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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>TIMEhttps://time.com/<!\[CDATA\[Breaking news and analysis from TIME.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science and entertainment news.\]\]>Sat, 22 Aug 2026 22:54:36 +0000en-UShourly1<!\[CDATA\[Canada to Match Trump’s 50% Tariffs, Dollar for Dollar\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/22/us-canada-trade-negotiations-breakdown-tariffs/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The latest escalation comes after last-minute changes derailed weeks of negotiations between the neighboring countries.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Mandel NGAN—AFP\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's minister in charge of trade with the United States, exits the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer after a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 20, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt70d44c42db1a3424/6a89b865e14b9753f91cf937/GettyImages-2290701838_(1%29.jpg?branch=production)

Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's minister in charge of trade with the United States, exits the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer after a meeting in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 20, 2026\. —Mandel NGAN—AFP

Trade talks between the United States and Canada collapsed Friday. With President Donald Trump’s 50% [tariffs](https://time.com/article/2026/08/19/trump-delays-50-canada-tariffs-as-the-two-countries-race-to-finalize-a-deal/) taking effect the following day, Prime Minister Mark Carney quickly responded with retaliatory measures that go into effect in September.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent out guidance for importers saying that the tariffs, which Trump first [announced](https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/) last month, would go into effect Saturday. They impact about $20 billion of Canadian goods, including hockey sticks, building materials, clothing, beer, and cheese. 

Negotiators from both countries had worked for weeks to reach a trade deal, leading up to a [three-day extension](https://time.com/article/2026/08/19/trump-delays-50-canada-tariffs-as-the-two-countries-race-to-finalize-a-deal/) of the original tariff deadline. At the time, Trump suggested that an agreement had been reached, writing on [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117119761850520698) on Tuesday that he had “paused” the tariffs because the two countries “have a DEAL!”

But in a [statement](https://x.com/MarkJCarney/status/2091008744427598021?s=46) just before midnight on Friday, Carney said that “progress has not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians.”

**Read more:** [_Trump Imposes 50% Tariff Hike on Canadian Goods_](https://time.com/article/2026/07/21/trump-tariffs-canada-alcohol-motor-vehicles-dairy/)

“As a result, this evening, I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed Canada’s negotiators to return to Ottawa,” the Prime Minister said. He accused the Trump Administration of introducing last-minute changes to the deal that he said were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.” 

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, however, said on [social media](https://x.com/USTradeRep/status/2091015298929332326) on Saturday that Canada had “declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week.”

“New demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” Greer said. “This is a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the United States.”

Carney vowed that the tariffs would not go unanswered. Speaking at a news conference Saturday, he announced dollar-for-dollar tariffs on U.S. goods.

“We ⁠cannot ​accept what they have offered, and ​we will not give what they have asked,” he said.

The retaliatory tariffs will touch U.S. sectors including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics, and they will go into effect Sept. 8.

## The growing rift between the U.S. and Canada

Polling conducted before the talks collapsed suggests that most Canadians supported taking a hard line in negotiations with the U.S.

An [Angus Reid Institute](https://angusreid.org/the-canada-u-s-relationship-trump/) poll from July found that 65% of Canadians say that their government should approach the U.S. either cautiously, as a potential threat, or as an enemy. 

Reflecting similar sentiments, a [Léger poll](https://leger360.com/in-the-news-canada-us-trade-negotiations-august-2026/) from this month showed that 56% of Canadian respondents want the federal government to make no further concessions to Washington in ongoing trade and tariff negotiations—compared to 31% who favor flexibility.

While the new import taxes will only apply to about 5% of what Canada ships to the U.S. each year, the breakdown in negotiations further fractures an already strained relationship between the two countries and their leaders.  
Trump and Carney have taken swipes at each other since the U.S. President returned to office last January. 

After an article claimed that the country was in a “technical recession” this summer,Trump [revived](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116677910570104917) his call to make Canada the 51st state in the U.S.

Carney then [mocked](https://time.com/article/2026/08/06/canada-carney-trump-rift-teleprompter-malfunction-conspiracy/) Trump at a housing policy event in Toronto on Aug. 5 when his teleprompter stopped working.

“Unlike a certain world leader, I do not view this as a conspiracy,” Carney told reporters, referencing Trump's claims of “sabotage” after a teleprompter malfunctioned during his [address](https://time.com/7319639/trump-un-speech-takeaways/) at the United Nations General Assembly last September.

Later that day, Trump [called](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=723&v=khgwrHbUKnA&feature=youtu.be) Canada’s leadership “nasty” during an event at Red Rock Casino Resort in Las Vegas as trade negotiations were ongoing.

"Yes, it's a tough negotiation,” Carney [said](https://x.com/CPAC%5FTV/status/2085399072366608825) in response. “You can change the adjective and say 'nasty,' but for ​Canada it's ​a question ⁠of Canadian jobs, it's a question of the future of Canadian enterprises.”

With negotiations suspended and matching tariffs on the way, the rift has moved beyond rhetoric into a widening trade war.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt2eee9e4432a3a486Sat, 22 Aug 2026 14:43:20 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Schneid\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How to Increase Mental-Health Literacy\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/22/how-to-increase-mental-health-literacy/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Most of us have a limited understanding of mental disorders, writes Joan M. Cook.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[aleksandarvelasevic—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3036ee7432af890d/6a7f4db6ba6588c6de1210b8/mental-health-literacy.jpg?branch=production)

 —aleksandarvelasevic—Getty Images

Imagine that someone you love starts turning down opportunities to attend social gatherings like going to the movies, picnics, and parties. Then this person stops responding consistently to your texts, avoids eye contact when you do get together, and seems to be losing their energy or spark. They have trouble keeping up with daily routines and talk a lot about physical struggles such as headaches and stomach aches. Something doesn’t feel right to you, but you’re not sure what is happening or [what to do](https://time.com/article/2026/06/03/nature-mental-health-boost/). Imagine now if the person all these things are happening to is you. 

Nearly [one in seven](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders) people worldwide have a mental-health disorder. With the prevalence of [mental disorders](https://www.nami.org/mental-health-by-the-numbers/) so high, odds are we all know and love someone who is struggling. But most of us have limited understanding of mental health, and sometimes misguided or inaccurate knowledge. If we improve our understanding, this could help us better identify when we are in distress and get the help we need. It can also potentially assist us in helping friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers. As a psychologist, I believe we could all benefit from increased [mental-health literacy](https://mentalhealthliteracy.org/).

The concept of mental-health literacy was first [coined](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9066546) in the mid-1990s by a group of Australian researchers who began a series of studies to understand the public’s knowledge about mental health. Since then, extensive research on mental-health literacy has taken place in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the U.K., India, Japan, and elsewhere. 

Data from [16 studies](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/332f/2a6342149d16f235aafbdd63ab27e5690592.pdf) indicate two major trends in public awareness about mental health. First, we’re making some headway in recognizing that mental disorders often have some biological underpinnings. Second, there seems to be more acceptance of professional help for such difficulties. But it’s not nearly enough.

Finding sound mental-health information can be challenging. The [Internet](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychology-through-technology/202108/online-mental-health-literacy) has the potential to increase our access to evidence-informed knowledge and decrease unmet mental health needs, but there’s too much noise. And a lot of information online is of inadequate quality and lacks scientific evaluation. Rather than helping, random Internet searches on mental health could harm people most in need. 

One way to further increase our mental health literacy is to take the free online [Mental Health First Aid](https://mentalhealthfirstaid.org/) course. This could help us gain knowledge on how to recognize when a disorder is developing and provide information on help-seeking options and available treatments. 

One of the best resources for evidence-based information is the [National Institute of Mental Health](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/). Established in [1949](https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/nih-almanac/national-institute-mental-health-nimh), this is one of the world’s largest research organizations funding brain and behavior research. It offers valuable online public resources including signs and symptoms of a broad range of disorders including [anxiety](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders), [depression](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/depression), [eating disorders](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders), and [ADHD](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd). It also provides information on the latest and best treatments and how to find a [mental-health provider](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help#part%5F2384). Another accurate and up-to-date source is the [National Alliance on Mental Illness](https://www.nami.org/who-we-are/), the largest grassroots mental-health organization in the U.S. They too offer research informed information online on how to find support including a [helpline](https://www.nami.org/nami-helpline/).

While mental-health literacy is everybody’s business, there are limits to the appropriate use of such information, particularly in our offers to help others. Let’s take the example of [problematic drinking](https://time.com/5464477/types-of-alcohol-use-disorder/). It’s good to be able to recognize our own or a family member’s struggles with alcohol. But there are differences in providing someone with encouragement and assistance in getting help and respecting their boundaries if they refuse or are uninterested. Mental-health literacy can help us distinguish the best way to approach issues like these. 

_If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988\. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider._

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt6227cce767a32a1eSat, 22 Aug 2026 10:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Joan M. Cook\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Make the U.N. Great Again: The Uphill Struggle Facing the Next Secretary General\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/22/united-nations-secretary-general-race/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The new leader of the United Nations cannot heal all the world’s divisions, but with courage and political acumen, the next Secretary-General can make international disputes a little less toxic.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

It may be both the most prestigious and the most frustrating job in international diplomacy: members of the United Nations are weighing who should succeed António Guterres as Secretary-General when he completes his final term in December. The timing couldn’t be more critical, with U.N.’s fortunes at a historically low ebb, for reasons both political and financial. 

Indeed, U.N. insiders question why anyone would even want the job at such a testing—and turbulent—moment. Some predict that, with [major powers repeatedly](https://time.com/7319232/u-n-security-council-is-struggling/) blocking the U.N. from intervening in crises from Ukraine to Myanmar, and with the U.S. rolling back funding, whoever succeeds Guterres will simply have to continue to do[ “less with less”](https://www.crisisgroup.org/cmt/global-united-states/doing-less-with-less-un) and manage a process of institutional decline as gracefully as possible. Others still hold out hope that a new U.N. leader could reverse the slide, and persuade powers large and small to invest in the organization.

Yet, at a time when global challenges—wars, epidemics, and climate change—continue to proliferate, there is a compelling case for preserving the U.N. as a space for global deal making. Doing so will require a Secretary-General of formidable political skills, capable of persuading world leaders to listen.

It is a question of balancing two competing imperatives. The U.N. is an organization that rests on international cooperation, but the current global moment is one of international competition. The challenge facing the next Secretary-General is to explain how the U.N. can stay relevant. This is no time to preach the virtues of solidarity among nations. It is necessary to meet governments “where they’re at,” as psychologists say, and accept their rifts are real. A shrewd leader of the U.N. could find ways to help states de-escalate conflicts and cooperate on global challenges out of necessity, not idealism.

Ultimately, if political leaders do not believe that the U.N., which was founded in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” can live up to that founding goal, they are less likely to take it seriously as an authority on other international issues such as Artificial Intelligence or economic cooperation. Making sure that doesn’t happen will be the central challenge for the organization’s next leader. Perhaps each nomination should thus come with a warning: Caveat emptor, or buyer beware. 

### **Our tumultuous present**

Maybe the biggest challenge for the next Secretary General lies inside the cavernous chamber that houses the Security Council, the organization’s most powerful body. The five permanent, veto power-wielding members—the United States, China, Russia, Britain, and France—that dominate[ the council](https://time.com/7319232/u-n-security-council-is-struggling/) have repeatedly blocked intervention in crises from Ukraine to Myanmar. The Biden Administration’s[ repeated refusal](https://time.com/6589598/biden-israel-gaza-failure/) to support calls for a[ ceasefire in Gaza](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/07/27/how-biden-emboldened-israels-aggression-toward-gaza-and-iran) at the U.N. in 2023 and 2024 stirred deep resentment across the organization. 

Most member states still pay homage to the U.N. Charter and its prohibition against aggression. But Russia’s[ invasion of Ukraine](https://time.com/article/2026/05/23/war-in-iran-oil-prices-russia-putin/) and the U.S. decision to[ attack Iran in February](https://time.com/article/2026/05/06/irans-new-leaders/) suggest that some of the security council’s most powerful members no longer feel bound by its guiding principles. If the U.N.'s political situation is its main headache, its financial positions is a close second.

After the Trump Administration cut off the bulk of [U.S. funding](https://www.cfr.org/articles/funding-united-nations-what-impact-do-us-contributions-have-un-agencies-and-programs) for its operations in 2025, U.N. officials have been spending a lot of their time wondering about how to pay the bills. The U.S. is supposed to cover about a fifth of the organization’s core costs and a quarter of the budget for its blue helmet peace operations, which [add up to ](https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45206.html)roughly $8.5 billion this year. Washington was already behind on its dues when Trump returned to office, and currently owes the U.N. about[ $4 billion](https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/07/20/qa-the-un-funding-crisis-and-human-rights-work). The U.S also previously covered roughly a third of the separate budgets for the organization’s big relief agencies—such as the World Food Programme—which[ need](https://www.cgdev.org/blog/even-reform-humanitarian-assistance-needs-more-us-finance) tens of billions of dollars to feed, vaccinate and shelter vulnerable people each year.

Other traditional donors, including European governments, are[ scaling back](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/may/23/uk-german-and-french-aid-cuts-will-take-devastating-toll-on-most-vulnerable-says-study) spending on development and humanitarian aid. Potential alternatives have not stepped in to close the financial gap. China is now on the hook for almost as much of the U.N.’s core and peacekeeping budgets as the U.S., but is often[ slow](https://www.wsj.com/world/the-u-n-is-going-broke-as-the-u-s-and-china-withhold-billions-bd1fae5e) to stump up its annual contributions. Beijing also contributes very little to the humanitarian sector. While the Trump Administration has released some funds for the U.N.’s life-saving efforts this year, big relief agencies have been forced to cut back life-saving assistance to civilians in places like South Sudan and Afghanistan.

This is a markedly different landscape from the one António Guterres encountered in 2017, when the former Portuguese prime minister became Secretary-General. At that time, the U.N. members had just agreed to the Paris climate accord and a new set of Sustainable Development Goals, including a pledge to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030\. Geopolitical storm clouds were gathering—the Security Council was fiercely divided over the war in Syria—and Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 elections, coming soon after Guterres’s selection, signaled trouble ahead. Still, for believers in multilateral processes, a broad agenda for international cooperation appeared to be in place, and the Secretary-General’s task was to turn it into reality.

That brief moment of optimism proved ephemeral. Guterres spent a large part of his first term trying, with some success, to keeping rum at bay. Nonetheless rising tensions among major powers, and disputes over how to finance development projects and support poorer states’ climate change adaptation efforts, have eroded governments’ trust in one another, and their faith in the U.N.’s complex, negotiation-based approach to addressing their national interests. Guterres has spoken eloquently about the risks of international fragmentation, and has pushed U.N. members to work together on emerging challenges, such as the regulation of Artificial Intelligence. But he has struggled to get leaders to focus consistently on that agenda. Increasingly, many governments are turning instead to smaller, looser decision-making clubs—such as the Group of 7, a Western club, or the BRICS, the bloc of emerging market nations—rather than the U.N. itself.

Diplomats and U.N. officials also fault Guterres for taking a low-key role in crisis management, despite major conflicts exploding on his watch. The Secretary-General has been blunt about his lack of leverage to mediate in most of today’s conflicts, and has encouraged a culture of caution among his senior staff dealing with political affairs and peace operations. Although he was involved in one notable mediation success—the 2022 Black Sea Grain initiative—many U.N. members feel that his reluctance to engage in broader peace efforts has undermined the body’s credibility.

### **Runners and riders**

Such critiques of the incumbent, and the manifold challenges facing the office of the Secretary General, haven’t deterred a clutch of candidates from around the world—who may yet be joined by new competitors as the race to succeed Guterres enters its final stretch. 

Eight candidates are currently jostling to replace him and assume the reins of what U.N. watchers sometimes call “the parliament of man.” Among the most widely discussed are [Rafael Grossi](https://www.iaea.org/about/rafael-mariano-grossi), the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and [Rebeca Grynspan](https://unctad.org/speaker/rebeca-grynspan), a senior U.N. trade official and former vice president of Costa Rica.[ Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/aug/19/who-is-woman-vying-first-caribbean-head-un-carolyn-rodrigues-birkett), Guyana’s ambassador to the U.N., is also a popular candidate among her colleagues in New York. But because there is no official cut-off point for new candidates to enter the race, and many diplomats expect more challengers to emerge, especially if none of the existing crop looks like a clear winner.

While the current candidates have been speaking at public events from Europe to Korea, they have struck a cautious tone regarding their plans for the U.N. This reflects the way the selection process works. The Security Council—where the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K. hold vetoes—is central to the process, vetting candidates and recommending one to the General Assembly, where all U.N. members have seats, for approval. To date, the Assembly has always ratified the recommendation. Anyone who wants to be Secretary-General must avoid offending the five veto powers.

Talking about what is wrong with the world today without irritating at least one of the major powers is quite hard. Guterres angered Russia by criticizing its war in Ukraine, and Moscow is likely looking for a pliable U.N. chief. The biggest headache for Guterres’s successor will be maintaining working relations with Washington in the remaining years of the Trump presidency. Senior U.N. officials worry that, having imposed severe economic strain on the organization, the U.S. will insist that the next Secretary-General make deep cuts to U.N. agencies and follow the Trump Administration’s agenda on questions such as diversity, and soft-pedal criticism of Israeli actions against the Palestinians.

Tiptoeing around these sensitivities, the eight candidates for the Secretary-General position agree that the U.N. is in poor shape. All have promised to concentrate on preventive diplomacy, and have committed to managing the organization efficiently. None has so far set out a groundbreaking strategy for putting the U.N. back on its feet. If this is partly a matter of political tact, it also reflects the fact that the U.N. Secretary-General, despite being the public face of the organization, has only limited power to shape the organization. While the veto powers dominate the Security Council, a sprawling array of intergovernmental committees and boards—including dozens of entities dealing with issues from telecommunications to the environment—oversee the wider work of the U.N. system.

The Secretary-General and his or her advisers must barter with U.N. members over remarkably minor budgetary matters, down to the number of mid-level and junior staff employed in U.N. offices. It is easy to call on the U.N.’s top official to focus on problems of world order, but bureaucracy gets in the way. 

Once in office, the next U.N. chief will have to manage these institutional issues while also laying a broader agenda. She or he could address this challenge by appointing a powerful chief of staff to handle administrative matters, freeing up more time to prioritize diplomacy.

On the diplomatic front, the incoming leader’s priority will be to demonstrate the ability to insert himself or herself into one or more conflicts, signaling a shift from the Guterres era. This is easier said than done. Conflict prevention and peacemaking have become crowded fields, with a growing number of middle powers, and at times the Trump Administration, leading peace processes that the U.N. might once have overseen. 

The next Secretary-General will not simply be able to fly into trouble spots and cajole warring parties into making deals. But he or she can use the first months in office to shuttle between key capitals in regions such as the Middle East, looking for opportunities to engage, and [encouraging](https://www.crisisgroup.org/cmt/global/prioritising-peace-what-un-should-ask-its-next-secretary-general) U.N. staff—who still have considerable expertise on issues like mediation and peacekeeping operations—to table new options for dealing with ongoing or looming conflicts. This is not likely to produce quick or major wins, and there is always a risk that the U.N. will launch peace initiatives that fail. But as a European diplomat familiar with the U.N. once put it, everyone expects the U.N. to fail, and as a result it can do so without sustaining reputational damage. 

The greater danger for the institution right now is that it fails to engage in meaningful crisis diplomacy at all, cementing the impression that it is no longer a significant peacemaking force. If the Secretary-General can use this kind of early outreach to gain a place on the diplomatic map, she or he will still face the challenge of articulating what the U.N. stands for in a divided world.

### **Collective action in a world divided**

There is no shortage of[ good arguments](https://www.un.org/en/common-agenda) for why collective action helps address problems that transcend borders. These often get lost at a time when the predominant political narratives center on national divisions and differences.

U.N. officials do not help themselves by couching their arguments in technocratic terms, weighed down with talk of goals and policy frameworks. But the underlying political challenge is to make a case for multilateralism that resonates with decision-makers who view international affairs in zero-sum, or at least very low-trust, terms.

The best approach may be to frame the U.N. as a sort of global risk reduction organization. Over the last decade, governments, the private sector and the public have seen the knock-on effects of both the pandemic and regional conflicts causing global economic disruption. New technologies are creating further[ economic shocks](https://time.com/7371825/trump-data-center-ai-backlash-ai-america-china/) and could make future conflicts more dangerous.

The U.N. is not a global authority with the powers to halt these trends. But it is a space in which governments can discuss the risks involved and—where they see common ground—explore steps to mitigate them. Even though it may be easier for states to meet in smaller clubs such as the BRICS and G7, the U.N.’s advantage is that it remains a neutral space where different blocs of governments can engage in dialogue.

The next Secretary-General can only encourage rivalrous states to take part in these dialogues, and will need to do so with a light touch. In the past, the U.N. has sometimes responded to new challenges by announcing new agencies and funds to address them. The resulting multilateral bloat has become hard to sustain financially and defend politically. The incoming U.N. leadership will need to show that it can facilitate discussions of difficult global problems without adding new layers of bureaucracy.

The role of the Secretary-General is perhaps to be both the world’s most prominent event organizer—bringing governments and other actors into the room to talk about their problems—and a sort of political therapist for world leaders. If the Secretary-General can win the trust of these leaders, and persuade them to work on common problems despite their divisions, he or she may be able to bring a degree of stability to a dangerous international environment. In doing so, she or he can also keep some political space open for the U.N. to do its most basic work, getting help to the suffering, mitigating the effects of suffering and – at its best – giving small states and civil society groups a rare platform to speak out on issues like human rights and climate change.

The new leader of the U.N. cannot heal all the world’s divisions, but with courage and political acumen, the Secretary-General can make international disputes a little less toxic. That may be a limited vision of what the U.N., sometimes dubbed the “parliament of man” is for. But in an era of multiplying dangers and distrust, it is a noble and perhaps essential one.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt4de14218d2077dd1Sat, 22 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Richard Gowan and Daniel Forti\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Pentagon Fires Editor and Publisher of U.S. Military Newspaper\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/pentagon-fires-editor-publisher-stars-and-stripes-military-newspaper/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The news comes about a month after the editor stressed the importance of the newspaper’s independence in an interview, and a few days after the publisher announced his plans to retire.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Kevin Carter—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[In an aerial view, the Pentagon, headquarters for the United States Department of Defense is seen in Arlington, Virginia, on Aug. 13, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltda5269628a5839dd/6a88b7fd5fc857eec223e8e0/Stars-Stripes-Firings.jpg?branch=production)

In an aerial view, the Pentagon, headquarters for the United States Department of Defense is seen in Arlington, Virginia, on Aug. 13, 2026\. —Kevin Carter—Getty Images

The [Pentagon](https://time.com/7319117/pentagon-pledge-media-restrictions-hegseth/) has fired the editor-in-chief and publisher of the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

On Friday, the Pentagon provided separation notices to editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and publisher Max Lederer, [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stars-and-stripes-publisher-editor-separation-notices-pentagon/) reported. The notices said that the two had five days to appeal the decision, according to CBS.

Slavin told [The Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/stars-stripes-pentagon-censorship-media-d42affb0c17fef31c6089645c8dbbe70) that he was dismissed for insubordination “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” In July, CBS published a [story](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-battle-over-stars-and-stripes/) featuring an interview with Slavin, in which he stressed the importance of the newspaper’s independence.

“We need to be able to provide independent news to service members,” he told CBS. “If we can’t do that, if we were turned into something other than that, if we were public relations? Yeah, that's the foxhole.”

While Stars and Stripes receives part of its funding from the Pentagon, it has a years-long history of being editorially independent. In January, though, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the Department of Defense “is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission” and is “bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century.”

“We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members,” he said in a [post on X](https://x.com/SeanParnellASW/status/2011802849903009991?lang=en) in January.

In March, more details about the department’s “modernization” overhaul for Stars and Stripes were [revealed](https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-03-13/pentagon-modernization-plan-stars-and-stripes-21051529.html) by an internal memo, which included a provision that content published by the newspaper must be aligned with “good order and discipline,” a phrase that is in the [Uniform Code of Military Justice](https://themilitarydefensefirm.com/blog/ucmj-guide/).

News of the firings also comes after Lederer [announced](https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-08-18/stars-and-stripes-publisher-retirement-22592337.html) on Tuesday that he plans to retire, effective Sept. 30\. Lederer, who has been publisher of the newspaper for nearly two decades, said that he came to the decision after he realized that his “understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes” diverged in “fundamental ways” from the Pentagon’s plans for the newspaper. He said he disagreed with parts of the modernization plan revealed in March, including the Pentagon’s desire to transition all print products to digital; Lederer said he worried that the move would affect the accessibility of Stars and Stripes for some service members.

“I think the right step is for me to step down, get out of the way, and let different leadership step in and continue to make this, the great organization that it is, even better,” Lederer told Stars and Stripes.

In April, the Department of Defense fired the newspaper’s ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith. As ombudsman, Smith was tasked with ensuring the organization’s editorial independence. Smith told her colleagues in a message at the time, which was seen by [The Washington _Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/04/23/stars-stripes-ombudsman-fired-pentagon/)_,_ that the Pentagon didn’t provide a reason for her firing, but that she believed the decision came down because she criticized the agency’s moves to overhaul the newspaper.

“I knew it was risky to speak out, but my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount,” she wrote in her message to her colleagues, according to the _Post_.

In June, Smith filed a [lawsuit](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.293839/gov.uscourts.dcd.293839.1.0.pdf) in federal court against the Department of Defense, in which she alleged that her firing was retaliatory and a violation of her First Amendment rights.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltf5f17479b584a886Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:56:37 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Companies Are Bracing Themselves For El Niño’s Ripple Effects\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/el-nino-economic-business-disruption/<!\[CDATA\[Climate\]\]><!\[CDATA\[El Niño will disrupt business across the globe.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Daniel Ceng/Anadolu—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[People wade through a flooded road caused by monsoon rains, in Apalit, Pampanga, Philippines, on Aug. 20.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2aff299b173b3f3a/6a88acd4e14b97c4b21cdaf6/Phillippines_El_Nino.jpg?branch=production)

People wade through a flooded road caused by monsoon rains, in Apalit, Pampanga, Philippines, on Aug. 20\. —Daniel Ceng/Anadolu—Getty Images

The warnings from meteorologists have been growing slowly but steadily in recent months: [the most severe El Niño](https://time.com/article/2026/04/10/super-el-nino-2026-what-to-know/) on record may be coming soon. Record-breaking temperatures and a slew of extreme weather events are likely to follow.

For companies and investors, alarm bells are already sounding. Hundreds of publicly traded companies—particularly in the food and chemicals sectors—have used earnings calls in recent months to[ outline](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/corporate-concern-over-el-nino-hits-multi-year-high-2026-08-14/) their contingency planning. And banks have [warned](https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/IE-PROD/PDFVIEWER.calias?pdfViewerPdfUrl=PROD0000000000633932&rwnode=REPORT) about the possibility of a supply shock that drives up prices as [extreme weather](https://time.com/7323198/companies-climate-cost-risk-adaptation/) disrupts production chains. 

In other words, the potential effects of [El Niño](https://time.com/6263513/el-nino-may-test-understanding-climate-change/) over the coming year are both local and specific to companies and their operations, and cumulative across the economy. 

Unlike many phenomena in our climate-changed world, El Niño isn’t new or unfamiliar to most decision makers. Past cycles in the 1970s and 1990s have wrought enough damage that supply chain planners know to watch out. But this El Niño will inevitably be different. 

For one, it’s happening against the backdrop of a world that has [already warmed](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7575x8yq5o) roughly 1.5°C since the Industrial Revolution. And, second, modelers have observed an especially significant difference between recent sea-surface temperatures and the historical averages, an indicator of an especially strong El Niño. 

A typical El Niño cycle lasts less than a year, but the economic effects may extend far longer. An initial shock of crops destroyed by heavy rain, for example, would harm farm economies immediately while disrupting global supplies for several seasons. A [report](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/focus/2023/html/ecb.ebbox202306%5F01~36e78cc75e.en.html) from the European Central Bank found that a strong El Niño could raise global food commodity prices by as much as 9% within 16 months of onset and last for years longer. Factory flooding wouldn’t just create immediate disaster relief challenges but take years to rebuild. 

“When we think about pricing and when we think about other actions to protect our margins, we don’t look at it specific to weather patterns,” saysRichard Shin, CFO at the Philippines-based fast food chain company Jollibee Group, on an earnings call. “We look at it right across the board, what we call inflation and what we call supply chain disruptions or limitations.”

All told, the economic hit could be enormous. A [2023 paper](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf2983) published in the journal _Science_ found that the 1982-1983 El Niño drove more than $4 trillion in global income losses. In the 1997-98 cycle, that total hit $5.7 trillion. 

With El Niño, as with climate change, the relationship between a stronger phenomenon and economic damages isn’t linear. A worse El Niño may lead to much, much worse economic outcomes. 

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt0e64dfac3b59632fFri, 21 Aug 2026 20:14:56 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Justin Worland\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Which Anti-Aging Ideas Actually Work? XPrize Healthspan Is Testing The Best Longevity Innovations\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/xprize-healthspan-best-longevity-ideas-top-10/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The seven-year competition just named its top 10 finalists.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Elena Noviello—Getty\]\]><!\[CDATA\[XPrize Healthspan is testing the best ideas for slowing aging.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2424f5ae9cd903ad/6a88a1aabda2ac35b10112a0/xprise-healthspan-competition.jpg?branch=production)

XPrize Healthspan is testing the best ideas for slowing aging. —Elena Noviello—Getty

Jamie Justice admits she has no poker face. As executive director of XPrize Healthspan, a philanthropic and corporate sponsored competition, Justice oversees one of the most buzz-worthy science competitions today. The contest, launched in 2023, attracted nearly 200 applicants from groups around the world who think they can help people to live not just [longer lives](https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/how-time-chose-longevity-leaders/), but healthier ones.

When the 15-member judging panel met in early summer to pick the top 10 teams who would continue on in the seven-year competition, Justice excused herself. “I couldn’t be in the room because my face shows everything,” she says, since she became familiar with each of the teams and their various approaches to extending human life.

**Read more:** [_TIME's 2026_ _Longevity Leaders_ ](https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/)

Both in the scientific community and the commercial market, there is no shortage of ideas—from legitimate, rigorously developed approaches to more fantastical schemes—for a [fountain of youth](https://time.com/collections/future-of-living/7341841/longevity-age-cells-douglas-vaughan/). XPrize Healthspan exists to bring some order to that chaos, and legitimacy to the process of developing and, most importantly, testing ideas in longevity. Applicants for the prize, which has a total purse of $101 million, allocated in segments throughout the seven-year competition, included teams from academic research institutes as well as biotech and startup groups. All had to follow a few basic rules; they had to show early promise in human studies that their approach could improve health in three critical areas: muscle function, brain function, and immune function. All teams were judged based on standard measurements of these three functions that XPrize committees of experts had specified, to ensure that all projects were evaluated using the same metrics. The judges announced the top 10 projects on Aug. 11.

“This is where I get the most excited, when things get really sort of dirty and ugly,” says Justice, who spent time researchinggeroscience at Wake Forest University before coming to XPrize. “You’ve got biohackers selling you this, and you have a bro guy over here that wants you to take so much protein that you’re going to die. What we need to do is have a strainer, a filter where everybody is held to the same standard. There may be something really worthwhile and useful out of some of these things that seem harebrained. What XPrize does well is invite everyone in, teach them how to do the science to get to a level of super credibility. It’s an alliance that comes together to set the frameworks for the start line, a finish line, and how to get there.”

The projects are as varied as you might expect approaches to longevity to be—ranging from the latest anti-aging trends in Asia involving extracellular vesicles, to stem cells and more traditional, well-established programs that include exercise and supplements. Two of the teams are from Japan, one from South Korea, one from China and six from the U.S. Two of the groups are studying repurposed drugs for their potential in extending life, while the Korean team is investigating a novel longevity drug. Four projects involve supplements and five rely on biologic compounds including extracellular vesicles, peptides, and antibodies. 

Both teams from Japan are working with the vesicles, which carry a wide menu of molecules in the body, from enzymes to peptides, fats and genetic material. But the teams are taking very different approaches to optimizing what these vesicles can do to improve health.

Time Traveler Corp., a biotech startup launched in 2024 by Rieko Akiyama to bring ideas from her father's research in tumor biology and cancer research at University of Tokyo to longevity is one of the teams focusing on this approach. Tomoatsu Hayashi, a project assistant professor at the University of Tokyo and co-CEO, started by studying human cells to find ways to make the vesicles at scale. Smaller versions of these vesicles, called exosomes, which are made when cell membranes fold inward, and pinch off tiny bubbles, are an increasingly popular component of anti-aging beauty products in Japan and Asia, but they remain untested from a longevity perspective, and Hayashi and his team were eager to study them in a more rigorous fashion. 

Akiyama gave the team what turned out to be its XPrize-leading idea. She noted that during the COVID pandemic, there were more discussions about turning away from animal-derived materials in science, which are heavily regulated to ensure safety before they develop into products used in people, to plant-based sources, including for food products like mayonnaise. “I wondered whether human-derived exosomes could also be replaced by plant-derived exosomes, which might offer advantages in terms of safety, scalability, and ethical considerations,” she says through a digital translator during a recent interview near Hayashi’s labs at the University of Tokyo. “I brought this idea to my father and asked whether plant-derived extracellular vesicles could become a new approach for promoting healthy longevity. That conversation became the starting point of our plant-derived exosome business.”

Hayashi and his team started with edible plants and algae, assuming that those would have the strongest safety profile for eventual human use, and screened more than 140 species, including 95% of those that grow in Japan. While human exosomes were widely studied, those from plants were still a mystery, and “we didn’t know if plant exosomes would have the same effect in human cells,” he says. But starting first with mice and then with human cells, they showed that in fact, plant exosomes worked in very similar ways to human-derived exosomes, proving Rieko’s initial hunch correct. And of the species, it turned out exosomes from parsley showed the strongest effects.

In mice, the parsley-derived exosomes lowered inflammatory factors that are responsible for many aging processes in cells. Animals who were fed the exosomes in their water were able to maintain muscle strength, as measured by the longer time that these mice could hang from a wire cage compared to similarly-aged mice that didn’t get the supplement. 

The team saw similar benefits in lowering inflammation in a small group of 40 people who started taking the supplement pill once a day. Anecdotally, the people reported sleeping more consistently and deeply and feeling more energy during the day. The animal and human data were enough to give the team a chance at testing their product further in more people in the next phase of the XPrize competition. That trial will evaluate volunteers on muscle function, walking, leg presses, cognitive tests, and tests looking at inflammatory markers in their blood.

The other Japanese team, also from University of Tokyo, is likewise banking on exosomes. But to address supply issues, instead of plants, they turned to stem cells. Keisuke Goda, professor of chemistry at University of Tokyo, decided to tackle the problem of getting exosomes to the cells where they are needed most. Relying on his chemistry and engineering background, he designed so-called super exosomes with specific molecules on their surface that can draw them to aging cells like a magnet. Because they are revved up to target aging cells, they can deliver the lipids, genetic material, and other compounds cells need to keep them acting like younger versions of themselves. “We knew from previous studies that exosomes secrete a range of molecules including growth factors, metabolic enzymes, lipids, and DNA and RNA, and previous reports showed that injecting young exosomes into aged mice rejuvenated the aged mice,” says Goda. “But there is a delivery problem.”

As part of the XPrize, Goda and his team will start testing the super exosomes in more than 100 people in a formal trial see how they affect muscle, brain, and immune cells. 

He is confident that they will see similarly encouraging results as they saw in their mouse and human cells studies, which showed that older human cells in the lab treated with the exosomes had reduced markers of aging and appeared rejuvenated. “We know they work,” says Goda. “It’s exciting. When we saw the results, we doubted it was true. But the cells were rejuvenated, they were not dying.” About 25 months after they started studying the super exosomes in mice, the untreated animals are starting to die, he says, but the treated ones are not. “We of course want to see the actual effect in humans, assuming it’s safe,” he says. 

Not all of the top 10 teams involve innovative or cutting edge scientific approaches. The group from Mount Sinai earned its spot by combining three, more familiar strategies: exercise and two supplements, one that’s been bandied about the aging community for a few decades now—rapamycin—and another, spermidine, that came out of work from one of the Mount Sinai scientists as a factor to control inflammation associated with aging. During the COVID pandemic, Dr. Miriam Merad, director of the precision immunology institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and her team noticed a strong connection between age and inflammation that made older people more susceptible to the effects of a COVID infection. That led to a hypotheses about the role that inflammation might play in a range of age-related diseases, including heart disease, respiratory conditions, and muscle loss. “What we realized was that the inflammatory response was contributing to age associated diseases,” she says. “It’s very established what happens with age when organs decline—they acquire somatic mutations from the exposures we have, and at the same time as all of our organs age, our immune system is also declining, and producing more inflammatory molecules. Age-associated diseases are aggravated, or precipitated by chronic inflammation.”

Addressing inflammation, then, might be a powerful way to control the aging process, and in further studies in mice and with human cells in the lab, Merad and her team zeroed-in on a compound that older cells weren’t making as robustly as younger ones—a polyamine called spermidine. By giving older mice the supplement spermidine, they saw improvements in the animals’ immune responses that tipped the balance away from the chronic state of inflammation associated with accelerated aging. “Once we saw the data in the lab, we all started taking it ourselves because \[the data\] looked so good,” says Dr. Thomas Marron, professor of immunology and immunotherapyat the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the principal investigator of the team’s study of the compound. 

The researchers also included rapamycin, a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat rejection in kidney transplants, as well as certain types of cancer, in the study as well. Because some, but not all, studies showed rapamycin extended the life of animals, it’s been a controversial product in the longevity field, with some in the health community using the drug off-label in the hopes of a longer and healthier life, despite the lack of solid evidence in human studies that it can have this effect.

That’s one of the reasons the Mount Sinai team is eager to put it to the test, in combination with an exercise regimen and spermidine. Their rationale in combining the two supplements and physical activity lies in the fact that aging isn’t likely directed by a single compound or process, but the net result of a multitude of body processes, so slowing aging will likewise require a multi-pronged strategy. Marron also expects that given the biological differences among people, some may respond more to one supplement, while others respond to the other, and still others may respond best to the exercise regimen. Studying them together could provide the first hints about which components are contributing to slowing aging, and by how much. The researchers will be taking blood samples throughout the coming year, and looking at certain markers of inflammation and as well as conducting tests of hand grip and leg strength, respiratory function and evaluations of changes in fat composition with MRI images. The participants will also take standard cognitive tests to monitor changes in their processing speed and executive function skills such as planning, memory, attention, and impulse control. 

“The goal of XPrize is to improve health span by 10 years, and ultimately by 20 years,” says Marron. “But that’s hard because there is no validated way to measure health span, or aging. So the real goal is to inject more science into this process.”

The top 10 teams earned $1 million eachto test their ideas in a larger group of people over the next year, and hopefully show improvements in the three areas targeted by the XPrize: muscle, brain, and immune function. “I love to have a front seat and watch the next phase of this go from hype cycle to durable evidence if there is any,” says Justice. But she also acknowledges that aging is a varied process, and no single, uniform solution that applies to the widely diverse human species will likely emerge. “We age at different rates, we have different constellations of diseases and functional decline, so a one-size-fits-all is probably unlikely,” she says. “I expect a lot of failure, but the question is whether you can take that failure and make something useful out of it. Does it become compost to build something better? There needs to be a lot more work from the field within geroscience to really lean on learnings. This is what gets me excited.”

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt601bc9e099a35ca2Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:03:26 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Alice Park\]\]><!\[CDATA\[With Beef Costs Skyrocketing, Trump Announces a Tariff Deal Aimed at Lowering Prices\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/beef-prices-trump-deal-tariffs/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The President is expected to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[President Donald Trump takes a question from reporters during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 10, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe4a63c49d02939c/6a88a30cd6c10712a13445e4/Trump-Beef-Deal.jpg?branch=production)

President Donald Trump takes a question from reporters during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 10, 2026\. —Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images

President [Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/) announced on Friday that he has coordinated a new deal to lower [beef prices](https://time.com/7304845/ground-beef-prices-record-highs-united-states-reasons-outlook/) in the U.S.

“Today, I concluded a deal to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working American families,” he said in a [Truth Social post](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117133120342300539). “For the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. We have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25 percent below current market prices.”

“This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” he continued.

An “out of quota tariff” is a higher tariff that is triggered if the amount of a product imported into the U.S. exceeds a certain quantity.

**Read More:** [_Why Ground Beef Prices Are Hitting Record-Highs in the U.S._](https://time.com/7304845/ground-beef-prices-record-highs-united-states-reasons-outlook/)

It’s unclear who the deal is with or which countries will be importing the beef into the U.S. A White House official told TIME that Trump secured an agreement with foreign beef exporters to sell beef at a 25% discount, which will be passed on to American consumers, in exchange for Trump lifting the out of quota tariff on lean beef trimmings that will be used for ground beef production. The White House official added that the President plans to sign an Executive Order regarding the deal within the next couple of weeks.

Both Trump and the White House official cited the soaring price of beef as the motivation behind the new deal. Last month, the average price of ground beef for American consumers was about $6.885 per pound—a jump of roughly 57% from just five years earlier, according to data shared by the [Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000703112). The price of uncooked ground beef went up by 9% in July, compared to the same time last year, according to data released by the [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf) last month.

Beef prices have skyrocketed in large part because of supply shortages: American cattle herd sizes are at a low not seen in years, even as consumer demand for beef remains high in the country.

The [American Farm Bureau Federation](https://www.fb.org/intel/markets/july-cattle-report-signals-stabilizing-cattle-herd) reported last month that, while the total cattle inventory went up a bit at the start of July for the first in eight years, the beef cow herd dropped to 28.5 million head, decreasing by about 1% compared to the same time last year, making it the “smallest July inventory on record,” with data dating back to 1973\. Experts [attribute](https://time.com/7304845/ground-beef-prices-record-highs-united-states-reasons-outlook/) the pressure on herds largely to droughts driven by climate change.

The deal that Trump announced on Friday isn’t the first time his Administration has made efforts to try and address the soaring price of beef for consumers. The President also signed an [Executive Order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/ensuring-affordable-beef-for-the-american-consumer/) earlier this year aimed at increasing the amount of lean beef trimmings imported from Argentina by 80,000 metric tons per year.

Experts, however, cast doubt on whether boosting beef imports from Argentina will be effective at lowering the cost on Americans, [saying](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-beef-trade-argentina-executive-order/) that the boost in imports would make up too small a portion of the overall supply in the U.S. to have a significant impact. And the cattle industry has objected to such efforts in the past, expressing concerns that those moves would undermine producers within the U.S.

Colin Woodall—the CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, a trade association for cattle farmers and ranchers—said in a [statement](https://www.ncba.org/news-media/news/details/50285/ncba-statement-on-president-trumps-truth-social-post) on Friday that he was “disappointed” by Trump’s announcement.

“While America’s cattle producers share the goal of keeping groceries affordable for consumers, flooding the market with government-subsidized, below-market beef is not the way to rebuild the American cattle herd,” Woodall said. “We are already working to rebuild after years of ongoing drought, high input costs and other challenges that have reduced U.S. cattle numbers. Today’s announcement and other market interventions throw cold water on the prospect of herd expansion and sacrifices long-term stability for short term messaging.”

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltac34827bcd48e527Fri, 21 Aug 2026 19:28:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[’They Weaponized You Like Nobody’s Ever Been Weaponized’: Trump and Michael Cohen Make Peace\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/trump-michael-cohen-radio/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\["They weaponized you like nobody's ever been weaponized," Trump told his former lawyer during an appearance on Cohen's radio show.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Spencer Platt—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, departs his Manhattan apartment for prison on May 6, 2019.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9dc6868f4feb0bd4/6a887aa9e28247b6146b58c8/GettyImages-1147335032.jpg?branch=production)

Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, departs his Manhattan apartment for prison on May 6, 2019\. —Spencer Platt—Getty Images

President [Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/) on Thursday buried the hatchet with his former attorney [Michael Cohen](https://time.com/6971667/donald-trump-trial-michael-cohen/), appearing on Cohen’s radio show in what was the first public exchange between the two men in eight years.

Trump and Cohen have a tumultuous history. Cohen worked as Trump’s personal lawyer dating back to the mid-2000s. But he severed ties with Trump around 2018, when he [pleaded guilty](https://time.com/5373301/michael-cohen-plea-deal/) to federal crimes, including campaign finance violations, and said he had made payments to two women at Trump’s direction in an effort to keep them from speaking publicly about alleged affairs with the then-presidential candidate. He went on to serve a three-year sentence following his guilty plea. Cohen later made a number of [explosive claims](https://time.com/5540496/michael-cohen-testimony-claims/) about Trump in testimony in front of Congress, and served as a [key witness](https://time.com/6979136/michael-cohen-trump-credibility/) in the criminal hush money trial that resulted in Trump’s [conviction](https://time.com/6983196/donald-trump-convicted-hush-money-trial-new-york/) on 34 felony counts. 

**Read More:** [_Trump and Hush-Money Trial’s Central Witness Share a Tortured History_](https://time.com/6971667/donald-trump-trial-michael-cohen/)

“You and I have obviously traveled a pretty rocky road together,” Cohen said to Trump on his radio show 77 WABC-AM in New York on Thursday. The program will air in its entirety on Sunday. 

Trump did not dwell too much on the past during the portion of the show that aired on Thursday, but voiced sympathy and appreciation for Cohen.

"They weaponized you like nobody's ever been weaponized, like few have been," Trump told his former lawyer. “They weaponized a lot of people, and I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said. And that’s a big — that’s a big thing that you did. That’s a very big thing.”

The men’s conversation also criss-crossed through a range of other topics related to Iran, the economy, and Democrats. 

Cohen appeared on CNN ahead of the airing of the program and commented on his relationship, and conversation, with Trump. 

“How is it possible after all of what took place? All of the name calling, the years of the public war, the verbal missiles that we threw at one another. How is it possible that the two of us can ever sit down again?” Cohen told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. “The answer is that we forgave.”

When asked to define the current state of his relationship with the President, Cohen remarked, “it’s being resuscitated.” 

Cohen was also pressed on whether he has asked Trump for a pardon. 

“I have not,” Cohen first responded. But he went on to clarify that he did submit a pardon application to President Joe Biden, which he later altered after Trump took back office. 

“What I did is I took that same application with the same documentation, and I just rewrote the cover letter, removing the name of President Joe Biden and inserting the name President Donald Trump,” Cohen said. 

Cohen also took to his [Substack](https://therealmichaelcohen.substack.com/p/the-impossible-reunion) on Thursday to speak about making amends with Trump, which he said made people “furious.” Referencing the Bible, Cohen asserted that Colossians 3:13—a passage that reads, ”Forgive as the Lord forgave you”—was the “foundation” of what transpired between him and Trump.

“We forgave,” Cohen wrote. “Forgiveness doesn’t require amnesia. It requires the courage to stop allowing yesterday to dictate tomorrow.”

Cohen’s remarks ring in stark contrast to previous words he has offered about the President.

In 2019, after pleading guilty, Cohen was called by the House Oversight and Reform Committee to further detail his role as Trump’s attorney and [said](https://www.congress.gov/event/116th-congress/house-event/LC63709/text) Trump “is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat.” When asked how many times Trump had asked him to threaten an individual or entity on his behalf, Cohen responded that Trump had done so on over 500 occasions throughout their professional relationship. 

The following year, Cohen published _Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump_, a 432-page tell-all about the years he spent as Trump’s lawyer and fixer. 

“I knew Trump better than anyone else did,” Cohen wrote at one point in the book. “I knew him better than even his family did, because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: A cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”

And in 2024, Cohen was the prosecution’s main witness in Trump’s criminal trial over charges of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to Daniels when Trump was running for President for the first time in 2016\. 

“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen said on the stand in 2024.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltcea0dd332c022e74Fri, 21 Aug 2026 16:32:43 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Connor Greene\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How Much the National Debt Grew Under Trump and Biden\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-biden/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The U.S.’s national debt surpassed $40 trillion for the first time ever this week—more than double what it was a decade ago.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The U.S. Treasury building in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 2025.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45d34cb5e3414b9f/6a88596ee2824745f66b526a/Debt-40T.jpg?branch=production)

The U.S. Treasury building in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 2025\. —Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

The U.S.’s [national](https://time.com/4214269/us-national-debt/) [debt](https://time.com/7286837/what-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-would-do-to-the-national-debt/) surpassed $40 trillion for the first time ever this week—more than double what it was a decade ago.

The record-breaking figure comes after the government reported in March that the total debt [reached](https://time.com/article/2026/03/19/united-states-national-debt-trillions-iran-war/) $39 trillion, meaning that the debt grew by $1 trillion in less than half a year. Just a few months before that, in October, that figure was $38 trillion.

And the country has reached the $40 trillion milestone earlier than experts had previously predicted; in 2023, the Congressional Budget Office [estimated](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946#%5FidTextAnchor013) that the total debt wouldn’t hit that figure until 2028.

The debt has been increasing for decades, but much of the current total has been accumulated over the past ten years, during the administrations of President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. Here’s how much the debt grew under each of their terms in the White House.

## Trump’s first term

When Trump took office for his first term in January 2017, the total debt was about $19.95 trillion. When his presidency ended four years later, the debt stood at roughly $27.75 trillion, meaning that the debt rose by about $7.8 trillion under his Administration.

## Biden’s term

The debt grew by about $8.4 trillion while Biden was in the White House, increasing from about $27.75 trillion when he was sworn into office in January 2021 to roughly $36 trillion by the time he finished his term in January 2025.

## Trump’s second term so far

Since Trump returned to the White House for a second term in January last year, the debt has gone up by about $3.8 trillion. That means that the national debt has climbed by a total of $11.6 trillion across the two Trump Administrations—so far—a figure that comprises more than a quarter of the total amount.

## Why has the debt soared?

Experts credit a significant portion of the growth in the national debt to the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-debt-crosses-40-trillion-threshold-after-doubling-under-trump-biden-2026-08-19/), about one-third of the growth seen since 2017 took place during two years or so of the pandemic, when the first Trump Administration and then the Biden Administration intensified borrowing to fund the country’s pandemic response and recovery.

Both Trump’s and Biden’s fiscal policies have also contributed to—and exacerbated—the longer-standing issue of government spending exceeding tax and other revenues, which has led to the ballooning national debt. 

For instance, according to the [Brookings Institute](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-will-happen-to-the-trump-tax-cuts-in-2025-and-how-will-they-affect-the-national-debt/), the tax cuts that Trump signed into law during his first year in office in 2017 were expected to contribute almost $2 trillion to the deficit by 2028\. And in March**,** the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget [predicted](https://www.crfb.org/blogs/obbba-dynamic-score-comes-47-trillion) that Trump’s [“One Big Beautiful Bill,”](https://time.com/7286837/what-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-would-do-to-the-national-debt/) a signature piece of his second-term agenda that also included steep tax cuts, will add $4.7 trillion to the national debt through 2035.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt70aef2724eece07bFri, 21 Aug 2026 14:27:57 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What 72,000 Bodies at a Fence Revealed about Africa and Europe\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/spain-migrants-europe-morocco-border-africa/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean are full of the remains of those who perished while trying to reach Europe.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Marcos Moreno-Europa Press via Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Spanish police escorting out migrants in Ceuta, Spain on 20 August, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc4f8a8493c9b361f/6a8792e9854fd33a345c479c/GettyImages-2291297675.jpg?branch=production)

Spanish police escorting out migrants in Ceuta, Spain on 20 August, 2026\. —Marcos Moreno-Europa Press via Getty Images

Europe and Africa are at once impossibly close and worlds apart near the northern tip of Morocco. Ceuta and Melilla are two small cities overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and a short ferry ride across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. The cities on the African mainland have been [controlled by Spain](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-57305882) for centuries, and their residents are Spanish citizens who enjoy the privilege of EuropeanUnion membership. 

A border fence and a stark disparity in wealth and opportunity separate the two enclaves from Morocco: Ceuta lies a few miles from the adjoining town of Fnideq, and Melilla is 10-minute drive from Beninsar. In late July and early August, an estimated 72,000 people from Morocco—including many [minors](https://www.tiktok.com/@aljazeeraenglish/video/7670083901712289055)—walked, swam and ran toward Ceuta. Some [made their way](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbbrbRhiWSx/?igsh=aDA2bjN0b2ZuNWU3) to Melilla, hoping the same rare fortune would await them there. Most carried nothing but a phone in a plastic holster and even lost their shoes to the waves, that later deposited them along the shore. 

The people who made the _hragga_—colloquial for irregular migration—were driven by a combination of calculation and desperation. There were roughly three categories of people. Those who had tried before and had come prepared. There were those who had not been planning but had come to believe through a combination of online misinformation and unverified rumors, that [a genuine window of opportunity](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/8/5/how-a-social-media-campaign-triggered-huge-migrant-surge-on-ceuta) to make it to Spain had opened and could close at any moment if they hesitated. And there were still others who embraced a daredevil approach with a combination of optimism and pessimism: “Why not? I have nothing to lose.” Many weighed the risks, reasoning that even a beating would be worth spending a day in Ceuta, which they are normally forbidden from entering. 

Struggling to find food or shelter, most were either expelled by Spanish authorities or returned to Morocco voluntarily. Videos circulated online showing men kicked by the Spanish Guardia Civil while being expelled, then hit with [batons](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbkRQUsIebe/?igsh=Nm9ocW9hMmI3dmUw) by the Moroccan Gendarmerie on the other side of the border, in a choreography of rejection. The human cost was terrible. Some died falling from slippery rocks. Others drowned or were killed in the crush of thousands of bodies converging on the same narrow strip of shore. Among [the 141 dead](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ceuta-migrant-disaster-death-toll-rises-morocco-deadliest-recent-history) are: [Faten](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/aug/12/drowned-the-day-her-visa-came-through-the-tragedy-of-a-moroccan-footballer-trying-to-reach-ceuta), a smiling [20-year-old](https://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-08-12/the-children-at-the-center-of-ceutas-migration-debate-share-their-dreams-for-the-future.html), talented footballer hoping to play in Europe; Ahmed, [only](https://www.instagram.com/p/DbliIuxjBSQ/?igsh=dWVyd3FrYmdjbnM%3D) 17; and many more. Parents of many youth who crossed over to Ceuta have been [waiting in anguish](https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-08-04/desperate-to-find-their-missing-kids-moroccan-families-turn-to-same-social-platforms-that-encouraged-exodus-to-ceuta.html) at the border in Fnideq, carrying photographs of their missing children, checking with strangers if they happened to see their kids. 

The timing was especially awkward for the Moroccan government, as the crisis erupted during the annual celebration marking the anniversary of King Mohammed VI’s reign. The government [remained disengaged](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2026/08/04/ceuta-crisis-morocco-urges-european-union-not-to-hinder-its-development%5F6756162%5F124.html) for days and attributed it to organized criminal smugglers. No one bought the argument, as it would be pointless to smuggle a person to the enclaves, since they are not part of the Schengen area. To reach Europe, a migrant would have to reach mainland Spain. Then, Rabat pointed to a [Spanish Supreme Court](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2026/08/04/ceuta-crisis-morocco-urges-european-union-not-to-hinder-its-development%5F6756162%5F124.html) ruling stating that migrants arriving by sea would not be deported automatically, as if legal nuance, rather than desperation in Morocco, was driving the migration. 

The Moroccan government resisted acknowledging the reality behind this wave of migration: inequality, and the absence of work and opportunities for the country’s youth. In fact, those inside the country who spoke out against the state’s mishandling of affairs, and who reiterated why Moroccans wished to leave, were [arrested](https://www.instagram.com/p/DbzIBQsMnIK/?igsh=MTV5cmNoZnY4ZW1seQ==). Only after growing pressure within Morocco did the government eventually agree to assist in identifying the unaccompanied minors and the deceased. 

A profusion of [conspiracy theories about geopolitics](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/world/europe/spain-ceuta-morocco-migrants.html), circulating widely online, further obscured the actual forces driving the migration. Certain narratives, offered without any evidence, sought to portray the migrants as pawns in political games, disregarding entirely what drives and motivates people to leave home on such perilous journeys. 

### **Repression and unemployment in Morocco**

A constitutional monarchy, Morocco holds regular multiparty elections but the palace and its entourage [dominate political and economic power](https://freedomhouse.org/country/morocco/freedom-world/2026) through formal and informal means. Morocco has a repressive state, a deeply unequal society, and a profound crisis of unemployment and underemployment, especially for its young population. 

From banning protests to fining editors to arresting [rappers](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbH-RJdkzao/?igsh=d2Nrbjl1djdqYnpk) and [journalists](https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/morocco-journalist-ali-lmrabet-released-arrest-alleged-dissemination-false-information#:~:text=15%20July%202026-,Morocco%3A%20Journalist%20Ali%20Lmrabet%20released%20after%20arrest%20over%20alleged%20%22dissemination,and%20released%20on%2015%20July.), the crackdowns on [political freedoms](https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/q11x4/l-makhzan-al-akbari-resistance-remembrance-and-remediation-in-morocco) in Morocco [have increased](https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/04/morocco-another-crackdown-protests) tremendously. While [hundreds](https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/morocco/morocco-end-the-crackdown-on-peaceful-protests-and-uphold-the-right) of the country’s brightest and most [promising people](https://www.newarab.com/news/crackdown-moroccos-gen-z-protest-reaches-disapora) perish in prisons, privileged Moroccans are more concerned with reputational damage to Morocco or insist that the country needs evolution and not a revolution. But how is evolution possible when a teenager demanding public hospitals instead of luxury football stadiums or unions pressing legitimate labor demands can get them beaten and arrested? 

Morocco’s economic model has produced soaring headline growth alongside [deepening inequality](https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/regional-inequality-growing-economy-case-morocco), feeding a resentment that runs deep. Over the past two decades, capital has flowed [toward megaprojects](https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/moroccos-long-road-toward-economic-transformation)—the Tangier Med port, the Africa-Atlantic Corridor—financed by a mix of foreign and private investment. The [services sector](https://en.hespress.com/143189-moroccos-unemployment-falls-to-9-5-in-q2-as-services-lead-job-growth.html) employs the largest number of people, followed by agriculture, forestry, and fishery. 

The working age population of the country has grown by more than 10% over the past decade but [employment](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/world/middleeast/morocco-ceuta-spain-migrants.html) has increased by only 1.5%, according to a [2025 World Bank](https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099942003212584239/pdf/IDU-f31b9294-4e94-460c-904e-326e75368a2a.pdf) report. The official unemployment rate stands at [around 10%](https://tradingeconomics.com/morocco/unemployment-rate) and at around 27% among young people aged 15-24\. Yet [60-80%](https://www.ecofinagency.com/news-services/1201-51834-morocco-s-informal-sector-employs-up-to-80-of-the-workforce) of workers in Morocco work in the informal economy, according to a [2025 report](https://www.uneca.org/eca-events/sites/default/files/resources/251106%5Fsubregional-profile-report-2025-en.pdf) by the UN Economic Commission for Africa. The result is an economy whose glittering infrastructure sits uneasily alongside stagnant wages and rising prices for food, fuel and housing. 

Unsurprisingly, many of the Moroccans who had expressed their frustrations and their desire for reform and opportunity in multiple waves of protests—the [Arab Spring-era protests](https://www.reuters.com/article/world/thousands-of-moroccans-protest-unmoved-by-reforms-idUSTRE7622KP/) in 2011, the [Hirak protests](https://www.reuters.com/article/world/tens-of-thousands-protest-in-morocco-over-jailed-rif-activists-idUSKBN1K50QZ/) in 2016, the [Gen Z protests](https://www.reuters.com/world/morocco-squashes-youth-led-protesters-over-health-education-2025-09-30/) in 2025—trudged by the thousands toward Spain. When loyalty flows only one way, the haves accumulate ever more while the rest are left to watch lavish banquets for Throne Day—and resignedly sigh, “_hiwa hadchi li ‘ta Allah_ (This is the fate God has given us).” Hence, rather than asking, “Why do they leave?” we would do better to ask, “Why would they stay?” 

Morocco has no shortage of resources: the country possesses rich agriculture and fisheries, phosphate, minerals, and enormous extractive projects in the occupied Western Sahara. A sense of being cheated is shared by millions as the economic benefits and opportunities do not trickle down to ordinary people. The contradiction between these natural resources and the everyday poverty, unemployment, and hardship experienced by ordinary Moroccans is expressed in the Moroccan chant that goes: “l'fosfat ou jouz bhorra / wa sha'bha mkhorra (Phosphate and two seas / yet its people still suffer).” 

Moroccans see their government invest in the bling of glossy festivals and football stadiums built for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Morocco will co-host with Spain and Portugal. In the face of such visible wealth, it is what the state fails to do that carries the greatest weight. 

### **A long transit in Tangier** 

Tangier is perched on the Strait of Gibraltar and has long served as a bridge between Africa and Europe. The city has drawn a rich tapestry of internal migrants from across Morocco, its diaspora, and the broader African continent. 

In the early 1990s, when Spain—following a transformation of migration policies in the European Union and the implementation of the Schengen agreement—imposed more restrictive visa regimes, irregular migration began to accelerate. The International Organization for Migration estimated that irregular crossings to Europe through the Strait of Gibraltar rose from [fewer than 5,000 in 1999](https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/four%5Fdecades%5Fof%5Fcross%5Fmediterranean.pdf) to around 20,000 in 2003\. 

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military interventions and civil wars across Africa and intensifying climate catastrophes in the following two decades swelled global migration flows. Alongside African migrants awaiting passage, thousands from other parts of the world joined them. Europe, Australia and North America have all sought to obstruct migrants from coming in by any means necessary. The European Union [outsourced](https://statewatch.org/publications/reports-and-books/exporting-borders-frontex-and-the-expansion-of-fortress-europe-in-west-africa/) border control offering economic and political incentives to Turkey and Morocco to [stem the flow](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/30/how-europe-exported-its-refugee-crisis-to-north-africa?CMP=share%5Fbtn%5Ftw) of migrants. 

Under one EU-Africa agreement alone, $2.35 billion was allocated for deportations. This includes detaining migrants and dropping them in remote deserts. Several exit points along the so-called Eastern and Central Mediterranean routes were either sealed off by civil war in Libya, by special agreements with Turkey, and a bottleneck formed along [the Western route](https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/36391/the-main-migration-routes-to-the-european-union) through Morocco and Senegal. 

Spain has already constructed a 1,600-foot floating barrier along the sea border following the Ceuta crossings. In the past decade, tens of thousands of migrants have died in [Mediterranean crossings](https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean) alone. But as Hein de Haas, a sociologist of migration, has explained, restrictive immigration policies fail to stop migration as there is [a structural demand](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590802386435) for cheap migrant labor in Europe. The waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean are full of the remains of those who perished while trying to reach Europe, victims of a system that treats human mobility as a threat to be managed rather than a reality to be humanely addressed. 

But the combination of rising inequality and violence globally, and the need for a workforce, means people won’t stop migrating. This means that current border policies don’t stem migration but instead increase death and suffering. Precisely because it takes much longer, thousands of migrants are stuck in Morocco. Mehdi Alioua, a Moroccan sociologist, has called this phenomenon “[transit migration](https://muse.jhu.edu/book/66572/pdf/download).” Each must find rent and work, saving for yet another attempt at a better passage. Some have children, who grow up speaking fluent Darija, the Moroccan colloquial tongue, and who eventually become part of the working class fabric of Tangier. Some migrants with means share rented apartments in the affordable, peripheral neighborhoods of Mesnana and Boukhalef in southwestern Tangier. 

Migrants without any financial resources, and mostly from other parts of Africa, camp in the woods in the forested outskirts of the city, where conditions are bare. When I visited their makeshift dwellings to meet some of the migrants, a strange odor hung in the air. Sticky puddles drew flies. I moved past the dumping ground and reached their improvised living quarters, which were kept meticulously clean. 

During my fieldwork in Morocco between 2013 and 2018, it was obvious that many African migrants in[ long transit in Tangiers](https://www.ibtimes.com/europes-door-black-african-migrants-trapped-hellish-limbo-morocco-1404846) endured dire living conditions and faced racism. Black migrants were often called “Mamadou,” and sometimes even the dreadful “Ebola.” 

In December 2013, Cédric, a young Congolese man, fell from his apartment rooftop in Boukhalef while being chased by the police. Many believed he had been pushed. Images that circulated on migrants’ phones showed his head smashed against the granite floor. Two days after his death, I saw the putrid pool of dried blood, nearly black, where he had fallen, when I visited his friends to pay my respects. What stayed with me for months was that I could still make out the pattern of the spatter from the impact. 

Cédric’s death was a key turning point. A growing number of Moroccan activists understood the necessity of rejecting the notion that, in a poor and authoritarian country, organizing against [racism](https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/08/138022/rabat-a-senegalese-killed-after-an-argument-over-bus-seats/) is a “privileged”or“European preoccupation.” Moroccan activists, drawing on their own experience of repression, understood how short the distance can be between [dehumanization](https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/29222), complacency, [and](https://www.bladi.net/mort-diplome-chomeur-safi.html) abuse. They grew more attentive to the living conditions of migrants and began to challenge the normalization of racism more explicitly. 

On one of those days, I met Najiba, a young activist, near Bab Al Qasba, one of the gates leading to Tangier’s medieval city. She and her comrades were showcasing their posters in hopes of garnering support from passersby for a demonstration the next afternoon. A placard read in beautiful Arabic calligraphy: “_Kuluna Afariqa_ (_We Are All African_.)” Her group got some attention: some people paused for a few minutes to watch before moving on; others muttered some remarks too. 

Najiba fell into conversation with a young man, around 16 years old. He had mocked the group’s slogan and pressed her on why they bothered organizing against racism. “Wasn’t it naïve,” he asked, “to defend the Africanos?” She told him that everyone had been a migrant once, and that Tangier itself had known great waves of migration from people of the northern Rif region. 

She asked him where his own family was from. They shared Rif ancestry. “Ah, a Riffi, as well,” I heard her respond. “Did you know they used to say the Riyafa were taking people’s jobs and houses when our grandparents first came here?” She took him seriously and made him see historical patterns. He was intrigued and the teasing stopped. By the end of it, she remarked, “So we’ll see you here tomorrow, yes?” He made no promise. But he did wave goodbye, and his laugh, this time, was genuine. 

### **The road from Ceuta**

Many people located Ceuta and Melilla on a map for the first time during the recent frenzy. It would be no surprise if eyebrows were raised upon seeing just how far Spanish territory extends. These were sites of Portuguese and Spanish slave-trading routes and military garrisons in the 16th century. 

The crossing to Ceuta was neither the first nor will it be the last of its kind. Because of its exceptional scale, Ceuta laid bare, much clearly, the contradictions of humanity in miniature, from kicking down someone to having the capacity to walk in someone else’s shoes. While a Dutch-Moroccan celebrity tweeted tactlessly, “Moroccan swims to Ceuta with an iPhone 16 to get an iPhone 17,” a woman [took off her own shoes](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbdOoFWOQr8/?igsh=bHQ5cWExcmRja2dr) and handed them to a barefooted migrant. 

While Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, American and British politicians ratcheted up the headlines, numerous border staff stretched their discretion to the maximum to handle the situation with dignity. When fascists across Spain sowed panic and rallied to stop “[the invasion](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbuz7xKgk4t/?igsh=NmVqc2xtc2hpOWZp),” local communities marched [and](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbiNHTyHCss/?igsh=MW51aWZhNTk2MGdoYg%3D%3D) blocked an anti-migrant demonstration. Ordinary people came out to provide [emergency](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbvZF-TgF0C/?igsh=MWxibHQ1ZWpnNmVvag%3D%3D) support; groups such as [No Name Kitchen](https://www.nonamekitchen.org/category/ceuta/) [documented](https://www.nonamekitchen.org/category/ceuta/) the treatment of migrants. Hope lies precisely in these different approaches. 

I have been thinking repeatedly about Najiba, the activist organizing in defense of African migrants in Tangier. There were migrants from elsewhere in Africa in Ceuta, and they would have had [much less protection](https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbpqmf2iHy7/?img%5Findex=4&igsh=MXRrZDA5aW9mMXlvaQ%3D%3D) or support once deported. Najiba’s example gave me hope that, even in the most difficult circumstances, solidarity can arise. 

I think of the conversation between Najiba and the young man in Tangier: the boy’s smirk transforming into a thoughtful frown. I would like to think that something clicked in that moment. I wish I could reach back and speak with him. Standing there in Tangier, he was able to see things from another perspective. Perhaps he too instinctively recognized the moment for what it was. Or perhaps he, too, was among the thousands who had left for Ceuta.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt6b4ee7a28e2b6f3dFri, 21 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Miriyam Aouragh\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Woman Charged in Alleged Plot to Bomb the New York State Capitol\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/new-york-state-capitol-alleged-isis-bomb-plot/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A criminal complaint outlines the sting operation that led the FBI to apprehend 35-year-old Jessica Bowie.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Thomas A. Ferrara—Newsday RM/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[New York State Capitol Building in Albany, New York, on February 25, 2024.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt164deafd66f9e5c4/6a8780b30d711816eae73065/new-york-state-capitol-alleged-bomb-plot.jpg?branch=production)

New York State Capitol Building in Albany, New York, on February 25, 2024\. —Thomas A. Ferrara—Newsday RM/Getty Images

A woman who authorities have accused of planning to bomb the New York State Capitol building has been arrested and charged, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.

Jessica Bowie, a 35-year-old woman from Albany, New York, was arrested on Wednesday and appeared in federal court the following day to face one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

“The FBI detected and stopped an alleged plot to attack the New York State Capitol and kill elected officials,” Matt Fodor of the FBI National Security Branch said in a [statement](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/albany-new-york-woman-charged-isis-inspired-terror-plot-targeting-new-york-state-capitol). “According to the criminal complaint, the defendant in this case swore allegiance to ISIS and wanted to follow up with additional horrific acts of terrorism. This case is yet another example of how this FBI is built to not only identify threats of terrorism quickly, but to stop their alleged plots before they are able to harm the American people.”

A [criminal complaint](https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1458716/dl?inline) filed in federal court on Thursday outlines the FBI’s investigation into Bowie, including how agents reviewed social media posts she had shared with “anti-American messages” and the ensuing sting operation that led them to apprehend her.

An FBI confidential source, the document details, posed as an “ISIS facilitator” and began messaging with Bowie in July about “her plans to attack the New York State Capitol building in Albany.”

Bowie visited the building several times, according to the complaint. Included in the filing and the Justice Department’s press release was an image of an individual wearing all black and holding up a phone, seemingly to take a photo. The individual’s face is not visible in the photo, but authorities identified them as Bowie; the complaint says the image shows Bowie “doing reconnaissance on July 21” on the Capitol building.

The complaint goes on to describe an in-person meeting that Bowie had with two other FBI confidential sources on Aug. 5\. The meeting was filmed and recorded, and the complaint alleges that Bowie “reaffirmed her desire to bomb the New York State Capitol” during the encounter. The filing includes part of the transcript from that meeting, during which she allegedly said that she would “ideally do \[the attack\] on a day when the most amount of senators are there, maybe we time it where there we know there’s a meeting with the senators, try and get a good enough explosive in there to kill the senators and ideally to destroy as much of the building as possible really.” She then said that she wanted “to be able to get away and migrate,” according to the complaint.

The complaint goes on to allege that Bowie and the two FBI informants discussed what items she would need to build the bomb and how she would obtain them. She later went to a Home Depot to purchase the materials, after one of the informants gave her $200 for the items, according to the complaint. The document and the Justice Department's press release include an image of someone wearing all black at a store “collecting the various items needed to build an explosive device.” As in the other photo, the individual’s face is not visible, but authorities identified the person as Bowie.

Last week, Bowie asked the first informant if they knew anyone who could sell her a gun, the complaint alleges. On Wednesday, it says, she allegedly met with the two other informants in a car and gave them $150 to buy a firearm, one magazine, and ammunition. During that meeting, the informants also showed her “an inert explosive device that was purportedly built using the components” she bought at the Home Depot earlier in the month, and showed her “how to operate the explosive device and further detailed how to detonate the device when she was ready to carry out the attack,” according to the complaint.

When Bowie exited the car—while in possession of the gun, magazine, ammunition, and the inert explosive device—she was arrested by FBI agents, the complaint alleges.

In a statement [shared on X](https://x.com/GovKathyHochul/status/2090505893444047191) on Thursday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul thanked the FBI and New York state police for their work apprehending the suspect.

“Earlier this year, amid a rise in political violence and threats against public officials, we took steps to strengthen security at the State Capitol and across state government,” the governor said. “While there is no immediate threat at this time, we will continue working closely with our law enforcement partners to protect New Yorkers and keep our communities safe.”

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt783c08c4a1f8969aThu, 20 Aug 2026 23:08:34 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[State Farm Is Sending $5 Billion in Dividend Payments to Customers. Here’s How to Know If You’re Eligible\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/state-farm-5-billion-dividend-payments/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Here's how to know if you're eligible.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Justin Sullivan—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A State Farm logo is seen in front of a State Farm insurance office in San Rafael, California, on February 3, 2025.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt601e23d520080c74/6a8780e8cfe0507c2db2517f/GettyImages-2197495002.jpg?branch=production)

A State Farm logo is seen in front of a State Farm insurance office in San Rafael, California, on February 3, 2025\. —Justin Sullivan—Getty Images

Tens of millions of State Farm customers are eligible to receive payments as part of a $5 billion dividend from the company’s Mutual Automobile Insurance, which State Farm has already begun doling out.

The dividend, first announced in February, is the largest in the company’s history. 

“This dividend is possible due to State Farm Mutual’s financial strength and a stronger than expected underwriting performance, which has been reported industry wide,” the company [wrote](https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-mutual-announces-5-billion-cash-back-to-auto-customers-through-largest-dividend-in-company-history/) at the time of the initial announcement. 

Here’s what to know about the dividend payments, and how to see if you’re eligible to receive one.

## Who’s eligible?

More than 49 million vehicle owners across State Farm’s network are set to get dividend payments this summer, the company said. 

Customers who had a State Farm personal auto insurance policy active at any time in 2025\. You do not need to be currently insured by State Farm to receive a payment. To receive a payment, customers' share of the dividend based on their premium payments and state must be $10 or more.

Qualifying customers who have an email address registered with the company will receive an email with further instructions on how to sign into a payment portal for the dividend and select the manner in which they’d prefer to be paid, the company said.

Those who are eligible but do not have a registered email with the company will automatically get a check in the mail. 

Customers can access information about their dividend payment at [sfdividend.com](http://sfdividend.com). 

## When will customers get their dividend payments?

The payments began going out on July 31\. State Farm has not indicated when they will stop. 

“Millions of customers have already received their individual dividend payments, with more on the way,” State Farm [announced](https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-mutual-begins-issuing-dividend-payments/) when the payments began. 

Customers will be notified by State Farm regarding their pending payments “beginning late summer of 2026,” the company’s website [states](https://www.statefarm.com/lp/dividend-2), adding that dividend payments are being sent out “in waves by state where the policy is assigned.”

Over 7.2 million checks have been mailed since payments began, with another 3.8 million set to go out this week, a State Farm spokesperson told [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-farm-dividend-checks-customer-refunds/) in an email.

## How much could eligible customers get paid?

The dividend payments average $100 per vehicle, according to State Farm. 

The amount an eligible customer receives will vary based on a couple of factors, however. The payment a customer gets will be based on a percentage of the premiums they paid, and that percentage ranges from 4% to 10% depending on the customer’s state.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltc5515229294594f4Thu, 20 Aug 2026 22:37:39 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Connor Greene\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Americans Are (Still) Drinking Less than Ever Before\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/americans-drinking-less-gallup-poll/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[U.S. alcohol consumption hits the lowest record since Gallup began surveying on this topic in 1939.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[In a new Gallup poll, 54% of Americans said they drink alcohol, tying last year’s record low.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt417783e1b481aab7/6a8751c4747a866c27c31bca/GettyImages-1366189228.jpg?branch=production)

In a new Gallup poll, 54% of Americans said they drink alcohol, tying last year’s record low. —Getty Images

Americans continue to drink less [alcohol](https://time.com/7210400/why-is-alcohol-unhealthy/) than ever before, according to a [new Gallup poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/713534/americans-drinking-remains-record-low.aspx).

Only 54% of U.S. adults surveyed by the analytics firm in July said they ever [drink alcohol](https://time.com/7364435/alcohol-cancer-risk-carcinogens/)—the [same share as last year](https://time.com/7309499/alcohol-americans-drinking-less/) and the lowest recorded since Gallup began surveying Americans on this topic in 1939, says Lydia Saad, Gallup’s director of U.S. social research.

“We saw a significant decline in people’s use of alcohol last year, but whether that was a one-time reaction or a trend, we had to wait and see,” Saad says. “This year’s result tells us that whatever is happening out there is a sustained change. [Drinking](https://time.com/7203140/gen-z-drinking-less-alcohol/) has gone down across all age groups.”

More public awareness of [alcohol’s health risks](https://time.com/7204606/surgeon-general-cancer-warning-alcohol/) could be prompting Americans to drink less, the poll results suggest. A little more than half of Americans surveyed this year said that alcohol is “bad for health,” compared to the less than 30% of people who said that a decade ago; and 86% of people polled said they had heard of recent studies about the long-term health effects of alcohol—a 7% increase from 2024\. Drinking alcohol has been linked to several forms of cancer, as well as higher risks of liver and heart disease, among other health effects.

“The decline in alcohol use coincides with a sharp increase in concern about the health risks of drinking,” Saad says. 

<https://x.com/Gallup/status/2090452609316335964?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw>

But researchers who study alcohol say the poll results don’t provide a complete picture of alcohol use in America. While drinking might be declining overall, alcohol remains the country’s second-deadliest drug, behind tobacco. Alcohol kills about 178,000 people yearly, and harmful drinking remains a challenge for many people. 

“Many people are changing their attitudes towards drinking and intoxication for health reasons, which means that the number of people who say they drink may be declining because lighter drinkers who are more health conscious and more capable of changing their drinking are maybe choosing to cut back or not drink at all,” says Thomas Babor, a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine who studies alcohol and alcohol addiction. 

“But the rates of drinking and drinking problems remain unacceptably high” among some groups, including college students and older people, Babor says. “The big picture is: alcohol consumption is one of the biggest risk factors for chronic diseases and many other health conditions.”

According to the [2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt57150/2025-nsduh-annual-national-report.pdf) (NSDUH), 44% of U.S. teenagers and adults who drank alcohol said they had engaged in binge drinking in the past month, and about 10%—about 14.5 million people—said they engaged in heavy drinking, defined as binge drinking on 5 or more days in the past 30 days. 

NSDUH results show that the numbers of binge and heavy drinkers declined overall since 2021\. But percentages for binge and heavy alcohol use among underage drinkers didn’t change from 2021 to 2025\. Among people aged 65 and older, about 10% in 2025 said they engaged in binge drinking, [compared to about 12% in 2021](https://connectwithcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2022-nsduh-older-adult-info.pdf).

In the new Gallup poll, people were asked if they “sometimes drink more alcoholic beverages than you think you should.” Some 13% of respondents said yes to that question, another record low, according to Gallup. 

More research is needed to better understand why people are drinking less, says Traci Toomey, a public health policy expert at the University of Minnesota who studies alcohol and cannabis. Health concerns are likely a factor, but there may be other reasons too, she says.

It isn’t clear if an increase in cannabis use, for example, is driving some of the decline. “We don’t know if it’s a substitution, but that’s a question we need to answer,” Toomey says.

Use of GLP-1 drugs, which [studies suggest may help reduce alcohol consumption](https://time.com/7221684/weight-loss-drug-ozempic-alcohol-addiction/) and craving in people with alcohol abuse disorder, along with higher alcohol prices and policies to curb harmful and underage drinking, may also be playing a role, she says.

Saad, of Gallup, says there could be political factors at play too. According to the new Gallup poll, alcohol use has declined significantly among Republicans and Independents, while Democrats’ alcohol consumption has remained virtually unchanged since 2023\. 

“It could be worth looking into what kind of political messaging is going on, and if it’s more effective among Republicans and Independents than Democrats,” Saad says. 

She notes, however, that “we haven’t seen strong anti-alcohol messages out of the \[Trump\] Administration.” In January, the administration [released updated dietary guidelines](https://time.com/7344593/new-dietary-guidelines-protein-processed-foods/) that no longer specified a daily limit for alcohol consumption. 

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said at the time that alcohol is a “social lubricant that brings people together.” 

“In the best-case scenario, I don’t think you should drink alcohol, but it does allow people an excuse to bond and socialize, and there’s probably nothing healthier than having a good time with friends in a safe way,” he said. The [World Health Organization](https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health), supported by [emerging research](https://newsroom.uw.edu/news-releases/no-safe-level-alcohol-scientific-study-concludes/), has asserted that no amount of alcohol is safe for health. 

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltf7459fa49c328adbThu, 20 Aug 2026 19:30:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Dominique Mosbergen\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What to Know About Israel’s Probe Into the Killing of Hind Rajab\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/19/israel-gaza-idf-hind-rajab-death-criminal-investigation/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Israel's military acknowledged its troops fired on Hind Rajab's family car and opened a criminal investigation into the 2024 killings.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Dawoud Abo Alkas—Anadolu/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A general view of the damaged car in which 5-year-old Hind Rajab and members of her family died after Israeli forces fired on the vehicle in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf0e8d13e6f043094/6a863423747a86dc5fc2f969/hind-rajab-family-car-deaths-israel-gaza.jpg?branch=production)

A general view of the damaged car in which 5-year-old Hind Rajab and members of her family died after Israeli forces fired on the vehicle in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza. —Dawoud Abo Alkas—Anadolu/Getty Images

The[ Israel Defense Forces](https://time.com/article/2026/08/06/us-israel-military-funding-defense-bill-ndaa/) (IDF) has acknowledged for the first time that its soldiers opened fire on a vehicle carrying 5-year-old Palestinian girl[ Hind Rajab](https://time.com/7363949/the-voice-of-hind-rajab-true-story-interview/) and six of her relatives in Gaza, and said it would launch a[ criminal investigation](https://idfanc.activetrail.biz/ANC152468) into the incident.

The admission, issued Wednesday as part of the IDF’s review of roughly 150 “exceptional” incidents involving its troops during the war in Gaza, [reverses](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog%5Fentry/idf-no-troops-were-operating-in-area-where-6-year-old-gazan-girl-was-killed-earlier-this-month-initial-probe) the military’s previous denial that its forces were in the area when Rajab and her relatives from the Hamada family were killed in January 2024.

In findings published by its[ General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM)](https://idfanc.activetrail.biz/ANC152468), an internal IDF body tasked with conducting factual reviews of exceptional operational incidents, the IDF said Israeli troops fired on the Hamada family’s vehicle as it approached them, killing five passengers. 

Rajab and her 15-year-old cousin Layan Hamada initially survived. Twelve days later, their bodies were recovered from the vehicle by [rescue workers](https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/posts/on-her-7th-birthday-we-know-who-killed-hind-rajab-and-were-taking-them-to-court) [returning to the area](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl7yjlpx2po), along with those of the five relatives who had been killed in the initial shooting.

The IDF said it was opening a criminal investigation after its review identified alleged failures in coordinating the movement of a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance that was sent to rescue the girls. The two paramedics inside the ambulance were also killed.

“In the hours shortly after the firing, following a telephone call to rescue authorities, in which the two girls participated and later Hind alone, the movement of a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance was coordinated for the purpose of evacuating the casualties,” the Israeli military said.

It continued: “According to the allegations raised, upon the ambulance’s arrival at the scene of the incident, a shell was fired toward it, resulting in the deaths of the two paramedics travelling in it. Several days later, the bodies of the seven members of the Hamada family, including the bodies of Hind and Layan, were recovered from the vehicle. In addition, the bodies of the two paramedics were recovered from the ambulance.”

In a statement on Thursday, Hind Rajab’s mother, Wesam Hamada, [said](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/19/middleeast/israel-military-idf-hind-rajab-firing-intl), “I do not want a closed military investigation. I want an independent, transparent investigation and genuine accountability for everyone responsible.”

## What happened to Hind Rajab

The Hamada family was traveling through Gaza City on Jan. 29, 2024, after Israeli evacuation orders prompted them to leave the city’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, when their vehicle came under fire.

The girls contacted rescue authorities for help. Recordings released by the PRCS in February 2024 captured Layan speaking with an emergency dispatcher before gunfire was heard and the call ended. 

When the organization called back, Rajab answered and remained in contact with emergency personnel for hours as they tried to arrange her rescue. In the recording, Rajab tells a dispatcher that everyone else in the car is dead and that a tank is approaching. She repeatedly pleads for someone to come and rescue her, and as daylight fades, says she is afraid of the dark.

The recordings later became central to[ Kaouther Ben Hania’s _The Voice of Hind Rajab_](https://time.com/7363949/the-voice-of-hind-rajab-true-story-interview/), which uses Rajab’s real voice and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film 2026.

**Read More:**[The Story Behind _The Voice of Hind Rajab_, the Oscar Contender Pushing a Global Call for Justice for Gaza Victims](https://time.com/7363949/the-voice-of-hind-rajab-true-story-interview/)

“IDF troops fired at a vehicle that was approaching them while travelling contrary to the advanced notice that had been published in an announcement by the IDF Spokesperson to residents of the area,” the Israeli military said in its findings Wednesday. “As a result of the fire, five of the vehicle’s passengers were killed, and two survived: Hind Rajab and her cousin Layan Hamada.”

In the hours after the shooting, the PRCS sought to send an ambulance to evacuate the girls and coordinated its movement to the scene. According to the IDF, allegations reviewed by the FFAM indicated that a shell was fired toward the ambulance after it arrived, killing the two paramedics inside.

“Following review of the findings and due to alleged failures in the coordination of the movement of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, it has been decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the incident by Military Police Criminal Investigation Division,” the IDF said Wednesday.

A[ _Washington Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/hind-rajab-israel-gaza-killing-timeline) investigation previously found that the PRCS dispatched the ambulance after coordinating with Israeli authorities to secure a safe route. The ambulance came under fire after it reached the area, killing the two paramedics.

Days later, the bodies of all seven members of the Hamada family, including Rajab and Layan, were recovered from the vehicle, while the bodies of the two paramedics were found in the ambulance.

The deaths of Rajab and her relatives were among the most high-profile civilian casualties of the early months of the war in Gaza. Her fate became the subject of international concern as recordings of her calls with emergency personnel circulated around the world and prompted widespread calls for her rescue.

The IDF had previously denied involvement. In February 2024, it told[ The Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog%5Fentry/idf-no-troops-were-operating-in-area-where-6-year-old-gazan-girl-was-killed-earlier-this-month-initial-probe) that “IDF troops were not present near the vehicle or within firing range of the described vehicle in which the girl was found.”

Before Rajab’s body was recovered, the IDF also told the _Washington Post_ that it was “[unfamiliar with the incident](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/02/gaza-city-rescue-palestine-red-crescent/).” It gave a similar response to[ CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/06/middleeast/israel-gaza-hind-missing-girl-prcs-intl-hnk/index.html), which had provided the military with coordinates supplied by the PRCS. 

## What else the IDF announced

The criminal investigation into the Rajab case was one of five decisions announced Wednesday involving incidents examined by the FFAM.

The IDF said a second criminal investigation would examine the deaths of 15 Palestinians, including medical personnel and a U.N. employee, during three shooting incidents in Tel al-Sultan, a neighborhood in Rafah, on March 23, 2025.

“They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened,” said Jonathan Whittall, then head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, who helped coordinate the recovery mission. Whittall[ said](https://x.com/%5Fjwhittall/status/1906455238371905901) that a U.N. vehicle, an ambulance, and a fire truck had been crushed and partially buried and that the bodies had been recovered from a mass grave.

Referring to the incident, the IDF[ said](https://idfanc.activetrail.biz/ANC152468) Wednesday that its soldiers had been conducting an ambush against suspected Hamas operatives when they opened fire on the vehicles. “It later became apparent that the vehicles struck in the first and second shooting incidents were a fire truck and ambulances, and that the vehicle struck in the third shooting incident was a Palestinian UN vehicle,” the military said. It said six of those killed were identified as members of Hamas.

The IDF also acknowledged that after the shooting, troops “decided to crush the vehicles and to cover the bodies with metal mesh.” The Military Prosecution, the legal body responsible for reviewing FFAM findings, concluded that “the firing conducted during the incident raises a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct,” prompting the second criminal investigation.

The Military Prosecution declined to launch criminal investigations into three other incidents reviewed by the FFAM: the Israeli strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen employees in April 2024; an IDF strike on a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) building in Khan Yunis on Feb. 20, 2024, that killed two employees; and an incident in Gaza City on Nov. 18, 2023, in which two MSF employees were killed.

In the World Central Kitchen case, the IDF said its review found “serious failures” that led Israeli forces to mistakenly conclude that Hamas operatives were traveling in the aid group’s vehicles, but determined that commanders’ decisions did not raise a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct. Two officers had previously been removed from their positions and three others formally reprimanded over the strike.

The five cases are among roughly 150 incidents that the IDF says the FFAM has reviewed since the war in Gaza began after Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. In the absence of independent monitoring on the ground, the ministry is the primary source for casualty data relied upon by humanitarian groups, journalists, and international bodies. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified by TIME. Data from the IDF suggests a[ Palestinian civilian death rate of 83%](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21/revealed-israeli-militarys-own-data-indicates-civilian-death-rate-of-83-in-gaza-war). 

Israeli rights groups have long questioned the effectiveness of the military’s system for investigating alleged wrongdoing by its own forces.

An analysis by the Israeli human rights organization[ Yesh Din](https://www.yesh-din.org/en/data-sheet-law-enforcement-against-israeli-soldiers-suspected-of-harming-palestinians-and-their-property-figures-for-2018-2022) of complaints involving soldiers’ conduct in the West Bank between 2018 and 2022 found that just 0.4% of cases in which a Palestinian was killed and the fatality was brought to the military’s attention resulted in a prosecution—one prosecution for every 219 fatalities. B’Tselem, another prominent Israeli human rights organization, has cited Yesh Din’s 0.4% prosecution rate, [saying it demonstrates](https://www.btselem.org/firearms/20250310%5Fwithin%5Fless%5Fthan%5Fa%5Fmonth%5Fisraeli%5Fforces%5Fshot%5Fand%5Fkilled%5Ffour%5Fchildren%5Fin%5Fthe%5Fwest%5Fbank%5Fwho%5Fposed%5Fno%5Freal%5Fthreat) the failure of Israel’s military and civilian legal systems to hold soldiers accountable for killing Palestinians.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltf7bb1ba61e48f2f0Thu, 20 Aug 2026 18:48:21 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Connor Greene\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What to Know About Trump’s 250 Grand Prix\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/freedom-250-grand-prix-indycar-washington-dc-trump/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A slice of Washington, D.C., will be transformed into an IndyCar race track this weekend for an event commemorating the U.S.'s 250th birthday.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Matt McClain—Bloomberg/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy; Interior Secretary Doug Burgum; Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser; and Monica Crowley, chief of protocol at the State Department, unveil the new Freedom 250 Grand Prix Indycar during a news conference on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltccdc17238b87f569/6a87450e0208b84cb63a75c6/GettyImages-2265207854.jpg?branch=production)

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy; Interior Secretary Doug Burgum; Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser; and Monica Crowley, chief of protocol at the State Department, unveil the new Freedom 250 Grand Prix Indycar during a news conference on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2026\. —Matt McClain—Bloomberg/Getty Images

A slice of the nation’s capital will be transformed into a race track over the weekend for President [Donald Trump](https://time.com/article/2026/06/29/America-250th-birthday-Fourth-of-July-Donald-Trump-Freedom-250/)’s [final](https://time.com/article/2026/06/15/trump-rally-america-250-anniversary-celebrations/) [event](https://time.com/article/2026/08/11/patriot-games-trump-america-250-anniversary/) commemorating the [U.S.’s 250th birthday](https://time.com/collection/our-america-250/2026/). 

An IndyCar race consisting of 25 drivers will take place around the National Mall in the heart of Washington, D.C., on Saturday and Sunday. 

IndyCar is the top level of single-seater auto racing in the U.S., best known for the “Indy 500,” an annual 500 mile race in Indianapolis. 

"This will be like no other race ever. This will get the highest ever ratings of any such race," Trump said in July, when the top IndyCar drivers participating in the race visited the White House.

Trump himself is scheduled to take a ride around the 1.7 mile race track in his presidential limousine, known as “The Beast” before the competition begins, White House officials told [multiple](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/trump-to-wave-green-flag-at-dc-grand-prix-take-lap-of-honor-in-the-beast/4144427/) [outlets](https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/president-trump-lap-honor-freedom-250-grand-prix-street-circuit-report).

The event is being hosted by [Freedom 250](https://www.freedom250gp.com/), the organization Trump established through an Executive Order in January to coordinate the Administration’s semiquincentennial events. The race follows other high profile events this summer in celebration of the milestone anniversary, including a [UFC fight](https://time.com/article/2026/06/11/white-house-ufc-event-cost/) on the White House grounds, an athletics tournament dubbed the [Patriot Games](https://time.com/article/2026/08/11/patriot-games-trump-america-250-anniversary/), and the world’s largest fireworks show. 

Here’s what to know about the 250 Grand Prix . 

## When is the race?

Practice races will take place on Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m. local time and continuing throughout the day. 

The real race will then begin at 1:10 p.m. on Sunday.

## What is the route?

Drivers will race for 147 laps, covering a distance of roughly 250 miles. 

The 1.66 mile, 7-turn track begins on 3rd Street near the Capitol building at the east end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., before jutting down Pennsylvania Avenue, the course’s longest straight at 0.4 miles. It then makes turns on 9th Street, 7th Street, and Independence Avenue, passing sites including the Lincoln Reflecting Pool and the Smithsonian Museum before circling back onto 3rd street to finish off. 

## Who’s paying?

Penske Corp., the owner of IndyCar, is picking up most of the tab for the race, according to Bud Denker, Penske Corp. president and chair of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix.

An exact price tag for the event is unknown, but Denker said in July that the race is “much more” than IndyCar’s Detroit street race, which has a budget of $20 million. 

A $90 million budget allocated by Congress for special events in Washington will cover security costs, according to Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah, who spoke at a public briefing in July. 

The federal funding is a part of the Emergency Planning and Security Fund, which is designed to support presidential events, [including](https://appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-appropriations.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/final-fy26-financial-services-and-general-government-minibus-summary.pdf) those related to the U.S.’s 250th birthday. 

## How can you watch?

Organizers expect roughly 140,000 spectators to attend the race in person throughout the weekend. 

Free tickets were given to 100,000 people through a lottery. The only other way to watch the event up close is to purchase an all-inclusive food and beverage weekend pass to the [Champions Club](https://www.freedom250gp.com/tickets/champions-club), an exclusive viewing venue built for the race overlooking 7th Street and the National Mall, for nearly $5,500\. 

Venues for the race open to the public at 8 a.m. on both days.

For viewers watching the race remotely, FOX will be streaming the events. 

You can also access FOX’s coverage through certain streaming platform bundles such as YouTube TV, Hulu +, Fubo, or Sling TV. 

## Flight disruptions

The Federal Aviation Administration last week [said](https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements/general-statements) it expects to pause flights at Reagan National Airport for three hours for the race from 10:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on Sunday. 

“The FAA has been planning and coordinating with stakeholders to help ensure the safe and efficient movement of air traffic during Freedom 250 events,” the agency said in a statement. “As part of that effort, the agency will implement traffic management initiatives at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.”

Flights were also halted for several hours on July 4 due to Trump’s fireworks show. 

## Concerns for D.C. artifacts 

Due to the vibrations caused by the race cars, some preservationists and museum representatives are worried for the safety of artifacts stored in the many museums along the race route. 

Mary Okin, the assistant director of the Living New Deal, a non-profit dedicated to preserving the legacy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, wrote a [letter](https://livingnewdeal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Living-New-Deal-Urgent-Section-106-Request-Freedom-250-Grand-Prix-Permitting.pdf) last month to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) expressing her concern that the vibrations could damage the frescoes of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, which the GSA manages. 

“In the foreseeable event of a race vehicle losing control, or a crash that sends debris, such as tire marbles flying, or sparks a fire, what protective features will be in place ahead of the race to ensure that vibration, flying car parts, and other high speed or collision impacts do not damage this national treasure?” Okin additionally cautioned in her letter, referencing the Wilbur J. Cohen building. 

The National Gallery of Art previously conducted a study to gauge the potential threat of the vibrations, but did not reveal its findings. 

“In preparation for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, the National Gallery conducted an extensive vibration study and based on the results we have implemented a set of measures to ensure the safety of our staff, visitors, collection, and facilities during the race,” gallery spokesman Chris Abanavas said in a statement to [The Washington _Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/08/05/national-gallery-studied-whether-freedom-250-indycar-vibrations-will-affect-art/). “While we are not releasing the specifics, I can share that any such measures are only being taken out of a great abundance of caution.”

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt6016ceda3989e2e9Thu, 20 Aug 2026 18:35:42 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Connor Greene\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What Happens When the World is Run on Code No One Understands?\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/what-happens-when-the-world-is-run-on-code-no-one-understands-/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Mathematical verification must be a national mission in the AI era, write Patrick Shafto, Ken Ono, and Scott Duke Kominers.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[lucadp—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd9c75b9c296a4b27/6a87427202bacf8dd5eb622a/AI-Code-Math.jpg?branch=production)

 —lucadp—Getty Images

The International Congress of Mathematicians met in Philadelphia last month, its first U.S. meeting since 1986\. Minutes after accepting the Fields Medal, mathematics’s highest honor, Jacob Tsimerman [told](https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/this-u-of-t-professor-just-won-maths-highest-honour--and-is-taking-a-leave-to-join-openai-heres-why/article%5Fcee2c80f-9ea1-47f7-ad4d-8f3d76bbb0a2.html) reporters he was leaving academia to work on AI safety. “I think the world is changing,” he said, adding that he did not expect the mathematical career to survive in its present form. 

Two months earlier, he had been one of nine mathematicians [asked](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20695) to review whether an [AI model](https://openai.com/index/model-disproves-discrete-geometry-conjecture/) had truly refuted an 80-year-old central pillar of modern geometry, known as the Erdős unit distance conjecture. Tsimerman and his peers determined that it had, and their commentary alongside the [18-page proof](https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/74c24085-19b0-4534-9c90-465b8e29ad73/unit-distance-proof.pdf) helped translate the machine's argument into mathematics a human could understand.

The breakthrough, and subsequent report, reflected how the bottleneck that holds us back from forging new discoveries in mathematics, and, increasingly, in every other field, is changing. For most of history, the scarce resource was discovery. With AI, discovery is nonstop, and human confirmation is now what is scarce. 

To be clear, we are AI optimists. We believe AI tools will complement human ingenuity and expand what we can know and build, but our infrastructure for vetting and certifying discoveries was built for human throughput, and that is now the binding constraint. That is what holds innovation back. The answer to this problem is formalization: translating AI’s outputs into precise forms whose correctness can be checked automatically. Building the infrastructure to make verification routine is now a national-scale engineering problem.

Machines are outrunning us in more than math. The same is happening to the code that runs hospitals, banks, and power grids. In April, for example, Anthropic [disclosed](https://www.anthropic.com/research/mythos-preview) that its Mythos model could find unknown vulnerabilities in major operating systems and browsers, and restricted access to fifty organizations racing to patch them. Soon after, Microsoft engineers found [90 critical flaws](https://www.propublica.org/article/anthropic-mythos-microsoft-software-vulnerabilities) in a widely used product; and in June, Sen. Mark Warner [told](https://www.reuters.com/business/anthropics-mythos-model-found-vulnerabilities-classified-us-government-systems-2026-06-24/) a Senate hearing, citing the NSA director, that the tool "broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks but in hours."

All of this arrives in a world that already runs on code we assume is correct. In July 2024, a [single](https://apnews.com/live/internet-global-outage-crowdstrike-microsoft-downtime) faulty software update, not a cybersecurity attack, grounded flights and disrupted hospitals worldwide. Nowadays, developers can “vibe code,” or use generative AI to write code with natural language prompts. This lets teams build quickly, but at the same time can produce vast quantities of code nobody fully understands.

The same AI systems accelerating discovery can also solve the resulting information overload — if we pair their generative power with the rigor of mathematics.

For decades, researchers in defense, intelligence, academia, and industry have built an alternative to blind trust: formal methods, systems for proving that software mathematically will do exactly what it was designed to do. Like the way a software compiler translates a program into instructions a computer can execute, formal verification takes code, a specification of what it should do, and a proof connecting the two, and accepts the program only if every logical step checks out. This makes it possible to automatically validate AI output, and more broadly rigorize software and other security guarantees. And generative AI tools have made this sort of formalization broadly accessible in a way it never was before. 

Once proof checking is cheap, the next bottleneck becomes writing the right specification. Deciding precisely what a system should do and capturing the world around it remains a matter of human judgment. A flawless proof of the wrong specification is still an answer to the wrong question. Formal verification cannot stop phishing, prevent every failure in a complex human system, or certify an AI model's overall safety—but it can eliminate whole classes of errors in critical software. For systems where failure can mean harm to millions, this should be a crucial step in the adoption of AI-generated code. 

The [Leiden Declaration](https://leidendeclaration.ai/), endorsed in June by the International Mathematical Union, warns that AI threatens the verifiability of proof. We would put it the other way around: mathematics offers the infrastructure to make generative AI more trustworthy. For this reason, the United States should treat that mathematical rigor as a national mission. We need public infrastructure for verified software: open libraries of verified components and specifications, standards and benchmarks, better tools for checking updates, and training programs that connect mathematics, computer science, engineering, and national security—coordinated across agencies rather than confined to one program. And because formal methods rest on deep mathematical foundations, this requires sustained investment in mathematics research and education, not only in the applications built on top.

Companies operating critical infrastructure should not rely solely on reactive patching and bug bounties where failure could hurt the public. Instead, they should aim to build in auditing and formal guarantees from the start. The goal is not to formally verify every line of every program, but to identify the logic of critical systems, specify what that logic must and must not do, and achieve mathematical assurance in that logic.

Mathematics has weathered crises of trust before. Geometry, infinity, logic, and the nature of proof each threw the field into foundational doubt, and each time the response was more precise languages, stricter standards, and better verification. That rigor is what made mathematics scalable, and software now needs the same transformation. As AI writes more of the code the world runs on, blind trust is no longer good enough. The question is whether the United States will lead the shift to mathematical trust, or wait for the failures that force it.

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltffea2bf74a74df30Thu, 20 Aug 2026 18:08:30 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Patrick Shafto, Ken Ono and Scott Duke Kominers\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Iran Hits Back at Trump’s Threat of a ‘Crushing’ Economic ‘D-Day’ Campaign\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/iran-hits-back-at-trump-s-threat-of-a-crushing-economic-d-day-campaign/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Iran rejects Trump’s threat of sweeping economic warfare as U.S.-Iran talks remain stalled and the nearly six-month war enters a new phase.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Al Drago––The Washington Post/Bloomberg/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media near the White House helipad construction on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbea4cc4db8c5de93/6a86e65602bacf8122eb5763/Trump_White_House.jpg?branch=production)

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media near the White House helipad construction on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026\. —Al Drago––The Washington Post/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Iranian officials have dismissed President[ Donald Trump](https://time.com/article/2026/08/10/iran-us-strait-of-hormuz-conditions-trump-negotiations/)’s threat to launch what he called the “most crushing economic operation”against [Tehran](https://time.com/article/2026/08/10/iran-us-strait-of-hormuz-conditions-trump-negotiations/), as the nearly [six-month war](https://time.com/article/2026/07/16/war-america-iran-trump-hormuz/) enters a new phase of [economic pressure](https://time.com/article/2026/08/19/uae-suspends-trade-with-iran-after-reported-missile-strikes/) and negotiations between the two countries remain stalled. 

Trump announced the campaign late Wednesday, threatening consequences for [countries](https://time.com/article/2026/08/18/us-iran-oman-war-peace-deal-strait-hormuz-trump/) that continue to provide Iran with access to global trade and financial networks. 

“This will be economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale,” he [said](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117124650907675461). “Any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face tremendous economic consequences.”

Trump did not specify what specific measures would be imposed on countries that continue to do business with Iran. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

The President also called on U.S. allies to impose additional restrictions on Tehran in order to “cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide.”

“This will be an economic D-Day, and we need all of our allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat,” he said.[ ](https://time.com/5599811/d-day-meaning/)

[D-Day](https://time.com/5599811/d-day-meaning/) commonly refers to June 6, 1944, Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy, France, which opened a major Western front against Nazi Germany. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday the United States ​will impose "maximum economic pressure" on Iran.

"It ⁠is a one-two punch. We have the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history," Bessent [told](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/08/20/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-treasury-secretary-scott-bessent.html) CNBC. "It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this regime."

## How Iran responded

Iranian officials rejected Trump’s threats and instead pointed to the strains the conflict has placed on the[ U.S. economy](https://time.com/article/2026/05/20/democrats-criticize-trump-dismissing-soaring-gas-prices-iran-war-fallout/).

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the move a “diversion from America's own crisis: unprecedented debt & surging interest costs.”

“Doubling down on failed policies will only bring further defeat—and enmity of Iranians. U.S. economic terrorism threatens global economy and sovereignty worldwide,” he [said](https://x.com/araghchi/status/2090316936206790973) Thursday morning. 

The U.S. national public debt surpassed[ $40 trillion](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny) threshold this week.

Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi similarly took aim at Trump’s rhetoric, arguing that the President’s threats have become less relevant as the conflict, which began on Feb. 28, approaches its six-month mark.

“They claim Iran is on the brink of collapse and hanging by a thread, yet they beg all their allies to help them! The problem is the wrong calculations that, each time to cover them up, they’re forced to create a bigger failure for themselves,” he[ said](https://x.com/Gharibabadi/status/2090337524300317099) Thursday on social media. “The military war didn’t yield results, so now they’ve named the next failure “economic war”.”

Trump has repeatedly used maximalist rhetoric during the war, previously warning that a[ “whole civilization would die”](https://time.com/article/2026/04/07/trump-warns-whole-civilization-will-die-if-iran-misses-deadline/) if Iran failed to meet a deadline for a deal in April and, more recently, weighing a[ "massive attack”](https://time.com/article/2026/07/24/us-iran-ceasefire-attack-energy-prices-oil-hormuz-strait/) against Tehran at the end of July.

Neither threat resulted in the action that Trump initially described.

The latest warning came a day after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major regional trading hub with Iran, announced that it would[ suspend trade with Iran](https://time.com/article/2026/08/19/uae-suspends-trade-with-iran-after-reported-missile-strikes/) following reported missile strikes.

Since the start of the war, the U.S. has imposed additional heavy economic sanctions on Iran as part of a [“maximum pressure”](https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/04/united-states-cuts-off-billions-in-illicit-funding-to-iranian-regime/) campaign intended to restrict funding for Tehran’s military capabilities.

Some Iranian officials have responded by calling for the country to abandon its international nuclear commitments. 

“The best response to Trump's escalation of the economic war is to withdraw from the NPT,”[ said](https://x.com/EbrahimRezaei14/status/2090325573855809697) Iranian member of parliament Ebrahim Rezaei.

The NPT, also known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is an international agreement aimed at stopping the[ spread of nuclear weapons](https://time.com/article/2026/03/27/us-iran-war-nuclear-weapons-proliferation-deterrent-trump/).

The Islamic Republic of Iran signed the treaty in[ 1968](https://treaties.un.org/pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002801d56c5) and ratified it in 1970, committing as a non-nuclear-weapon state not to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons.

Trump has repeatedly cited preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as a justification for U.S. military action 

“They have to get rid of it completely. They have to get rid of nuclear weapons. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump[ repeated](https://youtu.be/mTz0qXlSd28?t=2159) Wednesday during the unveiling of the new[ White House helipad](https://time.com/article/2026/07/07/trumps-white-house-renovation-project-multimillion-dollar-helipad-backlash/).

## Where U.S.-Iran negotiations stand

Trump’s renewed economic threats come as negotiations between Washington and Tehran appear to have [stalled](https://time.com/article/2026/08/03/us-iran-war-talks-on-off-fighting-pause-history-timeline/) amid disagreements over the[ Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)](https://time.com/article/2026/06/17/us-iran-peace-deal-agreement-leaked-draft-text/), signed by both countries on June 17.

The document outlined commitments aimed at ensuring the full, toll-free reopening of the[ Strait of Hormuz](https://time.com/article/2026/03/17/what-is-the-strait-of-hormuz-global-trade-oil-flow-iran-war/), and established a 60-day cease-fire intended to allow technical talks to take place, including over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Before the war, roughly a fifth of the world's global petroleum liquids consumptions passed through the waterway.

But Washington and Tehran have since offered differing interpretations of the agreement, and fighting resumed before the diplomatic process produced a broader settlement. 

The dispute over the Strait has since reignited, with Iran releasing a list of[ six key demands](https://time.com/article/2026/08/10/iran-us-strait-of-hormuz-conditions-trump-negotiations/) that it says the U.S. must meet before the waterway can reopen.

Senior Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Azizi on Thursday [reiterated](https://x.com/Ebrahimazizi33/status/2090371491372098038) one of Iran’s demands to end America's “presence in the region immediately” and warned that “any further mistake or miscalculation will carry consequences far greater than before.”

[Trump has dismissed](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117072168149236615) the demands and instructed his representatives to seek compensation "for all of the people" that Iran has "killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts."

The 60-day threshold has now passed and there is little sign of a renewed cease-fire agreement.

Trump has also increased pressure on [Oman](https://time.com/article/2026/08/18/us-iran-oman-war-peace-deal-strait-hormuz-trump/), a longtime U.S. security partner that had reportedly been nearing a deal with Iran over commercial shipping through the Strait, [repeating](https://time.com/article/2026/05/28/us-iran-oman-trump-war-threat-strait-hormuz-peace-deal/) threats to[ bomb ](https://time.com/article/2026/08/18/us-iran-oman-war-peace-deal-strait-hormuz-trump/)the country

“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh-t out of them,” Trump[ told](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXEZ5GhHZD0) Fox News reporter Trey Yingst on Monday.

[China](https://time.com/article/2026/05/15/trump-xi-us-china-summit-analysis/) could present an even greater test of Trump’s economic strategy. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission [stated](https://www.uscc.gov/research/china-iran-fact-sheet-short-primer-relationship) that the country remains Iran’s largest trading partner and the primary buyer of Iranian oil.

When asked whether the sanctions would target China, Bessent responded: “Many conversations are best to have in private, and we are confident that everyone wants the Strait (of Hormuz) re-opened, and for energy prices to come back down,” adding “it would do them a big service to get with the program.”

Trump’s warning that countries doing business with Iran could face economic consequences raises questions about how the policy could affect Beijing as Chinese President [Xi Jinping](https://time.com/article/2026/05/14/xi-warns-trump-over-taiwan-during-high-stakes-china-summit/) prepares to visit the U.S. next month. 

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltc6ad6fd4fed06d16Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:44:37 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Tiago Ventura\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Andy Burnham Weighs In As Prince Harry and Meghan Set For Return to U.K.\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/burnham-prince-harry-and-meghan-set-for-return-security/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been largely distant from the Royal family since moving to California in 2020.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

[Harry and Meghan](https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6096108/prince-harry-meghan/), the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expected to move back to the United Kingdom later this year, after six years of living in the U.S. during a period of estrangement from the rest of the Royal family. 

The couple are set to move with their children, [Prince Archie](https://time.com/5532649/meghan-markle-royal-baby-latest-news/), 7, and [Princess Lilibet](https://time.com/6071842/meghan-harry-daughter-lili/), 5, to a non-royal residence that is said to be outside of London, with both children enrolled to start at a British school in September. The news was first reported by the [Daily Telegraph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2026/08/19/exclusive-harry-and-meghan-move-back-to-britain/) on Wednesday, with multiple outlets since [reporting](https://apnews.com/article/prince-harry-meghan-lilibet-archie-2a26920acb7ed33bb590654bfd57702b) similar details. 

The move follows years of Prince Harry arguing that the security arrangements provided for his family in the U.K. were insufficient. In May 2025, Prince Harry lost an [appeal](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Duke-of-Sussex-v-Secretary-of-State-for-the-Home-Department-summary.pdf) after the British government downgraded his security arrangements following his decision, along with Meghan, to step back from Royal duties in 2020\. 

Asked on Thursday about the move and if the British government would pay for the family’s security, Prime Minister Andy Burnham [said](https://news.sky.com/story/harry-and-meghan-latest-duke-and-duchess-of-sussex-moving-back-to-uk-13574885?postid=12254507#liveblog-body) the issue was “a private matter” and that he “wishes them well in the move that they are making.”

[King Charles III](https://time.com/tag/king-charles-coronation/) was [reportedly](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2026/08/19/exclusive-harry-and-meghan-move-back-to-britain/) informed of the couple’s move on Sunday, and in line with their wishes, the Duke and Duchess will not return to their duties previously held as members of the Royal family.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex last visited the U.K. in July and were [hosted](https://kings-foundation.org/visit/highgrove-gardens/) by Charles and Queen Camilla at their private residence, Highgrove House, in Gloucestershire, west England. 

[Prince Harry](https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/prince-harry/) also spent time [attending](https://x.com/WeAreInvictus/status/2075580132190740532) events across the country linked to the Invictus Games, a sporting event established by the Duke involving injured or sick international servicemen and women.

Neither the Royal family nor Harry and Meghan have responded publicly to the reports. When asked about the speculation during a roundtable event in Washington on Wednesday, Harry said he had “nothing to say,” per the [Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/prince-harry-meghan-lilibet-archie-2a26920acb7ed33bb590654bfd57702b). 

TIME has reached out to Buckingham Palace, as well as representatives of the Duke and Duchess for comment. 

# **Harry and Meghan’s break from the Royal family** 

Harry and Meghan initially lived and worked in the U.K. following their [wedding](https://time.com/5039393/royal-wedding-2018-details/) in May 2018\. But amid intense media scrutiny and other issues, they soon expressed desires to pull back from public-facing Royal duties. 

In October 2019, the couple said they would be taking “family time” away from their duties towards the end of the year, [CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/20/uk/meghan-harry-break-gbr-intl-scli) reported. 

Then in January 2020, the Duke and Duchess [announced ](https://www.instagram.com/p/B7EaGS%5FJpb9/)their [decision](https://time.com/5761547/prince-harry-meghan-markle-step-back-senior-royals/) “to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent.” The couple said they would split time between the U.K. and North America, to “enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter.”

The late [Queen Elizabeth II](https://time.com/4619423/queen-elizabeth-dies/) issued a [statement](https://time.com/5763086/queen-statement-prince-harry-meghan-markle/) in support of the decision after “constructive discussions” with the family, and following a 12-month review, Buckingham Palace [confirmed](https://www.royal.uk/buckingham-palace-statement-duke-and-duchess-sussex) in February 2021 that Harry and Meghan would not be returning as working members of the Royal family. 

“While all are saddened by their decision, The Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family,” a statement read. 

The next month, Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a now-[infamous interview](https://time.com/5944613/meghan-markle-oprah-racism/) during which they detailed their decisions to move away from the Royal family and the apparatus around it, which Meghan referred to as “[The Firm](https://time.com/5945032/what-is-the-firm-royal-family/)”.

In the [interview](https://time.com/5944946/oprah-meghan-harry-interview-effective/), Harry said the decision to withdraw from public duties and move to California was both due to the amount of tabloid press scrutiny and harassment, as well as a lack of support from “The Firm.”

Tabloid headlines focused on Meghan have [included](https://time.com/6241468/harry-meghan-netflix-docuseries-race/) descriptions of the Duchess as “gangster royalty” and coming from a “crime-ridden neighborhood.”

In 2023,Harry published his memoir, [_Spare_](https://time.com/6246029/prince-harry-spare-review/), outlining details of Royal life. In his book, the Duke [revealed](https://time.com/6245103/prince-harry-spare-memoir-revelations/) how he learned of his grandmother’s death, Queen Elizabeth II, via the BBC, and how his father, Charles, did not hug him following the death of his mother, [Princess Diana](https://time.com/tag/princess-diana/), in 1997.

While in the U.S., the couple have launched a number of business ventures, including several with Netflix. In December 2022, the couple released a six-episode [docuseries](https://time.com/6239745/harry-and-meghan-netflix-docuseries-explained/) on Netflix detailing more details about the early days of their relationship, as well as discussions around racism and stereotypes experienced by the Duchess since the start of their relationship. 

# **Harry’s battle with the British press**

Speaking in 2021 the Duke also detailed his[ relationship ](https://time.com/6284792/prince-harry-testify-court-phone-hacking-scandal/)with the British media which has been dominated in recent years by a number of legal battles. Most recently Harry [lost a lawsuit](https://apnews.com/article/prince-harry-lawsuit-daily-mail-charles-elton-2ada29f1fc84ade5d414c3b49ac47ac6) against Associated Newspapers Ltd., the publisher of _The Daily Mail_, with a judge ruling a lack of proof for privacy invasion claims against the paper. 

Before the legal defeat, expected to be the Duke’s last challenge against tabloids, the publisher of the Sun newspaper was [forced](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3wn1k6drqo) in January 2025 to pay Prince Harry “substantial damages after using “unlawful techniques” to acquire information on his private life. 

The Duke also won [15 claims](https://time.com/6547888/prince-harry-hacking-case-newspaper-group-win/) in December 2023, accusing Mirror Group Newspapers of unlawfully gathering information for stories published about him through phone hacking and other methods. 

# **Meghan’s struggles**

During the March 2021 interview, the Duchess also opened up about her suicidal thoughts while [pregnant](https://time.com/5426894/prince-harry-baby/) with their first child, Archie, in 2019\. 

“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she said. “And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.” Meghan added that when she approached Royal staff about seeking outside support, her request was refused. 

The Duchess also relayed conversations between Harry and family members, during which they raised concerns with the Duke about how dark Archie’s skin might be. 

Harry said such conversations took place at the start of his relationship with Meghan. “There were some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard,” he said. 

In 2016, when the couple began dating, a [statement](https://sussexroyal.com/archival-statements/a-statement-by-the-communications-secretary-to-prince-harry/) from Harry’s communications secretary denounced the wave of racist and sexist comments targeting Meghan, as well as the tone of some of the media coverage about her.“Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comment,” the statement from the Duke’s communications secretary read. 

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blta13e942d212a5477Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:09:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Callum Sutherland\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Here's What a Leading Lettuce Breeder Wants You to Know\]\]>https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/future-of-lettuce-interview/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What lettuce folks are looking forward to, and how the Cyclospora outbreak has changed the game.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Ed Young/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Closeup of heads of Romaine lettuce near Five Points, San Joaquin Valley, Calif.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0602c7bf51e6c37d/6a87113ba4135a41cc91a483/future-of-lettuce-interview.jpg?branch=production)

Closeup of heads of Romaine lettuce near Five Points, San Joaquin Valley, Calif. —Ed Young/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group—Getty Images

In the town of Nipomo on the central coast of California, in Bill Waycott's fields, [lettuces of the future](https://www.foodandwine.com/spinach-lettuce-hybrid-row-7-8662556) are taking root. Red-furled or dark-leaved, these rosettes of crunchy goodness might someday make it to a store near you. 

Waycott is an independent plant breeder, one of the [small community of dedicated folks](https://medium.com/swlh/meet-the-breeders-obsessed-with-creating-remarkable-new-crops-fb0f9c27358c) who devote their time and effort to the reproduction of a given plant or[ plants](https://time.com/article/2026/07/29/is-farmers-market-produce-safer-during-cyclospora-outbreak/). For decades, he's focused mainly on breeding better lettuces, and he spoke to TIME about what could be in America's salad bowls in coming years and just how damaging the recent [Cyclospora outbreak](https://time.com/article/2026/08/03/two-people-have-died-in-the-cyclospora-outbreak-michigan/), traced to a farm run by greens behemoth [Taylor Farms in Mexico](https://time.com/article/2026/07/22/cyclospora-outbreak-food-safety-experts-lettuce/), has been for [lettuce](https://time.com/article/2026/07/17/cyclospora-parasite-outbreak-taco-bell-lettuce-cdc/) growers.  

**TIME: How did you intertwine your fate with that of lettuce?**

Waycott: My introduction to agriculture occurred as a Peace Corps volunteer in India in the ‘70s. When I came back from that assignment, I wanted to dedicate myself to agriculture. It was the most amazing thing that could ever have happened to me—a California surfer goes to India and learns how to survive in a language, in a culture, in a food system that I had no clue about. I got a job at the \[U.S. Department of Agriculture\] and the first year and a half it was a sugar beet breeding project. When the lettuce position opened up, I jumped on it.

We were trying to slow down the process of early flowering in lettuce. You probably know that it doesn't last very long in a garden during warm temperatures. It goes to seed pretty quickly. But then we had George Bush Senior come across and clear the deck. I was laid off at that point with a lot of my colleagues back in the '90s, and that's when I went to work for a private breeding company.  

**In your decades of making lettuce better, what’s been the main focus?** 

Well, you know it's 96% water to start with, so you don't have a lot to work with. My focus has been as much as possible on disease resistance—developing lettuces that can stand up to plant diseases that can wipe out a crop—and improved nutrition. Since so many people eat salads these days, even if we were able to improve the nutrition by 5 or 10%, that's a huge impact on the North American diet.

At Nipomo Seeds, which is a company my wife and I started in 2014, we’re working on a lettuce we have nicknamed [“Spinach Lettuce,”](https://www.row7seeds.com/products/spinach-lettuce-seeds?srsltid=AfmBOooVisuGtiXKbEFSuAcDZKvhv3ZMKZOueoQXE5ZY3klejfD%5FlUWr) because it resembles spinach both in the way it grows and also its taste (a softer, spongier, and slightly bitter eating experience). The nutritional values for most of the important nutritional components in lettuce are high in the Spinach Lettuce, especially when compared to iceberg; there’s a lot more fiber, protein, calcium, iron, vitamin C, and vitamin A.

There are others; we have some new lettuces that we're hoping growers will take an interest in. We've been growing field trials, and [Chef Dan Barber from Row 7 Seeds](https://www.instagram.com/p/C7kSthQuSYM/?hl=en) has come out to California and looked at them. I think in September we're going to have somebody from Whole Foods come over and have a look.  

**What’s the biggest challenge facing lettuce breeders these days?**

I have to say, I am just flabbergasted by the number of diseases that have come in in the last five to 10 years, and the rapidity with which they're mutating and forming new races. Example: I have been testing for plants that can resist [_Fusarium oxysporum_, which is a fungus of the roots and vascular tissue](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/fusarium-oxysporum). The plant's growing along, it's getting close to harvest, and then it just sort of wilts. Pull up the roots, and you see this discoloration. I really did my best to come up with resistance to that issue over the last five or so years. But in the last two years, the disease has changed and formed a new what we call variant race. So all the seed that I produced for that particular issue is no longer interesting to my customers because it doesn't have the brand-new race resistance.

Right now we have three fungi, one bacterium, and one virus here in California lettuce that are wreaking havoc and making life very difficult. In the past, there was one major issue at a time that we could hopefully solve in five years of breeding. Now I'm working on five issues, six issues in tandem. 

  
**How has the Cyclospora outbreak, linked to Taylor Farms’ operations in Mexico, affected the lettuce industry?**

Oh, it's disastrous. I've heard sales are at least 30% down, and not just in lettuce. Anything that's green is suspect to some people. If you can't cook it, or buy it out of a can, it’s not on the list. There are fields of mature lettuces being plowed under constantly now that have no value because they can't sell. 

But this isn’t the first time. [In 2006, there was a big _E. coli_ outbreak with spinach](https://archive.cdc.gov/www%5Fcdc%5Fgov/ecoli/2006/spinach-10-2006.html). That started the whole system of trying to evaluate the product before it was cut. Nowadays, at least north of the border, there are companies that go into every field and sample methodically across the field. Maybe every 30th row or every 50th row, they sample and send these samples into a lab, and it's checked for pathogens. 

**Is there a safer way to grow lettuce? Hydroponically, with filtered water?**

The hydroponic systems are so expensive—if they were really going to change things, it would have happened by now. 

But there isn't really that much difference; the plant is exposed to the atmosphere, and whatever's in the atmosphere is going to somehow affect the plant. Open field production is the cheapest way to go. Using water, either from wells or from canals, is really the only system available. And when you're looking at production the size of what North America requires, there's nowhere \[big enough where\] you can filter that water and create a sterile environment for the plant to grow in. It's impossible. But you can at least sample all those components that are going into it, and try your best to avoid any major contamination.   

**What are you looking forward to in the future of lettuce?**

I hope that we can slowly get to the point where we're improving nutrition. The world right now is pretty chaotic. How does diet fit into all that? How do people make decisions about what they're going to eat? What is the ratio of home cooking to restaurant dining, and financial stability—how does that influence the diet that they choose to use? It is tough. So working on making things more nutritious is an important factor. Hopefully, the growers and the shippers and the marketers agree, and we will bring healthier food into the system, so that people don't even have to decide at the moment of purchase if they should or not, because it's already more nutritious. 

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blte60839e6f88ba8dbThu, 20 Aug 2026 14:45:10 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Veronique Greenwood\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What Ovaries Reveal About the Secret Ways Women Age, According to Francesca Duncan\]\]>https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/francesca-duncan/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[“Pretty much every organ system you can think of is touched by the ovaries,” says Francesca Duncan, a reproductive biologist at Northwestern University and Buck Institute for Research on Aging.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Feinberg School of Medicine\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta285e96e4781b4c0/6a7dfb935798c907235a7a1d/Duncan-%E2%80%94-Feinberg-School-of-Medicine.jpg?branch=production)

 —Feinberg School of Medicine

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt17a2fcf1b5268f55Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Dominique Mosbergen\]\]><!\[CDATA\[An Antiaging Medicine Could Already Exist. Nir Barzilai Is On A Mission To Find It\]\]>https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/nir-barzilai/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The geneticist has played an instrumental role in pushing the idea that existing drugs could be repurposed as longevity-boosting treatments.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Courtesy of Subject\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4279ed09fb00980/6a7df9c220670566e540ffb1/Barzilai-%E2%80%94-Courtesy-of-Subjectjpg.jpg?branch=production)

 —Courtesy of Subject

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt38f89034a6da7225Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Dominique Mosbergen\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Jamie Justice Is Running a $101 Million Longevity Science Fair\]\]>https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/jamie-justice/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Justice, executive director of XPRIZE Healthspan, wants teams to prove human aging can be measurably reversed, not just slowed.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Amanda Villarosa for TIME\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1425a2431aaf802d/6a7f3f000208b8313d397347/extras_260729_TIME_JamieJustice_O9A3677_final.jpg?branch=production)

 —Amanda Villarosa for TIME

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt9b2dee2bec75bb3bThu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Alice Park\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Andrea Maier Wants to Solve Longevity's Evidence Problem\]\]>https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/andrea-maier/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta4c87e49f161650f/6a7dfad3453dba4e7eafcb48/Maier---NUS-Academy-for-Healthy-Longevity.jpg?branch=production)

 —NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=bltb9efe2be1bed9341Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Veronique Greenwood\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Tony Wyss-Coray Is Measuring Biological Age One Organ at a Time\]\]>https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/tony-wyss-coray/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Stanford neurology professor built a blood test that flags which of your organs is aging faster than the rest of you, years before disease symptoms show up.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Ola Hopper—Stanford University\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt00e1d5b92cf02f20/6a7df9ee56fcaa1c8a432acb/Wyss-Coray-%E2%80%94-Ola-Hopper-Stanford-Universityjpg.jpg?branch=production)

 —Ola Hopper—Stanford University

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blt7654e480abac3610Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Dominique Mosbergen\]\]><!\[CDATA\[David Sinclair's Research Is Now Testing Whether Blindness—and Aging—Can Be Reversed\]\]>https://time.com/collection/longevity-leaders/2026/david-sinclair/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Harvard geneticist David Sinclair explains why his lab believes aging functions like a reversible disease— and what it will take to prove that.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Tony Luong for TIME\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdac5ac2fc4c35975/6a7dfa4856fcaa8ea3432ae1/Sinclair---Tony-Luong-for-TIME.jpg?branch=production)

 —Tony Luong for TIME

\]\]>https://time.com/?p=blta80855d2413c6d46Thu, 20 Aug 2026 13:01:12 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Alice Park\]\]>