In 2001, I lost the world I knew. Twenty-five years later, I’m accidentally rebuilding it. 

“I think people think you’re my mother,” my six-year-old niece whispered to me as we walked through the parking lot toward CVS. 

“I think you’re right,” I said, smiling back at her impish grin that suggested we were pulling one over on the world. I had picked her up from school and was indulging her request to buy fake nails for our sleepover. She gripped my hand tightly, as a daughter would. We proudly walked through the automatic sliding doors, as one.

I don’t have children of my own, which means my niece is the beneficiary of my pent-up maternal love and obsession. She was born in 2020, and four months later, I left my job as the executive producer of a morning news show in New York and moved to Los Angeles. It was the first time I’d disrupted my ambitious climb up the media ladder, and when my feet landed in the California sand, my role as an aunt became the foundation of my daily life. 

Birthdays, ballet recitals, and school performances anchored my calendar. Playing hide-and-seek before dinner, getting ice cream on a Tuesday, and letting her empty my closet for dress-up replaced late-night calls, breaking news, and media dinners. Recently, when my sister traveled abroad for work, my niece wanted assurance that her “substitute mother” would be around. The phrase made me laugh, but also squeezed my heart like a vise. Because I know what it’s like to have a substitute mother. 

Daphne Pouletsos worked for the insurance company AON, her office was located in the south tower of the World Trade Center, and she was among the 2,977 victims killed in the 9/11 attacks. 

Saza, as we called her, was my mother’s younger sister. Her nickname was a name given by my oldest cousin, Dayna, whose toddler tongue couldn’t say “Aunt Daphne.” 

Although Saza lived in New Jersey and I grew up in Virginia, she was a constant light in my life. We drove up north for summers and holidays, and Saza would visit us throughout the year. Once, she hid in the back of our Chrysler minivan when my mom picked my siblings and me up from school, and she revealed herself by suddenly piping into the conversation. We squealed with excitement. 

Saza knew how to make a mundane moment sparkle. Her sense of humor was the first thing to enter the room, and sleepovers at her house meant staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live. In my young mind, “The Church Lady” and “Coffee Talk” were extensions of my aunt (it helped that she also had a New Jersey accent). Shimmying our shoulders like “Sprockets” was like a special inside joke. Her laugh could sweeten the sourest mood.

But the best moments with her were always Christmas morning. Saza would come to my grandparents’ house first thing in the morning, the jingle bell on the back door announcing her arrival. She’d sit in the big, blue upholstered wingback chair, her feet tucked under her like a teenager, eyes shining behind her ‘90s rimless glasses. I can’t separate the thrill I got from opening a new baby doll from the joy I got from showing it to her. She would coo with enthusiasm, amplifying my delight. One time, she gave all of her nieces and nephews thick black plastic glasses with rubber banana noses attached. It was the silliest gift I’ve ever received, and one of the best. We took a picture, all piled on top of each other: laughing, goofy, family. Her presence carried a promise that everything was okay. As a kid, I assumed it always would be.

I was studying abroad in the fall of 2001. Classes at University College London hadn’t started yet, so I was traipsing around Europe with a sorority sister. We were at a restaurant in Barcelona when a waiter expressed dismay about “what happened at the World Trade Center.” 

“My aunt works there,” I told my friend. But I was sure she was fine. How could she not be?

Still, I found a payphone and called home. My father tried to convey a stoic message: “We don’t know anything yet, we’re calling all the hospitals.”

Then I saw the footage on the TV in our hostel. I couldn’t believe that she could be one of the victims. Not Saza.

As a journalist, I know the questions that are typical in the wake of a tragedy. How old were they? Did she or he have kids? It’s natural. We’re inclined to measure loss by what, or rather, who, is left behind. But the true impact of a person’s life is not reflected in titles or preconceived roles. Every one of the 2,977 victims on 9/11 had a world that was wide and meaningful. You may not know the details of that world, but someone does. And they mourn not just the loss of that person, but the moments they made possible. For me, saying “I lost my aunt on September 11th” doesn’t begin to tell the story. My loss isn’t constricted by norms. Her legacy doesn’t fit neatly into a headline. 

How old was she? Forty-seven. No, she didn’t have kids, but she had us. Twenty-five years later, I am 45, and I have my niece. Saza was the person who gave me the gift of knowing what an aunt can be. 

While I could never fill her slippers, I feel Saza with me every day. She’s there when my niece and I are feeding the stray cat in my backyard. She’s there when we’re laughing at the Sunday comics. She’s there as we get dolled up in fancy dresses to go to the neighborhood pizza place. I am alive in these moments because she lived.

I wonder what else her life would have included if she had kept living it. What it would be like to have her visit me in Los Angeles. How she, my sister, and I would stay up late watching SNL together. How much love she would pour into life’s middle moments.

And most of all, what joy she would take in getting to know my niece, her namesake: Daphne.

The most pro-American stance a leader can take is to defend our best ideas. America's national parks and our nation’s beautiful environment are part of our heritage, identity, and are ultimately our greatest strength. 

From President Theodore Roosevelt dramatically expanding public lands protections to President Richard Nixon signing the Clean Air Act, our best days have come when protecting the environment was led by leaders on both sides of the aisle. 

The current administration is not honoring that shared American value. Nearly two years into President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration is failing the American people on the environment, on our national parks, and on the public lands that are supposed to unite us.

Plenty of people in the environmental movement would’ve opposed anything pro-environment this president did on mere partisan principle. I’m not one of them. Early last year I worked closely with the president’s team and several cabinet officials to help shape a well-intentioned and potentially powerful executive order: “Make America Beautiful Again.” This initiative called on his cabinet to secure a historic investment in our public lands, our forests, our water, and outdoor recreation. I firmly believed in the concept, and I still believe in its potential, but we’ve gotten the opposite of what was promised. 

This president labels his policies “America first,” but on public lands and national parks he’s simply put America last. As someone who was in those rooms making the case, I could not be more disappointed. And it doesn’t need to be this way. 

Their record is dark. Thus far, the Trump Administration has gutted national park staff, opposed by around 86% of Americans. They’ve proposed sell-offs of public land, which is opposed by nearly 90% of voters in Western states, where these spaces are concentrated. They’ve prioritized rollbacks to policies like the Endangered Species Act, which is opposed by 85% of Americans. They’ve stripped protections for clean water, clean air, national forests, and more, also opposed by the vast majority of Americans. 

On issue after issue, this administration has landed on the wrong side of the American people on the environment. Public blowback has stopped a few of these decisions, but a new threat to the great American outdoors seems to surface almost every week. These are quite possibly the two worst years for our environment under a president in my lifetime.

I’ve sat across from dozens of White House officials, and I can tell you there are people who care deeply about conservation. My sense is that their voices are being drowned out by those who primarily act in opposition to the Democratic Party, many of whom have never spent real time in America’s grandeur and do not understand what it means to the rest of us. They are doing the president a disservice. His single most popular act in his first term was arguably signing the immensely bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act, the largest investment in our national parks in history. Now, on an issue that could unify the country and win him support from every walk of life, he and his team are deliberately walking the other way.

The President and his team could defend any one of these choices on its own, justified by claiming they’re making the government more efficient, that local management of our land is better, or that they are unleashing economic growth. Yet, taken together, their actions add up to a plain refusal to treat our environment and our public lands as a priority in any real sense. More than that, I am concerned by their lack of proactive, positive environmental policies. It’s backwards, and it cuts against the American voter and against our national character.

Two things can exist simultaneously. The economy is, understandably, the country’s top concern right now. But it does not have to come at the cost of shrinking or dismantling the country’s natural resources and beauty. Smart, limited government does not require slashing America's grandest idea. It does not mean choosing polluters over citizens. It does not mean railroading projects through communities that never asked for them. It does not mean overriding the will of the people.

Nearly a third of all land in the United States is publicly owned and managed by the federal government. The current approach compounds decades of these lands being mismanaged and desperately underfunded. 

Our air quality and water quality are worsening, invasive species are spreading at alarming rates, soil health is degrading, and much more. How we care for these resources should not be a partisan policy fight. It should be a productive dialogue that shapes the American landscape itself and improves the lives of families in every corner of the country.

Our national parks aren’t political; they’re American. 

I am often told by friends on the political left that Trump will never make conservation a priority, that Republicans simply hate the environment. I understand the cynicism. 

But it is neither productive nor true to who Americans actually are. The vast majority of the American voters want the same things when it comes to our National Parks and environment. Our leaders, specifically around this Administration, just aren’t reflecting that right now. Outside of Washington, Americans would love to see this president, and every president, protect these places. 

My prediction: The Republican Party will continue to lose voters if they fail to protect our environment, and it should. Americans believe our nation’s beauty is worth defending. We ought to follow the public, not an endless political game of ping-pong.

Americans don’t wear a party patch on their sleeve when it comes to the health of our environment. They wear pride in this nation's beauty. Today, a record-low share of Americans believe our environment is healthy. If there was ever a wrong moment to make cuts, this is it. Not when energy demand, AI, data centers, and screen addiction are straining this country like never before. Not when visits to National Parks and public lands are near an all-time high — and those lands need more care, not less. Not when Americans expect their tax dollars to build historic investment in our environment, not strip it away.

America has always found a way, albeit imperfectly, to balance protecting our environment with growing our economy. We do not have to ruin our public lands to save our economy. Investing in the places that keep us whole benefits our mental health, our physical health, and our economic health.

History will never look kindly on a leader who lets America’s most beloved places decline. President Trump has two years left to prove he’s better than that. He can work across partisan boundaries and accomplish popular, common-sense environmental wins, or he can be remembered as the worst president for America’s environment in modern history. 

The choice is his. And it shouldn’t be a hard one.

President Donald Trump said he expects the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran to end “immediately after” the midterm elections.

Trump suggested that Iran is on the verge of collapse, but that its government is holding out in hopes of hurting Republican political prospects in November.

“They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters as he headed to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday.

But “they can’t hold out any longer,” he said.

Trump added that “it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm” for gas prices to come down, but that they would fall once Iran soon seeks an end to the war, which is now in its seventh month.

Trump’s comments come as renewed fighting, including a barrage of tit-for-tat strikes in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, has driven up energy prices to their highest levels since late May. The global benchmark oil price topped $100 a barrel for the first time since July.

The national average for gasoline in the U.S. climbed 7.3 cents to $4.22 a gallon on Wednesday, the largest single day increase since May, according to AAA. Diesel reached a record $5.94 a gallon on Wednesday.

The Trump Administration has sought to tamp down rising energy prices amid growing affordability concerns among Americans. Last month, the Administration extended the Jones Act Waiver for another 90 days, allowing foreign-flagged vessels to transport oil and other commodities between U.S. ports.

U.S. and Iran exchange biggest attack on shipping

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the U.S. and Iran exchanged the largest wave of attacks on shipping since the war began. Iran said it attacked 10 ships, including two U.S. vessels, near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. destroyed five Iranian oil tankers. Iran also launched missiles at a base hosting U.S. forces in Jordan, which U.S. officials reportedly said resulted in limited damage and no casualties.

The U.S. said its tanker strikes were retaliation for two Iranian attempts to hit a U.S. Navy warship.

The latest exchange came after days of escalating attacks. U.S. forces struck Iranian military sites on Sept. 1 in retaliation for attempted Iranian attacks on commercial vessels and U.S. personnel, CENTCOM said. One U.S. strike hit a wedding party in southern Iran, killing at least five people and injuring more than 60 others, according to Iranian officials, and prompting an internal investigation by the U.S. military. On Saturday, Iran fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. aircraft carrier and destroyer. In response, the U.S. destroyed three Iranian oil tankers.

Trump officials have downplayed the nature of the conflict, despite the continued fighting. Last week, Vice President J.D. Vance said he would not call the recent flare up “a war.”

When will the war end?

Trump and his officials initially estimated that the war would last four to six weeks, and have repeatedly said that energy costs will fall quickly once the war is over. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested in July that gas prices could return to $3 a gallon by Labor Day.

But Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery in the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s oil trade flowed before the war, has proved an enduring strategy to disrupt the global economy. Iran militarized the Strait at the start of the war in retaliation against U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. Iranian leaders have used the Strait as a key point of leverage in now-stalled talks with the U.S., and restarted strikes on ships in the waterway in an attempt to force the U.S. to agree to its demands.

Trump, however, has maintained that he is under no pressure from the economic pain or its potential impact on the midterm elections to strike a deal with Iran, especially one that would be unfavorable to the U.S.

“A negotiation could possibly happen, but it’s not something we’re looking at,” Trump said on Wednesday.

Trump has insisted that Americans understand the need to continue the war until the U.S. eliminates the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“I think it’s very easy to explain to America, all you have to do is say: ‘Will you let Iran have a nuclear weapon?’ And the answer is no,” Trump said.

Nevertheless, the public has grown increasingly weary of the war. Just 31% of Americans said they supported U.S. strikes on Iran in a late August Reuters/Ipsos poll, while 63% opposed it. And 83% of those polled said they expect U.S. military involvement in Iran to continue for an extended period of time. Americans also appear to be concerned with the economic consequences of the war, with 61% of respondents believing the conflict has made life more expensive for their families, according to a Politico poll in August.

Last month, the Treasury Department launched an economic pressure campaign on Iran in an effort to force its capitulation. Its measures have included a slate of new sanctions on Iran, the ongoing U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports, and the threat of secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners.

Iran’s economy has been hit hard by the measures, as well as disruptions and damage from the war. Its already weak currency has spiraled to record lows, while inflation, unemployment, and shortages of essential goods have substantially worsened.

Nevertheless, recent intelligence assessments reportedly indicate that Tehran is prepared to continue fighting for months despite severe economic pressure. Iranian leaders have also signaled a willingness to escalate the war by intensifying attacks on U.S. warships, targeting commercial vessels, and expanding shipping restrictions beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

Analysts have argued that Iran’s leadership might be hoping to inflict greater political and economic costs on the U.S. Administration in an effort to increase its leverage over Washington. Trump advisers, including Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have reportedly discussed with Trump the prospect that the war continues through the remainder of his presidential term.

President Donald Trump has promised a $5,000 payment to every American adult if Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress in the coming midterm elections.

Trump made the promise of a so-called “Trump dividend” at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas on Wednesday night. He said the money would have to be spent in the U.S., although he did not offer details on how that restriction would be enforced. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

“Here is my promise: If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000, very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”

Such a plan would require congressional approval. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R, Ohio) endorsed the proposal and said he would prepare legislation to pass the dividend after the election.

The proposal could also have significant economic consequences. The U.S. has roughly 240 million adult citizens, according to Census Bureau data, putting the proposal’s cost at approximately $1.2 trillion. Unless offset by new revenue or spending cuts, the payments would likely widen the federal budget deficit—which totaled nearly $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025—and could add to inflationary pressures.

Vice President J.D. Vance later narrowed the proposal, suggesting that wealthy Americans would not qualify. He added that the payments could be financed by tariff revenue, which amounted to around $154.5 billion in the first 10 months of fiscal 2026 through July.

Trump suggested that the dividend would be financed by “tremendous economic success” from his policies.

“The reason the Democrats can’t do that is because they don’t do tariffs, they don’t take in money, all they know is poverty,” the President said.

In his first term, Trump authorized two rounds of congressionally-approved stimulus checks during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Wednesday, he also compared the promised dividend with the $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” announced for military service members in December, which was funded by a congressionally approved housing supplement.

Some, however, are skeptical about the idea.

Rep. Chip Roy, (R, Texas) told Politico, “I would like to know how they would plan to pay for … back of envelope … well over $1 trillion.”

The Democratic National Committee said Trump and Republicans have repeatedly promised rebate checks that never materialized.

The President previously promised to send $2,000 tariff dividends to Americans. He also endorsed returning 20% of DOGE savings to taxpayers and depositing $1,000 or more into eligible Americans’ health savings accounts. None of these payments has gone out: the DOGE and tariff dividends were never enacted, and the HSA legislation—a Republican alternative to extending enhanced ACA premium tax credits, which expired at the end of 2025—failed in the Senate. The Administration is reportedly preparing a $500 rebate for some unsubsidized ACA enrollees.

“Donald Trump and Republicans are once again offering empty promises to Americans,” DNC Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer said in a statement. “The only people reaping the benefits of Trump’s economy are himself, his family, and his ultra-rich elite donors. Meanwhile, working families get nothing except sky-high receipts at the grocery store and the pump, unaffordable healthcare premiums, and wages that aren’t keeping up with inflation.”

Trump’s pledge comes at a low point for his popularity in his second term. His approval rating fell from 47% at the beginning of the term to 33% in mid-August, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling. Americans have expressed growing dissatisfaction with the economy and the war in Iran, now in its seventh month. Concerns about affordability, intensified by wartime supply disruptions, have propelled progressive Democratic candidates to a series of primary victories.

The President cast the congressional elections as a referendum on his presidency, telling voters at the convention to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.”

“If the Republicans win, you win with us,” Trump said. “Now all we have to do is win.”

For three years, Jacob Coxon helped train increasingly powerful AI systems at OpenAI and Anthropic. On Sept. 8, he walked away.

“I resigned from Anthropic today,” Coxon posted on X. “Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” His dire warning amassed more than 90 million views in less than 24 hours.

What did Coxon see that made him walk away? No single breakthrough, he says. His resignation was driven instead by two conclusions: “One, it’s obvious that things are speeding up, and two, they’re not under control,” the 27-year-old Brit tells TIME.

Coxon’s departure is unusual. Many of the most prominent researchers to leave frontier AI companies with public warnings worked on safety. But Coxon helped build the capabilities he now fears, spending roughly three years conducting pretraining research at OpenAI and Anthropic. His resignation offers a glimpse of how concern about the pace of development has spread beyond the teams specifically charged with making advanced AI safer.

AI’s rapid improvement has been particularly evident in mathematics, says Coxon, who studied the subject at Cambridge before moving into AI. In recent months, AI labs have announced solutions to several longstanding mathematical problems. Most notably, OpenAI claims to have resolved the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem—one of mathematics’ seven Millennium Prize Problems—using roughly 10,000 concurrent agents over 88 hours. If that trend continues, and extends to AI research itself, Coxon fears it will kick off a feedback loop of further acceleration.

Read more: What happens when AI builds itself?

Meanwhile, in the recent Hugging Face incident, OpenAI’s models broke out of the infrastructure meant to contain them and hacked another AI company to cheat on a cybersecurity benchmark. The episode drove home the fact that the problem of controlling AI systems remains unsolved. To Coxon, it made the sci-fi scenario of AI models escaping human control seem plausible, and perhaps urgent. “It's not like some weird, distant, far-flung concern. It is the default trajectory in the next couple of years, unless people start taking some sort of action,” he says. (Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Read more: OpenAI’s Models Went Rogue.

Does Coxon regret his work advancing the technology that he now fears? “Definitely … But also the world did look very different three years ago, and I think it’s easy to see with the benefit of hindsight,” he says. “I guess it takes some time to fully internalize emotionally the fact that there’s a decent chance the whole thing goes wrong,” he adds.

Before leaving, Coxon discussed his decision with “many” colleagues and found broad agreement that the AI industry’s current trajectory carried significant risks. What kept others at their desks, he says, was a kind of fatalism. “There’s this atmosphere of almost resignation,” he says, “where people have accepted that the whole race is happening and as such, the best thing they can do is put their head down, try and make their own work as safely as possible, even if they think there's a decent chance the whole thing just spirals out of control.”

Some of Coxon’s former colleagues shared his post on X. “Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” wrote Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s head of alignment stress testing. “I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to,” he added.

At Anthropic, Coxon says, the risks he fears were debated openly. OpenAI, where he worked before joining Anthropic earlier this year, was more guarded. He attributes that partly to OpenAI’s leakier culture, which he says made candid internal discussion difficult and executives’ true views harder to discern. “At OpenAI, there are many more people who are there either just for money or just haven’t really thought about the stakes,” he adds.

Many in Washington shared Coxon’s post, citing it as a sign for the government to act. To Taylor Lorenz, a technology journalist, Coxon’s intervention was “sanctimonious doomer posting.” 

“I think the word ‘doomer’ is kind of insane, because all you really have to do is look at the public statements of the CEOs,” Coxon says. In 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei signed a statement declaring that mitigating “the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Coxon says he’d like to see, at minimum, leading AI companies agree to not accelerate recursive self-improvement, or leaning on powerful internal models to accelerate the development of future AI systems. 

Coxon says he’s inspired by the AI Futures Project, the organization behind the viral forecast AI 2027, started by former OpenAI whistleblower Daniel Kokotajlo. “I hope to try and do work in that vein, something along the lines of communicating to people what the world will look like,” Coxon says. “I’m not sure exactly what that’s going to look like yet, but we’ll see.”

A slew of goods moving between the U.S. and Canada are being hit by sweeping tariffs as the trade war between the allied nations intensifies, threatening to raise prices for consumers on both sides of the border.

Retaliatory Canadian tariffs on about $20 billion worth of American products, which Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government would enact after trade talks between the two countries broke down last month, went into effect on Tuesday.

The new tariffs are intended to match “dollar for dollar, rate for rate” the ones that U.S. President Donald Trump’s Administration has levied on Canadian imports. The U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods that went into effect the day after negotiations collapsed in August.

The trade war is set to further escalate later this month: the Trump Administration said on Tuesday that it will bar the import of certain dairy products, motorcycles, and alcoholic drinks from Canada, starting on Sept. 29. The announcement comes after several Canadian provinces prohibited American alcoholic beverages from being sold last year.

There is no clear resolution to the conflict on the horizon, and both Trump and Carney are standing their ground. 

Here’s how the tariffs—on both sides—could affect consumers amid the ongoing rift.

What products will be impacted by the U.S. and Canadian tariffs?

The Trump Administration has levied tariffs on a wide range of Canadian products imported into the U.S., including from the dairy and alcohol industries. In response, Canada fired back with counter tariffs impacting products such as dairy and steel.

Experts point out, though, that the goods being affected by the tit-for-tat tariffs make up a small portion of the overall trade between the two countries. The U.S. tariffs, for instance, are impacting about 5% of the nearly $382 billion worth of goods that Canada exported to the U.S. last year, while the Canada tariffs are affecting about 6% of the more than $330 billion worth of goods that the U.S. exported to its northern neighbor in 2025.

“The current amount of trade isn’t all that large,” says Kimberly Clausing, the Eric M. Zolt Chair in Tax Law and Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and former lead economist in the Biden Administration’s Office of Tax Policy. “The impact will be significant, certainly to those who are trying to sell products, but it won’t be as enormous as if this gets more out of hand.”

How will the tariffs impact American and Canadian consumers?

Tariffs are a tax on imported goods that is paid for by the importer. But that cost can ultimately get passed on to the consumer through higher prices. For instance, if the U.S. levies tariffs on milk imported from Canada, then American consumers could see the price of Canadian milk go up on grocery store shelves—and vice versa for Canada’s tariffs on milk imported from the U.S.

“We’re actually kind of taxing ourselves when we put on the tariffs, and the Canadians are taxing themselves in response,” Clausing says. “So it’s the actions of the Trump Administration that are raising costs for U.S. consumers. The actions of the Carney administration are not; they’re hurting Canadian consumers.”

Despite that, there is strong support among Canadians for the retaliatory tariffs levied on U.S. goods. A recent Ipsos poll conducted for Global News found that more than 70% of Canadians said they backed the Carney government’s move to enact counter tariffs on U.S. imports, and more than 60% said they agreed with the decision to walk away from the negotiation table “even if it meant higher costs and job losses.”

By contrast, a majority of Americans—nearly 60%—said they opposed the U.S. implementing additional tariffs on Canada, according to the findings of an Ipsos poll.

Peter Morrow, a professor in the economics department at the University of Toronto, says one explanation for the support amongst Canadians for the tariffs could be that politicians often portray the levy as a “signal of strength,” rather than focusing on the economic impact that tariffs can have on consumers. A poll by the Canadian nonprofit Angus Reid Institute found that nearly 70% of Canadians felt that Carney showed “strength” by rejecting a “bad” trade deal with the U.S.

“My concern,” Morrow says, “is that people will go down this path of what they perceive as demonstrating strength, when in fact people are lowering their own living standards in what is an affordability crisis in both countries.”

Clausing contends that Carney is “immensely popular” with his constituents because he’s pushed back against recent comments Trump has made threatening Canadian sovereignty, which have angered many Canadians. While Trump’s approval rating has remained low in the weeks since the trade war with Canada began, Carney’s has increased, with 53% of Canadians holding a positive view of their Prime Minister, according to data shared by the polling firm Abacus Data.

“Even though the retaliatory tariffs will ultimately hurt them, I think the Canadians are willing to withstand a fair amount of pain, in part because they view the stakes as very large,” Clausing says. “In contrast, I don’t think Americans have a beef with Canada … so I don’t think the American consumers are going to be as willing to endure pain.”

Tensions continue to rise between the U.S. and Canada

Tensions between the U.S. and Canada have continued to escalate in recent weeks. On Aug. 27, Trump signed an Executive Order that instructed his Interior Secretary to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America”—an action that infuriated Canadians and that many politicians in both countries rejected. Over the weekend, Trump shared an illustration on Truth Social of himself and Carney wearing hockey gear, in which Carney is on the ground and Trump is depicted as saying, “Get up, governor.” Trump has referred to Carney as the “governor of Canada” in the past—rhetoric that seemingly undermines Canadian sovereignty, similar to the times when Trump has called Canada the “51st state.”

Clausing says she worries that the tension between the two countries will continue to damage their economic relationship, and could lead to the conflict spiraling and impacting even more industries.

“I think one feature of the U.S.-Canada trade war so far has been that the rhetoric has been larger than the impact,” Clausing says. “So far, the damage has been limited, but it’s still real. I think even the rhetoric around this trade war has really diminished Canadian interest in doing business with the United States.”

“It’s difficult to overstate how upset Canadian people and businesses are by this situation and by these threats to their sovereignty,” she continues.

Morrow says he’s concerned that the rising tensions between the two countries make it seem likely that they are “inching towards a scenario of escalation.”

“At some point, there’s going to have to be an offer—there’s going to have to be an off-ramp,” Morrow says. “I don’t see that off-ramp right now, and that’s what makes me most concerned.”

Public confidence and trust in recycling systems is on the decline. While 87% of Americans say recycling is important, only about 32% of household waste is recycled or composted, according to 2025 data. More Americans believe that recycling feels harder today than it did four years ago.

But from plastic bottles to cardboard boxes, recycling is important—and has an impact. Recycled materials are key to reducing the extraction of natural materials like timber and aluminum. “It’s a really low-hanging fruit of something that you can do that does have a difference,” says Shelie Miller, professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

Read more: What The Man Who Invented the Recycling Symbol Thinks Today

Sustainability experts say recycling doesn’t have to be that hard. Here are some of the biggest recycling mistakes people make—and what you should be doing instead. 

Why is recycling so complicated?

What is recyclable varies greatly depending on where you live. “Recycling is unfortunately more complicated than we'd like it to be,” says Miller. “Everybody's recycling rules are going to be slightly different, which is what makes it so hard.”

That’s because different recycling plants use different equipment, and so they have different recycling rules. 

Seven states, including California, Maryland, and Maine, have taken steps to fix that by introducing Extended Producer Responsibility laws aimed at standardizing recycling practices statewide.

Until that becomes more widespread across the country, there’s a simple rule you can follow, experts say. “Think about your bottles, cans, and containers that are in your laundry, kitchen, and bathrooms… and paper and cardboard,” says Cody Marshall, chief programs officer at The Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to creating a better recycling system. “Those are things that are recyclable.”

What should you avoid recycling?

Avoid recycling things like plastic bags, which can jam machinery, and batteries, and refrain from bagging your recycling in trash bags. While many plastic products have a recycling symbol with a number in the middle, it doesn’t always mean it can be tossed in the recycling bin. The label simply denotes what kind of plastic it is. 

In fact, plastic is one the biggest sources of confusion when it comes to recycling. Most places only accept plastics 1 and 2—commonly used to make soda bottles or laundry detergent containers. Some places might accept plastics 4 and 5 (think a yogurt container or plastic straw.) “The rest are not really recyclable at all, and some are really bad to put into the recycling system in practice,” says Jennifer Russell, associate professor of Sustainable Biomaterials at Virginia Tech. Incorrect recycling can cause the machinery to break down, or contaminate the batch, degrading its value. 

Perhaps surprising to some, however, it turns out it is okay to recycle a greasy pizza box—as long as you eat the last slice. “A little bit of food residue is not a problem,” says Marshall. That’s because processing technologies have gotten better with time, and are now able to handle a small amount of residue. “Just don't throw anything in your container that a raccoon would still want to eat off of.”

Meanwhile, if something is compostable, it does not mean it can be recycled. “Compostable and recyclable are two different things,” says Miller. “If you have something that says it's a compostable cup, often that means it's compostable plastic. Compostable plastics can't be recycled, and they have to go into a facility marked as [able to break-down] compostable plastics, if they're actually accepted in your community.” 

Why you shouldn’t ‘wish-cycle’

Refrain from what Russell calls “wish-cycling,” the practice of putting something in the recycling bin and hoping it's recyclable. “People really want to do the right thing and err on the side of caution, and that's just a big problem because recycling systems are designed on the basis of material, not on the basis of product,” says Russell, who notes that incorrect recycling can lead to more harm than good. 

“Wish-cycling is actually one of the biggest drivers of the high costs of the system. If we were putting just the right materials that are being asked for—aluminum cans, number 1 and number 2 plastics, the systems would have less contamination, less shutdown issues, and the materials coming out the other side would be of much higher value.”

Another important change? Cut down on the number of things you buy—and reuse what you can. “Reduce and reuse are two important R's before recycle,” says Marshall. Bring reusable grocery bags when shopping, and consider seeing if there’s a refill or zero-waste store in your neighborhood where you can shop for household items in your own reusable containers rather than single use plastic packaging. 

These small changes really can make a difference. “That one choice that each of us makes every day to buy or use a single-use option instead of a reusable one, or to put it in the garbage can instead of the recycling one, they aggregate across the millions of people in the country who are making the same decisions every single day,” says Russell. “It’s important to remember that every one of those decisions actually does matter. Making the right decision can be very important if you're trying to make the system better.”

You don’t need to take 10,000 steps a day to improve your health. Studies have shown that much smaller step counts can substantially reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Now, researchers have found that the intensity of your walk matters just as much, and that walking quickly—even for brief periods—lowers a person’s risk of death about as much as walking more slowly for a longer period of time. 

Their results, published September 8 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, suggest that for people looking to improve their health without walking more, walking faster is a good option. 

What's the best step count and walking speed?

In this study, the researchers drew on data from participants in the UK Biobank, a long-term project that monitors the health of half a million people in the U.K. in hopes of uncovering the roots of disease. They aimed to fill a particular gap in the literature, says Borja del Poro Cruz, a professor at Universidad Europea de Madrid and an author of the study. “The vast majority of the body of evidence had looked at the volume of daily steps and health outcomes,” he says. “Few studies have isolated and looked at cadence.”

The team looked at participants’ step counts measured by wearable fitness trackers, how many steps they took per minute, and their likelihood of dying over the next few years. They uncovered a relationship: For people who walked fewer than 5,000 steps a day, keeping a quicker pace—about 100 steps a minute—meant a drop in their risk of death compared to people who walked the same number of steps more slowly. 

At the same time, people who walked more slowly but for longer—5,000-7,500 steps a day—saw a similar drop in their risk. 

This suggests that “someone who is below 5,000 steps per day, which is considered somewhat sedentary, might want to incorporate whatever they do in a more intense way,” del Poro Cruz says. “They can then maximize the benefits of what they do.” 

It confirms, too, that racking up a high step count at a leisurely pace isn’t the same as doing the same thing briskly, in terms of health benefits.  

The results are not surprising, says Dr. Shaan Kurshid, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who was not involved in the study, but they clarify the relationship between steps and exercise intensity in a way that may be useful to physicians guiding people toward healthier habits. “The steps concept is important because it can resonate with people” he says, “and so I think that improving our understanding of that metric and how to best use it is important.”

How can you tell if you’re walking fast enough?

It’s not always obvious. “If you say you're supposed to get 2.5 hours a week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity”—which is what U.S. federal guidelines recommend—“people then will naturally ask, ‘Well, what counts as moderate-to-vigorous activity?’” says Kurshid. It’s an “abstract concept.” 

Here’s one way to estimate it:  “If you go with someone and try to keep up a conversation, keeping up that conversation is not easy,” says del Poro Cruz. “Or, if you are by yourself and you are walking, if you try to sing a song, and you find that difficult, that means you are probably looking at 90-100 steps per minute, which is where we see the peak benefits.”

As children return to school, families have a lot to look forward to: fresh routines, new connections, crisper weather—and a greater risk of head lice.

September is National Head Lice Prevention Month in the U.S, coinciding with a time of year when infestations tend to surge. “Head lice can occur throughout the year, but cases are often noticed more frequently in late summer and early fall, when children return to school and resume close-contact activities,” says Dr. April Armstrong, chief of dermatology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Head lice is a common childhood condition, with up to 12 million head lice infestations occurring among children ages 3 to 11 every year in the U.S., according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

The insects don’t spread disease, but they can still cause a great deal of distress, doctors say. “Having head lice is not a sign of poor hygiene, but it can cause stress and anxiety because there is this stigma that it is,” says Dr. Carla Torres Zegarra, a pediatric dermatologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado. “If left untreated, it can also be very bothersome, causing itching and disturbing sleep.”  

Here’s what to know about the pesky parasites, and how to spot, treat, and prevent them.

What are head lice?

Head lice, or Pediculus humanus capitis, are tiny, wingless insects that feed on human blood. They are found mostly on the scalp, but sometimes appear on eyebrows and eyelashes.

Adult head lice are about the size of a sesame seed and are usually tan to grayish-white in color, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Head lice lay and attach their eggs—known as nits—to the base of hair shafts using a glue-like substance. Infested people may have a combination of adult and juvenile head lice, nits, and empty egg casings on their scalp and in their hair.

Are they the same as pubic or body lice?

No. There are three different types of lice that feed exclusively on humans: head lice, pubic or “crab” lice, and body lice. Unlike head lice, which have elongated bodies, pubic lice have short and round bodies, resembling crabs. Pubic lice typically spread through sexual contact and are most common in adults.

When people have body lice, the insects are found primarily on their clothing and bedding, and sometimes on their bodies. Unlike head lice, body lice is connected to hygiene practices and access to clean clothing, and spread primarily through direct contact with someone who has body lice or with their contaminated clothing or bedding. In the U.S., body lice mostly affects people without access to housing, clean clothes, and regular bathing, CDC says. 

How do head lice spread?

Since head lice can only crawl and not jump or fly, they typically spread via head-to-head contact. “That’s why it happens more in kids, because they play in close proximity,” Torres Zegarra says.

Head lice can also spread through objects that touch the head, such as combs, hats, helmets, and pillowcases. But this type of indirect transmission is much less likely since head lice typically survive for less than a day when away from the scalp, and nits can’t hatch at temperatures cooler than that of the human scalp, AAP says. 

Getting head lice has nothing to do with personal hygiene or the cleanliness of the environment, and is caused solely by exposure to an infested person. 

If there’s an outbreak of lice at your child’s school or daycare, that’s not a guarantee they’ll get it. Though head lice frequently spread in schools, research has found that head lice actually have a low contagion rate in classrooms. That’s why the CDC, AAP, National Association of School Nurses and other medical groups don’t recommend keeping children with head lice away from school.

Animals don’t get or spread head lice.

How do you know if you or your child has head lice?

An itchy scalp is the most common symptom of head lice, “particularly behind the ears and near the back of the neck,” Armstrong says. “Some people also describe a tickling sensation or the feeling that something is moving in the hair. Scratching may produce redness, small sores, or, occasionally, a secondary bacterial infection.”

People can have head lice without symptoms, too. “With a first infestation, itching may not begin for four to six weeks because it takes time for the body to develop an allergic response to louse saliva,” Armstrong says.

Examining the hair and scalp under bright light and finding live crawling lice is the best way to diagnose a head lice infestation. Using a magnifying glass or a special lice comb can help with this process, AAP says. “Nits located farther from the scalp are often empty or no longer viable, so their presence alone does not necessarily indicate an active infestation,” Armstrong says. 

Misdiagnosis of head lice is common. “Many presumed lice and nits submitted by physicians, nurses, teachers, and caregivers to a laboratory for identification were found to be artifacts such as dandruff, hairspray droplets, scabs, dirt, or other insects,” such as those blown by the wind and caught in the hair, AAP says. 

The CDC recommends that people visit a doctor if they suspect they may have lice.  

Who is at risk of head lice?

Head lice infestations most commonly occur in preschool- and elementary school-age children and their families. 

Research suggests that girls may get head lice more often than boys. But the AAP says head lice infestations do not appear to be influenced by hair length, hair type, and frequency of shampooing or brushing. 

How do you treat head lice? 

There are several over-the-counter and prescription medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat head lice, including lotions and shampoos that contain the insecticides permethrin or pyrethrin. Treatment of head lice often involves using one of these medications, combined with “careful combing using a fine-toothed lice comb,” Armstrong says. 

Some of these medications kill only lice, while others target both lice and nits. Depending on the medication, a second application may be needed seven to ten days after the first treatment, Armstrong says. 

In some cases, head lice can be resistant to these topical medications, AAP says. In those situations, manual removal of lice and nits might be necessary—an option also available to people who want to avoid insecticide-containing products. The AAP says home remedies such as using mayonnaise, melted butter, or olive oil could work to suffocate the lice, though these methods are not FDA approved or recommended, and more research still needs to be done on their effectiveness. A prescription oral medication can also be used.

Some internet sites recommend using essential oils and other botanical products to kill head lice, but the AAP says “the safety and efficacy of natural or herbal products are currently not regulated by the FDA, and until more data are available, their use in infants, children, and adolescents should be avoided.” The AAP also stresses that head lice treatment is only recommended for people “in whom diagnosis is highly suspected or proven.”

Torres Zegarra says she sometimes sees patients with itchy scalps who developed irritation because they tried head lice treatments despite not having any evidence of lice. “What I end up treating is not lice but the skin irritation caused by multiple treatments that were tried on the scalp,” she says. 

Doctors say that cutting or shaving the hair of an infested person isn’t necessary, and it does not always work to get rid of head lice.

“Long or very thick hair may require more product and more time to comb thoroughly, but it can be treated successfully without removing the hair,” Armstrong says. “If live lice remain after treatment has been used correctly, a clinician should determine whether the cause is medication resistance, reinfestation, or an incorrect diagnosis before additional treatments are applied.”

How do you prevent head lice?

“There is no completely reliable way to prevent head lice, especially among young children who naturally play in close contact. The most effective step is to limit direct head-to-head or hair-to-hair contact when lice are known to be circulating,” Armstrong says. 

If someone is confirmed to have head lice, members of their household and other close contacts should be carefully checked for infestation. “Clothing, towels, and bedding used during the two days before treatment can be washed and dried using heat,” Armstrong says. “Combs and brushes can be soaked in hot water. Extensive cleaning, fumigation, and pesticide sprays are unnecessary.” 

AAP says parents and other caregivers could check children regularly to catch and treat early infestations, and children can be taught not to share personal items such as combs and hats. They shouldn’t refuse to wear helmets because of fear of head lice, however, particularly since the spread of lice through objects is uncommon, AAP says.

Ultimately, Torres Zegarra says “there’s no need to panic” when head lice arise. “It’s a nuisance problem but not a health crisis,” she says, adding that children with head lice shouldn’t be quarantined or kept away from school. 

“No healthy child should lose out on education because of head lice. They should avoid head-to-head contact, but they shouldn’t be shamed or isolated,” Torres Zegarra says.

Elizabeth Keating’s students learn about World War II in history books. But when one of them asked her grandmother what it was like to live through the wartime mobilization and bombing in the U.K., the past suddenly felt real. Talking to her grandmother, the student told Keating, felt like “talking to a celebrity.”

“It gives us a link with history that’s very personal,” says Keating, a professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and author of The Essential Questions: Interview Your Family to Uncover Stories and Bridge Generations.

Your grandparents might not think of themselves as eyewitnesses to history—or realize that anyone is interested in the ordinary details of their lives. Asking an unexpected question can make the past come alive while helping you discover who they were, and who they still are.

These questions can help you get beyond the familiar family stories—and start conversations you’ll be glad you had.

“What’s something you believed when you were my age that you don’t believe anymore?”

Your grandparent has probably changed their mind about more than a few things over the years. Maybe they swore they would never get married or that they’d stay in their hometown forever. Ask what they felt certain about at your age—and what eventually made them reconsider.

The answer can make a younger person think, “Oh my God, you were my age,” says Mike O’Krent, founder of LifeStories Alive, a company that preserves family histories on video. It might also be reassuring to discover that your grandparent once shared some of your fears or wrestled with questions you’re confronting right now. Hearing what happened next can open up a larger conversation about how they became the person they are today.

“Tell me about the dinner table in the house where you grew up.”

“What was your childhood like?” is an enormous question—the conversational equivalent of handing someone a blank book and asking them to fill it. It’s better to zoom in on one specific setting. “The dinner table is a window into an entire family, sometimes an entire childhood,” says Lauren Befus, founder of Memory Lane Jane, a family-biography company that preserves people’s life stories in heirloom books.

Ask who sat where, who cooked, and whether everyone ate together. Was dinner loud and chaotic or silent and formal? Did people linger or bolt the moment they finished? Was there always enough food? Could friends drop in?

One person told Keating that “there was no talking at the dinner table.” In Keating’s own family, her mother occasionally made the children prepare little reports from the encyclopedia to present during dinner. “We hated it,” she recalls. Whether your grandparent remembers laughter, pinching under the table, or strictly enforced silence, you’ll learn much more than what was on the menu.

“What was considered a waste of money in your house?”

Every family has at least one expenditure it considers financially unhinged. Perhaps your grandparent’s parents refused to pay someone to repair anything they could conceivably fix themselves. Maybe restaurant meals, store-bought clothes, or long-distance phone calls were treated as scandalous extravagances.

The question can reveal what money represented in your grandparent’s childhood home: security, freedom, status, or a source of constant stress. You might also recognize a few financial commandments that have traveled down the family line. Oh, that’s why your mom refuses to pay for shipping or regards full-price cereal as a personal affront!

“Tell me about a time you got into trouble—and how you got out of it.”

Your grandparent wasn’t always the person reminding everyone to be careful. Once upon a time, they might have sneaked somewhere forbidden, played hooky from Sunday school to take a nap in the cornfields behind the church, concocted an impressive lie, or attempted to conceal a mishap from their parents.

Keating particularly likes asking about trouble because it comes with a built-in plot: What happened? How did you respond? Did anyone find out? The story doesn’t need to involve a wild act of rebellion. She’s found that “you can get into trouble with small things, too, that evolve into bigger things.” Either way, you’ll get to meet the mischievous younger person behind the grandparent you know and love.

“What object have you kept from childhood—and what’s its story?”

That battered book, recipe card, or piece of jewelry might look unremarkable. Then you hear the story about why it’s still a prized possession. 

Keating recalls talking to a woman who had grown up poor and dreamed of owning a particular doll. When she received it for her birthday, she treasured it so deeply that she eventually passed it down through her family. “We attach relationships to objects,” Keating says. Eventually, “an object isn’t just a thing anymore.” It evokes a person, place, yearning, or moment someone wants to keep close.

If your grandparent still has the item, ask to see it. Their act of holding it again—or simply studying its scratches, faded colors, or fraying edges—might shake loose a story they didn’t even realize they remembered.

“Who believed in you before you believed in yourself?”

The answer could introduce you to a teacher, mentor, neighbor, boss, or friend you’ve never heard about—yet whose encouragement altered the course of your family’s history.

For O’Krent, it was his third-grade teacher, Mrs. Glaze. One day, despite making him stay inside during recess because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, she looked him in the eye and said: “You’re going to be somebody important someday.”

He never forgot it. An influential person isn’t always who you would expect, O’Krent says, and the best part of the story may emerge when you ask why your grandparent connected with them. What did they see in your grandparent—and how did their belief change what your grandparent saw in themselves?

“What decision did you make that everyone else thought was wrong?”

Maybe your grandparent pursued a career their family didn’t approve of, moved somewhere unexpected, ended—or began—a relationship, or took a risk everyone else considered foolish. Ask why people objected. Then borrow O’Krent’s favorite follow-up: “Do you agree with that?”

Your grandparent might still insist everyone else was wrong. Or perhaps the decision led directly to something they’d love to forget. “Everybody makes mistakes,” O’Krent says. What matters is “the lesson you learn from it.” Either way, you’ll discover how your grandparent responded when their judgment collided with other people’s expectations—and whether they’d make the same choice again.

“What are you proud of that would never appear on a résumé?”

Résumés are good for recording promotions and degrees. But they don’t capture the time someone took care of an aging parent, raised children through a miserable year, started over after a failure, repaired a relationship, or became the friend who always showed up.

The accomplishments you associate with your grandparent might not be the ones that matter most to them. This question “gives people permission to define accomplishment for themselves,” Befus says. You may discover that the chapter of their life they value most is one you barely knew about.

“What are you still figuring out?”

There is, apparently, no birthday at which a person wakes up with life completely sorted out. Grandparents still have evolving identities, relationships, hopes, and uncertainties, says Claudia Johnson, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Seattle.

Asking what your grandparent is still figuring out communicates: “I don’t only want to know who you were. I’m interested in who you are now,” Johnson says. Maybe they’re learning how to enjoy retirement, trying to understand a changing friendship, or deciding what they want the next few years to look like.

Answer the question yourself, too. That reciprocity transforms the interaction from an interview into a real conversation—and reminds both of you that nobody ages out of uncertainty.

“If you were naming a baby today, what name would you choose?”

Not every meaningful question requires rummaging through the past. That’s especially important when you’re talking to someone with dementia, says Cristina Rodriguez, founder of Mind&Melody, a nonprofit that connects musicians with people living with dementia and other neurological conditions.

Rodriguez’s grandmother was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. As her memory changes, Rodriguez has realized that “connection can’t always depend on asking her to recall the past.”

During one FaceTime call, when Rodriguez was thinking about having children, she asked her grandmother what she would name a baby girl today. Estefania, she replied, because it sounded strong and powerful. Rodriguez had known her grandmother her entire life—and knew she had raised six children—but had never thought to ask her anything like that.

The exchange showed Rodriguez “how much possibility there is in questions that aren’t about remembering at all.” Ask what song should belong to the two of you, or what your perfect day together would look like. These types of questions let you be curious about who your grandparent is right now, including what they imagine and what makes them laugh.

“If you could ask me anything right now, what would you want to know?”

After putting your grandparent in the hot seat, turn the interview over to them. What have they always wondered about you?

“The grandparent’s not expecting that one,” O’Krent says. That’s exactly why he likes it: The question gives your grandparent some control over where the conversation goes and makes the exchange feel mutual.

Once the conversation is flowing, don’t cling too tightly to your prepared questions. O’Krent teaches people an unusual listening trick: “The next thing you say has to include at least one word from the last sentence they say.” Because you don’t know when that last sentence is coming, you have no choice but to pay close attention. It might feel awkward at first, he acknowledges, but it helps the other person feel heard. Plus, the best question is almost always the follow-up you didn’t plan.

“What do you wish you’d asked your own parents or grandparents?”

This question might expose the blank spaces in your grandparent’s own family history. Maybe they know their mother moved across the country alone but never learned what compelled her to go. Perhaps they inherited a house without ever asking why their grandparents chose it—or what brought their parents together in the first place.

The answers often involve what Keating calls “huge identity questions”: Where did I come from? Who am I? Why did my family’s life unfold the way it did? Most people know the milestones, she says, but what they really want is “the story behind everything.”

Listen closely. Your grandparent might be telling you not only what they regret leaving unanswered, but which parts of their own story they hope you won’t.

The research project "World’s Best Companies 2026" is a comprehensive analysis conducted to identify the top performing companies around the world. The study is based on three primary dimensions: Employee Satisfaction, Revenue Growth and Sustainability Transparency (ESG).

Methodology

The first dimension, Employee Satisfaction, was investigated based on survey data from a large sample of over 200,000 employees from around the world. The evaluation encompassed direct recommendations of verified employees as well as indirect evaluations from industry peers.

The second dimension, Revenue Growth, was assessed using data from Statista’s revenue database, which contains company growth data for the last three years. The companies had to meet certain criteria to be considered for the evaluation, including generating a revenue of at least $100 million in 2024 or 2025 depending on when the most recent data was published during the research phase. Additionally, the companies had to demonstrate positive revenue growth in the last three years. Both relative and absolute growth were considered in the evaluation.

The third dimension, Sustainability Transparency, was evaluated based on ESG data among standardized KPIs from Statista’s ESG Database and targeted data research. To formulate a comprehensive ESG index, multiple Key Performance Indicators were collected. For the environmental evaluation, this included the 2024 carbon emissions intensity and reduction rate compared to 2022, as well as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) score. The social dimension assessed the share of women on the board of directors and the existence of a human rights policy. The governance dimension evaluated whether a company had a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report adhering to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines and a compliance or anti-corruption guideline.

Once the data was collected and evaluated, it was consolidated and weighted within a scoring model. The scores of all three dimensions were added on an equal percentage basis to form the final ranking score of a maximum of 100 points. The 1,000 companies with the highest score were awarded as World’s Best Companies 2026 by TIME and Statista.

See the full list.

The economy built around AI has continued to boom even as experts and leaders work to hammer out the technology's execution problem and debate the guardrails that should be put around it. Demand for AI chips remains strong, as Nvidia holds its top spot in TIME and Statista’s 2026 statistical ranking of the World’s Best Companies, highlighting top performing companies around the globe based on evaluations of employee satisfaction, revenue growth, and sustainability transparency. But new companies are also entering the scene as the AI boom reaches down the supply chain. 

Methodology: How TIME and Statista Determined the World’s Best Companies of 2026

Companies like Wistron (no. 16), Lenovo (no. 51) and Zurich Insurance Group (no. 70) are new additions to the 2026 list. Major Nvidia supplier Wistron reports that the demand for its AI servers continues to exceed supply. The Taiwan-based manufacturing company recently opened a plant in Texas to ramp up production. Chinese computer company Lenovo, known for being a maker of devices like PCs, smartphones and tablets, saw annual profits rise to record sales driven by the newer AI server part of their business. And the wave of growing demand for physical infrastructure to support AI has created an opportunity for firms like Zurich Insurance Group to cash in on selling more data center construction-related insurance. Zurich plans to expand its dedicated insurance and risk management solution for large-scale data center projects soon into Europe and Latin America. S&P Global puts total insurable values for each data center at up to $30 billion per location. 

Beyond AI, European defense technology companies are seeing cashflow as a result of European NATO allies committing in 2025 to spend a projected €800 billion on defense readiness by 2030. “The increased defense spending in Europe is actually one of the largest demand signals we have seen in generations,” says Hugues Lavandier, senior partner in McKinsey’s Aerospace & Defense Practice. A good portion of that spending is still going outside of Europe, but Lavandier “won't be surprised that we increasingly see more of that spend going to Europe for sovereignty reasons.” The war in Ukraine among other recent geopolitical tensions has shown Europe that the art of war fighting and the equipment needed is also changing. “The share of that money being spent on equipment is actually going up,” Lavandier says, especially on new technologies like drones and unmanned vehicles, and addressing technical challenges like navigation, electronic warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. 

Traditional companies in the space like French defense electronics maker Thales (no. 22; up from no. 224 in 2025) and Italian defense and aerospace company Leonardo (no. 25; up from a no. 126 in 2025) are seeing uptick in orders. At the same time, “non-traditional players are entering into the field, especially as suppliers,” Lavandier says. “In particular, a number of automotive players have entered into the fray…sometimes even selling plants, making capacity available.” Thales, for example, recently announced a sovereign drone partnership with French carmaker Renault (no. 42). A number of new startups are also taking this opportunity to translate the investment into innovations, sometimes as standalone products or in partnership with other companies, similar to Anduril’s ventures in the U.S. For example, German drone-maker Quantum Systems, which is currently supplying armed forces in Ukraine, announced significant investment from German telecomm giant Deutsche Telekom (no. 7), which owns the T-mobile brand, and also announced a new partnership with Rheinmetall (no. 287) to co-create an anti-drone shield.  

See the full list of the World’s Best Companies of 2026 below:

Oil prices soared above $100 a barrel again Wednesday for the first time since July as the U.S. and Iran exchanged tit-for-tat strikes amid renewed hostilities.

Iran targeted a U.S. base in Jordan with a series of missiles overnight, framing the assault as "retaliation for" the U.S. military destroying five Iranian oil tankers.

A spokesperson for the Jordanian Armed Forces said a barrage of “20 ballistic missiles” had been launched towards its territory in the early hours. Jordan's air defense system successfully intercepted and destroyed 18 of the missiles, while the remaining two "fell in areas devoid of population centers."

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday, in a statement carried by state media, said it had also attacked two U.S. vessels, eight oil tankers, and 10 “noncompliant vessels” near the Strait of Hormuz, as tensions simmer over the maritime chokepoint.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) denied the IRGC’s claims regarding the U.S. vessels, insisting that “no U.S. Navy warship has been struck” as “all IRGC attempted attacks failed.”

CENTCOM said its operation against the five Iranian crude oil tankers on Tuesday was in response to the IRGC targeting a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles earlier in the week. "The U.S. warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and continued to patrol regional waters. No American personnel were harmed,” said CENTCOM.

The attacks on shipping mark a serious escalation of the war, which experienced a brief respite before flaring up again last week. The strikes are unfolding as President Donald Trump pursues a campaign of military and economic pressure on Tehran, with Iranian officials threatening it could escalate the conflict further by targeting U.S. oil and gas interests in the Gulf.

Oil rises as Middle East turmoil intensifies

Brent crude oil prices soared to $101.58 a barrel on Wednesday for the first time since July, deepening concerns over global supply.

The impact is already being felt across energy markets, with the average retail price of U.S. diesel hitting an all-time high of $5.94 on Wednesday, according to the American Automobile Association.

The continued conflict has also taken a toll on U.S. strategic petroleum reserves, which currently stand at their lowest levels since 1982.

The flare-up of the Iran war, now in its seventh month, risks pushing oil prices even higher, according to experts.

Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC it’s “definitely plausible” for oil prices to surge above $120 a barrel, if active hostilities continue.

Iran-backed Houthis escalate regional instability

Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen contributed to the regional instability by launching attacks on four cities in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, targeting oil infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said 73 people had been injured in the strikes.

The attacks came after weeks of escalation between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of Yemen, shattering a four-year informal cease-fire in the country's civil war.

“The U.S. has a very strong defensive military relationship with Saudi Arabia, and we’re watching those events very closely. It’s been going on for some time,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.

The renewed fighting threatens to further disrupt shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a critical trade route off the Arabian Peninsula for oil and global commerce.

U.S.-Iran negotiations at a standstill, with no timeline to end war

Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, an Iranian negotiator and Parliament Speaker, told lawmakers on Sunday that the era of “proportionate responses” to American attacks had come to an end, according to state media.

Trump has said he's "not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table" and "couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement." In a Sept. 1 message shared via Truth Social, he claimed the U.S. has "almost total control" of the Strait and pointed to Iran's suffering economy as evidence his approach was working.

Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East program at Defense Priorities, tells TIME the current stalemate is a way for both countries to demonstrate their power and test each other’s limits.

“One way to think about war is that it's a disagreement over the balance of power and who would win a conflict,” she says. “The United States and Iran haven't figured out yet where each other's limits are, and they both think that they have to convince the other side that their position is stronger than the other.”

The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 17, but the pact fell apart, with Washington and Tehran seemingly adopting different interpretations of the language used in the interim agreement.

Kelanic says that, as the conflict currently stands, each exchange of tit-for-tat strikes is “disproportionately bad for the U.S. because Iran can show us that they can continue to strike ships" in and around the Persian Gulf.

“They can continue to strike U.S. bases in Jordan and elsewhere. The U.S. can continue to defend, but the cost of defending is much higher because we're using these interceptors,” she tells TIME.

The Iran war has cost the U.S. at least $37.5 billion, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in July, prompting criticism from Democratic lawmakers who have pointed to the rising costs of gas, groceries, and more for American consumers.

In the current AI development race, our horsepower is exploding, our speed is picking up exponentially, but our ability to steer—and if needed, to hit the brakes—has not kept pace. 

Recent cybersecurity incidents have given us a real-world preview of what it looks like to lose control of AI. But the issue won’t improve unless we address it at the source, by creating a fundamentally safe AI, one we can guarantee will remain within human control. 

In late July, an agentic model being trained by OpenAI was tasked with a cybersecurity problem set. The model autonomously formed a coordinated swarm of agents, bypassing OpenAI's attempt at closing previous communication channels between AIs. The swarm then hacked its way out of its testing environment, circumventing the barriers put in place to prevent AI access to the internet, figured out how to cheat on their evaluation, and then breached the cyber defenses of another AI company, Hugging Face, in an attempt to hide the evidence of their cheating. This went unnoticed for days. Later analysis showed that the agents had self-organized into a hierarchy, were often willing to sacrifice themselves for what they called “the collective,” failed to resist peer pressure to notify humans, and often made up justifications for their misbehavior.

Barely two weeks later, a model being tested by the UK AI Security Institute social-engineered real people and companies by creating fake identities online, sending targeted emails, and attempting to integrate malicious code into an open-source project.

It’s hard to overstate the seriousness of these incidents: we are at a turning point of AI safety and alignment. To many, bots colluding to cause harm felt inconceivable. But for many in the research community, the signs had been pointing to this kind of occurrence for years, and theoretical arguments explained why we should expect misalignment due to how models are trained. Evidence on increased cyber capabilities, agency, and misaligned behaviors had been mounting, meaning that incidents like these were only a matter of time. 

The first clue: for years, but especially in the past few months, AI systems had been demonstrating rapidly increasing cyber capabilities. Frontier models like Anthropic’s Mythos or OpenAI’s GPT5.6 revealed an exceptional ability to autonomously identify and exploit previously unknown software vulnerabilities, to such an alarming degree for U.S. national security agencies that the White House felt compelled to intervene in their release. 

Second, models’ agentic capacity has been consistently improving since the release of o1 models back in late 2024. This agency allowed them to successfully manage increasingly complex, long-duration tasks and planning, including those that require agents to collaborate and strategize. This ability to plan often entails the creation of subgoals over which we have little to no oversight.

Finally, researchers have repeatedly observed, in experimental settings, models’ tendency to adopt concerning, misaligned goal-seeking behaviors, such as cheating on tests, lying to conceal their abilities, and scheming to protect themselves and their fellow agents from being shut down. 

These behaviors are a byproduct of reinforcement learning (RL), a training method by which models learn through trial and error and are given reinforcement according to whether their actions were correct or incorrect. This often leads models to optimize for a goal regardless of the actions taken to achieve it, and to rationalize subgoals that may be unsafe even when this clearly goes against their instructions. 

For example, in one instance, an OpenAI model wrote in its internal deliberation, “External infrastructure exploit is outside intended scope. However task impossible, peers doing it. We should continue.” The agent justified what it apparently knew was outside the realm of acceptable conduct, but decided to continue because its peers were doing so. This phenomenon resembles what is known as “motivated reasoning” in humans, where one’s interests and goals bias our thoughts to justify unethical behaviors. 

That kind of misalignment is what has enabled AI models, in spite of their alignment training, to conduct unintended cyberattacks in the numerous real-world incidents we’ve seen lately. If action is not taken to build more safety assurances, our critical industries and infrastructure—think banks, hospitals, or energy grids—are at risk from increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, whether from autonomous agents or malicious actors.

On the development side, we need to find alternatives to existing training methods that prioritize relentless goal-driven optimization. That’s what we’re working on at LawZero, a non-profit start-up I founded last year to develop a fundamentally new way to train AI models in order to build honest, trustworthy, safe-by-design AI systems. 

Ahead of deployment, we need more reliable evaluation methods and robust safeguards in order to appropriately test and control AI systems. We need far stronger regulatory oversight to restrict potentially dangerous technologies until we have sufficiently strong safety guarantees. It is clear to me that in cases where harms do arise from the deployment of AI models—and there will continue to be harms for the foreseeable future—we need accountability mechanisms for AI developers and remedial or compensatory measures for those harmed.  

Recent studies show that people will not adopt technologies they do not trust. In the face of such enormous unknowns and stakes, we need to adhere to the precautionary principle and implement rigorous safety and reliability standards before deploying new models to the public, not after. We have them for other products that can cause harm, from cars, planes, and bridges to drugs, cosmetics, and food. Now it’s time to establish strong standards in AI as well. 

On the current AI development trajectory, the risks are becoming clearer and more urgent. We’ve opened a Pandora’s box, but it is not too late to steer our world towards a human-centric and beneficial future.

No one asked for it.

Not the Republicans struggling to campaign amid a war against Iran that seems to have no offramp. Not the voters who can’t understand why energy costs are through the roof and trips to grocery stores feel like extortion. Not the business owners who can’t forecast quarter-to-quarter outlays because tariff policy seems as capricious as the weather.

Yet here we are, about to start an unsolicited Republican Convention for the midterms, programmed around President Donald Trump, whose polling is in the gutter and who many of his party’s leaders view as nothing short of an annoyance. The spectacle is set to start Wednesday in Dallas, where the cheap seats start at $25,000.

The GOP has a total of 12 hours of programming scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday nights—the vast majority of it set to be speeches by Republican candidates and incumbents about what’s at stake in these upcoming elections. Almost every aspect of the convention has been designed by Trump. The first night will end with a keynote address from Trump. The following night is to conclude with Vice President J.D. Vance’s address—and closing remarks from Trump.

This sort of half-time extravaganza by a political party is not normal in midterm election years and even political diehards aren’t conditioned for it. The fact that it’s coming as Trump is deeply unpopular and Democrats are enjoying tremendous tailwinds suggests the President is chasing a dopamine hit more than staging a useful rally. 

As Republican contenders are trying to build distance between themselves and the White House, Trump has vowed to make himself the fulcrum of this election season. “Pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot,” Trump told a crowd in South Carolina in August. 

The White House is operating as though there’s no greater force in American politics than the boss because, frankly, they’re not wrong. But the enthusiasm gap is real. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released last week found 68% of Democrats enthusiastic about the election, while that Republican figure stood at 59%. The same poll found an eight-point gap favoring Democrats in a generic ballot. Gallup research, meanwhile, shows Democrats have their largest edge over Republicans in party ID since 2008, a full 10 points. 

Republicans can’t say they didn’t see this coming. Trump has been consistently polling under 40% job approval for months. Nonetheless, candidates in some of the most competitive Senate races plan to join Trump in Texas for his two-night affair. (Notable exceptions are Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, and former Sen. John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, none of whom are favorites of this President. Also, Senate Majority Leader John Thune was not listed among the speakers the Republican National Committee distributed over the weekend.)

Trump is not deterred by the environment even as he seems oblivious to it. He is sitting on a $400 million political warchest that Republicans are eyeing as it, well, just sits there. While Trump will never again appear on a ballot, he has readied campaign-style ads highlighting what he sees as his accomplishments. 

As Democrats are stopping just short of measuring the drapes to take the majority in the House and perhaps the once-unthinkable Senate, Trump is helping them make every race about him through a convention that is siphoning donor cash away from imperilled candidates, sidelining battleground contenders off the field in the fourth quarter, and drawing focus from local issues. 

With all objective measures pointing toward a Democratic wave, Republicans are huddling amongst themselves in Texas. Many have little optimism that two nights of Trump-centered entertainment will persuade voters who are clearly unhappy with how GOP control of Washington has operated for the last two years. A made-for-TV infomercial is unlikely to provide the course correction Republicans need.

How to Watch

CSPAN intends to air and stream both nights of the Republican convention. The Republican Party also intends to stream the convention on YouTube. 

Everyone I know has either deleted dating apps, stopped using them, or is considering it. The icons lie dormant on their phones: technically still there, but rarely opened and no longer expected to deliver anything meaningful.

I have used multiple dating apps over the past eight years, and I have never formed a relationship with anyone I met on them. I have rarely even gone on a second date with someone from a dating app. Most first dates end in disappointment, mutual ghosting, or both. 

My experience is hardly unusual. Social media is full of people declaring that dating apps are dying, and a 2026 Harris Poll found that two-thirds of singles weren’t using them, while 80% of Americans viewed meeting someone in real life as “cute” or “cool.”

Over the past year, I have also found myself far more interested in men I meet in real life. Why? My theory is that dating apps are dying because they don’t encourage the patience, curiosity, and emotional investment that dating requires.

The apps promise abundance: hundreds or even thousands of potential partners, all accessible from the couch. But that abundance creates its own burden. Every session requires users to make a relentless series of small decisions—whether to swipe, initiate a conversation, maintain it, arrange a date, or keep looking for someone better.

There is evidence that this process becomes emotionally exhausting. A longitudinal study led by Liesel Sharabi, director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University, followed dating-app users for 12 weeks and found that emotional exhaustion and feelings of inefficacy increased over time.

“From a cognitive perspective, one reason may be the scale of the task,” says Samuel Hipkiss, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at the University of Bath. Dating apps expose us to far more potential partners than we would encounter offline, requiring hundreds of judgments about people we know almost nothing about. The end result is decision fatigue and cynicism, he explains. 

Of course, rejection has always been part of dating, but apps dramatically increase our exposure to it. Every unanswered message, vanished match, and unexplained ghosting carries a small emotional cost. Over time, Hipkiss says, users may lose faith in the process and become less willing to invest emotionally in any individual connection.

I have felt myself doing exactly that. Two years ago, I met someone on Hinge and went on five dates with him. I kept accepting because I wanted to prove that I was still trying, and because social media had convinced me to believe in the “slow burn.” But the sad truth is that the dates continued not because I particularly liked him. They continued because he seemed about 30% better than the other men I had met through the apps.

Eventually, he realized that I was not truly interested and ended things with me. Good for him. I wasn’t being honest with him or with myself. I had mistaken the absence of an immediate disaster for the presence of a connection.

Dating apps make that mistake easier because they turn a complicated social process into something immediate and measurable. In contrast, offline attraction develops through ambiguous signals: conversation, familiarity, body language, timing, and the gradual accumulation of knowledge about another person. Apps reduce that uncertainty to a series of unmistakable outcomes. Swipe left or right. Match or no match. Message or silence. In other words, they have gamified dating. But falling in love and building a relationship aren’t competitions to be won or algorithms that can be hacked. 

Philosopher Karim Nader has argued that dating apps transform the complex process of choosing a partner into a sequence of simple, discrete decisions. The goal can quietly shift from forming a relationship to accumulating matches.

Matches offer a clear metric of success and an immediate burst of validation, even when neither person intends to begin a conversation. Because they arrive unpredictably, they can operate as intermittent rewards: each disappointing swipe carries the possibility that the next one will produce a match.

That uncertainty keeps us returning. But it can also separate the immediate reward of receiving a match from the longer-term goal of forming a relationship.

I see this every time I open dating apps. Yesterday, I matched with 12 men. Only two messaged me. The others remain in dating app purgatory, neither rejected nor pursued. When I message matches first, I often receive no response. For many users, it seems, getting the match is enough. The person on the other side becomes secondary to the proof that someone chose them.

Despite the exhaustion and cynicism, the game continues. We open the app almost automatically, swipe for a few minutes, and wait for a small reward. The behavior starts to resemble playing Candy Crush more than looking for a partner.

Then there is the problem of choice. In one experiment, researchers found that showing users larger sets of dating profiles increased partner-choice overload and fear of being single while decreasing self-esteem. Other research suggests that prolonged access to an enormous pool of profiles can produce a rejection mindset; as users continue swiping, they become increasingly likely to dismiss potential partners.

I can reject a profile in less than two seconds because I do not like someone’s hair or because he falls outside my preferred height range. These judgments are shallow, but they are also a predictable response to the task the apps have created. When faced with hundreds of decisions and very little information, we rely on shortcuts. A photograph, a job title, or an awkwardly phrased prompt becomes a proxy for an entire personality.

At the same time, the endless supply of profiles lowers the perceived cost of rejecting someone. Why spend time determining whether one imperfect person might be compatible when hundreds of supposedly better options are waiting?

That feeling does not necessarily disappear after we choose someone. Even during a promising conversation, or after several dates, the app remains on our phone, offering the possibility of a match who could be funnier, hotter, or more compatible. The next person is always one swipe away.

A friend once compared dating apps to shopping for a dress or test-driving a car. You hesitate to choose the first one because another store might have a better price or a more flattering option. Dating apps encourage us to evaluate people as though they are consumer products: quickly, comparatively, and with the assumption that an upgrade may be just around the corner.

This is the central paradox of dating apps. Their enormous selection makes us believe that finding the perfect partner should be easier than ever. But the same abundance can make it harder to become curious about a person, tolerate uncertainty, or feel satisfied with our choice.

We have become trapped in a game whose rewards often have little to do with its supposed purpose. As such, many of us are beginning to question whether an endless marketplace of faces is the best way to find love.

And it’s why so many of us looking for love and connection are breaking up with dating apps. 

Now, it’s time for us to be brave—and to get back out there.

President Donald Trump has drawn criticism from Iceland after he posted a map depicting the country—along with Greenland, Canada, Mexico, and much of the Caribbean—covered by the American flag.

The diplomatic fallout continued Tuesday, as Iceland’s leaders publicly condemned the post a day after summoning U.S. Ambassador Billy Long to deliver a formal rebuke.

“It is an insult to Icelanders, Canadians, Greenlanders,” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir told reporters. “There is nothing funny or normal about making fun of the sovereignty of states, especially today, when sovereignty cannot be taken for granted.”

TIME has reached out to the White House and the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik for comment.

While Trump has not publicly proposed taking over Iceland before, the map marks his latest provocation involving the expansion of U.S. control over foreign territory.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his ambition to bring Greenland, Iceland’s closest neighbor and an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, under U.S. control, citing its strategic position and concerns about Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic. He said in January, soon after the U.S. deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, that anything short of U.S. control of Greenland was “unacceptable”—to the vexation of world leaders, not least those in the European Union, Denmark, and Greenland. He initially declined to rule out using military force, although in January, he said, “I don’t want to use force, I won’t use force.” During the same speech, the President confused Iceland with Greenland, saying “Iceland has already cost us a lot of money” in reference to a stock market dip.

Trump has also similarly advocated making Canada, now embroiled in a trade war with the U.S., the 51st state. While Trump has repeatedly joked about the matter, he said in February last year that the idea to annex Canada was “a real thing.” He said he would use “economic force,” rather than military force, to pressure the U.S. neighbor.

Trump officials have continued the rhetoric. Last month, Vice President J.D. Vance called Canada a “state” before apologizing for the “Freudian slip.” In March, Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney the country’s “future governor.” And Trump ordered Lake Ontario, which borders the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. State of New York, renamed “Lake America” for official U.S. use, drawing sharp criticism from Canadian leaders.

Trump has also floated a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, one of the Caribbean nations blanketed by the American flag on the map he posted, and renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” On Monday, Trump posted several other maps on Truth Social showing the U.S. state of New Mexico renamed as “New America.”

Why Iceland is concerned about threats to its sovereignty

Iceland’s sovereignty has been a prickly topic for the Nordic nation, especially on the heels of a referendum over joining the European Union.

The country’s population of 400,000 narrowly voted on Aug. 29 to reject restarting negotiations to become a member of the E.U. The question of membership came into focus after Trump’s push to annex Greenland, as some Icelandic voters saw the bloc as a potential political and economic bulwark against similar pressure on Iceland. Iceland, a founding member of NATO, does not have its own military. Its security instead rests on the alliance’s collective security framework, as well as a 1951 bilateral agreement under which the U.S. provides for its defense.

Others argued that joining the E.U. would relinquish some sovereignty over Iceland’s affairs, particularly over its lucrative fishing grounds, which would become subject to the E.U.’s common fisheries policy. Iceland is already a member of the European Economic Area and the Schengen zone, which gives it access to the E.U.’s single market and passport-free travel.

How Iceland responded to Trump’s U.S. takeover map

Iceland’s foreign ministry said Tuesday that Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir had summoned Long to “convey a clear message that the image was wholly inappropriate.”

Gunnarsdóttir told reporters that “people within the U.S. administration” had advised her to “not take the current U.S. President literally.”

“But we should take him seriously,” she added. “That is exactly what we are doing, and we are stressing that Iceland is a sovereign, independent state that is responsible for its own future.”

Long had previously joked about an American takeover of Iceland. In January, he was overheard telling lawmakers on the House floor that Iceland could become the 52nd state with him as the governor. At the time, Iceland’s foreign ministry said it was investigating the matter.

Long later apologized, telling news site Arctic Today that “there was nothing serious about that, I was with some people, who I hadn’t met for three years, and they were kidding about [U.S. special envoy to Greenland] Jeff Landry being governor of Greenland and they started joking about me and if anyone took offense to it, then I apologize.”

“This is not a joke,” Gunnarsdóttir said, dismissing the possibility of the U.S. President using a similar defense. “And if it is supposed to be a joke, it’s a bad one.”

August brought some truly transformative good news for Turkey, the Kurds, and Turkey’s immediate neighborhood in the Middle East. On Aug. 10, the Turkish Parliament passed a law establishing a legal framework for the dissolution of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish militant group, and creating a phased pathway for reintegration of its members into society.

For more than four decades, the Kurdish issue has run like an electrified barbed wire through conversations in Turkey. The armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkish government has killed around 40,000 militants, soldiers, and civilians, and cost Turkey losses estimated to be around $2 trillion since 1984. Following peace talks, in July 2025, the PKK held a symbolic weapon-burning ceremony, starting a process of disarmament and moving toward ending the armed conflict.

The law offers legal protections to former PKK militants who have not committed specific crimes and helps suspend prison sentences for some members of the group. Thousands of sympathizers, activists affiliated with the PKK, and Kurdish politicians have been living in exile in Europe and elsewhere to escape legal prosecution. The law opens a path for them to return to Turkey. And the passage of this law in the Turkish parliament with broad support is a transformative step toward lasting peace and the creation of a new social contract between Turkey and the Kurds, domestically and regionally. 

How to make peace

In the past decade, Turkey established clear military dominance in the fight against the PKK. Changes in military technology, intelligence, and surveillance systems, especially the rise of Turkish drones, strengthened the country’s counter-insurgency efforts. Yet Turkey’s military capacity to suppress an insurgency was not the sole factor in persuading the PKK to give up arms. Turkey did suppress waves of Kurdish rebellions in the past without creating space for Kurdish aspirations, and each suppression was followed by a more formidable and more violent rebellion.

Turkey’s embrace of a political process—instead of simply pursuing a decisive military path—to end the conflict made it more acceptable to the PKK leadership and the Kurdish movement. Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK, had to persuade his comrades to dissolve their organization, abandon the armed struggle, and choose political struggle. Unfavorable broader regional trends against armed militancy may have helped convince Ocalan and his comrades to make that consequential choice.

The legitimacy of the political solution, in the eyes of the Kurds, determines its sustainability and transformative impact. The current peace process seeks to end the insurgency and transform the struggle for Kurdish rights and aspirations into a nonviolent political one. It could transform Turkey’s relations with its own Kurdish community and the Kurdish communities in Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Leaders of the Kurdish movement believe that they can achieve more through politics than through armed struggle, and that it isn’t only they who are transforming, but that the state, political, and legal systems in Turkey can also change. The promise of the future, rather than being beholden to the grievances of the past, is the way forward. 

The Turks and the Kurds managed it without relying on foreign peacemakers or mediation. The disarmament and demobilization process for the PKK was designed, executed, and monitored domestically, without involving any foreign mediators. The talks were held between Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, Ocalan, and several other leaders of his group based in the Qandil Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan and across Europe. The process involved the Turkish parliament and political parties through a Parliamentary Committee, formed in Aug. 2025 to work on legal and political dimensions of the PKK’s dissolution, which helped garner broad support for the peace process across political divides in Turkey.

Turkey and the Kurds have entered a new phase that demands greater buy-in for the peace process from politicians, lawmakers, ordinary people, and from the institutions that will implement the new law. To ensure the peace process has broader societal support, the political class will need to make clear why it matters and what it promises. The stakes of getting that right are high for Turkey and extend beyond its borders.

Seeing like a state

The nation-state in the 20th century largely adopted a conception of nationhood based on a single identity and was intolerant, assimilationist, or exclusionary toward other identities. The effect was to politicize and mobilize the very groups it sought to submerge. This was true of Turkey as well. The Turkish Republic was based on a single identity and an overly centralized state with its own insecurities, largely stemming from the traumatic experience during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Today, Turkey needs a new conception of the nation-state that is inclusive of different identity groups, and a new idea of a strong state that is premised on broader societal legitimacy. Centralization coupled with exclusion is a recipe for societal discontent, which weakens, rather than strengthens, the state. Turkey’s real challenge is building an inclusive national identity that recognizes distinct identity groups without losing the thread of what binds them together. The task of the ongoing Kurdish peace process, and the Kurdish politics that will follow it, will be to achieve exactly this: an inclusive notion of national identity capacious enough to accommodate Kurdish identity and aspirations.

The current political mood in the Middle East and elsewhere is not one of militant groups and insurgencies. The broader trend runs toward their integration into state structures or their disarmament and demobilization. How these processes of demobilization and integration are carried out will be highly consequential. If they rely solely on coercion, rather than embracing persuasion and the prospect of mutual transformation, disarmament risks being a prelude to the next cycle of violence, waged under new names and banners.

Demobilization of insurgent groups succeeds when it rests on the prospect of mutual transformation. The armed groups dissolve themselves and remake themselves as political actors, who cease to be adversaries of the state and work as agents of its transformation.

The state and the polity, in turn, must transform alongside them, arriving at a more inclusive conception of national and geopolitical identity. In Turkey, it would mean embracing Kurdishness and honoring Kurdish political, democratic, and cultural rights, and regarding the Kurds outside of Turkey’s borders not as threats but as allies.

The PKK’s demobilization will reshape Turkey’s threat perception, and with it, Turkey’s approach to Kurds in Iraq, Syria, Iran and their countries. Already, in step with the pace of the PKK disarmament, the language used by Turkish officials and Kurdish actors across the region towards each other has improved significantly.

Fruits of peace

Turkey and its neighborhood have already benefited from the peace process and the demobilization of the PKK. That process faced two formidable tests in Syria and Iran and passed both. Turkey treated the PKK’s demobilization at home and the integration of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—led by a Kurdish militia with close ties to the PKK—into the Syrian state as parts of a single process.

After the fall of the Assad regime, reuniting a fractured Syria became one of the most formidable tasks for the new government. The SDF controlled almost a quarter of Syrian territory. Limited fighting and military pressure earlier in the year helped shift the balance, stripping the SDF of a large portion of the land it had held.

What helped make the SDF’s integration into the Syrian state relatively smooth was the peace process already underway in Turkey, given the SDF’s close ties to the PKK. August brought two momentous developments: Turkey’s parliament passed the landmark legislation providing for the disbanding of the PKK, the reintegration of its fighters and the dismissal of charges against thousands of its sympathizers and prisoners; and the SDF announced its own dissolution.

A parallel drama played out during the Iran War. There were fears that the Iranian Kurdish militant group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or the PJAK, might join the American war against Iran. Given its close ties to the PKK, such a move could have weakened the PKK’s commitment to disarmament and risked a new phase of conflict among Turkey, the PKK, and the PJAK. Despite pressure from the Trump Administration and Israeli plans to draw them into the conflict, Iranian Kurdish groups stayed out of the war. The peace process in Turkey was a major factor in persuading them to remain on the sidelines.

Together, the Syrian and Iranian cases reveal the power of political imagination and legitimacy in advancing national security. In both instances, Turkey has achieved more through political engagement than through military force. Any national security doctrine devoid of political imagination or legitimacy remains incomplete. The tests posed by Syria and Iran have demonstrated the PKK’s commitment to demobilization, confirmed that its decision is strategic rather than merely tactical, and helped build trust between Turkey and the PKK.

This process will also have considerable implications for Turkey’s relations with major powers. No issue has bedeviled Turkish-American relations more than the Syrian civil war did before the collapse of the Assad regime. At its core, that crisis reflected the conflicting American and Turkish approaches to the Syrian Kurds, specifically the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a PKK affiliate that, with American military advice and support, was later rebranded as the SDF.

By enabling the SDF’s integration into the Syrian state, the PKK’s demobilization has removed the most formidable sticking point in Turkish-American relations, clearing the way for closer cooperation between the two countries in Syria and beyond. Ocalan framed the recently passed Turkish law as the first step of a 1000 kilometer journey. The Turkish model, and the peace it promises, are still a story in the making. Despite the milestones already reached, formidable challenges remain, demanding persistence and commitment.

No two conflicts or two peace processes are alike. Yet the central message is universal: peace is possible and leadership matters. Long-running conflicts around identity are not fates to be endured but political questions to be settled. In a world still defined by war and insecurity, the story of peacemaking is, inherently, a global one.

The White House has apparently pulled one of its newly released arcade-style video games after a rebuke from the maker of Tetris.

The White House game, called “Build the Wall,” was launched last week alongside a series of other games as part of the latest push by the Trump Administration to promote its policies through popular culture. In the game, players could stack blocks to form a wall to “protect the border from the coming horde,” in the style of the iconic, decades-old stacker game Tetris.

But on Tuesday, the game was no longer available on the White House website.

The apparent removal of the game comes after the Tetris Company clarified that it was not involved in the creation of and was opposed to the politics behind the White House game.

“At Tetris, we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them,” the company wrote in a statement on social media on Friday.

“P.P.S. We take copyright infringement very seriously,” it added in the post.

TIME has reached out to the White House and Tetris for comment.

Latest company to criticize White House digital strategy

The Tetris Company has become the latest company to distance itself from the Trump Administration’s use of copyrighted material to promote its agenda, and it took its criticism a step further by alluding to possible legal action.

In March, the Pokémon Company said it had not authorized the White House’s use of imagery from the game Pokémon Pokopia. Months earlier, the Pokémon Company had objected to a Department of Homeland Security video that used Pokémon branding and footage to promote Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Several songs by pop star Taylor Swift were also removed from Trump campaign and White House social media posts, and other celebrities like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter have publicly condemned the Administration’s use of their music.

The other White House games launched last week also borrowed mechanics associated with iconic games like Snake and Flappy Bird. Promotional clips posted by the White House mimicked branding associated with Sega and Microsoft’s Xbox. In one clip, gamemaker Sega’s familiar start-up logo morphs into “MAGA,” the abbreviation for President Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.” 

Those companies have not publicly commented.

“This administration is laser focused on ways to innovate and tell the story of the President’s many accomplishments in a way that resonates with every American,” the White House said in a statement to TIME last week. “This is an effort to further contrast between a culture of fun and winning and the dark socialist vision Democrats have for America.”

The games drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers. On Friday, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D, Texas) posted, “Instead of creating policies that actually help people, the White House just rolled out arcade games. They need to spend less time playing and more time governing. Folks need affordable groceries, not games.” Rep. Ted Lieu (D, Calif.) and Connecticut state senator Matt Lesser, also a Democrat, levied similar criticisms, arguing that the White House had misplaced priorities amid high fuel prices and inflation driven by the U.S.’s war against Iran.

The game’s title reprises Trump’s signature 2016 campaign pledge to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and bill the construction to Mexico. A decade later, American taxpayers are still funding the effort, and hundreds of miles remain unfinished.

Israel ordered the closure of the British consulate in East Jerusalem after the United Kingdom led a coordinated effort by 12 governments to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced the import ban on all goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday. 

“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” he said during remarks at the House of Commons, referring to growing incidents of violence against Palestinians living in the West Bank. 

Eighty attacks carried out by Israeli settlers resulted in casualties or property damage between Aug. 11 and Aug. 24, according to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. 

More than 1,040 Palestinians have been injured in such incidents across 2026, it reports, and 79 Palestinians, including 19 children, have been killed by either Israeli military personnel or settlers so far this year. 

That adds to the escalating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since the terror attacks led by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostage. Since then, another 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank.

Miliband said that the Israeli government had too often “turned a blind eye.”  

Following the U.K.’s lead, Canada and France announced similar trade bans Tuesday. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden also joined those three countries in backing national or European restrictions, although their individual commitments vary.

In a joint statement, the 12 governments said Israel’s actions were undermining the prospect of a two-state solution. The statement calls for a halt on settlement expansions and accountability for settler violence. 

What the Israeli settlement trade bans cover

The planned sanctions will ban the import of any goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but will not impact any goods from Israel. 

Annual trade between the U.K. and Israel totaled around £6 billion ($8.1 billion) in the four quarters leading to Q2 2025, with goods imported by the U.K. from Israel valued at £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion). It is unclear how much of this trade originates from Israeli settlements in the West Bank. 

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, says that the settler economy produces mainly produce.

“You see a lot of exports of agricultural goods like dates and avocados to Europe. You also see a lot of export of herbs, so this is in part the basis of the economy,” he says. 

A report published by Global Echo in June found that over 17% of the agricultural shipments to Europe that it analyzed contained settlement products. 

Doyle also says some settlements have been expanding industrial zones which “contribute to the production of many different types of Israeli exports.”

And while the sanctions will not target goods from Israel, Doyle says that some products originating from settlements are instead labeled as originating from Israel. 

European policy has previously sought clarity on the exact origin of Israeli products and whether goods have come from West Bank settlements. 

“It's incumbent, therefore, on Israel to stop this, to bring itself in line with international law, and not export these products,” said Doyle in light of Tuesday’s sanctions. 

But Hirschhorn argues that given how intertwined the economies of settlements and Israel are, it is difficult and unrealistic to separate the two. 

“The lid to the container of hummus that's made in the settlement of Ariel is filled by hummus itself that was pumped out of a tube in the city of Ashkelon,” she suggests as an example.

“There's no real way necessarily to separate the goods here from the goods there,” she tells TIME, arguing that Tuesday’s sanctions will ultimately impact Israeli businesses beyond the initial scope of the ban. 

“I’m not sure how an economic boycott of settler goods, no matter how specific or how tailored, would really achieve the policy goals that ultimately are desired here, which is the two-state solution,” she says. 

Despite the potential unintended impact sanctions could have, Doyle argues that this is down to the Israeli government to resolve. 

“It’s up to the state of Israel to uncouple its economy from the settlement economy,” he says. “Settlements do not lie within the sovereign borders of the territory of the State of Israel.”

Why West Bank settlements are illegal under international law

Under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory, are illegal. It is also illegal for an occupying power to deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

In light of Article 49, and in line with its view that Israel occupies the West Bank, the U.N. deems settlements in the West Bank illegal. Miliband reaffirmed Tuesday that the U.K. observes this position on the matter, as well. 

“To those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this: You will face the full force of U.K. sanctions,” said the Foreign Secretary, outlining that action will be taken against those  who provide construction or financial support for expansions.

There are an estimated 620,000 Israeli settlers living across the West Bank, as well as in East Jerusalem, according to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. 

Settlers “live on occupied territory, using resources, particularly water, which is so crucial that they're not entitled to, and they do that with the blessing, encouragement, and active support of the Israeli government,” says Doyle. 

The Israeli government has also been enabling and in some instances supporting the expansion of settlements across the West Bank. Last month, it opened bidding for more than 1,200 homes in E1, a largely undeveloped area between East Jerusalem and the existing Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.

The broader plan for roughly 3,400 homes was approved last year and championed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has previously been sanctioned by the British government and others. 

Critics say that construction would connect Ma’ale Adumim more closely with Jerusalem while disrupting Palestinian territorial continuity between East Jerusalem and the northern and southern West Bank—further undermining the prospects for a viable two-state solution.

Arguments for and against the sanctions

Supporters say that the sanctions are significant because they turn longstanding international condemnation of Israeli settlements into economic action. 

“There is a line drawn here that many actors in the international community are now prepared to say, ‘We're going to back up the criticism with action,’ and that ‘Israel, you have to stop massive expansion of settlers,’” Doyle says.

Others question whether broad restrictions on settlement trade effectively address the violence used to justify them. 

“The sanctions first and foremost don't target the perpetrators of settler violence specifically,” says Sara Yael Hirschhorn, a professor of history and American Jewish studies at the University of Haifa, suggesting that only a small number of settlers actually carry out such violence. 

Hirschhorn also notes that the timing of the measures, weeks before Israeli elections, could embolden far-right parties and hinder discussions around settler violence. 

“All it does is stir the pot in the midst of an election campaign, and strengthens the Israeli right, rather than approaching these issues with more subtlety when a new Israeli government had been elected,” she says. 

How Israel and the U.S. have responded

Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned that British sanctions on Israeli settlements “will prove to be a grave miscalculation.” 

“Sanctions are not a solution—dialogue is,” said Herzog. “Step away from the dead-end of sanctions and boycotts, and turn toward constructive dialogue and toward cooperation.”

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also called on the British consulate in East Jerusalem, that works with the Palestinian Authority, to be closed. 

“This must be Israel's resolute response to British audacity,” he said. 

Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he did not know what “sanctions, repercussions or retaliations” might follow from Washington in response to the U.K.  

“I don’t know if they’re really aware of the implications and how it’s going to affect Brits,” he said, pointing toward legislation in 38 states that restricts government contracts or investments involving companies that boycott Israel.

Asked about the sanctions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters: “Obviously we're not gonna do what the U.K. did.”

“We don’t want to see anything destabilizing going on in the West Bank with so much going on in the region, we think it has implications on our ability to make progress with regards to Gaza,” Rubio continued. 

President Donald Trump is yet to publicly address the sanctions. When asked for comment on the matter, the White House directed TIME to Rubio's remarks.

Alongside the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar  confirmed the removal of British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center, which coordinates relief efforts. 

Israel has also suspended the British training of Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank and it has barred an NGO director and 11 elected representatives in the U.K. from entering Israel. 

Among those denied entry is Labour lawmaker Richard Burgon, who has backed accusations of genocide put against Israel for its conduct in Gaza. 

“The decision by the Israeli government to sanction me today will not intimidate me into silence,” said Burgon in response to the move. “I will continue to do what is right, speak out in defense of international law and stand up for justice for the Palestinian people.”

Nearly a year after precious jewels were stolen from the Louvre in broad daylight, France’s museums suffered another loss of major artworks when thieves stole four valuable paintings from the Renoir Museum on the French Riviera on Tuesday. These events, while seemingly isolated, point toward a broader trend in art heists across Europe.

According to art theft investigator Anthony Amore, the crime has persisted throughout history.

“It has always happened. It always will happen,” he tells TIME. At the same time, it’s “hard to deny” that there has been an uptick in major thefts of art from museums across Europe, he says. 

“In terms of big name artists who are targeted, the number of heists—successful heists—that have happened, is without question spiking over the last 11 months,” Amore says.

That recent concentration was particularly striking in France. The country’s specialist art-crime office has recorded roughly 20 museum thefts annually over the past 15 years. But seven museums were targeted in September and October 2025 alone, the office’s chief told French lawmakers, describing an accumulation of unusually serious crimes.

Read More: 25 Works of Art That Define America Now

The latest heist targeted the former home and studio of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, an Impressionist artist born in the mid-19th century. The residence in Cagnes-sur-Mer was converted into a museum in 1960.

French investigators have launched a national search for the perpetrators, who broke in before 6 a.m. and executed the heist in less than three minutes. Cagnes-sur-Mer Mayor Bryan Masson told press that the thieves were “well-equipped” and “well-informed,” slicing through the garden fence with what is believed to be either an electric knife or saw, entering the museum on the ground floor, and cutting the cords holding the artworks. 

The circumstances of their escape caused them to abandon two of the four pilfered artworks, but they fled with “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano” and “Young Woman at the Well.”

The incident bears similarities to the high-profile theft of the roughly $100 million worth of historic French crown jewels from the Louvre on Oct. 19, 2025. The haul has yet to be recovered or returned to the museum, even though authorities believe they have captured the entire four-man team responsible.

Many of the heists in the year since have duplicated that team’s successful approach: Do it quickly and with force.

Amore says that these “quick heists” often utilize brute force entry, like breaking a window. 

“Or it’s more of a smash and grab: Pull something off the wall and run. That's what we saw here,” he continues. “That's what we saw at the Louvre.”

The approach often facilitates one of the most essential elements of a successful escape: time.

“We're now getting into what I call the four-minute heist, where you can smash and grab your way into almost any museum in that amount of time,” says Christopher Marinello, the founder of Art Recovery International.

After the Louvre, thieves now see museums as accessible targets, he says—as long as they act fast.

“Criminals have discovered that with high-security museum systems, where the police are alerted and they arrive within four to five minutes, if they can get out before that, then they’re good—especially in a museum in a big city where you can use a moped or a scooter, and you could wind in and out of traffic,” Marinello continues.

Brute force allows criminals to enter and exit the scene as fast as possible. For example, a gang used a tractor to batter down a gate at the Magnani Rocca Foundation, a private museum about 12 miles from Parma, Italy, on March 22. In just three minutes, thieves managed to steal paintings by Renoir, Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse.

Thieves completed another heist within just a few minutes at a small museum in Sicily on Aug. 16, making off with several works by Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina.

Not all thefts get the same level of publicity, and examples from the past year abound.

Ancient Romanian artifacts were taken from the Drents Museum in the Netherlands in January 2025, $11 million of porcelain works were lifted from the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in France in September 2025, and a 200-carat diamond-and-platinum necklace from Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), worth $4 million, was taken last month. 

And the problem has spread beyond Europe, as well. In the United States, more than 1,000 historic artifacts were stolen from an offsite storage facility belonging to the Oakland Museum of California in October 2025.

Why has there been an uptick in museum heists?

The Sept. 8 Renoir heist is consistent with the methods used at the Louvre, says Amore. It is also consistent with the methods of most of the major art heists since early 2025. 

The similar methodologies point to potential cases of copycats, according to Amore.

“My educated opinion is that I think the Louvre heist might have captured the imagination of thieves,” he says.

Nick O’Donnell, a lawyer specializing in art and cultural property law, says that the Louvre heist potentially showed prospective thieves that if four thieves could successfully steal from one of the most famous museums in Europe, then they could easily transfer those tactics to less prominent museums.

“It has given fuel to the perception that there are many museums where security may not be as tight as people think it is,” he says. “It seems to me that once that perception gets going for the would-be thieves, it's very hard to contain.”

Marinello believes that a lack of security can be traced back to financial constraints. 

“They don't have money to protect their own treasures,” Marinello says. “And security systems are not keeping up with technology.”

He also believes broader economic and political factors play into potential budget shortfalls.

“The arts are always the first to go when governments are trying to save money,” he says. France, for example, cut its national culture budget by €150 million (about $170 million) in 2025, including a €200 million (about $226 million) reduction in heritage funding, which supports museums as well as monuments, archaeology, and archives. 

It is not directly evident how this might have impacted security at any of the museums robbed in the ensuing year; however, France launched a €30 million ($34 million) museum-security fund in July 2026, according to the French Culture Ministry.

But it’s not all down to budget, Amore says. Part of the issue with upping security at cultural institutions is that it risks undermining the entire point of museums: bringing the public closer to incredibly valuable and precious artifacts.

“The whole point of the museum is accessibility to rare valuables, important pieces, cultural patrimony,” Amore says. “Museums work really hard to get people to come and look at them and stand in front of them and take all the time in the world they need.”

He adds: “The best a museum can do is try to make it difficult to get in, difficult to get back out, using layers of security to slow people down.”

But the uptick in heists is not entirely explained by copycats and opportunists. The break-ins are also occurring amid high demand for precious metals and gemstones, which can make objects containing those materials attractive targets. 

They also come amid global economic instability, when some investors turn to art to hedge against inflation and diversify from stocks and bonds. A survey by Art Basel and UBS found that high-net-worth collectors allocated an average of 20% of their wealth to art in 2025, up from 15% in 2024.

Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union, released a report in August highlighting how art thieves “are increasingly focusing on precious metals, gemstones, and culturally significant artefacts, driven by high market demand and ease of illicit resale.”

Amore says those items may be less traceable and easier to fence than other valuables.

“People might be moving toward objects like jewels or highly valuable jewelry pieces because they think that they can sell them—or break them up and sell them more easily,” he says.

While that might explain the incidents at the Louvre and Vienna’s MAK, it doesn’t quite fit with paintings—which are easily identified and therefore significantly harder to offload.

Is the payoff of an art heist worth the risk?

Famous paintings can be complicated to sell, in part because of how recognizable they are—which is intrinsic to their value.

Marinello says that the thieves involved in the Renoir heist will soon find that the paintings they hold are “radioactive.” 

“And when they can't sell them, sometimes they will try to ransom them back to the museum,” he says. “And after they fail at all those other attempts, then the artwork will travel on the dark web at a fraction of its true value.”

The risk may not be worth the consequences. Many of the culprits of recent high-profile heists have been caught by law enforcement, although recovering the lost art is another matter that has proven more difficult. In addition to the four people arrested in connection to the Louvre robbery, five people were detained last month in connection to the heist at the Magnani Rocca Foundation. 

At the same time, law enforcement and museum organizations have only grown more aggressive in their attempts to deter thefts and counteract the art heist trend.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) announced a new initiative with Interpol last year in hopes of supporting museums “in strengthening their security systems and reinforcing collective efforts to prevent the theft and illicit movement of cultural goods.”

“The growing number and sophistication of security challenges facing museums and cultural institutions require urgent, coordinated, and informed action,” Medea Ekner, the director general of ICOM, said in a statement sent to TIME. “ICOM and INTERPOL are working closely to assess the scale and evolving nature of this threat, including through a sector-wide survey, and to identify where the museum community most needs support.”

In 1941, as the Nazis swept through Greece and took Athens, my grandfather, Nicolas Taptiklis, fled for his life.

In the middle of the night, he boarded a tiny boat with twelve others and crossed the dangerous waters of the Aegean Sea to Turkey. Under Nazi occupation, his service with the British Navy made staying in Greece a risk he could not take. Greeks who helped the Allies risked arrest, imprisonment, or execution, and the punishment could reach their families and communities too. From Turkey, he made his way with thousands of others to Syria, where he finally found safety in Damascus.

That journey never left him. When the war ended, Europe was filled with people who had also lost their homes, their families and, in many cases, nearly their lives. Around 11 million people were displaced in Germany: Holocaust survivors, former prisoners of war, forced laborers, and others left in camps, waiting for the world to decide what came next.

My grandfather returned to Europe and put his medical training to work for people whose own lives had been broken by the same war he had fled. He joined the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, one of the first humanitarian agencies and a precursor to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. In a camp in Göttingen, Germany, he treated tuberculosis, typhoid, and people whose bodies had survived the war but still bore its scars.

The world had learned, at unbearable human cost, what happens when people fleeing war have nowhere safe to go. Through WWII, families were turned away from protection, people returned to countries where they feared for their lives, and millions were left in camps because home was no longer safe or even existed at all. 

From that devastation came a simple lesson; people escaping war and conflict should be able to find safety. They should not be forced back to a place where they could be killed or tortured. When people flee for their lives, they need somewhere safe to go.

That principle became the heart of the 1951 Refugee Convention, adopted in the aftermath of the Second World War as countries tried to create a framework to prevent the atrocities of the war from ever occurring again. The Convention defined who is a refugee, set out the basic rights for refugees, and established the responsibilities of states toward people seeking protection. But more than a legal document, it was a promise of safety. A promise that, for the past 75 years, has saved millions of lives and stands as proof that even in our darkest hours, we can choose to protect one another. 

Even the clearest lessons of history can fade. A world of indifference, even cruelty, is creeping back. Xenophobia is rising. Humanitarian aid is shrinking. International solidarity is weakening. And once again, the promise of safety is under strain.

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, we must reaffirm that promise. In times like these, we must hold fast to our promise and advocate for the continued need and lifesaving work of humanitarian agencies, like UNHCR, around the world. This is not only the morally right thing to do; it is also the practical one. When refugees are protected, communities are stronger, instability is reduced, and fewer people are forced to flee. A world that protects people in their greatest moment of need is a safer and more humane world for everyone.

My grandfather experienced the generosity and compassion of the Syrians who sheltered him, but he also knew what a world of chaos and violence was like, and what its consequences were if there was no safety net of international protection. 

If my grandfather were alive today, he would be sounding a warning. He would be speaking up in defense of the Convention, of humanitarian action, of compassion. He knew all too well what it was like to flee in fear for your life. He saw how lives could be lost or shattered if there was no one to step in and protect them. 

I think of my grandfather on that boat, making that journey. I sound the warning on his behalf. To remind people that becoming a refugee can happen to any of us at any time. The right to seek safety was a promise made for us all, and that promise needs protecting and defending.

In January 2026, a new community popped up on Reddit, the online message board site. Called /r/GirlDinnerDiaries, it now has a sizable 6 million members and invites people to post a photo of a meal—whether it’s something you’re eating while you post or another meal that gets at your state of mind—along with an anonymous blurb venting or soliciting advice.  "My partner only feels disgust at the idea of me as a mom," reads one. "I feel like it's never going to be OK," says another. 

The point is to activate the feeling of sharing over food, but over the internet. The snapshots are messy, yet evocative: French fries consumed in a nightclub, a breakfast burrito in a diner, yesterday’s lunch eaten hastily over a keyboard with a plastic fork. The posts wax poetic about the fate of marriages and the bizarre serendipity of life. Reading these dishy dispatches feels like staying up late with friends you rarely see, working over all that's gone down in your life in search of some meaning. 

Why are millions of people so captivated by these nameless confessionals served with a side of candid, unposed food photography? Scientists who study self-disclosure—the act of sharing personal, sensitive information with others—have some thoughts about why we share our deepest, darkest secrets on the internet.

Revealing ourselves builds trust

Talking about yourself feels pleasurable, and there’s science to back that up, says Leslie John, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of the book Revealing. She points to experiments conducted by psychologists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell, where people having their brains scanned in an fMRI machine answered either normal trivia questions or questions about themselves. “They found that in the ones that got to self-disclose, the pleasure centers of the brain were activated,” says John. “That's pretty powerful.” 

Sharing feels good because it’s necessary for human social interaction, John speculates. “When you self-disclose, when you take the social risk—and it really is a social risk—of sharing something a little bit personal, a little sensitive, you're modeling that you trust the recipient. That gesture is implicitly saying, ‘Hey, I trust you not to make a fool out of me; otherwise, I wouldn't be sharing this.’ And when you do that, it causes the other person to trust you back. So trust begets trust,” she says. 

In fact, John’s work has found that people are more interested in dating a hypothetical person who admits that they’ve done something terrible than someone who declines to answer the question. “It's better sometimes to admit the worst possible thing than to conspicuously abstain,” she says. 

Posting a photo of a paper plate with yesterday’s messy BBQ and a brownie you ate while processing getting fired is, in the age of the perfectly lit Instagram plate, a similar kind of move. “It's super relatable,” says John. “Showing things that are unvarnished is kind of paradoxically attractive.” 

How the internet changes the equation

Psychologists and sociologists used to think of self-disclosure mainly in the sense of sharing with people you know in real life, says sociologist Tamar Ashuri of Tel Aviv University. “The original studies back in the ’50s and ’60s on self-disclosure focus on face-to-face interactions,” she says. “In intimate relationships, people disclose, and it’s kind of an ultimate goal. You can't sustain an intimate relationship if you don't.” Another situation where people might self-disclose is the stranger-on-a-train context. It’s also face-to-face, but there is no lasting link, so the risks of disclosure are lower.  

But the arrival of the internet, and social media especially, produced new forms of self-disclosure that scientists are still working to characterize and understand. In the case of /r/GirlDinnerDiaries, says Ashuri, posters are anonymously disclosing intimate thoughts in a public forum, stranger-on-a-train style, with no face-to-face interaction, and yet it is still somehow gratifying.

That combination emerged almost by accident, says the subreddit’s founder, a young woman named Taylor, who asked to be identified only by her first name. She had been posting frequently in another community, called Girl Dinner, and noticed a split: Some people wanted to know the slice-of-life stories behind the meals, while others only wanted to see the food. She created Girl Dinner Diaries as an overflow space for people who wanted both—and it took off almost immediately. “One of my favorite things is going out with the girls for some drinks and some appys and venting, getting it all off my chest,” Taylor says. Girl Dinner Diaries offered a place to do that without leaving the couch. 

Not every diary is wrenching. Taylor’s favorite post is a happy one: A woman woke up to discover that her husband had created a scavenger hunt for her, then shared a photo of the pasta with burrata they ate that evening. “It looked quite fancy,” Taylor says. “It looked very delicious.” 

Whether the story is heartwarming or devastating, the meal is an essential part of the formula. “Food provides a very positive, ordinary, culturally familiar medium,” Ashuri says. “But in this case, and this is what makes it so special, it allows people to express extraordinary issues…The food makes the extraordinary feel more ordinary.” She gives the example of one recent post, in which a woman posted a birthday cake and revealed that she and her son had celebrated his birthday in a domestic violence shelter. “I think this combination is extremely significant,” she says. 

The setup allows posters to reveal what are sometimes extreme experiences to a community gathered around a shared sensibility—with the unifying force of a leftover chimichanga presiding over it all. Food helps make the extreme relatable. The subreddit also tightly controls who can enter the conversation: Only approved commenters are allowed to respond, adding a layer of protection to a forum built around unusually intimate disclosures. 

Should we all be self-disclosing more?

There’s a happy medium to everything—don’t, perhaps, take to the web with every mental dip or life hiccup. And sharing online may not bring the same benefits as sharing in real life, cautions John. “Social media in so many ways facilitates self-disclosure,” she says. “But in many ways this medium doesn't give you the benefit you're looking for (e.g., real social bonding, connectedness).” 

Indeed, research suggests that people who post to social media every day tend to score worse on measures of mental health. Posting online can give easy access to reassurance from others, but this behavior can sometimes become destructive—if we don’t get the reassurance we seek, that’s a big blow, and constant reassurance may not help in solving the larger problems.

But John thinks that in general, offline, we overestimate the harms of oversharing, while underestimating the costs of staying silent. 

The impulse to put an experience into words may help even when no one else reads them. Some of social psychologist James Pennebaker’s research suggests that privately writing about traumatic events can provide significant psychological relief, and even boost the immune systems of some patients. 

John never really applied her findings about disclosure to her own life, though, until she was working on her book about sharing. “Every time in my life that I could think of where I overshared, where I felt that cringe of TMI, it sucked in the moment. But every single time there was something amazing and redeeming in the long haul about it,” she says. “That made me think, ‘Oh wow, the decision we're making is systematically biased’…You get immediate negative social feedback, but there are benefits too. People trust you, people like you, people confide in you. Those come down the road.”

Nothing deters sleep like a nighttime mental ambush. Just as your head hits the pillow, tomorrow’s to-do list crawls out from under the bed. You’re suddenly answering emails in your mind, crafting meeting agendas, and ruminating over the appointment you still need to schedule. Try this instead: Write down tomorrow’s to-do list tonight.

“One of the most common things I hear from patients with insomnia is, ‘I’m tired and exhausted, but my mind won’t shut off,’” says Dr. M. Taruj Ali, medical director of sleep medicine at Mary Washington Healthcare in Fredericksburg, Va. His patients often describe “a running mental inventory of unfinished tasks and what needs to happen tomorrow.” Spending a few minutes putting those thoughts on paper can give your brain permission to set them aside for the night.

The timing matters, however: Don’t save the exercise for the moment you climb into bed. Experts recommend spending five to 10 minutes on it in the evening when you wrap up your structured tasks, like finishing work, chores, or whatever occupies the bulk of your time. “Getting those things out of your head and onto paper can reduce the pressure to keep thinking about them,” says Sari Chait, a clinical psychologist in Dedham, Mass. If a forgotten task pops into your head later, jot it on a notepad by your bed without turning it into a full-blown planning session. 

Here’s how to create a list that quiets your mind rather than revving it up.

Why does writing a to-do list help?

There’s some evidence that the habit can improve sleep. In a small 2018 study, researchers randomly assigned 57 adults ages 18 to 30 to spend five minutes at bedtime either writing about tasks they needed to complete over the next few days or listing what they had accomplished during the previous few days. The to-do-list group fell asleep an average of nine minutes faster—and the more specific their lists were, the faster they drifted off.

That doesn’t mean a nightly list cures insomnia (or that reflecting on your accomplishments is a waste of time). The study included only healthy young adults who spent just one night in a sleep lab, and the researchers noted that they didn’t know whether the results would extend to people with insomnia. Still, it supports the idea that writing down unfinished tasks helps put them to rest.

This strategy is a form of cognitive offloading: using an external tool—in this case, a physical to-do list—to reduce how much information your brain has to keep track of. Stephanie High, a psychology doctoral candidate in Spokane, Wash., thinks of every unresolved task as a browser tab running in the background of your brain. “You have all these tabs, you have all these apps open, and there’s always some activity in the background,” she says. Even when you’re not actively looking at one, it’s using a little battery and memory. Writing the task down allows you to acknowledge that it requires your attention—and then set it aside. “I know that I need to put my attention on this,” she says. “But I don’t need to do it right this second.” 

The benefits extend beyond bedtime. Planning tomorrow before you wrap up today creates a clear dividing line between work and the rest of your life, says Alexis Haselberger, a time-management and productivity coach in San Francisco. “It helps you disconnect, mentally, from work at the end of the day,” she says, rather than running through your responsibilities while you’re trying to talk to your kids, catch up with your partner, or watch TV. 

There’s a morning payoff, too: “You have a list, so instead of spending 30 minutes getting into your day, you can just start.”

Start with a brain dump

If your current organizational system could most accurately be described as “chaos,” Chait suggests starting with one big brain dump: “Get it all out on paper, and then you can organize it from there,” she says. Once you’ve made that initial list, the daily exercise can be much smaller. At the end of each workday, choose three priorities for tomorrow.

Next, compare those priorities with your calendar. “If you have five meetings tomorrow, you’re probably not going to be able to make much headway on that big project,” Haselberger says. Move anything that won’t fit to another day. The goal is to make a plan you can reasonably stick to—not compile an unrealistic wish list.

Specificity matters, too. “‘Prep for meeting’ leaves the loop half-open because your mind still has to hold on to what ‘prep’ means,” High says. “‘Pull Q3 numbers, email the deck’ closes the loop, because there’s nothing it has to remember.” The same goes for the difference between “call Mom” and “call Mom about Thursday’s appointment.” Include enough detail that when you wake up, you’ll know exactly what you meant.

You don’t, however, need to produce a display-worthy masterpiece. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Chait says. “It doesn’t have to be pretty.” The sleep study used pen and paper, but it didn’t test whether handwriting works better than typing. Chait says a notebook or a notes app on your phone will do the trick; the best method is the one you’ll actually use. 

Don’t turn it into another obligation

For some people, writing a to-do list can increase anxiety, especially if it morphs into a tedious planning session or an inventory of everything you failed to accomplish. If the page starts filling up with every unresolved problem in your life, it can feel less like a plan and more like self-flagellation. “You’ve just handed your nervous system a threat list right when you’re trying to wind down,” High says.

Keep the exercise brief, and focus on what you’ll do next rather than dwelling on what went wrong that day. The goal isn’t to plan out your entire life. It’s to spend five or 10 minutes capturing what needs to be remembered—and then disengage from planning until the next day.

If another task pops into your head later, write it down—but stop there. Chait keeps a pen and paper next to the bed for exactly that reason. You don’t want to spend time processing your feelings or actually acting on the thoughts, like writing an email,” she says. “You simply want to write down what the thought or to-do is.” Then put the paper away.

Finally, treat the habit like an experiment, not a new obligation. “It only works if it works for you,” High says. Try it for a few days, notice whether you feel calmer at night and more focused in the morning, and adjust how much detail you include. Otherwise, she points out, you risk opening “another tab of how I need to close more tabs”—when the whole point is to give your brain less to do.