France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez on Monday admitted that police “lost control” in some cities over the weekend as violent protests erupted across the country, while French President Emmanuel Macron called for a review of the police response to the rioting and looting.

Nuñez said there had been a "lack of anticipation" ahead of the demonstrations on Saturday and acknowledged that policing numbers had fallen short in some areas as hundreds of thousands took to the ​streets to protest over, what they say are, underfunded public services and rising cost-of-living pressures. The demonstrations followed weeks of ‌student protests that had also seen some violence.

In the wake of the chaotic scenes, Nuñez offered his resignation to Macron because he "felt responsible” for how things unfolded. Macron refused to accept it, due to “the need for a continuous command of the police,” the Élysée Palace told TIME. Instead, Macron has called for the Interior Ministry to “take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over planning and intelligence failures” and to put an end to the barricades and looting.

As France aims to regain full control of its streets, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has extended local mayors the power to enforce “partial curfews,” in an effort to protect businesses and people. The French government has also vowed to create a fund to financially assist shops that were impacted by the riots.

The Interior Ministry reported that around 550,000 people had taken to the streets on Saturday. A French trade union put the number at over 800,000. Nuñez on Sunday said that more than 2,000 people had been arrested and over 600 police officers and firefighters injured. In Paris, at least 300 businesses were vandalised, Dominique Restino, the head of the Paris chamber of commerce, told BFM television. Alongside the violence in the capital, what started out as peaceful protests in Marseille and Lyon also turned violent as rioters descended. Authorities in Marseille on Monday imposed a temporary ban on public gatherings and demonstrations.

Various buildings and official monuments have been targeted across the country.

A historic town hall in the French city of Limoges was damaged in what appeared to be an arson attack on Saturday. One of the main tourist offices in the city of Lyon was set ablaze. In Bordeaux, the prefect's residence was attacked, according to local authorities.

Macron addressed the nation on Sunday, acknowledging the public’s “anger” and “shame” over the rioting that accompanied the demonstrations. “Those who looted will have to pay for the damage, and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable,” Macron vowed in a televised address.

Protests spread across France

Throughout September, students across France blockaded schools and demonstrated against, what they say is, a poorly-funded high school system. The protests went nationwide on Oct. 6, when more than 250,000 people took to streets across with teachers, parents, and union activists joining marches.

The demonstrations have drawn comparisons to the May 1968 protests, which were initiated by a student movement and led to millions of workers striking and nearly toppled the government.

Over the weekend, further demonstrations were organized across the country, with some protesters seeking to revive the Yellow Vest movement of 2018, which emerged in response to planned increases in fuel taxes on diesel and gasoline.

In Paris, protesters on Saturday draped a yellow vest over the Marianne statue at the Place de la République. The website of the coordination group described the mobilization as a convergence of student protests and wider economic grievances, bringing together high school and university students, farmers, firefighters, workers, teachers, healthcare workers, climate activists, residents of working-class neighborhoods, and retirees.

Thousands demonstrate in other European cities

France was not alone in dealing with demonstrations over the weekend, as protesters also took to the streets in other European countries.

In Portugal, protesters marched in Lisbon, Porto, and Coimbra as they called for better pensions, improved public services, and affirmative government action to combat rising living costs.

In Milan, police clashed with protesters as some threw stones and looted shops during ​demonstrations against underfunded services and the rising cost of living. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is holding an emergency meeting with security officials on Monday to assess the situation that unfolded. There were further clashes between police and protesters in Bologna and Turin.

Unrest also broke out in Brussels, Belgium, on Saturday afternoon, as antifascist activists took to the streets. The demonstrations turned violent, prompting police intervention amid reports of property damage.

People first noticed the black helicopter in the sky. 

It was a chilly Sunday afternoon a year ago at La Catedral Arena, a popular track for horse racing outside the Idaho town of Wilder. Hundreds had gathered at the arena for a festival celebrating horse racing and Mexican culture. 

As the military-style helicopter hovered above them, attendees from the rural, predominantly Latino community, began to get nervous.

“Something is wrong,” Ivan Popoca, who attended the festival with his two kids, remembers thinking.

Within minutes, the festival grounds descended into chaos. Backed by armored trucks and snipers, more than 200 members of law enforcement stormed the grounds, some shot rubber bullets into the crowd and hurled flash-bang grenades into vehicles where people had fled to hide. Hundreds of people, including teens as young as 14, were detained and zip-tied.

When it was all over, federal authorities had arrested 105 people for alleged immigration violations. Yet on paper, this wasn’t an immigration raid at all. The only warrant for the Wilder raid was secured by the FBI. Its target: the owner of the track and four others for alleged unlicensed gambling. 

Twelve months later, the Wilder raid is at the center of a court fight that could shape ICE operations around the country. Advocates argue that in Idaho, ICE unlawfully piggybacked on an FBI operation, rather than securing their own warrant, as they would be expected to do on this type of operation. A lawsuit brought forth by the ACLU argues that federal authorities violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, by using an unrelated search warrant as a “cover to go fishing for immigration arrests.” 

“That is not what a criminal search warrant execution looks like. That is what a massively violent

immigration raid looks like,” says Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, an ACLU attorney who helped bring the resulting lawsuit. 

Trump Administration officials insist that the arrests made that day were lawful. “The facts haven’t changed: ICE helped dismantle an illegal horse-racing, animal fighting, and a gambling enterprise operation out of a property known as La Cathedral Arena in Wilder, Idaho,” a DHS spokesperson told TIME. Idaho Gov. Brad Little also defended the raid, saying in a statement at the time that it is “common practice” to detain others present while processing the scene. 

For Wilder residents, the La Catedral raid remains an open wound that refuses to heal. Popoca still recalls with anger how he and his 16-year-old son were zip-tied for hours for no apparent reason. 

The ACLU and some of the families involved in the case released a documentary online on Monday called Wilder Raids in which they discuss the raid’s impact, and why the legal challenge matters beyond people in Wilder. 

“Some community members don't even want to think about this anymore,” says Leo Morales, the executive director of the ACLU Idaho. “But there are also folks who are also realizing how critical it is to be able to push back, to organize and to demand fairness and justice.”

Recurring nightmares

Juana Rodriguez attended the festival with her three-year-old son. Despite both of them being U.S. citizens, they were zip-tied and detained for hours following the raid. Like many others who were detained, she described not being given access to food or water. 

“For the longest time, my son begged me for food. He begged me for water,” Rodriguez says. She repeatedly asked the officers she could be untied so that she could feed and console her crying son, she says, but was rebuffed. “I wish I could have done more in the moment, but I couldn't.”

Detainees were eventually taken into a tent and questioned by ICE agents about their immigration status.  Among the 105 people who were ultimately arrested, 75 are believed to have been deported to their home countries, according to local media, and 26 were released from ICE custody after their lawyers filed habeas corpus petitions. The whereabouts of the remaining four people are unclear. ICE did not provide an update on their case status.

The day after the raid, the Wilder School District reported absent rates soared, with 20% of students absent, according to The Idaho Statesman. More than half of the district’s student body is Hispanic or Latino.

A year later, Rodriguez says she is still scared to go to Latino cultural and other public events because of what happened at La Catedral. She also has nightmares about ICE officers taking her child away from her.

“I'm from here. My kids are from here,” she says. ”Why should I have to feel that? Like, I shouldn't.”

ICE’s Growing Legal Fights

The ACLU filed a class-action complaint in February, charging that a variety of local, state and federal agencies violated the constitutional rights of those at the festival. Both sides are now waiting for a judge to rule on a motion by ICE and other agencies to dismiss, in which it argued that federal and state law enforcement are protected by qualified immunity, a longstanding legal doctrine when executing a federal warrant. 

The Wilder case is one of multiple lawsuits the Trump Administration is fighting over its immigration enforcement operations. In Minnesota, none of the federal agents involved in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have been criminally charged, but a string of civil lawsuits is beginning to emerge. Earlier this month, the family of Renee Good, who was killed last January by a federal agent during the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, filed a pair of civil lawsuits against the federal government, according to their legal representative. Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who was shot by a Border Patrol agent during a confrontation on a Chicago street last year, has also filed a lawsuit against the federal government. 

Anyone seeking to hold federal agents accountable must be prepared for a long wait, says Borchetta. A lawsuit against the federal government can’t even be filed unless it’s been six months since a complainant filed a claim for compensation and the issue remains unresolved.  

“If a federal employee is driving their car negligently on the job and hits you with their car, you can bring a claim for them for that negligence,” Borchetta says. “It also applies where an ICE agent is mistreating you or causing you harm.”

But the law itself imposes many limitations on suing the federal government. Victims can seek compensatory damages for actual losses, but not punitive damages. And unlike state authorities who can be sued for civil rights violations in state courts, federal law enforcement authorities are generally shielded from such lawsuits based on legal precedents. 

But Borchetta says the impact of the lawsuits can be bigger than any verdict. She argues that the ongoing Wilder case has already helped change ICE’s conduct as well as how local governments collaborate with them. 

“While we don't yet have a decision from the court, we haven't seen more raids like this in Idaho,” she says. “The lawsuit itself exposes both the state and the federal actors to liability, and that can change behavior itself.”

With days to go before a crucial general election in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a last-minute endorsement for re-election on Sunday from his longtime friend, U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday. “Please let this Letter serve to represent my Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu in his upcoming Race for Re-Election as Prime Minister of Israel.”

It’s a ringing, albeit late, recommendation for someone Trump hasn’t seen eye-to-eye with in recent months over how Netanyahu’s government has navigated the Middle East conflict. Trump explained his delayed endorsement to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, saying that he’d always meant to endorse Netanyahu because they “have a good relationship, and because we’ll continue to do good things together.” 

Trump said in his post that, if Israel were to have “the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi,” the U.S. would be left alone to face the Iran threat. The U.S. and Israel jointly struck Iran in late February, kickstarting a conflict that has not only upended global markets but also thrust Middle Eastern regional security into turmoil.

“Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself,” Trump added, in apparent reference to Netanyahu’s domestic challenges, including a corruption trial, some of which the U.S. President has previously tried to influence. “Despite all of that, he has endured and, in fact, he has thrived!”

Trump’s endorsement comes just before Israelis head to the polling booths on Oct. 27, some three years after the country’s war with terror group Hamas ignited. Since then, Netanyahu has been criticized by opponents for failing to deliver on his promise of restoring regional security.

Public disillusionment with Netanyahu was among several factors that led to the formation of the Yashar! (“Straight!”) Party, whose founder, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, is challenging Netanyahu for the premiership. Eisenkot’s son and nephews were killed in the war in the Gaza Strip.

It’s unclear how big of an electoral boost Netanyahu will get from Trump’s endorsement. An opinion poll from nonprofit The Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem released this month shows that most Israelis still see Trump as a great friend of Israel. A separate opinion poll from JPPI, however, shows their trust in him has eroded. Eisenkot, reacting to Trump’s endorsement, said at an event in Tel Aviv that while he appreciates Trump, only Israelis will decide on their next Prime Minister. Some surveys show Yashar! is in a tight race with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.

Netanyahu nonetheless thanked his “dear friend Donald” in a video posted on social media, saying he was “honored” and “humbled” by Trump’s backing, adding that the U.S. was “fortunate” to have Trump as its leader in the fight to denuclearize Iran.

Trump and Netanyahu’s fraught friendship

Even before Trump became U.S. President, he had publicly endorsed Netanyahu, though Trump, still only a TV personality in 2013, said that the Israeli politician asked for it. Since Trump was first elected, the two have been political allies and friends. Their relationship, however, has seen a number of ups and downs since Trump returned to the White House last year.

Netanyahu was the first foreign leader invited to the White House during Trump’s second-term Administration, and he has met with Trump repeatedly since. Netanyahu pushed Trump to target three key Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year. Last November, Trump sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, asking him to pardon Netanyahu on his drawn out corruption trial, which the U.S. President deemed to be “political, unjustified prosecution.”

On Feb. 11, when Trump and Netanyahu met in a closed-door meeting at the White House, Israel and the U.S. failed to reach an agreement on how to proceed with Iran. Netanyahu has long sought to decapitate the Iranian leadership, but Trump at the time insisted on negotiations. Netanyahu, nonetheless, reportedly pressed Trump to launch the Iran operation later that month.

Since their last meeting, their relationship has markedly shifted. Trump has since tried to find an off-ramp to the war in Iran, but Israel’s actions made such peace deal talks thorny.

In March, after Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, Trump said he told Netanyahu to stop such attacks. Then, on April 17, Trump declared on Truth Social that Israel was “PROHIBITED” from further bombing Lebanon, where it was at war with the militant group Hezbollah. Netanyahu, however, insisted that Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon and that security threats persisted—complicating Washington’s efforts toward peace as Tehran indicated that any deal would need to include a halt of the attacks in Lebanon.

When Netanyahu in June ordered strikes on a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut to retaliate against the group’s alleged attacks on Israel, Trump phoned and excoriated the Israeli Prime Minister, reportedly calling him “f-cking crazy.” Asked by CNBC about the call, Netanyahu said: “We have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends.”

During Netanyahu’s seventh U.S. visit in July, Trump went public with his frustration. During a telephone interview on Fox News, Trump criticized Netanyahu over reports that the Israeli leader planned to share intelligence showing Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The U.S. President said: “I don’t need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.”

Netanyahu is part of Trump’s U.N. alternative called the Board of Peace, though Israel broke again with the U.S. President by rejecting having Turkish and Qatari representatives on the board’s subpanel, the Gaza Executive Board, which is tasked with overseeing post-war reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.

Then Netanyahu rejected the Board of Peace’s 15-point plan to advance a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and insisted that Israel would not withdraw before Hamas fully disarmed. 

In Trump’s extensive interview with TIME in late September, Trump did not answer directly when asked repeatedly if the Israeli population should give Netanyahu another term. “I can only say that I’m not involved in politics anymore,” the U.S. President said. 

But despite the lack of clear endorsement then, Trump seemed confident that “Bibi” could still win. “People have written off Bibi many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times,” Trump told TIME. “I wouldn’t underestimate Bibi.”

The debate about how to control AI and limit its potential for damage is healthy and necessary. It is also unavoidable and urgent. 

But this is not the only vital debate. There are also vital questions about how the upsides of AI are shared fairly. Business as usual has left the world's poorest people behind, so far. And for those caught up in conflict—in places like Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, and Afghanistan—AI can help meet urgent needs. 

It is clear to me that the world has more resources to do good than at any time in human history, but too often, we don't distribute them where they are most needed. Now, AI stands to create even more resources in the form of free time, insights, and funds. And they need to be spent in the right places.

The AI revolution is going to mint a new generation of billionaires and millionaires—and with them, a new generation of philanthropists; a term stemming from the Ancient Greek philanthropia, meaning “love of humanity”. It’s a reminder that the act of giving begins with some of the most fundamentally human impulses: care, love, empathy, and selflessness.

Maybe this explains why Effective Altruism—the idea that generosity should be subjected to evidence and calculation—seemed counterintuitive. But I never understood why. After all, who wants ineffective altruism? We should all be asking where our money can do the most good. 

Organizations working at the sharpest end of the world’s toughest problems—like the one I lead—need philanthropy to be the smart money: hard-headed as well as big-hearted, focused on outcomes not visibility, concerned to add value not just kudos. Results, not just responsibility, should be the watchword.

Fortunately, there’s been an evidence revolution over the last 20 years. We know a whole lot more about what actually works. This makes giving much easier. Distance no longer needs to be the enemy of confidence. 

In fact, there is every reason to think globally, not just locally, about where to make a difference. As the world has become more and more connected, governments have retreated from global problems. For instance, official development assistance funds from Organisation for  Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries dropped by a historic 23.1% in 2025. Now, we need new philanthropy to provide some balance in a world that is clearly out of balance.

Around 94% of American philanthropy is spent in the U.S. But the rest of the world is not just where the needs are greatest—from acute childhood malnutrition to violence against women—but where the gains from philanthropy can be greatest.

The 20 countries at greatest risk of a worsening humanitarian crisis, ranked by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) annually in our Emergency Watchlist, represent just 12% of the global population, but 90% of those in humanitarian need. In these places, led by regions like Sudan, Gaza, and South Sudan, children are three times more likely to die before their fifth birthday and 10 times more likely to grow up in extreme poverty than children born elsewhere. The people living here have done the least to contribute to climate change, but face the combined pressures of climate change and conflict—and receive the least support to adapt.  

If philanthropy and its “love of humanity” belong anywhere, it is these areas. And just in time, humanitarians have developed increasingly sophisticated tools to transform what we know about how to help people survive through and recover from crisis.  Real-time data, randomized controlled trials, cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency analysis, plus predictive analytics, have transformed the evidence base and the basis for action.  

The IRC alone has conducted over 50 impact evaluations since 2020 as well as 500 cost analyses, allowing us to measure not simply whether an intervention works, but how much it costs and how much further each additional dollar can go. So we don't need to be daunted by the big numbers highlighting the 43 million children who are acutely malnourished, the 20 million kids without full immunization, over 300 million people hungry, and hundreds of thousands of women dying in childbirth in fragile states alone. These are problems that we actually know how to solve at manageable, in fact low, cost.

For example, we have learned how to deliver vaccine shots—40 million of them—at just $2 a shot in places like Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, negotiating with armed groups along the way to get access to populations otherwise cut off from healthcare.  This offers lifelong benefit, not just a short-term palliative.

We’ve shown how local health workers can more simply diagnose and treat acute malnutrition directly in communities where crisis-affected children live. This approach offers a 92% recovery rate, and earlier interventions can catch malnutrition before it becomes severe. The result is that we are 20% more cost-effective, allowing us to help more kids for the same amount of money.  

There are more examples. We've demonstrated that violence against women and violence against kids can be reduced by over 70% when they are tackled together. We have also proven the benefits of giving aid in advance of climate disasters, not just in reaction to them: in Afghanistan, our clients were three times less likely to fall further into poverty. 

Of course, the contexts stricken by war and state failure are challenging. But that makes the philanthropic imperative towards the people who live there all the more urgent.

The same technology that is delivering fortunes in Silicon Valley can also deliver help to the least fortunate. IRC’s global digital helpdesk, Signpost, has reached 20 million people forced to flee crisis in 12 languages with timely, life-saving information. Leading tech companies helped us develop it.  In Somalia, IRC teams employed anticipatory action ahead of last year’s devastating drought, a disaster that typically drives cholera outbreaks. Again, it took partnership of financial support, technical know-how, and NGO savvy.

In all these areas, the traditional aid system is falling short.  Too often, climate and humanitarian systems work in separate silos. Despite the evidence, less than 1% of aid is invested in anticipatory action. Every government donor has its own bureaucracy, with different reporting systems, compliance requirements, and measurement metrics. 

This is the syndrome that philanthropy can help break. By focusing on what works, measuring what counts, and investing in innovation. The risk does not lie in action; it lies in inertia. 

We know more than ever about what works in humanitarian crises, and we have new tools capable of extending those gains. The opportunity for this generation of philanthropists is not simply to give more. It is to take what we have learned and apply it where the stakes are highest. The real test isn't how much they give. It’s where.

On the day Vivek Ramaswamy made official his run for Ohio Governor, President Donald Trump did not dally.
“He will be a GREAT Governor of Ohio, will never let you down, and has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!” the President wrote on Truth Social on Feb. 24 of last year, within hours of Ramaswamy kicking off his campaign.

Trump’s post essentially cleared what had been expected to be a crowded GOP field, boxing out the likes of state Attorney General Dave Yost, state Treasurer Robert Sprague, and Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel in a state where Republicans felt dominant. It also effectively gave Ramaswamy almost two years to focus on keeping the Governor’s mansion in GOP hands. But the very connections to Trumpism that fueled Ramaswamy’s fast political rise are now giving his party reason to worry, as polls show him trailing Democrat Amy Acton, a former state health chief and a first-time candidate.

“Something is happening here. I just can’t tell you what,” says one Ohio Democratic strategist, reflecting the apprehension pervasive in both parties right now.

On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy occasionally moderates his image as the brash MAGA warrior railing against “the woke left,” pitching tax cuts and economic development when he’s with suburban crowds and chamber of commerce types. But he can still come off at times as a pugilistic troll. He has promised to be "the most conservative Governor in Ohio's history,” defying Ohio’s history of moderate conservatives who have governed the Heartland homebase. He has embraced AI data centers in a state where they are far from popular. And he has not shrunk from Trumpian hardline immigration policies, especially when he appears with Trump. 

"As Americans, we believe in merit, that the best person gets the job, regardless of their skin color, that you are judged not on the color of your skin, but on the content of your character and your contributions,” Ramaswamy said during an Oct. 12 rally with Trump in Youngstown, where Acton grew up. “That is who we are as Americans."

Ramaswamy has not developed a thicker skin than when he ran for the White House just two years ago. In July, when confronted by hecklers at Xavier University in Cincinnati, he simply walked off stage: “Peace out, see you guys.”

The polls still show a close-range contest, but in the increasingly nasty ad war, the spending suggests a far more lopsided fight. Ramaswamy and his supporters have now run $101 million in ads against Acton, with $36 million of that coming from Ramaswamy himself. 

Acton and groups supporting her have spent about one-third of the Ramaswamy media wave, much of it describing Ramaswamy as a “swindler” who conned his way to a fortune and harnessing anti-billionaire sentiment.

“This is a guy who has been flying around the state on his corporate jet. Ohio is not a huge state geographically. It’s a state that’s incredibly driveable,” says David Cohen, the director of the Applied Politics Program at the University of Akron. “He was the worst possible choice for Republicans, not that they really had a choice.”

A loss for Ramaswamy would be a stunning reversal of fortunes for Ohio Republicans. Once seen as a quintessential swing state, Trump won Ohio during all three of his presidential bids with margins between eight and 11 points.

If Democrats can show a rebound in Ohio, the state may actually wind up back on the must-visit list for 2028 contenders from both parties. After all, states like Georgia and Arizona were also once solidly red until break-out candidates—backed by party spending—upended those assumptions.

 “Calm down,” says a consultant who has worked with Ohio candidates in past cycles, when asked about Democrats’ optimism. “It’s still Ohio.” 

Ramaswamy’s rise via Trump

For a while there two years ago, Ramaswamy seemed like the most obvious heir to Trumpism. When he launched his presidential bid in 2025, he couched it in effusive praise for the then-former President, to the point that he sometimes sounded like a Trump surrogate in the GOP debates that Trump refused to attend.

After a weak showing in Iowa, Ramaswamy ended his campaign and quickly folded into the broader MAGA-verse. He was chosen by Trump to help Elon Musk upend the federal government at the Department of Government Efficiency, before dropping out of that partnership.

But the talent for going viral that helped Ramaswamy gain a national profile has proved less successful this election cycle in Ohio. Social media videos of him hitting tennis balls and baseballs while listing his policy proposals have provided a font of online mockery. He hastily left Ohio State’s season opener after being booed and heckled. Later, he faced criticism for having worn a knock-off Ohio State jersey to the game. 

Ramaswamy has also struggled to navigate his identity as a Hindu and the son of immigrants from India in the modern GOP. In the gubernatorial primary, auto entrepreneur Casey Putsch ignored Trump’s endorsement of Ramaswamy and vied for the nomination, pitching himself as an “America First” alternative to Ramaswamy. In one YouTube spot,  Putsch hoisted a rifle and challenged Ramaswamy to a game of “cowboys and Indians.” 

While Ramaswamy easily won his party’s nomination, almost one-in-five votes in the primary were for Putsch, a hint that Ramaswamy’s appeal had its limits even within his own party. “One of the storylines here is a man who is Indian American and whose religion is Hindu,” says Christopher Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton, says. “There are a lot of members of the Republican base who may have difficulty voting someone of his demographic profile.”

Amid efforts by both campaigns to push policy ideas like tax cuts and education reform, the ad war has boiled down to attacks portraying Ramaswamy as a conman and Acton as a drunk. The latter is based on an August 2019 incident in which police responded to an incident in Acton’s home that Acton has accused Ramaswamy of dramatically mischaracterizing, to the point that she refused to share a debate stage with him. Ramaswamy has also refuted allegations his fortune came from misleading investors.

Devine says the tone of the attacks is a shift from the Senate race, where former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and current Republican Sen. Jon Husted both have extensive records for each side to focus on. “In the Governor’s race, there’s no record to pick apart. Without much of a track record in politics to run on, they’re focusing on personal attacks against the other,” Devine says.

Ohio polling raises questions 

As polling consistently shows an advantage for Acton, Republicans are increasingly arguing that the polls may be wrong by just enough to give Ramaswamy the win. One proof point is 2018, when some polls showed Brown winning re-election by double digits. By the time votes were cast, Brown won by less than seven points

Republicans, heading into a make-or-break stretch of voting, are repeating those statistics to make the case that the polling once again is under-counting Republican voters. 

Cohen, the political science professor, doesn’t share that view of skewed polling: “I’m not skeptical at all. All of the polls are trending in the right direction for Acton.” 

Democrats, for their part, are viewing the race as a tie, at best. Among their reasons for concern is Ohio’s poor track record when women are on the ballot. The state’s voters have never elected a woman as Governor and rejected both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris as presidential contenders. 

Yet given the strong headwinds against Republicans’ national brand, they can’t hide their bullishness toward the races for Governor and Senate, where polls show Brown up over Husted. “I haven’t felt this good, like we have a chance, in a while,” says a second Ohio Democratic strategist. But, he adds, given how tight both races may be, no one should expect an early race call once the polls close.

In 2024, two Michigan high school students were sitting in the bleachers during a student-teacher basketball game when their physical education teacher collapsed from cardiac arrest. They had both recently learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at a career-focused technical nursing center and rushed to help, beginning chest compressions and using an automated external defibrillator (AED) before emergency responders arrived. 

Thanks to their actions, their teacher survived, and is one of approximately 350,000 Americans who experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest each year. Roughly nine out of ten will not survive. 

We often describe the difference between life and death as a matter of speed: how quickly emergency services arrive and how fast a hospital can intervene. But in reality, cardiac arrest outcomes often depend on whether someone nearby begins CPR in the first few minutes, which rarely belong to emergency responders, but instead to whomever is standing closest: a classmate, teacher, stranger at a basketball game, or someone waiting for a train. Every minute without CPR sharply reduces the chances the patient will live long enough to reach a hospital.

Schools occupy a special role in public health. As a location most Americans pass through and one of the only places they may ever encounter CPR training, a high school classroom may be the best opportunity to prepare the next generation of lifesavers. 

Schools already rehearse fire drills and lockdown drills for dangers that are statistically rare. Cardiac arrest is the reverse: far more common, and far less rehearsed. CPR skills can save lives years down the road when a cardiac arrest occurs at home, in a gym, at an airport, or at a university. Harnessing that opportunity requires both the resources to teach CPR effectively and the policies to ensure every student has the chance to learn it.

In Europe, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, and England implemented school CPR education through national requirements or curriculum standards. Denmark offers a clear example of the positive impact. From 2001 to 2010, as Denmark introduced nationwide resuscitation initiatives including mandatory school CPR education, bystander CPR rates more than doubled, while 30-day survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest more than tripled.

A central challenge is how to implement CPR training at scale. The international KIDS SAVE LIVES initiative offers a practical blueprint. Endorsed by the World Health Organization, it calls for recurring, age-appropriate basic life support education beginning in childhood. Research from the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation shows children can learn the early links in the chain of survival from the young age of 4, perform effective chest compressions by age 12, and pass skills to family members and others.

Some may hesitate to perform CPR because of legal concerns over causing injury—like rib fractures—while administering CPR, but every state has Good Samaritan laws providing protections to people who render emergency aid in good faith. A 30-year review of U.S. litigation across all 50 states from 1989 to 2019 found no cases in which a layperson who provided CPR was held liable for causing harm. 

The U.S. has also made significant progress in bringing CPR education into schools. In 1984, Alabama became the first state to require CPR instruction for high school graduation. Over the four decades since, communities have taken different approaches to bring CPR into the classroom. In West Virginia and Alaska, educators’ unions formally backed legislation requiring CPR education, while efforts in Washington and Illinois advanced in memory of students lost to cardiac arrest.

Today, 43 states require some form of CPR education before high school graduation. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Wyoming are the seven that remain. Several are already taking steps to expand CPR education. Massachusetts invested $425,000 to expand CPR education in public schools, while Colorado includes hands-on CPR and AED instruction in its statewide health education guidelines but stops short of requiring schools to provide it. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a resolution directing the Instructional Quality Commission to include high school CPR in the state’s next health curriculum framework. San Francisco is taking an even broader approach, with paramedics and firefighters working to train 100,000 community members in CPR.

There is evidence that laws can translate into lifesaving action. A study of nearly 300,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests across 20 states found that patients had 12% higher odds of receiving bystander CPR in states with high school CPR education laws than those without them.

Other lifesaving education efforts can also offer a roadmap. In Georgia, Wesley’s Law, championed by Laura and Larry Gay after their son’s death, required public schools to stock overdose-reversal medication such as naloxone. In 2025, the state launched an opioid-settlement-funded initiative to provide overdose-reversal kits to public schools statewide, along with training resources for staff. In Indiana, emergency-response professionals helped expand Stop the Bleed training in schools, and the state’s Secured School Safety Grant program now offers funding for school bleeding-control programs and kits.

Both examples demonstrate how local champions and an existing source of funding can help turn a lifesaving idea into reality. Broadening collaboration among organizations such as the American Medical Association, American Red Cross, Project ADAM, and American Heart Association can also help expand CPR education nationwide.

After Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on the field in 2023, he became a leading advocate for the bipartisan HEARTS Act, which Congress passed unanimously in 2024. President Biden signed it into law later that year, supporting schools in expanding access to AEDs, CPR and AED education, and cardiac emergency response planning.

Cardiac arrest does not wait for emergency responders. The students who stepped forward when their teacher collapsed playing basketball in Michigan illustrate what becomes possible when CPR skills are taught before they are needed. Someday, every high school student in the U.S. could graduate prepared to step up and become a lifesaver.