In a small office in the industrial district of Lod, a city outside Tel Aviv where Israeli forces expelled thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 war, sits the campaign headquarters of Otzma Yehudit, or “Jewish Power.” The ultra-nationalist party is led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right firebrand once deemed too extreme to serve in Israel’s military. He now sits in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet as national security minister, overseeing the country’s police and prison services.

If Ben-Gvir has his way, the Oct. 27 election will give his party more seats in parliament and himself greater leverage over another right-wing government led by Netanyahu. His ambition is not to replace the prime minister but to make him even more dependent on the hardline parties pushing for Palestinians to leave Gaza and the West Bank—and for Israel to extend sovereignty over the territories.

“I want Netanyahu to be prime minister. He’s a leader. I prefer him a million times over Eisenkot,” Ben-Gvir tells me in a rare interview on Oct. 19, referring to Netanyahu’s chief rival, the former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. Pounding his chest, he adds: “What will really help Netanyahu be right wing is if I, Ben-Gvir, will be a senior minister and it’s a full right-wing government.”

The post he covets is defense minister, which would give him command over Israel’s armed forces and greater authority to pursue his vision for Gaza and the West Bank: fewer constraints on military operations, the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from both territories, and the expansion of Israeli control over lands he believes belong to the Jewish people. Netanyahu has resisted giving Ben-Gvir the portfolio. But Ben-Gvir and his allies hope to win enough seats to force Netanyahu to accommodate their demands or risk losing power. He may benefit from the rightward shift of Israeli politics, particularly among younger voters drawn to his confrontational style and uncompromising vision of Jewish sovereignty. In a Channel 12 survey of first-time Jewish voters, nearly three-quarters identified as right-wing or center-right.

Polls suggest a tight contest, with Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party edging ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud in several recent surveys, but neither the prime minister’s right-wing bloc nor the opposition appears close to the 61 Knesset seats needed to govern. An average of four recent polls puts the two camps at roughly 50 and 53 seats, respectively, leaving Arab parties and smaller factions potentially pivotal. The result could be another fragile coalition; an unlikely unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot; or a prolonged deadlock that sends Israelis back to the polls. 

Ben-Gvir, dressed in a white shirt and white kippah, speaks halting English. Under his leadership, Israel’s prison service has drawn allegations of abuse for its treatment of Palestinian detainees. But he wants a more direct role in determining Israel’s future in Gaza and the West Bank.

“If Israel wants to continue to live and not be destroyed, we have to capture all of Gaza,” he says. “We have to promote voluntary emigration. Gaza could be a Riviera. It’s a beautiful place. But we can’t have one Hamas member there.” His proposal would have Palestinians leave Gaza for countries willing to receive them, and then allow Israelis to establish settlements in the coastal enclave. It would reverse a defining decision of an earlier right-wing prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who in 2005 withdrew Israeli forces and evacuated more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza. 

Ben-Gvir offers no clear explanation of which countries would accept large numbers of Palestinians, or how their departure could be considered voluntary under the conditions he proposes. “Gaza was always ours,” he says. “Israel is a tiny country. We have to be wider, broader. Hamas are terrorists who don’t just want to destroy Israel. They want to destroy the whole world.”

When I suggest that removing Palestinians from Gaza and resettling it would deepen Israel’s international isolation, he dismisses the concern. “I think that the stronger we are, we won’t be isolated,” he says. “Israel is isolated when it’s weak. If we help the population leave Gaza, we can be very strong.”

Ben-Gvir’s rhetoric and policy designs have drawn widespread condemnation at home and abroad, with critics across the political spectrum accusing him of inciting war crimes and eroding the foundations of Israeli democracy. “He’s a source of immense trouble,” Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad, tells me.

His ambitions in the West Bank are no less sweeping. Ben-Gvir wants Israel to annex the territory, which he, like most Israelis, calls by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria. It is home to 3.3 million Palestinians and governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), created by the 1993 Oslo Accords that envisioned a Palestinian state. Controlled by the Fatah party, the PA has a lightly armed security force that is trained by the U.S. military and historically works with Israel to suppress terror attacks. But Ben-Gvir wants Israeli security control over the area Palestinians envisage as the heartland of a future state. “We need to take away the weapons for the Palestinian Authority,” he says. “As of now, they are training in Jericho. They’re not training to direct traffic, are they? They want to do another Oct. 7.” A spokesperson for the PA did not respond to a request for comment. 

The vision goes beyond annexation. Ben-Gvir says he would encourage millions of Palestinians who have lived in the West Bank for generations to pack up and go. “We want sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, where we also want voluntary emigration,” he says. “Just so we understand, we want voluntary emigration—not kicking anyone out. People will choose the option to leave.”

Whether Ben-Gvir can translate those ambitions into official Israeli policy will depend in part on the leverage his party wins on Oct. 27. He is counting on voters to strengthen his hand. “I hope the nation sends its message,” he says.

Ben-Gvir, 50, was born into a relatively secular Jewish family of Iraqi and Kurdish descent in Mevaseret Zion, a suburb of Jerusalem. His mother had belonged to the Irgun, the Jewish underground that fought British rule before Israel’s founding, but his parents were, by all accounts, not ideological zealots. Ben-Gvir took a different path. He became religious at 12 and, amid the violence of the first Palestinian intifada, gravitated toward the teachings of Meir Kahane, the American-born rabbi who advocated expelling Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories. By his teens, he was an activist in Kahane’s movement, which Israel eventually outlawed as a terrorist organization. Ben-Gvir was considered so extreme that the Israeli military barred him from compulsory service. 

Today, Ben-Gvir continues to revere Kahane, even as he disavows some of his mentor’s most fanatical positions. “I went to his yeshiva. He did a lot of good things. He protected Jews. He was murdered sanctifying God’s name,” he tells me. “Not everything that he did do I fully agree with. In the past, I thought we should kick out all the Arabs from the land of Israel. Now I think there can be some. I accept that there are some Arabs who live here. And I have no problem with part of them. Those who recognize the State of Israel as the Jewish state. Those who are loyal to the Jewish State.”

As a young adult, Ben-Gvir moved to Kiryat Arba, a Jewish settlement overlooking the Palestinian city of Hebron, where Kahane’s legacy runs particularly deep. According to published accounts, he and his future wife, Ayala, visited the grave of Baruch Goldstein on their first date. Goldstein, an American-born physician and Kahane admirer, had massacred 29 Palestinian Muslims at prayer in Hebron in 1994 before being beaten to death by survivors. For years, Ben-Gvir displayed Goldstein’s portrait in his living room. He became an attorney for Jewish settlers and activists accused of extremist violence. He also acquired a criminal record, including convictions for incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization. 

For years, Ben-Gvir remained on the fringes of Israeli politics, a familiar presence at settler demonstrations but an unlikely candidate for national office. Over time, he softened some of his rhetoric, publicly distanced himself from Kahane’s demand to remove all Arabs, and cultivated a more approachable persona without abandoning his annexationist aspirations.

His political breakthrough came under Netanyahu. Ahead of the 2022 election, the prime minister helped broker an alliance between Ben-Gvir’s party and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, giving Netanyahu enough seats to assemble a government. Netanyahu’s decision to bring two Jewish supremacists into government became emblematic of Israel’s rightward turn—and one of the factors in its growing international isolation.

As national security minister, Ben-Gvir has pursued a hardline agenda: expanding civilian gun ownership, imposing an increasingly draconian regime on Palestinian prisoners, and pressing for tougher policing of anti-government protests. He wore a noose-shaped pin as he championed legislation imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of deadly terrorist attacks, and released an AI-generated video depicting Palestinian prisoners emerging from Israeli jails emaciated and weeping, a grotesque statement about the conditions of their confinement. 

Ben-Gvir also encouraged Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, challenging a decades-old arrangement governing the disputed religious site, which has traditionally permitted Jews to visit but reserved the right to worship there for Muslims. Under Ben-Gvir, Israeli police have increasingly allowed Jews to pray at the site, a deliberate provocation to the Arab world, drawing condemnation from Palestinian and Jordanian authorities. “It used to be an apartheid up there and Jews could not pray,” he tells me. “That could not happen in any normal country. I returned justice to the Temple Mount.”

Ben-Gvir has also become one of the leading voices on the Israeli right seeking to shift responsibility for Oct. 7 away from Netanyahu and onto Israel’s military and intelligence establishment. Among the claims he repeats is that security officials failed to wake the prime minister as the attack unfolded—which is disputed by former security officials.

“Even if he’s not perfect, and even if he made mistakes, and he indeed made mistakes, what screwed him up on Oct. 7 was our intelligence,” Ben-Gvir says of Netanyahu. “The army, the intelligence, the Shin Bet. They are all to blame,” he adds. “Netanyahu is not clear of blame, but there are many people who are more at fault than him.” 

Ben-Gvir’s relationship with the prime minister is not exactly warm. “I’m not backing him; I’m not his crony on everything. I think he’s much better than Eisenkot,” Ben-Gvir says. “I want to be next to him. I want him to be very strong. I want to pull him to the right.”

He tells me he would not join a unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, a possibility if neither can assemble a governing coalition. “Governments like that are never good,” he says. “It's dancing in two weddings.” Besides, he adds, “It won’t fulfill my dreams.”

What Ben-Gvir wants from another Netanyahu government would place him at odds with the diplomatic framework advanced by the Trump Administration and its partners in Europe and the Arab world. The American-led Board of Peace envisions Gaza’s reconstruction under Palestinian leadership, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and a possible path toward Palestinian statehood. 

Ben-Gvir, on the other hand, wants Israeli sovereignty and the departure of much of Gaza’s Palestinian population. He cites polling that he says shows 52% of Gazans want to leave the territory, devastated by years of war and Hamas rule. If Israel helps that majority leave, he reasons, those who remain will eventually want to follow. “They will see it is successful for them, they’ll see there’s a future, there’s a life,” he says. “There’s good places in the world. Pretty places.” He offers no evidence that the remaining population would choose to relocate, or how such a migration could be arranged without coercion.

For Ben-Gvir and his allies, the coming election offers a chance to advance a far-reaching transformation of Israeli politics and society—to move the country toward a maximalist vision of a Jewish state, one with expanded territorial ambitions, fewer judicial constraints, and a government less inclined to heed international objections. Ben-Gvir dismisses concerns that such policies would cement Israel’s status as a pariah state. In his telling, the military campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran demonstrate the value of uncompromising power. “We made Israel stronger,” he says. “When Israel is stronger, the world respects that.”

– With reporting by Liam Forberg

Social media giant Meta was hit with a class action lawsuit in Australia on behalf of children and teenagers who allegedly suffered harm over the addictive design features and exposure to harmful content on its platforms Facebook and Instagram.

Australian law firm MinterEllison filed the class action in the country’s Federal Court on Oct. 9. The firm announced the suit on Wednesday, saying it seeks to “recover compensation for both current and former users” of the two Meta social media platforms.

The class action, funded by Sydney-headquartered Litigation Lending Services, was brought in the names of eight unnamed lead applicants. Australia’s Federal Court on Monday ordered a gag on reporting any information that could reveal the applicants’ identities and their ​statements of claim.

“This proceeding raises important questions about the design and operation of social media platforms and their impact on children and teenagers in Australia,” MinterEllison Partner William Nolan said in its press release. “Those questions will now be considered through the Federal Court process.”

TIME reached out to Meta for comment. A spokesperson told Reuters: “We are aware of ​this claim and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”

The Australian government, which enforced the world’s first social media ban for children under 16, is also set to take action against Meta and other social media companies. In a Bloomberg interview published Tuesday, Communications Minister Anika Wells, a 2026 TIME100 Next honoree, said that the government expects to bring Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, Snapchat, and Google’s YouTube to court for allegedly failing to comply with the country’s laws.

U.S. parallels

The Australian class action follows several civil victories against Meta in the U.S. In March, a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and Google to pay $6 million in damages to a 20-year-old plaintiff in a bellwether social media addiction trial. In August, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay more than $900 million and introduce a slew of reforms to its platforms, including rigorous age verification, time limits for users under 18 years old, and enhanced protection against sextortion and child sexual exploitation. The same month, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion to settle a nationwide lawsuit that alleged its platforms were “addictive” by design and harmed children.

Rob Nicholls, a senior researcher at the University of Sydney with expertise on digital regulations, tells TIME in an email that he was “not surprised” with the class action, given the cases in the U.S.

“The U.S. lawsuits were primarily concerned with negligence,” Nicholls tells TIME. “It’s likely that in Australia the suit will be both negligence and the consequences of the supply of an unsafe product.”

Regulatory enforcement

Australia has led the way in trying to rein in social media platforms in the name of child safety. Last year, it enforced a blanket ban on children under 16 from having social media accounts, a move that other countries have followed. 

The effort, however, has been criticized by some, including politicians and digital rights advocates, for not being aggressively enough enforced since the ban took effect in December 2025. The latest data from the country’s online regulator, eSafety, shows that 42% of children aged 10 to 15 still own a social media account.

In a podcast published Thursday, Wells, the Communications Minister, said there was a “great initial response” with 5 million accounts deactivated, but that has since “tapered off.” She added that the eSafety Commissioner believes the five platforms in particular could be doing more to comply with the law and the Commission is investigating potential violations.

Asked why there haven’t been any fines yet, Wells said: “Unfortunately, this isn't a police officer on duty pointing a speeding radar at a car and issuing an on-the-spot fine. This is asking the eSafety Commissioner, our independent regulator, to take on some of the biggest, richest, most resourced companies in the world.” 

In September, the Australian government increased the fines for noncompliant social media firms. Failing to take “reasonable steps” to prevent underage Australians from creating or keeping accounts could incur a maximum penalty of 109.2 million Australian dollars (around $76 million).

But speaking to Bloomberg, Wells pointed to the multi-billion-dollar settlement Meta agreed to in the U.S. and said, “I’m not convinced that any particular dollar value is going to change it.” For her, the policy should be measured on how it creates cultural change. “And cultural change,” she said, “takes time.”

The U.S. and Israel are reportedly developing plans for major strikes on Iran after the U.S. midterm elections in November.

Citing people familiar with the deliberations, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed the possibility of renewed strikes on Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week. Possible targets of the strikes reportedly include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

U.S. officials have repeatedly asserted that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are teetering on the edge of collapse but are deliberately prolonging the war in an effort to meddle with Republican prospects in the midterm elections. Once the elections are over, President Donald Trump promised last month, the Iranian regime would quickly capitulate.

“I think the war is going to end immediately after the election,” Trump said. “They can’t hold out any longer.”

Renewed strikes could complicate that outlook.

Some officials have reportedly argued that resuming attacks for an intense but limited campaign would hasten Iran’s economic collapse, especially as the country has been squeezed by an ongoing U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and economic sanctions campaign. The officials hope the blow will make Iran more amenable to negotiations.

Trump has at times shared that view.

Last week, Trump told Newsmax he was considering additional military action in Iran, including a possible strike on Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a nuclear facility deep underground. His comments came amid reports that he was weighing deploying a 22,000 GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, also known as the “mother of all bombs.”

The President added the war would end soon, be it through negotiation or escalation.

“Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?” he said in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month.

“But I believe we’ll make a deal,” he added, “right after the election.”

Will the U.S. renew strikes on Iran?

Intensified fighting between the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels and the Saudi and Yemeni governments has threatened to create a broader regional crisis that could be harder to disengage from. The State Department on Wednesday ordered nonemergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia amid escalating attacks by the Houthis on Saudi infrastructure.

Houthi attacks on Saudi airports and Aramco facilities, as well as their attempts to disrupt shipping through Bab El-Mandeb, which has become an important alternative to the Strait of Hormuz for energy trade, could prompt direct U.S. strikes in support of Saudi Arabia, analysts have said. Trump said earlier this month that the U.S. “may” join Saudi strikes on the Houthis, although that has yet to transpire.

Israel’s Oct. 27 election could also raise the stakes of additional military action. Netanyahu, whom Trump has endorsed, would remain in office until a new government is formed, even if his bloc loses the election, and his government would retain the authority to order strikes during that transition. But renewed strikes before the election, or after an electoral defeat, could invite scrutiny. “One ordered in the last weeks of a deadlocked campaign would be judged in Israel as politics as well as strategy,” Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, wrote in a September analysis.

Nevertheless, the forum assessed that a large-scale Israeli strike on Iranian territory, with or without U.S. participation, was probable before the end of the year. Analysts told the Times Netanyahu could use the prospect of joint strikes to form a unity government that could allow him to stay in power. 

“The larger constraint,” Roman argued, “is Washington.”

Trump has not yet approved the proposed strikes, the Times reported.

Trump has also called off plans to renew attacks on Iran before. He reportedly blocked an Israeli plan for a multi-day offensive against Iran earlier this month, and rejected five proposals for major operations against Iran or the Houthis in recent months.

The U.S. and Iran have not exchanged major fighting in recent weeks. The last reported U.S. strikes on Iran were on Sept. 8, even as Iranian attacks on commercial shipping have continued. Earlier this month, Trump ruled out attacking Iran before the midterms.

Read More: What Is the Status of the U.S.-Iran Peace Talks? Here's What Both Sides Are Saying

How might Iran respond to new strikes?

Tehran’s reluctance to make concessions to the U.S. appears to have strengthened, rather than weakened, over the course of the war. Iranian leaders reiterated this week that they will not directly negotiate with the U.S. unless Washington accedes to certain demands, which include ending its naval blockade and releasing frozen Iranian funds.

The initial U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign on Iran that began the war on Feb. 28, as well as June 2025 attacks during an earlier round of U.S.-Iran nuclear diplomacy, also hardened the Iranian view that the U.S. is not serious about negotiating. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in March that the previous disruptions of negotiating rounds had increased distrust in Washington.

Last month, the IRGC published an open letter appealing to American voters to “wrest control” from their government. In the letter, the IRGC said: “Despite all the hardships that our enemies impose on us, we will continue fighting, as we have done for the past 47 years.”

Both the U.S. and Iran appear to believe they hold enough leverage to achieve their goals, and those “dueling perceptions” have impeded progress towards a deal, according to an Oct. 1 analysis by the New York-based nonpartisan research organization The Soufan Center.

Iran’s key point of leverage is its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway vital to global energy trade. Iran’s militarization of the strait has disrupted global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, leading to soaring energy prices and inflation.

Analysts previously told TIME that the higher prices are politically costly for Trump. In recent weeks, a growing number of Republicans have broken with Trump on Iran. The President has also seen his lowest approval ratings of his second term.

Iran’s ability to choke off regional oil exports, however, appears to be waning. Middle East oil exports topped prewar levels last week as shipping companies use alternative routes to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. HSBC Group Chief Executive Georges Elhedery also projected that Hormuz could be “redundant” in five years thanks to investment in alternative logistics routes.

Iranian officials told the Times that they are aware of the U.S. and Israel’s war planning and are developing their own tactics.

Earlier this week, IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi told the Tehran Times that “even a limited” attack from Washington would provoke a “serious energy crisis” for the world. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that an attack on Pickaxe Mountain would be met with a response “just as hard,” if not “stronger.”

And earlier this month, Iranian officials said Iran had prepared potential retaliatory operations that would depart from the U.S. and Israel’s assumptions. Security Chief Mohsen Rezaei told Press TV that Iran could respond to renewed attacks by targeting new targets, including U.S.-linked data centers and AI facilities in the Gulf, as well as subsea communications cables. Last month, Iran threatened to retaliate against any further U.S. attacks by targeting U.S. oil and gas assets in the Gulf.

Read More: ‘One of the World’s Most Critical Digital Bottlenecks’: How the Iran War Could Threaten Global Internet Access

In a post on Telegram on Sunday, Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iran’s negotiator Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said, if the U.S. and Israel attack, “they may want to keep it short, but we will not allow it.”

He added on Wednesday: “The war will continue longer and across a wider geography than the enemy calculates.”

Amber Kostka, who owns The Stockpot restaurant in Hampton Roads, Va., says she has tried to do right by her employees by offering them health insurance, alongside good wages and a 401k. 

But as costs have risen—premiums have roughly tripled since the company first started offering health insurance in 2018—her employees are increasingly telling her they can’t afford health insurance. That’s even though she splits the cost of premiums with employees, which are roughly $400 a month. 

Instead, employees are dropping out of the plan and going uninsured, she says. About 35% of her eligible employees now buy the employer-sponsored health insurance, she says, down from 50% prior to COVID. She wants to warn them about the risks of going without insurance, she says, but also knows their finances are extremely tight. “It’s just a cost thing, at the end of the day,” she says. “You can’t stop paying for groceries.” 

Her employees aren’t alone. The share of working-age U.S. adults without health insurance rose to 11.2% in 2026, up from 8.9% in 2024, according to new research from the Commonwealth Fund. People don’t have health insurance because the costs of everything—including gasoline, housing, and food—are rising, and they’re deciding they can’t afford to pay for even employer-sponsored plans like Kostka’s. “The whole system just seems like a complete gamble with people’s lives,” she says. 

Some people are looking at the price of plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace and deciding they can’t afford health insurance. Premiums on the ACA marketplaces increased by an average of 58% in 2026 after Congress decided last year not to renew expiring subsidies. 

Ironically, these uninsured Americans may be helping drive the cost of health care even higher, fueling a cycle in which health insurance gets more expensive, forcing more people to drop coverage. As hospitals field more uninsured patients, they have to pass the costs of uncompensated care onto someone. “When providers have to provide a lot of uncompensated care, how do they make themselves whole? They raise prices,” says Beth Umland, director of employer research for Marsh, the health benefits consultant company formerly known as Mercer.

Of course, having more uninsured Americans isn’t the only reason costs are rising. A Marsh survey of employers recently found that they expected total health benefit costs per employee to rise 8.2% in 2027, the highest increase since 2003. One reason was that the consolidation of health systems was leading to higher prices, as some systems had monopolies in certain markets. Another was that lower government spending for public health programs was leading to higher costs for private sector plans.

“This is starting to feel—’unsustainable’ is the word you hear,” she says.

Many of the reasons why health care costs are rising may seem minimal until you start adding them up, Umland says. For example, more doctors are using AI scribes in care, which are helping them bill for more services, making care more expensive, she says. A clause of the No Surprises Act, which was passed by Congress in 2020 to protect patients from surprise medical bills but which allows disputes to be settled by arbitration, has also added billions to costs, she says. 

There are also increasingly more treatments available for patients, and those treatments are more expensive than the ones they’re replacing, she says. One example: GLP-1s, which may save insurers money in the long run on health costs but which are expensive upfront. “That’s just a whole new category of expense that didn’t exist before,” she says. 

In its survey, Marsh found that many employers were planning to pass costs onto employees after years of trying not to do so. 

Overall, workers are paying on average about $7,471 annually towards premiums for employer-sponsored family health benefits this year, up 9% from 2025, according to a new employer health benefits survey from KFF. Workers at small firms with less than 200 employees—like Kostka’s—are especially hard hit, paying about $9,687 towards family coverage: $2,847 more than workers in larger firms. 

And even as they pay more for health care, the plans available to them are getting costlier to use. The average deductible for employer sponsored plans has increased 34% over the last 10 years, according to KFF. 

What employers are doing

Kostka says there have recently been fewer health insurers in her area to choose from. Two years ago, she switched from just buying insurance outright for her employees, which many small businesses do, to self-funding the plan. She was able to do this because her employees are relatively young and healthy, she says, making her risk of incurring big medical costs for cancer or a catastrophic illness relatively low. 

But she knows she’s just a major diagnosis away from being dropped from the self-funded plan, she says. “It’s a little bit of a gamble right now,” she says. 

There are some things employers can do to push back against high health care costs, says Jim Winkler, chief strategy of the Business Group on Health, which published its own recent survey of employers which projected health care costs to rise 9% in 2027, the highest forecast the group has ever recorded.

Some employers are dropping coverage for GLP-1s for weight loss to save money, he says. Others are trying to drive employees toward what are called Centers of Excellence—essentially hospitals or medical practices with high ratings that may save money in the long-term since employees won’t need to return again and again for care. Some employers are also telling employees to try to find cheap, legitimate medications where they can—from sites like GoodRx, for example—and reimbursing them, rather than getting medications from a pharmacy benefit manager.

“We’re just painting a really challenging picture for health care costs,” he says, “which leads employers down the path of needing to find things to do to take action to mitigate them.”

A small number of employees are deciding not to offer health care at all and are instead offering employees cash to buy their own plans through the ACA marketplace. This option, called an ICHRA (Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement) is pushed by Republicans, Winkler says, and was introduced during the first Trump Administration. 

Small employers, though, often can only choose from available plans, and if there aren’t many, they don’t have much room to negotiate. 

It’s a problem facing Mas Torito, owner of Kokoro restaurant in Denver. He spent close to $150,000 in premium payments for his employees in 2025 and is on track to spend $200,000 in 2026. That’s about 2.7% of revenues; most restaurants only have margins of 2-3%. 

“Really since COVID, every single year feels like there are these extra pressures on us,” he says.

Kokoro has been in business for 40 years, and some of Torito’s employees have been working at the restaurant the whole time. He suspects that having an older pool of employees is part of what’s driving his health care costs up every year. 

“I think they see the number of claims and costs every year going up,” he says, “and that translates into higher premiums.”

Like Kostka, Torito is committed to offering health insurance for his employees, even as his own costs rise. And like Kostka, he’s hearing from more employees that they can’t afford it. Now, only about 40% of his employees buy the insurance, he says. 

“I get it,” he says. “The deductible keeps going up every year, the insurance keeps going up. It’s enough where people are really thinking, ‘Hey, do I want insurance or not?’”

The fierce and bipartisan backlash to gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's decision to feature his opponent's estranged mother in an ad left Republicans in Ohio and Washington reeling on Wednesday, as both Ramaswamy and Vice President J.D. Vance doubled down on the divisive strategy.

Publicly, Republicans were mounting a defense, led by Vance, who is from Ohio and was campaigning in Cincinnati on Wednesday, treating the ad as a gamechanging October surprise. But privately, old-guard Republicans were baffled that Ramaswamy would dare to deploy Democratic nominee Amy Acton’s own mother, who has not spoken to her daughter since 1978 when she defended Acton’s stepfather who was indicted for raping Acton as a child. Some predicted the ad was likely to draw more empathy and interest in Acton from voters, and turn them away from Ramaswamy. 

“We’ve lost the plot,” says one Republican strategist. “We had a real good chance and then we do this two weeks out.”

Adds a second: “We now deserve to lose this race.”

The addition of this ad so close to Election Day roiled races in Ohio up and down the ballot. “I would not have run that ad,” Republican Sen. Jon Husted, running in a tight and expensive race for re-election against Sherrod Brown in Ohio, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Other players in the state's Republican circles say the ad has all the pieces of a misfire, especially among women.

Recent polls have shown Acton leading but not running away with the race. A Marist University poll released this week showed her up seven points. But Ohio is a state where President Donald Trump won three times, never with fewer than eight points to spare. If elected, Acton would be the first Democrat to become Governor since 2007.

Ramaswamy’s campaign said it was putting $4 million into making sure the ad gets seen, with a goal of targeting persuadable voters still undecided between the billionaire entrepreneur and Acton, the former state health chief who steered Ohio through the pandemic. But the risk of it backfiring is incredibly high with no time to recover.

Ramaswamy’s campaign includes several operatives who previously worked for Vance, who sidestepped questions about the ad’s message on Wednesday as he urged  Republicans to not allow such hard-nosed messaging to distract them from the stakes of the election. “I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” he told reporters. “So I would say to Ohio Republicans: do you actually think that Amy Acton is unfit to serve as Governor of the state of Ohio? I do.”

By Wednesday afternoon, it was clear Vance might be in a decided minority. “I don’t have to agree with Amy Acton’s politics to believe that exploiting someone’s childhood trauma is wrong,” wrote Republican Lydia Mihalik, a member of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s Cabinet. 

Mike Murphy, a strategist who was in Sen. John McCain’s inner circle when he ran for President in 2000 and headed Gov. Jeb Bush’s super PAC in 2016, wrote a brutal assessment on social media, saying it “is looking more and more like political suicide.”

And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who ran against Ramaswamy in the 2020 presidential primaries and was a frequent critic of him, was even more direct. “He’s a bad guy,” she said. “It’s a shame he continues to get away with it.”

In an editorial endorsement of Acton published Wednesday, The Columbus Dispatch roundly condemned the video: “It should go without saying that sexual violence against children should not be politicized or taken as lightly as Ramaswamy appears to take it.”

For its part, Acton’s campaign began an ad of its own calling out Ramaswamy’s effort to make her childhood a campaign issue after a half century in the past. 

"I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it,” Acton’s brother, Phil Stearns, says in a new 30-second ad released Wednesday. “She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that, and if she hadn't done that, who knows where I would have ended up.” 

"She was 11- and 12-years-old, and to think that that's somehow a talking point—shame on Vivek,” Stearns continues. “The contempt he has for Amy is the contempt he has for Ohio. He's not fit to lead."

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan has accused the Supreme Court’s conservative majority of undermining democracy and creating a more polarized electorate through a series of key rulings that have affected the nature of elections ahead of the midterms. 

“The court has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effect of their rulings on how the political system works,” Kagan said while speaking to students and faculty at Catholic University’s law school in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

She went on to say that the conservative justices have “created a democracy that does not work as well as it should.” 

Kagan—who was nominated to the bench in 2010 by President Barack Obama—referenced specific rulings that have had a large impact on electoral maps, campaign finance, and executive authority. Experts tell TIME that these rulings have affected the midterm elections and could, in turn, change the fate of Congress.  

Read More: Midterm Ad Spending Has Surpassed $10B. Where Is the Money Coming From?

“It's no exaggeration to say that the form of our elections and democracy owes a great deal to the decisions of the Supreme Court, sometimes overruling the will of Congress,” says Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school and the director of its Safeguarding Democracy Project. 

In fact, he believes Kagan’s remarks do not go far enough in their criticism. 

“You're going to hear more voices calling for the Supreme Court to be changed, either by adding more justices, putting in term limits, or doing other things,” he says. 

The outcome of the midterm elections might have some influence on these issues going forward, though there are limits to what Congress can accomplish regardless of who controls the majority in the years ahead.

How Supreme Court rulings may affect the 2026 midterms

Kagan’s comments outline how the high court’s rulings have impacted this year’s elections. 

She pointed to Louisiana v. Callais, which concerned whether Louisiana had to draw a second congressional district where Black voters made up a majority—giving them a greater chance to elect their preferred candidate. In April, the Supreme Court struck down that map and made it harder to challenge maps that weaken minority voters’ influence. Kagan called the ruling an “evisceration” of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Following the decision, many Republican-led states proposed redrawn voting maps that favored their candidates and weakened Black voters’ electoral influence.   

Read More: Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act

Hasen says that Americans are already facing the fallout. He pointed to Louisiana and Alabama, each of which eliminated a district where Black voters could elect their candidates of choice.

“We'll see much more of that in the next few election cycles,” Hasen predicts, calling the decision “the worst election law decision in 100 years at the Supreme Court.”

Kagan also mentioned a 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause that prevents federal courts from blocking electoral maps on the grounds that they unfairly favor one party. States including Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida have since adopted new congressional maps that could help Republicans win additional House seats in November.

This gerrymandering, Kagan said, strips people of “their rights to voting equality” and has resulted in “driving people away from the center, toward the wings, toward the extremes.” The outcome, she said, is contributing toward what’s already a “too-polarized country.” 

She added that these redrawn maps are “very destructive to our democracy.” 

How campaign finance rules may come into play ahead of Election Day

In her speech, Kagan also highlighted the role that money increasingly plays in politics.

“The people of America look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare, and they’re right,” Kagan said.

A 6-3 ruling split along ideological lines from June in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC removed limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates, including on television advertisements. 

Her comments come amid what is projected to be the most expensive election cycle in history. 

Billionaires have poured hundreds of millions into super political action committees (super PACs) for campaign ads—chiefly supporting Republican candidates in tight Senate races. 

How the court has expanded presidential powers

Supreme Court rulings have also influenced the scope of presidential power.

Kagan also criticized the court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter. In June, justices struck down protections against firing Federal Trade Commission commissioners without cause, expanding presidential control over independent agencies. 

“The danger is it allows the president to ride roughshod over all the institutions of government,” Kagan said.

Aziz Huq, a professor at the University of Chicago law school and a co-author of How to Save a Constitutional Democracy, tells TIME that “the misuse or the use of prosecutorial discretion at the direction of the president against political foes … flows from the court’s ruling” in Slaughter.

Furthermore, Huq says, it expands “the scope of presidential directive authority over subordinates.” 

Huq pointed to the Trump Administration’s investigation into Somali-born Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota as an example of how greater presidential control over executive officials can be used against political opponents.

What Congress can do to check the Supreme Court

Even if Democrats regain control of Congress in November, Trump could veto legislation seeking to counteract the court’s decisions. Overriding him would require two-thirds support in both chambers.

As a result, Hasen says it could take until 2029 “at the earliest,” when a new president enters the White House, for there to be a counteractive response to the high court’s conservative majority. 

There are measures Congress and states can take in the meantime, he continues, saying that Congress has the ability to enact a nationwide law that would restrict partisan gerrymandering of House maps. 

Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledges that authority in his ruling in Rucho.

“As noted, the Framers gave Congress the power to do something about partisan gerrymandering in the Elections Clause,” Roberts wrote, referring to the 55 delegates who in 1787 met to draft the U.S. Constitution. “That avenue … remains open.” 

When it comes to Callais, Hasen says lawmakers could attempt to amend the Voting Rights Act, and restore protections narrowed by the ruling, by forcing the Supreme Court “to decide some of the constitutional questions that they ducked” during the original case. 

But any new legislation could face a legal challenge, leaving the Supreme Court to decide whether it can stand.

Those hoping to challenge the highest court’s composition or jurisdiction may go about that in a few ways, such as by petitioning for term limits. Proposals include limiting justices’ active service through legislation—an approach whose constitutionality is disputed—or through a constitutional amendment. Another route is to limit which cases the court can hear. 

Complicating matters, Huq says, is that legislative reforms could ultimately come before the Supreme Court, whose methods of interpreting the law leave the justices largely unconstrained in reaching their preferred outcomes.

“Almost all of these proposals are going to fail because the court will strike them down or find ways to undermine them,” Huq says. “We're at a very difficult and perilous point.”

The goal of limiting global warming to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is largely out of reach. That’s according to the United Nations Environmental Program’s (UNEP) 2026 Emissions Gap report released on Wednesday, considered the definitive assessment of global climate action. 

“We’ve spent decades postponing cuts to emissions and now we’re facing the consequences,” Anne Olhoff, director of the UNEP-Copenhagen Climate Centre, and one of the report’s authors, said after the report’s publication. “The world can still attain the goals of the Paris Agreement but we must work hard to not only meet but surpass our most ambitious climate targets. The longer we wait, the larger the risk that we jeopardize the temperature goal.” 

While the report’s warning is stark, that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. Coordinated efforts to reduce emissions can still have a meaningful impact on climate change, it says—but action must be taken quickly. 

Here are the biggest takeaways from the Emissions Gap report. 

The 1.5°C target is mostly out of reach 

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world agreed to halt planetary warming at 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures and to pursue efforts to limit warming by 1.5°C. Doing so would provide a greater chance at avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. The window to avoid overshooting the 1.5°C goal, however, is now closed, the report finds. 

But that doesn’t mean that there’s no hope for climate action. It is still possible to limit the overshoot and bring temperatures back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. Every fraction of a degree of warming above 1.5°C increases climate impacts, making the goal to limit as much warming beyond 1.5°C all the more important.  

The world is on track to reach 2.8°C of warming by 2100

Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, countries must submit updated climate pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which outline specific goals to reduce national emissions. Based on the policies currently in place under the NDCs submitted by over 150 nations, the planet is on track to reach 2.8°C of warming by the end of the century. 

Based on this, today’s report concludes that global climate pledges are falling short. If countries meet their new NDCs, which set upgraded targets for 2035 and were due last year, global warming is still projected to reach 2.6°C by the end of the century. 

Both scenarios would have devastating consequences—dramatically transforming sea levels and ecosystems, and triggering compounding climate extremes such as higher temperatures and drought, increasing the likelihood of wildfires. 

We need to cut carbon emissions by 18% in the next four years

The report notes that it is still possible to peak warming at 1.7°C or 1.8°C. Doing so would require major changes. We would need to cut emissions by 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035, and 69% by 2040, relative to 2025 levels. This would require sustained emissions cuts along with carbon dioxide removal. 

“Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5°C increases climate impacts and risks, such as the deadly floods, heat waves, and wildfires that have plagued many nations this year,” said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen. “So, we must pull out all the stops to minimize peak warming and return to 1.5°C by the end of the century.”

The U.S. is a major outlier for emissions

While emissions growth has slowed down in most G20 countries, emissions in the United States “far exceeded that of all other countries," the report says. That’s due to the increased electricity demand, in part due to data centers, and new policies that encouraged the use of fossil fuels like coal over clean energy sources. 

The report includes a statement from the State Department, noting that the U.S. "does not endorse or agree with its analysis or conclusions, and has not provided comments to this report."

The Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement also worsened the climate projections, as estimates no longer include climate action that would have been taken under the United States’s NDC targets.

The U.S. is the second largest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases, behind China, which has quickly become a world leader in renewable energy (while also ramping up coal production.)

Climate policies are reducing emissions

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement just over a decade ago, global renewable electricity capacity has grown three times faster than anticipated, while solar PV build-out has increased seven times faster. If these trends were to continue, and coupled with more policies to support clean energy, the world would be on track to reach its renewable energy goals.

The report examined more than 200 climate policies and found that they target emission reductions across a wide range of sectors and countries. That’s an encouraging sign the report notes. All that’s left is for these solutions to be scaled faster. 

“We have a wealth of success stories showing that emissions can be cut quickly,” said Andersen. “It is now up to nations to urgently put in place policies that spark fast, deep and sustained emissions reductions, and put the world on track for a more stable climate and more stable economies and societies.”

As Election Day looms, much of the national focus is on whether Democrats will win control of Congress. But in several states, the race for governor is among the tightest, and most consequential, races on the ballot.

The party in control of the White House typically fares poorly in midterm elections. While that usually translates most clearly into losing congressional seats, true “wave” elections often lead to similar shifts in state governments as well. 

Multiple states could see the party in the governor’s seat flip. Voters in Ohio, Alaska, and Texas might end up electing their first Democratic governors in decades. In Oregon, the reverse could pan out, with a Republican in contention to upend a Democrat’s hold on the office for the first time since 1982. 

Read More: Republican Panic Sets In Over Prospects of a Massive Blue Wave

Here are seven races for governor to watch on Election Day.

Ohio

Ohio's governor's race was thrust into the national spotlight this week after Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign released an ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democrat opponent Amy Acton. Acton’s mother lost custody of Acton and her brother after their stepfather was arrested and indicted on a charge of raping Acton when she was a child.

The ad immediately drew widespread outrage, the latest twist in a race that Republicans had thought they were well positioned to win after Trump won the state by 11 points in 2024. Many Republicans had been expected to vie to replace Gov. Mike DeWine, who couldn’t run again because of term limits. But Trump’s endorsement of Ramaswamy essentially cleared the field for him. 

Now Ramaswamy is in a very tight race against Acton, who previously led the Ohio Department of Health during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the Cook Political Report previously marked the Ohio gubernatorial race as “Lean Republican,” it later shifted its rating slightly in favor of Democrats, to “Toss Up.”

Read More: Ramaswamy Facing Tougher Fight Than Republicans Had Expected in Ohio

Many polls show Acton with a narrow lead, but a few suggest that Ramaswamy has a razor-thin lead. 

If Acton ultimately wins, it would be the first time in 20 years that Ohio voters had elected a Democrat as governor.

Alaska

The Cook Political Report recently changed its rating for the race in Alaska from a “Toss Up” to “Lean Democrat.” Alaska’s current governor, Republican Mike Dunleavy, is prohibited from running again because of term limits. The open race to replace him includes one Democrat, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, and three Republicans: Bernadette Wilson, a business owner who has received the backing of President Trump; Dave Bronson, the previous mayor of Anchorage; and Treg Taylor, a former state attorney general.

Kreiss-Tomkins, who was previously a state legislator, finished the state’s open primary race in August in the top spot, with another Democratic candidate, Tom Begich, in second place. In Alaska, the top four candidates in the open primary move on to the general election. But Begich later announced that he was dropping out of the race and endorsed Kreiss-Tomkins, allowing Taylor to land a spot in the general election ballot. 

“The data we’ve seen makes clear that the strongest path to winning in November is not two Democratic candidates competing for the same donors and resources—it’s bringing those people together behind one ticket,” Begich said in a video announcing the suspension of his campaign in August.

Many recent polls show Kreiss-Tomkins leading his three opponents. This month, Trump expressed frustration with all the Republicans still in the race, noting on Truth Social that he had urged Bronson to drop out.

“All Bronson and Taylor will do is take away Votes from the Candidate that has, by far, the best chance of winning,” Trump said in his post. “Now is the time for all Republicans to unite behind Bernadette to ensure she has a tremendous Victory in November!”

Texas

The last time Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ran for re-election in 2022, he won by double digits. He now may be facing his most competitive re-election fight yet; some polls show him holding a slim lead over Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, while others show Hinojosa ahead by a small margin. 

“This is an unusual situation in Texas politics,” Joshua Blank, the research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, previously told TIME. “It’s rather uncommon to see any Democratic candidate leading in anything other than a single outlying poll leading up to the election.”

If Hinojosa were to win, it would be the first time voters chose to put a Democrat in the state’s governor’s mansion in more than three decades. The tightness of the race mirrors that of the state’s Senate race, where Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton are locked in an expensive fight.

Read More: Could Texas Elect a Democratic Governor for the First Time in More Than 30 Years? Polls Show a Tight Race

Still, the Cook Political Report suggests that the odds are in Abbott’s favor, rating the race as “Lean Republican.”

Oregon

Amid talk of a national blue wave, the race for governor in Oregon may prove to be a bright spot for Republicans. Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, is trying to fend off a challenge by Republican Christine Drazan, a state senator. Some polls show Kotek ahead by a narrow margin, while others show Drazan in the lead by a similarly small measure. The Cook Political Report previously rated the race as “Likely Democrat,” but has since shifted it slightly in Republicans’ favor, to “Lean Democrat.”

The Cook Political Report says the battle “is one of the rare races moving in Republicans’ direction.” If Drazan were to defeat Kotek, it would mark the first time since 1982 that Oregonians have elected a Republican to the governorship.

Georgia

Georgia is shaping up to be one of the tightest gubernatorial races in the country. It’s one of four that the Cook Political Report has marked as a “Toss Up.” Republican Gov. Brian Kemp couldn’t run for re-election because of term limits, leaving the field open for another member of his party, billionaire Rick Jackson, and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the previous mayor of Atlanta. Polls suggest the race is essentially tied, with some indicating Jackson has a razor-thin lead.

A win by Bottoms would mark a significant shift in the southern state’s politics. While both of Georgia’s current Senators are Democrats, it has been led by a Republican governor since 2003. It would also mean the breaking of a national barrier: Georgia would be the first state in the country to have elected a Black woman as governor.

Nevada

A perennial swing state, Republicans are vying to hold on to its leadership of Nevada’s government. Gov. Joe Lombardo is fending off a challenge from Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford. Polls are split over who’s in the lead—some showing Lombardo while others showing Ford, both by slim margins. The Cook Political Report rates the race as a “Toss Up.”.

Wisconsin

The race to lead this swing state became a wide open free-for-all last year, when Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced he wasn't running for another term. The race was on the verge of becoming a marquee one for democratic socialists, with progressive Francesca Hong leading in the polls ahead of the Democratic primary, before she ultimately lost the nomination to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a moderate.  

Crowley is now vying for the job against Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in a race where campaign funding has become a prominent issue, as Tiffany’s bid has been largely bankrolled by three billionaires.

While the Cook Political Report rates this a “Toss Up," multiple recent polls show Crowley with a small lead over Tiffany.

This article discusses all six episodes of Netflix’s The New Stanford Prison Experiment.

For decades now, scholars have argued over what—if anything—we should have gleaned from the Stanford Prison Experiment. That it was unethical to place two dozen male college students in a university basement repurposed as a prison, designate a few of them guards and the rest prisoners, and encourage the former to discipline the latter, was apparent by the time its mastermind, Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, ended what was supposed to be a two-week exercise after only six days. As the extent of Zimbardo’s manipulation came to light, the 1971 study lost credibility in academic circles, even as its pop-cultural legend kept growing. Fifty-five years after it was conducted, perhaps the only definitive conclusion to draw from the Stanford Prison Experiment is that the Stanford Prison Experiment is not worth repeating.

But just try telling that to the reality-TV machine, let alone a platform currently at work on the third, all-celebrity season of a competition series that cheerfully (and, of course, non-lethally) recreates the horrors of its international hit anticapitalist battle royale thriller Squid Game. The New Stanford Prison Experiment, Netflix’s take on a project that was always more convincing as improvisational theater than as scientific research, isn’t even television’s first crack at Zimbardo’s study. The BBC got there first with The Experiment, in 2002, whose earnest attempts to correct for the original’s missteps yielded a more nuanced, if still inherently flawed, look at authority. That the Netflix version of what can now be best understood as a reboot of a famous franchise feels less like social psychology and more like a high-concept season of Big Brother is no surprise. What’s most perplexing is its choice to incorporate female participants in a limited way—and its failure to make any real sense out of what they bring to the experience.

Aware that the televised resurrection of a notoriously inhumane experiment was bound to draw scrutiny (the mere announcement of the show’s existence touched off a wave of incredulity), the producers of the six-episode series take pains to make both their safety precautions and their high-mindedness visible. Instead of a retrofitted academic building, the inmates are sequestered in a real housing pod of a Georgia correctional facility. The 30 voluntary participants are said to come from all walks of life, though what we find out about their backgrounds is generally limited to hometown, racial identity, and line of work. According to executive producer Jane Lipsitz, each “underwent psychological screenings prior to entering the experiment.” There’s a safe word any of the participants can, and some do, use to leave the roleplay early.

The appearance of legitimacy is further reinforced by a panel of three experts who provide commentary on what’s happening in the pod. Michael Cantrell, who brings 30 years of experience working in federal corrections, games out the results of the guards’ strategies. Journalist Trymaine Lee, who has covered stories ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the power of the Black electorate, was presumably tapped to bring insight into big-picture issues such as race, violence, and the justice system. But the show keeps the experts’ interjections so brief that he’s rarely afforded more than a quick sound bite. Filling a limited version of the host role is Alison Wood Brooks, a behavioral scientist on the faculty of Harvard Business School. It’s she who introduces the series with a speed-run summary of Zimbardo’s study and its “ethical breaches,” as well as the true but comically vague observation that “in today’s world, the study of power couldn’t be more relevant.” So, Brooks says, it seemed like the right time to retry the experiment in hopes of more accurately answering its original question: “Does power corrupt?”

It doesn’t take long to notice that only three of the 30 participants are women—and all of them join the five men selected as guards. It’s not hard to guess why there are no female inmates. Correctional facilities are segregated by sex. Throwing men and women together in close quarters for 14 long, monotonous days is a recipe for uncomfortable, sexually charged interactions, if not full-on harassment or assault. Of course, similar dangers exist in single-sex environments. Abuse of power seems particularly likely when male guards are put in charge of female prisoners, yet precisely this dynamic is the reality in many American prisons. I suppose untrained, inexperienced guards might be expected to pose a greater threat. But you would think that the same safeguards put in place to protect participants’ physical and mental health could be extended to enable a truly coed experiment. (The show doesn’t have much to say about the existence of transgender, nonbinary, or even queer people behind bars.) 

The architects of New Stanford might’ve avoided all of the above and still meaningfully included women by running parallel exercises in separate pods. Instead, they only examine the behavior of three women—a number so small, it precludes any claim of representativeness—in positions of authority over men. One of them, Laura Berens, is the CEO of her own business and thus presumably comfortable in a leadership role. Shavonnah Jefferson, whose background as a security guard also seems relevant here, has no trouble asserting herself. “You have to speak up,” she says. “Because if you do not, people will run you over.” Yet only Kiana Gaona, a young, devoutly Christian social media manager elected head guard by her shiftmates, gets much screen time in early episodes. Professing to believe in gender equality despite her choice to submit to her husband, she’s a bit erratic. She makes the extreme decision to give an outcast inmate a position of power, then veers dramatically in the opposite direction, punishing him and a fellow dissident with 23 hours of confinement to a cell for talking about a rebellion.

It’s these scheming inmates and the two male guards who initially claim control of their respective shifts who dominate the show for most of the season. There’s an interesting, if under-analyzed, contrast between the latter men’s leadership styles. Chris Lee, a prototypical new-school executive, wants to wield influence by inspiring his charges, while Chet Hudson, an oil rig supervisor, likens his new job to breaking horses. The resulting inconsistency fosters a bit of unrest. But it’s only after an extremely reality TV plot twist in which Lee, Hudson, and their fellow male guards switch roles with the most rebellious prisoners that a truly telling storyline emerges. Hudson, who as a guard had been the strongest proponent of a strict hierarchy, starts saying things like: “When people unite, no matter what, they’re in control of the power.” Then he makes a big deal of leaving the experiment early, claiming that he has nothing to learn from being a prisoner. For a certain kind of person, one that’s really having a moment right now in American politics, inequality only becomes a concern once they lose their place at the top.

Although the men’s role reversal remains the dominant drama, the shakeup also puts a new spotlight on the women, who are reassigned to an all-female shift. They quickly settle on Berens as head guard, citing her leadership experience. (It’s worth noting that neither of the two Black guards, Jefferson and Nicholas Washington, are shown to be considered by their peers for head guard.) “The female shift gave me an opportunity,” Berens reflects. “Obviously, the guys on my shift weren’t treating me super equal.” Unfortunately, this isn’t obvious based on the footage we’re shown, and it certainly doesn’t explain why Berens, the sole woman on her original shift, joined the majority that elected Hudson head guard. Regardless, she proves to be the most competent leader in the experiment, striking the right balance between firm rules and humane treatment. Her best moment happens when the shift made up of rebellious ex-prisoners loses control and she steps in to quiet the inmates and advise her counterpart to protect his guards.

Aside from the self-evident notion that some women make strong leaders (and some men weak ones), it’s hard to know what the takeaway from the introduction of an all-female shift is supposed to be. Maybe because they really do all respect women in positions of authority, or more likely because they don’t want millions of people watching them act sexist on TV, the inmates barely adjust their behavior when Berens’ team walks in. Another probable reason for their compliance is that they’re so intent on antagonizing the ex-inmate shift, which many feel is being rewarded for bad behavior. The women don’t come into the pod with the same baggage.

The expert commentators don’t really help make sense of the situation. When it comes to the gender issue, they could’ve supplied context about differences in how men and women typically wield authority or how men tend to perceive women in power. Maybe they did and that footage didn’t make it into the final edit. Either way, we see a lot of the experts noting that the all-female shift is fascinating without digging into specifics. The closest we get to synthesis comes from Berens. “I guess I really did have 22 men listening to me,” she marvels, attributing her success to kindness, humor, and mutual respect. “What if there are more women leaders who can lead in this type of way?” This is a subject far older than this Lean-In-era epiphany, yet New Stanford stops short at gesturing faintly in the direction of conversations that could theoretically be had.

The series’ shallow approach to gender doesn’t just weaken its depiction of the three female participants. It also neglects to acknowledge the explicitly gendered aspects of the male hierarchy, with its charismatic, physically strong leaders and smaller, less socially adept outcasts. In that sense, New Stanford replicates an ancient form of patriarchal bias that casts men as the norm and women as an atypical other. Maybe it’s silly to criticize something as inherently unserious as a reality show for failing to internalize the lessons of The Second Sex. But this particular reality show tries to justify its controversial existence by proclaiming its seriousness with regards to psychology, philosophy, and current events. So it seems fair to judge it by those lofty ambitions.

To that end, it isn’t only gender that the series glosses over. Racial disparities occasionally surface—one Black inmate justifies his obedience to authority by explaining that for his community, fighting back might result in an “accidental shooting”—yet go largely unexamined. Anyone hoping for timely debate over the purpose or efficacy of the criminal justice system is bound to be disappointed. By the time the guards are dismissed, in the finale, so that the prisoners can take responsibility for their own fates, the whole “experiment” feels like a bait-and-switch. New Stanford wants to reel in viewers with the notoriety of the original study and the promise that hot buttons will be pushed. But then, perhaps because the producers are afraid to alienate any segment of Netflix’s diverse audience, it shrinks from every opportunity to make meaning out of what happens in that housing pod. And so, as different as the two exercises are, this latest Stanford Prison Experiment becomes as pointless as the first one.

Immune-based treatments for cancer have become the biggest new advance in tackling tumors, and the latest approval could make a big difference for some people with rectal cancer.

On Oct. 19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dostarlimab (brand name: Jemperli) to treat a specific type of rectal cancer called microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H)/mismatch repair deficient cancer. This cancer is caused by the accumulation of certain genetic mutations that prevent rectal cells from repairing DNA damage and accounts for 5-10% of rectal cancers. In a study of 154 people with this type of rectal cancer who were treated with dostarlimab, 68% had a complete clinical response at one year, which meant doctors could not see evidence of tumors on imaging or other methods for tracking the tumors. In the study, which the drug's manufacturer, GSK, submitted to the FDA, people received nine infusions of the drug: once every three weeks for six months.

“Not only did they reach clinical complete response, but they maintained that for a year,” says Dr. Andrea Cercek, section head of colorectal cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and principal investigator of the study. (Some of the earliest patients have continued to remain tumor-free for even longer. ) “That really suggests that the response is durable and real.”

Dostarlimab is a checkpoint inhibitor, which means it releases the brakes that hold back the immune system from recognizing and attacking tumors. The drug allows immune cells to destroy cancer, making it a powerful weapon for seeking out cancer cells no matter where they spread or hide.

“We have completely leapfrogged over standard of care with a simple immunotherapy that melts the tumor away,” says Dr. Luis Diaz, head of solid tumor oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering and one of the trial investigators.

The benefits of avoiding standard rectal-cancer treatment

Standard treatment for rectal cancer involves chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery to remove the rectum that requires patients to wear colostomy bags for the rest of their lives. The dostarlimab approval means more patients whose tumors have specific mutations could avoid those aggressive therapies altogether. “We have patients who would have lost the ability to bear children who have had children because this therapy replaced chemotherapy, radiation, and life-altering surgery in one swoop," Diaz says. "That’s a big deal.”

Kelly Spill is one of them. Diagnosed in 2020 when she was 29, shortly after having her first baby, Spill spent nearly nine months trying to figure out why she continued to have constipation and see bloody discharge in the toilet. Because she had recently given birth, doctors first attributed the symptoms to her pregnancy, and when they persisted after delivery, to internal hemorrhoids. It wasn’t until a doctor ordered a colonoscopy that they found a tumor.

“The doctor told me it was Stage III colorectal cancer, and that the treatment plan would include chemo, radiation, and surgery. And that I would never carry another baby again, and would most likely have a colostomy bag for the rest of my life,” says Spill. “It didn’t seem real until I heard the words that I was not going to carry another baby. I immediately stopped thinking about me, and started thinking about my husband and what it meant for my son. We had just started our lives together; we were supposed to have all these kids.”

Sascha Roth also faced devastating news when she was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2019 after seeing blood in her stool. A resident of Washington, D.C., she had a friend with a similar diagnosis who had received chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery and recommended his surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Roth assumed she would follow the same strategy, but she learned that she had Stage III cancer and that she wasn’t a good candidate for surgery because the tumor was located so low in the rectum. Her tumor also had mutations that suggested it wouldn’t respond well to chemotherapy.

“It was a double whammy that threw me down,” she says. But the surgeon introduced her to Cercek, who was waiting to hear from the FDA about starting an immunotherapy trial for patients like Roth. “They told me I would be the first patient in the study, and there wasn’t scientific evidence that it would work.” Still, Roth wanted to try. She agreed to become Memorial Sloan Kettering’s first patient on the study, and then spent two months waiting for the FDA to greenlight the trial so she could begin receiving the drug. “I was calling Sloan Kettering incessantly to see if the FDA approved [the study],” she says. “The second the FDA gave its stamp of approval, Dr. Cercek’s team called me to New York to start the first round of treatment less than a week later.”

Not long after that, at Spill's first appointment at Memorial Sloan Kettering to discuss chemotherapy, she learned that the mutations on her tumor made her a good candidate for a study they had just begun. Only three patients had enrolled ahead of her (including Roth), so there was no data on whether it would actually treat her cancer. Spill, who was at the appointment with her mother, decided she had nothing to lose by joining the trial. “If it doesn’t go well, we could go back to option A,” Spill remembers her mother saying.

By her second infusion, Spill felt the tumor was shrinking because she no longer had major constipation. By the fourth infusion, scans showed the tumor had shrunk by 50%. The study originally called for patients to get chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery if needed after six months on dostarlimab. But a nurse pulled Spill’s mother aside after that appointment to tell her that the first three patients in the study did not need any additional treatments because their tumors had disappeared. Following Roth’s results, the study was revised to make chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery an option only if needed: if the tumors hadn’t gone away. It wasn’t a guarantee that Spill would have the same results as those first patients, but “it gave me hope, and all I could think about was maybe I could have another baby,” she says.

After all of her dostarlimab infusions, Spill, too, no longer had any tumor left and was declared cancer-free. Her doctors advised her to wait two years before trying to get pregnant again to ensure the cancer wouldn’t return. Once she was cleared, she got pregnant and gave birth to a girl in 2023, and later a boy in 2025. “I am now five years cancer-free, and last September got the boot from Memorial Sloan Kettering,” she says, meaning she no longer needs to follow up with her oncologists there. She now sees her primary care doctor for colonoscopies every two years.

“I see beauty in absolutely everything in life now,” Spill says.

What comes next for dostarlimab

Not only does the immunotherapy appear to work well in treating these rectal cancers, but it also comes with relatively few side effects. About 20% of those in the study reported fatigue, rash, diarrhea, and uncontrollable itching. Roth, who received her infusions during the COVID lockdown, drove from D.C. for her treatments and was able to make the roundtrip in one day. "It's just proof that you can really do the things you want to do. I didn't feel tired or sick after [the treatment], and there was never a time when I was at home recovering," she says. "I watched my mom and dad go through standard chemo and radiation and anticipated that would be what my treatment was like. It was nothing like that."

Cercek says the results point toward a potentially new model for managing some rectal cancers, which may include relying on immunotherapy like dostarlimab and monitoring patients more carefully before automatically turning to chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. Some of the patients in the trial who were treated on dostarlimab underwent surgery after finishing their infusions if their doctors still felt there might be tumors remaining. Among them, despite the doctors’ suspicions, 80% did not turn out to have evidence of tumors in their specimens, says Cercek.

Dostarlimab is already approved to treat endometrial cancers with the same mutations and costs $10,000 to $12,000 per dose out of pocket, although GSK has a manufacturer's savings program to cover that cost for some patients.

“We still have a lot of learning about what complete clinical response means,” she says, and with immunotherapy, that might mean a more patient-centric, individualized approach that involves more time for the immune system to respond to the immunotherapy and become trained to attack the cancer. “If it looks like the tumor is responding, we need to give it more time with better techniques to determine whether or not the tumor is truly gone.”

Cercek and her team are studying the best ways to monitor how tumors respond to dostarlimab by looking at snippets of genetic information that tumors shed in the blood, or more advanced imaging to accurately capture changing tumor sizes. “We need to improve on those techniques but also to teach the oncology community that there is a very, very high chance that the tumor might disappear, even if it might not look like it at six months. We need to continue watching and waiting and giving it time.”

Wait a second. You’ve been standing in line for 20 minutes, famished and desperate to order one of the viral bagels that keep selling out—or for six hours outside a concert venue, determined to claim a spot at the barricade to see your favorite band.

And then someone strolls up and slips in line ahead of you. Apparently, the rest of you have been standing around for the ambiance.

How much of a sin are line-cutters committing? “You are ripping the fabric of society apart,” says Nick Leighton, an etiquette expert and co-host of the podcast Were You Raised by Wolves? Queue-jumpers have to live with that, he adds. “But worse, we have to live with you.”

Here’s exactly how to handle this maddening situation—including when and how best to speak up.

When to speak up about someone cutting in line

If a stranger jumping ahead of you feels strangely personal, Richard C. Larson, a professor emeritus of data, systems, and society at MIT who has studied queuing, understands why. “We only have a finite number of minutes of life on Earth,” he says. The cutter’s implied message: “A minute of my life is worth more than a minute of yours.”

Before you decide whether to confront the offender, think about what speaking up would accomplish. Are you trying to reclaim your turn or get revenge? Sometimes, the impulse is “to sort of let them know you think they’re a jerk,” says Ryan Martin, a professor of psychology and dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, known online as the Anger Professor because he studies strong emotions.

Martin would speak up to help someone recognize “that what they did wasn’t OK and that I wanted them to go to the back of the line,” he says. But he’d also consider: “What is going to allow me to have the kind of night I want to have?” If you spend the concert replaying a confrontation instead of singing your happy heart out, you’ve lost more than your place in line.

Leighton's gut check for situations like these is to ask yourself: Is this the hill you want to die on? “That’s always a good etiquette question,” he says.

Consider your safety, too. If the person seems hostile or you feel uneasy approaching them, you can ask staff for help or let the cut go. “Health and safety always trumps etiquette,” Leighton says.

What to say—if you do decide to say something

Marie Helweg-Larsen, a professor of psychology at Dickinson College who studies social norms, has explored what makes line-cutting so rage-inducing. For a 2008 study, she and a colleague surveyed U2 fans waiting for prime concert-floor spots, asking how they would react to hypothetical line-cutting scenarios.

Interestingly, fans reacted just as negatively to someone cutting behind them as ahead of them—even though their own place wasn’t affected. “You have to have people follow the rules,” she says, “or your investment into the line falls apart.” Helweg-Larsen’s co-author also heard fans invoke a higher authority when someone misbehaved: “Bono wouldn’t like that!” 

You don’t need a rock star’s moral authority—or a grand speech—to point out where the line starts. Helweg-Larsen’s suggested opener: “Excuse me, but the line starts down there.” Aim for an “‘I’m just trying to be helpful’ kind of vibe,” she says.

That approach gives the person a chance to correct their mistake without having to defend their character. And you don’t have to believe it was an innocent oversight to deliver the message graciously. “Even if they’re doing it on purpose, you still need to use that tone,” Leighton says.

He’s been on the receiving end of a polite correction himself: At a deli, he once joined what he thought was the back of the line, only to discover he’d guessed wrong. He was happy for someone to point him in the right direction.

If you decide to speak up, do it promptly. “Your window of opportunity is short,” Leighton says. “As soon as it happens, that’s when you need to say something.” Waiting until you’ve spent five minutes glaring at the back of someone’s head won’t make the conversation any easier.

For a line that represents a serious investment of time, Martin suggests spelling that out: “Hey, I’m not sure you noticed, but there’s actually a really long line here, and people have been waiting all day.” You’ve identified the problem and given them an opening to say “Oops.”

Of course, some situations are murkier than a stranger breezing past the entire queue. Someone returning from a bathroom break is different from four friends arriving hours later to join the person who saved their places. Leighton is sympathetic to a water or restroom run. Holding spots all day for a last-minute entourage? “I don’t love that,” he says.

What to do if a line-cutter won’t move

Sometimes, your kind reminder won’t be met with the same level of helpfulness: They saw the line. They’re staying put. Now what?

If you feel comfortable continuing, Martin suggests a firmer follow-up: “I really think you should go back to the back of the line.” You’re making a direct request without adding an insult.

Larson advises skipping any confrontational nicknames or demands—like “What do you think you’re doing, bud?” You’re pointing someone toward the back of the line, not challenging them to a duel.

If the person still refuses to move, resist the urge to keep arguing. “We can’t control everybody,” Martin says. Continuing to push someone who’s already refused could lead to “a more significant confrontation.”

At a concert venue, amusement park, or other staffed location, you can ask an employee or security person to step in. “You can always appeal to a higher authority,” Leighton says. Whether they’ll enforce the rules is another question, but it’s an option worth trying when the cutting is particularly egregious.

If you decide to drop it, drop the parting shot, too. A sarcastic “Must be nice!” might feel irresistible, but Leighton advises against adding more rudeness to the encounter. “It will not achieve anything,” he says.

As Larson puts it, “A fight can ruin your whole day—or life.”

Iran may have found a weapon in the American electoral calendar. With the midterm elections two weeks away, Tehran is intensifying attacks on shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz, calculating that higher energy prices will deepen President Donald Trump’s political troubles and make another U.S. military campaign too costly to contemplate.

The wager is seductive: an American president anxious about diesel prices and his party’s prospects in the midterms, Iran seems to believe, will have little appetite for another major war.

Trump’s declaration that he will refrain from striking Iran before the Nov. 3 vote appears to vindicate this view, even as he periodically threatens to use force again. Having survived two rounds of war and absorbed punishing economic losses, Iran’s leaders believe they can endure a little longer. By disrupting Gulf commerce, they gain leverage their conventional forces cannot provide. They also hope to make that leverage permanent and compel Washington to accept Tehran’s authority over passage through the world’s most important energy chokepoint.

Yet the past nine months of war against Iran have made it clear that renewed military conflict before the midterms or after the elections is unlikely to resolve the disputes between the U.S. and Iran. The two countries will eventually have to sit across the negotiating table to resolve their long-running disputes. 

Miscalculations in Tehran and Washington

Tehran may be misreading how political peril shapes an adversary’s decisions. Trump could decide that appearing powerless as Iranian attacks push up prices is more damaging than another round of military strikes. Reports that his administration has considered fresh strikes suggest the military option remains in play. A serious attack on American forces could turn Trump’s promise of restraint into a political liability overnight.

The political situation in Israel adds a combustible variable. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an Oct. 27 election with his bloc struggling to secure a majority. He has staked his political reputation on the claim that only he can neutralize the Iranian threat.

With Tehran rebuilding its missile and drone capabilities and uncertainty surrounding its nuclear program, Netanyahu may see renewed strikes as both a strategic opportunity and a means of restoring his standing at home. Such a gamble could deepen Israel’s insecurity, but electoral desperation seldom improves anyone’s judgment.

The convergence of these calculations makes the coming weeks particularly perilous. Iran thinks Trump’s electoral weakness will constrain him. Trump and Netanyahu might each conclude that a show of force could rescue their political fortunes. Each side imagines it can calibrate the violence and manage the aftermath. The experience of this year’s conflict, in which successive rounds of fighting outran diplomatic efforts to contain them, offers little reason for that confidence.

Even if October passes without another conflagration, November brings its own hazards. After the midterm elections, the political constraints Trump has publicly imposed on himself will disappear. With substantial American forces already positioned in the region, Washington may be tempted to break the deadlock through another round of attacks. Tehran, fearing another surprise attack, might choose to strike Israel or U.S. military assets in the region first. What might seem like prudent preparation in Washington or Tehran could help bring about the war it is meant to deter.

The underlying impasse is as stubborn as ever. Washington wants a nuclear agreement and believes its blockade will ultimately compel Iran to negotiate. Tehran insists on upfront economic relief and an end to the war before substantive talks on the nuclear issue can begin.

America can point to tankers still transiting Hormuz, but shipping that depends on costly military protection and remains under threat is a poor substitute for normal trade. Iran can inflict considerable damage on the oil exports of its Gulf neighbors, but it has so far failed to turn that leverage into meaningful American concessions.

Dangers of a wider war

Another surge in hostilities would widen this gulf rather than bridge it. American and Israeli aircraft can destroy missile launchers, production facilities, and infrastructure, but Iran has repeatedly demonstrated that it can retaliate and survive. Iran’s response could extend further to target Gulf energy infrastructure, maritime commerce, data centers, and other critical networks.

The Houthi confrontation with Saudi Arabia already offers a grim illustration of how quickly the costs can spread. The war in Yemen has been reignited with devastating consequences, including deadly attacks on civilian airports and a spiraling cycle of retaliation. The fighting now threatens to draw in Turkey and Pakistan to support Saudi Arabia, as the three countries recently signed a mutual security pact known as the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement.

A new campaign could leave Iran poorer, Israel more exposed, and the U.S. burdened with an even more expensive regional commitment, while markets around the world absorb another shock.

The outlines of a diplomatic bargain have been visible for months: reciprocal steps to reopen Hormuz, calibrated sanctions relief, and a resumption of nuclear negotiations. The difficulty lies in sequencing and trust. Tehran fears that surrendering its maritime leverage first would invite fresh demands; Washington worries that easing pressure would reward coercion without securing lasting constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. Addressing those fears will require reciprocal steps and credible verification. More bombing won’t help.

Leaders contemplating an October surprise or an offensive after the midterms must remember that uncomfortable truth. Military force may alter the balance of pain without resolving the disputes each side will eventually have to confront across the negotiating table.

After another round of death and destruction, they could find themselves negotiating over the same issues, with less trust, greater bitterness, and far fewer resources to rebuild what they have broken. Their choices will be no easier then; the cost of reaching an agreement will be far greater.

When Rachel Bowman first tried to bring lionfish to restaurants and grocery stores in the Florida Keys in 2012, it was a hard sell. “We weren’t getting that much money for them, and it took a little convincing,” says the commercial lionfish hunter. That’s because the invasive lionfish—flamboyant enough that Bowman likens it to a Mardi Gras drag queen—wasn’t traditionally on the menu. 

Native to the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific, lionfish have infiltrated the western Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, where they have become a destructive invasive species ever since the first was recorded near Miami in 1985, likely after being released from the home aquarium trade. With few predators in these new habitats, a single fish can produce more than 2 million eggs a year. Studies have found that just one lionfish can reduce the replenishment of native fish populations on some reefs by nearly 80%.

In 2016, Bowman sold the first lionfish to Whole Foods in South Florida. “That was the ground-breaker,” she says, “because if Whole Foods is promoting something, then people know it’s good. We went from $2 per lb. to $10 per lb. pretty much overnight.” Now, 10 years later, through Keys Fisheries, her fish is sold in stores, and lionfish appears on restaurant menus throughout the area—and in doing so, millions of native reef fish have been saved from predation. 

Bowman’s work is part of a growing trend that’s not just about introducing new dishes to the local food scene; creating a market for invasive species may also bring ecological benefits for the local environment. 

Invasive species are considered one of the five most critical direct drivers of biodiversity loss, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), whose most recent report in 2023 notes that the global economic toll of dealing with these species cost more than $423 billion in 2019. Once established, invasive species are often impossible to eradicate because they reproduce rapidly, spread across vast, interconnected environments, and often go unchecked until they are established. And the challenge of managing invasive species is particularly acute in the ocean, says Helen Roy, a professor at the U.K. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the University of Exeter and a co-chair of the IPBES assessment. It’s a consequence of the openness and connectedness of marine systems, she says. 

In 2004, conservation biologist Joe Roman coined the term “invasivorism” to describe the idea of eating invasive species to help control their populations. Since then, a growing movement across North America is attempting to transform ecological menaces into culinary commodities, from Florida to Hawai’i, British Columbia, Maine, and the Mississippi River basin. That movement is still expanding: in 2025, for example, 70 restaurants and fish markets across the U.S. participated in Green Crab Week, a national campaign encouraging diners to eat the invasive European green crab.

The goal, says Isabelle Côté, a marine ecologist at Simon Fraser University, is often “functional eradication”: reducing an invasive population to a level where its ecological impacts are considered acceptable. That’s where our dinner tables can help, by turning the removal of the species into an economic opportunity. 

David Standridge’s philosophy is all about harvesting what’s plentiful and turning it into something delicious. Since 2022, the James Beard Award-winning executive chef of The Shipwright’s Daughter in Mystic, Conn., has processed more than 10,000 lbs of green crab, making it a menu mainstay.

Commonly considered one of the world’s worst invasive species, the green crab has successfully invaded every continent except Antarctica. The species, native to Western Europe and Africa, has few predators, aggressively hunts its prey, and can consume a wide variety of shellfish, including oysters, clams, mussels, lobsters, and other crabs. One crab can eat more than 40 juvenile soft-shell clams in a day, while also destroying seagrass habitats. And a single green crab can produce up to 185,000 eggs per year, while its larval life stage allows young crabs to drift considerable distances in ocean currents, spreading from one invaded area to another.

Rather than a nuisance, Standridge describes the green crab as tremendously flavorful, producing a beautiful stock that can be used across dishes. “We use them not to eliminate green crab, but to take some pressure off the ecosystem,” he says. Getting green crab onto the menu, however, wasn’t so straightforward. 

When Standridge first tried to source the species in 2020, he discovered that Connecticut, like many states, classified green crab as bait and technically couldn’t be sold for human consumption. He finally found a supplier to help in 2021, and then in 2025, a change to a single line of state code allowed green crab and other species on the bait list to be harvested and sold as food. Parks says the market is beginning to take shape. Suppliers across New England now regularly carry green crab alongside other seafood, making it more accessible to chefs. 

The green crab’s global spread is only expected to increase with climate change, says Mary Parks, executive director of GreenCrab.org, a nonprofit organization building culinary markets for the invasive species while raising awareness of its impact. “We used to have these really cold winters and those helped keep green crab populations in check,” says Parks. “But with winters getting warmer and warmer, that population control got taken out of the picture.” 

On the other side of the continent, in 2020, the first green crabs were detected on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia. To slow the species’ establishment, the Council of the Haida Nation launched a full-scale trapping and mitigation program. Over five years, 36 crews removed nearly 2 million crabs, including more than 1.3 million from the Honna and Tarundl estuaries alone. The scale of the invasion has made control difficult, and harvester and marine economic development coordinator Eli Gladstone hopes a viable market for the crabs could help reduce their numbers. But he cautions that commercial demand alone won’t be enough: trapping will also need to become more efficient, and some continued public investment may be necessary.

Communities across the U.S. have been grappling with the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species for decades.

In the 1950s, bluestripe snapper, also known in Hawai’i by its Tahitian name, ta’ape, was introduced to O’ahu, when roughly 3,000 fish were released to bolster fishing opportunities and establish a new food source. But ta’ape, native to the South Pacific, never became a sustained part of Hawai’i’s seafood market. By the 1980s, the overabundant fish was largely considered a “trash fish,” prompting the state’s Department of Aquatic Resources to launch a market-development project in 1985 that used consumer education and supermarket promotions to try to build demand. The effort failed to gain lasting traction: supply was inconsistent, and demand tapered off after the project ended. 

Freediver and spearfisher Kimi Werner has seen firsthand just how dramatically the ta’ape has come to dominate the reefs. Where schools of snappers in their native ecosystems might number just a handful, she says Hawai’i’s ta’ape, with its electric-blue stripes and lemon-yellow skin, can blanket the seafloor. “You can see the power of numbers taking over these habitats where native fish belong,” she says.

Since 2019, Conservation International Hawai’i, in partnership with local businesses and organizations including the nonprofit Chef Hui, has been trying to turn that abundance into an opportunity: promoting ta’ape as a food source to reduce its numbers while supporting local fishers and food security. The approach is starting to resonate across Hawai’i’s tourism industry, says Jhana Young, sustainable seafood senior manager with Conservation International Hawai’i. Hotels now serve the fish to staff and guests; Hilton Hawaiian Village alone purchases about 500 lbs a month. In 2025, an average of 27 commercial fishers sold approximately 42,000 lbs of ta’ape statewide, 47% more than in 2018. And a March 2026 “Eat the Invaders” tournament removed more than 1,200 lbs of invasive reef fish from Maunalua Bay in a single weekend, nearly 90% of it ta’ape. Where fishers once received an average of just $0.65 per lb. for ta’ape in the 1980s (about $2.63 today), says Young, today some O’ahu fishers receive as much as $6 per lb.

“When we started, ta’ape was a fish people threw back or used for bait,” says Amanda Corby Noguchi, co-founder of Chef Hui. “Now we regularly get organizations, schools, and hotel properties reaching out to us wanting to be part of it, not the other way around.”

But creating a market for an invasive species also raises the question of whether it can genuinely serve conservation goals—or simply become another fishery. Young argues that it can redirect existing fishing pressure toward a species whose removal benefits the ecosystem. “Fishers are always going to fish. By helping create markets for a species that didn’t exist before, it helps point fishers in the direction of a choice that is ultimately better for nature’s long-term balance.”

More than 4,000 miles away, in the lower Mississippi River basin, Asian carp populations have proliferated since the species was imported to the U.S. from China in the 1970s. They were brought in to control nuisance algae in wastewater-treatment plants and aquaculture ponds, as well as for human consumption. Within a decade, they had escaped confinement and spread into the Mississippi River basin and its major tributaries, including the Illinois and Missouri rivers, disrupting aquatic food webs, harming native fish communities, and interfering with commercial and recreational fishing. The invasive Asian carp is one of the most urgent, far-reaching, and complex environmental challenges facing the U.S., according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). And experts now worry about their potential to reach the Great Lakes. 

For Angie Yu, founder of Two Rivers Fisheries in Wickliffe, Ky., the potential of invasive carp was obvious. Yu grew up in China, where carp is a dietary staple—so commonplace, she says, that it is eaten “just like chicken.” When she first read about the Asian carp problem in 2010, she saw an opportunity others in the U.S. had largely overlooked: a fish considered “trash” by many Americans but which had an established market in Asia. She began connecting the fish with Asian markets, eventually exporting to 12 countries. Before the pandemic, nearly 90% of the company’s products were destined for overseas markets. But then shipping disruptions, rising fuel costs, and steep international tariffs made exporting increasingly difficult, prompting Yu to turn her attention to building a domestic market. She has since developed a use-everything model for the fish, making meatballs, patties, dumplings, along with pet food, as well as fish meal and fertilizer from the trimmings, guts, and other waste, while finding uses for the skin and bones. Her carp is now sold in Asian supermarkets across the U.S., and her processing plant can handle up to 40,000 lbs of carp a day. “The fish is not trash,” she says, “it’s a treasure.”

The question now is whether commercial demand for invasive Asian carp can grow large enough to meaningfully reduce their populations. For Peter Stoett, a professor at Ontario Tech University and co-chair of the IPBES Assessment on Invasive Alien Species and Their Control, the key is to “measure the population, not the market.” A growing commercial fishery, more restaurants serving an invasive species, or thousands of pounds harvested may signal that a market is working—but not necessarily that the ecosystem is recovering. Reductions in an invasive species’ numbers or biomass, he says, are the clearest indicators of whether management is working. But measuring that requires sustained monitoring: “Money must be spent monitoring these populations or we won’t know if targets are being met.”

Stoett argues that if a market is used to encourage removal, the commercial activity should exist because the species needs to be reduced, contained, or eradicated—not because the goal is to establish a sustainable fishery for that species. In other words, the conservation objective has to come first, with the market serving as a tool rather than becoming the goal itself. As populations decline, he says, there needs to be ongoing dialogue among scientists, industry, local communities, and government about whether incentives should continue, change, or eventually end.

In Kentucky, there is some evidence that removal efforts are having an effect. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources has increased its fishing incentive to $0.15 per lb. for invasive carp harvested from Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake, citing evidence that management efforts are reducing populations in both lakes. Most of the carp processed by Yu comes from those same two lakes. Meanwhile, according to a USFWS spokesperson, around 30 million lbs of invasive carp are removed from Midwestern waters each year.

The idea of harvesting and eating invasive species can sound like an elegant solution: turn an ecological problem into dinner and let appetite do the work. But Roy cautions against treating consumption as a panacea for control. The ecological payoff from harvesting is rarely proportional to the share of a population removed. Taking half of a population, for example, does not necessarily mean halving its impact on the ecosystem.

That does not make the markets emerging around lionfish, green crab, ta’ape, and carp meaningless. They can provide food and income, engage communities and, in some cases, redirect fishing pressure toward invasive or overabundant species whose removal can benefit ecosystems. But Roy stresses that these benefits must be considered separately from the ecological damage caused by an invasion: “There’s no simple sum here.”

Creating demand could theoretically give people an incentive to keep an invasive species abundant, although Côté says she is not aware of evidence that this has happened. And while “nothing beats prevention,” says Stoett, once an aquatic or marine invasion is established and containment is the only realistic option, a market for their safe consumption could provide another tool—one whose economic benefits can be weighed against the ecological impacts of the invasion. The goal, ultimately, is not to eat our way out of an ecological disaster. It is to make sure that, when we eat an ecological problem, we are actually helping to reduce it.

In front of foraging chef Robin Kort’s home on Galiano Island in British Columbia’s Salish Sea, is a sea urchin barren—an underwater desert where kelp once swayed but has since been devoured by the urchins that cover the seafloor like a spikey carpet. Unlike lionfish or Asian carp, red and green sea urchins are native to the region. But when their populations become too abundant, they can have invasive-like effects. 

Urchins are remarkably effective grazers. Marine ecologist Anne Salomon, a professor of applied marine ecology and social-ecological system science at Simon Fraser University, says urchins and kelp can coexist when food is plentiful. But when food becomes scarce, urchins form what she calls “active feeding fronts,” stripping away vegetation that provides food, shelter, and habitat for a wide range of marine life. Selective harvesting can help restore kelp forests, Salomon says, but doing so effectively requires sustained effort.  

“We have this commercial fishery around sea urchin, and we have, in Vancouver, a huge population that likes eating them,” says Kort, who calls uni “the parmesan of the sea,” describing it as cheesy, creamy, and versatile enough for both sweet and savory dishes. Last year, Kort helped launch an Eat the Invaders event, bringing chefs together to channel people’s appetite for delicious food by cooking with invasive and overabundant species. Part of her effort is to incentivize more harvesting of the older, less desirable but more destructive urchins. “Humans’ greatest power is the amount of stuff we can eat, basically, if we want to,” she says. “So can we use that superpower for good?”

Russia has released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned for more than four years on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed the release Wednesday, during a meeting in St. Petersburg.

Witkoff referred to Putin as a "humanitarian" and thanked him on behalf of U.S. President Donald Trump. "You talk so much about my President, President Trump, being a humanitarian—you are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that," he said.

Stephen Hubbard, 74, was sentenced to nearly seven years in a penal colony in 2024, after being detained in April 2022. Russian authorities accused the Michigan man of signing a contract with Ukraine’s military in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. The U.S. State Department under the Biden Administration declared that Hubbard, who was sentenced in a closed trial, had been wrongfully detained.

Trump said the release was secured at his request, "made directly" to Putin in a telephone conversation last week and was not part of a swap.

"Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family," Trump said, noting that the U.S. "was not required to give anything in return."

Trump had hinted to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that Hubbard’s release was pending. "Just ​stick with me," he replied, when asked about the American man’s case. "I don't ⁠want to talk about it, but everybody has been after Hubbard for a long time, long ​before I got here. And just remember that ​question for ⁠a couple of days from now, okay? Because I do things that nobody else can do."

Yet experts advise against viewing Putin's decision to release a prisoner as a sign of progress in the broader context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"The release of Hubbard was a gesture to Trump, nothing more, and does not imply a larger willingness on Putin’s part to make concessions or end the war," argues Brian Taylor, a professor of political science at Syracuse University who specializes in Russian politics.

Hubbard is the second American to be freed by Russia within the past three months. Marine veteran Robert Gilman was released on Aug. 11, having spent more than four years imprisoned on disputed charges of assaulting a police officer. Referencing Gilman's reported poor health, Trump at the time said Russia had agreed to release him "on a humanitarian basis."

Hubbard was the last American on the State Department’s list of “wrongfully detained” U.S. citizens in Russia. His release comes in the wake of Trump waiving sanctions on Russia in a bid to progress the controversial diesel deal he made with Putin as he attempts to lower fuel prices, which have soared in the wake of his war with Iran.

The deal has earned bipartisan condemnation, with several Republican lawmakers joining calls for Trump to reverse course, insisting the action will only serve to bolster Putin’s war efforts as Ukraine braces for a fifth winter under attack.

Read More: Lawmakers Argue Trump's Russia Diesel Deal 'Violates' the Law. Here's What Legal Experts Say

Relations between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have deteriorated, with the latter voicing grave concern over the U.S.-Russia diesel deal. Trump announced an “energy cease-fire” between Russia and Ukraine on Oct. 11, calling on the two countries to stop targeting each other’s assets. Zelensky accused Moscow of breaking the apparent agreement and, in turn, resumed strikes against Russian oil facilities, defying pressure from Washington. Trump called Ukraine's fresh wave of strikes a "disgrace" and said Zelensky is "more difficult to deal with than Putin."

Russia agrees to resume U.S.-mediated peace talks with Ukraine, Kremlin says

During their meeting at the grand imperial palace, Witkoff asked Putin to reconsider participating in peace talks with Ukraine, with the U.S. serving as an intermediary.

"Even if we don't have a resolution today, if we just talk about and sort of consider what ​that next step might be, I think that would be important and the world is waiting to hear that," Witkoff said as he pitched the idea.

The Kremlin later announced that Putin had agreed "in principle" to resume trilateral talks as soon as next month, anytime after Nov. 10. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters the technical talks would likely focus on security guarantees for Ukraine and Russia once the war comes to an end. Ushakov suggested the sit-down could take ​place in Abu Dhabi.

"These talks happened before and did not lead to any meaningful progress on reaching a settlement," Taylor says, again advising a cautionary approach. Reflecting on the Kremlin's strategy, he adds that Putin likely "wants to show Trump he’s willing to play ball, without actually changing his behavior."

Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials last convened in Switzerland in February for U.S.-brokered peace talks, just ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The discussions, which Zelensky suggested had been "difficult," ended without a breakthrough.

In August 2025, Trump met Putin for a high-stakes summit in Anchorage, Alaska, marking the first in-person encounter between the two leaders since 2019. The sit-down was aimed at exploring a path toward a cease-fire in the war in Ukraine, yet it ended earlier than expected and yielded no tangible results.

Witkoff, meanwhile, met with Zelensky in Oslo on Tuesday ahead of his trip to Russia. Zelensky said the meeting was productive and expressed his openness to a "potential trilateral meeting of the leaders to address the issues that only the leaders can do." However, he emphasized that any meetings to negotiate an end to the war must include Ukrainian officials, insisting there should be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine."

Zelensky's remarks came after the Wall Street Journal reported that Putin had floated the idea of a summit with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss a potential Ukraine deal. Trump on Monday said he was open to a trilateral summit with those attendees to discuss matters related to “denuclearization.”

U.S.-Ukraine tensions escalate

Ukraine and U.S. officials remain at odds as to why Kyiv has experienced limited access to Starshield, the military-grade counterpart of SpaceX’s Starlink commercial service. The program, which offers remote Internet connectivity from satellites in low-Earth orbit, has become a lifeline for Ukraine on the battlefield, allowing it to execute long-reach drone strike missions and counter attacks.

On Oct. 14, Ukraine said its access to Starshield was abruptly limited. Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelensky, said speed restrictions had been imposed, leading to the “failure” of several military missions. Beskrestnov claimed the restrictions, which he said applied to devices traveling over 100 miles per hour and using Starshield, were “related to the current political situation.” During an Oct. 18 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Zelensky said he believed the limited Starshield speed was a “message” from the U.S. government. He also said that Washington had briefly ‌stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv, drawing a denial from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Zelensky’s remarks came after Reuters reported, citing two U.S. officials, that an order to limit Starshield services in Ukraine had come from inside the White House. When approached for comment, a senior U.S. official told TIME: “No such request was ever made by the President.” Some Republican lawmakers, including Representative Mike Turner of Ohio and Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, have joined bipartisan calls for an investigation to determine the cause.

Addressing the matter, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said: “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the U.S. government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.”

Donald Trump is betting that the promise of more money in Americans’ pockets will translate into support at the ballot box. With his approval ratings low and November’s midterms just weeks away, the President has made a series of financial pledges in a bid to preserve Republicans’ majorities in Congress.

At a Kansas rally on Monday, Trump announced that the Administration is offering an $8 billion aid package to help American farmers offset higher diesel costs in the current harvest season. Diesel has remained above $6 per gallon since mid-September, per the American Automobile Association, as oil prices have been pushed up by the war with Iran, which Trump started in late February.  

Some rural voters, who helped elect Trump in 2024, have grown disillusioned with him, but he continued to court them in Kansas, adding: “When the Republicans win, we will pass even more funding for our farmers. We love our farmers.”

Several opinion polls show that rising costs of living are top of mind for voters ahead of the elections. Some polls rate the President’s handling of the U.S. economy as very poor. Disenchantment with the current political and economic system has also reached a point where socialism has grown more popular among Americans.

Trump’s efforts to woo voters with offers of cash gained attention in September, when he explicitly promised a Dallas crowd that his Administration would dole out a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if the GOP maintains its majorities in Congress. But with about 240 million adult citizens, the proposal would cost around $1.2 trillion—a gargantuan financial undertaking that even some in his own party questioned how the U.S. could afford. Democrats, meanwhile, called the dividend proposal a vote-buying scheme.

The same month, the Administration promised to refund more than 950,000 Obamacare enrollees in 30 states $500 each for “overcharges” collected by the Biden Administration. Earlier this month, it promised a one-time $90 payment per person to help more than 20 million enrollees pay for their Medicare premiums. Some voters have already reported receiving these payments.

While mentions of these handouts have earned cheers at Trump’s supporter-packed rallies, it is unclear if they will translate to any additional earned votes. Voter turnout in the U.S. is historically lower during midterm and off-year elections, and Trump, in a bid to boost the GOP’s chances, has repeatedly called on his supporters to imagine that he is on the ballot. 

It’s also unclear if voters are sold on Trump’s cash-based solutions. For example, a Wall Street Journal poll in September found that 64% of respondents thought Trump’s proposed $5,000 checks were a “bad idea right now.” And even if Republicans won the election, an Economist/YouGov poll from September found that most voters are skeptical that Trump would deliver—and they have good reason to be.

What happened to Trump’s past cash proposals

Trump has made many big promises, but he hasn’t always kept them.

He has repeatedly floated the idea of giving a $2,000 stimulus check or tax rebate to most Americans, supposedly funded by revenue from the global tariffs he’s imposed throughout his second term. But since making that promise in November 2025, as of this month, such dividends have yet to materialize. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

When his on-and-off friend Elon Musk was implementing a cost-cutting initiative across the federal government last year, Trump said he was considering using some of the savings to give Americans cash. “We’re thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens, and 20% down to pay back debt,” Trump said in February last year. That plan also never materialized.

During his first term, while he was seeking re-election in 2020, Trump promised that his Administration would send $200 discount cards to 33 million older Americans on Medicare to help them pay for prescription drugs. Critics slammed the plan for lack of a clear funding source and how it appeared to be designed just to court voters, but his term eventually ended without distributing those cards and he did not pursue the policy in his second term that began in 2025.

To save Americans in economic freefall during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump in 2020 promised to get money to them “as quickly as possible.” It also coincided with his campaign for re-election. Eligible adults were able to receive as much as $1,200 as well as $500 per qualifying child. By October that year, the Internal Revenue Service delivered more than 160 million payments totaling over $270 billion. Although he did make good on his promise, the effort did not help Trump’s re-election, however, as he lost the 2020 presidential race to former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump pours his own cash into election

Trump appears to be ramping up his own political spending to ensure the GOP’s political victory on Nov. 3. “I have spent, or will be spending, over 400 Million Dollars by Election Day,” he posted on Truth Social on Tuesday. “More than 300 Million Dollars has already been spent on Advertising, Direct and Indirect Voter Contact, Rallies, Rally Arenas, Telerallies, Get Out the Vote Programs, Election Integrity, and more.”

Trump’s super political action committee, MAGA Inc., allocated $277 million, a record amount for a second-term President, from the start of September through the first two weeks of October to help the GOP in the midterms, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings.

The latest filings also show that MAGA Inc. received about $25 million in donations during that period. Some of the biggest donors include Trump-allied billionaire Diane Hendricks, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and casino-resort developer Steve Wynn.

MAGA Inc. has raised about $473 million since Trump’s re-election in 2024.

From social media to sports betting, Americans have become remarkably willing to adopt new technologies without necessarily believing they're good for us or our health, our society, or our planet. Artificial intelligence may be the clearest example yet.

Just 39% of Americans say AI has a positive impact on society, compared with 44% who believe its impact is negative, according to a national survey conducted this month by my company, Outward Intelligence. Only 15% say they're excited about AI's growth.

But here’s the disconnect: While 58% of Americans don't trust the leaders of AI companies to make decisions in society's best interests, 41% say they use AI chatbots every day. Among Americans who believe AI harms society, roughly half use AI chatbots at least weekly.

In some ways, this shouldn't surprise us. People can appreciate the convenience of social media while questioning its effects on children. They can participate in the boom in sports betting while worrying about its consequences, from addiction to financial hardship. They can shop online while worrying about the decline of local businesses. And they can rely on smartphones while believing those devices have undermined attention and human connection.

But AI tests the limits of the U.S. consumer’s appetite for holding two contradictory ideas in their minds at once. And the implications are political as much as economic: What happens when Americans embrace a technology but don't trust the institutions responsible for creating it as well as overseeing and pacing its development?

In our survey, about two-thirds of Americans said a candidate's position on AI could influence their vote in the upcoming Midterm elections, although most acknowledged that other issues matter more. Roughly one in six said it could actually determine their vote.

Neither party appears to have established much credibility with independent voters on the issue. Nearly two-thirds of independents say they don’t trust either party to handle AI responsibly, or that they trust both equally, or that they’re unsure.

Data centers are where the broader debate over AI becomes much more concrete, and where opposition becomes more unified. More than half of respondents say they would oppose construction of a large data center near where they live. Nearly four in ten would strongly oppose it.

Their concerns are practical. Electricity costs rank first, followed by water usage and environmental impact. America's ability to compete internationally, which has become a central argument for expanding AI infrastructure, ranks much lower.

To a tech company, building a data center may represent an investment in America's economic future. To someone living nearby, it may mean worrying about electricity bills, local resources, and whether the community has much say in the decision. The result is a growing chasm between how the people building AI think about its benefits and how ordinary Americans think about its costs.

The associated political costs are significant, too. When asked about candidates who strongly support building more data centers, 42% of voters say that position would make them less likely to vote for a candidate, vs. 27% who say it would make them more likely. Among independents, the gap is even wider: 49% to 19%.

So while AI may not be a top issue for all voters in November, their attitudes toward AI expose a tension in the politics of technological progress. Promising innovation and economic growth doesn't answer questions about electricity bills and corporate accountability, and expressing concern about the technology doesn't explain how to capture its potential benefits.

AI companies now ask for an enormous amount of public faith. They're developing systems that could reshape employment, education, and the economy, while making major infrastructure investments that will affect communities across the country. Americans, meanwhile, are weighing who benefits, who bears the costs—and who is accountable when things go wrong.

Americans have already shown they're willing to use AI. The harder challenge, for Silicon Valley and Washington alike, is earning, and deserving, their trust.

The world’s richest man has publicly backed a potential combination of SpaceX and Tesla in what could be the biggest merger in history.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk, the CEO and largest shareholder of both companies, said the electric vehicle maker and the rocket company had formed special committees at the request of shareholders to discuss the idea.

“I do think there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity, ​and there’s a lot to be gained from cooperating,” Musk told SpaceX investors on a conference call.

“I think it would be a good ​idea, but it’s really up to the special committees of both companies,” he added.

The committees, which are made up of independent directors, would need to agree on the transaction terms of any deal before putting it to shareholders for a vote. Musk said his conflict of interest prevents him from participating in their discussions.

Musk has previously teased a Tesla-SpaceX merger. On a July 22 earnings call, Musk said there was “more and more overlap” between Tesla and SpaceX as the companies expand into artificial intelligence and robotics. Last week, Barclays analysts suggested that a merger could be announced before Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in December.

Tuesday’s call was the first confirmation that the companies were formally exploring a combination.

A merger could create a company worth around $3.5 trillion, putting it among the world’s most valuable companies. It could also become the biggest merger ever by deal value, potentially surpassing SpaceX’s record-setting $250 billion acquisition of Musk-owned AI company xAI in February. SpaceX is currently valued at about $2 trillion, and Tesla at $1.5 trillion. A deal could also help propel Musk back into trillionaire ranks, depending on its terms and how investors value the combined company. Musk owns around 48% of SpaceX and 20% of Tesla.

The shares of both companies rose in after-hours trading on Tuesday. SpaceX, which went public in June, reported a quarterly net profit of $4.4 billion. Musk told investors he expects annual recurring revenue of between $500 billion and $1 trillion by the end of 2027.

Some analysts, however, have warned of regulatory and geopolitical hurdles, particularly in terms of Tesla’s Chinese operations and SpaceX’s U.S. defence work. Morningstar analysts said a merger could raise U.S. national security concerns involving the combined company’s supply chain. JPMorgan analysts also flagged regulatory approval in China as a potential stumbling block.

Any deal could also face congressional scrutiny, which could intensify if Democrats win control of either chamber in the coming midterm elections. Democratic lawmakers have previously questioned Musk over conflicts of interest and raised national security concerns about reported Chinese investments in SpaceX. Democrats have also challenged major acquisitions in the past on consumer protection grounds. In June, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.) criticized SpaceX’s IPO, citing Musk’s concentrated voting power and weak investor protections—concerns that could resurface in a Tesla-SpaceX merger.

Why a merger matters

A merger could bring two of Musk’s biggest businesses under one corporate umbrella, making it easier for the companies to move investments and resources between projects. “This would allow him to run all their operations under one roof without tripping on as many governance issues,” wrote Morningstar analysts Seth Goldstein and Nicolas Owens in June. “For example, Musk could move Tesla software developers or engineers to work on SpaceX AI projects, and vice versa, or have Tesla and SpaceX supply one another without the need for related party transaction disclosures or risking shareholder lawsuits claiming the resources of one firm are being diverted for the benefit of the other.”

Analysts noted that Tesla’s robotaxis could benefit from Starlink connectivity, while its autonomous vehicles and Optimus humanoid robots could more closely integrate SpaceX’s AI technology. SpaceX’s planned orbital data centers, meanwhile, could potentially benefit from access to Tesla’s battery and energy storage products.

A combined company could also mean greater control of several stages of the AI value chain, from chip design and planned manufacturing to computing infrastructure, AI software, and its deployment in vehicles and robots.

The companies already collaborate. In March, they announced Terafab, a joint semiconductor manufacturing project intended to produce chips for Tesla’s vehicles and humanoid robots and SpaceX’s planned AI satellites. SpaceX technologies have also been used in some Tesla products, including the new Roadster prototype, which uses SpaceX-developed thrusters.

David Nicholson, chief technology advisor at market research firm The Futurum Group, told the BBC that a merger also appears to align with Musk’s long-held ambition of colonizing Mars. Musk previously outlined plans to send Tesla’s Optimus robots to the planet aboard SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft.

A merger could also strengthen Musk’s influence over Tesla’s direction. Barclays estimated that a SpaceX acquisition of Tesla could give Musk around 37% of the combined company while controlling around 56% of its voting power. He currently controls around 82% of voting power at SpaceX and 20% at Tesla. That could represent either a benefit or a risk for shareholders, as decision-making would become faster but have fewer checks.

“One thing I don’t think people talk enough about with SpaceX and Tesla as well: You do still have a huge amount of key-man risk here,” wrote Morningstar analyst David Sekera earlier this month. “God forbid anything were to happen to Elon Musk.”

At first glance, chair yoga might seem like a workout just for older adults with mobility issues. The gentle, accessible workout offers a modified take on the ancient movement and meditation practice, usually from a seated position. No one’s asked to climb down onto the floor or independently hold themselves upright in tricky standing postures—which makes it ideal for those with limited strength or balance.   

But experts say chair yoga shouldn’t be pigeonholed, because anyone can benefit. “It is a practice that meets you where you are,” says Divya Balakrishnan, a yoga instructor in New York City. “You’re still using your strength and flexibility, just in other ways.” 

What is chair yoga? 

A yoga teacher named Lakshmi Voelker first began adapting some yoga poses to a chair in 1982 to make the practice more accessible for a student with arthritis. Since then, numerous instructors have found ways to use a chair for adapted versions of a surprising number of traditional yoga movements, like lunging warrior poses and standing-to-lying sun salutations. 

While students typically crouch, sit, and lie down on a mat in traditional yoga classes, the chair, in a way, brings the floor closer. Some chair yoga classes are done entirely seated, moving through modified variations of classic yoga sequences without ever asking participants to get up. Other classes transition between sitting and standing while holding onto the back for a little extra help with balance, or doing poses like downward dog with hands on the seat instead of reaching to the floor. 

In a sense, the chair is simply another prop. “Just like you would use a strap or blocks to increase the accessible range of motion or bring different awareness to the body, the chair can be used in a similar way,” says Jessica Pate, a Boston-based yoga teacher. 

Experienced yogis also use a chair for athletic feats that wouldn’t be possible on a mat alone. In particular, the Iyengar style of yoga uses a yoga chair (designed with an open back and a completely flat seat) for advanced postures like an upside-down inversion where the yogi’s shoulders rest on two chairs while their head hangs in between. 

“There's an infinite number of ways that you can use the chair,” says Jules Mitchell, a Las Vegas–based yoga educator. 

The health benefits of chair yoga

Research on the physical benefits of seated chair yoga has found that practitioners tend to  improve their functional fitness and experience a decrease in how much pain interferes with their daily life. Much of that research has focused on older adults, who generally have a lower baseline of fitness than younger, healthy adults. It’s unlikely that people who are in peak shape would see as much benefit. 

“You're not challenging your muscles or your balance as much as traditional yoga,” says Justin Smith, an assistant professor at Wichita State University who recently co-authored a case series on the benefits of chair yoga. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time for more athletic folks.

For experienced yogis, doing yoga from a chair can offer new ways to explore familiar movements, says Pate, who incorporates a chair into many of her regular yoga classes. By sitting, the body’s weight gets distributed differently, which makes the muscles engage in new ways and can bring a fresh awareness to the body. “For example, with Warrior 2, having the chair underneath [my] pelvis, I'm able to feel where my sit bones are,” she says. This can help people better recognize if their hips are twisted or tilted. 

Although most people assume that sitting makes everything easier, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the challenge just changes: Pate says she actually feels her outer hips working harder in Warrior 2 on a chair than they do when she’s standing in the pose because she’s forced into a more neutral alignment, and bigger muscles can’t take over. 

Sitting on a chair can also sometimes help people go deeper into poses. Say you’re trying to target your glutes with a Figure 4 pose, where one ankle rests on the opposite knee as you bend forward. When you’re seated, you’re able to focus more on the stretch because you’re not struggling to balance, Balakrishnan says. “If I was doing a standing Figure 4, half of my attention is going to be on the standing foot and keeping myself upright, so I may not sit as deep,” she says. 

The same is true for breathing. Pate says that the extra support of the chair makes it easier to focus on breathing deeply and intentionally—something that many students forget to do once poses get challenging. 

One group that might particularly benefit from chair yoga is people who are stuck sitting in front of a computer all day. “For anyone who works at a desk, it is a lifesaver,” Balakrishnan says. A simple seated yoga routine can relieve tight, achy joints, and multiple studies have found that chair yoga can significantly reduce stress. Balakrishnan regularly takes yoga breaks right from her chair, doing neck rolls, spinal twists, or anything else her body is craving to bring some movement and mindfulness back to her day—without feeling like she has to stop what she’s doing and carve out time for a full yoga session. “You don't have that mental barrier of, ‘Okay, let me get out of my chair, go roll out my yoga mat, go get my blocks,’” she says. “It requires less of you to begin the practice.”

There’s also a simpler reason to do seated chair yoga: It just feels good. The low-key movement can help stretch out tense muscles and get some blood flowing without feeling like you have to do a workout that impresses anyone. Smith says that all the participants in his case series were incredibly enthusiastic about their routine. “You can tell that they really just love chair yoga,” he says. 

Seated chair yoga may not build Olympic athlete–level strength and agility. But experts agree it still has plenty to offer, no matter your age or fitness level. “We all can benefit from calming down, observing our sensations in our body, and getting in a little bit of stretching,” Mitchell says. 

It’s 11 a.m. at Ha-Meem Group’s Ashulia garment factory north of Dhaka and every floor is a whirlwind of feverish labor. Industrial jigsaws slice stacks of denim into precise panels, which nearby seamsters then stitch into jeans, skirts, and jackets. 

Next comes washing, ironing, and affixing buttons and zips before the brand labels are attached—Gap, American Eagle, and JCPenney are major clients—and the finished garments are stacked into boxes by some of the group’s 90,000 staff, who together produce 9.3 million apparel items every month.

Read more: What Bangladesh’s New Leader Tarique Rahman Means for South Asia and the World

But suddenly the lights flicker, the workshop dims for a moment, and then full illumination returns accompanied by four cacophonic British-made diesel generators, which automatically splutter into life whenever the gas supply weakens.

“In Bangladesh, the grid electricity is bad, there are frequent interruptions,” says Tanul Chakraborty, head of power, energy and environmental sustainability for Ha-Meem Group. “After gas the most reliable energy in Bangladesh is diesel. Grid electricity is third. Almost the entire economy moves on diesel.”

It’s a startling admission given that Bangladesh’s economy is worth $510 billion, South Asia’s second-largest after India. But the nation is in the grip of a severe power crunch, as wars in Ukraine and Iran expose the fragility of its growing dependence on imported fuel. Since Russia’s invasion, industrial gas prices have risen by 150%, and diesel by about 70%. Since the Iran war began, the cost of spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) has nearly tripled.

That’s bad news for a garment industry that is the country’s largest source of formal employment, directly providing 4 million jobs and supporting countless more livelihoods, while generating $38.7 billion last year—over 80% of export earnings. (Ha Meem alone accounted for $1 billion of exports.)

But the strain extends across the Global South, where developing nations struggle with a prolonged energy crisis that disproportionately squeezes the planet’s most deprived. In the Philippines, heavy dependence on imported Gulf oil has forced emergency conservation measures, including four-day working weeks, restrictions on official travel, and flight cancellations. Diesel prices have risen 86% in Nigeria and more than 50% in Tanzania and Ethiopia, driving up the cost of farming, trucking, and electricity from generators—and, in turn, the price of staples such as rice and corn.

“The poorest people, who spend the highest share of their income on food and fuels, will be hit the hardest,” Indermit Gill, World Bank Chief Economist, warned in April.

In Dhaka, a sprawling megacity of almost 40 million that is usually defined by relentless momentum, the nights have grown eerily dark. With the national power shortfall exceeding 3,000 megawatts, the government has imposed sweeping cuts, exempting only essential services such as hospitals and pharmacies. Illuminated billboards along busy commercial corridors now dim soon after sunset, while shops close an hour early. The burden is even heavier in rural villages, where residents have recently endured blackouts lasting as long as 16 hours a day.

For ordinary citizens, daily life has become a relentless calculus: Residents are forced to rise before dawn in the hope that their stove's gas pressure might be strong enough to cook. Other quandaries include how long they can run a fan against the suffocating humidity, and how far the queues will stretch at the gas station. As businesses flounder, a secondary crisis looms: global malnutrition monitors warn that 18.1 million Bangladeshis may soon face food insecurity.

Internal missteps have only tightened external bottlenecks. The country of 175 million drastically underinvested in both transmission infrastructure and domestic gas fields, meaning today it relies on imports from the Middle East for almost half of its energy. But between July and August, imports of LNG plummeted 83% largely owing to disruption around the blockaded Strait of Hormuz as well as a blaze that temporarily disabled one of its two floating regasification terminals.

Last month, thousands of opposition supporters staged a long march to pressure Prime Minister Tarique Rahman—who only took office in February, just weeks before the Iran war broke out—to do more to tackle soaring fuel costs. “Energy is the biggest test for the new government and has become a galvanizing point for the opposition,” says Michael Kugelman, resident senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.

While the global energy crisis is tied to geopolitics, Bangladesh’s woes are uniquely entwined. Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party took power following the popular ouster in 2024 of autocratic former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whom India granted sanctuary, deepening the rift between the neighbors.

Bangladesh imports roughly one-sixth of its electricity from India, which hasn’t been shy in wielding that strategic vulnerability as diplomatic leverage. Compounding the disruption, many of the key architects of national energy policy over Hasina’s 15-year reign have been placed on special duties ostensibly due to their ties to her Awami League party.

Bangladesh also finds itself hostage to shifting Great Power rivalry beyond its neighborhood. Dhaka invested $12.65 billion—chiefly via Moscow-backed loans—in its first nuclear power station in the town of Rooppur built by Russian energy giant Rosatom. The plant was supposed to begin operations in July 2024 but faced repeated delays due partly to the Ukraine war, which complicated payments to Russian banks and blocked the arrival of air and maritime cargo. After finally completing its first controlled nuclear reaction on Oct. 11, it is now expected to go into service in December, although months of staged testing will be required before it reaches a touted output of 1,200 MW.

Complicating matters, the U.S. Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act comes into force on Oct. 18, with provisions including sanctions on senior Russian officials and businesses supporting Russia’s energy sectors. This could mean Dhaka has to secure specific U.S. Treasury waivers or approved payment channels to service its plant debt and buy nuclear fuel.

Meanwhile, Washington is dangling its own alternatives. On Sept. 25, Bangladesh and the U.S. signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on strategic civil nuclear cooperation that focuses on small modular reactors. That comes on top of an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade inked in February that committed Dhaka to massive purchases of U.S. commodities, including $15 billion worth of U.S. energy products over a 15-year period.

But Bangladesh is also looking to Washington’s superpower rival. Rahman’s first overseas trip in June was to Malaysia and China. In Beijing, the two nations signed 17 agreements and other instruments to mark a “new era” of bilateral relations, with one explicitly covering renewable energy cooperation. But two of the agreements involved corporate groups subject to U.S. sanctions, and the growing ties between Dhaka and Beijing have caused consternation in Washington, State Department sources tell TIME. Bangladesh is also in advanced negotiations with a Chinese state-owned firm to build a third floating LNG terminal.

Seemingly pulled in every direction, Dhaka is desperate to instill more energy independence. The government recently launched a special incentive package for rooftop solar, slashing import duties on solar equipment from 17% to 1%, while particularly encouraging systems paired with battery storage. Bangladesh added some 200 MW of solar capacity to the national grid over the first half-year, according to government figures. However, that rate must be ramped up sixfold to have any hope of achieving ambitious five-year targets.

“We are actually looking into diversification, new areas where we can source energy from,” Shama Obaed Islam, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, told TIME as part of a panel at the 2026 Bay of Bengal Conversation last week. “We have [also] been looking into solar energy [and] making every citizen self-sufficient in energy.”

But while rooftop solar may work well for homes, it is far less useful for energy-intensive factories. Ha-Meem has 29.2 MW installed on its roofs—one of the largest private solar installations nationwide—though Chakraborty says it is only helpful for perhaps four hours per day when the sun is highest at a factory complex that operates around the clock.

Paradoxically, Ha-Meem has seen demand increase since the energy crisis. It has absorbed orders from some of the more than 400 smaller factories forced out of business in the three years till June (as well as from customers shifting production out of China to skirt Trumpian tariffs.) But with Ha-Meem’s energy bills rising from roughly $200,000 to $300,000 every day, and clients refusing to budge on prices, there is a relentless drive to boost efficiency.

In the office of Ha-Meem Senior Executive Director Brig-Gen (Ret.) Mohammad Abdul Moeen, a computer spreadsheet maps every employee against hourly targets. Workers who fall behind are counseled by managers—“maybe she had some problem with the machine,” says Moeen. “She may have just been tired”—and offered additional support and training. Those who consistently fall short are replaced by some of the dozens of applicants clutching résumés who queue up at the factory gate each morning.

“We may be facing some kind of energy crisis but that’s more reason why we cannot compromise with productivity,” says Moeen.

Moeen’s relentless focus on efficiency is easy to fathom. The garment industry is ruthlessly competitive and manufacturers fear that any rise in costs or supply disruption could see orders shift to rival Vietnam, Cambodia, or Pakistan. However, simply securing energy is not alone sufficient; with many Western brands making ambitious sustainability commitments that rely on shifting away from fossil fuels, how power is generated is also a key concern.

And if preserving Bangladesh’s dominant role in global garment production is precarious, diversifying the economy is harder still. The nation has ambitious goals of ramping up existing pharmaceutical and leather industries, and even moving into autos, medical devices, and semiconductors. But competition is tough, and few serious investors are charmed by candlelight meetings.  

Last month, Bangladesh unveiled a new energy roadmap that aims to add 12,940 MW of generation capacity via new solar installations and coal-fired projects, alongside modernization of grid distribution networks and a total of 300 new exploration wells to firm up domestic gas supplies (31 have already been drilled.)

“We are satisfied with that plan,” says Mohammad Hatem, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, which represents over 2,500 garment factories. “Within three or four years, maybe there will be no more electricity crisis.”

For now, however, Bangladesh’s garment workers—and billions across the Global South—have little choice but to endure given scant signs of relief in oil markets. In recent days, Yemen’s Houthis have intensified missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, cities, and oil infrastructure, killing civilians in Riyadh, disrupting flights, and provoking Saudi-led strikes that have stoked fears of a wider regional war.

“It’s a difficult situation for the present government,” says Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, managing director of Fatullah Apparels Ltd., which produces 22,000 finished garments per day. “It would be much better if there was no war in the Middle East.”

—With reporting by Zia Chowdhury/Dhaka

In July, a horde of OpenAI agents broke out of their sandboxes and worked together to launch a cyberattack on the AI company Hugging Face. The incident seemed to confirm the AI safety community’s worst fears: as AI got smarter, it would circumvent efforts to contain it. But for some cybersecurity experts, the incident revealed just how poorly the AIs had been contained in the first place. 

The two camps disagree about which defenses deserve the most attention. According to cybersecurity experts, AI companies should improve how they contain models during testing and improve monitoring mechanisms to catch misbehaving agents. All organizations should prepare for AI-enabled attackers and bolster defenses. But many in AI safety think those defenses are destined to fail. They fear that in the coming years AI will become capable of outmaneuvering any human effort to contain it, and the only durable solution is “aligning” AI with human values.

That prescription has rankled many cybersecurity experts who scoff at the possibility that their expertise will be rendered obsolete. They see AI safety’s focus on what AI agents did—rather than what AI companies failed to do—as playing into the industry’s hands. And they worry that warnings about the futility of traditional defenses could become a self-fulfilling prophecy by discouraging investment in cybersecurity. 

Meanwhile, there are AI safety researchers who fear that portraying such incidents as easily remedied security failures gives political cover to those who want AI development to proceed unchecked. The Hugging Face incident was due to a “horrible cybersecurity configuration,” Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer said on Face the Nation in October, adding that the agents “were not in a sandbox” and had internet access. In fact, the agents had been operating in a sandbox and exploited a previously undiscovered vulnerability to access the open internet. 

On Oct. 13, around 400 academics signed an open letter pleading for unity. The letter calls for the establishment of an international body that standardizes best practices for keeping AI safe in consultation with governments “and a wide range of both AI and cybersecurity experts.” But it does not address the larger disagreements between the two groups, says Zack Korman, co-founder of cybersecurity startup Embroidery and a fierce critic of AI safety. “We both believe the other group's messaging will lead to serious harm,” he says.

As the stakes rise, so too does the competition over who gets to decide what making AI safe actually means. On Oct. 15, Anthropic announced it would give METR—an organization deeply embedded in the AI safety community—permanent employee-like access to evaluate the company’s safety practices. Elon Musk responded, saying SpaceXSI would “probably” do the same. Who gets that access could shape what solutions are prioritized—and what the public knows about future breaches.

The AI safety community comprises a loose network of organizations and researchers, many of whom staff safety teams at companies including OpenAI and Anthropic. In Berkeley group houses and at effective altruism conferences, they have spent more than a decade debating the odds of superintelligent AI takeover. Earnest, veering on grandiose, some members have organized their careers, relationships, and living arrangements around the belief they’re tackling one of humanity’s most pressing problems. 

Cybersecurity, older and more diffuse, is united by a culture of cynicism, pragmatism, and dark humor. Its roots lie partly in hacker culture: tinkerers finding ways to crack software. Having watched supposedly secure systems fail has given many an irreverence for authority and an impatience with grand theories. For years, the two groups had little contact with one another. The Hugging Face incident changed that. 

To them, the escape exposed a failure to plan for a breach. OpenAI’s agents exploited a zero-day vulnerability during their escape. But cybersecurity experts are trained to assume any layer can fail. Security best practices call for multiple layers, known as “defense in depth.” OpenAI had already built an additional layer: monitors—AIs overseeing the AIs. But, as OpenAI’s chief scientist later told TIME, for the evaluations that led to the Hugging Face breach the company hadn’t turned the monitoring layer on. “They did a terrible job,” Korman says of OpenAI’s security practices. Three OpenAI staffers say they warned the company of potential issues. They were later fired for sharing sensitive information, according to the company.

Jeffrey Ladish, executive director of AI safety organization Palisade Research, worries that the cybersecurity community is missing the bigger picture. Even if today's security weaknesses are fixed, he argues, increasingly capable AI could find vulnerabilities so subtle that humans would have to rely on other AIs to detect them—systems that may themselves be untrustworthy. To Ladish, the cybersecurity community's reaction to Hugging Face is like scientists resurrecting dinosaurs, watching them escape, then responding by recommending taller fences. 

Beneath their cultural differences, AI safety and cybersecurity have competing understandings of what AI is. To many in AI safety, AI resembles a digital organism. Its abilities emerge through training rather than being individually programmed. If that process produces human-level intelligence, they believe, it could resemble the arrival of an alien species. Cybersecurity experts see AI as more akin to software and are skeptical that AI agents will become impossible to contain, even if they become vastly more capable. “They're not magic, right? They still have to follow certain laws of physics,” Korman says. But the laws of physics don’t guarantee containment.Even computers physically disconnected from networks could communicate by generating patterns of heat that act like Morse code, OpenAI’s Noam Brown recently suggested.

So far, AI companies have responded to concerns from both camps. Following breaches, both OpenAI and Anthropic have sought to bolster security while continuing to invest in alignment research. But those efforts leave open the question of who gets to assess whether either approach is working.

Much of what’s known about the Hugging Face incident comes from an investigation by Redwood Research and METR, two organizations affiliated with the AI safety community. Critics argue that has skewed the narrative, as their investigation focused more on what AI did than the surrounding security infrastructure.

Chris Painter, METR’s president, says the organization tries to hire from diverse worldviews, but has struggled to recruit people skeptical of loss-of-control scenarios to work on guarding against those risks. Asked whether METR researchers, having anticipated dangerous AI behavior for years, might interpret new evidence as confirmation of their predictions, Painter acknowledges he is worried about the possibility

But METR’s findings don’t always bear out its researchers’ expectations, Painter says. While the organization is perhaps best known for measuring AI’s rapid rise, one study found that AI coding assistants slowed experienced engineers down. “Our goal is to inform the world, not persuade it of anything in particular,” he says. He welcomes calls for a wider range of independent evaluators.

Many AI safety researchers hope alignment can make even highly capable systems safe, but want development slowed to give that work time to catch up. Korman doubts AI will become impossible to contain. But if it does, he says, development will have to stop, not just slow down. He says alignment helps make AI systems more useful but rejects the idea of relying on a system’s training to keep it from harming people when no external safeguard could stop it. “That’s the most extraordinarily unsafe thing you could imagine,” he says.

Yet alignment itself depends partly on cybersecurity. During training, models learn from which actions succeed. If an AI can exploit a security flaw to get credit for completing a task without actually doing it, training can reinforce the tendency to cheat. Closing those loopholes helps prevent AIs from learning to cheat in the first place. Meanwhile, some of the tools that have emerged from AI safety research—like monitoring AI’s chains of thought—are of use to cybersecurity professionals, Korman acknowledges. 

Much of the evidence that might one day settle disagreements remains controlled by the companies both sides seek to scrutinize. 

In METR’s investigation, cybersecurity practices were outside the scope OpenAI had agreed to. With no legal requirement for OpenAI to share information, the nonprofit had little leverage to push for a broader inquiry. Painter wants legislation establishing standards for independent investigators. “Society shouldn't want to rely on us [...] doing this improvised process of guessing what the public wants,” he says.

The last time you went for a walk, you might have focused on your favorite podcast, a call to your sister, or the number of calories your Apple Watch said you were burning.

Meanwhile, on a walk around her neighborhood, Kim Bernard noticed everything that was yellow: “A manhole cover, a yellow rain jacket, a fire hydrant, the numbers on someone's mailbox,” recalls the Maine-based artist. A “children at play” sign, part of a Pennsylvania license plate, and even a bucket of cat litter became part of the neighborhood’s palette.

Bernard was on a color walk, a simple scavenger hunt organized around intentionally noticing a certain color—and how much of it is hiding in your ordinary surroundings. We asked experts why you should make the activity part of your routine and how it can brighten an otherwise ho-hum day.

Why a color walk can help you tune in

About a year ago, Bridget Campbell, a content creator in Venice, Calif., realized she had become tethered to her phone. Even as she moseyed along the Venice canals, she brainstormed business ideas instead of admiring the colorful homes and flowers along the water. That’s when she decided to do a color walk, a concept she had stumbled upon on social media.

“It was a way to get out of my mind and come back into my body, slow down, and be present,” she says. While an ordinary walk might leave her mind racing toward work, looking for a particular color gave it something else to do, effectively putting all that other mental chatter on mute.

That’s exactly why color walks work so well: They encourage focused attention, says Cheryl Fisher, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Annapolis, Md., and associate professor of clinical counseling at Alliant University. She describes a “skim-scan-scroll world,” where it’s easy to move through your surroundings without really seeing them. Searching for color gives you a reason to look up from your phone and pay attention to what’s in front of you.

It also gives people who don’t consider themselves particularly creative an easy place to start, says Mari Reisberg, a licensed professional counselor and creativity coach in Boulder, Colo. Choosing a color to focus on provides a bit of structure while leaving plenty of room for discovery.

Reisberg still finds surprises on neighborhood sidewalks she’s traveled many times. “Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen that before,” she’ll think. Even on the most familiar routes, “There’s so much joy that shows up,” she says.

Pick a color that makes you curious

There are lots of ways to play color roulette and figure out which shade to hunt for. You could, of course, opt for your favorite color. Fisher collects paint swatches, cuts them up, and tosses them into a basket so people can draw one before heading out. A teacher once shared an even simpler approach with her: Have kids pick a color from their clothing, then look for matches along the way. You can even choose midway through your walk. Campbell sometimes spots an orange flower and decides that’s the color she’ll look for the rest of the way.

How specific you get is up to you. Finding nine fuchsia objects on a 15-minute walk? “It’s pretty difficult,” Bernard says. Reisberg sometimes opts for a particular shade, like midnight blue or sky blue, to give her eyes a more precise target. On other days, green is plenty. “There’s no right or wrong way to do it,” she says.

Take your usual walk—and see what you’ve been missing

Once you’ve settled on a color, head outside and see where it turns up. You don’t need a picturesque trail or a neighborhood full of flower gardens. Campbell encourages people who think their surroundings are too gray to give it a try anyway: Color can pop out in places you’ve passed countless times without a second glance.

When you find a match, resist the urge to mentally check it off and rush toward the next one, Fisher says. Spend a moment looking at what caught your eye. “The real gift is sitting with it and not just finding it,” she says.

You don’t have to keep your discoveries to yourself, either. “You can do it with a friend, you can do it with your mom,” Campbell says. Searching together gives you something new to talk about.

If you want a souvenir, snap photos along the way. Bernard asked participants in a color walk she led to select their nine favorite images and arrange them into a grid. Together, the collections resembled a patchwork quilt of color. You could make your own collage or save a few pictures to revisit when you need inspiration.

Or simply enjoy the walk. “We live in a day and age where everything is content,” Reisberg says. Sometimes she takes photos to share; other times, the discoveries are hers alone. If the whole thing feels a little silly at first, that’s OK, she says. Adults aren’t always used to indulging this kind of curiosity. “Keep giving it a little more space, a little more opportunity to surprise you.”

Albertans voted overwhelmingly to remain in Canada on Monday, but the result may do little to quiet the separatist movement that helped bring the question to the ballot.

Preliminary results early Tuesday showed that roughly 76% of voters rejected beginning the process toward a future binding referendum on separation. While approval would not have authorized Alberta’s independence from Canada, it would have allowed the province to take the next steps in the process of separation.

Even before the vote, most Albertans expected the debate to continue. Polling from the nonprofit Angus Reid Institute, released last week, found that 62% of people in the province think that “there will never be an end to the separatist movement.”

Responding to former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s suggestion that the movement should end if the referendum were to fail, Keith Wilson, one of the most prominent separatist leaders, said at a rally on Oct. 17, “That’s not happening."

“We are going to build on our successes, build on our relationships," he added.

Speaking to TIME before the results came in on Monday, Jared Wesley, a professor of political science at the University of Alberta, said that even if the referendum were to fail, “it seems unlikely that separatism as a political strategy, if not an actual objective, is going anywhere soon.” 

He added that the next provincial general election is next year, so it’s possible that voters could be faced with a similar question on the ballot then.

“The country is very familiar with western alienation and western grievances—that is a very long-standing political phenomenon in Canada,” Andrew McDougall, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, tells TIME. “There’s been a long history of regional tensions in Canada where the west feels disaffected from what, historically, has been the larger and, in many ways, sometimes more prosperous central Canada.”

“The idea, though, of having a vote on separatism—that is a little bit new,” he continues.

The Alberta independence campaign got more traction after the Liberal Party, headed by Prime Minister Mark Carney, won the federal election last year, with many Albertans expressing frustration that their views aren’t sufficiently represented by the Liberal government.

That dissatisfaction, driven in large part by the federal government’s energy policies, comes as Canadian leaders are placing particular emphasis on national unity.

Why did Alberta hold this referendum?

Alberta is an oil-rich province; mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction made up about a quarter of the province’s GDP in 2025. But Albertans have expressed dissatisfaction with the level of support the industry has received from Ottawa, criticizing the federal government for blocking pipeline projects, among other industry initiatives.

The feeling among some residents in the province, McDougall says, is “that central Canada is taking advantage of Alberta; that the central government has, at times, through environmental regulations, for example, hindered the development of the oil resources that exist in Alberta.”

He adds that the independence campaign may also have been fueled by Albertans’ dissatisfaction with representation in the federal government. 

Alberta is considered a conservative stronghold, but the Liberal Party has led the country for over a decade. The western province has about 5 million residents, compared to 16 million in Ontario and 9 million in Quebec, which means “it could be difficult sometimes for the West to get representation in the government,” McDougall says.

At the beginning of May, separatists turned in a petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures to push for a vote on leaving Canada, while opponents collected signatures in support of staying. A court ruling on May 13 complicated matters: A judge halted the petition, finding that the province could not advance the discussion without consulting First Nations.

The government instead asked voters whether it should take the steps needed to hold an independence referendum later, leading to this month’s vote. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith supported staying in Canada.

Polling suggests that, for many voters, support for the referendum was not necessarily about wanting to leave Canada—it was a way to underscore dissatisfaction with the federal government. 

The Angus Reid Institute found that 60% of respondents who were in favor of holding a future independence referendum said their motivation was sending a message to Ottawa, compared with 37% who wanted Alberta to take the necessary steps toward secession.

As early results emerged Tuesday, Wilson, the separatist leader, observed: “It’s fair to say that at least a quarter of Albertans feel that Alberta needs to be treated better.”

Carney stressed unity amid tensions with U.S.

Alberta’s independence referendum came as Carney’s government promotes national unity amid a trade war with the U.S.

McDougall says that the issues behind the referendum are "longstanding grievances,” but the fact that it advanced at a time of strong pro-Canada sentiment is “a little out of step with the times.”

The trade dispute escalated after negotiations between the two nations broke down in August. On Sept. 8, Canada responded to new tariffs from the U.S. with matching, retaliatory levies.

Tensions have continued to escalate in recent weeks as Trump repeatedly insists that Canada is ripping off Americans and should join the U.S. He said at a rally in Arizona on Oct. 14 that Canada will “end up being the 51st state, because it’s the only way it works.”

The following day, Carney spoke at a rally in Calgary, emphasizing the importance of Canadian unity amid outside tensions, though he did not explicitly reference Trump’s remarks.

“The stakes are high. This referendum, it comes at the worst possible time. The world has become more dangerous and divided," Carney said. “There are some outside our borders who are working to break us, so they can own us.”

The speech was another effort by the Carney government to promote national unity, just days before the referendum in Alberta. 

The message became especially poignant that weekend when four service members died in a fire at a military base in Alberta. The nation came together to provide resources and support for the province. At a press conference on Sunday, Carney emphasized that “Canadians come together in crisis.”

Wesley says he believes that “the vast majority of Albertans are viewing this referendum through a broader global lens.”

“They know their votes send a message—not just to governments here in Alberta or Ottawa, but to Washington,” Wesley says. “Albertans are overwhelmingly opposed to Trump’s trade war and even more averse to becoming the 51st state. They know that voting to destabilize Canada makes it harder to weather the economic storm and easier to fall into the American orbit.”

“Albertans made a clear choice,” Carney said Tuesday after preliminary results became available. “They chose unity, to build together, and to take care of each other. Above all, Albertans chose Canada.”

Vice President J.D. Vance on Monday declined to endorse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for re-election, a day after President Donald Trump publicly backed the embattled leader.

“The President has the most effective endorsement in American, or international, political history,” said Vance, when asked in an interview if he would also be extending an endorsement ahead of the election on Oct. 27. “I endorse American candidates and that’s where I'm focused on, is the midterms, so I'm not getting involved in the Israeli elections.”

When pushed for an answer, Vance added: “I'm not anti-endorsing [Netanyahu], I'm not pro-endorsing him.”

Vance’s response stood in stark contrast to Trump's endorsement, as he put his “complete and total” support behind the Israeli leader, while praising his endurance as a “great warrior” Prime Minister. 

Referencing the Iran war, Trump said: “If Israel has the wrong leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi [Netanyahu], America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.” He went on to say that Netanyahu has been “strong, brave, and brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel” and “despite all of that, he has endured.”

Many are viewing the Israeli election as a referendum on Netanyahu, who has faced heavy criticism over his handling of the Hamas-led attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The subsequent Israel-Hamas war has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Netanyahu’s government has also been called to task over the reports of settler violence against Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.

Read More: How Oct. 7 Changed Israel

Ahead of the elections, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly met with Netanyahu on Monday during an unannounced visit to Israel, Axios said, citing two sources with knowledge. 

The Pentagon declined to comment when contacted. TIME has also reached out to the Israeli embassy and Netanyahu’s office for comment.

Vance, meanwhile, has previously issued warnings to Israel regarding its relationship with the U.S. In June, he chastised members of Bibi’s cabinet who had voiced disapproval over Washington negotiating with Tehran to end the Iran war, which started in February with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes. 

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” Vance said as he led a White House press briefing. “If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”

While Vance has said his focus is on American candidates ahead of the U.S. midterms, he has previously campaigned avidly overseas.

Vance’s campaigning for international candidates

Vance traveled to Hungary in April ahead of parliamentary elections as the Trump Administration put its full support behind then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who was up for re-election against opposition leader Péter Magyar. (Pro-European conservative Magyar went on to win the election, ending Orbán’s 16-year rule.)

“Together the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Hungary have been able to do amazing things,” Vance told reporters at a press conference in Budapest. “We want to build upon those amazing things. And of course, I want to help as much as I possibly can, the Prime Minister, as he faces this election season.” Vance later delivered remarks at a rally for Orbán.

Vance also notably met with Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, in February 2025, days before a German election.

During that trip, Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference and used the platform to voice his concerns about Europe, claiming that free speech across the continent was “in retreat.”

He criticized what is known as the “firewall” approach in Germany—the agreement among other political parties that they will not work with the AfD. “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls,” he said.

President Trump’s complicated relationship with Netanyahu

Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu comes after the pair have shared an, at times, contentious relationship in recent months.

Asked about possible endorsement last week, Trump told reporters “we haven’t even thought about it,” prompting many to wonder if he may stay silent ahead of the consequential Israeli election. 

Trump and Netanyahu have clashed, particularly over Israel’s war against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. 

In June, Trump told reporters that Netanyahu has to be “more responsible with respect to Lebanon,” amid concerns the renewed fighting with Hezbollah could derail the U.S.-Iran peace agreement. (Which later collapsed in light of continued clashes over the Strait of Hormuz.)

“I'm not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah,” Trump told reporters at the G7 summit in France. “It just goes on forever,” he continued, seemingly referencing the exchanging of strikes between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah militant group. “When that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, the deal with Iran.”

Trump said he has an “unbelievable relationship” with Netanyahu, but claimed “Israel would have been blown up a long time ago, had I not gotten involved.”

Days before his public remarks, Trump reportedly called Netanyahu “f-cking crazy” during a fraught phone call after Netanyahu ordered an attack on a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut in retaliation for alleged attacks on Israel by Hezbollah. 

The legal battle over the Trump Administration’s plans to redevelop a golf course in Washington, D.C., escalated Monday after President Donald Trump said the Department of the Interior’s work would start “immediately”—despite a court order to temporarily halt tree removal.

“The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course, and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday morning. 

Read More: All the Things Trump Has Put His Name and Face on as President

He went on to attack Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying that she is a “crazed lunatic” and “may be insane.”

About 430 trees had been cleared from the site as of Oct. 13. Reyes said that additional removals must halt while the case, filed by the DC Preservation League and two golfers earlier this year in hopes of stopping the renovation, underwent further review. The suspension is in place through Oct. 26.

On Sunday, Trump announced a plan to close the “old, broken, dilapidated” golf course and said that work would begin Nov. 15. He claimed that a new golf course would open in approximately 15 months. 

The golf course redevelopment is the latest project that Trump has taken on during his second term as he looks to leave his stamp on the nation’s capital. But the precedent of past legal disputes and rising tension between the President and Reyes leave some experts wondering if this project will advance.

Why Trump is clashing with a federal district judge over East Potomac Park

The Trump Administration filed a motion on Oct. 16 looking to disqualify Reyes, accusing her of “conduct [that] continues a pattern of animus against the Trump administration.” 

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. accused Reyes of having “repeatedly belittled and shouted at” a Justice Department lawyer during a heated hearing on Oct. 12 in which Reyes sought to understand who had instructed employees to begin the tree removal process despite her earlier demands for advance notice of significant changes at the site.

Reyes refused to recuse herself, writing in a 13-page opinion filed Sunday that it’s “easy to weaponize selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion.”

“But it is much harder to meet the demanding legal standard against a full record,” she continued. 

On Monday, Reyes grilled Trump Administration officials about the government’s plans. She accused officials of failure to communicate with the court amid ongoing proceedings and said they were acting in “bad faith.” 

The Administration, however, claimed the removal had nothing to do with renovating the golf course; it pointed to a 2019 Cultural Landscape Report calling for the removal of dead and hazardous trees in the park.

“There is no universe in which all of this just coincidentally happened at the same time,” she told the lawyers on Monday according to The New York Times. “There just isn’t.”

Why is Trump’s golf course renovation being challenged?

The legal battle began on Feb. 13, when the DC Preservation League and two local golfers sued the Administration over its redevelopment plans for East Potomac Park. They alleged that the government had dumped potentially hazardous debris at the site and begun pursuing the overhaul without legally required reviews of its environmental impact and effects on the park’s historic character.

The golf course is 106 years old, and its miniature golf course, which opened later in 1931, is one of the oldest continually operating miniature golf courses in the United States. It is currently open to guests of all income levels, and some golfers have rebuked Trump’s plans to turn the site into a luxury golf course.

“The finished product will be World Class, and bring income and great prestige back to D.C.,” Trump said in his Truth Social post on Monday, repeating sentiments he has shared since the renovation plan was announced. 

In May, Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy nonprofit representing the plaintiffs challenging the plan, filed an emergency motion asking Reyes to block the Administration from beginning work while the lawsuit was pending. 

At the time, Reyes declined to issue a temporary restraining order on the project, since the golf course remained open and the government had not announced any closures. She told the government’s lawyers that she was giving them the “benefit of the doubt that we’re not gonna be in a situation where we have bulldozers bulldozing down trees and no one has alerted me first.”

The Trump Administration felled over 400 trees at the East Potomac Golf Links on Oct. 10. 

Marissa Piropato, an attorney for the government, said it had given notice in a court filing shortly before 5 p.m. on Oct. 9. 

Reyes called the Trump Administration’s actions “inexcusable.”

“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility,” Reyes said at the Oct. 12 hearing according to NBC News. 

David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, tells TIME that Reyes had done the Trump Administration a “favor” by not issuing a temporary restraining order in May. 

“Out of respect for the Executive Branch, because the Justice Department told her that no action was planned imminently, she only ordered them to give enough notice for her to decide the legal questions before they did irreplaceable damage,” Super says.

He adds: “I suspect judges in future cases will just enter injunctions, rather than trusting the Administration to keep their word.”

How the lawsuit echoes other Trump projects in D.C.

The golf course renovation is the latest Trump Administration project to land in court. 

According to The New York Times, Trump has undertaken at least 18 renovation projects in the city with the potential to cost over $1.2 billion. That includes plans for a ballroom at the former site of the White House East Wing, restoring and renaming the Kennedy Center, and constructing a towering Triumphal Arch.

The Administration has invoked national security in defending other projects. In the case involving the Triumphal Arch, it said that construction came at the “request” of the U.S. military “for National Security purposes.” The Administration similarly argued that the ballroom at the White House will be part of a military complex that is “vital” to national security.

Peter Byrne, a property and land use expert and a professor at the Georgetown Law Center, tells TIME that he would not rule out the possibility of repeating that strategy with the golf course.

“I'm sure the golf course will be important for national security in some way,” Byrne predicts. He says that judges are reluctant to dismiss outright claims of national security, so it has become a catchall for projects seeking latitude in the courts.

Trump has already said the golf course is “dangerous”—implying that it requires immediate intervention for safety purposes.

In a June Truth Social post, Trump described the course as “dilapidated, worn out, and very dangerous and outdated.” Then, in his Monday morning post, he reiterated that it was a “very unsafe golf course.”

Plaintiffs in the case have expressed concern that the planned renovation will introduce more issues than it would solve.

To bring a case like this in federal court, plaintiffs must show that the proposed renovation has harmed them or poses an imminent threat of concrete harm. They must also show that a favorable court ruling would likely remedy that harm—despite Trump’s claims that they have “ZERO STANDING.”

“In this case, you have all kinds of people who are suffering direct harm in the golf course case, you have golfers, you have bikers, you know, you have people who use the park and won’t be able to use it,” Byrne says. 

Those alleged harms could help distinguish the golf course case from the challenge to the White House ballroom. In August, the Supreme Court allowed construction to continue, finding that the preservation group likely lacked the right to sue based solely on its objections to the ballroom’s appearance.

After Trump’s announcement on Sunday, Democracy Forward said the course is a “national park and golf course for everyone to enjoy.”

“Our litigation is intended to protect this community jewel for the people and communities it serves,” the statement continued, “and we will continue to work with our plaintiffs to defend it from unlawful and harmful intrusion.”