLING OF JAYLAND Walker, a 25-year-old Black man who had more than 60 gunshot wounds, on June 27 in Akron, Ohio, led to large-scale protests in the city—and in Washington, D.C. Body-cam video from some of the officers who were on the scene when Walker was killed has raised more questions than answers for many. Activists say pledges by city and state officials to investigate the shooting are not enough. DRAMATIC ESCALATION The events that led to Walker’s killing began when an officer tried to pull him over for a traffic violation and he fled. The situation escalated after the officer reported that a shot was fired from Walker’s car. Walker then got out and ran. Eight officers began shooting, firing more than 90 times, according to…

Resigned Boris Johnson The party goes on without him AFTER MONTHS OF ESCALATING SCANDALS, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on July 7 that he would step down as leader of his ruling Conservative Party, and ultimately the country. It was not the political end that Johnson had imagined. In December 2019, he delivered his party its most significant electoral majority in a generation, with a mandate to “Get Brexit Done” and “level up” poorer regions. He had a reputation for shrugging off criticism, and recently said he wanted to remain in power until the 2030s. But mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, and most of all a series of lurid ethics scandals caught up with him. His hand was forced when more than 50 government officials resigned in…

SINCE COVID-19 BEGAN SPREADING in the U.S., Americans have disagreed about the pandemic response, arguing over everything from vaccines to masks to home schooling and more. Now, a new survey by the Pew Research Center suggests that little has changed. For starters, health authorities, including those from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are feeling the love from some groups, but not from others. About 72% of Democrats say that public-health officials have done a good or excellent job of responding to the pandemic, compared with just 29% of Republicans. People also hold different views on vaccines, which continue to divide us. Only 55% of Americans say that vaccination has been extremely or very effective at limiting the spread of the disease. The rest are evenly divided…

IN MID-JUNE, HIP-HOP MOGUL DRAKE HAD A surprise: his seventh studio album, Honestly, Nevermind, would drop the next day. Those who hit “play” were in for another revelation: Drake, normally a bellwether for incoming pop-music trends thanks to his ravenous appetite for the next big thing, was singing about his heartbreaks and haters over the syncopated rhythms and heavy beats of house music. Fast-forward a weekend and Beyoncé, a similar signpost for what’s coming in pop, released the first single from Renaissance, her seventh album. “Break My Soul” is fueled by insistent synths and the feeling that the world is closing in, with Beyoncé “lookin’ for a new foundation/ And I’m on that new vibration.” Two of pop’s most important artists shifting in similar musical directions might be one shy…

NOT LONG AGO, FEW IN WASHINGTON THOUGHT Donald Trump would face prosecution for the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump did not directly participate in the riot, unlike nearly all of the more than 800 people the Justice Department has charged as part of its wide-ranging investigation. The former President’s allies have claimed that the violence that day came as a surprise to them and to Trump, and some of his defenders have suggested that even if he could be linked to specific crimes, he lacked the criminal intent legally required for conviction because he really believed the 2020 election had been stolen. Now, after seven hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, the picture has changed. In widely watched testimony, former…

Pulse oximeters less accurate for patients of color Inaccurate pulse-oximeter readings led health care providers to give less oxygen to Black, Hispanic, and Asian ICU patients, according to a July 11 study in JAMA Internal Medicine. The finger-clip medical devices became ubiquitous during the COVID-19 pandemic, but have been found to overestimate the blood oxygen of patients with darker skin. Biden trip seeks to affirm Mideast ties President Biden arrived in the Middle East on July 13 with the goals of strengthening relationships between Israel and Saudi Arabia, slowing Iran’s nuclear program, and increasing oil flow to the West. The trip has been criticized for the planned meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince, who has been implicated in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. Russia buying Iranian UAVs, U.S. says Iran is…

AT SCHOOL ON FRIDAY, JULY 1, 4½-YEAR-OLD LIORA drew four white crayon figures on black paper, smiling beneath a neon firework display. This was a picture of her family at the Highland Park Fourth of July celebration. The event would be canceled, the community shaken after a mass shooting at the morning parade left seven dead and dozens injured. In its place, a manhunt would spread terror through the Chicago suburb as residents sheltered in place. When evening fell, Liora would be huddled in her parents’ room, asking about the “bad man that wants to shoot us” while her little brother kept repeating, “scary part, run.” But on Friday, she and her family knew none of this. They, like so many of us, went into the long weekend excited for…

IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF RAP Sh!t, a new HBO Max comedy from Issa Rae, a bitter rapper announces her retirement. “Y’all’s favorites are out here doing the bare minimum, with no originality, while I’m living and breathing this rap sh-t,” Shawna (Aida Osman) chides her social media followers in a video. “Y’all say, ‘Ooh, I want a different type of female rapper.’ No, you f-ckin’ don’t.” Shawna has hit a rough patch. A talented MC who enjoyed brief viral fame but now struggles to find an audience for her socially conscious raps, she works at a Miami Beach hotel. The producer she dropped out of college to collaborate with promotes a surgically enhanced white woman who raps in a bikini. A pal who works at Spotify isn’t helping. Meanwhile,…

Do you consider yourself a leader? Yes, but more in the intellectual and conceptual field than in the actual political leadership field. You include Richard Nixon in a book of inspired leaders. Are you trying to retilt history in his favor? Not in the sense that I set out to find a way to retell history. In the field of foreign policy, in which I knew him best, he took over a difficult and declining situation and tried to show a way out; some of his policies in the Middle East and on China set a pattern that lasted for over a generation. How do you think history will judge the leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky? Zelensky is doing a heroic and extraordinary job in leading a country that normally would…