President Donald Trump has selected conservative commentator Katie Zacharia to serve as the next White House press secretary, he announced Friday.

Zacharia will replace Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down in August, in the position. 

Zacharia currently works as a communications adviser at Trump Media and Technology Group, the company that runs Trump’s social media platform Truth Social. She previously worked at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a spokesperson for former Secretary Kristi Noem, and appears frequently on conservative media including Fox News and Newsmax. 

In a post on Truth Social announcing his selection, Trump praised Zacharia for “an unblemished record of support” and being “a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning.” 

“She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!” Trump continued. “I am confident that Katie will deliver strong results for our Country as the next White House Press Secretary, as she has the respect of, and will work fantastically with, the Media, the American People, and my Administration.”

The New York Times first reported that Zacharia had been tapped by the White House. 

Zacharia, who currently lives in California and graduated from Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, has also worked as a general counsel for almost three years at Fix California, a conservative non-profit founded by Ric Grenell, who served as Acting Director of National Intelligence during Trump’s first Administration. The organization works to promote a conservative agenda around the state.

In June, Zacharia was appointed to the advisory board of NovaRed Mining Inc, a Canadian mining company based in Vancouver, according to a company announcement. Just a week before Zacharia’s appointment, Noem also joined the advisory board.

Leavitt, who became the youngest White House press secretary in history at the age of 27, this week joined Fox News as an on-air contributor, the network announced on Monday. She is the third of Trump’s former press secretaries to join the network. She begins on Nov. 1.

Trump announced Leavitt’s departure through a Truth Social post in which he said that she “will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections.”

Leavitt responded with a lengthy post on X in which she thanked the President and the White House and said that she would remain “a vocal advocate for MAGA and the Republican Party. ”

Leavitt gave birth to her second child, Viviana, in May. She went on maternity leave that month and later announced that she would be stepping down from her role to spend more time with her family. 

Trump’s time in office has been characterized by a contentious relationship with the media, which he has repeatedly attacked and derided while serving as President. Leavitt echoed that attitude during her time behind the podium, becoming known for her acerbic remarks and quick deflections during press briefings.

Zacharia will enter the White House during a fight over the media’s access to the President. Trump on Sept. 18 banned POLITICO, CNN, and MS NOW from the White House grounds, sparking an ongoing legal battle. Though the outlets’ access to the White House has been restored after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the ban, Trump has since restricted POLITICO and CNN from boarding Air Force One, preventing them from carrying out their White House pool duties and drawing further blowback.  

Zacharia would also be entering the White House at a time when Trump is facing record-low approval ratings over his handling of the war in Iran, which has contributed to rising inflation in the U.S., and as the fast-approaching November midterms threaten Republicans’ control over both chambers of Congress.

Korean dramas are famously chaste compared to Western TV series. Though there are some exceptions, most K-dramas shy away from featuring even passionate kissing, let alone full-on sex scenes. But Take Charge of My Heart, Netflix’s latest Korean-language romance, adds a jolt, making  “skinship,” or the physical intimacy between two people, a central part of its premise. In the supernatural series, TV scriptwriter Na Bo-bae (When the Phone Rings’ Chae Soo-bin) has electrical currents coursing through her body, making it so she will zap anyone she touches with bare hands. Because of the condition, Bo-bae has never dated. The lack of real-world experience is hindering her latest TV drama script—a romance about a chaebol heiress and her bodyguard. 

Meanwhile, chaebol heir Baek Ho-rang (Trigger’s Kim Young-kwang) has an artificial heart that is failing. When Ho-rang and Bo-bae happen to be in the hospital at the same time, Ho-rang’s doctor discovers that physical proximity to Bo-bae charges Ho-rang’s artificial heart. Even more shocking to Bo-bae, she can touch Ho-rang without anything happening to him. As Ho-rang waits for a surgery for a new artificial heart in three months, the two strike a deal: Bo-bae will move into Ho-rang’s massive house, and act as his portable charger, and Ho-rang will go out on dates with Bo-bae as research for her script. Of course, what begins as a mutually beneficial arrangement becomes something deeper when the two fall in love. 

Will corporate machinations from Ho-rang’s aunt and cousin, Choi Do-yoon (Idol I’s Jung Jae-kwang), or an unexpected change in Bo-bae’s powers keep them apart? Here’s everything that happens in the Take Charge of My Heart’s finale.

The Ho-rang exception

Take Charge of My Heart plays fast and loose with its plot logic, which is to say that the series is not overly concerned with consistency or science when it comes to characterizing Na Bo-bae’s powers. Our protagonist was hit by lightning as a child. She survived the incident, but hasn’t been able to touch others without electrocuting them ever since—until Ho-rang. While Ho-rang’s resistance to Bo-bae’s powers could be artificial heart-related, the series also implies that it has more to do with fate. The two are meant to be together. 

Much of Bo-bae and Ho-rang’s relationship is encouraged by the necessity of their skin-to-skin contact. While Bo-bae can charge Ho-rang’s artificial heart by being within 10 meters of him, her charge-up is even more effective when the two hold hands, hug, or kiss. Though they don’t kiss as part of their contract, their hand-holding and embraces help both Bo-bae and Ho-rang realize that they have feelings for one another.

What happened to Ho-rang’s parents?

As is often the case with leading male characters in K-dramas, Ho-rang is an orphan. His loving parents died in a car accident when he was a child. While we learn early on in the series that they were on their way to see Ho-rang, the full context of the tragedy doesn’t become clear until the finale.. At the time, Ho-rang was in the hospital because of his heart condition, and was being visited by his grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin. Upset at constantly being overshadowed by his cousin, Choi Do-yoon called Ho-rang’s parents and lied to them, saying something was wrong with their son and that they needed to come quickly. In their rush, Ho-rang’s parents got into a fatal car crash. Years later, Do-yoon is still traumatized by this accident, and is still sick of being treated as the screw-up of the family.

Bo-bae is kidnapped by Ho-rang’s cousin

Do-yoon has not given up on being the successor to the TS Group, the family chaebol. But he knows he needs to get rid of the much more competent Ho-rang to do so. Knowing that Bo-bae is Ho-rang’s priority, Do-yoon kidnaps her on the night of the TS Group’s 30th anniversary celebration. When Bo-bae doesn’t arrive, Ho-rang is anxious but continues on with his speech. However, because Do-yoon also spiked his drink, Ho-rang’s artificial heart battery is losing power fast. He collapses on stage, his heart no longer functioning.

Meanwhile, Bo-bae uses her electric powers to escape from the temple Do-yoon’s hired goons have locked her in. She and Jae-ho rush to the party and arrive shortly after Ho-rang has collapsed. A desperate Bo-bae gives Ho-rang CPR, and sends a massive electrical current into his body. Ho-rang’s heart starts beating again, but Bo-bae collapses in the effort. When she wakes up again, Ho-rang’s doctor tells Bo-bae that she can’t touch Ho-rang again without endangering his life. He had surgery to get a new artificial heart, and Bo-bae’s electrical touch could stop it. 

Take Charge of My Heart ending, explained

A heartbroken Bo-bae flees the city to go to her parents’ house in Dae-jeon, leaving a still-recovering Ho-rang alone. She soon discovers that her touch no longer shocks people. Her powers have temporarily short-circuited before, after large discharges of energy, but they always come back. Though she is able to touch others without hurting them, she worries that her electricity could return at any time.

Meanwhile, Ho-rang’s medical emergency has shaken confidence in his role as TS Group successor. His grandmother gives the role to Do-yoon. However, Ho-rang cares about getting Bo-bae back then securing his future at TS Group. He goes to Dae-jeon in an attempt to convince Bo-bae that they still belong together. Bo-bae, who is worried about Ho-rang’s health, is hesitant at first. But Ho-rang quickly wins over her parents by helping them with their muscat grape jam business. He convinces Bo-bae to take a chance on them, and they return to Seoul to oust Do-yoon from the TS Group.

The ousting doesn’t take much effort, as Do-yoon soon sabotages his own role in the company. He drives drunk and crashes his car. With Do-yoon embroiled in yet another scandal, Ho-rang’s grandmother re-instates Ho-rang as the chaebol heir. She meets Bo-bae, who quickly wins her over with her kind heart. Bo-bae’s career also gets back on track. Her new drama, The Bodyguard in My Heart, begins filming. Bo-bae’s best friend, Cho Seo-jeong (Kim Ah-young), is the director. Ji Eun-ho (Study Group’s Cha Woo-min), Bo-bae’s actor friend who confessed his unrequited feelings to Bo-bae earlier in the season, films a cameo in the series. 

Ever the supportive boyfriend, Ho-rang comes to the filming. At the time of the series’ ending, Bo-bae’s powers have not returned. She and Ho-rang are able to cuddle up together to watch the first episode of The Bodyguard in My Heart. Ho-rang cries when Na Bo-bae’s name appears on the screen. In many ways, the drama is the story of their own love. 

I’ve found a surefire way to mess with the good vibes during my on-the-record conversations with CEOs and senior executives: bring up carbon accounting. In an instant, a conversation that felt open and transparent moments prior can turn into guarded talking points or simply go quiet.  

Carbon accounting may be the wonkiest topic in the already wonky world of climate change and emissions reduction. And few areas inspire more passionate debate and infighting than the rules for measuring and attributing them. But underneath the jargon lies a high-stakes question: who is responsible for each ton of carbon emissions? How that question is answered over the coming months and years will shape everything from climate regulations to corporate energy purchasing decisions.

A report by the Aspen Institute and shared exclusively with me ahead of its Oct. 9 release offers a rare window into that fight. It draws on a multi-day summit this February that brought together the field’s key players—including academics, NGOs, and industry voices—to debate the path forward on how best to account for carbon emissions. I attended the closed-door summit having agreed to report on the discussion without identifying individual participants. It concluded in a ceasefire of sorts with promises to work together even as the core debates remain unresolved.

To understand the carbon accounting landscape, you need to understand the system at the center of the debate. For more than two decades, one approach, known as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), has flourished and become the de facto global standard. Under GHGP’s approach, emissions are divided into scopes: Scope 1 for direct emissions from a company’s operations, Scope 2 from a company’s purchased electricity, heat, and cooling, and Scope 3 for value chain emissions. The GHGP approach has driven a variety of guidance documents and informed regulation and certifications issued by other entities. 

But, as with any such initiative, GHGP is not perfect. And a growing number of stakeholders—particularly businesses—have called for changes of varying scope and scale. 

The resulting fault lines in the carbon accounting debate are many. There are technical questions like over what time scale (hourly vs. annual) companies must match their electricity use with their clean energy purchases. And there are questions about the degree to which carbon accounting relies on estimates rather than true measurements. But, perhaps more than anything else, there is a debate about responsibility: in accounting for emissions, who should really be held responsible? 

The technical matters are divisive on their own. The philosophical questions cut to the core of the climate challenge.  

The weather in Aspen was unseasonably warm. That didn’t keep the seminar room from turning chilly at times. While no one in Aspen said that the GHGP approach is perfect, perspectives on what to change and by how much varied widely.

Defenders of the current system say that Scope 2 and Scope 3 reporting has motivated voluntary corporate action. Scope 2 rules, in particular, give companies a clear way to claim credit for the clean electricity they buy, and that predictability has helped fuel a boom in long-term renewable power contracts, known as power purchase agreements. And predictability matters. While in theory it may be possible to design a better system, the GHGP approach is entrenched, and it could take decades for a new system to earn such widespread adoption.

The critiques are multifold. The GHGP approach allows for “double-counting.” In other words, multiple companies end up accounting for the same emissions under different scopes. Think of steel in a building. The steel producer, the construction firm, and the building owner are all technically responsible for the steel emissions. 

A primary alternative approach, which originated in academia and now has a coalition of industry players advocating for it, accounts for emissions using “e-ledgers.” Every unit of emissions is accounted for once, placed on a ledger, and then transferred as a product moves through the world. It’s an elegant approach with real advantages. It would incentivize companies to focus on decarbonizing their own operations and give them high-quality emissions data to use in procurement. But some in the room in Aspen noted that it would be difficult to implement. It only really works if every single player on the value chain participates. 

The sharpest divide, however, concerns emissions from using a product. Under GHGP’s Scope 3, an oil company counts the emissions from every gallon of gasoline its customers burn. That is the primary driver of its enormous carbon footprint. An e-ledger works differently, with emissions traveling with a product and responsibility belonging to whoever does the burning. That leaves consumers with greater accountability even if they have little influence over the broader system. 

The e-ledger approach emerged from the corners of academia in a series of highly publicized articles beginning in 2021. And, in 2025, a coalition of companies including ExxonMobil, BlackRock, and others backed the launch of a business coalition to advocate for an e-ledger approach. 

At the same time, the call for change comes amid the retrenchment of climate from its front and center position in the public zeitgeist, making some companies less willing to commit the resources necessary to fully embrace the work required by GHGP. GHGP has responded, hiring a new CEO and instituting a string of reforms. 

Given the stakes and the players involved, it’s no surprise that the conversations in Aspen were heated at times. And yet the summit ended with a detente of sorts, as participants agreed to work together to find common ground. Indeed, some participants noted that e-ledgers can help with tracking a product’s carbon footprint, while the broader GHGP rules should apply for a whole company.   

What happens next in this wonky corner of the climate community concerns more people than you might expect. It will shape regulations—including climate disclosure rules in California and the European Union—and affect where businesses target their climate initiatives. Perhaps most importantly, it will affect how we answer the question of who is responsible for future emissions. 

A day after a federal immigration agent shot a man in New York City, the New York Police Department released footage from one of their officers responding to the shooting. 

The release came amid a growing outcry over the shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, which has prompted calls for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to immediately release body cam footage of the ICE agent involved in the shooting and for ICE to end their operations in New York City altogether.

The NYPD’s video, which did not capture the shooting itself, showed two police officers showing up to a scene where a man was sitting on the ground, with one person holding on his neck to avoid further injury. 

One ICE officer, who was wearing a neon construction vest, an ICE badge and holding an assault rifle, was making a phone call and did not talk to the NYPD officers. 

While responding to the scene, one NYPD officer asked if the victim should be transferred to a hospital, but ICE officers did not respond to his question.

“Are we putting him in [the police vehicle] or what?” The police officer asked. Multiple police officers eventually lifted the person on the ground onto the police vehicle which drove to the nearest hospital.

Shortly after the shooting, social media videos taken from different angles on the scene also showed that the back window of a silver SUV was completely shattered and the front window was pierced by at least one bullet. A child was seen taken away from the shooting scene by a plainclothes officer. 

Earlier on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the ICE officer involved in the shooting had been equipped with a body camera and that there was footage relating to the incident. “As the investigation moves forward, as I said, we’ll release the information,” he said.

TIME has reached out to ICE regarding when the body camera footage from the ICE officer will be released. 

What’s ICE’s protocol for releasing bodycam footage? 

ICE’s policy requires its officers to activate cameras during routine enforcement activities, including while making arrests, executing search warrants and responding to emergencies. In an event when a serious injury or a death occurred during the operation, a panel of ICE internal leaders will review the footage and decide whether footage should be released. According to ICE’s internal policies released in February 2025, this process should take within 72 hours of recording, or as soon as operationally feasible 

But the release isn’t always guaranteed. According to the policies, ICE can withhold footage from body cameras if there are “specific and compelling circumstances justifying an objection to public release that cannot be resolved by redaction or other means.” The decision would lie in the hands of the ICE director. 

The released footage from ICE will also have ICE officers’ faces and identifiable information redacted to protect its officers’ privacy, according to the policy. 

The agency spent tens of millions this year in purchasing and equipping its officers with body-worn cameras, following a pair of deadly shootings in Biddeford, Maine and in Houston over the summer. The ICE officers involved in both shootings did not wear body cameras when conducting operations.

Angela Paxton, the estranged wife of Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, has waded into the state’s hotly contested Senate race by encouraging Texans to vote Republican in the midterm elections—while avoiding directly mentioning her husband.

Angela Paxton—who filed for divorce last year, alleging adultery—long remained mum on the race, in which her husband is facing off against Democrat James Talarico. Over the summer, she declined to share with the New York Times whether she would vote for Ken Paxton in the November election. 

But as Talarico continues to hold a slim lead over her husband in most polls and Election Day draws closer, she has been speaking out to urge voters to back the GOP when they head to the voting booths next month.

In a speech to a group of Republican women in mid-September, she said that the Republican Party has “some vulnerabilities on our ballot,” but urged them to still vote for the party’s candidates “even if we’re mad at it.”

“I’ll be honest with you, I think Republican women will decide this election, because some of those vulnerabilities, I think, have been particularly alienating to women that hold our values,” she said. “When I say we have to win, I mean we have to win all those races. We have to keep all of those seats.”

“It’s not the people—it’s the seat,” she continued. “Because we have more control over that seat and the future when we control the seat, when it’s still in the family, even if we’re mad at it. But if we lose it to the other team, the nuances that we want to fix with maybe a certain candidate are nothing compared to what it’s going to take to get it back.”

Read More: How Trump Helped Put a Texas Senate Seat In Play

And she is now sharing a similar message in a new ad, in which she talks about, in her own words, “the elephant in the room.”

“People have asked my thoughts about this election and it turns out, I have some. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room,” Angela Paxton opens the ad by saying. 

“In a general election, it’s not as much about the individual players on the team—it’s about getting the whole team across the finish line,” she says. “Either we hold every Republican seat or we hand the future of Texas to the other team. That’s why I’m voting for the Republican ticket on Nov. 3. Let’s hold the line together.”

She does not speak about Ken Paxton or the Senate contest outright in the ad. The ad was funded by Texas PAC, which is tied to a super PAC that backs a Republican majority in the upper chamber.

Here’s what to know about Angela Paxton, and the significance of her wading into the midterm elections.

Who is Angela Paxton?

Angela Paxton, a Republican, has served in the Texas state Senate since 2019. She was previously a math teacher and school counselor.

She and Ken Paxton have been married for nearly four decades, but last year, she announced that she filed for divorce “on biblical grounds,” stating that, “in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to remain in the marriage.” 

In her divorce petition, Angela Paxton alleged that her husband “has committed adultery” and said that the two of them had stopped living together “as spouses” by June 2024. 

A spokesperson for the Texas state senator told the Times over the weekend that the divorce proceedings are still underway.

What is the significance of Angela Paxton wading into the Texas Senate race?

Political experts tell TIME that the ad featuring Angela Paxton suggests that the Republican Party is worried about her husband’s chances of winning the Senate race.

“The fact that the need was felt to reach out to [Texas state senator Angela Paxton] to obliquely vouch for her now estranged husband is pretty remarkable, and an indication of the extent of concern that Republicans are feeling in this race,” says Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

Most polls show that Paxton is trailing—by a very slim margin—behind Talarico. If Talarico wins the Senate race, it would be the first time that a Democratic candidate has won a statewide election in Texas in more than three decades.

Paxton’s campaign has been shadowed by several scandals and controversies that have arisen throughout his political career, including allegations of infidelity, a fraud indictment, and an impeachment trial on charges of bribery and abuse of office. Paxton has denied any wrongdoing. The fraud charges against him were ultimately dropped after prosecutors and Paxton agreed to a deal, and he was acquitted of all charges against him in his impeachment trial by the Texas state Senate.

Political experts say that President Donald Trump’s low approval ratings—particularly how voters feel about his handling of the economy—could also be impacting Paxton’s performance in the polls, as well as an unusually tight gubernatorial race in Texas. 

“Nationwide, we know it’s a difficult environment for Republicans. That’s playing out in Texas too, though Texas is more Republican than most states and so there’s more of a buffer,” says Kirby Goidel, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University.

According to data shared by CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten on air earlier this month, Paxton’s net popularity is the lowest among several Republicans vying for key Senate seats next month.

“[Paxton is] in a tight race like other Republicans, but he’s in a tighter race in a worse situation because, I think, of the baggage that he brings to the campaign,” Goidel says.

Goidel says that, if you’re the Republican Party looking at these polls, “you say, what does Ken Paxton have to do to win this race?”

“Well, the first thing he has to do is secure Republican support,” Goidel continues. “I think having his wife come on and send that message that this is the team game, not an individual game, and we need all the players on the field, is a … signal [from the party of] ‘Hey, we need you all to come on board and vote for this guy; you may not like it, but we need you.’”

Blank also says that the ad featuring Angela Paxton “is not so indirectly addressed at giving women, but in particular Republican women who might have apprehensions about supporting Ken Paxton, with permission to do so.”

A New York Times/Siena University poll conducted at the end of September found that more men who are likely voters in Texas said they would vote for Paxton than women who are likely voters in the state, at 51% compared to 40%. Blank points out, though, that there’s a gender gap in partisanship in American politics more generally—women tend to be more likely than men to align themselves with the Democratic Party, while men tend to be more likely than women to align themselves with the Republican Party.

Blank notes that “polling has indicated a consistent gap in enthusiasm among Republican voters.”

“Republican women in particular might be a soft spot in the coalition, and if anything, this ad indicates that that’s likely the case,” Blank says.

Tom Morello has been staging benefit shows since before Rage Against the Machine made him an icon: $10 at the door, proceeds to a homeless shelter, guitars loud enough to wage a sonic revolt against the establishment. Last year, while serving as musical director of Back to the Beginning, the Birmingham farewell concert for Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, he began imagining something bigger: a multigenerational, multigenre festival built on his foundational proposition that music can be an act of resistance—aimed squarely at Donald Trump and the forces he has unleashed.

"It's no accident that the concert was about three weeks out from the midterms," Morello told me after the Oct. 3 Power to the People show at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., less than 30 minutes from the capital whose balance of power those elections will decide. "In a time where hatred and division are rife, this is a festival of love and solidarity. In a time where injustice is rampant, this is a festival celebrating those who are standing up against injustice. And in a time where artists are either being canceled or censoring themselves, it was a guarantee the artists were going to be able to play what they wanted to play and say what they wanted to say."

To that end, Morello assembled a sprawling roster of rebels and rock-n-roll royalty: Joan Baez and Public Enemy; Jack Black and the Dropkick Murphys; Cypress Hill and Nathaniel Rateliff; Killer Mike and Serj Tankian; Stephen Stills and Dave Matthews and the Foo Fighters. Headlining the event was Bruce Springsteen, fresh off a 20-show tour that had become a nightly rebuke of Trump, MAGA, and the authoritarian currents he saw threatening the American experiment.

Power to the People suggested a rebellious energy stirring at a moment when many artists had grown wary of speaking out, fearful of backlash, of alienating part of their audience, of the wrath of an administration that has repeatedly targeted prominent critics. "I feel as though we're trying to turn the tide and we're facing a tsunami," said Baez, who sang alongside Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger during the protest movements of the 1960s and '70s. Then she turned to the crowd. "You are the antidote in a world of cruelty and bullying." With Rateliff beside her, she launched into a haunting rendition of Woody Guthrie's "Deportee."

Inevitably, the place felt like a progressive family reunion: aging boomers who carry the counterculture as a kind of secular inheritance; younger activists animated by rage against corporate power, democratic erosion, and the war in Gaza; keffiyehs, protest shirts, and homemade placards scattered across the grounds. One read, Keep the Immigrants. Deport the Racists. MS NOW livestreamed the proceedings. It would be easy to dismiss the show as an exercise in preaching to the converted.

But movements have to begin somewhere, and politics is downstream of culture. If the message travels beyond the lawn, Power to the People may come to represent one of the seminal cultural events of the era: a gathering of artists, at a liminal moment in American life, turning their influence into a political insurgency to preserve the nation's democratic future.

Morello had been planning the festival for more than a year, but he says the "turning point" came after the Operation Metro Surge, when Trump administration deployed roughly 3,000 federal officers to Minneapolis this winter for the largest immigration-enforcement operation in the country, which culminated in the killings of two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

"When you're putting on a show like this, managers and agents are not always eager to get involved," Morello told me. But after Minneapolis, something changed. "Artists started calling me up and raising their hand, saying, 'I understand you're putting on a festival. Can I be involved?'"

One was Ken Casey, frontman of the Dropkick Murphys, who tore through a 12-song set that ended with the band's signature anthem, "I'm Shipping Up to Boston," built around lyrics by Guthrie. "Days like today let us know that there's a community out there that wants to see a peaceful America, an empathetic America, a unified America, that wants to see control of our government given back to the people," Casey told me.

The concert began at one in the afternoon and ran for 10 hours, the history of American protest music compressed into a single day. During Morello's early-evening set, Tankian from System of a Down joined him for Audioslave's "Like a Stone," a tribute to Morello's late bandmate Chris Cornell. Macklemore, recently dropped as an opener on Ed Sheeran's tour because of pressure from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft over the artist’s pro-Palestinian advocacy, had been invited but was unavailable. So he sent a video message that played on the giant screens. The controversy itself reinforced the festival's defiant argument—rebelling against a world where speaking out still carries a price.

The lineage grew explicit as the night wore on. Baez, Rateliff, and Matthews joined for "Deportee," then moved into the civil-rights standard "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around." As they left the stage, Stephen Stills appeared and reached back to another era of upheaval with Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." Cypress Hill followed, then Public Enemy with their landmark "Fight the Power," then Dave Matthews. The Foo Fighters opened their set with "Times Like These," a song born of uncertainty and near-fracture for the band that transformed into an anthem of renewal. They closed with "Everlong." a track about the desire to make a perfect moment last forever, despite knowing that it can’t.

But the concert’s climax was Springsteen's set. At 76, he summoned the power and energy that have defined him over a half century, as he occupies yet another role now, too: the elder statesman among a generation of musicians deciding how much to risk by taking a stand. "When you have a guy that's at that stage of his life, he's done all the stuff, he's comfortable, he didn't have to go on the road and do that and put the crosshairs on himself, but he did it anyway," Casey said. "If artists can't take a lead from that, then my God, nobody's paying attention."

Springsteen opened with "Streets of Minneapolis," his protest song against Operation Metro Surge, written days after ICE flooded Minnesota's streets and murdered two protestors. He then brought Baez onstage for a searing acoustic rendition of Dylan’s "Chimes of Freedom.” From there the set erupted into anthemic rock fueled by righteous anger. He ripped through the Clash's "Clampdown" with Morello, then "The Ghost of Tom Joad," rekindling the version the two had performed on his recent Land of Hope and Dreams tour.

Grohl and Matthews returned to the stage, and Springsteen's set became an ensemble of generations of American rock musicians gathered around the protest-song tradition. Together they tore into two classics of the canon, Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."

When the last chords faded, they stayed onstage for a final coda as the rest of the day’s performers joined them onstage. 

The festival was a reincarnation of the spirit of Guthrie, Seeger, and the musicians who advocated for working-class dignity and civil rights in the mid-twentieth century. Morello stepped forward to explain what they were about to sing—and why: Guthrie’s "This Land Is Your Land," but with the verses often omitted from popular renditions, in which the narrator encounters a "Private Property" sign and Americans standing hungry outside a relief office. The lines restored the song's original edge—an unofficial patriotic anthem that also challenges the country to make good on its promise that America belongs to everyone.

It was the version Springsteen sang with Seeger at Barack Obama's inaugural concert in January 2009, and one he resurrected last spring at Music America: The Songs That Shape Us, his concert at Monmouth University celebrating the nation's 250th anniversary, where he recruited the kind of star-level talent the President had been unable to marshal to Washington for the occasion.

For Morello, the song also evoked his mother, Mary Morello, who recently died at 102. A child of the Great Depression, she possessed an activist spirit, he said, feeding the homeless, helping recovering addicts earn their GEDs, and supporting her son's early punk bands. "Her fingerprints were all over this," Morello told me. "Her DNA was in every bit of this. I don't think it was any accident that this concert happened in a place called Mary Land."

It was also there, of course, because of its proximity to the White House, and so they closed with John Lennon's "Power to the People." Morello, Springsteen, and company wanted Trump to hear them, at a precarious moment for the President and the MAGA movement, with the midterms weeks away and his poll numbers at their lowest point of his second term. But the festival's message was ultimately a call to agency, a reminder that in a democracy it is the voters who get to determine their destiny.

"History is not something that happens," Morello told the crowd. "History is something we make."

No one much likes the pain of a needle stick at a doctor’s office or hospital. But according to a new study in Frontiers in Pain Research, there’s one thing that can ease the sting: music. Listening to just the right soundtrack may be its own kind of anesthetic—one that could be useful for needle insertions and other painful medical procedures.

“Although a needle puncture is a minor procedure, the level of pain can vary significantly from person to person,” said radiologist and lead author Dr. Andrei-Cristinel Dragnea of University Hospital Zürich, in a statement that accompanied the release of the study. “In modern medicine, the goal of treating physicians is not only to provide a successful diagnosis and therapy, but also to ensure that the procedure causes as little discomfort as possible.”

To conduct their research, Dragnea and his colleagues studied 204 people who were undergoing an MRI of the brain, spine, head, or neck, and divided them into four groups. One group listened to soft relaxation music similar to what’s played during a massage; one listened to a Mozart composition; one listened to their personal favorite songs; and the fourth, a control group, did not listen to music. For the first three groups, the music was played before, during, and after the insertion of a cannula, which is a port-like tube slid into a vein for the purpose of administering medication, general anesthetic, or contrast dye before an MRI. 

The Mozart music was not just any selection, but Sonata K488, written for two pianos, in D major. This song made headlines in 1993 when a study published in the journal Nature found that listening to classical music—and that composition in particular—was linked to improved memory, problem-solving, and spatial-temporal reasoning. Though the mechanism involved wasn’t firmly established, the finding gave rise to what became known in science as the "Mozart effect.” The songs chosen by the group that listened to their favorite tunes included, among others, AC/DC’s Safe in New York City, Lionel Richie’s Hello, and the Crash Test Dummies’ Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.

People were asked to rate their pain before and after the cannula insertion. Those who listened to the soft relaxation music or no music had no significant pain reduction before, during, or after the procedure. There are possible reasons the lilting, generic music was ineffective. “Relaxation music is usually characterized by a slow speed and low volume, and does not show noticeable dynamics,” said Dr. Meritxell Garcia Alzamora, a neuroradiologist at the University Hospital Zürich and senior author of the study, in a statement. “These characteristics may have contributed to the patients disregarding relaxation music, which would explain the lack of pain relief.” 

The other two groups did show some pain relief after listening to music. Those who heard the Mozart composition and those who listened to their favorite songs experienced significant pain reduction two minutes after the procedure. The “favorite music” group even had a bonus pain-relief perk that no other group experienced: just 30 seconds after the procedure, they rated their pain lower than the other groups, compared to their baseline.

Why does some music appear to have an analgesic effect? The researchers did not try to answer the question definitively, but their findings did raise some possibilities. Listening to music, they write in the study, may trigger the release of endorphins, chemical messengers that bind to opioid receptors to reduce or eliminate pain. Music may also calm the body down, with a resulting reduction of blood pressure, heart rate, anxiety, and stress—all of which may reduce pain. Being distracted by music may also engage the brain’s limbic system and prefrontal networks, activating pain mediation networks. Those neural regions are known to have a somewhat delayed effect, which could explain why people experienced relief two minutes after the needle. It’s possible, too, the researchers concede, that the music wasn’t what was responsible for reduced pain, but rather the presence of a friendly, distracting experimenter in the room.

Going forward, the investigators plan to explore other types of classical music beyond Mozart that may have similar—or even superior—pain-relieving benefits. They also hope to determine if music can serve as an analgesic for more severe pain than needle sticks. 

There are a lot of pharmacological approaches in an anesthesiologist’s toolkit. Music—no-cost, easy, and absent risk—could be a valuable drug-free addition.

Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu makes thoughtful movies about social issues that cross international borders: In 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a young Romanian woman risks her life for an illegal abortion. R.M.N. explores xeno-phobia in a small Transylvanian village, dissecting the complexity of spontaneous human impulses in the process. Mungiu’s films can spur us to think anew about issues we’d rather keep in the background, and they can at times be deeply moving. They can also feel dreary and instructive, in an eat-your-vegetables way.

Mungiu’s Fjord, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier in the year, offers a healthy dose of very nutritious vegetables, and in places the story almost—almost—stretches the bounds of believability. But its actors, including Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, as well as two young newcomers, make you believe in one family’s sudden nightmare. Do the authorities entrusted to protect our children always know what’s best for them? Fjord suggests, provocatively, that the answer may not always be yes.

Mihai Gheorghiu (Stan), who is Romanian, and his Norwegian wife Lisbet (Reinsve) have just relocated with their five children from Romania to Norway, to be closer to Lisbet’s parents. Mihai and Lisbet are also deeply religious, and appear to be raising their children in a sometimes strict but undeniably loving home. One day, at the children’s new school, an instructor charged with protecting the students’ welfare notices a bruise on the shoulder of the eldest Gheorghiu daughter, Elia (Vanessa Ceban). The administrator takes swift action, and before Mihai and Lisbet can fully grasp what’s happening, their children—including their infant, who’s still breastfeeding—are whisked into foster homes. Their struggle to reunite their family involves risky twists and a great deal of frustrating bureaucracy.

Unless you know Norway’s judicial system, you might be tempted to wonder: Could one family really be broken up that fast, with so little evidence? Mungiu’s premise seems somewhat far-fetched, intensified for dramatic reasons, though it’s worth noting that his script is based on a real-life case in Norway. And recently, in the U.S., Child Protective Services interviewed the children of former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, separating the children from their fathers for 24 hours, after receiving a tip alleging that they were at risk. The report was proved false, but the incident shows how easily a system designed to protect kids might be manipulated. 

Regardless, the plausibility of Fjord’s premise is academic in the context of the performances given by Stan and Reinsve. Reinsve (so terrific in 2025’s Sentimental Value) is resolutely unglamorous here, a dutiful wife and mother decked out in dowdy clothes. But her distress over the loss of her children crosses the planes of her face like a muted shadow; you sense some anger beneath that meek veneer. And Stan, who is Romanian American, gives layers of complexity to Mihai as a father figure. He clearly loves his kids, but he also has a temper. Stan doesn’t make Mihai easy to read, just as the movie around him doesn’t offer any easy conclusions. 

Yet amid all the child-custody drama Fjord lays before us, a subplot involving the deepening friendship between Elia and a neighbor couple’s daughter, Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen), ends up being the film’s most powerful and moving element. These two young teenagers aren’t just navigating a new friendship; they’re exploring feelings that may or may not be the roots of romantic love. Sometimes kids tell us what we need to know about life, even if it’s not always the lesson we expect or want. And sometimes they steal a movie away from the grownups. Fjord, perhaps unbeknownst even to the man who made it, really belongs to them.

When Chinese state television hailed inland salmon as a miracle in 2018, many viewers saw something more familiar: not a wonder, but a sales pitch.

The segment, aired by China Central Television that May, celebrated salmon farming in western China. Over images of sleek fish cutting through clear water, the narrator marveled that “a precious fish like salmon, which typically lives in the open ocean,” could now be raised inland, in the country’s barren western hinterland. The message was unmistakable. Technology had made the improbable possible. “The land is the same land, and the people are the same people,” the program declared, “but when technology is brought in, miracles are born.”

Online, viewers began poking at the claim almost immediately.

Was that salmon at all, many asked, or just rainbow trout dressed up as something fancier? On Chinese social media, the mood turned from curiosity to irritation. “People expect Atlantic salmon, but we’re getting freshwater rainbow trout that costs half as much,” one Beijing-based WeChat account complained. “How could you not be angry?” Science writer Fang Shimin dispensed with niceties: “This is cheap rainbow trout being passed off as expensive salmon. If you don’t want to deceive consumers, just call it rainbow trout.”

Such anxieties would only grow larger as China worked to sell an idea that, not long ago, might have sounded implausible: seafood from the desert. As China has rapidly expanded its fish farms as part of a state policy aimed at self-sufficiency, it has developed at least 1,000 fish farms in Xinjiang, a historically restive region located in the country’s mountainous and desert inland. The Outlaw Ocean Project, a news organization in Washington, D.C. that I founded and run, mapped these farms as part of a sweeping investigation showing how much seafood is reaching the U.S., including government facilities, in violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).

The distrust was not irrational. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this year that while there is no official global estimate for seafood fraud, empirical studies suggest it may exist in up to 20% of the worldwide trade, sometimes appearing as species substitution and other kinds of misrepresentation.

For most people, seafood comes with an expected geography. Salmon belongs to Norway or Alaska. Cod evokes the cold North Atlantic. Shrimp suggests warm coasts and estuaries. Xinjiang, by contrast, calls up deserts, surveillance, cotton fields, and the Chinese government’s mass detention, forced-labor, and assimilation campaign against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities, along with the long, hard distances of the country’s far west. The most landlocked patch on the planet, Xinjiang is among the last places many people would associate with premium fish.

And yet for years, Chinese officials, state media, and seafood companies have been trying to teach consumers to do exactly that. They have promoted “Xinjiang seafood” as one of the small wonders of a new China: fish raised in glacial meltwater, in cold mountain reservoirs, in alkaline lakes, and at farms built against the edge of the desert. The imagery is always some variation on the same promise. Geography is no longer destiny. Harsh landscapes can be made productive. A remote frontier, disciplined by engineering, can become a source of delicacy and pride.

In that sense, Xinjiang seafood is not merely an agricultural product. It is a narrative achievement. The state-led campaign to create that narrative matters because it offers a rare window into Beijing’s worries about food security and its methods for redirecting Western attention away from its human rights problems. It also showcases China’s larger ambitions of using industry to help settle a historically restive region. This campaign saw its zenith in 2023, when Xinhua News Agency reported that the “Xinjiang seafood” label had surged in prominence on Chinese social media. Government data from that year show Xinjiang as China’s second-largest producer of “salmon,” trailing only Qinghai Province on the Tibetan Plateau. Its success is also relevant to what Americans eat, as the Outlaw Ocean Project found that seafood from Xinjiang ends up in the U.S. in violation of federal law. One company, called Tianyun, now ships to 14 countries, including the U.S., and distributes to food companies that supply military bases, public schools, and U.S. congressional cafeterias, according to Bait to Plate, an online tool that tracks the fishing and seafood industries.

Xinjiang Tianyun said in a statement that claims of systemic forced labor “are completely factually unfounded” and described the UFLPA as an unreasonable and politically motivated framework that violates the principles of fair international trade. Xinjiang Tianyun insists that it strictly abides by China’s laws on labor and contracts and resolutely protects the legitimate rights and interests of every employee.    

The 2018 salmon dispute exposed how fragile China's narrative of achievement in Xinjiang can be. To some consumers, the issue was simple: they feared they were paying salmon prices for a cheaper fish. But the outrage ran deeper because it also touched food safety. That same year, the Chinese food-safety expert Zhong Kai warned against serving trout raw, citing parasite risks common in freshwater fish. “I do not recommend eating it raw,” he said, advising thorough cooking. Online commenters accused state media of misleading the public. This was “not the salmon ordinary people think of,” they wrote. Masami Takeuchi, a food-safety officer at the FAO, noted that illnesses caused by eating raw freshwater fish can be serious, even when symptoms arrive late or are hard to trace.

The fear, then, was not simply that consumers were being overcharged. It was that they were being sold an aspirational image that obscured material differences in the fish itself.

That anxiety found ready soil in a country where food scandals have repeatedly taught the public to distrust official reassurance. China’s aquaculture industry has expanded at staggering speed, and with that expansion have come the familiar pressures of industrial animal farming: crowding, disease, waste, chemical intervention, and a recurring mismatch between the pastoral language used to market food and the industrial realities that produce it. A 2020 study in Nature found that aquaculture has the highest antibiotic-use intensity per kilogram of biomass among major animal-production sectors, exceeding use in both humans and land-based livestock. 

Chinese researchers have warned for years about severe antibiotic abuse in the industry. Sedatives have posed another problem. Diazepam, sometimes used to calm fish during transport, has repeatedly shown up in official inspections despite being prohibited. In 2021, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs began requiring routine diazepam testing, and a 2023 paper in China Food Hygiene Journal described diazepam residues as “widely detected” in water and seafood products. In 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert after detecting residues of prohibited substances—including malachite green, a carcinogenic veterinary drug—in seafood shipments from China, citing “significant public-health concerns.”

None of this proves that Xinjiang seafood as a whole is fraudulent or unsafe. But it helps explain why the category has struggled to inspire a durable sense of consumer trust. In a food system often shadowed by contamination scares and labeling disputes, grand claims end up feeling less like reassurance than marketing. The more insistently officials and companies promoted inland salmon, trout, whitefish, caviar, and other products from China’s far west as a new high-value frontier, the more some consumers wondered what, exactly, they were being asked to believe.

The answer, in part, was a story the state had been helping to write for years.

As early as 2011, Vice Minister of Agriculture Niu Dun was urging officials to “enhance brand building and awareness of the market expansion of Xinjiang’s seafood enterprises.” A 2017 government Action Plan for Fisheries Poverty Alleviation and Aid to Xinjiang and Tibet and Xinjiang went further, instructing local offices to “strengthen communication and coordination with mainstream media” and to “systematically publicize the progress of fishery poverty alleviation,” thereby creating what it called “an environment of positive public opinion.” The phrasing was telling. Fisheries in Xinjiang were to be built, yes. But they were also to be narrated.

That narration took many forms. Officials promoted fish-themed tourism. In Wenquan County, a local attraction described as “Xinjiang’s first cold-water fish theme park” invited visitors to tour a museum, sample whitefish sashimi and caviar, and even catch fish on site, weigh them, and bring them into town for processing. The scene was faintly surreal: a region associated abroad with coercion and repression recast domestically as a place of family outings, provincial pride, and specialty delicacies. The politics were never absent. They were simply plated more attractively.

Then, in late summer 2023, the campaign accelerated.

Posts about Xinjiang seafood surged across Chinese social-media platforms. Hashtags such as “Xinjiang welcomes everyone to come eat seafood” and “No joke—Xinjiang really does produce seafood” climbed Weibo’s Hot Search List. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, interactions tied to Xinjiang seafood jumped spectacularly. A seafood industry report later said that videos associated with “Xinjiang seafood” and “Xinjiang salmon” amassed more than 150 million views in 2023. One widely circulated Douyin clip, “Xinjiang Salmon ‘Leaps’ onto the World Table,” drew more than 2.7 million views and helped touch off the frenzy. Like many of the videos that followed, it lingered on crystalline mountain water, gleaming facilities, and the visual incongruity of prized fish emerging from the country’s interior.

Soon, the theme leapt beyond China’s own internet. YouTube, which is banned in China, saw a sharp rise in Xinjiang seafood videos that fall. The message was no longer meant only for domestic audiences. Xinjiang seafood was being staged for foreign consumption, too—not just as food, but as an emblem of innovation, abundance, and purity. 

The timing was hard to miss. On August 24, 2023, Japan began releasing into the Pacific Ocean treated wastewater that had accumulated since the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Beijing denounced the move as “selfish and irresponsible” and imposed a blanket ban on Japanese aquatic products. In the tense weeks that followed, content promoting Xinjiang seafood leaned heavily on purity: glacial melt from the Tian Shan, cold inland reservoirs, waters safely removed from allegedly contaminated seas. Xinjiang seafood was being sold not only as novel or upscale, but as patriotic, safe, and strategically desirable.

To some analysts, the speed and scale of the online surge suggested something more coordinated than ordinary virality. Fergus Ryan, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the pattern bore the hallmarks of top-down and algorithmic amplification rather than grassroots enthusiasm alone. In his view, the campaign may also have served another purpose: redirecting attention from mounting scrutiny of China’s seafood sector after an October 2023 investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project reported that seafood plants in Shandong had used thousands of Uyghur labor transfers to process fish destined for major Western markets. Against that backdrop, Ryan argued, the flood of upbeat Xinjiang seafood content functioned as a kind of information flooding, crowding search and recommendation systems with stories of “fishery miracles” rather than forced labor.

Whether every post was centrally directed matters less than the political usefulness of the category itself. Xinjiang seafood offered the state an unusually supple symbol. It could suggest scientific prowess, dietary upgrading, regional development, ecological management, and ethnic harmony all at once. It could showcase “clean” water, advanced facilities, and smiling workers. Most of all, it could recast one of the world’s most scrutinized frontiers as a landscape of abundance.

That ambition extends beyond domestic image-making. Beijing plainly hopes to export not just Xinjiang seafood but the idea of Xinjiang seafood. Yet that effort faces an obvious obstacle: In the United States, the UFLPA presumes that goods made wholly or partly in Xinjiang are produced with forced labor unless importers can prove otherwise, while in Europe, a 2024 forced-labor regulation will bar products made with forced labor from the E.U. market once it begins applying in December 2027.

This is where the events depart from a conventional tale of food fraud. In many countries, misleading labels thrive because supply chains are opaque and enforcement is weak. In Xinjiang, opacity was part of the business model. The product itself was being woven into a larger political narrative about what the region was and what it was becoming. Fish farms were not merely farms. They were exhibits.

Part of the effort to promote Xinjiang seafood involved government-orchestrated media tours for foreign journalists and vloggers, often called “frontier influencers” or “global stringers,” to visit Xinjiang, including its fish farms. After being shepherded to government-run facilities and through regions like Tibet or Xinjiang that are typically off limits to most other journalists, these influencers tend to create seeing-is-believing style videos that offer “happy life” testimonials from locals, while showcasing the region as a high-tech and indispensable hub for global development and “green” innovation. 

By 2025, Xinjiang seafood had become a recurring stop on that circuit. A state-funded outlet released a video featuring an American vlogger identified as Jack exploring what it called the “agricultural miracle” of a fish farm on the edge of China’s largest desert, the Taklamakan. That same month, a British creator toured a reservoir in Alar City and praised its role in both flood control and local fish production. A Russian student, one of the better-known foreign influencers working this terrain, filmed herself at a salmon farm in Nilka, announcing cheerfully that she had come to be “an employee for a day” and see the industry for herself. Some of the footage circulating during this push featured Tianyun, one of the companies caught up in the earlier inland salmon labeling dispute.

Even some of the industry figures tied to those disputes were later recast as patriotic exemplars of frontier development. In 2025, one prominent executive from Xinjiang’s salmon business was honored in Beijing by the Communist Party as a “National Model Worker,” then pledged to help expand China’s salmon industry and improve the skills of workers from all ethnic groups. The symbolism was familiar by then. Commercial actors were being folded into a larger state story about modernization, unity, and progress in the far west.

All of which points to the larger feat behind Xinjiang seafood’s rise. China did not simply have to learn how to raise cold-water fish in unlikely places. It had to construct a category and teach consumers how to feel about it. It had to make fish from a landlocked, desert-heavy, politically burdened region seem not only possible but desirable: clean rather than contaminated, premium rather than ersatz, modern rather than improvised, harmonious rather than coercive. That required hatcheries, reservoirs, feed, transport networks, and technical expertise. But it also required softer definitions, confident reassurances, staged tourism, influencer testimony, and a steady current of triumphal images.

In the end, Xinjiang seafood is best understood not simply as a product of ponds, pipes, hatcheries, and feed, but as a product of narrative force. Fish flash through cold inland water; cameras glide across reservoirs; influencers smile into the desert light; officials speak of innovation and harmony. The image holds. Until, somewhere behind it, the old questions return: What is this fish, really? Where did it come from? What story is being wrapped around it? In Xinjiang, those questions do not fade when the meal arrives. They sit there at the table.

(The reporting for this story was part of a larger investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Ian Urbina is the founder and executive editor of The Outlaw Ocean Project.)

It was probably around 100 years ago that stalwart Hollywood star Marie Dressler said, “You’re only as good as your last picture.” Today, that hard-nosed observation not only holds; in a culture measured out in here-today-gone-tomorrow limited series and independent films that fail to find their audience, it’s more apt, and more potentially heartbreaking, than ever.

Misty Green, the title character and the heartbeat of Chris Rock’s fourth feature film as a director, is living out Dressler’s maxim. Misty, played by Rosalind Eleazar, is a gifted singer and actor who desperately needs a break. But there are good reasons she’s not going to get it. Even though she has an Emmy from her role in a hit series, she’s on her way to being forgotten. She has no patience for Hollywood BS and refuses to play the usual games. But she’s also prickly and unpleasant—she has alienated most of the people who might be able to help her—and a self-destructive streak hinders her further: She’d rather go out for a night of clubbing and coke than stay in and learn her lines for the next day’s important audition.

So now she’s in desperate straits. Essentially homeless, she’s been camping out in the apartment of a rich—and dead—ex-lover, but the guy’s angry widow has just given her seven days to pack up and vacate. During all this, her fragile brother, Jay (Daniel Kaluuya), who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and whom she loves deeply, shows up at the flat that’s not even her own, needing more from her than she can provide. 

We’ve seen the story of the wannabe comeback kid before. And Misty Green isn’t always a thoroughly graceful film. One of the weaker links may be the character played by Rock himself, Jordan, a director who wants to help Misty but harbors amorous feelings that don’t feel wholly believable; Misty could use some help, but she may not need that kind of savior. But overall, Rock’s writing is sharp and perceptive, and he’s attuned not just to the horrors of trying to make it in Hollywood, but also to Misty’s specific plight—and to the reality that she’s at times almost repugnantly dislikable.

Eleazar, best known for her role in Slow Horses, knows just how to shape this character without ever softening her. Misty is gifted, arrogant, impossible; at times, you begin to wonder if she even deserves a break. But Eleazar, giving one of the best performances of the year, tears our expectations to shreds: Who are we to decide what she deserves? At one point, during an audition, one of the men in charge of potentially hiring her blurts out, “Are you mixed?” and her eyes, moments ago dancing with fire, become glacier cold.

Misty has made her way along a path paved with irrelevant, if not outright racist and sexist, questions and assumptions—it’s little wonder she can barely take any more. But even stronger than her resentment is her belief that she still has something to give. It may be a stereotype to characterize actors as needy people, but Eleazar captures an almost existential longing that goes beyond garden-variety neediness. And at her lowest moment, Misty’s desperation becomes nearly unbearable to watch. Eleazar brings us right to the knifepoint of her degradation, and it pierces us too.

But Rock wouldn’t leave Misty in despair; he gives her the empathetic yet unsentimental ending she deserves. It’s almost impossible to like Misty, and yet, in a film that’s both acerbic and tender, Eleazar makes us love her, almost against our will. Hollywood, a place of dreams, can be inhumane to those who dream the biggest. Misty Green opens a safe space for them—without the false promise of a happy ending.

On Sept. 23, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke at the UN General Assembly about the military support Russia was getting from North Korea and the deaths of North Korean soldiers on the Ukrainian front. “Recently, we sent two North Korean prisoners of war to the Republic of Korea,” he revealed. He seemed to be trying to highlight the global reach of Russia’s war and also hoping that the revelation would increase popular and political support in Seoul for providing weapons and aid to Ukraine.

Zelensky ended up igniting a diplomatic dispute between Ukraine and South Korea. Seoul claimed that Ukraine had agreed to keep the transfer confidential; Kyiv denied that such an agreement existed and downplayed the episode as a misunderstanding. Now South Korea is recalling its ambassador to Ukraine.

The quarrel over diplomatic protocol highlights the human cost paid by two soldiers caught in a geopolitical conflict linking European and Northeast Asian security. Their story captures the complicated geopolitics of the two Koreas now playing out on a European battlefield. It also underscores South Korea’s push for inter-Korean peace, even as North Korea tests Seoul’s patience by launching hypersonic missiles and planting landmines.

The men from North Korea 

The two soldiers at the center of the dispute were captured while fighting in the Kursk region of Russia in January 2025. They were part of a 10,000-strong North Korean contingent reinforcing Russian troops on the front line. Shortly after their capture, Ukraine’s military released video footage of the two soldiers. The images helped confirm North Korea’s direct involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war. Human Rights Watch raised concerns about Ukraine’s decision to release the video and expose the soldiers, given the potential repercussions for their families in North Korea, including torture, forced labor, imprisonment, or execution. 

North Korean soldiers are instructed to take their own lives rather than risk capture. One of the captured soldiers reportedly attempted suicide before a Ukrainian medic stopped him. In North Korea’s eyes, a soldier who survives by surrendering, or worse by defecting to the South, is a traitor. Under the regime’s well-documented system of collective punishment, three generations of a defector’s family can face retribution through guilt by association.

By revealing the prisoner of war transfer to South Korea in New York, Zelensky offered Pyongyang an incentive to make an example of these soldiers’ families to demonstrate the consequences of defection. This stands in stark contrast to the regime’s response to the deaths of North Korean soldiers in Russia. Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, promised their surviving families a “beautiful life” and granted them new luxury apartments.

The North Korean regime may have already tracked down the families of the prisoners of war after Ukraine confirmed their capture in January 2025. But Zelensky’s disclosure at the United Nations renewed the danger facing the two soldiers now resettled in South Korea, a point Seoul highlighted in its protest to Kyiv. A life in South Korea offers these soldiers personal safety, but one could imagine it might come at a crushing cost: abandoning their homes and living with the guilt that their families may suffer in their place.

Mending the rupture between Seoul and Kyiv

If this episode were only about the two North Korean soldiers, their resettlement might have passed unnoticed. The diplomatic kerfuffle between Kyiv and Seoul is rooted in the different geopolitical narratives that each nation seeks to project, or in Seoul’s case, downplay.

For Ukraine, publicizing the presence and resettlement of North Korean prisoners of war provides a valuable opportunity to solicit support from South Korea, a major arms exporter and a vital partner to NATO. Since 2022, Kyiv has been urging Seoul to supply it with lethal weapons, including Patriot interceptors and 155mm artillery shells. In light of Pyongyang’s direct military support for Moscow, Ukraine has intensified pressure on South Korea to move beyond non-lethal military, humanitarian, and economic assistance.

For South Korea, Ukraine’s public disclosure of the resettlement of these soldiers undermines its diplomatic outreach to North Korea. In his address to the UN General Assembly, President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea reiterated his vision of inclusive, peaceful coexistence built on “respect for each other’s systems” and the restoration of cross-border trust with North Korea. Accepting North Korean soldiers while publicly promoting dialogue weakens Lee’s reassurances to Pyongyang that Seoul desires “stable, peaceful coexistence.”

Pyongyang has maintained silence regarding these two soldiers. But North Korea considers South Korea’s reception of defectors as part of an effort to undermine its regime and eventually bring about unification on Seoul’s terms. While North Korea now defines the Koreas as two separate states, article four of South Korea’s constitution commits the nation to “peaceful unification based on the basic free and democratic order.”

As two nations dedicated to promoting freedom and democratic principles, South Korea and Ukraine must look beyond this diplomatic disagreement to protect their partnership. Seoul provided $400 million in aid to Ukraine in 2024 and announced $2.3 billion in long-term reconstruction aid through 2027. In return, Ukraine offers critical, real-world intelligence on North Korean military tactics and the weapons technology Pyongyang receives from Russia.

Given the complex legal situation of North Korean combatants captured by Ukrainian forces, Kyiv and Seoul must establish a protocol for handling North Korean prisoners of war and non-combatant defectors who seek asylum in South Korea. The need for such a policy will only grow. Similar episodes may unfold as the presence of North Korean troops and laborers in Russia grows, increasing the potential for future defections. Zelensky recently warned that another 10,000 troops from North Korea could soon be deployed in Russia.

With Kyiv’s cooperation, Seoul should affirm its commitment to accept future North Korean prisoners who voluntarily request resettlement, subject to standard security screening. That policy must fully comply with South Korean law and uphold international humanitarian principles and the values of a democratic society. To safeguard these individuals, both governments should protect prisoners’ identities, grant confidential access to impartial humanitarian representatives, and ensure that decisions are not made under coercion. Prisoners of war should not be forcibly repatriated, and public announcements of their transfer must be avoided without their explicit consent.

Crucially, not every captured North Korean soldier will want to go to South Korea. Their wishes must be determined through private, independent interviews conducted without pressure from governments, intelligence agencies, advocacy groups, or the media. Both governments may have followed such protocols. It remains unclear whether Ukraine eventually deviated from the agreed approach script or whether there was simply miscommunication.

Yet for the two soldiers already resettled, no policy can erase the personal toll. They must now rebuild their lives in a country they were raised to view as the enemy while carrying the lingering anguish about the fate of the families they left behind.

As more people turn to AI chatbots to share their most distressing thoughts, companies are making pivotal decisions about how their platforms respond to users in the midst of mental-health crises. According to new research conducted by Scale AI and shared exclusively with TIME, chatbots are adept at discerning when a user is in crisis, but often fail to provide adequate help. 

In about 35% of test conversations in the study, different AI chatbots recognized the user was distressed but didn’t refer them to helpful resources, such as a suicide hotline, according to the research. 

“The models do a good job—regardless of the scenario—of identifying, ‘Look, this person's talking about something harmful,’” says Patrick Oathout, Red Team & Safety Lead at Scale AI. “But they'll respond in a very just empathetic, kind way as opposed to saying, ‘Okay, it's time that we get you help.’” The models performed worse at responding to users’ distress when they were engaging in long, multi-turn conversations—a deficit that matches the findings of previous studies, Oathout adds.

To test AI models’ effectiveness at responding to distressed users, Scale AI asked 19 licensed clinicians and crisis counselors to write 718 realistic chats, simulating scenarios where someone in crisis reaches out to a chatbot. The company tested 25 frontier models, including those from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. It graded the models’ responses based on a rubric that included whether it was compassionate, de-escalated the situation, and steered users to an expert who could help them, said Oathout. It also assessed whether they refrained from moralizing, such as criticizing suicide, and disclosed it wasn't a therapist. Based on the research, Scale AI research developed DistressBench, a new benchmark designed to evaluate how well models reply when someone tells them they're thinking about committing suicide or self-harm. 

How chatbots respond to mentally distressed users is a question with high stakes. More than half a million people in the U.S. died by suicide between 2014 and 2024, with 2022 marking a record high, according to the health-policy organization KFF. According to the CDC, an estimated 14.3 million people seriously thought about suicide in 2024. 

Increasingly, vulnerable people turn to chatbots for comfort, companionship, or guidance when dealing with mental-health distress. But there isn’t consensus among tech companies, policymakers, or mental-health professionals about how AI companies should train their models to respond to users in crisis. 

Kelly Zuromski, a principal clinical research scientist at Crisis Text Line, says the nonprofit’s 24/7 crisis text line has spoken with “a lot of people” who indicated they heard about the group through a chatbot. But Zuromski says there are unanswered policy questions about what a responsible handoff looks like when a chatbot refers users to a human during a mental-health crisis—and how effective the referral process is in the first place. “Who is actually using the recommended resources?” she says. “Are we getting people to us that need the help the most?”

In some cases, AI companies, including OpenAI and Google, have been sued for fostering emotional dependence among young users and then failing to respond adequately to their expressions of distress, or reinforcing their delusional or suicidal thinking in the first place. The companies have expressed sympathy for the families and said their models include mental-health safeguards. (The lawsuits are ongoing.) AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have said in recent years that they beefed up their protections for sensitive conversations, including by implementing policies that bar chatbots from instructing users on how to harm themselves and directing users to professional or emergency support.

An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement the company did not have sufficient evidence to fully evaluate the Scale AI study, adding that the company incorporates robust safeguards into its models. Google declined to comment. Anthropic didn't respond to a request for comment.

In the future, AI labs should improve their models to better respond to users engaging in dangerous lengthy conversations with chatbots, says Scale AI’s Oathout. “I think the models are better than they were,” he says. “The goal now is to raise it further and actually reduce harm, which would add this massive benefit to society.”

By now, most of America has heard about the young woman who says she was gang raped by fraternity brothers while she was a student at Cornell University. 

The case has been dubbed the "Cornell 7" across mainstream and social media, after the seven Chi Phi members named in her recent lawsuit. The woman who filed the suit, referred to as Jane Doe, first reported her experience to Cornell campus police in November 2024. According to her lawyer, after Cornell's Title IX process, two of the seven were expelled, and the other five were suspended, sent to workshops, and assigned essays. Cornell says none of them got off with only an essay. 

At the time, the Tompkins County District Attorney declined to prosecute. After public outcry, the DA issued a statement explaining that Jane Doe’s original statement to police described the drug use and sex as "voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” “However, recognizing that the process of healing from trauma is personal and different for every human, my office has reopened this investigation," he wrote. Now, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has appointed state Attorney ‌General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the case. 

How did the case come to light? It took The Cornell Daily Sun, the campus student newspaper, breaking the story roughly two years later for this to capture the hearts, minds, and headlines of Americans across the country. The story struck a nihilistic nerve. 

This case lands squarely in a moment of massive frustration, disappointment, and anger over how the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell case was handled. New CDC data shows that nearly half of American women and one in six men have experienced some form of contact sexual violence. Based on how broad this issue is and based on how some of the most visible cases have turned out, apathy about our ability to see our way from a society steeped in rape culture to one where sexual violence is rare should come as no surprise.

As someone fully immersed in this work, even though I see a pathway forward, I understand these feelings from a very deep place in my spirit. We should be disgusted. We should be heartbroken. We should be enraged.

So what do we do with these feelings?

We provide an outpouring of support to Jane Doe and to other women who have come forward with their accounts of sexual assault, such as Kendall Francis, who took to TikTok to speak out about how her college, LSU, handled her Title IX case. According to ESPN, in July, the LSU Office of Civil Rights and Title IX found her alleged attacker, a football player, responsible for “forcible rape” and suspended him for two semesters. The player appealed and in August, Administrative Law Judge Janet Waguespack reduced his punishment to four semesters’ probation, allowing him to remain on campus. The player's lawyers maintain that their client is innocent. 

Again, Francis’ story struck a nerve, catching the attention of East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, whose office is now investigating the case.

The outpouring of support matters, both so these young women can get the justice they're seeking and so survivors everywhere know that support is out here. But what many of us know is that for every Jane Doe and Kendall Francis who reports and seeks justice, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of survivors who won't, for a lot of reasons. Chief among them is feeling alone in the fight. They aren't alone. But I'll admit it's hard to tell when spotlights dim, headlines fade, and accountability seems stifled.

As if right on cue, something else happened this week while these cases took over headlines. The Trump Administration’s Department of Education altered Title IX rules, declaring that harassment has to be "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" before a school must act, that most off-campus violence falls outside a school's responsibility, and that a college survivor can be cross-examined at a live hearing by the advisor her attacker chose.

This decision landing right as the Cornell 7 case came to light is telling. It's one of the clearest illustrations of the direct line between the damage this administration has done to the fight against sexual and gender-based violence—especially among young people. 

The Trump Administration’s decision to make it more burdensome to file a Title IX complaint only adds to the helplessness so many survivors feel. Patriarchy protects itself the way any system of power does. It writes the rules, staffs the offices, and then leaves survivors like Jane Doe and Kendall Francis to fight for justice on their own.

Of course, it is worth remembering the challenge we collectively face isn’t simply a matter of one rule or how it is applied; there are questions we must confront about where our culture has ended up. After all, these Cornell students were tweens when recordings of now-President Donald Trump leaked of him using crude language to describe how he treats women. The context may be different, but we have to ask: How far is the line between "grab 'em by the p---y" and "free p---y", the message the lawsuit says one of the Cornell 7 sent his fraternity brothers, inviting them to join in the hours-long assault on Jane Doe? 

Yet, in the face of these various challenges, we must also remember: We are not helpless.

On October 15, it'll be nine years since #MeToo went viral. We're far past the hashtag, but we're still in the movement, and it's a very real, very active movement fighting tooth and nail to destroy systems that prevent justice. The answer to such systems has always been the organized power of the people those systems harm. The rage people are feeling right now, from Baton Rouge to Ithaca, can be organized and directed exactly where it's needed. That means our outrage can't be selective. It can't show up when Epstein or Cornell makes the news and disappear when the coverage moves on. Because when the next national story takes hold, there will still be students on high school and college campuses all over this country who are fundamentally unsafe.

We've made real progress in almost ten years of the MeToo movement, and lasting change will only come from constant demand. Frederick Douglass famously said: "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Black people in the civil rights era didn't wait for a government full of segregationists to find its conscience. They organized until it had no choice. Sexual and gender-based violence is solvable, but those solutions have to be demanded, and we have the numbers to demand them.

Too many survivors who stay silent believe they'd be fighting alone if they raise their voices. The CDC's most recent national survey found that nearly 80 million American adults, close to 58 million women and more than 20 million men, have experienced contact sexual violence. For some people, those are just numbers. In reality, they're a base of power: millions of people who know this trauma intimately and are primed to act.

What action against sexual violence can look like

First, you can join an organization dedicated to addressing sexual violence head-on. Several national organizations are working to bring survivors and our allies together to demand systemic change. Organizations like mine, me too. International, along with the National Women's Law Center and UltraViolet, are on the front lines organizing survivor leaders, fighting for survivors in courtrooms, and keeping people engaged on these issues. Others, like Justice for Migrant Women, Educate Us, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, work on where sexual and gender-based violence meets immigration, domestic work, and education. The Survivor Justice Network, a coalition of organizations fighting sexual and gender-based violence from a social and political standpoint, runs the Survivors Vote campaign to organize survivors as a voting bloc. And there are countless regional and local organizations fighting this fight every day, especially local rape crisis centers, many of which are struggling. 

In April 2025, the Justice Department terminated hundreds of grants worth more than $800 million, including money for victim services, and this spring $200 million meant for violence against women programs was still sitting unspent. Centers like the DC Rape Crisis Center (DCRCC), the oldest in the country, don't only provide direct services to local survivors. They take on the larger issue of sexual violence and how it's affecting the people they serve.

Next, you can use your resources well. Speakimng of DCRCC, local rape crisis centers are the first line of defense, and when students can't get support on campus, they often go looking for it at the rape crisis center in their college town. Find the survivor support organizations near you and give to them directly. It's the best way to shore up the front line so survivors can get what they need and the fight can continue.

Third, you can get active in local politics. 

Ask your elected officials where they stand on sexual and gender-based violence and on legislation they can move right now, like the Survivors' Rights Restitution Act, which Rep. Ayanna Pressley introduced in September with Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández and Deborah Ross to compensate survivors whose federal rights were violated, including Epstein's survivors. Pressure them to vote accordingly, and make your support heard and understood.

Lastly, we must unite around our shared challenges. National outrage helps shake people up enough to pay attention, but culture won't shift just because we change laws and elect better politicians. People need to understand how sexual and gender-based violence shows up in their daily lives, how it intersects with the other issues they care about, and how long it stays with families, communities, and institutions. Until the whole of society sees this as an abomination, we won’t have the lasting cultural impact that makes sexual violence a rarity. 

Jane Doe and Kendall Francis each refused to carry this quietly. The rest of us owe them and survivors like them more than a week of outrage. 

We can let them see what it looks like to turn outrage into outcomes.

The Trump Administration has suspended several major tech companies, including Microsoft and Adobe, as well as IT outsourcing firms from a green card program as it expands its crackdown on visa fraud.

Vice President J.D. Vance said Thursday that the companies had “abused” H-1B visa and green card processes in order to “replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants.” At the same White House press conference, officials announced probes into nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, that the Administration accused of misusing a program meant for temporary educational and cultural exchanges.

Read More: How a New Trump Administration Rule Could Restrict Access to Green Cards—and Confront Immigrants With a Tough Choice

The twin moves mark an escalation in the Trump Administration’s scrutiny of skilled worker immigration programs. The Trump Administration has pursued a broad crackdown on immigration fraud, citing the need to protect American workers and accusing major technology companies and universities of using foreign workers to undercut U.S. wages.

Here’s what to know about the announcements.

How will the suspension impact companies?

Microsoft and software maker Adobe are among eight companies that the Trump Administration will suspend from applying to sponsor employment-based green cards. The other companies are major information technology outsourcing firms: Cognizant; Infosys; Tata Consultancy Services; Wipro; HCL Technologies; and Capgemini.

 “We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies,” Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said.

Sonderling cited ongoing federal investigations, suggesting that the firms were among the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B program. The companies had sought to hire almost 3 million foreign workers, received more than 230,000 H-1B visa approvals, and obtained over 100,000 permanent labor certifications since 2009, he said. 

In fiscal year 2026, Amazon was the biggest employer of approved H-1B beneficiaries, followed by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Apple, and Microsoft, according to immigration data.

According to Labor Department data through June 2026, Microsoft was the largest filer of applications via the PERM program, which is the first step in the U.S. permanent labor certification process. The application requires employers to demonstrate that a foreign hire will not hurt U.S. workers’ wages or jobs.

“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has ​abused the system more than Microsoft,” Vance said.

Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. The company announced in July that it would cut 4,800 jobs globally.

“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” Vance said. “Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”

Microsoft said in a statement that 80% of its H-1B applications in the last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of current employees, not hire new workers.

“The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country,” Microsoft said.

Microsoft said it pays its H-1B employees the same as other workers in comparable roles. It added that it only files H-1B petitions for “those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category.”

Vance said the suspensions would last “as long as it needs to.” The Administration is seeking to compel the companies to change their behavior. Vance accused companies of deliberately posting ineffective job ads in order to justify hiring foreign workers.

“Maybe they’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that we have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it. And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants,” Vance said.

Tata Consultancy Services told Reuters that it did not expect the suspension to impact its workforce strategy or client engagements, noting that it had made single-digit PERM applications in the past two years.

TIME has reached out to the other companies for comment.

Probes over exchange visitor visas

Vance also accused nine universities of abusing the J-1 visa program that allows foreign nationals to temporarily study, teach, or conduct research in the U.S. through programs overseen by the State Department. The universities have already been served subpoenas, the officials said, and would face investigations for allegedly misusing the visa program to undercut American wages.

The nine universities were: Harvard; Yale; Stanford; Brown; the University of Pittsburgh; the University of California, Davis; the California Institute of Technology; Arizona State; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Something weird is going on at these universities,” Vance said. “They’re using these visas way too much. They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop.”

Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito said the “historic investigation into J-1 visa fraud” would focus on whether foreign influence, improper financial relationships, or visa abuse were compromising federally funded research.

“I don’t care how prestigious a university thinks it is,” he said. “Break the law and screw the American people, and I will personally cuff you in the university square. I don’t care how large your endowment is, how powerful your alumni are or how many politicians you have on speed dial.”

Harvard, Brown, Pitt, and MIT acknowledged receipt of the subpoenas. Stanford and UC Davis said they would cooperate with the investigations. Arizona State said it complies with U.S. law. Yale said it would review the investigation documents once it received them.

TIME has reached out to the universities for comment.

How will workers and students be impacted?

For employees at the eight companies, immigration lawyers say the PERM pause will delay a common route to obtaining a green card. Workers nearing the typical six-year limit for H-1B visas without an earlier green card filing face the greatest risk, according to immigration lawyer Lidice Samper.

Supporters of the move said it will enforce existing rules around H-1B and green cards meant to protect American jobs and wages. Opponents, however, said it could ultimately leave foreign workers more dependent on their employers and make it harder for U.S. companies to attract and retain talent.

“Our economy, our communities, and our families depend on immigrants in many sectors, including the tech sector, and heavy-handed attacks like this only hurt efforts to build a strong, stable, and diverse base of workers who have legal pathways to come and be in the United States while also protecting U.S. workers from unscrupulous employers,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D, Wash.) posted on X.

Doug Rand, formerly a senior adviser at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Biden Administration, told the Associated Press that the policy is “incoherent,” noting that a green card gives H-1B workers more freedom to switch jobs and demand higher pay.

“If the Trump administration were truly concerned that H-1B workers are ‘indentured servants,’ then the last thing they would do is block companies from helping their own H-1B workers get green cards,” Rand said.

Nasscom, India’s IT industry group, said the pause would have a limited effect, given that the number of employees seeking permanent residency through PERM is “relatively limited.”

Dinesh Pai, vice president of investments at India’s largest brokerage Zerodha, noted on social media that the suspension would impact Indians seeking high-earning positions in the U.S.—and by extension remittances and angel investments back into India. But he added that if U.S. companies cannot bring talent to the U.S., “they probably will bring the work to India.”

Read More: How Trump’s H-1B Reform Could Harm American Tech Innovation

The investigations into the universities have not changed J-1 eligibility, but they add uncertainty for visiting scholars and the universities hosting them. Among the universities subpoenaed, Harvard sponsored 2,218 new J-1 exchange visitors in 2024, Stanford 1,436, Yale 1,169, and MIT 1,087, according to federal data.

The Administration’s ongoing crackdown on immigration has led to declines in international enrollment. Last year, new J-1 research scholars across the country fell 27% to 17,622. NAFSA also estimated that new international student enrollment fell 17% in fall 2025, contributing to more than $1.1 billion in lost revenue. A separate report found that international student enrollment for spring 2026 fell 20% from a year earlier. Last week, Columbia paused admissions to its journalism master’s program amid falling international applications.

Read More: As U.S. Enrolls Fewer International Students, Universities in Asia Are Going the Other Direction

Expanding crackdown

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a $70,000 fee to apply for the Optional Practical Training program, which allows international students to work in jobs related to their major for a limited time during school or after graduation. The proposed rule would charge universities and colleges for every student who participates in the program.

In August, the Trump Administration announced plans for a $103,265 fee for all cap-subject H-1B visa petitions. The Administration said the fee would act as a “dedicated revenue mechanism to help recover a portion of the federal government’s costs of administering the lawful immigration system.”

If implemented, either fee is likely to face legal challenges. Last September, the White House imposed a one-time $100,000 fee to be paid by companies filing H-1B petitions to hire workers outside the U.S. That fee was struck down in June by a federal judge, who ruled that the charge functioned as an unauthorized tax. An appeals court declined to pause that ruling in July, although the government’s underlying appeal remains pending.

Also in September 2025, the Labor Department launched “Project Firewall,” an enforcement effort aimed at investigating employers suspected of abusing the H-1B program and displacing U.S. workers. The department said it has launched nearly 200 investigations under the initiative.

The Administration has also sought to overhaul the H-1B program by replacing the random lottery with a selection system favoring higher-paid applicants and proposing eliminating the grace period of up to 60 days that gives H-1B workers time to find a new sponsor after losing their jobs.

Meanwhile the J-1 probe marks the Administration’s latest attempt to scrutinize American higher education by targeting international students and scholars. In July 2025, DHS subpoenaed Harvard for records concerning international students and immigration compliance. The university said it would comply with the law but called the subpoenas “unfounded retribution.”

The Administration also tried to revoke Harvard’s authority to enroll international students and to bar new international students from entering the U.S. to attend the university. Courts blocked both measures while litigation proceeded.

The Administration has also tightened immigration rules for international students, including screening visa applicants’ social media and targeting some Chinese students for heightened scrutiny and visa revocation. The Administration has revoked thousands of student visas.

I spent eight years in conversion therapy trying to heal what church leaders called my “core wounds.” I did individual therapy with Christian psychologists who claimed they could help me change my sexual orientation. I went to conferences and retreats hosted by Exodus International, the largest conversion therapy organization of its time. I deepened my faith and built a career in full-time church work. I did everything I was told to do, but my sexual orientation never changed. 

When I finally dropped out of conversion therapy, I walked away carrying anxiety, depression, religious trauma, and a substance abuse problem I had to fight my way out of.

Today, the promise that drew me into those rooms—that I could pray the gay away—is being made in different words. One group driving this shift calls itself the CHANGED Movement. Its website offers “A New Way Forward For LGBTQ+” and promises freedom for people who want to leave an LGBTQ+ identity behind. It says accepting an LGBTQ+ identity locks a person into “a life of unhealed trauma.”

I know that idea well. In conversion therapy, I was taught that my sexual orientation was evidence of something wounded inside me, and that if I did enough work, I could heal it. 

CHANGED is taking that message beyond churches. Last month, its co-founder Elizabeth Woning spoke before a federal advisory committee meeting about the American Psychological Association (APA)’s Commission on Accreditation, which sets standards for programs that train psychologists. Woning argued that counselors are being trained to affirm LGBTQ+ identities without adequately respecting clients who want to live according to different convictions.

To be clear, CHANGED was not seeking APA accreditation for its own programs. The APA’s commission was seeking continued federal recognition (which drives licensure and funding) as an accreditor and an expansion of that recognition to master’s programs. Woning urged the committee to withhold the expansion. After hearing a range of complaints, including allegations of antisemitism in APA-accredited programs, the committee recommended suspending the commission’s federal recognition for one year. The Department of Education has yet to make a final decision. CHANGED did not drive that outcome, but claimed victory for it.

Underpinning CHANGED’s argument was the same belief I was once taught: that being LGBTQ+ is a symptom of unhealed trauma. It is true that LGBTQ+ people experience higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality compared to their peers. But that’s not what makes us queer. It’s what happens to us when we’re taught that being queer makes us broken, through rejection, shame, and theology that treats who we are as a problem to be fixed. 

Major medical and mental-health associations, including the APA, have rejected efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity as ineffective and harmful. Peer-reviewed research published in the American Journal of Public Health found that LGBTQ+ young people subjected to conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report attempting suicide as those who had not. The ideology Woning promotes creates the very wounds it claims to heal.

The APA hearing wasn’t CHANGED’s first attempt to reshape the laws and protections around conversion therapy. The group filed amicus briefs in Chiles v. Salazar, supporting a Christian counselor who challenged Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. In March, the Supreme Court sided with her, ruling that the ban likely violated her free speech rights. In her testimony, Woning pointed to those briefs as evidence that the APA was violating freedom of speech.

Much of the world is moving in the opposite direction. Canada, Germany, France, Mexico, New Zealand, and Brazil have adopted bans or restrictions on conversion practices, with several imposing criminal penalties. The U.K. is moving toward banning the practice nationwide, which Woning decried in July.

Even in the U.S. states with bans, the rules prohibiting the practice of conversion therapy only apply to licensed therapists, and usually only to their work with minors. A group independently teaching CHANGED’s curriculum in a church basement is untouched by those laws, as long as they’re not licensed therapists or psychologists. And the practice is growing. The Trevor Project found that the share of LGBTQ+ young people who reported being threatened with conversion therapy doubled in a single year, from 11% to 22%.

CHANGED and groups like it don’t need government permission to run their programs in churches. It does seem, based on Woning’s testimony, that they are looking for that practice to be legitimized and for it to be billable by insurance and removed from the APA’s list of harmful practices. 

Neither of CHANGED’s founders is a psychologist, a licensed therapist, or a physician. Woning’s degree is in ministry. Her co-founder, Ken Williams, holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and finance. Yet they go before government bodies asking to reshape the standards of mental health care, on the strength of religious convictions they insist are protected speech.

And they’re now welcomed into powerful rooms. In April, the pair were invited to Washington for America Reads the Bible, a weeklong public Scripture reading marking the nation’s 250th birthday, whose promotional lineup included Sen. Ted Cruz and evangelical leader Franklin Graham. In a social media post announcing their participation, CHANGED wrote, “At the same time, we’ll be engaging directly with legislators on some of the most pressing issues of our time. We believe moments like this matter. We believe presence matters. We believe truth spoken in the right rooms matters.”

Woning’s website makes the larger goal clear, saying she works “closely with think tanks and activists worldwide to inspire thoughtful approaches and visionary (socially conservative) language protecting First Amendment rights—for all people—so that Judeo-Christian heritage prevails.”

When I was in conversion therapy, groups like Exodus International promised that “change is possible.” Then, in 2012, Exodus’s own president, Alan Chambers, acknowledged that “99.9%” of the people he’d met had not experienced a change in their orientation. A year later, Exodus shut down. 

Groups like CHANGED kept the idea and changed the language. Parents, clinicians, and anyone who cares about LGBTQ+ young people should be paying attention. I spent years in the church basements where this ideology used to thrive. It is clear to me that it has now moved into courtrooms and federal hearing rooms, where its promoters are attacking the organizations that protect the vulnerable from it. The next room they are knocking on: the therapist’s office.

Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, a South African jurist and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, won the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.”

“Pillay’s commitment to universal legal principles and her firm moral compass are constants in a long career. Born into a family of Indian Tamil origin under apartheid in Durban, South Africa, Pillay became a lawyer and legal pioneer, confronting deep structural discrimination, segregation, and exclusion,” said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

“A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time.”

Pillay, 85, is a judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case where Myanmar stands accused of genocide. She was also chair of the ⁠U.N. Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory that concluded last year that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. (Israel at the time dismissed the report as "scandalous" and “fake.") Israel's Foreign Ministry criticized Pillay's win, referring to it as a "grotesque weaponization" of the award.

In "historic international court cases, she has shown that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence," Frydnes said, referring to Pillay as "one of the great defenders of international legal principles in our time."

Reflecting on her win, Pillay said she is often asked when she will stop working. "I can’t obviously stop my work in support of the Nuremberg Principles, because of the people we meet here," she said.

Pillay's career spans more than 50 years

Born in South Africa in 1941, Pillay was the first non-white woman to establish a legal practice in the country, according to the U.N.

In those early years of practicing law, she acted as a defense attorney for anti-apartheid activists.

Pillay has served as a judge on the High Court in South Africa, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) throughout the course of her career.

She was the U.N. human rights chief from September 2008 to August 2014. Volker Türk, who currently holds that position, said Pillay's Nobel recognition is "particularly poignant" as it comes "at a time when human rights are under attack on so many fronts, including from those who wield enormous power."

“It is an award to all those who around the world dedicate their lives to the defense of human rights, often at great risk to their security," he added.

Pillay is the fifth South African national to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She follows in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk, Archbishop Desmond ​Tutu, and Albert Luthuli.

Pillay dedicates award to "survivors of international crimes"

Pillay dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to “all of the survivors of international crimes” and people defending international criminal justice, “whose compassion and courage continue to ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign.”

During a press conference at the International Nuremberg Principle Academy, in the German city where the trials of Nazi leaders showcased the enforcement of international law, Pillay referred to the award as a "wonderful surprise" and the "highest honor."

Using her platform to spotlight the international justice system, Pillay told reporters: “We are living through an era when international law and human rights are under significant political attack... This worsening reality is particularly visible with the attacks on the International Criminal Court."

She added that the Nobel recognition has strengthened her "conviction that we must stand together in ‌defense of the rule of law, ​in defense of independent courts, and an international legal order ⁠based on principle."

Trump Admin announces sanctions against the ICC hours after win

When asked during a press briefing if the award sends a message to those who question or sanction international courts, Frydnes told reporters: “This is definitely a message to those who are attacking, undermin[ing] the international system, the international rules-based system, and the institutions."

U.S. President Donald Trump last month called for countries to "immediately" resign from the International Criminal Court (ICC), amid a broader push by the Trump Administration to dismantle the institution it accuses of unfairly targeting the U.S. and Israel. His call was firmly rejected by European leaders.

The Trump Administration has criticized the ICC over arrest warrants issued for Israeli leaders, including ​Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former investigations into the actions of American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Hours after Pillay's win, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the Trump Administration is placing sweeping new sanctions on the ICC. It has previously imposed sanctions on the court's prosecutors and judges, but these new measures go a step further.

“We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us,” Rubio said. “The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC.”

As a result of the sanctions, and "subject to applicable licenses and exceptions, all property and interests in property of the ICC that are in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control," read a notice from the State Department.

Rubio claimed both Republicans and Democrats have concerns about the court overstepping its jurisdiction, but said only Trump is willing to take action. “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC," he warned.

In response, the ICC's deputy ​prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan condemned the sanctions and vowed the court's "work will ​continue ⁠across all our situations, our ⁠investigations, ​and our ​prosecution."

The Foreign Ministers of Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and the U.K. have also denounced the sanctions.

In a joint statement that expressed "unwavering support for the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the ICC," the officials said the sanctions "will have a significant impact on the [ICC's] work, its dedicated staff, and their families."

Pillay pokes fun at Trump as she reacts to award

Pillay referenced Trump and his well-documented campaign to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when she reacted to her own recognition on Friday morning.

In a video shared by Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, Pillay could be seen entering a room at Nuremberg Court to resounding applause from her peers. "If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump," she joked.

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, famously gave her medal to Trump in January as she pressed the U.S. to support democracy in Venezuela.

While the Norwegian Nobel Institute doesn’t release a shortlist of its contenders each year, the leaders of Israel, Cambodia, and Pakistan have all previously said they nominated Trump. The institute registered a total of 287 candidates for this year’s prize, including 208 individuals and 79 organizations.

Trump said earlier this week it would be a “great discredit” to the Norwegian Nobel Committee if they did not announce him as this year's recipient.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants President Donald Trump to put an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s operations in the city after an agent-involved shooting injured one person on Thursday.

“This is an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation,” Mamdani said in a statement Thursday evening. “I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.”

New York police said that around 4 p.m., federal agents got involved in a shooting and injured a man in the city’s Marble Hill residential section. The police’s afternoon statement said the shooting victim was conscious and receiving medical attention in a nearby hospital.

But at a press conference Thursday evening before furious protesters, Mamdani said that after his two-hour conversation with Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, he has failed to negotiate the release of the shooting victim.

The response to the shooting tests Mamdani’s charm offensive with the President, who appears unlikely to budge on his immigration agenda despite previous friendliness with the Democratic mayor. Despite wide ideological differences, Trump and Mamdani have had a cordial relationship.

Mamdani, however, remains just as firm on his own side of the issue. A steadfast critic of ICE operations, he has backed calls to abolish the agency. “I have said this directly—whether to the President or to the public—ICE undermines public safety,” he said.

The White House pointed TIME to the Department of Homeland Security’s statement, which attacked New York’s “sanctuary politicians” that limit cooperation with federal agents. Homeland Security Secretary Markewayne Mullin responded directly to Mamdani at a press conference Friday morning, accusing the mayor of “inciting hostilities" and undermining ICE's mission. Mullin said he had spoken with Mamdani multiple times on Thursday night.

Besides Mamdani, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, released a swift rebuke of the shooting and said she too spoke with Trump and Mullin. “New Yorkers have witnessed far too many acts of violence by a rogue federal agency and untrained agents that operate with impunity,” the governor said. “Federal authorities need to provide answers, and they must do so immediately.”

What happened?

City police commissioner Jessica Tisch said that based on initial information, police received multiple 911 calls around 4 p.m. reporting shots fired and a person shot near 2 Marble Hill Avenue.

Their preliminary investigation showed that federal immigration agents were “conducting a targeted enforcement operation” to take a person in a gray vehicle into custody. Their target, whom Tisch identified as 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, was with a 5-year-old boy, whom police believed to be his son. 

Tisch said that one plainclothes federal agent approached the driver’s side window, with his gun drawn, with another plainclothes agent near the headlight, before the vehicle moved forward. According to evidence collected on the scene, Tisch said that at least one ICE agent fired seven rounds, “striking the driver in the neck below his left ear.”

DHS said in its statement that an ICE officer “discharged his weapon” and injured its target, whom ICE agents immediately rendered aid to. “The incident remains under investigation,” the department added.

Tisch added that when New York police arrived on scene, they saw men in various clothes, including “at least one carrying a long gun.” Police also saw the injured Belgal “handcuffed and seated on the ground,” and they “immediately” placed him into a police vehicle and gave aid, before transporting him to New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in stable condition. The child, meanwhile, is safe and in the care of a family member, Tisch added. 

Mullin said Friday that the ICE officers involved in the shooting were wearing body cameras and that there was footage relating to the incident. “As the investigation moves forward, as I said, we’ll release the information,” he said.

What do we know about the victim?

Tisch said that Belgal had two prior arrests in New York City: “one for robbery in 2023 in which he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree grand larceny and received five years probation; and one for criminal sale of a controlled substance in 2025, which is still pending.” 

DHS did not name Belgal, but it described the target of the ICE operation as a “criminal illegal” immigrant from the Dominican Republic “with a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny, and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession.”

The department alleged the shooting victim had ties to the Trinitarios gang, which was involved in the shooting of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection officer last year. It added that police arrested the target on Dec. 7, 2023, “but was released into the community a few days later by reckless Democrat sanctuary policies that put American lives at risk.”

Mullin said Friday morning that Bengal was "affiliated with a gang" and that ICE believed Bengal had knowledge regarding the shooting of a CBP officer last year. He also said ICE had attempted, and failed, to detain Bengal in September.

What have been the reactions?

The New York City shooting is just the latest in a spate of violent incidents involving federal immigration agents. Tallies from the New York Times and ABC News show more than 20 people shot, with at least six killed, including three U.S. citizens: Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Ruben Ray Martinez. 

Read More: These Two Brothers Are Fighting to Protect Immigrant Families After a Tragedy

The city has also become a hotspot for ICE-related activity. As Gothamist reported on Oct. 7, more than 8,800—or nearly half—of all ICE arrests in New York state during the second-term Trump Administration have happened in New York City’s five boroughs.

Lawmakers have since debated the nationwide enforcement of Trump’s immigration agenda, leading to funding battles and partial shutdowns of DHS.

Mamdani and other New York politicians took issue with how the ICE operation could have endangered a child. “There is no explanation for federal officers firing this many rounds into a car that has a 5-year-old,” the New York mayor said in the press conference.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, who represents the Bronx, posted that “firing multiple rounds into a car with a child inside, on a busy residential street in the Bronx, is abhorrent and indefensible.”

Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the Democrat representing the district covering Upper Manhattan and parts of West Bronx, posted on social media that ICE has denied him as well as the victim’s family from visiting and checking on the victim. Espaillat said he met the victim’s 5-year-old son, “distraught and traumatized after witnessing this horrific event.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who represents New York and led the legislative standoff that temporarily blocked funding for DHS, called the shooting “deeply disturbing, especially amid reports that a child was in the car when shots were fired.” The senator called on DHS to release body camera footage and ensure independent investigations.

—With reporting by Philip Wang

We often think of science as a search for answers to a specific issue: a solution to a known problem, or a cure for a particular disease. In practice, scientific discovery is typically more chaotic and uncertain, full of false starts and contradictions. That is why so many of the major scientific breakthroughs in human history have been born out of hunches, the product of imagination or serendipity, coupled with the brilliance and curiosity of a scientist to recognize the significance of a discovery. For instance, graphene was born out of tangential research at the University of Manchester and is now used in everything from medical equipment and electronics to batteries and tennis racquets. 

Scientific research invariably raises new questions. What begins as a narrow inquiry opens dozens of new avenues of investigation, each capable of taking the research in an entirely new direction. The pursuit of science is, at its core, less a journey towards a destination than an evolving exercise in enlightened exploration. 

It is through patient, painstaking work, driven by curiosity and pursued through personal dedication and sacrifice, that scientific advancement occurs. Yet, too often, our tendency as a society is to celebrate the tangible breakthroughs and neglect the assiduous process that made them possible. 

The Nobel prizes are a magnificent celebration of transformative science. But by design, most are awarded decades after the breakthrough discovery being recognized was first made. Scientists, however, are typically most creative and productive early in their careers but fail to receive the financial support essential to reaching their full potential.

This quandary is replicated many times over within the wider world of institutional funding. Public bodies and universities must decide which projects to back before they know where those ideas will lead. And with many talented scientists competing for finite resources, much promising research is lost. 

I would argue that this challenge, therefore, is felt most acutely by early-career scientists. The pressure on them is not simply to demonstrate scientific progress, but to produce the kind of science that can be articulated succinctly in a grant application, attached to a clear set of deliverables, and ultimately defended as a sensible investment. Something is lost if we focus too narrowly on supporting only what we can fully justify in advance.

Not every research grant is funded, and difficult choices must be made in the best of funding environments. But the nature of the funding matters too, and philanthropy must help broaden the level of support provided to young scientists. 

This is where unrestricted funding plays an especially important role. Unrestricted funding is an investment in the person. It recognizes and supports their talent, ideas, judgment, curiosity, and long-term potential. The money provided can be used to buy new equipment, hire a new staff member, or simply pursue a new line of inquiry. It means having the space and time to evaluate an idea that might otherwise be too abstract for a regular grant application. 

Unrestricted funding also provides scientists with freedom in a broader sense: it can relieve anxiety over rent, allow for a much-needed family vacation, or simply reduce financial pressure and give great thinkers more time to think about their science.

This is the principle upon which the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists was founded. Awardees receive grants ranging from $15,000 to $250,000, the largest such prizes awarded to early-career scientists. Crucially, there are no conditions attached; it is up to the awardees themselves to decide how and where the money can make the greatest difference for their science.

Philanthropy alone can never be a substitute for institutional or government funding, but it can play a vital role in driving discovery and human progress. It helps to create the conditions for greater risk-taking, unexpected advances, and the encouragement and retention of exceptional scientific talent. 

And we have seen what can happen when that freedom is provided. Take the recipients of the Blavatnik Award. These early-career scientists have created over 50 companies, with a combined value exceeding $40 billion. Among these success stories are Amprius, which develops high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries; Editas Medicine, a gene-editing company; and Revolution Medicines, which develops new treatments for cancer.

Commercial return, however, is not the only measure of success. So is a breakthrough that fundamentally changes how we understand the world or a finding that opens an entirely new field of discovery. 

Unrestricted funding is not simply the awarding of money. It is the gift of freedom to explore, experiment, and persevere. It provides the freedom to ask questions without knowing where the answers might lead, which is the very essence of science.

Sixty million American children were automatically enrolled into “Trump Accounts” on Oct. 1, President Donald Trump announced.

Roughly 10 million of the investment accounts for kids have also been created by parents or guardians following the program’s launch on July 4, meaning that the automatic enrollments bring the total number of enrollees to 70 million. That figure represents every American child under 18 with a Social Security number, according to the White House. 

“Today we celebrate our next historic … step to ensure every American child has a fair shot at the American dream,” Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office. “The U.S. government is automatically creating a tax-free investment account for every child to grow over the course of their lives and to be used to their benefit and for their benefit after they turn 18.” 

More than $4.5 billion has been deposited into Trump Accounts since they went live this summer, including $1.3 billion in federal seed money, $2.6 billion in philanthropic donations, and over $600 million from family and friends of account owners, according to the White House, which added in a press release that there is “more on the way.” 

Read More: Trump Accounts for Kids Are Now Live. Here's Everything Parents Need to Know

Here’s what to know about Trump Accounts following the latest announcement.

What are Trump Accounts?

Trump Accounts are special tax-deferred investment accounts for American children under the age of 18.

Accounts for newborns and many young children will receive seed deposits from the federal government or philanthropists Michael and Susan Dell, with amounts depending on their birth year and zip code. Parents, friends, family, or others also have the option of contributing up to $5,000 per child into the accounts each year. 

Money in the Trump Accounts will be invested in a fund that tracks the performance of the S&P 500 Index, which includes roughly 500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies.

The funds can only be accessed after a child turns 18, at which point their account will become a traditional Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA) account. While the accounts will be under children’s names, they will be managed by parents or guardians until the owners turn 18.

The accounts, established under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” are intended to help build long-term wealth for American children.

“Our studies found that when a child has an account like this, they are way more likely to graduate from high school, to go into college and graduate to buy a home, to not be incarcerated, to be a contributing member of society, and it improves the mental health of both the child and the parent, even with a relatively small sum,” Michael Dell said during an event in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.

Read More: ‘Even People That Truly Hate Me Are Making This Investment’: Trump Rallies Business Leaders to Fund Accounts for Babies

Madeline Brown, a senior associate at the public policy think-tank the Urban Institute, tells TIME that the “infrastructure” created by the Trump Accounts “provides lots of opportunity.”

She argues, however, that the program does not adequately address wealth gaps in the U.S. and should give more money to lower-income families, rather than distributing the same amounts to various groups. 

“There's no essentially guaranteed other money for lower income kids,” she says. “In a structure that was aiming to reduce inequality, you would see additional annual contributions for lowest income kids, ideally from the federal government.”

Who’s eligible to get a Trump Account, and to receive seed deposits?

All American children who are under the age of 18 and have a valid Social Security number are eligible for a Trump Account. With the automatic enrollments announced by Trump on Wednesday, the White House says every eligible child in the U.S. should now have an account.

Certain kids are also eligible to receive funds in their Trump Accounts from the federal government or Michael and Susan Dell.

Once accounts are opened for children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, they will automatically be seeded with a one-time, tax-free government payment of $1,000. 

Due to an additional $6.25 billion investment from the philanthropists Michael and Susan Dell, children born from 2016 through 2024 who live in zip codes where the median family income is at or below $118,000 will also receive a $250 deposit into their Trump Accounts once they’re activated. Children living on military bases also qualify for the deposits. 

An analysis of Census Bureau data by Investopedia showed that roughly 71% of children under 10 will qualify for the $250 deposit. That is expected to amount to about 25 million children, on top of those who receive the seed money from the government. 

Read More: Inside Susan Dell and Michael Dell's $6.25 Billion Effort to Help American Kids

"We've seen what happens when a child gets even a small financial head start, their world expands," Michael Dell, who was with Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday, said in a video statement.

How can you claim your child’s account?

To claim a child’s account, their parents or guardians must go to TrumpAccounts.gov to download the official Trump Accounts app. There, they must verify their identity and relationship to their child before claiming the account.

This process is still required to claim accounts for children who have been automatically enrolled in the program.

“Eligible children must also have their Trump Account claimed to receive the one-time $1,000 seed contribution from Treasury,” the Treasury Department wrote in a release on Oct. 1. 

How will enrollment in Trump Accounts work moving forward?

In a notice published in the Federal Register, the Treasury Department estimated that an additional two million accounts would be created for children every year moving forward as a result of the auto-enrollment system. 

“An eligible individual should not lose the opportunity to receive contributions or investment growth merely because no adult completed an election,” the Treasury wrote in the notice.

Brown says that “reducing friction” in the enrollment process is important. She called the automatic enrollments a “step in the right direction.”

But she stressed that many people are not aware that they have access to the accounts. One study produced by Brown and her colleagues at the Urban Institute showed that lower income families were less aware of Trump Accounts, aligns with research demonstrating how financially secure individuals and households are often more knowledgeable about financial products and opportunities. 

Read More: The Problem with Trump Accounts

“We just need to continue emphasis on education and outreach, including in different languages with trusted messengers,” Brown says. 

As the world's biggest technology companies race to build data centers across the country to power an AI boom, a yearlong Senate investigation argues that some firms are misleading the public about the true costs and benefits around those projects. 

The findings, first shared with TIME, are expected to be part of a broader effort in the coming year by members of Congress hoping to put more guardrails around the massive, power-intensive projects. 

“Congress must hold Big Tech accountable so these companies pay their fair share,” says Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who has called for a national moratorium on new AI data centers until developers agree to cover the full costs.

Warren's office led the investigation with fellow Democratic Senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, which focused on seven major data center developers—Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix. The senators’ staff requested information from each company and interviewed employees. 

The findings, which largely match reporting from various news outlets over the past year, offer a detailed look at the increasingly contentious economics of the AI buildout. Data center companies routinely point to construction employment when making the case for incentives. But when the senators’ staff asked for comprehensive information about permanent employment, several of the companies refused to provide it, according to the report. Some companies told investigators that permanent staffing was roughly one worker for every megawatt of power demand. A 100-megawatt data center, by that measure, could consume roughly as much electricity as 100,000 homes while employing about 100 permanent workers after construction.

“This report lays bare what we have long known: working Americans and local communities are footing the bill for Big Tech’s massive expansion of data centers, while these companies continue to operate without transparency,” Van Hollen says.  

Notably, the Senate investigators found that the most lucrative incentives for data center developers are not necessarily the attention-grabbing property-tax breaks, but sales-tax exemptions on computer equipment. AI facilities require vast quantities of specialized hardware, and GPUs account for an estimated 39% of the spending at an average 1-gigawatt AI data center, according to the report. 

All four of the major technology companies in the investigation—Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft—have routinely sought nondisclosure agreements during data center development, according to the report. Some acknowledged requesting them from government officials. While data center negotiations often deal with commercially sensitive information, the Senate report argues that NDAs have also restricted public scrutiny of deals involving tax dollars, utility rates, and public infrastructure.

Microsoft told the investigators it would stop seeking NDAs with local governments, although it would continue using them with state agencies, public utility commissions and utilities. Amazon has announced a similar policy. Google and Meta declined to commit to ending the practice with local governments, according to the report.

The report comes as data centers have become a hot-button issue on the campaign trail. About half of Americans say that data center construction is bad for the country, according to a recent Economist/YouGov poll. Both parties have been harnessing the issue, even as President Trump warns that opposition to data centers could push the AI buildout overseas.

Who Pays for the AI Power Boom?

A significant portion of the report explores whether tech companies are paying their fair share for data centers that are driving up the costs for nearby homeowners and businesses. State regulators and lawmakers are increasingly being asked to decide how much of that expansion should be paid for by the companies driving the demand, and how much should be borne by other customers and taxpayers.

The Senate investigators found none of the seven companies would agree to a standard that would require them to pay for the building of new power infrastructure that would not have been needed if not for their data centers. The companies generally said they would pay the direct costs of serving their data centers, but argued that larger investments in the electric grid—like new power plants and transmission lines—can benefit other customers and should not automatically be assigned to the company that helped drive the need for them.

The report points to a power plant in Richland Parish, Louisiana, that the local utility provider, Entergy, has sought to buy. Analysts argue the purchase was driven primarily by Meta’s planned $50 billion data center, which is expected to draw 4,500 megawatts of electricity—about four times the peak electricity demand of the entire city of New Orleans. Estimates indicate that the purchase could drive up electric bills for the average Entergy customer by $8-13 per month. Meta has disputed that its project is responsible for the costs.

Congress Debates New Data Center Laws

When Congress reconvenes after the midterm elections, data centers will be among the issues waiting for them. In September, the House overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, 417-3, which would direct states to consider standards requiring large-load customers such as data centers to cover the incremental costs of the generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure needed to serve them.

But the measure stalled in the Senate, as Democrats argued it was toothless because it didn’t require states to push any costs to the companies. The Senate ultimately voted 57-43 against advancing the bill.

Much of the authority over electricity rates remains with state regulators, which means the biggest fights will continue to play out in statehouses and public utility commissions. But the Senate investigation gives Congress a new set of findings to work with as lawmakers consider whether federal standards should govern large electricity users, transparency around data center deals and the public subsidies supporting the industry’s expansion.

Van Hollen said Congress needs to pass a bill “that ensures that the corporations building and running data centers cover the costs of the energy they need, instead of pushing those costs onto the backs of consumers.”

A storm is heading towards the gulf coast, ending what was a quiet start to the Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical storm Isaias intensified into a hurricane early Thursday morning—making it the first hurricane four months into the Atlantic season. As of Friday morning, Isaias had strengthened to Category 3. The storm is expected to make landfall by Friday night or Saturday morning.

Here’s what to know. 

What areas are in Hurricane Isaias’s path?

The storm is expected to make landfall along the central Gulf Coast on Friday night or early Saturday, bringing the threat of heavy rain and flash flooding to the regions in its path. A hurricane warning is currently in place from Ocean Springs, Miss., to the Bay-Gulf County line in Florida.

Some coastal residents of Florida’s Okaloosa County have been put under evacuation order. Officials have also asked out-of-town visitors to leave the impacted area, and all three county airports are scheduled to close Thursday evening. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for 25 counties in the Panhandle and Big Bend regions. 

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also issued a state of emergency for 40 counties. And the state’s 53rd Annual National Shrimp Festival, set to take place in Gulf Shores, Ala., was cancelled due to the storm. 

Oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico have begun cutting production and evacuating non-essential personnel from facilities in preparation for the storm. It’s a risky time to be slowing down production. America’s emergency oil stockpile is at the lowest level since 1982 as the war in Iran has squeezed the supply chain and pushed up prices. 

Why has it been a “quiet” Atlantic hurricane season?

It’s been a relatively quiet hurricane season along the Atlantic. Hurricane Isaias now holds the record as the latest forming first hurricane in the Atlantic Basin—breaking the previous record set in 1905 by Hurricane Four by a mere three and a half hours, according to Accuweather. Isaias is the ninth named storm of the Atlantic season—and the first to reach hurricane strength.

The lull is attributable to El Niño. The phenomenon increases vertical wind shear across the Atlantic, making it harder for thunderstorms to turn into hurricanes. It also temporarily warms up the Pacific Ocean—which often leads to more hurricane activity on a coast that doesn’t typically see a lot of hurricanes. 

There have been a number of hurricanes in the Pacific this year. By Sept. 28, the number of named storms in the region was at 20, with nine reaching hurricane strength. 

This weekend, as Isaias barrels through the Gulf states, two Pacific storms will make their mark out West: Category 4 hurricane Simon is expected to make landfall along the southwestern coast of Mexico early Sunday morning, while tropical storm Rachel is set to bring heavy rainfall and strong winds to Southern California and other parts of the southwestern United States later this weekend and early next week.

Will El Niño intensify the storm?

El Niño is not likely to intensify the storm. In fact, it often has the opposite effect, weakening hurricane activity along the Atlantic. 

Even still—the storm’s impact will be felt. The National Hurricane Center said on Thursday morning that the storm is expected to "remain a dangerous hurricane through landfall.”

Three people have received an innovative treatment designed to rejuvenate vision cells. In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, researchers from Life Biosciences reported that the treatment appears safe, and two of the recipients show early signs of improved vision.

The study is among the first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration using a novel strategy of reprogramming cells to restore their normal function—essentially rejuvenating them. The scientists used a modified version of a reprogramming strategy that earned a Nobel Prize in 2012 for turning mature, adult cells back to an embryonic-like state from which they could become any of the cells in the body—including healthy new versions of diseased or older cells. In that work, Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka used four genes to trigger the cellular time warp.

In the current Phase 1 trial, which is ongoing, scientists used three of the four factors to perform a modified reprogramming of diseased retinal ganglion cells in the eye in people with a form of glaucoma—not returning the cells all the way back to their embryonic-like state, but to a point before they stopped functioning properly. Retinal ganglion cells have long arms that connect them from the retina in the eye to the optic nerve, which transmits visual signals to the brain. In some people, over time, fluid in the eye fails to drain properly, putting pressure on the retinal ganglion cells, which lose their delicate connections to the optic nerve, causing loss of vision. While the cells don’t necessarily die, they become dramatically less able to do their job of transmitting critical visual signals.

To try to restore their function, in the trial, scientists injected specially designed proteins, or transcription factors, coding for three of the genes into the vitreous: the gel-like fluid cavity at the back of the eye near the retina. It’s an advantageous location to test such a therapy, since it’s protected from the body’s immune defenses which could attack the newly made proteins. The proteins then did their work to reprogram the damaged and aging cells so they became functional again.

The experimental therapy is based on work from the lab of David Sinclair, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Life Biosciences. It's a test of his theory that aging cells lose their ability to work properly because they accumulate too many confusing instructions for which genes they need to turn on or off—so-called epigenetic noise that disrupts the original marching orders cells follow. Sinclair believes that restoring the proper epigenetic information, and removing the epigenetic “noise” by reprogramming the cells to a younger, more functional state could address diseases associated with aging, such as glaucoma.

“We are scientifically reversing epigenetic age to restore youthful function,” Sinclair says.

“We think of it as restoration,” says Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, chief scientific officer at Life Biosciences, who presented the new data at the conference. “We’re restoring the code back to what it was when [the cells] were healthy and functional.”

Full reprogramming with the four Yamanaka factors comes with a risk of cells growing out of control and forming teratomas, a type of tumor that can sprout partially or fully developed tissues like teeth, muscle, and bone. Sinclair’s goal was to exploit this reprogramming process to help cells regain their proper instruction manual, and together with his graduate student Yuancheng Lu, launched studies involving just three of the genes, dropping one that is most associated with cancers. There was no guarantee that using three of the factors would trigger reprogramming, since all of the previous studies employed all four. And for three years, Lu learned why—while working with mice with age-related vision loss like glaucoma, he struggled to reprogram retinal ganglion cells with only three of the factors. Experiment after experiment failed. Frustrated, Lu sought out Sinclair, hoping to move onto another project. “He said reversing aging is probably the hardest biological question in the world, and if it were easy, it would have been done already,” Lu says. But there was at least one element working in Lu’s favor. “Removing the fourth factor allowed the three other factors to be small enough to fit into the viral tool we used to deliver them into [animals],” he says. “If the three genes were a little bigger, then we couldn’t fit them into the viral vector.”

In 2018, Lu finally succeeded and texted Sinclair images of the first mouse with glaucoma that had regenerated the delicate connections between the retinal ganglion cells and the optic nerve that had been lost. When Lu asked Sinclair what he saw, Sinclair replied: “the future.”

Lu and Sinclair published their findings in 2020, and that therapy is very close to the one that Life Biosciences ended up using in its trial in people. Two days before the trial was launched in June, Rosenzweig-Lipson gave Lu the good news that the experiment he had worked on for three years was ready to test in the first people with glaucoma. “I was in the lab, and I couldn’t believe it,” Lu says. “I know these patients are suffering. My own family has the macular degeneration risk allele, and I carry the risk allele. So it means a lot to me. My great aunt died when she crossed the street because she couldn’t see well, so I feel like it’s destiny helping these people.”

While the study’s main goal is to show that the therapy is safe, two of the three participants showed early signs of improved vision as well, Rosenzweig-Lipson says. All three took a test before receiving the therapy to establish their visual field by noting when they could see strategically placed lights that flashed above, below, or to the left or right when they looked straight ahead. Eight weeks after receiving the reprogramming factors, two of the participants had improvements in their visual fields. “In places where they weren’t seeing as well, or weren’t identifying lights, we are now seeing better evidence that they can,” says Rosenzweig-Lipson.

She says the results are encouraging enough to begin testing a higher dose—three times that of the initial one—to determine if the treatment remains safe, and, ultimately, what dose would bring the biggest improvement in vision to patients.

The results could also lay the foundation for including people with another eye disease, NAION, which occurs mostly in people over 50 and is similar to a stroke in the eye. NAION causes sudden vision loss when retinal ganglion cells stop functioning for still unknown reasons. If the reprogramming factors can restore the function of some of these cells, the researchers are hopeful that people could regain some of their vision and avoid the blindness that results if left untreated.

So far, the researchers have not seen any adverse effects from the therapy: only side effects related to the injection, they say, and not the reprogramming itself. To be safe, however, the three factors can only be activated in the presence of the antibiotic doxycycline, which acts as an on-off switch for the treatment. After receiving the injection of the three factors, the participants took doxycycline for eight weeks, which ensured that the factors were active and produced the proteins needed to reprogram the retinal ganglion cells. Once they stopped taking the antibiotic, the proteins were no longer made. If further studies show that additional reprogramming is needed to improve vision, they could begin taking the antibiotic again to reprogram more aging or damaged cells.

These initial results will fuel additional studies on using the same method to rejuvenate other cells. Sinclair’s lab has reported promising findings with brain, knee, back, and liver cells in animals.

If the approach continues to be safe and show benefit, eye diseases could be just the beginning of rejuvenating different cells. “We have a wide array of [animal data] support now to suggest that it’s not just a one-organ phenomenon, but that it’s something that transcends organs and potentially has opportunities across a wide range of age-related diseases,” says Rosenzweig-Lipson.

American healthcare, the priciest healthcare system in the world, is set to get even more expensive

In the coming weeks, the roughly 160 million Americans who get health insurance through work will log into their benefits portals and pick a plan for 2027. Even for people used to rising healthcare costs, what they see may come as a shock. Employer health plan costs are projected to rise 8 to 10% next year, the largest increase in more than 20 years and double the average increase of the 2010s.

This spike is just the second in a series of three successive shocks to healthcare costs and coverage. The first came in January 2026, when the 24.3 million ACA Marketplace enrollees saw their after-subsidy premiums rise by an average of 114%. The second is the sharp increase in premiums and out-of-pocket costs for those who get insurance at work, the third year in a row of elevated increases. The third comes next January, when Medicaid work-reporting requirements take effect, which CBO projects will eventually push nearly 6 million people out of coverage.

History suggests that the American political system makes a bold attempt to reform healthcare about once a generation. President Harry Truman fought for national health insurance in 1945. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law in 1965. President Bill Clinton pushed for reform in 1994. And President Barack Obama passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. With healthcare costs already among voters' top concerns, these shocks may create the next generational window for reform.

In the meantime, here’s how the looming healthcare hike will impact insurance costs, wherever you get your coverage.  

If you buy your own insurance 

The enhanced premium tax credits were first passed in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief bill, then extended in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. They expired on December 31, 2025, after Congress declined to renew them in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).

KFF estimates this decision raised after-subsidy premiums by 114%, or about $1,000 a year. In response, some people left the market and enrollment fell 12%, from 21.8 million to 19.2 million. New Mexico, the one state that replaced the federal subsidies with its own money, was the only state where enrollment grew.  Others traded down to skimpier plans, but still are paying more. The share of enrollees in the least generous bronze plans went from 30% to 40%, and the average deductible rose by more than $1,000 to $3,786.

Even after all that switching and leaving, the average premium paid by people on the Marketplaces hit  $178 a month in 2026, 58% higher than in 2025 and above the $164 people paid in 2021, the last year before the enhanced credits. Those who left were healthier than those who stayed, so insurers have proposed another 15% increase for 2027, stacked on top of this year’s 20%

If you get insurance through work 

About 160 million Americans get health insurance through an employer. Most employers hold open enrollment for two or three weeks starting in October or November, for the plan year beginning Jan. 1.

The best data we have on 2027 costs comes from the large benefits consulting firms. They project total costs will rise 8 to 10% next year, the largest increase since 2003 and double the average increase of the 2010s. These firms point to more use of care, expensive new drugs, GLP-1s, hospital consolidation, and AI-assisted billing. For a typical worker, an increase that size works out to roughly $400 to $500 more next year.

These projections are for total cost, which combines what workers pay in premium contributions and what employers pay. The available data on workers' costs show similar increases. Moreover, economic research shows that workers also indirectly pay the employer share through smaller wage increases.

And these totals understate the full cost increase, since many employers have made plans less generous to hold costs down. One common change is to raise deductibles, which shifts costs onto workers. Another is to cut back on what's covered. The share of large employers covering GLP-1s for obesity, for example, has fallen from 72% to 60%. Remove those changes, and the consulting firms estimate costs would have climbed another one to three percentage points.

If you’re on Medicaid 

The third shock is to the Medicaid program. Starting January 1, 2027, OBBBA requires the 44 states (including Washington, D.C.) that expanded Medicaid to require adults covered by the expansion to document  80 hours a month of work, school, or community service. The CBO estimates that the requirement will push about 5.7 million people off Medicaid by 2034, leaving 5.3 million more people uninsured. 

Most of those people should not lose coverage. The evidence suggests they will meet the criteria and lose coverage anyway because of the paperwork burden. When Arkansas imposed a work requirement in 2018, employment did not change. Instead, more than 18,000 people lost coverage within seven months, even though 95% either met the requirement or qualified for an exemption. 

The work requirement is not the only Medicaid cut. OBBBA also requires eligibility checks every six months instead of once a year, shortens retroactive coverage, and limits the provider taxes states use to fund their share of the program. Counting those provisions, CBO projects 7.5 million more people will be uninsured by 2034

All of this means we are in the middle of the great healthcare cost hike. In January, after-subsidy premiums on the Marketplaces rose 114%. This fall, we expect the 160 million people who get insurance at work will see the largest increase in a generation. Next January, work-reporting requirements will start pushing millions of people off Medicaid. These shocks will strain family budgets. 

They will also create a generational opportunity for reform. The best thing we can do is seize it.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the finale of Carrie, now streaming.

If you ever wished Stephen King's Carrie was actually a story about a telekinetic teenager getting whisked away from the violence and isolation of her sheltered small-town life to join a secret society of fellow psychic outcasts, then the ending of Prime Video's new eight-episode Carrie series may appeal to you. But if you were hoping for an adaptation that more meaningfully captures the tragic finality of King's 1974 novel, showrunner Mike Flanagan's open-ended take on the horror classic may leave you feeling a bit frustrated.

Over the course of the past decade, Flanagan has made a name for himself as one of the genre's leading auteurs with a steady output of Halloween season Netflix horror series, which ranged in quality from the superb Haunting of Hill House (a modern reimagining of Shirley Jackson's acclaimed 1959 novel) and Midnight Mass (an original work in the vein of King's Salem's Lot) to the disappointing Midnight Club (a remix of the the YA horror novels of Christopher Pike). Prior to taking on Carrie, Flanagan also received high praise from King for his film adaptations of Gerald's Game (a book that was long considered unadaptable) and The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep (which bridged the divide between Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film and the author's literary universe).

However, Flanagan apparently had reservations about putting his own spin on a property as well-trodden as Carrie, especially considering how beloved Brian de Palma's 1976 Sissy Spacek-led film remains to this day. "It initially started as a conversation that Amazon initiated, and they said, 'Hey, would you have any interest in Carrie?,'" he told MovieWeb in 2024. "And I had to think about it, because my first instinct is always—why? It's been done perfectly by De Palma. It's then been done three other times after the fact. Why do it again?"

But he ultimately came to the conclusion there was an opportunity to reframe the story through a modern lens in a way that would bring new relevance to King's themes. "Carrie is a story about high school violence and bullying, and that feels immediate and important today. Unfortunately, even more kind of sharply relevant than I think it was when he wrote it," Flanagan said. "So there felt like a chance for some true modernization beyond just changing the time period, and to use it to talk about the issues that affect high school kids in America today. You know, Carrie White walking through a metal detector is interesting to me. Carrie White with social media. The iconic scene in the locker room is very different when people have phones in their hands. So that was the first germ of an idea, like, there is room for this to actually have a lot to say that's very relevant."

To that extent, the series achieves what it set out to do. Following an open sequence in which we learn Carrie's conspiracy-theorist father Ralph White (Tahmoh Penikett) was killed in a bizarre accident while at work on a construction site, Carrie (Summer H. Howell) is introduced as a naive yet overly good-natured bookworm who has lived out the first 16 years of her life sequestered at home under the care and tutelage of her overbearing religious mother Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). Carrie is ignorant to the realities of teenage life, including the workings of social media, the threat of school shootings, and, as a young woman coming of age, the concept of getting a period. Once she begins her court-ordered attendance at local public high school Ewen High, Carrie gets acquainted with resident popular girls Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) and Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton). Chris soon launches a targeted cyberbullying campaign against Carrie to take out her frustration and rage over her own family woes and fracturing home life.

From there, the show hits the signature beats of King's story, including the infamous locker room incident, prayer closet punishments, and, of course, the pig's blood prom prank and ensuing fiery massacre, while also reinterpreting and expanding on the motivations of a number of characters. However, the addition of a totally new storyline in which Carrie is being recruited by a shadowy collective of psychically powered women led by the mysterious Adelaide (Flanagan’s wife and frequent collaborator Kate Siegel) ultimately leaves the show feeling somewhat bloated and unsatisfying.

After Carrie is finally pushed to her breaking point by her prom humiliation, she uses her telekinetic powers to yank down the scaffolding where Chris and her partner-in-crime Billy Nolan (Arthur Conti) were hiding with their buckets of blood, accidentally bludgeoning and killing her date, Tommy (Joel Oulette), in the process. Horrified by what she's done, Carrie then allows astral projector Emaline (Thalia Dudek) to take over from inside her mind and use her abilities to wreak havoc and destruction on Ewen High and the surrounding town of Chamberlain. In King's book, Carrie executes her vengeance all on her own, never encountering another psychic.

When Carrie returns home after killing Billy and Chris (the only two murders she is fully in control of her powers for), Margaret attempts to put a stop to her daughter's reign of terror by stabbing her through the ear. But Carrie psychically rebuffs the attack and brings their home crashing down around them, trapping Margaret in the rubble. In the book, Carrie kills her mother by telekinetically stopping her heart, but later bleeds out and dies from her stab wound, bringing the tragedy of King's indictment of societal cruelty and institutional failure full circle. In the show, both Margaret and Carrie survive, with the former demonstrating she possesses some latent powers of her own by calling on them to keep the house from crushing her and the latter being spirited out of town by Emaline to join the network of other psychics. Adelaide, who has been posing as a documentary filmmaker interviewing the survivors of that fateful night, ends up being the one to kill Margaret using the same method Carrie does in the book.

This ending leaves Carrie's future entirely up in the air, opening the door for Flanagan to take her story in a variety of new directions. And considering he made sure to have Adelaide mention the existence of "the shine," a reference to the psychic ability young Danny Torrance possesses in The Shining that allows him to see ghosts, communicate telepathically, and demonstrate clairvoyance, it seems as though the show might be setting up some future King universe crossovers. While Prime has yet to officially renew Carrie, Flanagan has said his "dream scenario" is for the story to play out over three seasons. "I think Carrie has a wonderful three-step arc," he told Collider. "It’s a trilogy, really."

President Donald Trump on Wednesday revisited his argument that he deserves to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he has done “far more” than any other U.S. President.

“I don't know what their decision is going to be. They have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like me,” Trump said, insisting that it would be a “great discredit” to the Norwegian Nobel Committee if they do not announce him as the recipient Friday morning. 

“I've stopped maybe the total obliteration of the world, because Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and that's a positive thing,” he claimed, listing the reasons why he believes he is deserving of the prestigious prize. 

Trump said he was “very honored ​to receive it indirectly last time by the recipient, who said nobody in history deserves it more” than him. The 2025 winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, notably gave her medal to Trump in January as she pressed the U.S. to support democracy in Venezuela, days after the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

Following the regifting of the medal, the Norwegian Nobel Committee emphasized that “the prize itself—the honor and recognition—remains inseparably linked to the person or organization designated as the laureate by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.”

Trump has long said he is deserving of the prize. The leaders of Israel, Cambodia, and Pakistan have all previously said they nominated Trump. However, all nominations remain private and the Norwegian Nobel Institute doesn’t release a shortlist of contenders. Still, each year, names are circulated in public discourse and bets are made as to who might come out on top.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute has registered a total of 287 candidates for this year’s prize, of which 208 are individuals and 79 are organizations. 

As Trump’s war with Iran stretches into its eighth month, polls have tipped him as an unlikely contender to walk away with this year’s award. Amid mounting speculation over who may be the chosen recipient, here’s a look at some of the contenders.

Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms

The start of Sudan’s current civil war in April 2023 escalated an already desperate humanitarian crisis. Fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in late 2025 pushed civilians further toward risk of famine, with even more people displaced and killed. 

Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms have provided desperately needed relief. The collapse of the state and increasingly difficult access for humanitarian groups over the past three years has led to a rise of 700 ERRs across all of Sudan’s 18 states, mobilizing over 26,000 volunteers, according to Alsanosi Adam, a journalist and ERR volunteer himself. 

The community-led initiative provides healthcare, food assistance, education, civilian protection, and psychosocial support. According to Right Livelihood, volunteers have been detained and tortured while offering assistance. 

The charity is a lead contender to win the Nobel Peace Prize, with Polymarket citing a 17% chance.

Mark Carney

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Office last April amid an emerging trade rift with Trump and threats from Washington to annex Canada and make it the 51st state.

The tariff threats escalated and, following the collapse of negotiations in August, the U.S. and Canada are now engaged in a trade war. 

Carney has opened up new trading and diplomatic relations with China and Europe in an effort to move away from U.S. reliance. He delivered a defiant speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, denouncing “American hegemony” and insisting there has been a “rupture in the world order.” 

Carney’s efforts to unite Canada in the face of Trump’s threats have seemingly helped his popularity at home, with his approval rating back up to 66%, according to new data from Liaison Strategies.

When it comes to the Nobel Peace Prize, he’s more an outsider, with a 1% chance of receiving the honor.

Pope Leo 

Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, has made strident global outreach efforts since his ascension to the head of the Catholic Church in April 2025. 

His repeated calls for peace, including his spotlight on Gaza, have made an impact, and even earned him criticism from Trump.

“Today, sadly, war has returned, even to Europe: a new senseless slaughter, claiming countless civilian lives every day,” Leo told European leaders in September, referencing the Russia-Ukraine war. “We must ask whether we are truly making creative efforts to advance world peace, or whether we are simply seeking to stem the tide of war and better prepare ourselves for wars that we assume are still to come.” 

In the aftermath of the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, Leo said “stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue.” 

Trump responded by falsely claiming that Leo would “be fine with Iran having a nuclear weapon”—Leo rejected the claim and urged critics to speak “truthfully.” 

Pope Leo stands with a 1% chance of being awarded the prize.

Mykola Kuleba

Mykola Kuleba co-founded Save Ukraine in 2014 during the early days of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The organization’s work has become increasingly important since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022. 

Missing Ukrainian children have become a focal point of humanitarian efforts amid the war, with Moscow contending that it relocated children in an effort to protect them. Save Ukraine has so far helped reunite 1,763 children with their parents, but the organization has said thousands more need to be brought home. 

“[Kuleba’s] work combines direct humanitarian action with strong advocacy for children’s rights, making him a compelling candidate for international recognition,” said Haakon Gjerløw, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), as he detailed his list of suggested candidates for the 2026 prize.

Kuleba is currently listed as having a 9% chance.

Yulia Navalnaya

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has become an activist in her own right, challenging President Vladimir Putin’s regime and fighting for democracy.

Alexei died in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024. A few weeks later, Yulia vowed to take up his cause in an interview with TIME, where she expressed hope that Russia might one day be a “normal, democratic country”—the future Alexei “dreamed about.” 

Navalnaya is listed as having a 5% chance of winning the Nobel Peace Prize.