British counterterrorism police are leading an investigation after five men were arrested on suspicion of explosives offenses and preparing a terrorist act near an air base used by U.S. forces.

Police received a report at around 12:45 a.m. Sunday about three suspicious vehicles traveling toward RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, southwestern England. Armed officers responded and arrested the men in nearby Whelford.

Fairford is used as a forward operating location for the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command. The base has hosted U.S. B-52 and B-1 bombers during the Iran war, according to ABC News. American forces have used Fairford to carry out strikes against Iranian missile sites, the Associated Press reported.

Read More: Why More Republicans Are Breaking With Trump on Iran

In a press conference Sunday, Assistant Chief Constable Richard Ocone said that about 85 households in the area were advised to evacuate early Sunday morning as a precaution.

"A 400m cordon has been put in place around the vehicles, while the Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit examine them,” Ocone said. A statement from police earlier Sunday said that they believe the situation is “contained.”

Aerial footage from Sky News shows a bomb disposal robot moving between three white vans at the site, with the rear doors of two vehicles open.

Ocone added that the men remain in custody and will be questioned by police.

The base is home to both the 501st Combat Support Wing Headquarters and the 420th Air Base Squadron, and serves as the “preferred bomber forward operating location in Europe,” according to the U.S. Air Force. 

TIME has reached out to the U.S. Air Force for comment on the incident.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who assumed the post in July, called the incident “deeply concerning” on X.

“The safety and security of the public is our first priority, and I want people to know that we will always take every step necessary to protect our communities and keep our country safe,” he wrote. “The investigation remains ongoing, and I would urge people not to speculate while the authorities establish the full facts.”

When asked by reporters about the arrests, U.S. President Donald Trump called them “fantastic.”

“They were looking to do big damage to our fort,” Trump said of the suspects, “and working with the British worked out great.”

Trump also said the suspects had been under surveillance before their arrests. “We had them under view for a long time, and we got them,” he said.

British police have not confirmed that RAF Fairford was the intended target of the suspected attacks. The Associated Press reported that investigators were considering a possible connection to Iran, but no such link has been confirmed.

As an occupational therapist working in medical respite care, Caitlin Synovec saw people in their 50s or 60s at a moment when their lives had forever shifted. Perhaps a stroke or other serious medical event sent them to the hospital. But too often, during their extended treatment, they lost their jobs and then their housing. Newly homeless, they might manage to snag a spot in a respite care program designed for people without stable housing who need a place to continue their recovery. But then, a question would loom over their future: Where would they go next?

Many patients in that situation wind up living on the streets or in shelters, despite efforts to find them permanent housing. A surprising number of older adults, however, find themselves in a nursing home—even if they don’t need or want that level of care. 

According to research from the United Health Foundation, one in 11 people in nursing homes have “low-care needs,” meaning they do not require physical assistance for bed mobility, transferring, using the toilet, or eating. The ratios vary by state, from a low of 2.5% in Hawaii to nearly 23% in Oklahoma.

It’s an expensive housing solution: One year in a nursing home costs $119,340 on average, compared to around $16,000 per person per year for subsidized permanent supportive housing that includes some services.

Synovec recalls one client in her 50s who lost her housing while she was in the hospital getting treatment for a stroke. Although a family member was willing to take her in, she couldn’t navigate their second-floor apartment. The stroke left her without the use of one arm and with mild cognitive problems, but she still was able to manage most daily activities, including taking the bus to visit family, friends, and her church. She needed some help—for example, with getting dressed—but she valued her independence. 

“She didn’t want to be institutionalized,” says Synovec, who is now assistant director of medical respite at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. “She wanted to be in the community.”

The woman went to a homeless shelter, but then she fell and ended up in the emergency room. The hospital discharged her to a nursing home. Many emergency shelters aren’t equipped for the elderly, even though older adults are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. 

Shelters often house people in bunk beds. Their bathrooms typically aren’t designed for people with disabilities. And shelter residents must leave early each morning and fend for themselves until the shelter reopens in the evening.

Failing a generation

The better option—permanent supportive housing—has an average wait list of over two years, and even that housing may lack accessibility for elderly people with mobility issues. Under the Trump Administration’s shift away from permanent supportive housing toward time-limited transitional housing, wait lists are expected to grow, and some formerly homeless older adults could be displaced. 

“They get to a point essentially where there’s not a place in the community for them to go,” says Synovec. “The option is long-term care—nursing home care—or they die on the street.”

Gaps in the social safety net are widening as Baby Boomers age, says Dennis P. Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania social science researcher with a focus on housing policy and homelessness. In 2025, one out of every five people living in emergency shelters or on the streets was 55 or older. “We’re failing in every direction in terms of not providing shelter—exposing people to greater harm and health risk and disability,” Culhane says.

As a social worker and researcher, Ian Johnson interviewed dozens of social workers, nurses, and other professionals in Seattle who were helping unhoused older adults cope with serious medical conditions. Many of the older adults feared being in a more restrictive environment if they went to a nursing home, and nurses and social workers told of patients who chose to return to the streets from a hospital or rehab unit rather than enter long-term nursing home care.

That’s a common sentiment. Three out of four older adults want to age in their current home and community, according to surveys by AARP, an advocacy organization for older Americans. “Early institutionalization” often separates people from their family, friends, and neighborhood. “That is not different for people living in supportive housing or sometimes living in a tent in the woods or at a homeless shelter,” says Johnson, who is now at Boston University School of Social Work. “People want to spend their end of life still having a sense of self and a sense of autonomy.”

At the same time, stories also abound of nursing homes discharging vulnerable older adults to homeless shelters—or to no destination at all. The triggering event could be a violation of rules, such as smoking or substance use, or depletion of insurance.

Those opposing trends don’t make much sense, except in the context of cost pressures and sparse options. When short-term rehabilitation care ends, patients are expected to pay on their own or leave. Medicaid covers long-term nursing home care, but state eligibility rules vary. Some people who just need parttime help with personal care and medication may end up lingering in a nursing home, covered by Medicaid. In other cases, despite federal rules about safe discharges, nursing homes have dropped off residents at shelters.

An age-friendly option

One answer to this predicament is to build subsidized housing that meets the mobility and care needs of older adults with very low incomes but preserves their sense of independence. In other words, age-friendly, low-income housing would give people who are aging and homeless the “4 Ms” framework that seeks to address mobility, medication, mentation, and what matters most to older adults.

Finding the right care for older adults facing homelessness could be part of a broader rethinking of long-term care. Dr. Jeffrey Farber, a geriatrician who is president and CEO of The New Jewish Home in New York City, has written that “nursing homes serve three distinct populations of older adults—and only one of those actually belongs in what we think of as a nursing home.”

Hospitals tend to discharge patients as soon as they’re medically stable, so nursing homes, also known as skilled nursing facilities, became providers of short-term rehabilitation. When they leave rehab, most patients rely on family caregivers or paid aides for any ongoing help. 

“Some of those patients, when the system breaks down and there’s no place for them to go that’s safe and affordable, they just end up staying” in the nursing home, Farber told me. “They’re benefiting from some services that we provide, but they certainly could be cared for in a lower-acuity setting or a lower-cost setting.”

Farber envisions a remake: Hospitals would provide the sub-acute care and only discharge patients when they are ready to go home. People who are homeless and aging with manageable medical conditions would have access to subsidized housing and special programs tailored to their needs.

The rest would receive long-term monitoring and care for their complex medical needs at a transformed version of nursing homes that he would rebrand as Compassionate Care Homes, “always non-profit, mission-driven.” He added that these homes must be funded adequately, with investment in workforce training. 

The oldest Baby Boomers turn 80 in 2026. By 2030, every Baby Boomer will be 65 or older. Just as they have impacted so many aspects of society, they will overwhelm the capacity for senior housing, long-term care, and emergency shelter. 

It never made sense to house people with low-care needs in nursing homes, but this wave will make doing so unsustainable. Farber wants to spark a conversation about transforming long-term care and the way it’s funded. 

“The system is fundamentally broken,” he says, “and we’re not going to fix it with band-aids.”

President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is seeking to cancel almost $1 billion in federal funding, sidestepping congressional approval and earning criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Using a controversial move known as a “pocket rescission,” Trump said he wanted to nullify $810 million in spending that Congress had approved for programs and agencies, much of which would serve immigrants, minorities, and children.

Read More: A Debt Ceiling Fight Looms in 2027. Could a Democratic Congress Make it the Last One?

Over half of the cuts would land on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to a request sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday. It said that rescinding the funds is “consistent with the Administration's goal of ending the use of Federal taxpayer dollars to support non-citizens, putting Americans first.”

In a statement accompanying the request, the Trump Administration also called the funds “wasteful” and “harmful.” 

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan government watchdog, has asserted, however, that the move is an illegal sidestepping of the constitutionally protected separation of powers—chiefly, Congress's power of the purse.

What is a pocket rescission? 

A “pocket rescission” is not a formal or legal term; it was coined to reference a “pocket veto,” a process in which a bill fails to become law because the President does not sign it within 10 days and Congress’s adjournment prevents its return. Similarly, the “pocket rescission” aims to withdraw allocated funding without direct congressional intervention.

The timing is important when it comes to pocket rescissions. In order to be fully effective, this “occurs when a president asks Congress to rescind (or cancel) funds very close to the end of the fiscal year—so close that the funds expire before they can be used for new obligations,” according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), helmed by Director Russell Vought, submitted the requests Friday and holds that the move is valid under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act (ICA). 

The Impoundment Control Act was created in response to President Richard Nixon’s heavy use of impoundments to achieve his policy goals. It has since been used to limit or regulate a president’s ability to control spending that has already been appropriated by building in 45 days of continuous congressional session. During this time, Congress is meant to review a President’s rescission requests and either approve them or see the funds released as planned.

Trump’s request to cancel $810 million in funding, however, came just five days before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, all but ensuring that Congress will not have time to review the proposal in full or prevent the cuts from going into effect. 

It is not the first time Trump has used this strategy to thwart spending attempts. He submitted a request on Aug. 28, 2025, to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid funds approved by Congress, including $3.2 billion that had been allocated to USAID. Although the move was contested, the Supreme Court last year stayed a lower court injunction requiring roughly $4 billion covered by the rescission request to be obligated. 

The GAO claims that the move is illegal, writing on its website that this application of the ICA would “cede Congress’s power of the purse by allowing a president to, in effect, change the law by shortening the period of availability for fixed-period funds.”

“If Congress wanted a president to have that authority, it would need to change the law,” it continues.

Zachary Price, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, says that the move is an “abuse” of the ICA. 

“It’s perverse to read that as, instead, creating this mechanism for unilaterally canceling funds,” Price tells TIME, adding that this interpretation is not supported by a lot of “historical practice.”

The maneuver seeks to withhold the funds until they expire at the end of the fiscal year, leaving Congress little time to respond.

In this case, Price says, it further showcases how the ICA is being manipulated.

The government “shouldn't have a lot of money left over at the end of the fiscal year if you've been spending it as you go in the way the statute contemplates,” he says.

He also points out that the American government is distinctly separated into three branches, with Congress, sitting in the legislative branch, being given the power to pass legislation—or, in this case, cancel funds that have already been appropriated. It has been explicitly separated from the authority of the executive branch and the President.

Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, says it even plainer than Price: “The administration has picked a bunch of things that they hate, and they say, ‘Well, we're just not going to do those.’”

The Supreme Court’s intervention last year did not constitute a ruling on the authority of pocket rescissions, meaning that the Trump Administration's latest use of the tactic could face new legal challenges.

Which federal programs would lose funding and what’s at stake?

The largest portion of this year’s proposed cuts will target HHS programs providing nonprofit services for refugees and unaccompanied minors. Trump’s request would withdraw $567 million from those services.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was also impacted, with a request to cancel funding for nonprofits that provide mental health services and social services to migrants. Another cut targets almost $25 million that had been slated for the Department of Education’s Special Programs for Migrant Students. 

The Housing and Urban Development Department’s housing counseling services are also named amid the rescissions; the Trump Administration said that the program included non-governmental organizations with “divisive and DEI-centric agendas.”

The Trump Administration also aims to cancel $15 million from a Department of Justice office that focuses on reducing racial tensions, in addition to $10 million that had been allocated to the Minority Business Development Agency, which supports minority entrepreneurs. 

“I assume that they're picking money to cancel based on some political calculus about what they can get away with,” Price says. When looking at the bigger picture, he argues this is just one maneuver in several to “establish stronger executive control over spending.”

The move also risks future negotiations in Congress, Price says. He explains that this application of the ICA would make it harder for Democrats and Republicans to compromise over spending if they anticipate that the sitting President will simply swoop in and cancel funding after thoughtful agreements have been reached.

“If the executive branch can come in and effectively impose a more kind of party line view of the spending, then you know why would people agree to the package in the first place?” he asks.

Can Congress stop Trump’s pocket rescission?

The rescission has earned blowback from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who believe that the move sidesteps Congress's authority.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, lambasted the move on social media Friday evening, saying she would “work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions.”

“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, Collins’s Democratic counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, called the move “theft from the American people.” 

“Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious, because Vought is saying their votes don’t count,” Murray said in a statement on X. 

The August 2025 pocket rescission was challenged in an existing lawsuit brought by nonprofits, including AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, over the Administration’s prior foreign aid freeze. In September, the Supreme Court allowed the funds covered by the rescission request to remain withheld while litigation continued. This year, similar lawsuits are likely to emerge—but how they might shape future ICA actions remains to be seen.

According to Kogan, this move sets up a potential battle in Congress to claw back these funds in the next fiscal cycle by reappropriating funds to the same programs.

“One thing that Congress could do is they could say ‘I know you illegally didn't spend it this year, but take that money we’re going to slap it right back on,’” he says. “That doesn't make [Vought] spend it next year, but it does say that we are going to make sure this money gets out the door, even if it's years late.”

In 2009, I moved to Middletown, Conn. from Seoul, South Korea to study ethnomusicology. At the time, I admittedly did not listen to K-pop, seeing it as largely teen pop, though I would soon realize how limited my view was. Over the next decade, as the genre became increasingly visible in the United States, it reshaped not only how American audiences encountered Korean popular music, but also how I understood its global significance.

That shift is still unfolding, and recent events have raised new questions about how K-pop is categorized and recognized within the American music industry. Those questions came into particularly sharp relief early this summer, when the Recording Academy announced a new category, Best Asian Pop Music Performance, for the 2027 Grammy Awards. In response, the world’s biggest boy band, BTS, announced that they would not submit their music for Grammy consideration.

The decision sparked heated debates among K-pop fans around the world, some of whom feared that the new category would sideline Asian artists by placing them in a separate “Asian Pop” category while reducing their chances of recognition in the Grammys’ prestigious General Fields awards.

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. clarified that “The Asian Pop category was created to celebrate the depth, diversity, and extraordinary growth of pop artistry coming out of Asia,” and that submitting music in a genre category would not exclude an artist from also submitting and being considered for Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. 

This controversy raises important questions. Is a category like “Best Asian Pop Music Performance” necessary? Does it risk creating a new form of segregation? Or can it provide greater visibility for Asian artists in American mainstream media?

The United States’ influence on Korean popular music

The first music cassette tape that I bought as a Korean kid living in Seoul in the 1990s was Mariah Carey’s compilation album, #1’s. Well into the 2000s, listening to Western pop was considered “cool” in South Korea. Koreans certainly listened to gayo, or Korean popular music, although Western pop often carried a different kind of cultural prestige. Western pop was typically described as more “intellectual,” “authentic,” and “meaningful.” Radio DJs and music critics did not hesitate to encourage young Koreans to listen to more Western pop rather than gayo.

The cultural hierarchy between Western and Korean popular music was shaped by South Korea’s postwar political and military relationship with the United States. South Korea’s commercial recording industry began to take shape in the early 20th century through the activities of Japanese and American record companies. Following liberation from Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, and the division of the peninsula, South Korea came increasingly under U.S. political and military influence.

In the years following the Korean War in the 1950s, the Eighth U.S. Army shows became an important site for the development of South Korean popular music, employing hundreds of Korean entertainers to perform American popular music and other forms of entertainment for U.S. soldiers. Korean performers would listen to the American Forces Korea Network (AFKN), transcribe music they heard on the radio, and memorize the latest American songs for performances at military bases.

For decades afterward, imported albums, AFKN, and MTV remained important sources through which Korean musicians and audiences encountered new musical trends from the United States.

U.S. military, media, and commercial networks became powerful channels through which American popular music entered South Korea and shaped the development of its contemporary popular music industry. Indeed, American pop was long considered more prestigious and trendier than Korean pop—until K-pop began to command international recognition of its own.

The K-pop universe

K-pop refers primarily to music performed by artists known as “idols,” whose careers are developed and managed by entertainment companies. This integrated system was first established in 1995 by Lee Soo Man, founder and producer of SM Entertainment, to bring artist recruitment, talent management, and music and visual production under one roof. Inspired by Motown’s Fordist model of music production and Japan’s idol industry, Lee developed a cultural industry in which idols could grow into professional artists and, eventually, entrepreneurs themselves.

Shortly after I moved to the U.S., I began encountering more and more American fans who asked me if I knew acts like Girls’ Generation or BIGBANG. These fans introduced me to the world of K-pop, and I gradually stopped listening to American pop. Around the same time, Korean music critics lamented that younger Koreans were no longer listening to Western pop as they once had. Perhaps I was not the only one.

Over the last decade, I have met hundreds of American K-pop fans as a K-pop ethnographer. My first question is always the same: “Why do you like K-pop?” The question carries an assumption: “If K-pop is merely a copy of American pop, as some critics dismissively claim, why listen to the replica rather than the original?”

Their responses were surprisingly similar, as if they had compared notes. K-pop was “magical” and “catchy,” while American pop was “boring” and “always the same.” According to these fans, while American pop stars sang “too much about sex, drugs, and parties,” K-pop offered “dreams, fantasies, and self-growth,” often through elaborate alternative “universes” in which idols developed distinct personas and narratives.

This idea of “universe” was first systematically introduced to K-pop in 2012, when SM Entertainment debuted EXO as extraterrestrial beings from “EXO Planet,” each endowed with a supernatural power. Since then, world-building has become increasingly intertwined with K-pop’s integration of music, dance, costume, stage design, fashion, beauty, digital media, and more recently, virtual idols and AI production, making K-pop an increasingly audiovisual, narrative, and participatory cultural form for audiences worldwide.

Parallel to the fantasy world presented on stage and through mass media, entertainment companies—especially those with smaller budgets and limited access to traditional media networks—began to use online platforms to communicate with fans by revealing more down-to-earth, behind-the-scenes moments. BTS became one of the most prominent examples through its YouTube series BANGTAN BOMB, which captured offstage moments that portrayed the members as humble, playful, and hardworking. Fans, in turn, voluntarily created subtitles in multiple languages, helping introduce BTS to international audiences and expand its global fanbase.

Few popular music industries have institutionalized fan participation as intensively as K-pop. Idol groups compete against one another every week on televised music chart shows, relying heavily on various forms of fan labor, including album purchases, song and music video streaming, and fan voting.

K-pop fans have developed highly coordinated strategies to influence chart performance, spending considerable time, energy, and money to push their favorite idols’ new releases to the top. The scale of this participation can be striking: In 2023, 19 of the top 20 albums on IFPI’s Global Album Sales Chart—which measures physical album sales and full-album downloads worldwide—were by South Korean acts. This collective fandom power became especially visible in 2017, when BTS won Billboard’s Top Social Artist award, a fan-voted prize that helped propel the group into the center of American mainstream attention—a kind of “fan-forced entry” into the American market, as ARMYs sometimes jokingly put it. BTS went on to win the award five consecutive times, from 2017 to 2021, until the category was discontinued the following year.

K-pop’s power in the modern music landscape

Today, people no longer rely on MTV to learn about new releases. Nor do they simply listen to music. They actively seek out new music on platforms such as Spotify and YouTube and participate in fan discussions on X and TikTok. Fans also use these platforms to pressure media and entertainment companies through organized protests, boycotts, and coordinated online campaigns.

Fan power certainly existed in the old media era, but digital media has made it more immediate, visible, and able to reach beyond the boundaries of individual fandoms. Organized fan communities directly influence entertainment companies’ decisions. This means that media industries—including the American music and entertainment industries, which have long served as powerful gatekeepers in the global music market—may not exercise the same degree of control over which artists gain visibility and recognition.

Why, then, is BTS refusing to submit its music for Grammy consideration? The Recording Academy presents Best Asian Pop Music Performance as a genre category determined by musical style, yet its eligibility rules make language a crucial condition of entry.

The Academy states, “The musical style is determinative of eligibility, not the ethnicity or nationality of the performer(s).” Yet it also requires that “an Asian language should play a significant role within the song,” while “incidental or minimal use of an Asian language” does not qualify. A recording performed entirely in English is therefore ineligible for the category. The Academy also prohibits artists from entering different language versions of the same recording in separate performance categories.

For K-pop artists who often release both Korean- and English-language versions of the same song, submitting the English version in another performance category means they cannot separately submit the Korean version for Best Asian Pop Music Performance.

This creates a dilemma. An English-language recording cannot qualify as Asian Pop, while recordings primarily performed in Asian languages have historically had little presence among the Grammy General Field winners.

But before considering this dilemma, a more fundamental question arises: If eligibility is determined by musical style, what does language have to do with it? Why should a K-pop act’s music be labeled “Asian” on the basis of language—and if a recording is performed entirely in English, does it somehow cease to be “Asian pop”? More importantly, why must Asian artists prove their Asianness, rather than simply being recognized as individual musicians, as Western artists often are?

What is ‘Asian pop?’

This raises another question: What, exactly, constitutes “Asianness” in music? K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop, for instance, are only a few of the many musical cultures that may be grouped under the label “Asian,” yet they use different languages and emerge from distinct musical industries and cultural histories. On what musical grounds, then, are they grouped together under a single category called “Asian Pop”?

BTS’s decision not to submit its music for Grammy consideration was a bold one. At the same time, the group can afford to say no. We now live in a world where BTS can walk away from the Grammys and filmmaker Bong Joon Ho can famously call the Oscars “very local.” Artists like BTS can turn instead to other mainstream platforms and reach audiences around the world. The Grammys remain prestigious, but they are no longer the only institution capable of conferring global recognition.

Other K-pop acts will likely continue to submit their work to the Grammys’ Asian Pop category, but not necessarily in pursuit of the symbolic recognition historically attached to the award. They may instead regard it as one among many opportunities for media exposure and broader audience reach.

This leaves us with one last lingering question: Can every “Asian” musician afford to say no to the Grammys? BTS can walk away and still remain mainstream artists in South Korea, receiving recognition through platforms such as the Melon Music Awards and MAMA Awards. But what about Asian American musicians in the United States, for whom the American music industry is not a foreign market they can simply leave behind, but their own domestic mainstream?

The Recording Academy says it wants to celebrate an Asianness that is “widely recognized within Asian markets, including K-Pop, J-Pop, and C-Pop.” But where, then, does that leave Asian American artists whose music may be rooted in the United States rather than in an “Asian market”? For them, the United States is not a foreign market, but home.

The larger question, then, is whether “Asian” can meaningfully function as a cultural category. The Grammys have bet that it will.

My concern is that this framing threatens to collapse distinct cultures into one. A label as broad as “Asian” does not by itself imply a shared language, culture, or musical tradition. Pop music may be more global than ever, but not every artist gets to be just pop.

A few months ago, a new patient sat down in my office and started talking before I had finished my hello. She hadn’t slept well in months, and it showed. She was short with her husband, tired at her desk, and dreading her own bed as if it had betrayed her. My patient turned her phone toward me the way you would hand over bad bloodwork. A sleep score: 61 out of 100. “Look how bad it is,” she said.

I see it all the time. An ordinary bad week or two of sleep turned serious by constant monitoring. For a growing number of my patients, rigid discipline and the effort to sleep perfectly can tip a rough patch of poor sleep into a diagnosis of clinical insomnia.

How did we get here? For decades, sleep was an afterthought. It was the first thing people cut when ambition or parenting demanded more. Thomas Edison called sleep “an absurdity, a bad habit,” and believed his lightbulb would free us from needing it at all. Then, over the last decade, we swung hard the other way. Arianna Huffington’s collapse and Matthew Walker’s best-selling book Why We Sleep turned sleep into a public-health alarm. Wearables placed a number on what used to be a feeling, and adequate sleep became a status symbol. Within a few years, the trend bloated further into “sleepmaxxing,” the latest iteration of optimizing sleep as aggressively as a workout.

Sleep clinicians have named what happens when that grading goes too far. Orthosomnia is an unhealthy preoccupation with achieving perfect sleep that produces the insomnia it was meant to prevent. The condition is a parody of itself. You cannot relax your way to good sleep while obsessively checking whether you are relaxed enough to get sleepy.

Orthosomnia doesn’t have one cause. I often see it begin in earnest attempts at improving sleep hygiene. These are the standard sleep rules most of us absorbed by osmosis: consistent bedtime, no screens before bed, no caffeine after noon. These rules are not wrong. The delivery is the problem. Handed over as a checklist rather than a set of leads worth trying, ordinary advice becomes a pass-or-fail test. After one bad night, the panic sets in. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I fix this? Orthosomnia has taken hold.

Sleep hygiene guidance was built on general associations between behavior and sleep quality, drawn from population averages. Along the way, it calcified into a moral checklist, and a surprisingly rigid one. Patients express genuine shame at “failing” sleep hygiene because they scrolled their phone in bed once, or napped on a Sunday, or had a glass of wine with dinner. None of that failure is clinical. But people start to feel that way when flexible advice is treated as dogma. 

Applied uniformly, sleep hygiene ignores an obvious fact. Sleep is not the same for everyone. A rule that calms one person's nervous system agitates another’s. Some anxious patients sleep better with the TV on. Others, especially shift workers and jet-lagged travelers, need a hard digital cutoff.

The rules were written for the average person who does not exist. They are obsessed over every night by people who very much do.

Even for chronic insomnia, sleep hygiene alone does not solve the problem. British researchers ran a large primary care trial and found that simply providing a sleep hygiene booklet barely moved the needle. A short course of behavioral treatment worked more than twice as well. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine had already reached the same conclusion, advising against using sleep hygiene as a stand-alone treatment for chronic insomnia.

I advise my patients to treat sleep-related lifestyle interventions as a menu instead. Individualize it. Some will work, and some won’t. The only way to find out is to test them one at a time, with nothing riding on the result. Maybe consistent wake times matter more than consistent bedtimes. Maybe a Sunday afternoon nap is harmless. Maybe the phone in bed is fine as long as it’s not the news. What doesn’t work, you cross off. What’s left is your menu, and you don’t order the same thing every night. It changes as your life does.

A sleep menu is a harder sell than a checklist. The certainty of itemized requirements is what anxious sleepers chase. But certainty is a trap. In my experience, what predicts recovery from sleep issues is permission: the willingness to stop treating a bad night as a failure, and to start treating sleep as something worth understanding on your own terms.

My patient with the sleep score did eventually sleep better, in part because she stopped checking her stats every morning like a report card. She discarded her old sleep hygiene rules and adopted a personal sleep recipe that belonged to her. 

Sleep isn’t something to master. It’s a menu you keep rewriting, a recipe you keep adjusting, until it fuels the life you actually live.

Grief does funny things to people; sometimes it even makes them a little crazy. That’s what happens to bereaved widow Haru, played by Rinko Kikuchi, in Josef Kubota Wladyka’s bittersweet comedy Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! Haru lives happily in Tokyo with her husband, Luis (Alejandro Edda), who’s also her dance partner—the two enjoy competitive ballroom dancing, a joyous physical representation of the relaxed, real-life romance that plays out at home. Then Luis is taken from Haru. She stops seeing friends and family and, worse yet, stops dancing. Nine months later, when she’s finally persuaded to return to the studio for a class, a new instructor, Alberto Guerra’s Fedir, stops her cold: He’s a fantastic dancer, and handsome as a stallion. A fling might be just what she needs. Or could it be the worst thing?

That’s just the barest outline of Haru’s plight. The movie Wladyka, along with his cowriter Nicholas Huynh, has built around her is a swirl of unchained desire, of fantasy dance sequences that unfold on ordinary Tokyo streets, and totally messy feelings. There’s no easy, one-size-fits-all way to navigate the loss of a loved one, just one of the truths that Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! navigates with warmth and humor. The movie is pleasing, if slight, though Kikuchi’s performance is nuanced enough to keep you watching, and to keep you rooting for her.

The intimacy between Haru and Luis is reflected in the warmth of the home they’ve built together—most notably a wall of LPs, fronted by a turntable, that serves as a kind of hearth, which makes sense for two people who love to dance. It looks like heaven, but for Haru it becomes a kind of limbo, a place where the dead and the living rub shoulders, sometimes uneasily. After Luis’ death, Haru can barely bring herself to face the music, either literally or figuratively. She still feels his presence everywhere, and she sees it, too: he rather whimsically appears to her in the form a big black Tweety Bird with dark, shiny eyes. His human arms reach for her beneath his bird wings, and she allows herself to be enfolded in his embrace. It’s both a comforting place to be and one that’s a little dangerous.

When Haru meets Fedir—whose wife is a Paris-based dance champion, though the marriage is an open one—she glimpses fresh possibilities, or at least just an adventure. In an early scene, after she and Fedir have had a pleasant, platonic dinner together, they’re ready to part ways in the street. A crew of drunken businessmen jostle Haru, and Fedir stands up for her. What follows is a cleverly choreographed dream ballet—though the genre is actually the bachata, one of the dance forms Fedir teaches, its movements an expression of longing and heartache—in which Fedir defends Haru’s honor against this gang of boorish men. Other passersby join in, and the scene becomes a metaphor for the act of rejoining life. By the end of the evening, Haru and Fedir have tumbled into bed.

Their two hookups are enjoyable and tender—until the wife shows up, and Haru realizes she has feelings she can’t control. Kikuchi shifts gears smoothly: One minute, she shows how Haru is nearly deadened by sorrow. The next, her exhilaration becomes a kind of artificial sunshine. But a flash of anger and jealousy causes her to act out, in a scene that makes you recoil a bit even as you laugh. Kikuchi is perhaps best known for her roles in movies like Babel and Pacific Rim, as well as HBO’s Tokyo Vice, several episodes of which Wladyka directed. Here, she captures the spirit of a woman who longs to get back to being herself, if only she could remember who that self was. Haru is both breezy and cautious, and totally lost. By the movie's end, she has found her way forward, because she realizes there’s no going back. She’ll have to be a new person, encompassing the experiences and memories of the old one. Kikuchi captures that difficult butterfly transition as it unfolds; it’s both painful and funny to watch. But in the end, she shows us how Haru finds her way back to the music, which is the only way she can move into the future, one note, and one dance step, at a time.   

A massive nor'easter is sweeping across the U.S. Northeast this weekend, impacting coastal regions from the Midatlantic to Maine—bringing heavy rains, flooding, and wind gusts surpassing 60 miles per hour in some affected areas. Those impacts are forecast to continue through Monday.

“This nor'easter is shaping up to be impactful in part because it will be slow moving, potentially building up a large storm surge,” Michael Mann, a professor of climate science and climate change at the University of Pennsylvania, said as the storm was making its approach on Friday. 

Coastal flooding has since submerged roads in parts of New Jersey, including in Atlantic City, where water levels surged to levels unseen since Superstorm Sandy. 

The weather also interrupted air travel in the area, and dozens of festivals, concerts, and sporting events were also cancelled or rescheduled over the weekend.

While September nor’easters aren’t unheard of, they are uncommon. And as the climate warms, research suggests that the strongest storms are also going to become more intense.

What is a nor'easter?

Named for the winds that blow in from the northeast, the storms typically impact the east coast of the U.S. and Canada, and bring either rain or snow. They can come at any time of the year but are most common between September and April. 

“A nor’easter, like a hurricane, derives some of its energy from the heat of the ocean,” says Mann. However, unlike hurricanes, nor’easters tend to have cold cores, and can linger over an area longer than a hurricane might. 

Nor’easters have been responsible for billions of dollars in damage in the U.S. Memorable nor’easter storms include the New England Blizzard of February 1978, the March 1993 “Superstorm” and the recent Boston snowstorms of January and February 2015. 

How are nor'easters changing due to climate change?

Scientists are still not 100% clear about how nor’easters are changing due to climate change. “There are things we can say with confidence about changes in nor'easters and other areas that we're still coming to an understanding about,” says Mathew Barlow, professor of climate science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that the more intense nor’easters are becoming more extreme—bringing with them more rainfall and stronger winds. That can lead to more storm surges, coastal flooding, and wind damage. 

“Human-caused warming is leading to higher precipitation totals with these storms,” says Mann. And it’s something that’s becoming increasingly common with extreme weather generally. As human-caused climate change warms our atmosphere, it allows it to hold more moisture—and release more precipitation when it rains.

“Not every storm is becoming more intense, but the intense storms are becoming more intense—whether that be a thunderstorm, a hurricane, one of these nor'easters,” Barlow says.

One thing that doesn’t seem to be changing is the number of storms, Barlow adds. “We're not seeing any changes in the overall average, and the total number of storms might actually be going down a little bit,” he notes.

In an ever warming world, storms are only going to continue to intensify. Climate change is increasing the number of “billion dollar disasters,” disasters that top at least $1 billion in damage, that take place in the U.S. each year. The average length of time between billion-dollar disasters has fallen—from 82 days during the 1980s to 16 days during the last 10 years. In 2025, the U.S. experienced a billion-dollar weather or climate disaster once every 10 days. 

“Until we stop increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the intensity of rainfall, the intensity of these storms, will continue to increase as well,” says Barlow. “Until we stop making things worse, things are going to keep getting worse.”

European leaders are rallying behind the International Criminal Court (ICC) after President Donald Trump called for countries to "immediately" resign from the organization, amid a broader push by the U.S. Administration to dismantle it.

Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin pledged his support for the ICC and said Ireland “strongly opposes efforts to undermine the court,” during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday.

Referencing the Hague-based court as he discussed the conflict in Ukraine, Martin said Russia must be held “accountable” for its actions. “There can be no impunity for war crimes… that is why Ireland is a steadfast supporter of the International Criminal Court,” he said, stressing that all “measures against it should be immediately withdrawn.”

Netherlands Prime Minister Rob Jetten issued a similar defense of the ICC earlier in the day. Without directly mentioning Trump or the U.S., Jetten reflected on how the court has come “under attack” and asked how can anyone “possibly be opposed to prosecuting the very worst crimes?"

“​I ⁠believe there can be only one response,” he continued. “To say: 'hands off' the ICC, and all those other institutions that protect the international legal order.” The remarks drew loud applause from attending delegates.

The ICC is recognized as the world’s highest criminal court. It draws its jurisdiction from the Rome Statute, a treaty that went into effect in 2002 and is ratified by 125 countries. Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a state party to the Rome Statute, and therefore they do not recognize the jurisdiction of the court.

Trump has long complained that the ICC oversteps its authority and should not claim jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. His calls against the organization culminated in a public appeal at the U.N. on Tuesday. During his 45-minute speech, Trump called “on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution, immediately.”

He said the U.S. is “opposed to the out-of-control institution known as the ICC” and “will never allow U.S. service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us.”

His call to action was swiftly rejected by German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

"We will, of course, not be doing that," Wadephul told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio station on Wednesday. He described the court as "an important institution” and said the issue is "one of the areas where we do indeed have to acknowledge a regrettable difference in policy from the U.S. Administration."

Similarly, European Council president Antonio Costa said the E.U. stands “firmly behind” the ICC and argued it’s “unacceptable to threaten or attack the International Criminal Court, its officials, and its staff.”

At the U.N. assembly, the only nation to follow Trump’s lead appeared to be Naoero, a microstate island country formerly known as Nauru.

Naoero President David Adeang said in his speech late Tuesday that he would formally withdraw his country from the Rome Statute, citing the ICC’s “increasing irrelevance.”

"Naoero joins a ⁠growing number of nations standing up for their sovereignty against the ICC’s illegitimate overreach,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Michael DeSombre, after meeting with Naoero’s Deputy Foreign Minister.

Leaving the ICC is neither an immediate or clean break, experts tell TIME.

Withdrawal takes at least a year, and states remain bound to cooperate with proceedings opened before their departure, according to Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at Open University Netherlands.

“The state that intends to withdraw has to file a notification of withdrawal from the statute, and it comes into effect only one year after such notification has been received by the depository of the treaty,” he says. “Those states are still obliged to provide full cooperation to the court for all the proceedings and cases that started while they were a state party and right until the moment when their withdrawal becomes effective.”

Five other states—Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Venezuela, and Chad—have recently moved to withdraw from the organization. Vasiliev calls their planned departures a “serious loss,” but says it is not “lethal to the existence of the ICC.”

Hungary formally moved to withdraw from the ICC last year under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, but his successor, Péter Magyar, reversed the decision, signaling its renewed commitment to the organization.

A timeline of Trump’s campaign against the ICC

Trump’s complaints with the ICC date back to his first term. In late 2017, the ICC requested to open an investigation into American actions overseas, looking into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Trump pushed back and challenge the court’s authority. During his speech at the U.N. General Assembly in 2018, he claimed the ICC had “no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority” and vowed to “never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”

“The United States has always objected to the ICC's exercise of jurisdiction over its service members,” says Vasiliev, noting this has been an ongoing point of contention.

However, “the ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed on the state party territory, even when those crimes are committed by non-state party nationals,” he adds.

In 2020, Trump signed an Executive Order issuing sanctions in response to the ICC’s Afghanistan investigation, calling the court’s actions “illegitimate assertions of jurisdiction.” The sanctions and visa restrictions against personnel of the ICC were later revoked by former President Joe Biden in 2021.

In more recent years, the Trump Administration’s arguments with the ICC have largely centered on the court’s investigation into possible Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had previously pledged to execute the ICC’s warrant and have Netanyahu arrested when he traveled to the city for the U.N. assembly. But in July, Mamdani conceded that his Administration had “reviewed every avenue available,” only to find they did not have the jurisdiction.

Shortly after returning to office in early 2025, Trump signed an Executive Order declaring a “national emergency” and imposing sanctions on the ICC over what he said was the court’s “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”

Efforts were ramped up again in July, when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a “whole-of-government” effort “to systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.”

A month later, the State Department imposed sanctions on the ICC’s president, Judge Tomoko Akane, and Abdoulaye Seye, a Senegalese senior trial lawyer for the Office of the Prosecutor. The ICC referred to the sanctions as "a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its states parties."

The sanctions targeting the ICC personnel were imposed under the 2025 Executive Order issued by Trump. On Tuesday, 38 civil society groups jointly filed an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief with the U.S. District Court in support of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the sanctions imposed under that Executive Order.

Ted Kaczynski was 16 when he entered Harvard University as a mathematics prodigy. Years later, he would become known as the Unabomber, after carrying out a bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others between 1978 and 1995.

Netflix’s Unabomber directed by Janus Metz, explores Kaczynski’s life before and during the events that led to his capture. Jacob Tremblay plays the younger Kaczynski, while Russell Crowe portrays Harvard professor Henry Murray, Shailene Woodley plays FBI agent Joanne Miller and Annabelle Wallis portrays Christiana Morgan, Murray’s academic collaborator.

“We decided to explore Ted Kaczynski's time at Harvard, as it stood out as a formative and fragile period in his life,” Metz tells TIME. “We wanted to understand who this young man was up until he began his descent into a darker and deadlier path.”

Who was Ted Kaczynski?

Born in Chicago in 1942, Kaczynski demonstrated exceptional mathematical ability from an early age. He entered Harvard at 16 before continuing his studies at the University of Michigan, where he earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in mathematics.

At 25, he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. But he left the university in 1969 and eventually moved to a remote cabin near Lincoln, Mont., where he lived without electricity or running water.

Kaczynski became increasingly isolated from society. He spent much of his time reading, hunting and growing plants, while developing increasingly strong opposition to modern technology and industrial society.

In 1978, Kaczynski began the bombing campaign that would eventually span nearly two decades. His first known attack involved a homemade device mailed to a professor at Northwestern University. It exploded when opened by a campus security officer, causing minor injuries. In November 1979, Kaczynski placed a device aboard an American Airlines flight, causing smoke inhalation injuries and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

Over the years, his targets included universities, airlines and people he associated with technology and the modern industrial system.

The FBI used the case identifier UNABOM, short for “University and Airline Bombing,” before Kaczynski’s identity was known. The media later used it to name him the “Unabomber.” Between 1978 and 1995, 16 attacks were linked to the case, killing Hugh Scrutton, Thomas Mosser and Gilbert Murray and injuring 23 people.

The Unabomber manifesto

Kaczynski’s identity remained a mystery for years. That changed in 1995, when he sent a lengthy manifesto titled “Industrial Society and Its Future”  to The Washington Post and The New York Times and demanded that it be published. The approximately 35,000-word text laid out his opposition to modern technological society and explored ideas about human freedom, autonomy, and the effects of industrialization.

The FBI supported the decision to publish the manifesto in the hope that someone familiar with Kaczynski’s writing would recognize it. That person turned out to be his brother David’s wife, Linda Patrik.

After reading the manifesto, Patrik noticed similarities between its ideas and the writing she had previously seen from Kaczynski. She brought her concerns to David, who initially struggled to believe that his brother could be responsible for the attacks.

David eventually examined the manifesto alongside an essay Kaczynski had written years earlier. The similarities in their language and ideas were striking enough for him to contact the FBI.

The material gave investigators a crucial lead. After years of attacks and an extensive investigation, Kaczynski was now directly connected to the manifesto and the writings that could help identify him as the person behind the Unabomber case.

How was Kaczynski caught?

On April 3, 1996, nearly two decades after the first attack, federal agents surrounded Kaczynski’s remote cabin near Lincoln, Mont., and arrested him.

The search of the property gave investigators a trove of evidence. Inside, they found bomb-making materials, a typewriter, coded diary entries and approximately 40,000 pages of handwritten notes, along with a completed bomb.

Kaczynski later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He remained incarcerated until his death in 2023 at age 81.

While in prison, Kaczynski was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by a psychiatrist who interviewed him. He rejected the idea that he was mentally incapable of understanding his actions. In a 1999 interview with TIME, he said he was certain he was sane.

What happened to Kaczynski at Harvard?

While at Harvard, Kaczynski took part in psychological experiments overseen by professor Henry Murray. Murray worked with Christiana Morgan at the Harvard Psychological Clinic, where they developed the Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT.

“Christiana was the co-creator of the Harvard school of psychology where the tests on Ted Kaczynski took place,” says Wallis, who plays Morgan in the movie. “Murray and Morgan were collaborators at the time and together devised the highly controversial stress tests used on Harvard students. I was fascinated to learn about the extent of her involvement.” 

The experiments involved students writing about their beliefs before undergoing intense psychological sessions. They later became an important part of discussions about Kaczynski’s life, although their precise impact on him remains uncertain.

The full Harvard file on Kaczynski remains classified, making it impossible to know exactly what Murray concluded from the experiments.

“I don't think the Murray experiments in themselves turned Ted Kaczynski into the Unabomber,” says Metz. “There are many factors in Ted Kaczynski's life that contributed to his evolution.”

However, Metz says the experiments were designed to break down participants who knew very little about what they were being subjected to, and that the filmmakers wanted to show them as “likely a piece of the puzzle.”

Metz also points to Kaczynski’s own writings as another part of the story.

“We also know from Ted Kaczynski's own journals that he wanted revenge from feeling disrespected and rejected, which these experiments could have contributed to,” he says.

According to Metz, Kaczynski himself later claimed that the experiments had not had a significant effect on him.

How Jacob Tremblay prepared to play Ted Kaczynski

For Tremblay, one of the challenges of playing Kaczynski was the lack of detailed information about his early life.

“While there is plenty of information to go off of from Ted's adult life, it was challenging to find material regarding his early life when I played him,” Tremblay says. “I was left with a rather blank canvas in terms of how much freedom I would have with the character.” 

Tremblay listened to recordings of Kaczynski’s interrogation after his arrest to study his speech patterns and watched footage of him as an adult, noting his stiff posture. I then put my own youthful, nervous and softer spin on that,” Tremblay says.

The psychological experiment scenes presented a different challenge. Tremblay was strapped to a chair, limiting his movement and expressions. “I learned to utilize that unfamiliar and uncomfortable environment to my advantage,” Tremblay says. “Because Ted himself in that moment is also experiencing that discomfort and unfamiliarity at the same time.”

How accurate is the Netflix movie?

Unabomber is grounded in documented events from Kaczynski’s life, but the film also takes creative liberties with gaps in the historical record.

“But that was fun for the filmmakers and us actors as we got to create something unique from the story we pieced together and that excited me because it distinguishes our film from other tellings of the Unabomber's story,” Tremblay says.

For Metz, the film was also an opportunity to explore parts of Kaczynski’s story that are less familiar to audiences.

“In developing the film, we found that the psychological experiments conducted on Ted Kaczynski during his time at Harvard were unknown to most people, some were not even aware he attended Harvard,” Metz says. “While our film doesn't offer a complete biography, we chose to present a filmic take on his story and a narrative opening into the mind of Ted Kaczynski."

For a brief moment last year, it seemed like the anti-climate atmosphere created by the Trump Administration might kill New York Climate Week. Ahead of the September gathering, business executives and advocates waffled. Was the U.S. still the place to get together to talk about climate? Would going put a target on their back?

This year, it felt almost as though those questions disappeared. Leaders from the world’s biggest companies hopped between panels, engaging in serious discussions about AI-driven electricity demand, geopolitical disruptions to energy markets, and the state of energy and climate policy. Protesters hit the street—as well as disrupting a panel I moderated—to point out that things were moving too slowly. Even Trump Administration officials showed up at some sessions (though they may have framed their participation around the concurrent United Nations General Assembly not Climate Week). 

Take a step back from the chaotic mix of roundtables and dinners, panels and meetings, and it’s clear that the climate agenda, broadly construed, has persisted. There’s no question that anticipated Democratic victories in the fast-approaching U.S. midterm elections have created a sense that much of the administration’s barking will remain just that. But there’s perhaps an even simpler explanation for the continued engagement: the implications of climate change and the related energy issues have only become more important for companies and the economy.   

The energy-market disruption that has resulted from the war in Iran featured prominently this week. So did the political backlash to data centers, the related issues of higher power prices. And the role of new energy technologies in addressing the problem came up early and often in discussions. On top of this, the effects of climate change—storms, heat waves, and fires—have begun to extract real economic damage that even the most resilient firms can no longer ignore.

“People are now looking at the things that cause volatility, and they’re putting it together,” Sarah Kapnick, head of climate advisory at JPMorgan, told me on a Climate Week panel. “They’re putting geopolitics together with sustainability, climate, and AI.”

Still, the apparent vitality of New York Climate Week comes with caveats. I shared my sense that New York Climate Week has rebounded with a European climate leader, who pointed out that American participation may be strong but the presence of leaders from outside the U.S. has diminished somewhat, particularly from Europe. Simply put, many Europeans don’t want to travel here, instead putting their efforts into London Climate Action Week and other gatherings across the Atlantic. 

The climate conversation has also survived in part by shedding some of its old vocabulary. Climate action, net zero, and emissions were mostly out. Energy security, competitiveness, and affordability were in. That may represent a retreat from the sweeping ambition of earlier Climate Weeks. But it also reflects a deeper reality: even when companies stop using the language of climate action, they cannot escape the problems rising emissions have created.

To most of those I discussed the topic with, it remains an open question whether that new framing is a good or bad thing. Emissions reduction paired with economic growth should be celebrated even if climate isn’t mentioned. At the same time, a conversation that avoids getting to the heart of the matter doesn’t feel all that sustainable. For the past several decades we’ve been holding a ticking time bomb, waiting for the effect of climate change to hit. Now, how society responds to the unfolding crisis—embracing adaptation, pushing back against the sources of emissions, or simply turning to populist backlash—may be the new climate time bomb. 

“This move is a diplomatic all-timer,” Santi Ruiz, a policy-focused writer for the Institute for Progress and editorial team member at AI company Anthropic, posted on X. “It's like Messi cutting inside. You know it’s coming. It doesn’t matter how many times they run it. You’re getting those pandas, and you’ll like it.”

The tried-and-tested offering came once again on Thursday as Chinese President Xi Jinping announced during his state visit to the U.S. that Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, two giant pandas from a research base in Chengdu, would be lent to Zoo Atlanta in the state of Georgia—but whether this so-called panda diplomacy remains as welcome as it has over the decades is less clear, eliciting mixed reactions in 2026.

The practice gained traction after the National Zoo received giant pandas from Beijing in the wake of President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972, which marked a new, positive chapter in U.S.-China relations. 

China claims ownership of nearly all the giant pandas in the world, even their offspring, and controls who receives them. Beijing eventually shifted from gifting giant pandas to leasing them to other countries in 1984 as the animal’s population dwindled, but the practice continued and spread to other nations like Austria, Canada, and Malaysia. China regularly considers loaning pandas an act of goodwill—even when the host nation typically foots the bill of about $1 million annually for a pair. 

A giant panda’s presence or absence in a country tends to represent ebbs and flows of its relationship with China. For instance, amid tensions with Japan over Taiwan, Tokyo returned two giant pandas to Sichuan on loan in January, marking the first time Japan does not have a giant panda since 1972, when China-Japan ties first normalized. In 2010, two U.S.-born panda cubs returned to China, days after Chinese officials warned then-President Barack Obama against meeting the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing considers a separatist. 

“No other animal has been turned into a symbol to the extent that pandas have been,” says Czeslaw Tubilewicz, a senior lecturer at Adelaide University.

It’s also no coincidence that Zoo Atlanta received the giant pandas, Tubilewicz says, as the gift represented Beijing’s appreciation of Georgia’s historical economic partnership with China on several aspects: “When most southern states, especially Republican states, turned very negative on China, Georgia continued its pro-China policy consistently. So when it comes to those pandas, and in [Zoo Atlanta], in a way, Xi Jinping is trying to kill two birds with two pandas.”

But China’s transformation from a developing economy to one of the world’s superpowers has also raised questions about whether the gesture of sending giant pandas still works. China is massively different from how it used to be in the 1970s, and is currently embroiled in a wide range of issues, not only with the U.S., but also with other countries, which makes categorizing it neatly as a friend or foe less easy.

Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, tells TIME that “the image of the pandas as soft, friendly, and cuddly—they don’t work today because a lot of [China’s aggressive] actions now are a lot more visible and fresh in people’s minds.”

“No one cares about pandas when national security or geostrategic interests come into play,” Tubilewicz added.

Falling for pandas

A 2022 peer-reviewed study at the University of Connecticut found that U.S. students who viewed panda videos that were not sourced from the government were likely to have a positive attitude toward Chinese culture and, in turn, Chinese people.

But while China’s practice of leasing pandas gives some people warm feelings, it makes others hot with anger. Conservationists and animal advocates have argued against using pandas as geopolitical pawns. Following the South Korea-China Summit earlier this year, the countries’ respective environmental officials discussed additional giant panda loans. But a Korean animal rights group slammed the move, saying that the creatures “are not beings born for human entertainment or interstate friendship.” 

And many others are also starting to look past the panda diplomacy and demand other measures. A 2026 survey of U.S. adults conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago found that 28% of respondents said sending pandas to American zoos would improve their view of China, but much higher percentages said that more concrete actions like Chinese cooperation on curbing fentanyl precursors or easing trade restrictions would improve their view of China.

“The symbolism was still dominant in the 1970s,” Chong said. “It’s just that, given the lack of information, given the environment of that time, the symbolism probably got a lot more traction before than today.”

While surveys show many Americans are warming to China, Chong says “deep reservoirs of reservations remain,” particularly among Trump’s MAGA base: a July survey from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs says that 63% of MAGA Republicans favor limiting the growth of Chinese power.

“Affection for pandas does not automatically translate into support for Chinese government policies,” Yu Tao, associate professor in Chinese Studies at the University of Western Australia, tells TIME. “Its more realistic contribution is to sustain public goodwill and opportunities for cooperation. The strongest case for panda diplomacy is that it gives people something they want to preserve in a relationship otherwise defined pretty much by disputes.”

In the third episode of War, a legal drama from HBO and Britain’s Sky TV, a tech billionaire played by Dominic West makes a generous and degrading offer. He’ll give Steven (Robert Daws), one of many hirelings advising him in a nasty divorce, a wristwatch worth a million dollars if he disrobes “down to your socks, right now.” Steven’s initial response is a nervous giggle. Then he’s frantically unbuttoning his shirt. His point duly made, West’s character, Morgan Henderson, quickly stops the striptease. “For people like me, the word trust loses all meaning,” Morgan says. “There are no lengths to which people won’t go, there’s nothing they won’t do to debase themselves, to humiliate themselves, and you, if they think they can get a slice.”  

This is as close as the first season of War, premiering Oct. 1 on HBO, gets to a thesis statement. Created by Lupin and Hijack hitmaker George Kay, this planned anthology series set within the high-rent hallways of London’s elite law firms takes, as its debut subject, the protracted uncoupling of Morgan and his actress wife, Carla Duval (Sienna Miller). The show is everything you’d expect from a prestige-branded drama: persuasively acted, aesthetically polished, intricately plotted, and, with a few baffling exceptions, subtly scripted. It can be quite exciting. But as the season progresses, sparse character development and minimal insight into the absurdity of possessing—let alone fighting over—sums of money that could sustain hundreds of upper-middle-class Steven types add up to a frustrating lack of perspective. 

From the very beginning, the Henderson-Duval split is sordid. After accepting an award with a high-minded speech, Morgan—the entrepreneur behind a socially responsible social media platform called Zephyr—allows himself to be seduced by a beautiful young woman, Flora (Rose Williams). It’s a honeytrap, set by Carla in a desperate scheme to investigate rumors of her husband’s infidelity. On a junket promoting a dire-sounding period drama called The Milliner (her declining film career fuels some of War’s wittiest moments), she wastes no time forwarding Flora’s selfie with a sleeping Morgan to her lawyers. And so the gears of the divorce machine shudder into motion, working to formalize a gradual estrangement that had been masquerading as the unavoidable byproduct of two demanding, international careers. We don’t learn much about either spouse as people; Carla’s personality is especially tough to pin down. At times, it’s implied that she’s cold or cutthroat. Her son from a previous relationship (Aran Murphy, in his second HBO troubled-teen role this fall) is barely mentioned before he pops up in Episode 3. 

The show’s failure to flesh out these characters could have worked. The anthology’s overarching concept implies that it’s the lawyers, not the clients, that we’re supposed to be getting to know. In Morgan’s corner is Cathcarts & Sons, a venerable, old-school firm whose patrician pomp is telegraphed by stuffy, dark-wood interiors. Carla hires upstarts Taylor & Byrne, whose glassy, modern office space, by contrast, underscores a mission of operating on the light side of the legal arts—avoiding dirty tactics and putting clients first. (Flora’s photo, which is proof of Carla’s entrapment as well as of Morgan’s cheating, is an early ethical test.) The adversaries have history that goes beyond the prep-school-to-white-shoe-firm pipeline, and it gives both sides further ammunition for a fight they’re incentivized to draw out for as long as possible.

There are a few compelling characters among the attorneys. Married Taylor & Byrne partners Nick Taylor (James McArdle) and Serena Byrne (Phoebe Fox) are about to have their first child, and the question of whether she—the tougher but somewhat less senior and, of course, female of the two—will step back from work to focus on family meshes well with the show’s depiction of Carla as a mostly absent mother. Pip Torrens could make your skin crawl (complimentary) as St. John Smallwood, a cruel, sardonic leader of the opposite team, a constant reminder of how much ground there is between compromised and sociopathic on the moral spectrum. 

But even these standouts feel underdeveloped. And most of the dozen or so colleagues of theirs we meet are either cyphers or types. Smallwood’s underling David Schill (Miles Jupp) is flop sweat personified. Shadow and Bone star Archie Renaux is very good at conveying the quiet calculations of Johnny Warren, a working-class junior lawyer who is basically the straight Tom Ripley, Esq., but the fact that his character can be summed up so concisely speaks to its limitations. Farther down the call sheet, for every inspired casting choice (Celia Imrie as a sprightly barrister), there are a couple of name actors wasted in roles that serve expository purposes (Patrick Fabian as a Morgan minion, Nick Mohammed as a Taylor & Byrne staffer).

There are so many characters, and Kay does so little to identify a protagonist within this cynical milieu, that—as the case progresses inevitably from a pantomime of mediation to a courtroom spectacle with the potential to make careers and ruin lives—it’s hard to know where to look. Ideas surface and either stall out, like the nihilism of Gabe’s superrich teen cohort in an era whose apocalyptic mood is a direct result of their parents’ actions, or linger redundantly. Well before the midpoint of the season, viewers will be trained to see lawyers as 24/7 performers, manipulating everyone around them through false sincerity and empathy, if not full fabrication. Glib flourishes like an episode that ends with both spouses saying "I do" to escalating their conflict and the occasional insertion of misplaced crime-drama clichés ("It's done," Flora tells Carla after sleeping with Morgan) undermine otherwise solid scripts.

The point may be that money destroys families and debases everyone who seeks it. But even if Succession hadn’t already eloquently made it (Morgan’s watch stunt is a milder version of Logan Roy’s viscerally disturbing Boar on the Floor), that’s not what War’s ultimate framing of Morgan and Carla suggests. While all the scheming and jockeying and betrayal can be thrilling, the resolution feels like a shrug. Kay invokes big, timely issues—extreme wealth, gender roles, the horrors of social media—without finding much to say about them. An anthology is supposed to be a collection of complete stories. War’s slick but shallow first outing is anything but. 

Both Senator Jon Husted (R-Ohio) and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) went to the podium on the Senate floor last week with a similar message: AI labs should pay for the energy costs associated with their ballooning data-center footprint, rather than everyday Americans. 

But when Husted requested a speedy passage of the Ratepayer Protection Act—a bill that would have required states to consider forcing companies that consume a lot of energy to pay for the related costs—Heinrich blocked the move. He said the legislation was inadequate because it relied on voluntary commitments from states and proposed his own bill as an alternative. 

He had another incentive to block Husted’s request: The Ratepayer Protection Act, which earlier this month passed the House 417-3, would have given the Ohio senator a victory amid a competitive reelection campaign. Husted has faced an onslaught of negative ads over the role he played as lieutenant governor in expanding data centers across the state.  

“The Ratepayer Protection Act might make a lot of politicians feel good, but it won’t do anything to actually force data centers to pay their fair share,” Heinrich said in a statement. “Democrats are ready for a real solution, and I think that’s exactly what Americans want to see, too.” Husted blamed Democrats for giving big tech companies “a free pass” while Americans’ electric bills continue to rise.

That kind of partisan arm wrestling is likely just a prelude to the bigger fights ahead if Congress gets serious about passing AI legislation. 

Democrats, and some Republicans, have proposed hundreds of AI-related bills as Americans become increasingly worried about the ways AI companies may disrupt the job market, raise their energy bills, and even wipe out humanity. Lawmakers’ pro-regulation rhetoric in Washington reached new heights this month after the resignation of former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon gained worldwide attention for posting on X that frontier AI labs were “gambling with our lives.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded with calls for an industry slowdown and government intervention to coordinate global safety standards. 

With less than two months before midterms, some members of Congress are feverishly introducing even more AI bills, including at least seven since Coxon’s resignation alone. Other lawmakers are urging their colleagues and congressional leadership to quickly bring measures already on the table for a vote. Democrats, meanwhile, have taken aim at the Trump administration, urging Trump to discuss AI safety with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“The mood right now, at least in Congress, is very reactive—and I don't mean that in a good way,” said Suresh Venkatasubramanian, director of Brown University’s Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign. “They're trying to push legislation that seems to address what appears to be a problem coming from the [public] narrative but that doesn't always necessarily lead to good policy overall.”

In the short term, tech policy watchers have little hope that Congress will pass a major AI safety bill, especially with a limited number of working days left this year. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana ) has rebuffed some Democrats’ calls to end their recess early to focus on an AI bill. Meanwhile, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R–Kentucky), whose committee would review many of the proposed bills, told Politico at an event that the group probably wouldn’t advance a major bill until next year.

But even with a longer timeline, lawmakers may struggle to turn their rhetoric into action.
Lawmakers will have to overcome deep differences in their views about how dangerous superintelligent AI systems are to the American people and which AI-related risks merit the most attention. Even if lawmakers coalesce around one AI problem, it may be hard for them to settle on the right mitigation strategy quickly enough to keep up with the pace of AI advancements. And if Democrats take over even one chamber after the midterms next month, legislative debates could end up being even more mired in partisan disputes. They would still have to negotiate with Trump, who has largely dismissed the most catastrophic risks of AI as conspiratorial and resisted calls for more regulation. 

When AI companies are “begging for pacing, or some way for them to pace, and they're turning to the government to help them do that, it really does require the government to act,” said Riki Parikh, a policy director for The Alliance for Secure AI, a bipartisan advocacy group that supports AI regulations. “I just don't know if the dynamics in D.C. will allow for that over the next two years,” he added. “We might not have two years to wait.” 

Certain lawmakers have sought to address some of the most extreme risks posed by  general-purpose AI models, such as the possibility that these systems could eventually be used to create a new pathogen that sets off a global pandemic, carry out a cyberattack on critical infrastructure, or build biological or radiological weapons. Those worries took on a new sense of urgency in July when OpenAI announced that a group of AI agents went rogue during a cybersecurity test and hacked into a separate company, Hugging Face.

Several of their proposals call for AI labs to submit their models or safety practices for review by independent investigators. Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-California) and Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts), along with three other lawmakers, have proposed the FRONTIER Act, which requires large AI developers to submit reports about safety incidents, information on the potential catastrophic threats of their models, and their planned mitigations to the Department of Commerce and state attorneys general. The bill calls for independent investigators to review companies’ safety plans, and would authorize the Commerce Department to bar the release of a model if it poses an imminent catastrophic risk. 

The idea for independent testing has support within the tech industry. Leading the Future, a PAC that has received money from OpenAI president Greg Brockman, has signaled support for the FRONTIER Act. Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, has said he plans to embed investigators from AI-monitoring nonprofit METR, which officially reviewed OpenAI’s Hugging Face incident, to verify the company’s safety practices. 

But the political limits of that approach soon became evident. After Amodei’s announcement, METR faced scrutiny from the right over its ties with effective altruism, a philosophical movement focused on using evidence and reason to determine how to do the most good. The New York Post called the group the “Woke Wizards of AI,” as writers there drew connections between effective altruism, METR, and Anthropic. METR’s president later defended the group on X, arguing it doesn’t take money from frontier AI labs and makes an effort to hire people with diverse viewpoints.

Another issue that has already slowed down negotiations on Capitol Hill is the question of whether a federal AI bill should override state laws—a legislative approach embraced by many Republicans and the Trump White House.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) have discussed proposing a bill that would expose frontier AI labs to legal liability if they don’t adequately mitigate catastrophic risks of their systems, according to a person familiar with the matter. But as news surfaced that their measure may also preempt some state laws, they appeared to face pushback from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.  “I welcome the urgency. But the answer is not a weak federal standard that becomes a backdoor for wiping out stronger state protections,” she posted on X. 

So far, most lawmakers have stopped short of backing a proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) to ban superintelligent artificial intelligence, which the lawmakers define as AI “that exceeds human cognitive performance.” Sanders and Casar also propose pausing the development of advanced AI models until the government sets up the Department of Artificial Intelligence to oversee their safety. Critics say passing that kind of law would only allow Chinese tech companies to make gains in the AI race—a more dangerous prospect in the end.

One policy area where there has been more progress is lawmakers’ attempts to restrict China’s access to advanced American chips, with the goal of preserving the country’s technological lead in the AI race. The Chip Security Act—which requires advanced chips to include a mechanism for verifying their location if they have fallen into the wrong hands—may be folded into an upcoming defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, said Rep. Bill Foster (D-Illinois).

“It does no good at all if we have all kinds of [AI] rules in the United States or even in the free democracies of the world, and then these [chips] all get smuggled into China, into Russia, [and] into North Korea,” said Foster. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and other key Democrats earlier this week urged Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) to bring the Chip Security Act, along with two other bills designed to address tech exports to China, to the floor for a vote.  

Still, even those bills face political challenges. Industry critics argue that restricting the exports of American tech only encourages China to invest in its own chips. The defense spending bill has been stalled in the Senate since Democrats blocked its advancement in July in protest of Trump’s handling of the Iranian war. 

Perhaps the most likely measure for Congress to address after the midterms would be a bill that tackles energy costs stemming from AI companies’ data centers. “There isn't agreement on what else would be valuable to do right now,” said Bruce Mehlman, a veteran lobbyist whose bipartisan firm represents several tech companies.  

“Everybody's concerned about safety, but nobody knows what the concern should turn into legislatively.”

No one really wants to talk about religious rage, the complex resentment when you feel your God has abandoned you: We like our faith to be tidy and count-your-blessings clean, not clouded with doubt and fury. In writer-director Bassam Tariq’s action thriller Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Mahershala Ali plays Latif, a Houston, Texas, hit man who’s also, ostensibly, a devout Muslim: He strives to be a man of faith even as he’s breaking bones (and more) in the name of Allah. Then his wife dies suddenly, making him a single dad with three kids to care for, teenager Fatiha (Adia), her younger brother Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and an infant, Aziza, who can’t tolerate baby formula; only her mother’s breast milk will do, and supplies are quickly running out. That’s a workaday problem Latif has got to solve, and prayer takes a backseat to his feelings of betrayal. “You take her from me,” he rages in voiceover, “and you expect me to bow down to you?”

A crisis of faith and a desperate search for breast milk: As plot drivers go, that’s a pretty novel combination, but Tariq and Ali pull it off here. The tone is equal parts sacred, profane, and comical. Tariq opens the film with a skull-crushing action sequence in which Latif, dressed in swirling robes, beats the heck out of a baddie in a public bathroom; the sequence is exhilarating and brutal, not least because Ali, wrapped in quasi-Samurai warrior garb and wielding a menacing knife, makes such a dashing, beguiling figure. When his wife dies, he realizes his priorities must shift toward his family, but he can’t free himself from his longtime boss Mike (Laith Nakli), who has a special job for him: Mike’s porn-king nephew Hatty (Abubakr Ali) is being harassed by a (Christian) religious fanatic, Pastor Hwan Yoon (John Cho). Can Tariq take care of that? He can—but meanwhile, baby Aziza is yowling with hunger, and it turns out that a sex worker formerly in Hatty’s stable, Tiffany Boone’s Fugazi, is lactating and has a bountiful supply of what baby needs. If Latif’s life of spirituality mingled with bloody violence seemed complicated before, it has now entered the realm of the surreal.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is most entertaining when it indulges its tawdry side. Hatty, with his tacky sex mansion and bevy of "halal-certified" cuties, is a particularly clever invention, and Cho, decked out in spangled western shirts and sporting a row of gold teeth, appears to be having a blast as a sleazy operator who’s more interested in power than in Jesus. The action sequences are sharp and swift. In his quest for milk, his tiny daughter strapped snugly to his chest, Ali’s Latif is a new kind of action hero. (Some of the movie’s visuals echo the climactic baby-rescue scene of John Woo’s magnificent Hard Boiled, in which Chow Yun Fat descends the wall of a multi-story hospital building while fending off a hail of bullets, even as he cradles a gurgling mite with one arm.)

But Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother also tangles with complex issues of faith. It’s clear that Latif’s daughter Fatiha, who breaks fast when she shouldn’t and has a crush on one of the family’s young Mormon neighbors, is straying from the path. But the movie doesn’t judge her for it. The suggestion is that doubt is part of faith—you can’t have the second without the occasional tension of the first—and even Latif will have to face that crisis.  

The Pakistani-born Tariq previously co-directed (with Omar Mullick) the 2013 documentary These Birds Walk, and he was one of the filmmakers in talks to direct the ill-fated Marvel reboot of Blade, with Ali set to star. In a world where blessings, even mixed ones, are sparse, it’s not a terrible thing that Ali was saved from potentially being chewed up by a Marvel vehicle; he’s a superb actor who deserves better, and Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother gives him plenty to work with. The movie’s title refers to a hadith in which a man approaches the Prophet Muhammad and asks, “To whom should I give the best of me?” The prophet’s answer, so emphatic he repeats it three times, is “Your mother”; only when the man asks the question for a fourth time does the prophet respond, “Your father.” As Latif, Ali captures the spirit of the movie’s title: he seems powered by a contradictory blend of male privilege and humility. Early on, he sees, as if for the first time, the little notes his wife had left all over the house, reminders for herself and the kids of all the minuscule things that need to be taken care of in a household. She had handled all these tasks quietly, and seemingly with ease. Now those things—essentially women’s work—are left to him, including sustaining an infant who needs something he can’t provide.

As Latif, always spoiling for a fight, Ali swaggers through the film. But there’s another man inside, a gentle, God-fearing one, and that’s the one you see in the somber beauty of Ali’s eyes. Out of necessity, Latif needs to reconcile with his feminine side. Suddenly, he’s both father and mother, and he finds that filling the role of the latter is the greater challenge. It’s the tenderness he carries within that makes Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother both distinctive and thought provoking. The thrills are just a fringe benefit.

It’s undeniable. Socialism is on the rise—or at least growing in popularity in the U.S.

Forty-three percent of Americans have a positive view of socialism, the highest share since Gallup began tracking the measure since 2010. The latest survey, conducted Aug. 3-24, found that socialism has gained ground over time as several market-oriented economic concepts have lost favor. It now ranks ahead of big business, which has fallen to a positive rating of 35% from a peak of 58% in 2012.

Capitalism and free enterprise are still more popular than socialism. Capitalism’s positive rating, however, has fallen to 55% from a peak of 61% in 2010 and 2012. Free enterprise is now favored at 77%, compared to its peak of 89% in 2012. Small business remains the most favored economic system at 95%, relatively unchanged in 2010.

Those figures, however, mask sharp partisan differences. Democrats view socialism much more favorably than Republicans do, and their views have become more positive over time.

This shift has come as progressives and democratic socialists have defeated establishment candidates in several key Democratic primary contests. Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City Mayor last year marked a breakthrough for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). In June, all three of his endorsed candidates won against establishment Democrats in congressional primaries in New York City.

Read More: Congress Is Headed for a Massive Turnover

Progressives also won high-profile primaries elsewhere, including Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, both of whom have not adopted the socialist label, as well as DSA members and House candidates Melat Kiros in Colorado and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania. Democratic socialist Francesca Hong narrowly lost in the gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, a battleground state.

What Brookings analysts dubbed a “DSA summer” serves to “signal that unhappiness with the Democratic establishment and, in the post-Biden world, opposition to elderly officeholders can be leveraged by young, charismatic DSA candidates—and reflect an impatience with party leadership that transcends ideology.”

Republicans have sought to portray those victories as evidence that the Democratic Party is moving too far left ahead of the November midterm elections, while Democratic leaders have tried to temper concerns about the party’s direction. In November 2025, the House voted 285-98 to approve a resolution denouncing the “horrors of socialism,” which was followed by another resolution condemning socialism that passed 220-192 earlier this month. A July analysis by the Cook Political Report found that center-left candidates dominated primaries in the competitive House seats most likely to determine control of Congress, suggesting that progressive victories may not signal a leftward shift across the country.

“If left-wing nominees manage to win in swing districts, their overall movement will be strengthened,” the August Brookings analysis said. “If they lose districts deemed winnable and cost Democrats control of the House and Senate, their mainstream presence will likely be diminished.”

Still, changing views among the American public could indicate growing openness to what was once a political red line.

Read More: 'We're Proving It Works': Inside the DSA’s Push to Remake the Democratic Party

Here’s what the latest polls say.

Partisan split

Socialism isn’t gaining popularity universally in the U.S.

Most of the increase in socialism’s positive rating through 2025 came from growing favorability among Democrats. In 2010, 50% of Democrats viewed socialism positively, according to Gallup. That rose to 66% last year, and remained relatively unchanged at 65% this year. Socialism now matches free enterprise in favorability among Democrats, following a sharp decline in their positive views of free enterprise since 2021.

Democrats have also viewed socialism more favorably than capitalism since 2016, when 54% of Democrats viewed capitalism positively, while 60% viewed socialism positively. That year marked a breakthrough for the DSA as longtime Senator Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) brought the organization to national attention during his presidential run.

Capitalism’s positive rating has further fallen among Democrats, declining from 42% last year to 35%.

Other polls have found a similar pattern among Democrats. A CBS/YouGov poll, conducted Aug. 12-14, found that 58% of Democrats viewed socialism positively, compared to 32% for capitalism. College-educated Democrats were especially positive about socialism, with 71% viewing it favorably.

Meanwhile, 50% of Democrats viewed capitalism negatively, compared with 18% for socialism. That contrasts with the broader public, which overall favored capitalism to socialism.

The poll also found that half of Democrats viewed the label “democratic socialist” positively.

A Marquette Law School poll highlighted by CNN in June similarly found that the DSA had a higher net favorability among Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents than Democrats in Congress by 13 points. A national survey conducted by Data for Progress in August 2025 found that Democrats preferred democratic socialism to capitalism by a 58-percentage-point margin.

Socialism has also grown in popularity among political independents, accounting for the overall boost to socialism’s favorability in the latest Gallup poll. The share of independents rating socialism positively rose from 37% last year to 45%, surpassing big business which fell to a record low of 32%. Capitalism, free enterprise, and small business still ranked above socialism in favorability among independents.

Republicans remained overwhelmingly skeptical of socialism, with just 14% viewing it positively. Large majorities of Republicans continued to have positive views of small business, free enterprise, and capitalism, while 62% of Republicans viewed big business positively.

Still, Americans’ economic views are more complicated than the results might initially suggest, according to a Gallup analysis from August. The report, based on open-ended survey responses, found there is broad support for free-market principles like economic competition and market choice, despite concerns about capitalism spurring economic inequality and excessive corporate power.

The CBS/YouGov poll, meanwhile, found that support for government intervention crossed party lines, with 75% of Democrats, 62% of independents, and 54% of Republicans supporting government price controls.

And the Data for Progress survey showed 70% of 1,257 respondents said the U.S. economic system is “rigged in favor of corporations and the wealthy” and favored replacing it with one that “gives working people a fair shot,” including 67% of independents and 58% of Republicans. Additionally, 83% of respondents, including 81% of independents and 80% of Republicans, agreed that social work and mental health are necessary parts of a public safety budget.

Generational differences

Younger Americans are more receptive to socialism, polls show.

According to Gallup, 57% of Americans aged 18 to 34 viewed socialism positively, compared with 43% for capitalism. The pattern was reversed among older adults: 65% of those aged 55 and older viewed capitalism positively, while 34% viewed socialism positively. Of Americans aged 35 to 54, 50% rated capitalism positively, while 45% rated socialism positively.

The August CBS/YouGov poll also found that younger Americans were more likely to perceive shrinking economic opportunities. Fifty-four percent of American adults under 30 said their opportunities to succeed are worse than their parents’ generation’s, compared with 31% of those aged 65 and older. Of those under 30, 80% also said buying or owning a home is harder for their generation than previous generations, while 71% saw worse prospects for financial security and 64% for having a good job.

Among those under 30, 61% described the U.S. economic system as somewhat or very unfair. Socialism was viewed positively by 43%, compared with 38% for capitalism. By contrast, 30% of those 65 and older viewed socialism positively and 59% viewed capitalism positively.

Whether to support data center development is a defining issue in this campaign season, and it is a debate that has taken over many Native American tribes. And on this issue, many Native leaders on the ballot—including Deb Haaland running for governor of New Mexico, Sharice Davids running for the House of Representatives from Kansas, Mary Peltola running for the U.S. Senate from Alaska, and Peggy Flanagan in a race for U.S. Senate in Minnesota—are being forced to address the issue head-on. 

Flanagan won the Democratic-Farmer-Labor primary for the U.S. Senate last month. Her Ojibwe name, Gizhiiwewidamookwe, means Speaks in a Loud and Clear Voice Woman. She has spoken forcefully on data centers, calling AI an “existential threat to us if it gets out of control,” in a July Minnesota Public Radio News debate. 

This fits a pattern. In her primary against Rep. Angie Craig, Flanagan ran ads attacking Craig’s ties to the crypto industry: “Angie Craig voted to let Trump make billions selling crypto coins. I won’t.” Analysts see AI and data centers as a natural extension of that same anti-corporate-money lane heading into November. Her “existential threat” framing is about AI broadly, tied to job loss, safety, and runaway systems. 

Davids is a former MMA fighter and lawyer by training; she knows how to throw a punch and how to build a case. On data centers, she’s done neither publicly. But she took a quieter and pragmatic approach in a July KSHB voter guide, stating that “no data center should move forward if it raises electricity costs for families, wastes our limited water resources, or shifts the burden onto Kansas communities.”

“Data center decisions are primarily made at the state and local level,” Davids said. It’s also a convenient position: she sits on Transportation, Small Business, and Agriculture committees, not those that would put data centers in her lane anyway. In February, Davids met with the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, which proceeded to formally vote against the Section 106 rollback in July, warning it would weaken tribal consultation and expand unilateral agency power. But showing up for a meeting doesn’t carry the same weight as making a public statement.

Haaland’s campaign has proposed sun, wind, and geothermal energy generation to offset data center energy consumption alongside requiring high-energy-demand industries to build their own energy infrastructure. But on the state’s biggest data center project, Project Jupiter, she’s said comparatively little. Pressed by a voter in Los Lunas last week, she said: “I don’t have the power to stop Project Jupiter.”

Then, last week, her position seemed to have shifted. Haaland’s campaign now says she supports a moratorium on new data center development “until we have strong, reliable guardrails.” This follows Searchlight New Mexico’s report of $87,200 in campaign donations from executives at Oracle and Clayco, the firm actually building Project Jupiter. Santa Fe and Socorro Counties have already passed data center moratoriums. Four Democratic state legislators already proposed one months ago. Haaland’s is a narrower, later, and far more carefully hedged version of the same idea. 

But the demand for accountability didn’t end there. Over the weekend, a New Mexico climate justice petition started circulating, calling on Haaland to return the $87,200 and commit to no AI data centers, with no carveout for Project Jupiter. Haaland responded fast that she hasn’t discussed returning the money with her team, but “cannot be bowled over” by campaign donations. Realistically, the carveout isn’t nothing: the project is 26% complete according to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s own vice president, up from 9% in July, despite the fact that two of its permits have been paused by the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Peltola takes a different tack. Asked about data centers at a Fairbanks Labor Day event, she said she takes her “cue from the people of that region,” deferring to local support provided it doesn’t strain the grid for existing ratepayers. It’s a notably different posture from her opponent, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who has pushed to bring data centers onto Alaska’s military installations, and from a $500 million Stak Energy data center proposal already drawing scrutiny in the North Slope. 

But “the people of that region” is complicated in Alaska. As I’ve reported, a lot of the state’s land—roughly 44 million acres, or 12% of all land in the state—is controlled by Alaska Native corporations, for-profit entities created by a 1971 federal law, whose boards answer to fiduciary duty, not shareholder votes. That structure has already let corporations like the Bering Straits Native Corporation go after federal contracts, ICE included, despite loud shareholder objections boards aren’t obligated to address. In other words, the “local support” Peltola invokes in her interview may not translate into actual votes. 

This debate also coincides with proposed changes to Section 106, a clause in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 that requires federal agencies to assess how development affects historic sites, which are decades in the making. If these changes are enacted, federal land, where Native Nations hold consultation rights under extant law, could theoretically become terrain AI data center developers could claim without a federal review process. 

More than 700 organizations, including Native Nations, have already signed a letter opposing this change to Section 106—but this isn’t the first time it has been targeted. 

Near the end of President Donald Trump’s first term, the Secretary of the Interior issued Secretarial Order 3389, exempting major energy and land-management projects from standard Section 106 review. It was a move the Biden administration noticed early on and swiftly reversed. 

The current Advisory Council on Historic Preservation rewrite picks up where that order left off, and is part of energy, transmission, and mining’s long game to weaken Section 106 as a source of delay for infrastructure—one that predates the AI boom by years. 

Data center developers are merely the newest, best-capitalized arrivals to a fight that oil and transmission companies have been taking punches at since Trump’s first term. 

Native candidates may differ in their approach to data centers, but they should be united on this: Native Nations must not lose their voice just as another powerful industry comes for their land.

Last year, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. My life was fine—wonderful, even—and yet mercurial feelings of anxiety, disconnect, and vague dread nagged me. 

Aside from the occasional car ride or shower, I didn’t sing much. But on a whim, I joined a secular community choir without knowing how to read music or having any real expectation beyond wanting to try singing under the guise of anonymity. 

Billed as “drinkers with a singing problem,” and more importantly, not requiring auditions, Choir League practice began with a happy hour before rolling into light-hearted rehearsals. As I softly sang the words of an old Appalachian hymn, “Am I born to die?” with over 100 other voices, standing amid a sea of people with diverse beliefs and backgrounds, I felt something unexpected and new to me—but that people have experienced for millennia. 

People have been singing together since the beginning. Early humans employed coordinated rhythmic chants for hunting and socializing. Oral storytelling was often delivered through song, whether via Greek chorus, work songs, or sea shanties. But this age-old tradition of communal singing saw a steep decline over the last century as the advent of radio, television, and recordings encouraged a passive, often individual consumption of music. Aside from religious settings or concerts, many Americans only experience group singing briefly and sporadically. Maybe while singing “Happy Birthday.”

And yet, at this fraught moment when everyone is politically polarized, lonely, disillusioned, and cringe-averse, choirs are attracting a new generation of singers. Viral videos abound of one-day choirs where throngs of strangers huddle in warehouses as they gleefully sing Natasha Bedingfield or Tracy Chapman. People with dementia are finding joy singing together as their musical memory outlasts their ability to speak. Unhoused folks in San Diego have formed a chorus and created community. 

Why the choir camaraderie? One reason: singing together is a low-cost, inclusive activity. Plus, recent studies show that singing with others helps bolster social cohesion, as well as providing numerous physical benefits, from lowering blood pressure and cortisol levels to bolstering lung health. Group singing is on the rise, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. 

Dr. Frank Russo, a psychology Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, who studies the science behind what happens physically, mentally, and to our sense of connection when we sing together, pointed to the recent World Cup as an example. 

“Thousands of people who may never have met are synchronizing their voices, movements, and attention around a shared identity. For a few minutes, they behave almost like a single coordinated social unit,” he says, explaining that by singing together, fans bolster their connection and collective identity. “People sing because they feel united, but the act of singing may make them feel more united.”

This phenomenon also occurs outside of the stadium, at religious gatherings, vigils, and protests. Earlier this year, at the height of ICE violence in Minnesota, trending clips emerged of residents joining in songs of protest. Among them was Sarina Partridge. 

One of the co-founders of the Twin Cities Resistance Singers, Partridge’s musical path began when she was an elementary school teacher and noticed that if she had her classes sing, “It transformed them from a group of nervous kids into a community.” 

As a result, Partridge began studying resistance singing around the world in places like South Africa and Spain’s Basque Country and helped create a national toolkit for singing-centered public action. 

When Renee Good was killed by ICE, that toolkit was put to use. “It was unclear how to organize big actions because people were really afraid,” Partridge says. “But a big group of people singing is so much safer. It helps people feel safe, and I’ve observed singing to be literally disarming.”

She remembers walking the frigid streets with crowds of singers. People fearfully hiding inside their homes came to their porches to listen, some even smiling. One person held a pet puppy to their window, creating a much-needed moment of levity and human connection. 

To be sure, group singing has long been a successful resistance tool, from protests against Apartheid in Cape Town, South Africa, to the marches for Civil Rights in Selma, Alabama. For instance, in 1989, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia helped overthrow the Soviet occupation after 2 million of their citizens joined hands to create an approximately 430-mile-long human chain spanning all three nations. They sang together for 15 minutes.

“Political turmoil can produce uncertainty, stress, isolation, and a feeling that forces around us are much larger than we are. Singing doesn’t make those forces disappear,” explains Russo. “But singing together can change how people experience themselves in relation to them.”

This is exactly why more people should consider joining a choir. The 2025 World Happiness Report ranked the United States with its lowest score ever, citing cost of living and political uncertainty. More than half of young Americans struggle with climate anxiety. A Pew Research survey found that 69% of Americans are dissatisfied with the state of their country. 

I understand this dissatisfaction. The world can feel undeniably bleak, without relief in sight. 

But last month, I piled into an Elks Lodge with my beloved Choir League on a sweltering Denver evening as smoke blanketed the Rocky Mountains. I clutched a cold drink and laughed with people I’d gotten to know over the last year. Accompanied by a local band, we sang four songs from the 90s, just for fun. 

I still wore anxiety like a stifling scarf around my neck. I still didn’t know how to read music and often sang the wrong notes. My shirt was damp with sweat. But as I belted the bridge of “Creep” by Radiohead as loud as I could, goosebumps prickled my arms. I heard my voice, its power buoyed by the might of every other voice behind me, and felt a sense of belonging. 

Singing together is an embodied, experiential way of understanding that nothing must be endured alone. And in that moment, joyfully vulnerable with folks who were no longer strangers but favorite new friends, everything was okay. 

Relief was not only in sight—it was in sound.

Wars exact a heavy toll on women and yet, too often their voices and concerns are pushed to the margins of global peacemaking. Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has made halting but real progress in bringing women into peace negotiations and postwar reconstruction from Guatemala to Bangsamoro and beyond.

Now that progress is being reversed. As peacemaking organizations fracture and lose their ability to press warring groups toward compromise, an assortment of social conservatives and warlords is finding new ways to exclude women from discussions about war and peace. Finding space for gender diversity could do more than ensure that women are heard; it could also give peace efforts a better chance of success.

About a decade ago, Colombia’s peace process culminated in an agreement that seemed to offer a lesson in how to end a deeply rooted conflict. Negotiators brought in the belligerents but they also consulted civil society groups on rural reform, inclusive governance, and accountability for wartime atrocities, including sexual violence. Women’s groups had a voice in these discussions.

The process had its shortcomings. Civil society was unevenly represented, and many of the peace agreement’s provisions on gender have yet to be fully carried out. Still, it rested on the premise that people with local relationships, legitimacy, and knowledge should be engaged in the peace process to help shape an enduring agreement.

That conviction is fading. Women are increasingly absent from the negotiating table. Recent diplomatic efforts—from Sudan’s peace talks, trade negotiations with China, Gaza’s Board of Peace—have featured teams composed entirely of men. Women’s representation may still be a top priority for some governments in prominent contexts, such as the selection of the next United Nations secretary-general, but it has become less visible in the daily diplomatic practice of making peace. 

Today’s narrow ceasefire agreements struggle to secure even minimal protections against sexual violence: none of the 13 ceasefire agreements reached in 2025 prohibited it. The loss is both practical and moral. In many conflicts, women have political networks that men do not.  They can connect humanitarian actors with communities, and act as bridges and brokers who can link local leaders with national processes.

A combination of factors helps explain why diplomacy has become less inclusive. Stalemates on the battlefield have encouraged a minimalist approach to peacemaking: diplomats and envoys bring military and political leaders together to stop the fighting, with less attention to conditions that would sustain peace.

As conflicts and postwar transitions grow more complex, diplomats have less room to pursue longer term goals such as political representation. Finally, diversity has become a point of contention. The Trump Administration has challenged efforts to increase representation of historically marginalized groups.

No countries for women

Sudan’s bloody war has raged for more than three years, and the need for an armistice is urgent. In September 2025, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who are leading mediation efforts, proposed a humanitarian truce. The effort failed. Other diplomatic initiatives have tried to bring civilians into the conversation. An April conference in Berlin included women’s groups and other organizations, but it failed to persuade the warring parties to engage with anyone, much less with civil society. For now, even progress toward a basic ceasefire seems unattainable, making a broader approach to ending the violence ever more distant.

Diplomats with involvement and knowledge of the Sudan talks describe gender as a “non-starter” with the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces. Both factions have an interest in avoiding accountability for sexual violence and other atrocities while remaining focused on retaining their power. As Sudanese communities endure the war, diplomats are pursuing a narrow but pragmatic goal: finding a path to ceasefire while preserving space for later talks on who will have a voice in Sudan’s political future.

Elsewhere too, hopes for fair representation even in a postwar future remain bleak. Diversity is slipping off the diplomatic agenda in postwar Syria. Immediate concerns over stabilization and security takes precedence over any discussions of women’s representation between influential foreign governments and President Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s administration. 

It remains unclear whether President al-Sharaa intends to build a government that reflects Syria’s diversity among women and men, and across its many ethnic and religious communities. Women hold just 22 of the recently formed parliament’s 207 seats. That number falls below the 20% quota for women in the electoral bodies from which the candidates were selected, and well short of the 30% target that civil society groups and the United Nations have often urged to increase political representation of women in Syria and elsewhere.

Across Syria, women hold meaningful influence in local community life. Parliamentarians might earn some communities’ trust over time, but women’s absence from national politics leaves a gap that a more inclusive system would be better equipped to close.

The manicured avenues of Washington are now home to some of the most powerful forces opposing diversity and gender justice. Even before the Trump Administration cast itself as a global peacemaker, its overwhelmingly male leadership had made opposition to diversity a defining feature of its foreign policy, rejecting the idea that a group can be considered oppressed based primarily on characteristics such as sex, race, or religion. 

In its diplomacy at the United Nations and elsewhere, the Administration has made clear its opposition to quotas and other goals for representation. Senior U.S. officials have portrayed diversity as a weakness and linked traditional markers of masculinity, such as testosterone levels, to the ability to effectively deter battlefield threats.

The result is a vision of global power that places men at its center. Given Washington’s prominent role in many ongoing peace efforts, and Trump’s apparent affinity for strongmen, that stance reinforces the other two trends of minimalist peacemaking with a narrow set of elite interlocutors and an equally narrow set of issues to discuss. Some governments hesitate to raise diversity issues with the Trump Administration for fear of retaliation. Others, once more guarded in their opposition to diversity, now feel validated.

What communities can teach diplomats

Diversity may be losing ground in elite diplomacy, but it remains vital closer to the ground. Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms offer an example. When war broke out in April 2023, women who had worked in political resistance committees began organizing around their communities’ most urgent needs: protection, health care and psychosocial support.

They established Women’s Response Rooms to carry that work forward, drawing on networks built through years of efforts to claim a voice in public decisions. Across the wider network of Emergency Response Rooms, volunteers have negotiated humanitarian access, while women have mediated local disputes and helped hold communities together through conflict and displacement.

This extraordinary work takes place largely outside formal peace talks. Those peace processes may have changed, perhaps irreversibly, but local peacemaking persists. High-level negotiators should remember a lesson they once seemed to understand: Peace must be made not only by and for the belligerents in a conflict but also with and by people who have the legitimacy and relationships necessary to sustain societies through war and into peace. 

The question now is whether diplomats will stay connected to those efforts and recognize what a peace process loses when it leaves the people sustaining their communities outside the room.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed allegations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza as “the biggest lie of the century” during a defiant address to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, as scores of delegates walked out in protest.

“Here's the simple truth. Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide,” Netanyahu said, calling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “the most moral army in the world.” He pointed to Israel’s facilitation of food aid and polio vaccination campaigns in Gaza, saying “Israel did everything possible to get them out of harm's way.”

Israel faces allegations of genocide in a case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice. The court has ordered Israel to take provisional measures under the Genocide Convention but has not ruled on whether Israel has committed genocide. The case remains pending.

In September 2025, an independent U.N. commission of inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars said Israel’s policies and actions met the legal definition of the crime. Israel has rejected the findings.

Netanyahu accuses Mamdani of ‘spreading lies’

Netanyahu sharply criticized New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani during his speech, calling him “the antisemitic mayor of New York” and placing him among “all those spreading these lies about my country and about our brave soldiers.”

“Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York,” Netanyahu said. He reiterated his claims that the mayor supports Hamas and has “incit[ed] riots against New York Jews.” Mamdani has denied supporting Hamas. “Mr. Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me and you can’t silence the truth,” Netanyahu said.

In response to Netanyahu’s remarks, Mamdani accused the Israeli leader of using his speech to “repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians.”

“Yet no lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Mandani said in a statement.

Netanyahu’s remarks come amid heightened concern about antisemitism in New York, where anti-Jewish incidents accounted for 57% of all reported hate crimes in 2025, according to NYPD data. Mamdani has rejected accusations of antisemitism and proposed increasing the city’s hate-crime prevention budget from $3 million to $26 million. His administration has also maintained a dedicated Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.

The dispute stretches back to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. A longtime critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Mamdani has repeatedly condemned Netanyahu, calling him “a war criminal and an architect of a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people.” He also vowed to have Netanyahu arrested under an International Criminal Court warrant issued over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Mamdani later acknowledged that the city lacked the independent authority to execute the warrant and called on the federal government to arrest Netanyahu instead.

Netanyahu praised President Donald Trump, saying Israel has “no greater partner.” He pointed to the joint U.S.-Israeli operation that he said had destroyed much of Iran’s nuclear program after the two countries launched their war against Iran in February. He called attacking Iran “one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as Prime Minister.”

Netanyahu also accused Qatar of spending billions of dollars to finance universities and the Al Jazeera media network as part of an effort to “brainwash young minds to hate Israel, America and the West.” He also criticized the country for hosting Hamas leaders. Netanyahu went on to accuse Turkey of being a “super-spreader of antisemitic lies” and condemned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for also hosting Hamas leaders. Turkey and Qatar are yet to respond to the statement.  

Outside the United Nations, several hundred protesters gathered with chants of "stop arming Israel, let Gaza live" and "stop arming Israel, let Iran live" ahead of Netanyahu’s speech.  

Abbas addresses UN by video after visa denied

In a prerecorded address shown at the U.N. General Assembly earlier Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that “the Palestinian people face one of the most dangerous times of its history.” 

“How much longer will some states continue to remain silent on Israel or supply it with the weapons that it uses against our people?” Abbas said. He accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and a “genocidal war that has created an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”

The U.S. denied Abbas and other Palestinian officials visas to attend the assembly in person for the second consecutive year, accusing the Palestinian Authority of “glorifying terrorism.” Abbas condemned what he called the “unlawful punitive measures” and called on the Trump administration to lift the restrictions on his delegation and on the U.N. to grant Palestine “full membership” in the international organization. He also called for the State of Palestine to be granted full U.N. membership.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed approximately 1,200 people in Israel and saw about 250 others taken hostage.

Since the ceasefire was signed in October 2025, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed according to the ministry. In the absence of independent monitoring on the ground, the ministry is the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified by TIME. Data from the IDF suggests a Palestinian civilian death rate of 83%.

The U.N. in October estimated that Gaza required $70 billion to reverse the damage caused by two years of war to its infrastructure.

What other world leaders have said at the U.N.

The war in Gaza has been a major focus for world leaders addressing the U.N. in New York this week. 

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, whose nearly decade-long tenure leading the international body comes to an end at the start of next year, said during his address on Tuesday that Gaza has experienced “a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed in all my years as Secretary-General.” He added that Israel’s “violence, displacement and settlement expansion” raised the “specter of ethnic cleansing.”

Trump said the war in Gaza was over. He took credit for ending it, “saving untold thousands of lives,” and brokering the return of the remaining hostages held in Gaza. But key elements of the peace agreement Trump helped broker in October 2025—including Hamas’ disarmament, a long-term plan for governing Gaza, and the delivery of humanitarian aid—remain largely stalled. 

Other world leaders called for greater international action over the continuing suffering in Gaza. French President Emmanuel Macron asked “what is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza?” during his speech on Tuesday. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the same day: “We will not stand by as the horrific suffering continues to grow and the prospect of a two-state solution, the best hope for peace and stability for both nations, comes under attack.”

Amid a fast-growing international debate over regulating artificial intelligence, President Trump and Chinese President Xi met at the White House for several hours on Thursday ahead of a state dinner where several of the biggest players in A.I. were set to attend. 

“We had a great meeting,” Trump said later that afternoon at the Southern Portico, where he gave Xi a tour of the South Lawn Helipad. 

“He’s an expert on stones, and he loves good granite,” Trump said of Xi. 

The day began with remarks from both Trump and Xi at the grand foyer of the White House. Afterward, Trump and Xi participated in a military review at the Rose Garden and took part in hours of meetings before Trump led a tour of parts of the White House.

While both leaders mentioned AI in their opening remarks, Xi stressed that the development of AI always needs to be “under human control.”

Trump was set to host a state dinner for Xi Thursday evening, joined by a slate of tech leaders. Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Tesla CEO Elon Musk were set to attend the dinner, a White House official confirmed.

According to Chinese state media, President Xi raised the issue of Iran during the bilateral meeting, saying that he hoped the US and Iran would resume negotiations and that China would support the two countries recommitting to the 14-point memorandum of understanding reached months ago. 

On Taiwan, Xi said he hopes the U.S. would maintain its position of opposing Taiwan independence. The U.S. has not officially endorsed Taiwan's independence, but has previously sold weaponry to the island and is widely viewed as a key player if China were to ever invade the self-ruling island.

Earlier on Thursday, Xi urged more cooperation between the two countries. During his remarks, he called for more direct flights between the U.S. and China and invited 100,000 American students for cultural exchange in the next five years. And continuing a longtime diplomatic tradition stretching back to the Nixon era, he announced two pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, will be delivered to Zoo Atlanta in the coming days.

“China and the United States must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation between us, and we can certainly find the right path for two great countries to get along on this planet we both call home,” Xi said. 

This is the first time a Chinese leader has made a second formal state visit to America. The last time Xi conducted a formal state visit in Washington, D.C. was at the invitation of President Obama in September 2015, three years after he succeeded as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. 

Trump and Xi first met in 2017, during Trump’s first term, at the President’s home base of Mar-a-Lago, Florida. The pair last met in May during a two-day state visit by Trump to Beijing, where the U.S. and China delegations discussed a range of topics including tariffs, rare mineral trade, as well as the Strait of Hormuz. The two leaders used the visit to announce the launch of a so-called Board of Trade intended to lower tariffs on products that aren’t considered a national security risk. In June, the Office of the United States Trade Representative asked the public to weigh in on which types of products would benefit from this new mechanism. The Administration has offered few updates on the board since then. 

Ottawa's City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove President Donald Trump’s name from a residential street in the Canadian capital amid an increasingly hostile trade war.

The motion to rename “Trump Avenue” in the city’s Central Park neighborhood was brought forward by River Ward councillor Riley Brockington on Sept. 9 and swiftly received support from other local officials. “I don't like the idea of anything that's named for Donald Trump, who's demonstrated hostility towards Canada,” Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said at a news conference after the vote.

The move symbolizes the strained relations between the two countries, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney goes head-to-head with the Trump Administration in a trade standoff. Canada’s retaliatory tariffs came into effect on Sept. 8, matching the economic pressure imposed by the U.S. after negotiations collapsed last month. Trump’s repeated threats to annex Canada and his insistence on referring to it as the “51st state” have significantly contributed to the tensions.

The streets in Ottawa’s Central Park neighborhood were named after New York City institutions in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Trump was primarily known for his businesses and real estate ventures, long before his political aspirations came to fruition.

Brockington said a consultation with local residents will now follow, with alternative names proposed for “Trump Avenue” ahead of a vote.

“I could speak at great length why I believe, strongly, it is time to rename ‘Trump Avenue,’ but I don't want to give a platform anymore to the person who is on the current street sign blades,” Brockington said. “I do believe this is about a new beginning, and I want this to be a community-led process where the community ultimately will select and recommend to City Council what that new name will be.”

In a statement to TIME, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly referred to the name change as a “meaningless gesture” and said “these local governments should do right by the citizens they serve, thank President Trump for defending their country, and make a good deal to benefit Canadian and American citizens alike.”

TIME has reached out to Ottawa's City Council for comment.

The vote to cut the street name comes after President Trump recently pushed through controversial renaming efforts of his own.

In late August, he signed an Executive Order renaming Lake Ontario, which borders the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York, as “Lake America.” The order applies to U.S. federal references of the lake and does not determine how Canada—or others—refer to the body of water. Several lawmakers across both countries have rejected the new moniker.

Thomas Juneau, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, says the street name change in Ottawa is “illustrative of the mood” of Canadians.

“Polls have repeatedly [shown] how extremely unpopular Trump is, and how his targeting of Canada on trade, and his trolling on social media, have made him and the U.S. unpopular,” he tells TIME.

A poll by Politico, conducted Sept. 13-15, found that 83% of Canadians thought it was wrong for Trump to impose tariffs on their country, while 71% backed Carney’s retaliatory tariffs. Another poll, conducted by Abacus Data between Sept. 4-9, found that 82% of Canadians had a negative impression of Trump.

Carney says he studied risk of U.S.-led military action amid annexation threats

In a new interview, Carney admitted he had prepared over the past 12 months or so for the “extreme tail risk” that Trump might order military action against Canada, amid the U.S. President’s repeated mentions of his desire to annex the country.

“I think you have a responsibility in these roles to look at extreme tail risk,” Carney told the New York Times. “That’s just risk management. That’s not a base case, but it would be irresponsible not to” prepare.

Juneau says the “risk of American military intervention against Canada is extremely low,” but reasons that just because Canada “shouldn't take [Trump’s] threat literally, it doesn't mean they shouldn't take it seriously.”

In an April 2025 interview with TIME, Trump denied he was “trolling” when discussing annexation. “We’re taking care of their military. We're taking care of every aspect of their lives… We don't need anything from Canada. And I say the only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state,” he argued.

Carney, in line with other Canadian officials, has vehemently pushed back against the idea, stressing that Canada is “not for sale.” In June, after Trump revived talk of his ambitions to annex Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford simply stated “Canada will never be the 51st state.”

Despite the tensions, Carney said he and Trump have spoken “frequently” since trade talks collapsed last month. However, there is no clear path toward an end to the trade standoff.

“Trump is actively trying to choke off the Canadian economy," says Juneau, noting that a key sticking point in trade negotiations, according to Carney, has been Washington's efforts to restrict Canada’s ability to negotiate trade deals abroad.

Canada seeks international alliances to remove reliance on U.S.

The U.S. accounted for 72.5% of Canadian merchandise exports in 2025, according to the country’s annual trade report, making it Canada's largest trading partner by a wide margin.

Canada and the U.S. are also deeply integrated through defense arrangements, including their membership in NATO and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD)—a bilateral defense and national security arrangement involving the shared defense of the continent.

Amid the strained relations with the Trump Administration, Carney has sought to diversify Canada’s trade and security alliances to reduce its reliance on the U.S.

“The weaponization of that interdependence by the U.S. makes [Canada] extremely vulnerable in a way that pretty much nobody else is,” insists Juneau, pointing to the urgency of Carney’s task.

The Canadian government has set itself  a goal is to “double non-U.S. exports in the next decade” as it seeks to expand trade with other markets.

In January, Carney met Chinese President Xi Jinping to forge what he called a “new strategic partnership” to end Canada's economic reliance on the American market.

Canada is also currently in negotiations with India as it seeks to negotiate a new comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Delhi, and is in talks for a free trade agreement with the Philippines.

The diversification efforts extend into defensive measures. At the E.U.-Canada summit in June 2025, Canada established a new Security and Defense Partnership with the bloc. Canada later became the first non-European country to participate in the "Security Action for Europe” (SAFE) instrument, which provides low-interest loans to help member states purchase military and defense equipment.

Canada is seeking to further strengthen ties overseas by becoming the European Union’s first “associate member”—a goal European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to help make a reality. The proposed arrangement, the details of which have yet to be ironed out, would likely deepen cooperation on matters including trade, defense, AI, and Arctic security.

Carney made his pledge to E.U. lawmakers when he addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 17. Touting closer ties with the bloc, he said “Europe and Canada are stronger together” and insisted "we are not fair-weather allies, we believe that our ​prosperity grows when ⁠it is shared."

During Carney’s trip to Europe, Canada applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force military coalition—a force launched in 2014 and made up of 10 North Atlantic NATO member states that conduct rapid-response and security operations.

Juneau warns that despite Carney’s current push to diversify trade and defense away from the U.S., the results of these deals may take a long time to truly stand up, as "in practice, diversifying trade and security relationships is measured in years and decades."

Some changes famously accompany aging. For some people, it gets harder to hear in crowded places; for others, reading a menu in dim light gets trickier. But not everyone knows to expect a loss of muscle mass. Starting around age 30, people lose 3-5% of their lean muscle per decade. For most people, this decline isn’t noticeable until around age 60, when it might start to make daily activities more difficult.

One of the most effective ways to combat muscle loss is to build and protect the muscle you already have through strength training. Not only will that help you avoid frailty and falls, but it can also keep you moving with ease through your daily activities.

When people ask Charlie Grundas, a certified personal trainer and owner of We, The Collective Fitness in Chicago, why it’s important to strength train after 50, he has an easy reply: “Do you ever want there to be a time where you can’t get off the toilet?” he says. “I don't think there should ever be [a time when] you drop something on the floor, and you're like, ‘Well, forget it, I don't own that anymore.’”

You also start losing bone density as you age, and strength training builds healthy bones, which helps prevent falls and fractures. Plus, the muscle you build may offer some insulating protection if you do stumble, says Will Hewitt, certified personal trainer and director of training at Flight House Fitness in Charlestown, Mass.

Strength training can help at any age, whether you want to keep improving in your athletic pursuits, be able to pick up grandchildren, or simply bring your groceries inside in one trip, Grundas says. It’s OK to start with just a few exercises and just a few sets and repetitions: anywhere from one to three sets of six to 15 repetitions is beneficial, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. What’s most important is that you do it—ideally at least twice a week.

It’s always a good idea to get the green light from your doctor before starting any new exercise routine. You might also consider working with a fitness professional, like a certified personal trainer or certified strength and conditioning specialist, if you’re new to strength training at this stage of life or if you’ve had any injuries or surgery. A professional can help you modify movements and swap out equipment that might feel better for your particular circumstances, Hewitt says. 

They can also help encourage you to try activities you might think you “shouldn’t” do in your 50s and beyond. “Your days of doing an 18-inch box jump may be over, and that's a hard pill to swallow, but let's do a six-inch box, and maybe six months from now, we'll be doing 12 inches,” he says. “It's just like eating your vegetables: You just have to keep doing it, and you'll be better for it.”

Here are some of the best strength-training exercises he and others recommend you try as you get older, plus how to do them with proper form.

Goblet squat

A squat is the movement required to stand up from sitting down, which is something you’ll want to be able to do your whole life long, Grundas says. This particular variation works your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and core, and it’s approachable for people of all fitness levels, Hewitt says. Holding a weight at your chest can help you keep your chest up, and keeping a wide stance can help you squat more deeply, according to the National Academy of Sports Medicine. 

How to do it

1. Start standing with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, toes pointing slightly out, holding a dumbbell (cupping one end like it’s a heavy goblet) or kettlebell at your chest with both hands.

2. Push your hips back and bend your knees to lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor or as far as you can comfortably go, keeping the weight close to your chest and your elbows inside your knees.

3. Press through your feet to return to the starting position.

4. Complete all repetitions, aiming for six to 15.

Modify it

You can work all the same muscles by doing a step-down instead. Standing on a stair, start to walk down, and as soon as your heel touches the lower step, press through your standing leg and return both feet to the higher stair, Grundas says. Repeat, alternating feet with each repetition.

Sitting-rising test

At the end of the weekly yoga class he teaches, Grundas challenges his class to stand up from the floor without using their hands. This works many different lower-body muscles and your core, in addition to helping you maintain your mobility and your balance. A 2026 European Journal of Preventive Cardiology study found people who could sit down and stand up from the floor without using their hands or other body parts for support had a four times lower risk of death over the study period compared to people who required more support.

How to do it

1. Start standing barefoot on the floor.

2. Sit down cross-legged on the floor using as little support from your hands or legs as possible.

3. Stand up, once again using as little support as possible.

4. Complete all repetitions, aiming for three to five.

Modify it

Use your hands or legs as needed to help you sit and stand. Keep practicing, aiming to be able to do the movement with less help.

If you’re able to sit and rise without support, challenge yourself with a Turkish get-up instead, Grundas says.

Seated overhead press

This movement can help you maintain your ability to put dishes away on the highest shelf in your kitchen or stow your suitcase in the overhead compartment on a plane, Grundas says.

How to do it

1. Start sitting on a bench or a sturdy piece of furniture with your feet planted on the floor, holding a dumbbell in each hand at your shoulders with your elbows bent and your palms facing forward.

2. Press both dumbbells overhead until your arms are straight but not locked.

3. Pause briefly, then lower the dumbbells to return to the starting position.

4. Complete all repetitions, aiming for six to 15.

Modify it

If you need something a little easier, use light weights to do a lateral raise, Grundas suggests:

1. Start standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding a dumbbell in each hand by your sides, palms facing your body.

2. Keeping your arms straight and your shoulders back and down, slowly lift the dumbbells up and out to your sides until the dumbbells are level with your shoulders.

3. Slowly lower the dumbbells back to the starting position.

4. Complete all repetitions, aiming for six to 15.

If you’re ready for a more challenging move, try a bench press, he says:

1. Lie on your back on a flat bench with your feet flat on the floor holding a barbell with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. 

2. Press the bar up until your arms are straight, but don’t lock your elbows.

3. Slowly lower the bar with control until you’re just about at your chest.

4. Complete all repetitions, aiming for six to 15.

Kickstand Romanian deadlift 

Grundas recommends a modified deadlift to help you maintain your ability to pick something up off the ground.

How to do it

1. Stand on one foot with the toes of your other foot on the floor slightly behind your heel, like you’re in a staggered “kickstand” position. Keep most of your weight in your standing leg and a slight bend in that knee. Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in your opposite hand.

2. Keeping that slight bend in your standing knee, push your hips back and lower the weight in front of your leg until you feel a stretch in the back of your thigh.

3. Pause briefly, then press through your standing foot to return to the starting position.

4. Complete all repetitions, aiming for six to 15, then repeat on the other side.

Modify it

Try it without any weight at first to get used to the movement. Once you feel comfortable in the kickstand position, you can try a single-leg Romanian deadlift, where you extend your kickstand leg straight behind you instead. You can also lift heavier weight with both feet on the floor in the traditional Romanian deadlift position.

Bear crawl hold 

Core exercises help improve balance, which can ward off falls, Hewitt says. Your core muscles also include your pelvic floor, so strengthening these muscles can help prevent bladder and bowel issues that become more common with age. 

How to do it

1. Start on your hands and knees on the floor.

2. Press through your palms and toes to lift your knees a few inches off of the floor.

3. Keep your back flat and hips level as you hold this position for 10 to 60 seconds.

Modify it

Elevate your hands on a sturdy bench, step, or couch to make this a little easier.

Once you get comfortable holding this position, make it a little more challenging by lifting one hand off the floor at a time and tapping it to the opposite shoulder or holding one arm and the opposite leg in the air for several seconds, Hewitt says. You can also crawl forward and backward in this position without letting your knees touch the floor.

With less than six weeks to go until Election Day, the sentiment among Republicans is shifting from nervous to fatalistic, as a pileup of bad news has many convinced they are heading toward an electoral disaster.

The warning signs are coming in quickly from across the map—much on it from red states where President Trump won comfortably just two years ago. Outside groups backing the GOP are now spending in the millions on Senate races in once-safe territories like Nebraska and Kansas; South Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Arkansas are all drawing renewed attention amid fears of a historically massive blue wave.

At a closed-door briefing on Wednesday with his caucus, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina delivered a particularly grim message: 2026 is not going to look anything like 2024. As leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Republicans’ official campaign arm, Scott is tasked with deciding how to dole out a sizable warchest in the final weeks of the midterms. According to a person who listened to the briefing, Scott urged "incumbent Senators to run like they were behind so the NRSC" could focus on "a record number of toss-up races." He told them the NRSC's priority was saving GOP-held seats in Texas, Iowa, Maine, and Alaska. They are also still investing to flip Democratic seats in Michigan and New Hampshire—where some recent polls show Democrats Abdul El-Sayed and Chris Pappas with small leads over Republicans Mike Rogers and John E. Sununu. 

And while North Carolina and Georgia—two Senate seats Republicans were touting as major targets last year—have featured less prominently in GOP conversations, Scott praised the Republican nominees in both states for narrowing their polling gaps. Still, some are writing those off as all but won by Democrats Roy Cooper and Jon Ossoff. An operative familiar with Scott’s thinking stressed that the NRSC’s strategy remains fluid until Election Day and noted that outside groups could still step in to back up their candidates in those states. 

A day earlier in Iowa, which Trump won in 2024 by 13 points, state lawmakers received an even starker warning. Radio host Steve Deace, a real player in conservative circles there and a loyal Trump ally, told his followers on Wednesday afternoon that “Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a +15 district you’re within the margin for error, if you’re in a +10 district you’re underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006.” 

Iowa Republicans on the ballot are not being subtle about their efforts to put some distance between their fortunes and the MAGA Movement. Rep. Zach Nunn voted last week to curb Trump’s deeply unpopular war against Iran—a month after campaigning with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is running that war. Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP nominee for the open Senate seat, is running ads touting her work with Democrats, not her endorsement from Trump.

As Deace noted, “If the environment is this bad in my home state, where Trump has been the most popular political figure over the last decade, I can’t imagine where it is everywhere else.”

There’s similar scrambling in Texas, where a super PAC blessed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune is now on track to spend more than $100 million, an add on of $35 million to the $65 million the group had already booked in advertising to boost Ken Paxton’s bid against James Talarico. The total price tag for keeping the Senate seat is on track to approach $200 million just on the GOP side.

It’s little better for House Republicans. Between their official campaign arm, allied outside organizations, and the candidates themselves, there is a massive $485 million well of ad reservations between Aug. 1 and Election Day—and that’s just in districts Trump won, according to a Politico analysis.

Even Speaker Mike Johnson has grown frustrated with Trump and his constant introduction of tumult in the political ether. During his Sept. 13 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Johnson appeared obviously annoyed as he kept getting asked about Trump’s fresh promise to send every American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans keep their House and Senate majorities. “I guess we’re going to spend the whole segment talking about this one issue,” Johnson said. “I want to talk about what we’ve actually done and not ideas on the table.”

It’s a common frustration across the party as gas prices—diesel especially—seem to know no limits, a war in Iran grinds toward its eighth month, and Russia’s war with Ukraine continues despite Trump’s promises to end it on “day one.” With all those drags on their ticket, Republicans have struggled to impress upon voters bragging points like the lowest crime rate in 126 years and declining prescription drug costs, or passing a massive tax cut.

The dynamic has left Republican strategists deeply frustrated. They have plenty of cash, succeeded (for the most part) in recruiting solid candidates, and are facing an opposition party that has spent much of the year fighting its own coalitions. Yet the environment still seems to be trending bluer than anyone anticipated. 

A simmering fear is that the trendlines may get even worse in the coming weeks. As one Republican strategist told me this week, Election Day cannot come quickly enough.

AI is not arriving in a world capable of receiving it. Instead, it is coming into a world that has spent the last two decades systematically dismantling the very foundations that would allow us to deploy such a powerful technology responsibly. Institutional authority, shared truth, and information integrity have been battered. We are building the most sophisticated cognitive technology in human history atop the most fractured trust landscape in modern memory.

If you wanted to design the worst possible moment for AI to emerge, you might create a moment like this one.

From post-truth to post-trust

A decade ago, we worried about living in a “post-truth” world. Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as its Word of the Year in 2016, defining it as circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. Post-truth describes a world where facts still exist but are often overshadowed by emotional narratives.

What we are experiencing now goes deeper. I call this the “post-trust era:” a world where the very mechanisms that allow us to establish trust have broken down. It is not just that emotions sometimes trump facts. It is that we have lost shared foundations for deciding what counts as a fact in the first place.

Look at what has happened to our information ecosystem over the past two decades. We moved from a world in which truth was curated by editors, printed by presses, and distributed by a small number of recognizable intermediaries, to a world in which anyone can publish, amplify, distort, or fabricate. Data exploded, and social media fragmented audiences. Algorithms began optimizing for clicks, engagement, and sensationalism. The incentives shifted from accuracy to attention: virality over veracity, outrage over nuance, speed over scrutiny.

The numbers tell their own story. Nearly 8 in 10 people get directed to their news primarily through algorithmic systems such as social feeds, search engines, and aggregators, effectively outsourcing their information diet to systems they neither understand nor fully trust. In the United States, trust in the federal government has fallen from over 70% in the late 1950s to under 20% today. Confidence in mass media has dropped: fewer than one-third of Americans express even a “fair amount” of trust. Religious institutions, financial systems, healthcare organizations, and even science itself have seen trust erode.

Post-truth describes a distortion in how people weigh facts and feelings. Post-trust describes a deeper fracture: the loss of shared procedures for determining what is real.

When the first photographs appeared in the 1830s, people marveled at their fidelity. For nearly two centuries, seeing was believing. A picture was not perfect, but it was evidence.

In early 2023, an AI-generated image of Pope Francis wearing a stylish white puffer jacket spread across social media platforms. It was compelling because it sat in a narrow band between familiar and unexpected. The photo’s style, posture, and lighting borrowed credibility from decades of real photography. Many accepted it as real before they had time to question it.

Within two years, AI-generated images, voices, and video had become so pervasive and so convincing that the question was no longer “can you spot the fake?” but “can you trust anything you see?”

The ability to fabricate convincing “evidence” at scale has arrived just as our information ecosystem is most fragmented. Research from Duke and NYU shows that exposing people to opposing political views on social media can increase polarization rather than reduce it. A landmark study in Science found that false news spreads significantly faster and more widely than trustworthy news online. Neuroimaging research suggests that when people encounter information challenging their political beliefs, brain regions associated with negative emotion light up, while confirmatory information activates reward pathways. We are not only divided about facts. We are wired to process confirming and disconfirming information through different cognitive channels altogether.

That is the substrate into which AI arrives: a world where information is abundant, but trust is scarce, where consensus reality has splintered, and where the mechanisms for establishing shared truth have broken down.

A different kind of intelligence

Into this fractured substrate arrives something genuinely new. Not just another tool, but the first technology in history whose core competence is cognition.

Past technologies extended our capabilities while remaining subordinate to human thought. The printing press amplified the words we chose to print. Electricity transformed the energy we decided to harness. Combustion engines replaced the muscle power we used, and computers executed calculations we programmed. The internet distributed the messages we wrote.

AI breaks that pattern. It no longer merely executes tasks. It generates arguments, synthesizes information, makes recommendations, and produces creative work that feels, at a human level, like someone else’s thoughts. A single model can write an essay, summarize a legal transcript, translate a medical note, draft code, plan a marketing campaign, and compose music.

At the heart of most of these systems is an architecture that learns by predicting what comes next, a word, pixel, or token, in a sequence. These models do not know “truth” in the way humans understand it. They discover patterns, frequencies, and correlations in whatever data they are given.

And here is where the timing becomes critical: the data they are given is generated in a post-trust world.

AI is trained on our news stories, our social media feeds, our digitized books, our biased archives, our polarized debates, our conspiracy theories, our scientific breakthroughs, and our misinformation. It absorbs not only our knowledge but our distortions. It learns not only our facts but also our conflicts about those facts.

The result is a strange mirror. AI reflects us to ourselves, refracted through statistical patterns and scaled by computation. It gives us answers we cannot easily audit, based on training data we cannot thoroughly inspect, optimized for objectives we do not always control.

A new kind of cognitive infrastructure is emerging at the precise moment our social infrastructure for trust is under strain.

Excerpted from The Trust Code with permission from Tiffany Xingyu Wang.

This week, the U.N. General Assembly affirmed that statehood endures the loss of land. My country, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, will persist despite rising seas. The question is how Marshallese people go on living here safely.

Our nation consists of narrow strips of land on 29 low-lying coral atolls scattered across more than 750,000 square miles of the central Pacific Ocean.

For many, adapting to rising seas may mean moving communities to higher ground. In the Marshalls, we have no higher ground to move to. That fundamental difference shapes what climate adaptation means for us and how we must act.

As we prepare for another El Niño, our people know its rhythms well, but the severity with which these forces now arrive is worsening.

First, the rains come heavily. Then they stop. Water tanks empty, wells run dry, crops fail, and ocean conditions shift. We begin shipping water to communities with none.

These changes are the reality behind the historic diplomatic achievement taking place this week. The U.N. General Assembly adopted the first Sea-Level Rise Declaration by consensus. In a year of fractured diplomacy, that is worth celebrating.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands has never wavered in its position. Sea level rise will not alter the statehood, sovereignty, or maritime zones of any state. But while the legal status, rights, and maritime zones of my country and its people are now secure, our physical safety is not.

That distinction must guide what comes next. The world must respond to the impact of sea level rise on coastal communities, heritage, and cultures, and the lands that have nourished our ancestors for generations. We must start by preventing as much sea level rise as we can.

Island nations have long fought for climate action. The Alliance of Small Island States, the High Ambition Coalition (which the Marshall Islands convenes), and other progressive forces fought hard for the 1.5°C temperature limit within the Paris Agreement. 

And last year, inspired by a campaign led by Pacific youth, the International Court of Justice affirmed in its advisory opinion on climate change that every country's emissions reductions must align with 1.5°C. The Court also affirmed that the continued licensing, subsidy, production, and consumption of fossil fuels may constitute internationally wrongful acts.

Yet earlier this month, the United Nations Environment Programme released a report indicating that an overshoot of 1.5°C is now almost certain. Crossing the threshold cannot be an excuse to abandon the target. Every fraction of a degree means greater risks, higher seas, and more lives and livelihoods lost. Our responsibility is to make that overshoot as small and short-lived as possible.

In the Pacific, we know that fossil fuel dependency hurts not only the planet but also our health, security, and economies. That is why, earlier this month, Pacific leaders set out our vision for a fossil fuel-free Pacific.

If the world does not follow science, international law, or the Pacific by phasing out fossil fuels as swiftly as possible, the harm to the roughly one billion people who live on the world’s coasts will be devastating. What’s more, the costs of adaptation will rise exponentially. For the Marshallese people, the desire to stay in the land of our ancestors is deeply felt. We demand action from major emitters as we also adapt to rising seas.

Adaptation is a huge technical challenge. We are mapping our atolls from the air, meter by meter, because available satellite elevation data has a margin of error nearly three times the height of most of our nation. We cannot determine which land to raise or whose drinking water can survive a drought from inaccurate data. Precise information is also essential to develop credible proposals and access climate finance.

We know what practical adaptation looks like. Our National Adaptation Plan is complete; funding it is not. Effective adaptation costs money—$310 billion to $365 billion per year to manage worsening climate impacts—which is why the call in the Declaration on Sea Level Rise to streamline and simplify access to finance matters. Pacific leaders in Palau put it plainly: what this region needs is climate finance, and finance that actually reaches people on the ground. We need states to invest in helping communities adapt, protecting livelihoods, allowing people to remain safely on their lands for as long as possible, and ensuring that those who move can do so with dignity.

The Marshall Islands is proud to lead the champions launching the Rising Nations Institute, which aims to translate the principles we have fought for into practical solutions for communities confronting rising seas.

Despite geopolitical challenges, UNGA’s Sea-Level Rise Declaration shows that the world is committed to climate action and to the protection of countries threatened by sea level rise. We now have legal frameworks capable of enduring physical change and inspiring action. The next challenge is to ensure that our systems of finance, planning, and adaptation can do the same.

We cannot completely hold back the rising seas. But we can do a lot more to limit that rise and to choose how we meet it.