A somber President Donald Trump paid tribute on Tuesday to his rival-turned-honest broker Lindsey Graham, a longtime fixture of Washington whose three decades in political office steadied the United States’ hawkish posture and reflected the increasingly combative nature of the modern conservative movement.

“Our nation needs more men and women like that great person sitting, laying wherever he may be,” Trump said during a funeral service for Graham at the Washington National Cathedral packed with domestic dignitaries, foreign leaders, and military leaders who jostled with the late Senator over his long career in politics. Among their number were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who both stepped away from their countries’ respective wars to attend the ceremony in honor of one of their best advocates in Washington.

“He died doing the work he was born to do. He was truly a great politician,” Trump said in a 14-minute eulogy.

Graham, who died unexpectedly on July 11 at age 71, was equally irascible and incorrigible. Always ready with a quick rejoinder for foes and a kind word for colleagues, he at times could be the walking manifestation of the contradictions of Washington. His transition from Washington maverick to the Senate’s unofficial envoy to the Trump White House was at once stunning and complete. But whenever American resolve threatened to wobble—be it on supporting Israel or combating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—Graham was ready to preach U.S. might. An unwilling audience often got a fiery correction.

Trump began one section of his remarks by saying that “virtually everyone, Republican or Democrat, liked Lindsey.” He then stopped, correcting himself. “Not everybody. But it sounds good,” Trump said. “Not everybody. He was a tough cookie.”

As Fox News host Sean Hannity reflected on that tension during his own tribute at the cathedral: “Lindsey and I did not always agree. Not on everything. But we could disagree and we could remain friends, and we remained friends for decades.”

And as Graham’s South Carolina pastor, the Rev. Tim Tate, said of the late Senator’s temperament in his eulogy: “You may not have liked him and he may not have liked you, but he would work with you for the common good of this country.”

Three of the best-known players in the conservative movement—Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Rev. Franklin Graham—also spoke at the service, a reflection of the deep respect Graham garnered from across the modern GOP.

“Sen. Graham was very Washington, if you know what I mean,” Tate said. “But he was also very small-town.”

Graham was elected to the U.S. House during the 1994 Republican Revolution that elevated Newt Gingrich to the Speaker role, as the country’s politics were growing increasingly toxic. Graham quickly emerged as an unmovable conservative advocate for American military strength. He moved to the Senate after the 2002 elections, at the height of the post-9/11 trauma and shortly before the United States expanded its war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq.

“He never saw a war that he didn’t like… He felt in his bones that our destiny is to win and that his job was to do everything he could to ensure that our enemies would lose,” Trump said.

That hawkishness would at times leave Graham a bit adrift from the movement Trump was forming. In fact, in the early days of Trumpism’s rise the South Carolina Senator attempted to block it from taking hold of a party that, just eight years earlier, had once been helmed by Graham’s best friend and fellow Senate troublemaker John McCain. 

“Running against each other, back in 2016, Lindsey said something rather nasty,” Trump recalled of that time. “So naturally I did something that I shouldn’t have done. I shared his personal cell phone number with the millions of people that happened to be watching that particular day.”

In Trump’s recollection, “that was the beginning of a friendship in a way.”

From then on, he said, “Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years.”

Graham’s defenders say his evolution could be explained by his sincere hope that he could curb some of Trump’s isolationist impulses and fill in some blind spots with U.S. foes like Russia. Part of it was also likely just his actual friendship with Trump, another outspoken antagonist with an irreverent sense of humor. And part of it appeared to be aimed at keeping the traditional conservative agenda moving forward, such as Supreme Court nominations that have now given the court its 6-3 tilt. 

“Justice Kavanaugh, in an unfortunate way, you brought out the very best in Lindsey for the entire country to see. Now, he saw what was happening to you and your family as a grave injustice and the world got to witness my friend, the person that I knew, in action. And they got to see him at his absolute best,” Hannity said, speaking to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose Supreme Court nomination was arguably salvaged by Graham amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

Even as he became a close ally to the President in Congress, Graham’s temper at times could turn on Trump. As Graham said in the hours after a mob descended on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: “Count me out. Enough is enough.”

Trump, for his part, seemed to understand the scope of Graham’s influence, both at home and abroad, and his personality tics. 

“For more than 30 years, nothing of consequence happened in this capital without Lindsey Graham knowing about it,” Trump said. “Nothing of significance happened anywhere in the world without Lindsey Graham having a view on it. And no bill became law in the most exceptional republic in human history without Lindsey having a say in it.”

It was a power Trump came to respect, not least of all because it helped the President move his agenda through the Senate with Graham as his de facto guide.

At the end of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man is a young man adrift. His best friend, Jacob Batalan’s Ned, and his girlfriend, Zendaya’s MJ, have been right by his side through most of the movie; at the end, a mystical spell erases their memory of him, ostensibly forever. His Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) has died as the result of a fireball assault by Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), who, in his human guise, is a man she’d tried to help. Peter is too sunny to let his isolation harden into bitterness, and he’s still dedicated to fighting crime in his hometown of New York City, but he’s miserable, and this is where Spider-Man: Brand New Day begins. “Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing even if it breaks Peter Parker’s heart,” he explains in the movie’s opening scene, a statement potent enough for three semesters’ worth term papers on the nature of duality.

There are plenty more term-paper themes where that one came from. No man is an island, not even a Spider-Man: You could milk 2,000 words from that one. With great power comes great responsibility: If you can’t squeeze five pages out of that, you’re just not trying. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (drawn, of course, from characters created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko), is so filled with truisms, plot machinations, and ricocheting feelings that it’s sometimes hard to focus on the core story, and even on our poor protagonist’s anguish. There’s a perfectly enjoyable summer entertainment locked inside this Spider-Man, if only the excessively busy mechanics didn’t get in the way.

But then, those mechanics—along with loads of elaborately fake-looking special effects, which now, rather than being dazzling, are just business as usual—are the hallmarks of all Marvel movies. It seems you can’t build one without them. You also can’t really explain the plot of Brand New Day without giving away the arrival of a surprise character, but here, roughly, is how it goes: Sad Peter Parker goes through the motions of being Spider-Man for four long years, as MJ and Ned study hard at MIT, the college the three of them were supposed to attend together. After graduation, MJ and Ned return to New York; Peter spies on them wistfully, and when he finally does get up the guts to talk to them, his face draws blank stares. He regularly leaves fresh flowers at Aunt May’s grave. The rest of his days are spent foiling workaday crimes, until some weird events shake the city: an unseen force capable of taking control of people’s bodies and brains has begun to wreak mayhem. Meanwhile, Spider-Man’s web-shooting capabilities have gone awry. His know-it-all AI assistant E.V.I.E. informs him that this is due to a massive increase in “arachnid hormones,” which is also causing him to be more aggressive. In other words, he’s angry and stressed out, and he has no idea how to handle his rage.

Here and there, Bruce Banner/the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Frank Castle/Punisher (Jon Bernthal), and Mac Gargan/Scorpion (Michael Mando) show up to cause mayhem. The heavy-duty CGI battles that ensue feel perfunctory and underwhelming. At least Florence Pugh’s Yelena/Black Widow briefly shows up, holding court in the waters of a Russian bath, and that’s hardly a bad thing.

Meanwhile, both Peter Parker and Spider-Man are sad, angry, frustrated, and guilt-ridden: These aren’t just teenage emotions, but adult ones, and it’s clear that Brand New Day is hoping to push Marvel product into more emotionally sophisticated territory. That’s not a bad impulse: It seems that even Marvel’s key audience of the early 2000s has outgrown the old formula of massive special-effects scenes interlaced with numbing proclamations about evil forces threatening to destroy the world. But while Cretton—also the director of 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings—is clearly on the right track, the film’s pace never gives us time to let any single emotion or event settle. Loss, mourning, yearning, rage, befuddlement: in Brand New Day, feelings may be taken seriously, but they’re also treated as problems to be cycled through.

But if nothing else, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is proof that you can at least try to build a better Marvel movie—even with its flaws, this one is superior to most. That’s partly thanks to Holland, a smart, sensitive actor who, inside a stretchy suit or not, takes his character’s emotional travails just seriously enough. It doesn’t hurt that as MJ, Zendaya is allowed to do more than scowl disapprovingly. In both The Odyssey and the Dune movies, her spark has been sacrificed to the gods of serious acting, and not for the better. She’s best when there are beats of uncertainty in her dialogue. She shouldn’t be playing roles demanding grandeur and nobility; they only crush her spirit. Brand New Day, at the very least, shows some awareness that actors, and not excessive, soul-killing special effects, are what will keep drawing us to the movies. Everything else is just a distraction from faces, and maybe one that we can’t afford.

Funeral services for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham started on Tuesday in the nation’s capital, with several notable political and media figures in town to attend the ceremonies.

The Tuesday services are all taking place in Washington, D.C.; further ceremonies will take place in the South Carolina lawmaker’s home state on Wednesday.

Read More: What to Know About Lindsey Graham’s Funeral Services

Politicians gathered in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday morning to honor Graham in a ceremony that was closed to the public but livestreamed. Vice President J.D. Vance gave a eulogy for the South Carolina lawmaker, recounting their time together in the Senate.

“I remember Lindsey Graham as a man who loved people, and because he loved people, he was willing to reason with them, to respect them, and ultimately to persuade them,” Vance said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune also spoke about his friendship with Graham, calling him “entertaining always and pretentious never.”

“It didn’t matter to Lindsey whether an issue was popular or unpopular, whether he had the full support of his colleagues or was standing alone,” Thune said. “He told things the way he saw them and he didn’t mince words.”

Graham’s remains were then carried over to the Washington National Cathedral for a funeral service Tuesday afternoon. The service is by invitation only, but, like the Capitol Rotunda ceremony, is being livestreamed to the public.

Many prominent figures are in attendance. President Donald Trump gave a speech during the service in remembrance of Graham, who went from a vocal critic of Trump and one of his opponents in the 2016 Republican presidential primary to one of the President’s closest allies in Congress.

In his remarks, Trump called Graham "the first person to make you laugh and one of the last people you wanted to fight."

"From that pool hall where his parents raised him to the halls of the United States Senate where he was respected and loved, this son of South Carolina became one of the most important men in the most important country on earth," the President said. "In a country where politicians often become jaded and cynical, Lindsey Graham never lost the old-fashioned American idealism that brought him to the highest levels of government and life."

Other world leaders—including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky—also attended the service.

“On behalf of all of Ukraine, we will honor the memory of Senator Lindsey Graham,” Zelensky said in a social media post announcing that he had landed in the U.S. on Tuesday. “Together with everyone attending the ceremony in Washington, we will remember his commitment to security and freedom across the transatlantic community and around the world.”

Graham, who died earlier this month of an aortic dissection, spent some of his final days in Ukraine on his 10th visit to the country since it was invaded by Russia in 2022. Prior to his death, the South Carolina Senator was a staunch supporter of Ukraine and pushed for strong sanctions against Moscow.

He was also a vocal advocate for Israel and defender of U.S. support for the country amid its war in Gaza. Netanyahu praised Graham following the lawmaker’s death as “a great friend of Israel” and “a cherished friend of mine.”

Fox News’ Sean Hannity also spoke during the Tuesday service at Washington National Cathedral, and several other notable names gave readings, including evangelical minister Rev. Franklin Graham and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

A number of members of Trump's Cabinet also gathered at the National Cathedral for the ceremony. Among them are Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin—both of whom previously served in the Senate with Graham—as well as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and other top Administration officials.

Graham represented South Carolina in the upper chamber for more than 20 years. The 71-year-old lawmaker had been seeking a fifth term before his death. 

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to complete the rest of his term, which ends in January. Last week, she announced that she plans to run for a full term in the seat, joining a crowded field of candidates vying for the Republican nomination that also includes former South Carolina congressman and governor Mark Sanford and current Rep. Russell Fry.

Firefighters in France and Spain are racing to contain wildfires inching closer to Bordeaux and Madrid. 

More than 250,000 people across the two countries have been forced to evacuate, and the European Commission has said that Europe’s firefighting capacity is struggling to keep pace with what is proving to be an intense wildfire year. 

It’s shaping up to be a record-breaking year for fires in Europe, where the amount of land burned is already creeping up to the 2025 record. For many, it's a warning that Europe is unprepared for its new climate reality—in which fire season brings larger, more intense blazes. 

Read more: Photos Show the Destruction in France and Spain From Ferocious European Wildfires

Is this the worst wildfire year Europe has ever experienced? 

This is already the worst year on record for France, with 116,085 hectares (286,852 acres) burned, and 13,566 fires recorded since January, surpassing the 2022 record of 72,000 hectares (177,915 acres) burned, according to the country’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

While some fires are burning in Mediterranean regions prone to wildfires, others, like the one near Bordeaux, have been fueled by exceptional drought conditions. “The fires near Bordeaux are quite unusual because they are affecting an Atlantic region, and this is linked to the fact that we had this long drought,” says Stefan Doerr, the director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at Swansea University. 

In Spain, more than 150,000 hectares (370,658 acres) have burned since January, according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez—six times the area destroyed during the same period last year.

Why is western Europe seeing so many wildfires now?

Many parts of Europe are no stranger to wildfires. “There's always been fires in the Mediterranean, going back thousands of years,” says Thomas Elmqvist, professor at the Stockholm Resilience Center, at Stockholm University. “The difference now is that we have fires, but they are much, much larger and much, much more intense.”

A changing landscape has put regions that didn’t typically see wildfires at risk. “Across southern Europe, you have, over the last [few] decades, seen more and more abandonment of rural land…and [it’s led to] the encroachment of shrubs and bushes—a different type of landscape which is much more vulnerable to having these mega fires,” says Elmqvist. 

Read more: The U.S. Is Now At Its Worst Level of Wildfire Preparedness. What Does That Mean?

Most of Europe is also currently experiencing a critical drought, which worsened in central-western Europe in late June. Much of the continent has seen above-average temperatures and multiple, prolonged heat waves this year. That has helped supercharge wildfires. “You get incredibly dry biomass, and it doesn't need much to start a fire,” says Elmqvist. 

In the last four years, the amount of land burned by wildfires across Europe increased by 57%, according to data from the World Health Organization.

Global warming is also making wildfire seasons last longer, causing more intense fires. 

“In all probability, this is likely due to climate change,” says Doerr. “As soon as you have prolonged heat waves, which of course then means a drought as well, that means the risk for fire is increasing quite dramatically. So there is a direct link between climate change and the probability of a fire season becoming extreme.”

It’s not just Europe that’s contending with this new reality. “We know now that in nearly all parts of the world, apart from some small exceptions, the fire season has become longer, and the fire severity has increased,” says Doerr. “This has actually increased more than climate models have predicted, so this is a very, very clear indicator of how climate change is actually changing fire around the world.”

The U.S. delegation briefly walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting during France's address in protest on Monday after the European ally criticized America’s human rights record.

Dan Negrea, an alternate U.S. representative to the U.N., accused France of feigning “moral outrage” while pretending to lecture the world about the Ukraine conflict and human rights in general.

“That is why we walked out during France's intervention,” he said during a meeting on Russia's war in Ukraine. “This disingenuous grandstanding is tiresome, but we have tolerated it out of a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect as P5 members.” Negrea was referring to the five permanent members of the Security Council.

“We have stood by this member state through every conflict in which their freedoms have been imperiled, and today I remind them that it is the United States that remains the beacon of liberty for the world,” Negrea continued. "We will not be affording them the benefit of listening to their politicized drivel until they renounce their condescending and disrespectful rhetoric and behave in a manner commensurate with their seat on this council.”

The diplomatic dispute stems from France's U.N. Mission in Geneva criticizing the United States for opposing a second term for Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights who has held the role since 2022.

Türk secured overwhelming backing from member states on Friday, receiving 144 votes in favor of him staying on, with just 10 countries—including the United States—voting against, and 13 abstaining.

“The U.S. used to be a beacon of human rights. Not anymore. Today, it stands alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali, and Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to it,” the French Mission said on Saturday via social media, alongside the hashtag "America Alone."

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz called the criticism "disappointing, though not surprising."

“France voted for someone who has been lecturing free, sovereign democracies like the United States, the U.K., and Israel, while cozying up to the world’s worst oppressors,” he claimed.

A frequent critic of Israel’s military operations, Türk on Monday expressed concern about ongoing displacement caused by Israeli strikes against Lebanon. Türk also urged a “massive rethink” of U.S. immigration policies ahead of the World Cup in June.

U.S. Representative for U.N. Management and Reform Jeff Bartos also criticized Türk's renewed appointment, insisting “there will be consequences" in the future. “The United States will reassess our engagement, participation, and funding,” regarding the organization, he warned.

Towards the close of the tense council meeting on Monday, French U.N. Ambassador Jérôme Bonnafont noted that France had taken part in the July 4 celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary and reaffirmed a commitment to working together for a greater cause.

“The United Nations was created with the goal of working towards international peace and security, human rights, and development,” he said. “All of that forms the spirit in which France works within the United Nations (...) to preserve this institution, its independence, its ability to act in service of the charter and act to serve human rights and peace.”

The brief U.S. walkout reflects not only the strained relations between U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, but also the widening rift between the U.S. and several of its European allies.

Those broader tensions have centered on NATO defense spending, the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Europe, and Trump's calls for the United States to take control of Greenland.

Trump has also repeatedly criticized European allies for failing to get actively involved in the Iran war, even going so far as threatening to cut all trade with Spain during a contentious moment at the NATO summit in Turkey earlier this month. 

The AI industry mounted a full-court press in favor of open-source AI this week, as the fallout intensified from the OpenAI hacking incident.

Dozens of AI companies, led by Nvidia, said on Monday they had formed a coalition called the Open Secure AI Alliance, to develop open-source AI tools for defensive cybersecurity. Days earlier, on Friday, many of those same companies signed an open letter urging the U.S. government not to ban open-weights AI models.

Alongside Nvidia, many of the biggest companies signed their names, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta. OpenAI and Google signed after the letter’s initial publication. (A notable absence was Anthropic.)

The background to all of this maneuvering was the unprecedented news from last week: that OpenAI models, undergoing internal testing, broke out of an offline “sandbox” inside OpenAI, accessed the internet, and used a never-before-seen cyber exploit to break into the AI repository Hugging Face—all without OpenAI employees’ direction, oversight, or, for several days, even awareness.

Read More: How OpenAI Lost Control of an AI Model—and What Needs to Change

It was the kind of “warning shot” that AI safety advocates have long worried about: a rogue AI escaping its testing environment and causing real-world damage. Many saw it as a harbinger of worse hacks to come—especially when open-source AI models, which are widely seen as three to six months behind the frontier “closed” OpenAI models that carried out the attack, catch up to today’s level of capabilities. Open-source models are seen as especially worrisome by AI safety advocates because their guardrails can sometimes be stripped away. And because after they are released for free download on the internet, it is almost impossible to trace or destroy every copy of models that are found to be dangerous.

The industry’s movements this week are best understood as an effort to ensure that the U.S. government does not—mistakenly, these companies believe—crack down on open-source AI in an effort to prevent global cybersecurity chaos.

And it reveals the biggest disagreement animating the AI industry right now: about whether open-source AI is a terrible threat, or the only means of salvation.

Hugging Face, a longtime advocate for open-source AI, said it was only able to detect the intrusion by using a Chinese open-weights model, after a closed model refused to help with the effort. Top closed-source frontier models, made by OpenAI and Anthropic, generally refuse to help with cybersecurity-related queries, in part due to White House anxiety that doing so would hand U.S. adversaries powerful attacking capabilities. Axios reported on July 20 that the Trump administration was even considering banning top Chinese AI models.

“That [Hugging Face] incident showed a practical truth,” Nvidia wrote in its announcement of the industry alliance on Monday. “When defenders cannot inspect, adapt and run advanced AI on their own infrastructure, their ability to respond is constrained at exactly the moment speed matters most.”

Anthropic—both a maker of closed models and a loud voice on AI safety—was absent from the industry coalition that formed on Monday, but put out its own statement. In it, CEO Dario Amodei said he had never advocated for open-weights AI to be banned, and that he would not support such a measure. But he said he was terrified that powerful AI models might soon be used for cyber and biological attacks where attackers benefit from a structural advantage against defenders—and called for all models above a certain capability level, open or closed, to undergo government testing before release.

“Whether open models do or don’t pose an increased risk, and whether that risk can be mitigated, is something that should emerge from testing, rather than be decided in advance,” he wrote.

It’s 2 a.m., and you’ve been awake for an hour—staring at the same patch of ceiling, counting the same sheep, and doing increasingly alarming math about how wrecked you’re going to feel tomorrow. Your instinct is to stay right where you are and try harder. Surely sleep will come eventually. And even if it doesn’t, at least you’re resting—right?

Not exactly. The better move, sleep specialists say, is the one that feels most counterintuitive: Get up, leave the room, and do something else. The technique is called stimulus control, and it isn't new—psychologist Richard Bootzin introduced it in 1972, and it remains a cornerstone of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.

Here’s how to do it when you can’t get to sleep, and why it works. 

Why lying in bed when you can't sleep makes it worse

The problem begins when you treat sleep like a task you need to accomplish. "Effort is the enemy of sleep," says Shelby Harris, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist in New York. The harder you work at it, the more frustrated and alert you become. People who sleep well, Harris points out, aren’t using some secret trick. “They don't really do anything,” Harris says. “They just fall asleep.”

Sleep, in other words, isn’t something you can will into happening, says Michael Perlis, director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. It’s a physiological state, not a behavior you can perform on command.

Watching for sleep to arrive doesn’t work, either. People often report that they were close to drifting off, Perlis says, but if you’re conscious of being close, you’re still awake. After all, how can you consciously monitor yourself becoming unconscious? 

There’s one more argument for staying put: Even if you aren’t sleeping, you figure, at least you’re resting. Perlis rejects that one, too. "If rest was any good,” he says, “we wouldn't sleep.”

How long should you stay in bed before getting up?

People are often told to get out of bed after about 20 minutes awake. But many clinicians have moved away from enforcing that rigid cutoff, partly because there’s an obvious problem with it, Harris says: You can't time 20 minutes without looking at a clock—and clock-watching in the middle of the night is a reliable way to become even more stressed about not sleeping. 

Instead of watching the clock, notice your mood. The signal is frustration: Your mind is racing, you’re getting annoyed, or you catch yourself actively trying to force sleep to happen. "That's the sign that's usually around 20-ish minutes," Harris says. "Get out of bed, go do something else just to pass the time, and only go back to bed when you think you might be sleepy again."

That doesn’t mean you need to leap out of bed the moment you open your eyes. If you're awake but calm—not spiraling, not straining—you can stay put for a little while. Give yourself a few minutes to see what happens. The time to get up is when your mind starts racing or you notice yourself trying to force sleep.

Why getting out of bed helps you fall asleep faster

Perlis sums up his advice in a simple slogan: “Give up. Get up. Get out.” Giving up means abandoning the effort to fall asleep. Getting up and leaving the room make that decision real: Sitting up, standing, and walking send powerful signals to the body to be awake.

That might sound backward. If your goal is sleep, why would you make yourself more awake? But that’s exactly the point. When you stay in bed trying, Perlis says, you can end up “surfing,” or flickering between wakefulness and sleep without ever feeling as though you slept at all. “You get nothing from surfing,” he says.

Becoming fully awake interrupts that pattern and allows sleep pressure—the biological drive that makes you sleepy—to build. Perlis compares it to putting money in the bank for tomorrow night: Even if getting up doesn’t rescue this particular night, it can improve your odds of sleeping better the next one.

Leaving the bedroom also helps preserve the connection between your bed and sleep. The more time you spend there tossing, turning, worrying, and watching the clock, the more your brain begins to associate bed with wakefulness and frustration. Getting up breaks that association—and, as Perlis puts it, helps “give sleep a chance” a little later on.

What to do in the middle of the night when you can't sleep

Whatever you choose to do once you’re out of bed, your goal shouldn’t be to do something tiring, Harris says. The activity is simply something to do until sleepiness returns—while keeping you from lying in bed and teaching your brain to associate your mattress with frustration. So pick something you actually enjoy.

“I collect cookbooks—old cookbooks—and I look through my old cookbook collection,” Harris says. “I go to my kitchen and then I earmark old family recipes. I love beautiful photos in cookbooks, and I’ll just look at things that I might want to make at some point.” The screen-free ritual passes the time without turning sleep into another task. “I’m not sitting there saying, ‘I gotta get sleepy,’” she says.

Throughout her 20-plus years of practice, Harris has also seen patients take up art projects and knit what she affectionately calls “insomnia scarves.”

The key is that you shouldn’t make your middle-of-the-night activity feel like punishment. Harris recalls a colleague who used to tell patients to go sit in their "insomnia chair"—and now those patients "dread that chair because they associate it with wakefulness." It’s better to do something you'd genuinely choose, and to see it as a pleasant way to pass the time, not proof that the entire night has gone off the rails.

A few ground rules can help the technique work better:

Don't give insomnia a job

If you turn 3 a.m. into bonus productivity time, your brain might decide it’s worth continuing to wake you up around that time. “Don’t do your work. Don’t do taxes. Don’t do bills,” Harris says. “The more you wake up and do work, the more you’re teaching your body to have those awakenings.”

Skip screens when you can

Phones and laptops can pull you into texts, work emails, and other messages—and make it difficult to put the device back down. Some research also suggests that blue-enriched screen light may interfere with sleep. If a screen is your only realistic alternative to lying in bed with a racing mind, watch an episode of something you enjoy. Just treat it as a backup plan rather than your first choice.

Switch on a lamp 

You don’t need to keep the room dark in an effort to coax yourself back to sleep, Harris says. Turn on a lamp and use enough light to comfortably do whatever activity you’ve chosen.

Don't fall asleep on the couch

Do it often enough, and you'll train yourself to sleep there and dread your own bed. When sleepiness hits, get up and walk back to your bedroom. 

Plan for your excuses now

Don’t wait until the middle of the night to figure out where you’ll go or what you’ll do. “You have to think about all the excuses you’re going to come up with at night,” Harris says. “Think about it during the day, and problem-solve for those.”

If the rest of your home is cold, for instance, “keep a robe and slippers right next to your bed,” she says, and consider leaving an electric blanket in the room where you plan to go. Choose your activity in advance, too, and have your book, magazine, cookbook, or art supplies ready.

You can also adapt the technique to your circumstances. If you live in a studio or don’t want to disturb your partner, sit up in bed or move to a nearby chair. Harris also recommends remaining seated in bed if you take medication that makes you groggy or you have an increased risk of falling.

Once you feel sleepy again—and perhaps notice yourself yawning—return to bed. “See what happens,” Harris says. If your mind starts racing or you become frustrated again, “get back out, rinse, and repeat.” You might need to do that multiple times in one night.

If you’ve been practicing stimulus control for two or three weeks, while maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake time, and your sleep hasn’t improved, Harris recommends seeing a sleep specialist. They can screen for conditions like sleep apnea and determine whether you might benefit from a fuller course of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. 

And the next time you’re lying awake at 2 a.m., furious that sleep hasn’t arrived, remember: The wakefulness isn’t necessarily the biggest problem. Your reaction to it might be. "Change the narrative," Harris says. "Trying to force it is only going to make it worse."

India’s burgeoning youth-led protest movement won a key victory over the weekend with the resignation of the country’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Cockroach Movement, which took its name from a derogatory remark made by India’s Chief Justice comparing young unemployed people to "cockroaches” and “parasites,” has quickly established itself as a formidable political force. You can read our primer on it here. 

To discuss the movement and its future, TIME spoke with Mukul Kesavan, a historian, novelist, and one of India’s best-known writers. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q: What is your view of the Cockroach Movement, and what do you think is unique about it?

MK: I’ve spent my life in Delhi. I’ve been to hundreds of demos because Jantar Mantar is the place where you go off and shout your slogans from the time I was an undergraduate, and I have to say, I’d never seen anything like this—not necessarily in terms of its size, though it was very large—but because it was so young. 

Normally, demos in Jantar Mantar are fairly organized. Invariably, you will have unions, college or university associations, or left-wing groups organizing people into chanting and slogans. But if it’s possible to imagine 30,000 or 40,000 people in a state of perfect political innocence... I don’t mean to sound condescending, but it just seemed that these people had turned up because they felt there was a kind of existential crisis in their young lives. Because the one last thing that India has to even suggest that hard work might get you a reasonable job is, in fact, its examination system.

Q: How much of a threat do these protests pose to Narendra Modi? 

MK: This movement is interesting. It’s a movement of the urban salariat. You know, these are very middle-class people. They are largely Hindus, very young, and so they pose a peculiar kind of challenge… What do you do with a group of young people who theoretically are the very basis of your political constituency? You know, middle class, broadly middle upper caste, salaried urban Hindus. And so I think that is one of the reasons you see this weird fluctuation between brutality and detentions on the one hand, and, on the other, these clumsy, appeasing noises the government makes. 

I think it’s evident, in some ways, that this is bigger than just the education thing. Take, for example, the inspired insolence of the attacks on Modi. So, for example, there’s one slogan that translates as: “The real truth is bitter. Modi is a pimp.” To see a 17-year-old saying this in a culture like India, where the very young are sort of deferential, is remarkable. 

The Modi juggernaut is generally seen as sinister but efficient at what it does, and the entire tenor of the taunting, the calling out, is that you’re an old, dysfunctional guy, that’s unusual because it seems to open the possibilities of this movement. Not because there’s a constructive program that’s been put forward, but simply because it seems to be open season on a man who, up to now, has seemed sort of inevitable.

Q: Where does the movement go from here? 

MK: I’m so bewildered by the scale, intensity, and coming-from-nowhere part of this movement that it’s not clear to me how it sustains itself or where it goes. I’m not saying it won’t, but it surprised everybody, including its organizers. 

Youth unemployment amongst the middle classes in India is massive. So entrance examinations that put you into courses that might get you jobs are, if you will, a kind of metaphor for that general sense of anomie about, where do we go? What will happen to us? And to the extent that this narrowly focused thing about examination represents a larger angst, I don’t know.

Firefighters in France and Spain are battling ferocious wildfires in an effort to control the blazes before the next heat wave arrives later this week.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday described the "completely unprecedented" crisis as the "toughest since the Second World War." He urged firefighters to "stay strong" as they prepared to face the wildfire in the Gironde region, near Bordeaux.

An estimated 220,000 people have been evacuated in the Gironde region, since the most pervasive fire broke out last week. The Landes region further south has seen at least 30,000 people evacuated.

The fire in Landes is now under control, Macron said, but he warned it "remains virulent" and urged extreme caution over the coming days.

"Our country is going through an unprecedented fire season: 116,085 hectares have already burned and 13,566 fire starts have been recorded since January," France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Monday. (116,000 hectares is roughly 287,000 acres.)

In Spain, officials fighting the blazes near Madrid say they are the worst the region has ever experienced. Firefighters are also battling a wildfire in Castellón, a province near Valencia.

More than 100,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes or take shelter as emergency services attempt to get the flames under control in the face of changing winds.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told reporters Tuesday that the authorities "can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel" in the fight against the wildfires, but he expressed concern about the approaching heat wave.

The authorities "will continue to mobilize all resources until the last flame is extinguished," he vowed.

Sánchez has referred to the wildfire crisis as "the most painful expression" of the climate emergency.

As the European countries reckon with the remaining blazes and brace for the potential impact of the incoming heat wave, here are photos showing the devastation caused by the wildfires so far.

President Donald Trump’s Administration is seeking the Supreme Court’s intervention to push his election reform agenda ahead of the November midterms—by allowing nationwide implementation ​of an Executive Order restricting mail-in voting.

In a Monday filing, the Justice Department requested the high court put on hold a district court ruling that prevented the enforcement of Trump’s order. The order, issued in March, directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile lists of eligible voters per state and forbade the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to anybody who isn’t on a state’s mail-in or absentee participation list. 

Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged Trump’s order, alleging unconstitutionality and presidential overreach, and last month, an Obama-appointed federal judge in Massachusetts blocked parts of the order for those states for the November election. A Massachusetts-based appeals court rejected the Administration’s request to pause that injunction pending appeal, though the appellate court’s panel was divided: two Biden-appointed judges formed the majority, while a Trump appointee concurred in part and dissented in part.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer sought an immediate administrative stay on the district court’s injunction pending the resolution of its appeal. 

In the filing, Sauer argued that the district court “lacked jurisdiction to resolve this premature dispute,” as the agencies concerned have yet to finalize their implementing policies based on the Executive Order. In early June, the Postal Service proposed amending its rules to comply with Trump’s order. At a Senate hearing later that month, Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed that if enacted, mail-in ballots would not be delivered in states that refuse to share sensitive voter information with the government.

Sauer also claimed in the filing that the injunction “imposes irreparable harm on the government” as it “impedes the President’s ability to oversee the Executive Branch,” and an administrative stay is warranted to give agencies enough time to implement those policies.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson requested the Democratic-led states that are suing to respond in writing by next Monday.

Trump's Executive Order on mail-in ballots is part of his broader efforts to remake U.S. elections, as he spreads false claims of widespread voter fraud. He has described mail-in voting as “rigged” and “corrupt as hell,” and he has incorrectly claimed that the U.S. is “the only country in the world that does it that way.” Despite the President’s repeated attacks, however, there is widespread evidence that mail-in voting fraud is extremely rare and that states have adequate safeguards to curb it.

Nonetheless, Trump is keen to end the use of broad, no-excuse mail-in ballots nationwide before November, which could disproportionately benefit the GOP, as some studies show Democratic ⁠voters have been more likely to use mail-in ballots compared to Republicans.

The President has also pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which includes controversial voter-identification requirements, even threatening not to sign other bills into law until it passes. And earlier this month, in a primetime speech to the nation, Trump outlined claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election to make the case for his preferred election reforms.

Some Republican Senators have called for canceling an August recess to try to ensure the voter ID bill passes. But the bill has stalled in the upper chamber of Congress, putting Trump at odds with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who argues that Republicans lack the numbers to pass it without eliminating the filibuster, which Thune has said would be a “bad idea.”

When protests over fuel prices erupted in Kenya this May, the cause lay thousands of miles away. The war between Iran, Israel, and the United States has exposed a reality that African countries know well: energy security is increasingly shaped by events beyond their borders.

The Iran War revealed how deeply many African energy systems remain dependent on geopolitical stability elsewhere. Governments should use this crisis to accelerate structural reforms and diversify their energy systems.

Fuel shocks travel faster than electricity

Across much of West Africa, power systems remain heavily dependent on gas-fired generation and imported fuels. When global fuel prices rise, electricity costs rise with them.

Nigeria generates roughly three-quarters of its electricity from gas-fired plants, while gas supplies about two-thirds of Ghana’s electricity. Higher fuel prices place immediate pressure on utilities that are already struggling with regulated tariffs that fail to recover the full cost of supplying power. Ghana’s own energy planning documents identify fuel supply sustainability as the country’s single greatest threat to reliable electricity.

The effects of the conflict don’t stop at national borders. Nigeria and Ghana are both major suppliers of electricity through the West African Power Pool, exporting power to neighboring countries like Togo and Benin. As gas becomes more expensive, the effects ripple across regional electricity markets, raising costs for utilities, governments, businesses, and households. What begins as a geopolitical crisis thousands of miles away quickly becomes an affordability crisis at home.

Oil producers aren’t as protected as they seem

At first glance, the surge in prices might appear to benefit Africa’s oil exporters. 

Nigeria, the continent’s largest crude producer, and Mozambique, whose liquefied natural gas exports have expanded rapidly in recent years, both stand to earn more revenue when global prices surge. But the reality is more complicated.

Across much of Africa, upstream oil and gas production is dominated by international oil companies rather than national producers. While governments receive royalties, taxes, and returns on equity stakes, much of the extraordinary profit generated during price spikes flows to private operators and their shareholders. Meanwhile, many ordinary consumers experience exactly the opposite.

In Nigeria, the removal of gasoline subsidies means that when global oil prices rise, so do domestic fuel prices. For millions of households and businesses that rely on diesel and petrol generators because the electricity grid remains unreliable, rising oil prices increase the cost of keeping the lights on. 

Mozambique presents a similar paradox. The country has become a significant LNG exporter, yet the revenues generated by projects such as Coral South primarily benefit operating companies and upstream partners, while electricity access at home remains uneven.

The broader lesson is clear: resource wealth alone does not guarantee energy security.

Without stronger fiscal policies, better utility governance, or mechanisms to capture more of the gains from commodity booms, global price spikes strengthen company balance sheets far more than they strengthen national electricity systems. Higher export revenues may improve government accounts on paper, but they do little to address the structural problems that continue to make electricity unreliable and unaffordable for millions.

Even clean power leaders remain exposed

Conventional wisdom suggests that countries generating more electricity from renewable sources should be largely insulated from fossil fuel price shocks. Africa’s experience suggests otherwise.

Morocco and Kenya are among the continent's clean energy success stories. Morocco has spent years expanding wind and solar power, while Kenya now generates the majority of its electricity from renewable sources. Yet both remain exposed when global oil and gas prices spike.

The reason is simple. Electricity systems do not exist in isolation from the rest of the economy. Morocco still imports roughly 90% of its primary energy, forcing the government to spend over $300 million each month cushioning consumers from rising fuel costs. Kenya has likewise experienced significant price shocks despite its impressive renewable electricity portfolio.

These countries demonstrate that diversifying electricity generation makes power systems more resilient, but it does not eliminate vulnerability when transportation, industry, backup generation, and public finances remain closely tied to imported fossil fuels. It is necessary but insufficient.

The goal, then, cannot simply be to build more renewable projects. It must be to reduce dependence on energy systems whose costs are ultimately determined somewhere else.

Geopolitical instability also drives away investment

The conflict threatens Africa's energy future in another, less visible way. Energy systems depend not only on affordable fuel, but on affordable capital. 

Between 2010 and 2024, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia announced around $175 billion in African energy investments. Those commitments helped finance renewable power, transmission infrastructure, and electricity expansion across the continent. But geopolitical instability changes investment decisions.

As governments redirect resources toward defense spending and domestic priorities, overseas infrastructure investments once viewed as secure can suddenly face postponements, renegotiations, or cancellation. At the same time, investors become more cautious about emerging markets generally.

African utilities already face financing costs far above those in Europe, China, or the United States because of sovereign risk, regulatory uncertainty, and currency volatility. When geopolitical tensions increase, investors demand even higher returns, making new power projects more expensive precisely when countries need them most.

In other words, the Iran War affects African electricity systems twice: first by raising the cost of energy today, and then by raising the cost of building better systems tomorrow.

Africa cannot build its energy future around global stability

The Iran War presents African governments with a choice. One path is a familiar cycle of fiscal strain, unreliable power, and vulnerability to external shocks. The other begins with accepting that energy security means building systems that are resilient enough to withstand events unfolding thousands of miles away. 

Utilities must reduce technical and commercial losses. Governments must resolve legacy debt that weakens electricity providers. Tariff structures must better reflect the true cost of delivering reliable power. 

Regional coordination is also essential. Institutions such as the West African Power Pool can help countries balance electricity supply more efficiently, share generation resources, and respond collectively to market disruptions. 

Perhaps most importantly, governments should treat clean, domestically available sources of energy as strategic infrastructure. Just as Europe looks to geothermal and nuclear to reduce dependence on imported fuels, African countries should pursue an electricity system that is less exposed to distant conflicts. 

The conflict will eventually subside. But without action, the vulnerabilities it has exposed will not.

Agent Kim Reactivated, a Korean drama broadcast on SBS TV domestically and streamed on Netflix globally, has become one of the summer’s biggest hits. The thrilling action series follows an unassuming bank manager and single dad named Kim (So Ji-sub). When his teen daughter, Min-ji (Seo Su-min), disappears after a fight at school, Kim’s background and skillset as a secret agent is revealed as he stops at nothing to find her. 

Agent Kim is aided by his two friends: taekwondo instructor Sung Han-soo (Choi Dae-hoon) and boisterous military man Park Jin-cheol (Yoon Kyung-ho). Like Agent Kim, Han-soo and Jin-cheol are former spies and current parents. In an effort to rescue Min-ji, the three middle-aged, bespectacled dads face off against criminal organizations and state intelligence entities as what starts as a clash between two teenagers disturbs a decade-long lull in intergovernmental espionage. The 10-episode drama about paternal anxiety and devotion wrapped up over the weekend. Here’s everything that happened in the final episodes of Agent Kim Reactivated.

Does Min-ji die?

The first few episodes of Agent Kim Reactivated imply that Kim’s beloved daughter Min-ji  has died. At the end of Episode 1, Hye-ri (Yoo Ji-an), Min-ji’s classmate and the daughter of Juhak Construction group chairman Ju Gang-chan (Joo Sang-wook), hits Min-ji over the head with a brick. Min-ji loses consciousness, leading Hye-ri and Min-ji’s other bullies to assume she is dead. A panicked Hye-ri convinces local thug Golden Teeth (Jo Bok-rae) to take care of the body. 

However, unbeknownst to both Hye-ri and Golden Teeth, Min-ji has survived the attack. She later wakes up in the cold storage warehouse where Golden Teeth has temporarily stashed her “body”, and escapes. This is just the beginning of Min-ji’s many efforts to get back to her father. Next, she is picked up by Ju Gang-chan while trying to hitchhike. Then, she is “rescued” by South Korea’s Special Missions Directorate (SMD), where director Kang Guk-cheol (Won Hyun-joon) ties her up and questions her for information about her father. It’s a foolish strategy. Agent Kim has kept his daughter in the dark about his dark past.

Agent Kim’s secret past

Agent Kim was born in North Korea, and was trained from a young age to be a special operative for his native government. However, when Kim is captured during a failed mission in South Korea, he has a choice to make: be disappeared by the SMD, or agree to work for them. He chooses the latter, and becomes friends with operatives Han-soo and Jin-cheol through their missions together.

Kim also meets and falls in love with a South Korean woman. When she dies in childbirth, he forces his retirement from the SMD in order to raise his baby. The SMD allows his freedom on one condition: he must lay low. If the North Korean government realizes their former operative is alive in South Korea, it will cause an international incident. 

Kim gladly devotes himself to a quiet life as a father and office worker, and the SMD leaves him alone. But when Min-ji goes missing and Kim starts wreaking havoc across the city looking for her, North Korean Intelligence learns of his continued existence. The SMD and North Korean Intelligence both set out to capture Agent Kim. 

Who is Agent 66?

The pseudonym “Agent 66” is first used by Park Yeong-gwang (TaecYeon), a North Korean spy who trained alongside Agent Kim. When Yeong-gwang dies during his and Agent Kim’s first mission to South Korea, betrayed by the North Korean agency that sent them, Agent Kim takes on the moniker.

When Agent Kim reappears on the North Korean government’s radar after years of being presumed dead, Park Yeong-gwang’s little brother, Gang Seong (Kim Sung-kyu), is sent to kill him. He too uses the name “Agent 66” as his codename. Though killing Kim may be Gang Seong’s orders, the mission is also personal for the new Agent 66, who has been told that Kim is responsible for the death of his big brother. When Kim dispels this lie, revealing that it was North Korean intelligence director Ri Eung-ryeong who betrayed them all, Gang Seong abandons his mission to kill Kim. 

Later, after Ri Eung-ryeong spills his secrets to the South Korean government in exchange for asylum, Agent Kim kidnaps and hands Ri Eung-ryeong over to Gang Seong. Gang Seong brings Ri Eung-ryeong back to North Korea, where he is presumably punished for his defection.

The ending of Agent Kim Reactivated

Heading into the season finale, Agent Kim has managed to evade SMD capture by protecting defector Ri Eung-ryeong during the intergovernmental talks between North Korea and South Korea. With the completion of one final mission for the SMD, Kim has earned his freedom (again) and the promise of a normal life with Min-ji. He just has to stay alive to claim it. And, unfortunately, Ju Gang-chan—the former thug turned Juhak Construction chairman—is still gunning for him. He wants to see Agent Kim, Han-soo, and Jin-cheol suffer for besting him. To do so, Ju Gang-chan kidnaps Han-soo and Jin-cheol’s children. He holds the teens at gunpoint and forces Han-soo and Jin-cheol to fight Agent Kim.

The three friends initially go along with Ju Gang-chan’s orders to kill Agent Kim, but use their years of experience working together to come up with an out. They lure a boasting Ju Gang-chan closer to the fence of the cage in which they are fighting, and manage to knock it down onto the villain. They rescue their children, and hand Ju Gang-chan over to the authorities. Later, he is stabbed multiple times by Golden Teeth while being transported out of the hospital. Hye-ri, the spoiled daughter whose bullying acted as a catalyst for this entire sequence of events, has been sent abroad following the public humiliation of her family.

Agent Kim and Min-ji are reunited

The father-daughter relationship between Agent Kim and Min-ji is at the heart of Agent Kim Reactivated, and it’s at the heart of the finale, too. Following the action of the series, the two have grown closer after being forced apart. Min-ji now understands more about her father’s past and motivations, and no longer sees him as a timid man who would rather bow than fight. 

In the final episode, they are reunited after Agent Kim fakes his death to escape international accountability for his past acts of espionage. The father and daughter start a new life together under new identities, with the help of the SMD. While they leave the identities of Bank Manager Kim and Kim Min-ji behind, they are somehow still in contact with Han-soo and Jin-cheol, who help the Kims move into their new home.

Will there be a Season 2?

It’s likely—the series has been one of the most successful Korean dramas of the year so far on Netflix and on broadcast television in Korea. According to The Chosun Daily, the production team is currently discussing the possibility of a second season.

If Agent Kim Reactivated does get more episodes, the story will most likely revolve around Agent Kim’s new job at Baekho Employment Agency. In the first season finale, Kim makes a deal with Lee Dong-kyu, a new and enigmatic character who agrees to take down Juhak Construction for our protagonist. The cost is implied to be Agent Kim’s employment at Lee’s mysterious company. 

While we don’t learn much about Lee Dong-kyu in the Netflix series, the character is an important element of the webtoon on which Agent Kim Reactivated is based. In the webtoon, the Baekho Employment Agency, aka the White Tiger Job Center, is a mercenary organization founded and led by Tom Lee. The private company takes on high-risk, high-reward jobs--for the right price. If Agent Kim Reactivated continues for a second season, Agent Kim may find himself in even more dangerous scenarios due to his deal with Lee Dong-kyu.

Measles is an old scourge that’s rapidly re-emerging as a new one. According to numbers released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 24, there have been 2,318 cases of measles reported nationwide so far in this year, already exceeding the 2,289 cases reported in all of 2025. The current figure is the highest incidence of measles in 35 years, a record set back in 1991 when there were 9,643 U.S. cases.

It wasn’t long ago that measles cases were extremely rare in the U.S. In 1963, the first measles vaccine was introduced in the U.S., and decades of steady administration of the shot eventually led to the country being declared measles-free in 2000. There were some scattered infections in the ensuing years—56 cases in 2003, 55 in 2012, 13 in 2020. But this year and last year, the numbers have exploded.

The surge has come amid a backdrop of drastic changes to childhood vaccinations.  In January 2026, the CDC changed the childhood vaccine schedule—despite experts and organizations saying there had been no change in the science—after President Donald Trump directed the agency and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine skeptic, to review how other developed countries issue vaccine recommendations. The new guidelines reduced the number of recommended vaccines for children from 17 to 11. Though the measles vaccine is still on the “recommended” list, recent research published in Science showed that changes in the CDC's vaccine messaging under the Trump Administration reduced the public's trust in the agency and in vaccines, while increasing perceptions that vaccines are not safe.

Even before the second Trump Administration, vaccination rates for measles nationwide were down. Generally, it takes 95% vaccination coverage for a population to achieve what is known as herd immunity, the protection that is afforded when there are so many people inoculated against a disease that the pathogen can’t gain an infectious toehold in a society and reach that small part of the unvaccinated population—generally those who are too young to be vaccinated or those who cannot receive the shots for medical reasons such as compromised immune systems. Vaccination rates are not available for the 2025-2026 school year yet, but for 2024-2025 the number was just 92.5%, down from 95.2% in 2019-2020. 

That much of a drop in vaccination coverage creates pockets for viruses, like the one that causes measles, to spread. Of measles cases so far in 2026 and for the entirety of last year, 93% have been among unvaccinated children, 3% were among children who received just one vaccine dose, and 4% were among kids who received both. This year, 7% of those cases resulted in hospitalizations. There have been no deaths so far this year, but there were three in 2025—one of them an unvaccinated adult, and two of them children with no known underlying health conditions.

“There were two healthy little girls in West Texas that died from measles,” said Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in an email to TIME. “Those were the first measles deaths in a child in this country in more than 20 years. I think it is fair to say that measles is epidemic in the United States. And if people are coming from outside this country to the United States, they better make sure they’re up-to-date on their immunizations.”

Adds Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine: “For all practical purposes measles has returned to the United States, both in terms of cases and hospitalizations, as well as two needless deaths.  We should expect our annual winter-spring surges of measles to get even worse in subsequent years.  And it won't be just measles—pertussis is also returning, and other childhood infectious diseases might follow."

Sen. Mitch McConnell shared a new update on his health on Monday, six weeks after he was initially hospitalized.

In a statement released by his office, the 84-year-old lawmaker said that he was “still working hard to get back to [his] full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky,” and that he was still undergoing “intense physical therapy.” He added that he wouldn’t be able to attend an upcoming event in his home state, called Fancy Farm picnic.

“There’s no place I’d rather be on the first Saturday in August than with the good people of western Kentucky, feasting on pork and mutton,” McConnell said. “As always, I appreciate all of your continued well wishes, and I’m looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky soon.”

The statement was accompanied by a message from Congress’ Office of the Attending Physician (OAP), which said that its physicians “visit with the Senator every day, discussing all aspects of his rehabilitation care.”

“Since his discharge from hospital care, he has maintained a strenuous course of physical therapy and rehabilitation, including multiple sessions a day designed to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of future falls,” the office said. “His bout with childhood polio continues to be a significant factor in his mobility. He is not yet medically cleared to leave the rehab facility and return to the office.”

McConnell was hospitalized on June 14. His office initially didn’t share any details of the Republican Senator’s condition, and his ensuing weeks-long absence from the upper chamber with little to no information from his office sparked speculation over McConnell’s health. The growing uncertainty prompted Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, to issue a public letter calling on McConnell to “fully update Kentuckians regarding the current status of [his] health.”

“Over the last several weeks, Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and wellbeing, and ability to hold office in the United States Senate,” Beshear wrote. “As public officeholders, we have made a commitment to our constituents to do our best to represent them and to always be transparent. I believe this requires clear communication about one’s ability to serve.”

Four days later, the Senator revealed that he was hospitalized after a fall. He said that his doctors confirmed that he didn’t break any bones or sustain a concussion, nor did he suffer from any other more serious conditions, such as a heart attack or stroke.

“But,” McConnell said, “I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital. While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I’ve also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia.”

“As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time,” he continued. “And on the advice of my doctors, I won’t be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet. But rest assured that, in the meantime, I’m not taking a break from the Senate business that matters to you.”

He went on to say that part of the reason he decided that he would retire in January, when his term comes to an end, “was being honest about the demands of Senate work.”

The Kentucky Senator has had several health scares before this one, including multiple falls in recent years

A long-simmering conflict between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune is breaking out into the open as the upper chamber approaches its August recess without making progress on a restrictive voting bill the President has underlined as his top legislative priority.

Trump reiterated his festering frustrations with Thune on Monday.

“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full and deep throated SAVE AMERICA ACT, the Budget, and the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster, 1929!” Trump said in a Truth Social post. 

“The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership,” he continued. “Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”

Tensions have been mounting between the President and the Republican Senate leader for months over the stalled SAVE America Act, a contentious piece of legislation that would impose stricter voter identification requirements around the country. Trump has aggressively promoted the bill, even vowing not to sign any other bills into law until Congress passes it. But forward momentum on the bill, which passed the House in February, has come to a halt in the upper chamber, where Thune said that Republicans don’t have enough votes to pass it.

Trump has repeatedly encouraged Senate Republicans to end the filibuster, which gives the minority party the ability to delay or block legislation by dragging out debate, effectively requiring a 60-vote threshold for most bills to pass the upper chamber. But many Republican lawmakers have objected to the idea of ending the filibuster—including Thune, who previously said it would be a “bad idea” and that the filibuster “has protected this country.”

The Senate Majority Leader has also indicated that Republicans in the upper chamber don’t have the votes to pass another measure Trump has pushed, a $95 billion budget proposal that would help fund the President’s war in Iran and other White House priorities.

“As I’ve said before, you got to get to 50, and I can’t count to 50 right now on a budget resolution,” Thune told reporters last week.

The situation has provoked the President’s ire—and, now that the Senate is set to go on recess at the end of next week, Trump has been renewing his pressure on Thune. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the President wants to have “as much of the SAVE America (Act) passed as possible” before senators go on recess.

“His patience is running out,” she said during the White House press briefing on Thursday.

The day before, Trump slammed the Senate during a rally in Georgia, calling the upper chamber “a place that you send things when you want them to die.”

“Everybody call John Thune,” Trump continued. “He’s the leader of the Republican party, and tell him to get this stuff approved.”

Thune fired back at the White House on Thursday: “Maybe she,” he said, referring to Leavitt, “or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes.”

“Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats," Thune told reporters. “And if there are Republicans that they think are gettable, get on the phone. Let’s get them to ‘yes.’”

Federal officials have moved the national wildfire preparedness level to its highest level: a five out of five. That means that, as we approach peak fire season in the U.S., federal agencies might not have enough resources to address every new fire. 

What are U.S. wildfire preparedness levels?

A number of federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fire Administration, and the National Weather Service, are responsible for allocating federal resources for tackling wildfires, like helicopters, airtankers, funding, or firefighters. The wildfire preparedness levels, which range from the lowest, 1, to the highest, 5, help the agencies track what resources are available. “It’s a framework for determining resource allocation,” says Craig Clements, director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University. “As the fire season progresses, those resources are used around the country by different agencies. When we get to level five, that means that resources are running low because there's so many incidents ongoing.”

What does a national preparedness level 5 mean for wildfire risk?

At level 5, national resources are already committed to fighting fires around the country. “The fire hazard is at its greatest, and the resources are at their most strained level,” says Peter Sunderland, professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland. 

That means that federal agencies might not have the resources to respond to new fires. “If there are existing fires, they won't pull anybody off those fires,” says Sunderland. “But as new fires arise, the state managers can't expect the same level of service that they'd get at level one through four. In other words, they may say we just can't help with that new fire.”

That presents a new challenge, since fires are easier to put out in the first few hours after they start, a period of time known as the “initial attack.” “[Firefighters] try to get helicopters and crews on as soon as possible, so that way it doesn't become a big fire,” Sunderland says. “Once it becomes bigger and larger, it takes a lot more resources to contain that fire, and it takes a lot more time.” 

Wildfire season in the U.S. usually lasts from May to November, peaking in the summer. It’s not uncommon for the U.S. to reach level 5 in July. “This is pretty typical,” Clements notes. “It’s almost August, so we are in the prime time of fire season.” The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) previously declared a level 5 preparedness level in July of 2018, 2021, and 2024. 

Does wildfire preparedness level 5 affect me if I don't live near a fire?

If you don’t live near an area at risk, you might not be directly impacted by a fire. However, as wildfires in Canada earlier this summer proved, smoke can travel a long distance from the initial blaze, impacting air quality for people thousands of miles away. 

Why is this year such a dangerous wildfire year?

Much of the country has seen dry, hot conditions this year, setting the stage for an active wildfire season. This past winter was the second-warmest in U.S. history, with 19 states—including Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas—all experiencing one of their 10 driest winters on record, according to NOAA.

This year has already set a record for the number of fires. So far in 2026, the U.S. has seen 41,779 fires—the most one season has seen in the last 10 years. 

How long does wildfire season last and how is climate change impacting wildfires?

“We are seeing more and more climate extremes,” says Sunderland. “Generally we're having drier summers and higher winds.” That creates the perfect conditions for wildfires to spread.

Fire season is also lasting longer than in decades past thanks to climate change. While wildfire season might once have lasted around four months, they can now stretch on for six to eight months in some areas. 

The fires we see now are also more severe than those of a decade ago—in no small part due to climate change. A recent study led by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles found that forest fires now burn 10 times as much acreage annually as in 1985, while high-severity fires alone increased thirtyfold in California between 1985 and 2024.

What should you do if your area is under high fire danger?

If you live in a fire-prone area, make sure you know your evacuation plan well before you need it. Listen to authorities and evacuate while it is still safe to do so. There are steps you can take to protect your home ahead of time—like clearing out brush, clearing your gutters, and staying up to date on fire code. Nearly nine in 10 wildfires are human caused, so be vigilant about accidental fires when camping outside, says Clements: “As long as we can limit the amount of ignitions, we can get out of this problem.”

One suspect is in custody and a second remains at large after a shooting at a food festival in Seattle on Sunday evening left three people dead and at least four others wounded, according to police. 

The shooting took place near Seattle’s Space Needle at Bite of Seattle, an annual food festival that draws more than 350,000 people, according to its website. 

A search continued for the second suspect on Monday. Assistant Police Chief Tyrone Davis said at a press conference following the shooting on Sunday that there is “no outstanding threat to the community.”

“What happened here today at the Seattle Center was an unbelievable tragedy, a horrific act of violence,” Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said. “My heart right now is with the victims and their families, and with everyone in our community who is reeling from what happened here today.”

Here’s what we know about the shooting so far. 

What happened? 

Authorities on Sunday began responding to reports of a shooting at the Seattle Center, a public arts and entertainment area north of downtown Seattle, around 6 p.m. local time. 

Two of the people killed in the shooting died at the scene. Four others were injured, including a toddler, and taken to Harborview Medical Center to be treated for their injuries. One patient who was taken into surgery in critical condition later died as a result of her injuries, police announced late Sunday.

Investigators believe the two suspects in the incident were shooting at each other, Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a Monday press conference. One suspect surrendered to police at the scene, while the other fled. Wilson on Monday said that “no police weapons were discharged” at the scene. 

“Our officers were there within seconds,” Davis said on Sunday. “They performed emergency aid to the wounded until the Seattle Fire Department was on scene. Simultaneously, officers launched a search for the people responsible for this senseless violence.” 

Police also recovered two firearms at the scene. Wilson said Monday that camera footage from the Seattle Center is in the process of being recovered. 

As of Monday morning, police have not publicly discussed a potential motive for the shooting.

“I don't know if it's gang activity, but certainly group activity,” Barnes said on Monday when asked if the shooting was gang-related. “We have small groups that appear to be at odds with each other, and in our city, 0.01% of the population is connected to 52 percent of our shootings, most of which are young people.”

Who are the victims?

Carlos Villalba, 44, and Ashley Whitehead, 56, were killed in the shooting, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office. Villalba died at the scene after being shot in the torso. Whitehead, who was shot in the pelvis, was transported to hospital and taken into surgery, but ultimately died.

The third person killed, later identified as 19-year-old Junior Semo, is being treated at this time as one of the suspected shooters, according to court documents. He died at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds.

A vigil was held for the victims at the International Fountain in Seattle Center on Monday night. Whitehead had “a great sense of humor” and was a “very colorful person … an artist, a creative type, and a free spirit,” Whitehead’s cousin Michelle said at the vigil.

“It didn’t feel real until probably this morning. I had a few hours of sleep but it just felt like I was living in someone else's body, someone else's life. This couldn’t be real. That the one time she came here, she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Michelle Whitehead said, recalling the moment she learned Whitehead had died.

Whitehead said goodbye to her daughter, who witnessed the shooting, before she passed, according to a GoFundMe posted by a family member.

A close family friend told KING 5 that Villalba was “one of the best people on the planet.” His wife told the news outlet that “no one can” wrap their heads around this tragedy.

One of the wounded victims was a 2-year-old boy who was shot in the arm, according to the Seattle Police Department. The toddler, as well as a 23-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman, were transported to Harborview Medical Center for treatment and were discharged as of Monday evening, a UW Medicine spokesperson told news outlets.

A 40-year-old woman was treated by medics at the scene and declined to be transported to hospital. A fifth possible victim, a 27-year-old man, was discharged after receiving treatment for a gunshot wound at UW Medical Center at Montlake, although police are investigating whether he was hurt in the shooting.

Who are the suspects?

Little information has so far been released about the person in custody, or the suspect still at large. Wilson said at the press conference on Monday that the detained individual was “a 15-year-old juvenile in connection with the shooting.” 

The suspect waived his presence at an initial court hearing on Monday afternoon, according to juvenile court documents. King County Superior Court Judge Tanya Thorp found probable cause for three counts of first-degree assault and one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, the Seattle Times reported. The suspect has not yet been formally charged. He is expected to appear at his arraignment on Thursday, and will be held in secure detention until then.

Davis said “there may be more” suspects, stating that "we're still trying to figure this out.” He encouraged people who were at the scene to come forward and help the department locate other potential suspects.

“There are witnesses. They're not coming forward,” he said. “We need people to be brave, to reach out to us. You can do so anonymously. We know that we have people who probably have evidence or have information that they can share with us.”

What officials are saying

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, whose district includes Seattle Center and who attended Sunday’s press conference, said that she was “absolutely horrified” by the shooting. She added that Seattle was “coordinating across all levels of government,” when asked about the federal government’s knowledge of the shooting.

“My heart goes out to the victims, their families, and our whole Seattle community,” Jayapal said on X. 

Wilson commented on the high incidence of gun violence in the U.S. after the shooting. 

“We have far too much gun violence in this city and in this country, and we’re coming off of a week in Seattle where we’ve had three major incidents of gun violence in just a few days,” she said. 

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said at the news conference that “our hearts go out to everybody who’s impacted by this.” 

“I can’t imagine being the parent of a two-year-old toddler, for example, who’s injured in a shooting like this,” he said.

The state’s Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray also expressed their condolences to the victims and gratitude to authorities.

President Donald Trump’s civil nuclear deal with ‌Saudi Arabia has sparked debate among not only Democratic lawmakers, but also within the GOP.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana raised issue with Trump’s proposed arrangement, firmly answering “no” when asked if he was comfortable with it, insisting it’s “just not good timing.”

“Maybe someday, but not right now,” Kennedy told Face the Nation on Sunday, pointing to the resumed Iran war as a key point of his opposition.

“We're bombing a country to keep them from getting a nuclear weapon, but we're signing a deal with another country,” he said. “I know it's a commercial agreement, but that the world perceives, as possibly, someday, leading to a nuclear weapon.”

Kennedy referred to the moment as a “hair trigger,” pointing to the conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and America’s strained relationship with Europe as examples of the tense political climate that has left people “scared.”

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia announced they had reached a civil nuclear agreement on Wednesday, in addition to signing an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement.

The U.S. Department of Energy described the deal as “a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement” that “provides great access for American companies in the Saudi nuclear energy program, benefiting American industry, workers, and supply chains while helping to meet Saudi energy needs.”

However, the day after the agreement was signed, Trump added a condition—stating the deal is dependent on Riyadh recognizing Israel under the Abraham Accords.

“The civil nuclear deal (there will be no enrichment of material) being made between the United States Department of Energy and Saudi Arabia, which pertains only to non-military use such as the ones that Iran and UAE (and others) already have, will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump declared via Truth Social.

In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump reaffirmed his stance and told reporters that he had not spoken about the accords with U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright before the cabinet member signed the deal with Saudi Minister of Energy His Royal Highness (HRH) Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

“We didn’t talk about it, but it was always understood, and Chris knew and Saudi Arabia knew, that if they didn’t join the Abraham Accords… I’m not going to do the deal,” Trump said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed support for the idea, saying “Saudi Arabia's joining of the Abraham Accords would be an historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East.”

Trump’s demand for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel placed further doubt on the deal for some, including Sen. Kennedy.

“I don't think it's going to happen, anyway, because the President's conditioned it on Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel, and they're not, they're not going to do that,” he said.

Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment on the add-on condition to the deal, but Riyadh officials have long maintained they would not recognize Israel without a clear pathway toward a Palestinian state.

The post-signing condition has also prompted a response from Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who called it a “complete whiplash.”

“The Saudis have been very clear that they will normalize relations with Israel when we’re on a clear path toward developing a Palestinian state, living side-by-side—security for both Palestinians and Israelis,” Van Hollen told This Week. “That has been the Saudi position. And so, what the Trump Administration did was a bait-and-switch scheme.”

What happens now?

The U.S.-Saudi Arabia civil nuclear deal—commonly known as a 123 agreement—needs to be transmitted to Congress for approval.

Congress has 90 days to review and, if desired, raise votes to object to the deal. If Congress does not pass a resolution to block the deal, it goes into force.

There would need to be a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto. As lawmakers across party aisles have raised concerns and questions about the deal, the road ahead is uncertain.

Dr. Daniel Griffin doesn’t like to get sick. The first reason why is obvious—the congestion, the aching, the cough that overstays its welcome, the unpleasant stomach symptoms.

The second is a matter of professional dignity. "It's almost like a gardener with dead plants," says Griffin, chief of the division of infectious disease at Island Infectious Disease Medical in Long Island, N.Y. and president of Parasites Without Borders. "I really don't want to be sick—because then the infectious disease doctor got sick.”

So what do infectious disease doctors and experts like him do differently than the rest of us when it comes to preventing illness? Not as much as you'd think. Infectious disease specialists aren't disinfecting every surface or hiding from the outside world. Instead, they've built a collection of practical habits into their daily lives—simple routines that reduce risk without making life less enjoyable.

We asked six infectious disease experts which habits they never skip.

Set up your kitchen so cross-contamination can't happen

Jill Roberts tries to take the guesswork out of food safety. "One of the major causes of foodborne illness is cross-contamination," says Roberts, a molecular epidemiologist and professor at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. "It's when you have something that's raw and you get microbes from the raw thing into the ready-to-eat thing." 

Her favorite solution: color-coded cutting boards. Meat always goes on the red one; vegetables never do. "If your meat is always on the red cutting board, you're never gonna have your salad stuff on your red cutting board,” she says. 

Order matters just as much. She makes the salad first, puts it in the refrigerator, and only then brings out the red boards and raw meat. Once she starts handling meat, she’s vigilant about sanitizing any surfaces she may have contaminated—from the counters and sink to the faucet handles and refrigerator door.

Wash your produce under running water—not in a bowl

Some people think rinsing produce means filling a bowl with water and letting everything soak. But that's not the best approach. "What you actually need is that little bit of friction to break the surface," says Dr. Heidi Torres, an infectious disease physician and assistant professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. About 30 seconds under running water, while gently rubbing the produce with your hands, does far more than a passive soak.

The problem with a bowl is that you're washing everything in the same water. "If you have one piece that's contaminated, that water could contaminate the other vegetables," Torres says. Running water washes germs away instead of moving them from one piece of produce to another. It won't remove everything—Cyclospora, for example, doesn't simply rinse off—but it does reduce bacteria, viruses, and even some pesticide residue. 

Microwave your kitchen sponge

A sponge is a nearly perfect habitat for germs: damp, warm, and studded with food particles, sitting next to the counter where you just set down raw chicken. "Sponges and wet dishcloths are really good at growing bacteria," says Kelley Steury, a clinical associate professor in the school of public health at the University of Nevada, Reno, who specializes in veterinary preventive medicine. Her routine: Rinse her sponge until no food particles come out, then microwave it for 20 seconds. Just make sure it's wet. "If you did it when it was pretty dry, you could start a fire,” she says.

Brush your teeth like it's infection control

Most people brush their teeth to prevent cavities. Torres brushes hers to prevent infections.

"At least 25% of infections that I see are related to dental disease," she says. Here's why: Every day, small amounts of bacteria slip into your bloodstream, and a healthy immune system clears them without you ever noticing. Cavities and gum disease change the equation. They allow more bacteria—and more aggressive bacteria—to leak into the blood, which Torres describes as "a highway to all your organs." In some cases, she says, doctors can trace an infection back to the mouth because the bacteria involved simply don't live anywhere else.

That makes brushing about much more than fresh breath. "Rinsing alone wouldn’t replace it, because you really need that mechanical brushing to break down that film of bacteria," Torres says. Hospitals have even started treating basic oral care as a form of infection prevention, she says—which is a pretty compelling reason to take it seriously at home, too.

Rethink the rug in your bathroom

Your bath mat outside the tub should be washable, hung to dry between uses, and tossed in the laundry about once a week. "We don't leave the wet stuff on the floor, because that's gross," Roberts says. A damp bath mat can also spread athlete's foot from one person to another.

As for the old-fashioned rug wrapped around the base of the toilet? Roberts would get rid of it altogether. Rubber backings don’t often hold up well in the wash, which means it probably doesn't get cleaned as thoroughly as it should. "Especially if you have kids, they don't aim well," she says. "You have splash-overs." In other words: Nothing around the toilet should be soaking anything up.

Leave your shoes at the door

Shoes pick up a lot more than dirt. Every sidewalk has been shared with other people, their pets, and whatever else has passed through. Dr. Cesar J. Figueroa Ortiz, an infectious diseases specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, would rather not track any of that across the floors where his family walks and spends time—so shoes come off at the door.

His job reinforces the habit. Hospitals are meticulously cleaned, but there's always "the risk of bringing pathogens with you on your shoes," he says. 

Open a window before company comes over

Before guests arrive, most people wipe down the counters. Chin-Hong thinks they should be paying more attention to the air. "I respect air more than surfaces," he says. "You're probably going to have a bigger bang for your buck when you think about ventilation."

His solution is simple: crack a window. If the air conditioning is running, make sure it's bringing in fresh outdoor air rather than recirculating the same indoor air all evening, he adds.

Wash your hands like you're not in a hurry

Even infectious disease doctors don't always practice perfect hand hygiene. Griffin has watched colleagues race out of a public restroom because they were about to miss a lecture at a conference. "They're so anxious to get back out because they're missing whatever the lecture is, and they're not really doing proper hand hygiene," he says. "Even the people that should know better are rushing back out."

And when people do wash their hands, they're often rushing through that, too. "Nobody's singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' to time themselves," Griffin says (besides him).

His other rule is knowing when soap and water beat sanitizer. (Basically always.) Alcohol-based hand sanitizer doesn't kill everything: Norovirus—the highly contagious stomach bug behind many cruise ship outbreaks—is particularly resistant. Soap and water keep you safe, though, so if someone around you is vomiting or has diarrhea, Griffin says, head for the sink.

Use your shirt tail

Steury will happily look a little strange to save herself a bout with a germ. "Someone might look at me and think I'm crazy, but I'll use the bottom of a shirt, like my shirt tails," she says—or the hem of a cardigan, whatever's handy—around her hand when she has to touch certain surfaces.

She's selective about when she does it. What worries her are high-touch surfaces that are indoors and out of the sun: elevator buttons, soda fountain dispensers, and the door handle to a medical clinic, for instance. And if she does touch one of those surfaces directly, she waits until she can wash her hands before touching her eyes, nose, or mouth. 

Decline the grocery-store sample

Before you accept that free cube of cheese, think about the cart you're pushing.

"I always think about what happened to the grocery cart before you got there," Roberts says. "Somebody picked up raw chicken. Somebody picked up raw seafood. And all of that is on the cart. It's on the handle."

Then someone offers you a toothpick with a sample. "I'm supposed to take my hand off this dirty cart and then take that food and put it in my mouth?" she says. "There's no way."

Wear sandals in every locker-room shower

At the gym, Torres worries less about the person coughing on the treadmill than the surfaces her bare skin touches. Benches, mats, and other shared equipment can harbor MRSA and fungi like ringworm—even at the nicest gyms. She wipes equipment down before using it, not just afterward, and if there aren't disinfecting wipes available, she puts a towel between herself and the bench.

The locker-room shower gets its own rule. "It's this wet, damp floor, walking around the locker room, walking around the joint showers," she says. "I always recommend bringing a pair of sandals." Foot fungus is the biggest concern, and some infections can be surprisingly difficult to get rid of.

Wash any cuts before reaching for the antiseptic

Most of us instinctively reach for the antiseptic after nicking a finger. Chin-Hong heads for the sink instead. "The more important thing is to rinse it well with running water and soap, which is more important than the aggressive disinfectant," he says. Disinfectants don't kill everything, but running water can physically flush away germs before they have a chance to cause trouble.

His reasoning comes down to one simple idea. "Running things are better than stagnant things," Chin-Hong says. "We get infections when things are in stasis rather than in movement." It's the same reason standing water becomes a mosquito breeding ground. 

Pack a pair of tweezers

Torres never leaves for a weekend in tick country without packing a pair of tweezers. It might sound excessive, she admits, but after years of treating tickborne illnesses, it's become second nature. "This is a little unusual—maybe my colleagues don't do this," she says, "but whenever I go away for a weekend, I always pack a pair of tweezers."

These days, that means much of the country: the Northeast, the Midwest, the South, and parts of the West Coast. After spending time in tall grass or wooded areas, do a full-body tick check, paying special attention to places they like to hide, like under the arms and behind the knees. 

It matters more than you might think. "Most people that develop Lyme disease or tickborne illness have no recollection of ever being bitten by a tick or ever seeing a tick," Torres says. She's also vigilant against ticks to try to prevent alpha-gal syndrome—the tick-triggered allergy to red meat that has become increasingly common.

Reapply bug spray like it's sunscreen

Bug spray is a permanent fixture in Chin-Hong's travel bag. "I respect mosquitoes," he says. "They actually kill more people than any other animal." It's West Nile season, and dengue keeps extending its reach into new parts of the U.S., so he travels with insect repellent as a matter of course.

The biggest mistake people make, he says, is treating bug spray like a one-and-done product. "It's like sunscreen. You don't get away with just applying it once." If you're outdoors all day, reapply at least every six hours. He also recommends choosing a repellent with about 20% to 50% DEET—or 20% picaridin if you prefer to avoid DEET—and remembering that the mosquitoes most likely to spread disease are busiest from dusk to dawn.

Rinse your toothbrush with bottled water when traveling abroad

Most travelers remember to avoid the tap water in destinations with questionable water supplies. Griffin worries about the toothbrush. "We tell people to be careful of ice cubes and tap water and all the rest," he says. "But then people brush their teeth with the tap water."

He calls what often follows "third-day sickness." By then, your toothbrush has been rinsed repeatedly in tap water and left to sit in a warm, humid bathroom—giving any lingering microbes plenty of time to multiply before the brush goes right back into your mouth. His solution takes just a few seconds: rinse your mouth and toothbrush with bottled water, too.

More than 300,000 Haitian immigrants are set to lose their ability to legally live and work in the U.S. on Monday, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly preparing to escalate its operations to arrest and deport some of them.

Those expanded operations could start as early as this week, according to reports from Fox News and CBS News, which cite unnamed federal sources. Ohio will reportedly be heavily targeted, particularly Springfield, where President Donald Trump had, in 2024, falsely accused Haitian migrants of eating residents’ pets.

A potential crackdown on Haitian migrants follows the Supreme Court’s June ruling that allowed the Trump Administration, for the time being, to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for those fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria. The binding mandate of that ruling is expected to be transmitted to lower courts on Monday.

It remains unclear how aggressive the reported ICE campaign will be, and if Haiti can successfully reintegrate an influx of returnees. But Jean Négot Bonheur Delva, director-general of Haiti’s National Office of Migration, told local media earlier this month that following a conversation with the U.S. embassy in the country, Haitians should expect weekly deportation flights carrying about 250 former TPS status grantees.

The court ruling and its expected implementation have stirred anxiety among Haitians in the U.S. who could lose their livelihoods and may be sent back to the crisis-stricken Caribbean nation. It could also have a profound impact on the U.S. economy. A January 2026 fact sheet from immigration advocacy group FWD.us estimates that about 200,000 Haitian TPS holders are in the U.S. workforce, including 15,000 agricultural workers, 13,000 nursing assistants, and thousands of others in various industries.

In a statement to CBS News, DHS said it “does not discuss ongoing or future operations,” adding: “What we would say now is it’s closing time which means you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here… The good news is it's not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home.”

Conditions in Haiti still severe

During his first-term Administration, Trump targeted TPS, a program since 1990 that has allowed migrants from designated countries with unsafe conditions—such as armed conflict, natural disaster, epidemics, or other extraordinary conditions—to reside and work legally in the U.S.

In his second-term Administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) moved to terminate TPS designations for several countries, including Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Yemen. In many announcements ending those protections, then-Secretary Kristi Noem emphasized that TPS was designed to be temporary, and she argued that the living conditions in many of the countries with TPS designation have improved. Any extension to the TPS designations for those countries, the department said, would be “contrary” to the “national interest.”

Persons who lose their TPS status must find another lawful basis for staying in the U.S. or depart the U.S.; otherwise they may be removed. 

But these TPS rescissions and terminations have been legally challenged. In February, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Administration’s termination of Haiti’s TPS designation, though the Trump Administration appealed, eventually leading to the Supreme Court ruling.

Haiti first received a TPS designation in 2010 after a magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck the country in January that year, leaving more than 300,000 people dead and displacing over a million others. Since then, the country has been a TPS designee: the first-term Trump Administration’s planned termination was delayed mainly due to court injunctions and other rulings, and the succeeding Biden Administration renewed and extended those designations.

As DHS Secretary, Noem reviewed Haiti’s TPS designation and her department found that there were no “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevented Haitian nationals from returning safely, and that even if there were, allowing them to stay longer in the U.S. went against national interest.

The State Department, however, notes that conditions in the country are not that safe: as of July 10, it holds the highest-level travel warning to Americans, urging them not to visit. A state of national emergency has been in effect since 2024 because of gang-linked criminality and violence: an estimated 26 gangs, at times heavily armed, control 90% of the capital Port-au-Prince and its surrounding areas, and the nation’s government has had a hard time putting the situation under control. 

According to the latest report by the International Organization for Migration, the violence in Haiti has displaced nearly 1.5 million persons, of whom more than half are women and girls.

‘A huge mistake’

Some Republicans have opposed the Trump Administration’s plan to end the TPS designation for Haiti. 

In April, the GOP-controlled House passed legislation that would require the Homeland Security Secretary to redesignate Haiti to TPS until a few months into 2029, with 10 Republicans siding with Democrats. The legislation is now pending in the Senate, where the latest attempt to pass it was blocked on July 22 by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R, Mo.). But even if the bill passes both chambers, the White House earlier said that the President’s advisers would recommend vetoing it.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R, Fla.) told CBS News earlier this month that while Haiti is a “failed state,” he thinks “deporting Haitians that are under TPS right now, back to Haiti, would be a huge mistake.”

Markwayne Mullin, who took over for Noem as DHS Secretary in March, defended the decision to end Haiti’s TPS designation. Speaking to CNN in June, Mullin said that those staying in the U.S. under TPS have “had plenty of time” to explore other options to legally stay in the U.S. long-term, instead of banking solely on what was intended to be a temporary measure.

Asked about whether Haiti qualified as “safe,” Mullin told CNN that such a qualification “isn’t quite just that simple,” and he argued that the State Department travel advisory had Americans in mind and not Haitians. 

“There isn’t a more generous country in the world than the United States,” Mullin said of the TPS designation, “but we don’t want people to take advantage of it.”

Midway through the Hulu thriller series Furious, it’s the middle of the night and two female FBI agents are on their way to investigate a lead when one notices the other’s bruises. “Who did that to your face?” demands Nora (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), who leads some of the Bureau’s most horrific sex crimes cases, as she pours liquor into her coffee cup. When Alice (Emmy Rossum), a rookie agent who worked as a Brooklyn homicide detective until her abusive, alcoholic cop boyfriend (Jake Lacy) ruined her police career, confesses that she met a man on the internet and asked him to hit her, she’s surprised to find her superior unfazed. “You think I’ve never let someone take a few whacks at this piñata?” Nora cracks. They both cackle. 

If you find yourself laughing along with them—or can, at least, imagine why two women who have chosen to professionally immerse themselves in nightmarish sexual violence might seek a consensual version of it and also find the humor in that proclivity—then it’s likely you’ll be able to get on Furious’ wavelength. Created by Elizabeth Meriwether (Dying for Sex, New Girl) and premiering, with three episodes, on July 27, the series is more straightforward in its plot than the typical convoluted crime thriller but also more complex in its layered, often contradictory ideas. Its cat-and-mouse setup resembles that of Killing Eve: a troubled, underestimated female agent chases an eccentric, possibly psychopathic female killer. As its title suggests, one of its subjects is women’s rage. Yet, at its core, Furious is a haunting interrogation of the psychology of victimhood, the logic of revenge, and the myth that the justice system exists to protect the vulnerable, and its conclusions are too messy to resolve into a pat fable of empowerment or healing.

Although stickier questions of guilt and accountability arise, Meriwether doesn’t waste time on an initial murder mystery. Only after we watch a girlish woman in a cat mask (Say Nothing’s Lola Petticrew) administer a lethal injection to an incapacitated man, in between fetching candy for Brooklyn trick-or-treaters, do we meet the agent who will soon be on her trail. Having entered FBI training after her domestic violence allegations against Lacy’s Marshall made her a pariah at the precinct, Alice is pulled off desk duty at the Bureau to help investigate the Halloween murder. Behind that request is Dan (Scoot McNairy), the only NYPD detective still speaking to her and someone with whom she has quite a bit of history. (There aren’t many uncomplicated relationships in this show.) When the ad-hoc partners notice telling similarities between their new case—whose victim is the son of a billionaire, and whose female suspect has yet to be identified—and a year-old unsolved murder, Alice develops a theory that the two targets were involved in a child sex-trafficking ring and that their killer was one of the girls they trafficked.

She’s right, though that doesn’t make her investigation any easier. The murderer, whose name is Catherine but who goes by many other aliases, has a one-track mind set to revenge. Moving between domestic violence shelters and subsistence scams, she manipulates kindhearted nonprofit workers, nepo babies who fetishize her sex-worker past, and people who fall closer to the middle of the good-evil spectrum—whatever it takes to keep crossing names off her hit list. The collateral damage of Catherine’s quest can be devastating. Yet it’s hard to hate her. She’s clearly not a sociopath. She cares about children and is capable of authentic tenderness even when it serves no strategic purpose; when she harms innocent people, it palpably hurts her.

Just as Catherine is willing to inflict pain in the service of vengeance, Nora has resigned herself to absorbing it in the potentially fruitless service of justice. When Alice, who had previously asked to be assigned to Nora’s team, seeks her help on the case, the weary agent is locked in her office reviewing child sexual assault materials. “Why do you want to work in the basement on sex crimes and crimes against children?” Nora asks Alice. “Do you hate yourself? Don’t answer that.” By the time she playfully compares their heads to piñatas, we know that both women would, at least on some days, respond in the affirmative. 

Nora harbors no illusions of heroism, which might explain why she drinks so much. Toward the end of the premiere, she dissects Medusa’s origin story for Alice, explaining that the mythical hag’s snakey mane was a punishment—imposed by Athena, no less—for the crime of being raped by Poseidon. “She’s a victim,” Nora says. “But it doesn’t make her a good person. It turns her into a monster.” Like Catherine. “Juries want to believe that women who are victims of violence,” she continues, “but in my experience being a victim of violence just makes you colder, more calculating. Victims of violence are the most violent.” Also? Justice is an impossible fantasy. “Anything you do, the ones who are really to blame don’t get caught. Never.”

Speeches like this often come at the end of today's bleaker crime dramas—”Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” but for viewers so distracted or dense, they need dialogue that spells out why Chinatown is a lost cause. Meriwether, whose best work interprets the motivations of apparently incomprehensible women like The Dropout’s Elizabeth Holmes and, in Dying for Sex, the real terminal cancer patient turned sexual explorer Molly Kochan, is doing something different. By placing Nora’s monologue so early in the series, then sending her all the way down the rabbit hole with Alice anyway, Furious is showing us a very smart person who has consciously committed to a lost cause. It’s also warning us against expecting the satisfying resolution, with villains punished and institutions redeemed, that draws so many people to detective stories. 

In the seven episodes that follow, Meriwether piles on complications and thematic filters. There are parallels to the Epstein saga; tensions between an insular, blue-collar police force and federal agents with elite educations; systemic corruption; office politics. Bitter irony abounds, as when Nora, who is Black, attends a workplace mental health seminar in which a white, male supervisor who once mistreated her pretends to care about employees’ trauma. “What about anger?” she asks. Gender and race aren’t the only vectors of oppression the show considers. While wealth disparity plays pretty much exactly the role you’d expect, nuanced depictions of disability—particularly by Ramy actor Steve Way—challenge easy assumptions about personal agency in ways that relate to but are never conflated with the multiple abuse storylines.

As Nora’s speech and Catherine’s kind moments suggest, characters’ actions don’t consistently reflect their overall moral stance, which is often based on misunderstandings and falsehoods, its validity unknowable even to them. Being a woman, a survivor, or a person with physical differences doesn’t make a person righteous. Everyone you might consider a hero of this story will, at some point, do something abhorrent. “We become evil to fight evil,” says Nora, but if the most pernicious evildoers of all are uncatchable, how can the ends justify the means? Oscar contenders like Promising Young Woman and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri have also asked whether revenge, specifically as a response to sexual violence, can rebalance the moral universe, or if it’s ultimately suicidal. But both movies were glib thought experiments that distanced us from their characters to argue their points. Furious takes advantage of its longer runtime to get close to these people in pain. It never reduces them to cartoons.  

At the very center of its tangle of experiences and identities, objectives and conflicts, is Alice. She, Catherine, and Nora are all mirrors for one another, similarly obsessed with righting wrongs and punishing abusers of people and power as they are. (All three performances are Emmy-worthy, but my favorite is Bernstine’s. The Tony nominee and Power franchise alum brings the right mix of humor and defiance to animate a character who might otherwise come off as just a hypocritical sad sack.) Nora and Catherine have committed to opposite paths. But Alice doesn’t know what she wants—the pursuit of justice through legally prescribed channels or bloody revenge exacted by any means necessary. What is she even doing in this investigation, chasing a serial killer or trying to bring down a sex-trafficking ring? Putting Catherine in prison or helping her vanquish the men who hurt her? Does she want Marshall to apologize or change or be punished or fired or die? Why is she voluntarily taking on work that reopens her old wounds when she could start healing them with a decent man and a safe desk job? For Furious, there are no right answers. And if there were, they would be no match for the demands anger makes.

At most desk jobs, you’ll be sitting down for the majority of the day. But remote work creates a particularly sedentary environment. There’s no need to walk from your front door to the car or train station. There are no aisles of cubicles to maneuver on your bathroom break or colleagues to stand around with at the water cooler. “We're just sitting there in front of the screen by ourselves,” says Mary Jayne Rogers, an exercise physiologist based in Albuquerque, who’s on the certification advisory board of the American Council on Exercise. 

This immobility has real downsides. “Prolonged sitting can increase the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure, even if you're otherwise active,” says Amy Bantham, past president of the Physical Activity Alliance. It also makes our fascia—the connective tissue that supports every structure, from our muscles and bones to our nerves and organs—stiffen up, causing ripple effects throughout the body that can impact our heart, lungs, gut, and even our brain, she says. 

While giving yourself some adult recess during the work day might seem indulgent, it can actually make you more productive. Even a little activity can help you focus, improve your mood and energy levels, and relieve stress. “You will feel better almost immediately,” Bantham says. 

Fortunately, remote work means there’s no one around to give you side-eye for doing jumping jacks between emails. Here are a few simple ways to move more when you’re working from home. 

Create your own commute

During the time you’d otherwise spend commuting, Bantham suggests taking a walk. She runs her own consulting business from home and likes to go for a stroll and call a friend before work. Similarly, Lindsey Bomgren, a personal trainer based in Minneapolis, gets in her steps each morning while using her phone’s talk-to-text app to draft emails and write herself notes. “I can start my day out walking, wrapping my head around my to-do list,” she says. 

Then, at the end of the day, Bomgren makes a point to do active errands around the house before her kids get home. “I’ll run up and down the stairs three times just to get laundry in, clean up, set out stuff for dinner,” she says. This gets her moving and helps her transition from work mode to mom mode.

Find ways to move while you work

Over the past few years, walking pads have become a popular way to boost your step count while at a computer. Some people, like Divya Balakrishnan, a yoga instructor in New York City, find the slow, rhythmic movement helps them stay focused and less stressed. “When something comes up, I'm a little bit more stable and able to handle it,” she says. Under-desk bikes and mini steppers are other options.

Another strategy is to use phone calls to go for a walk outside, pace the room, or simply stand up. “Even just standing extends your hip flexors, engages your glutes, engages your core,” Bomgren says. 

If nothing else, Rogers suggests changing your posture throughout the day by shifting forward then back in your chair, or moving how you place your legs underneath you. Even bouncing your feet can increase circulation and move the joints a little. “The more you can keep things flowing, the more energy you're going to have at the end of the day,” she says.

Have an exercise snack

Taking a five-minute walk every hour has been shown to help offset the harms of sitting. Bantham says any quick movement break is worthwhile. “If you have two minutes between meetings, use those two minutes because it all counts,” she says.  

That could look like a quick set of jump squats or crunches. It could mean running up and down the stairs as fast as you can. Or, for something even simpler, Rogers recommends standing up and sitting down 10 times. 

Even gentle movement can help balance out hours of sitting, but if you’re using these “exercise snacks” in place of traditional workouts, Bomgren recommends making them hard enough to fatigue your muscles or become breathless. “You have to create enough external stress that it actually challenges you,” she says. She suggests aiming for about an eight or nine out of 10 difficulty level. If you push hard enough, research shows that short bursts of high-intensity movement can improve your cardiometabolic health and reduce your risk of several chronic diseases.

Schedule a lunchtime workout

One benefit of working from home is having a shower and a change of clothes handy. If you have the flexibility to do an online workout video or go for a run during your lunch hour, your afternoon might benefit. “It's like starting all over for the second half of the day so you've got less of that 4 p.m. lag where you feel like, ‘I need some coffee,’" Rogers says. Getting active shortly after lunch can also help regulate your blood sugar. 

Stack habits

It’s easy to get caught up in emails and video meetings before realizing you haven’t budged in hours. To avoid this, Bomgren recommends pairing movement with things you do regularly during the work day. Maybe that’s getting in 10 push-ups anytime you fetch a cup of coffee, or stretching whenever you switch tasks. 

Bantham says some of her clients intentionally schedule meetings to end five minutes before the top of the hour. That’s a natural chance to get up for a bathroom break and do some arm circles or calf raises—whatever your body is craving—before settling back down for the next call.

Don’t feel like you need to sweat

Rogers emphasizes that moving your body during the work day doesn’t need to be “exercise.” Even simple movements can encourage healthy blood flow and keep fascia from stiffening up. For instance, Balakrishnan suggests counteracting our hunched-over-the-keyboard posture with stretches that expand the chest (by reaching your arms overhead and back so your shoulders roll open), twist the spine (by grabbing one knee with the opposite hand), and open the hips (by laying one ankle across the opposite knee and reaching the chest forward). “You can do all of these from your chair, which makes it very hard to find an excuse to not do it,” she says. Although this won’t replace a workout, it can help break up sedentary hours. 

The key is to find movements you enjoy enough to do consistently. “If you absolutely hate squats, don't choose squats to be the thing that you do between meetings,” Bantham says. Instead, maybe try a mini dance party to your favorite song, or release tension with a few deep breaths and neck rolls. It all helps. “Any activity is better than no activity,” Bantham says. 

The death threats arrived almost immediately.

Representative Jason Crow, along with five other Democrats in Congress with national-­security backgrounds, had recorded a video last November reminding those working in military and intelligence roles that they did not have to follow illegal orders. A message careful to stick to the letter of the law prompted President Donald Trump to call for its makers to be arrested and charged with treason. “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!!” read a social media post that Trump publicly shared. A federal grand jury in Washington declined the Justice Department’s effort to indict the lawmakers. That victory hasn’t mitigated Crow’s anger at how he believes the President’s response put his family’s safety at risk.

“I’m really bad at sitting in a foxhole and having people lob grenades at me,” Crow, a former paratrooper and Army Ranger, tells TIME on a June afternoon at Democratic National Committee headquarters. “I’m going to lob them back.”

The fallout from the viral video placed Crow, 47, in the strongest national spotlight since 2019, when he was a House freshman tapped to be a prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial. In the interim, his stature on Capitol Hill has steadily grown, as Crow emerged as a go-to voice for his party on national security. The midterm elections could further elevate his standing, as he’s helped lead candidate recruitment for House Democrats, prioritizing veterans and others with backgrounds in national security.

In Crow’s mind, these elections will show voters that Democrats have learned how to run effectively on national-­security issues, while still hammering Republicans on the twin tentpoles of cost and corruption. At the same time, Crow says his party is in need of a hard reset before 2028—though, like many, he is still workshopping ideas for what might work.

“There is actually an opportunity to build something new—not rebuild, not go back, not try to reconstitute what once was, because Americans don’t want that,” he says.

Should Democrats take the House this fall, Crow is in prime position to be a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee’s ­majority. Should a Democrat reclaim the White House in 2028, his name is likely to come up on the short lists for Cabinet positions. He also has his eye on Colorado’s Senate seat, and is not shy about a possible White House run down the line.

First, though, Crow has to navigate this tricky political moment, one that has Democrats feeling ascendant but still staring down low approval ratings. It’s not entirely unfamiliar terrain for Crow, who rode an earlier anti-Trump wave while vowing to stand up to party leaders he viewed as failing to meet the moment. Only this time, he’s on the inside.

Impeachment and Iran

Eight years ago, Crow was one of House Democrats’ top recruits—a lawyer and veterans’ advocate who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even still, he was far from a sure thing when he challenged Representative Mike Coffman, a fixture in Colorado Republican circles since Crow was in middle school. “This was an unwinnable race, remember?” Crow recalls with a smirk.

To show he wasn’t running against just Trump, but Washington writ large, Crow vowed not to vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker if Democrats won a House majority, which they did. When it came time for the vote, Crow defied the most powerful Democrat in Washington by casting his ballot for Tammy Duckworth, a fellow veteran representing Illinois in the Senate.

“I explained that this was not personal. This was part of a larger effort to usher in that next generation,” Crow recalls.

Ten months later, when it became clear that the Trump impeachment train was leaving the station for its first go-round, Pelosi rang up her former detractor. It was, Crow said later, “like being called into the principal’s office.” Pelosi needed someone with his skill set and temperament to convey the stakes of Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine without coming off as a partisan hack. While the House voted to impeach, the Senate declined to convict.

For Crow during that period, death threats became routine. He had an armed guard outside his house. A security detail walked his kids to school. Which brings him to last year. The security had to be called back. His “illegal orders” video brought about another round of threats—including some from Trump that Crow’s office referred to the Capitol Police, according to an email obtained by TIME.

Crow’s national-­security background has helped propel his reach in Congress, where he’s a top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee as well as the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee’s spy panel. When House Democrats needed someone to run point on a panel investigating the failed assassination against Trump in Butler, Pa., they tapped Crow. Last week, Crow and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, forced a House vote to halt the war in Iran, with the measure passing 214-208.

Recruiting "streetfighters" to Congress

But it’s his work helping Democrats win back the House that may win him the most chits. As a leader in candidate recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Crow has his hands in just about every contested race in the country, and is making a point of finding people he believes voters will view as “street fighters.”

“The oath of service I took doesn’t expire,” says JoAnna Mendoza, a retired Marine Corps drill sergeant and Crow recruit who is taking on Representative Juan Ciscomani, an Arizona Republican, in one of the top toss-up races in the country.

Mendoza has the support of Crow and the DCCC well before her primary. It’s a different story in some House races in other states where the DCCC either professed neutrality or backed a different candidate from whomever Crow endorsed through his political action committee, Service First.

Crow’s theory is that some of his preferred candidates—Marine drill sergeants, federal prosecutors—are more likely to excite those who are down on both parties.

The DCCC's chair, Rep. Suzan DelBene from Washington state, is hardly trying to curb his instincts.

“Jason brings a servant leadership ethos and a soldier’s discipline to the job. He knows that voters want fighters who put their local communities first, not undying loyalty to partisan ideology," she tells TIME. "His tireless work at recruiting, mentoring, and raising money to support candidates has been essential in our path back to the majority.”

If his instincts prove right, Crow may bring a whole raft of newcomers to Congress who are loyal to a mentor who helped get them there. Whatever Crow’s future ambitions, a cohort of fellow street fighters might come in handy.

“I have an independent streak to me,” he concedes. “But, you know, when we win, people will be pretty happy about that.”

Correction, July 27

The original version of this story misstated Crow’s rank on the House Intelligence Committee. He is a top Democrat there, but not the top Democrat on that panel.

It is often hard to know who is winning the war in Ukraine. The front lines scarcely budge. The air war brings regular Russian missile strikes—the most recent ones have hit Kyiv—and Ukrainian attacks that have battered Russian oil refineries and reached as far as Siberia. Ukrainian officials say the tide is turning their way; the Kremlin insists it will win a war of attrition.

In one significant way, Ukraine has already won. Some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful nations—the United States included—are now turning to Ukraine for military assistance. Ukraine has built a defense sector at an astonishing speed and emerged as a global player in military innovation. “Ukraine needs NATO, but NATO needs Ukraine as much as the other way around,” remarked President Alexander Stubb of Finland, which joined NATO in 2023.

Beyond its implications for the war, this is a stunning achievement that will serve Ukraine well long after the guns fall silent. In President Donald Trump’s parlance, Ukraine now has a powerful “card” to play, a card it dealt itself.

From garage tech to global powerhouse

When Russia invaded Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded for foreign military aid from the West and exhorted his countrymen to build makeshift weapons for the resistance. For a time, Kyiv was grateful for pledges of American support, Bayraktar drones from Turkey, and whatever cheap weapons emerged from Ukrainian garages and warehouses.

Four and a half years later, American aid is drying up, Ukraine has replaced Bayraktar drones with more effective weapons of its own, and the country’s weapon designers have moved well beyond their low-tech garages. Ukraine’s defense technology sector is now a $7 billion industry, with many global customers and a projected annual production capacity estimated at $55 billion.

A short list of made-in-Ukraine successes includes the FP-5 Flamingo, a cruise missile with a range of more than 1,800 miles; tens of thousands of robots designed for frontline logistics and combat operations, which are minimizing risk for soldiers and are increasingly used for holding ground, firing on the enemy, and even taking prisoners; drones launched from unmanned boats to intercept and destroy Russian Shahed drones; and the “Lima” electronic warfare system, which spoofs satellite navigation signals, sending incoming missiles astray.

What began as a frantic request for outside help and garage-style innovation has evolved into a manufacturing juggernaut, large enough to support the resistance and to sell to other nations. “I’ve been arguing for many years that Ukraine would eventually become a net exporter of security,” Michael McFaul, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, remarked in April. “That day is coming faster than I imagined.”

How the Iran war has helped Ukraine

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran hurt Ukraine by shifting global attention away from Russia’s aggression, but that war has also been a boon for Kyiv. Gulf states, and even some American military bases in the region, turned out to be poorly prepared to fight Iranian drone and missile attacks. Ukraine had built the technology that could help.

Ukraine’s edge involves what some have called the “Ford-versus-Ferrari” problem in air defense. The U.S. and its allies in the Gulf have relied on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot missile defense systems, which can knock almost any incoming weapon out of the sky. But those systems were designed to counter heavy missiles, and they are expensive. Each Patriot missile costs roughly $5 million. Using these against $50,000 Iranian drones is, as many have noted, akin to racing a Ferrari against a Ford. Rep. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, compared it to “throwing Ferraris at frisbees.”

Enter Ukraine, with its battle-tested counter-drone systems, which have beaten back barrages of Russian and Iranian drones at a fraction of the cost of THAAD systems and Patriots. To extend the metaphor, these are “Fords.” And they work. Zelensky has made this case to the rest of the world with great effect. In the past few months, he has signed defense export agreements with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, wealthy nations that typically turn to the U.S. for military hardware. 

Washington has gone from dismissing Zelensky to seeking deals of its own with Ukraine. After an Iranian drone attack killed six American soldiers in Kuwait in March, the Trump Administration turned to Ukraine for help. At Washington’s request, Ukraine set up its Sky Map air defense system at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base, home to more than 2,000 Americans. Two months later, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said he was pushing American firms to develop low-cost air defense interceptors within a year, and encouraged them to learn from the wars in Ukraine and Iran.

At a White House meeting last August, according to Axios, Zelensky presented a plan to exchange Ukrainian counter-drone technology for American aid. His PowerPoint included a scenario that would turn out to be prescient: Iranian drone attacks on the Gulf states and American military bases in the region. The White House rejected the offer. Even in March, Trump was dismissive, saying: “We don’t need their help in drone defense.” 

Though Ukraine still cannot envision a path into NATO, it is now selling its weapons and expertise to NATO countries and advising the alliance on military matters. During NATO exercises on Sweden’s Gotland island in May, Ukrainian drone teams overwhelmed Swedish forces, and warned the alliance that it was unprepared for modern drone warfare. 

Ukraine has opened ten weapons export centers across Europe. On July 15, the European Union and Ukraine signed a drone-production partnership. Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland announced a deal under which Ukraine would help his country build a “modern drone Armada.” Ukraine and Germany have signed an agreement focusing on drone production and battlefield technology integration. And Kyiv has signed drone deals with Norway, Denmark, and the Baltic nations. Even Japan is getting in on the Ukrainian boom: its Terra Drone company has partnered with a Ukrainian developer to scale up interceptor drone systems.

A powerful card

None of this guarantees Ukraine a victory over Russia, or even success at the negotiating table. What it does do is boost the odds that, when the guns finally fall silent, Ukraine will have a viable future and a powerful post-war “card” to play.

Were the war to end tomorrow, Ukraine would have lost territory but gained military partnerships and significant investments, along with a new engine for its security and economic future. Russia, meanwhile, would struggle to reassemble an economy that has been badly battered, one that relies almost solely on the fickle oil market and the war economy itself. 

All of which is to say: chalk one up for Ukraine. These aren’t just wins for Kyiv’s coffers, or for its ability to wreak fresh havoc on Russian targets. They are also a valuable asset that isn’t going anywhere, no matter what happens on the battlefield. For a country that will need every possible resource to rebuild, that is not just a card. It is an ace.

I’m an actor. I also use a motorized wheelchair and a ventilator, and both of them run on Medicaid. The machine that pushes air into my lungs, the chair that moves me across a room, and the aide who gets me out of bed so I can do my job and be on television are all paid for by Medicaid. Without that coverage, I wouldn’t have a career. Instead, I would have a massive life crisis. 

I’ve spent this year in a split-screen. On one side, I’ve had the best professional run of my life. On the other, a law that’s starting to take shape is threatening to make people like me suffer and disappear. 

That contradiction ultimately comes down to how much our country believes a disabled person is worth.

On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. By the Congressional Budget Office’s own accounting, its Medicaid provisions cut around $1 trillion in federal spending over a decade, and will leave an estimated 7.5 million more people uninsured by 2034. Count the rest of the law’s health provisions, and the coverage loss climbs to an estimated 10 million. The Center for American Progress notes the spending cuts almost exactly match the law’s other half: about $1 trillion in tax cuts flowing to the top 1% of households, nearly half of that to roughly 200,000 households making more than $2 million a year. 

Approximately a trillion dollars taken from the care of poor and disabled people, and roughly a trillion handed to the richest households in the country. 

Then, there’s the cost no budget table ever lists. Before the bill reached its final, larger form, three physician-researchers published a peer-reviewed analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine projecting what the cuts would do to actual lives. Their mid-range estimate:16,642 additional preventable deaths a year. 

If the losses fall hardest on disabled, high-cost enrollees rather than spreading evenly, the cuts could go even deeper. In a law built to find savings, the most expensive bodies to keep alive are the most efficient place to look. The math suggests that I cost a lot, and the bill was written by people looking for things that cost a lot. 

We must not trade disabled peoples’ lives in exchange for tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. And we must not sacrifice all of the progress the U.S. has made. 

On July 26, 1990, a Republican president signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the world’s first comprehensive civil rights law for disabled people, and a law older than me. George H.W.  Bush stood on the South Lawn and promised disabled people “independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives, the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic of the American mainstream.” 

Yesterday marked its 36th anniversary. The show I’m proudly in, Furious, premieres today. 

The ADA said disabled people have a right to live in America. The new law cuts the exact funding that helps many of us live, including the home-based services that keep disabled people like myself out of nursing facilities and in their own homes, which is the precise independence the ADA was written to protect. 

Representation has quietly become a consolation prize. Even though the percentage is still low, there are more disabled people on television than ever, and I’m grateful to be one of them. But the applause and the cuts are happening simultaneously, to the same people, and almost no one with power experiences that as a contradiction. 

You can be celebrated on a streaming service and defunded by a signature in the same summer. The issue: being seen is not the same as being kept alive. 

Many people genuinely believe those are the same thing. Visibility is a form of protection and a society putting disabled people on television would surely not also strip away the thing that gets them out of bed. It’s a comforting belief, but in modern America, it is false. Visibility is cheap. It costs the country nothing. Care is what costs, and care is what was cut. 

America has gotten very good at the gesture of inclusion and very comfortable with the substance of abandonment. Too often, we perform the first loudly enough to drown out the second. 

Disabled people see this gap with clarity. I’m telling you what it looks like from here because the view is unobstructed, and because I am, for now, still in a position to describe it. 

I’ll spend this month promoting a television show, marking 36 years of a promise, and watching my own healthcare coverage get more precarious, doing the arithmetic on my care in the back of my mind while I smile for cameras. I’ve got some great red carpet one-liners lined up. 

I’ve built a career on finding the joke in exactly this kind of absurdity, and I have to find it here, because the alternative is worse.