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## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ

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| Attribute | Value | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
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*   TIME's newsroom is led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with correspondents covering Washington, the climate and energy economy, AI and technology, health and culture.
*   TIME reaches 1 million US print subscribers, 1.15 million globally, and more than 1.1 million newsletter readers.
*   TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=d865d4e9-3cfa-43c7-b677-36d078ce88ad&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1), separate from a paid subscription.

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#### What is included in a TIME print and digital subscription?

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#### What is the difference between TIME's digital and print plans?

Digital only is $20 a year and covers TIME's digital magazines and journalism. Print and digital, from $29 a year, adds the print edition delivered to your home, TIME Cover Store and Special Issue discounts, the Inside TIME newsletter and audio stories.

#### Is TIME a reliable news source?

TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923. Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers.

#### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine?

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>TIMEhttps://time.com/<!\[CDATA\[Breaking news and analysis from TIME.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science and entertainment news.\]\]>Sun, 06 Sep 2026 11:11:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1<!\[CDATA\[America’s 911 System Is Dangerously Out of Date\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/06/america-s-911-system-is-dangerously-out-of-date/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The United States has let our 911 emergency response system languish for decades, failing to make the necessary investments to bring it into the digital age, writes Rebecca Neusteter.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[amenic181—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcc1f845fcc661637/6a99bb3022b3dad00975eedd/911-call.jpg?branch=production)

 —amenic181—Getty Images

“911, what is your emergency?” 

For the millions of Americans who have dialed 911, these are the familiar and comforting words we hear upon placing the call. It is the question that guides us through a moment of chaos or crisis, the linchpin to saving lives and protecting health. 

But in recent years, an increasing number of 911 callers have heard something a little different:

“911, _where_ is your emergency?” 

It is very nearly the same question, but the slight change underscores vast differences in people’s experiences seeking help in an emergency. In an era when parents can monitor their children’s movements in real time, and ride-share drivers know the precise corner to stop, many Americans may be surprised to learn a sobering truth: the 911 professionals who answer the phone are often unable to automatically pinpoint a caller’s precise location, and cannot always rely on callers themselves to provide it. 

The extra time it takes to figure out exactly where to send help, even if it’s a few extra seconds, costs lives. But the United States has let our 911 emergency response system languish for decades, failing to make the necessary investments to bring it into the digital age. That inaction should be unacceptable to every American. Upgrading 911 technology should be a national priority, and Congress must provide sufficient funding to ensure it works in every community. 

When America’s 911 system [launched in 1968](https://time.com/archive/6595520/how-to-fix-911/), it was built to serve people calling from landlines at fixed locations. Callers were tracked using address directories that listed the location of the phone they were calling from. As a result, emergency personnel could be dispatched almost immediately. It made sense, and it worked fast. 

Nearly 60 years later, we are living in a completely different era.[ ](https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/15th-annual-911-fee-report-2023.pdf)In [2024](https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/17thAnnual911FeeReport-021326.pdf), more than three-quarters of 911 calls came via either cellphones or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other wireless voice services. Since some states do not break down calls by service type, that number is likely even higher. By contrast, only about 7% came from landlines. In many states, landlines now account for less than 5% of 911 calls. That number is likely to decline further in the years ahead. 

Our current 911 system isn’t built for this. Often, a 911 professional can trace a call only to the cell tower that received it, which can be a fair distance from a caller’s exact location. As many as[ 20% or more](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/01/17/2023-00519/location-based-routing-for-wireless-911-calls) of calls are traced to the wrong tower. Unlike apps like Google Maps or [Life360](https://time.com/3663811/7-ways-to-monitor-your-kids-phone-tablet-and-laptop/) that can continuously track a phone’s precise location, 911 call takers must rely on carrier data when the call was first made. Updates come in 20- to 30-second intervals. If the call needs to be transferred, this process must start from scratch. This wastes precious time. It is especially hard in rural areas, where towers can be few and far between, or dense locations like high-rise apartments.

Asking “where is your emergency” may sound like an easy fix, but that incorrectly assumes a caller can always answer the question. Callers may be in an unfamiliar location. They may be navigating imminent danger, such as an intruder or attacker, that prevents them from sharing. They may give the wrong address, or they may move locations from the moment a call is placed to the time help arrives. Even the emergency data that may be stored in a person’s cell phone for precisely such a circumstance can’t be accessed by call takers or dispatchers. 

Simply put, our nation’s 911 system is rapidly becoming obsolete. 

Past attempts to fix these errors have failed.[ The ENHANCE 911 Act](https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ494/PLAW-108publ494.pdf), enacted in 2004, authorized up to $250 million in annual federal grants to help states upgrade their 911 systems. But those appropriations[ were never made](https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20070329%5FRL33942%5Feba68c9b4a0cf9f860368ffe8ba230f77c9fe38c.pdf). Other funding opportunities for states wound up being[ far smaller](https://www.ntia.gov/press-release/2009/states-and-us-territories-receive-40-million-grants-improve-911-services?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). Ultimately, the legislation was not reauthorized by Congress, and national funding efforts dried up. In recent years, federal funding for 911 upgrades has ground to a halt.

Congress should right this wrong by fully funding[ NextGen 911](https://www.transform911.org/transforming-911-report/) services, which would provide 911 professionals and Emergency Communications Centers with the life-saving information they need—such as accurate location information—to do their jobs. [Thirty-eight states](https://www.911.gov/assets/2021-911-Profile-Database-Report%5FFINAL.pdf) have pledged to upgrade to NextGen 911\. If fully implemented, 911 would shift from an analog relic to an Internet Protocol-based system. That would allow for more advanced communication technologies, including receiving 911 “calls” via text or video, that would be especially useful for 911 callers who are either unaware of or unable to share their location. It would also help callers with disabilities, such as people who are deaf or hard of hearing, access the system as well. 

Full NextGen 911 rollout nationwide is [estimated to cost](https://www.route-fifty.com/digital-government/2025/09/upgraded-911-and-reauthorized-firstnet-among-public-safety-officials-tech-priorities/408012/) approximately[ $15 billion](https://www.911.gov/assets/Next%5FGeneration%5F911%5FCost%5FEstimate%5FReport%5Fto%5FCongress%5F2018.pdf). The cost of inaction is far higher. Fixing access to location data would free up 911 professionals to rapidly triage calls. It would also mean a quicker and more accurate on-scene response, helping callers and emergency personnel alike. 

When 911 launched, cell phones did not yet exist, and America’s emergency response system is still largely stuck in that bygone era. This is an emergency of our own making, and it is fixable. Our leaders must answer the call for help.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt813881c734dc9b2e Sun, 06 Sep 2026 10:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Neusteter\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Putin Pauses Strikes on Kyiv as Trump Envoys Visit Russia and Ukraine\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/05/putin-pauses-strikes-kyiv-trump-envoys-visit-russia-ukraine/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The three-day suspension comes amid a renewed U.S. diplomatic push to end more than four years of war.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Gavriil Grigoriv—POOL/AFP via Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff wait for their meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sept. 5, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24c3d2d402acc473/6a9c635d8a36f55140dd4b26/GettyImages-2293184484.jpg?branch=production)

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff wait for their meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sept. 5, 2026\. —Gavriil Grigoriv—POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir [Putin](https://time.com/7285523/how-putin-misplayed-the-trump-zelensky-split/) ordered a 72-hour pause in strikes on [Kyiv](https://time.com/article/2026/08/24/volodymyr-zelensky-elections-ukraine-wartime-mykhailo-fedorov/) starting at midnight on Sept. 6\. The temporary pause coincides with a visit from U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. 

“Putin has ordered that no strikes be carried out against Kyiv for three days, starting at midnight today,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov [told state media](https://tass.com/politics/2183123) early Saturday. Ukrainian media had previously reported that its army would observe a ceasefire during the visit, though the details had not yet been finalized. "Such information did come from Ukraine,” Peskov confirmed.

Witkoff and Kushner touched down in Moscow later that day to meet with Putin and discuss ending the war with Ukraine. They are scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday.

**Read More:** [_What It’s Like to Live in Ukraine, 4 Years Since Russia’s Invasion_](https://time.com/7380684/life-in-ukraine-since-russias-invasion/)

Both men are real estate developers whom Trump has used as envoys in high-level diplomatic talks. Kushner is also the President’s son-in-law and served as a senior adviser during his first term. 

“They're bringing with them a proposal to end the war,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, calling the two “great negotiators.”

The U.S. served as a primary mediator between Russia and Ukraine in 2025 and into 2026\. The envoys’ arrival represents a potential revival of that role, which largely stalled in February when Washington and Jerusalem launched joint strikes on Iran, killing the country’s leader, [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei](https://time.com/article/2026/03/13/Ali-Khamenei-Legacy-of-Repression-and-War/), and igniting an [ongoing war](https://time.com/article/2026/06/22/how-did-we-get-here-a-timeline-of-the-u-s--iran-war/).

Following the Kremlin’s announcement, Zelensky wrote [on X](https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2096242248291701130?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet) that he had been in touch with the envoys and was “ready to observe a ceasefire in airstrikes against the cities involved in the negotiation process.” 

“From now through the end of Saturday, as well as on Sunday and Monday, Ukraine is ready to refrain from strikes on Moscow, and we expect the Russians to do the same regarding Kyiv,” he wrote, adding that Ukraine is ready for “substantive conversation.”

Hours earlier, however, Zelensky [posted about](https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2096159258320454039) an overnight wave of Russian attacks that targeted major airports in Kyiv and Boryspil and killed five people at an industrial site elsewhere in Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched ballistic missiles and 167 attack drones in the attack.

“Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the U.S. side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine and land at Kyiv Airport or Boryspil Airport,” Zelensky said.

## Trump attempts to revive stalled Ukraine-Russia peace talks

Trump has [repeatedly](https://time.com/7335666/trump-plan-to-end-russia-ukraine-war-zelensky-response/) stated that ending the Russia-Ukraine war is a major priority of his Administration, but the reality of that aim [has proven difficult](https://time.com/7338224/trump-ukraine-russia-putin-peace-negotiations/). 

In August 2025, the U.S. President met his Russian counterpart in Anchorage, Alaska, to pursue a ceasefire agreement. The talks proved [unsuccessful](https://time.com/7309702/trump-putin-summit-ukraine-alaska/), and Trump left [empty-handed](https://time.com/7310152/ukraine-trump-putin-alaska-takeaways/).

In October 2025, Trump and Putin planned to meet in Budapest in hopes of furthering peace talks. But the summit was [canceled](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-putin-summit-cancelled-budapest-moscow-b2855929.html) just a few days after the summit was announced after Russia indicated that its hard-line stance on the war had not shifted.

“It just didn’t feel right to me,” Trump said at the time. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it.”

Strain between Trump and Zelensky also impeded progress. In February 2025, Oval Office talks [collapsed](https://time.com/7262883/trump-zelensky-meeting/) within minutes when the U.S. President accused Zelensky of being “ungrateful” for U.S. aid and refusing to agree to a ceasefire without security assurances. In the 18 months since, however, that tension has largely dissipated, with Trump saying at this year’s [NATO summit](https://www.facebook.com/ANINEWS.IN/videos/weve-developed-a-good-relationship-trump-on-meeting-ukraines-zelenskyy-in-ankara/1051531437440241/) that the two had “actually developed a good relationship.”

The revived push for peace talks comes days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow last week and met with his Russian intelligence counterparts, a trip that Trump later called “semi-routine,” though it had not been announced to the media in advance and little is known about what transpired.

Renewed mediation comes as Ukraine continues to launch some of its [largest aerial assaults](https://time.com/article/2026/08/16/ukraine-launches-one-of-the-wars-largest-drone-attacks-killing-6/) of the war yet, showcasing the nation’s rapid advancement of drone and missile capabilities in recent months. 

It demonstrated its growing capacity to strike deep inside Russian territory in August, with [strikes](https://time.com/article/2026/08/16/ukraine-launches-one-of-the-wars-largest-drone-attacks-killing-6/) landing up to 1,500 miles over the shared border—including attacks on warehouses used by the prominent online retailer [Wildberries](https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/russia-amazon-wildberries-ukraine-target-strikes/), after Kyiv said its logistics sites are being used to support the Russian military. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt932bca2cda8b4cb8 Sat, 05 Sep 2026 15:12:13 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Schneid\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Price of Privacy When It Comes to Dementia\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/12/the-price-of-privacy-when-it-comes-to-dementia/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Many patients decide to withdraw from their social circles, cease the activities they enjoy, and retreat to a life that is much too small, writes Dr. Zaldy S. Tan.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Richard Drury—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd1d381062bd906bf/6a7f522443447394a58682f0/dementia-privacy.jpg?branch=production)

 —Richard Drury—Getty Images

[Ronald Reagan](https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/ronald-reagan/reagans-letter-announcing-his-alzheimers-diagnosis), [Charlton Heston](https://abcnews.com/Health/story?id=116858&page=1), [Tony Bennett](https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/celebrities/tony-bennett-battle-with-alzheimers-2021/), and [Danny Glover](https://www.today.com/health/celebrity-health/danny-glover-alzheimers-exclusive-today-rcna352405) have something in common. So do [Margaret Thatcher](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-final-years), [Norman Rockwell](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/inside-americas-great-romance-with-norman-rockwell-22055/), and [Sean Connery](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54779486). 

All had been afflicted with Alzheimer’s or dementia—the progressive neurologic disease characterized by memory and functional loss—but with an important difference. The first group chose to make a public announcement of their diagnosis during their life, and the second chose to keep their dementia diagnosis private, their condition revealed by their survivors only after their death. 

Maintaining the [confidentiality](https://time.com/7344997/chatgpt-health-medical-records-privacy-open-ai/) of one’s health information is a fundamental right, but when a public figure receives a life-limiting diagnosis, does disclosure matter? Some choose to do so as a form of farewell to their supporters and fans, others to raise public awareness of the illness that has afflicted them. 

When the actor Michael J. Fox announced almost three decades ago that he had been diagnosed with [early-stage Parkinson’s disease](https://time.com/collections/time-for-change/7379769/michael-j-fox-parkinsons-research/), a bright spotlight was shone on the then relatively unknown neurologic disease. His namesake foundation has since raised [over $3 billion](https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/award-winning-impact-mjff-honored-philanthropic-organization-year) for Parkinson’s disease research, his [testimony to the U.S. Congress](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkOkeY0l3Cw) helped boost federal funding for neurologic and stem cell research, and his patient advocacy empowered persons with Parkinson’s to come forward, share their experiences, and receive support from others as they go through their Parkinson’s journey. 

In my decades-long career as a memory disorders specialist, I have found that one characteristic shared by patients with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia is a preference, at least in the early stages, for secrecy about the diagnosis. After I informed a famous patient of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, I handed her an informational brochure on memory loss. Her husband promptly took it from her, folded it neatly, and hid it underneath his coat, saying “In case we bump into one of her fans in the elevator.” 

Perhaps more than other diseases, the desire for privacy is particularly strong for [dementia](https://time.com/7273212/dementia-murali-doraiswamy-eric-stallard-essay/), which is still viewed by many as a mental health disorder rather than a neurologic disease like Parkinson’s disease or ALS. 

My patients and families typically limit the disclosure of the diagnosis on a need-to-know basis, and many choose to hide it till the end. Doctors, clinics, and hospitals are complicit with this secrecy, with [only around 50%](https://www.alzint.org/about/dementia-facts-figures/dementia-statistics/) of people with dementia having their diagnosis documented in their medical records. 

Since dementia tends to begin later in one’s life, many simply fade into retirement and anonymity, which inevitably leads to social isolation and misleading others of their whereabouts. Interestingly, the shame associated with dementia is not typically shared by people afflicted with other neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis, stroke, or ALS. 

When singer Celine Dion was diagnosed with the rare, progressive neurologic condition called [stiff-person syndrome](https://time.com/6239728/what-is-stiff-person-syndrome/), she came forward with a message to her fans, putting an end to speculation about the mystery illness that caused her to cancel a series of performances. In her [documentary](https://time.com/6990981/i-am-celine-dion-documentary-review/), she bravely allowed a glimpse of the painful muscle spasm she experiences daily. Through her foundation, Dion personally donated millions of dollars towards research into the [rare disease](https://www.neurology.columbia.edu/news/stiff-person-syndrome-not-what-you-think-it) that afflicts fewer than 5,000 people in the United States. 

There are over 57 million people with dementia globally, with nearly 10 million new cases [diagnosed every year](https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/07/1167948). In 2050, an estimated [152 million people](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12261920/) will have Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. In the United States alone, there are currently [7.4 million people](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13098189/) age 65 or older living with dementia. While many important advances have been made in research on prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of Alzheimer’s, many more of its mysteries need to be unraveled and a cure remains elusive. 

While I understand and respect people’s desires for privacy, the potential upside of destigmatizing dementia are significant. If every person, famous or not, whose life has been touched by dementia—in a spouse, parent, friend, or in themselves—were willing to share their stories and advocate for more research funding, better public policies, and greater community and caregiving support, perhaps the stigma and shame associated with this neurologic disease would be eased, and we would be closer to finding a cure. 

The desire for secrecy of a dementia diagnosis can sometimes have serious consequences. The actor [Gene Hackman](https://time.com/7264880/questions-remain-gene-hackman-death/) was living with [dementia in private](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpv419jp3v9o) for years. The public became aware of his plight only when he was found deceased inside his home after his wife, who was his primary caregiver, unexpectedly died before him. Interviews with their neighbors painted a picture of a private and secretive couple who were rarely seen outside their home. It was believed that Mr. Hackman died alone after his wife and primary caregiver passed. Left to fend for himself, he was unable to provide for his basic needs: food, water, medications. 

It took a brain autopsy for Robin Williams to get diagnosed with [Lewy body disease](https://time.com/4098222/lewy-body-dementia-robin-williams/), a form of dementia that produces visual hallucinations, sleep disturbance, and tremors. For years, his condition was [misdiagnosed](https://lewybodyresourcecenter.org/robin-williams-lewy-body-dementia/) as depression and Parkinson’s disease, as his doctors were unable to connect the constellation of classic symptoms to recognize that dementia has set in. After [Williams died by suicide](https://time.com/3101990/robin-williams-dead-63/), his widow Susan Schneider Williams became a [public advocate](https://time.com/4515700/robin-williams-widow-susan-essay/) for Lewy body awareness, putting a public face to a disease that many have not even heard of.

Most people who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia are not public figures, but like these famous people, they need to decide the price they are willing to pay for privacy. Even in the early stages of the disease, many decide to withdraw from their social circles, cease the activities they enjoy, and retreat to a life that is much too small. A big part of this unfortunate decision stems from the shame that comes with the diagnosis of dementia, which is often viewed not just as a loss of memory, but of intellect, social status, and identity.

So pervasive is the secrecy surrounding a dementia diagnosis that I now ask every family caregiver of my patient a telling question: _If you became unavailable, who would take care of your loved one?_ Invariably, they declare that they are not going anywhere, that they will never leave their husband, wife, parent, or friend, so I ask a more direct question: _If you were hit by a Mack truck on your way home today, who will feed, administer medication, and keep your loved one safe tonight?_

If they provide anything other than a reassuring response, I counsel them on the importance of having a back-up plan: a relative, friend, or neighbor who can check in on the person with memory impairment to make sure they are safe. I remind them of the benefits of socialization and maintaining relationships with others in people with dementia. I tell them that even with cognitive changes, there is still a lot of life left to be lived—new places to see, new people to meet, new experiences to enjoy. 

I reassure them that whether they decide on privacy or disclosure, we will be there to support them, minimize dementia’s impact on their daily lives, and provide comfort when we can.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt4e5d1bbf8cf5f35b Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Zaldy S. Tan\]\]><!\[CDATA\[We Need a Cure for AI Health Hype\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/05/we-need-a-cure-for-ai-health-hype/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[AI evangelists’ bold predictions about the technology’s ability to cure all diseases are overblown and oversimplified, writes Arianna Huffington.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Pakin Songmor—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4b6f4c09dedde14a/6a9b041ae67005238c76d41f/AI-robot-stethoscope.jpg?branch=production)

 —Pakin Songmor—Getty Images

“I think it will actually be possible to cure most human disease in \~5-10 years, as crazy as it may sound to ordinary people and frankly to biologists as well (I used to be one!).”

This is what Dario Amodei, the co-founder of Anthropic [recently posted on X](https://x.com/DarioAmodei/status/2088758819304443967).

Truth be told, this is not an uncommon take among AI leaders. On _60 Minutes_ last year, Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind, [declared](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/artificial-intelligence-google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis-60-minutes-transcript/) that “we can cure all disease with the help of Al… maybe within the next decade or so, I don’t see why not.” 

Actually, there’s a big reason why not: human nature. An[ estimated 80%](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28523941/) of chronic diseases and premature deaths are not driven by our genes, but by the way we live: what we eat, how much we move, how we sleep, how we manage stress and stay socially connected. It’s true AI can [accelerate](https://time.com/7372610/ai-drug-clinical-trials/) drug discovery and personalize nudges for our daily behaviors, but it can’t “cure all disease” while ignoring human nature, free will, and how we live. 

The view among those currently working to lower the disease burden is considerably less utopian than in AI. “Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease—we don’t have cures for any of those common diseases,”[ says](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-probably-cure-cancer-anytime-soon-scientists-say) cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol. “To think that in the next five or 10 years new drugs are going to change everything, there’s no precedent for that. It’s unrealistic, and it sets the expectations for AI too high. It’s hype.”

“Cancer is not one disease. It is more than 200 distinct diseases, all with different causes, biology and mechanisms,” [explains](https://x.com/drcathariney/status/2089176581566517678?s=61) Dr. Catherine Young, a Senior Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Scientists who study cancer rarely talk about ‘curing cancer’ because it’s nothing more than an empty slogan.”

As Amy Dockser Marcus[ writes](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/ai-probably-cure-cancer-anytime-soon-scientists-say) for _The Information,_ we’ve been here before. In [2000](https://time.com/archive/6741617/the-race-is-over/), on the heels of the first sequencing of human DNA, Francis Collins, then-director of the Human Genome Project, [predicted](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2000/06/16/transcript-bob-abernethys-interview-with-dr-francis-collins-director-of-the-human-genome-project-at-the-national-institutes-of-health/15204/) that “in another 20, 25 years we should be able to prevent or cure most cases of cancer, of diabetes, of heart disease, of multiple sclerosis, of asthma.” And yet, here we are, 26 years later, facing a growing [epidemic](https://time.com/7213490/why-are-young-people-getting-cancer/) of chronic diseases.

Daphne Koller, CEO of the AI-driven drug development company insitro, calls it the “magic wand” assumption. “Hundreds of years into modern medicine,” she[ writes](https://www.a16z.news/p/drug-discovery-has-no-magic-wands), “our understanding of most human disease, and much of healthy physiology, is best captured by the parable of the blind men and the elephant; in this case, a really huge elephant.”

The current debate about whether AI can cure all diseases is more than a tempest in a GPTeapot. It points to a larger problem: we are too often focused solely on improving the machines, and too rarely focused on investing energy and resources in improving humans.

In 2024, Amodei [wrote](https://darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace) about the limiting factors that stand in the way of AI transforming the world for the better: “speed of the outside world,” “need for data,” “intrinsic complexity,” “physical laws” and “constraints from humans.”

Of those, I would argue that the constraints imposed by humans will be the ultimate limiting factor. And I'm not alone. 

“If for every dollar and every minute that we invest in developing artificial intelligence, we also invest in exploring and developing our own minds, it will be okay,” suggests Yuval Harari in his book [_21 Lessons for the 21st Century_](https://www.ynharari.com/book/21-lessons-book/). “But if we put all our bets on technology, on AI, and neglect to develop ourselves, this is very bad news for humanity.”

As we work to realize all the possibilities of AI, the bottleneck that will hold us back from maximizing its benefits will be what it has always been throughout human history: human nature. That is why I believe the greatest risk we face is that AI will get better but humans won’t.

We need the same relentless focus on helping humans tap into their better selves and achieve better health outcomes through healthier daily behaviors as we have on helping the machines achieve better frontier models. 

What we don't need is hype. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blta3b8a52e67bffdfe Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:00:03 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Arianna Huffington\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Everyman Economics: Why Growth Requires Measuring More than GDP\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/05/economics-capitalism-growth-inequality-gdp/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[GDP can tell us how the economy is performing without telling us how Americans are faring.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

In its 250th year, America finds itself confronting an age-old question with new urgency: what, exactly, counts as progress? 1776 was a hinge year for the modern world. Adam Smith published _The Wealth of Nations_, America adopted the Declaration of Independence, and Matthew Boulton and James Watt commercialized the steam engine—three developments that unleashed an age of capitalism, bringing unprecedented growth and unprecedented inequality.

And while growth and inequality are often treated as separate stories, fetishized respectively by the right and the left, corporate America and labor unions, and Wall Street and Main Street, this November’s midterm elections will put them on a collision course. But they have always gone hand in hand, their fates inextricably intertwined.

America’s triumphs are real. The United States is still the world’s largest economy. It remains a global engine of innovation. Its stock market is[ booming](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/ai-economy-stock-market/688004/) thanks to artificial intelligence, while its capital markets remain the deepest and most powerful in the world. And despite tariffs, a labor market slowed by restrictive immigration and repeated energy price shocks, its growth—as attested to by its $32.3 trillion GDP, larger than China, India, and Germany combined—appears to defy the odds and[ remains resilient](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy031el03po).

Yet this dynamism is only half the story.[ Affordability](https://time.com/collections/davos-2026/7339214/global-affordability-crisis-cost-of-living-inflation-politics/) has become the defining issue of the moment, and many signs indicate that the midterms in November will be decided on that basis. The Pew Research Center has found that the voters place the economy[ front and center](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/07/23/as-the-2026-midterms-approach-economy-is-front-and-center/) by a wide margin, even as only 24% of Americans describe it as “good” or “excellent.” Gallup, meanwhile, reports that voters identify the cost of living as[ their foremost concern](https://news.gallup.com/poll/708905/affordability-dominates-americans-financial-worries.aspx) in the election.

[GDP](https://time.com/article/2026/08/25/countries-need-to-look-beyond-gdp/), the single statistic that now determines a country’s economic might, traces its roots to the scholarship of the American economist Simon Kuznets during the Great Depression**,** particularly his landmark 1934 report,[ _National Income_](https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2258/c2258.pdf)_, 1929-1932_.But as the Cambridge economist Diane Coyle[ points out](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691169859/gdp?srsltid=AfmBOoruEi5aHTUF0zrY5yXUqbNYpNGzXwhndEyMGderN7etdaqWy%5FJP), Kuznets was, himself, aware of the many flaws and pitfalls of the metric he had developed and warned against confusing economic output with human welfare. 

What even fewer people know is that the “godfather” of GDP was also a pioneer in the study of inequality. The Kuznets curve—his famous prediction that inequality would eventually decline as economies grew richer—is not one history has obliged, but it points to the Janus-headed quality of modern capitalism.

Indeed, it’s been exactly 15 years since the[ Occupy Wall Street](https://time.com/6117696/occupy-wall-street-10-years-later/) protests radiated out of Zuccotti Park in New York’s Financial District. Born in the aftermath of the[ Great Recession of 2008](https://time.com/5401647/america-global-order/), the movement became the most visible public outcry against economic inequality in recent American history and gave the country an enduring rallying cry: “We are the 99%.” 

While the movement dissipated, the issues it raised have not. If anything, the concerns it foregrounded have migrated from[ the political margins to the mainstream](https://time.com/6117696/occupy-wall-street-10-years-later/) in American politics, championed by[ progressive figures](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/21/yotam-moram-occupy-movement) like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani.

The[ World Inequality Report2026](https://wir2026.wid.world/insight/introduction/) finds that the top 0.001% of the globe’s population own “three times more wealth” than the entire bottom half of humanity combined, and within “almost every region, the top 1% alone” hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. Inequality in America is no longer only a question of who has more; increasingly, it is a question of who has enough to make ends meet. According to the[ Brookings Institution](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/states-of-affordability-a-series-on-where-and-why-us-households-struggle-to-make-ends-meet/), 45.5% of American households do not earn enough to cover even basic necessities, with housing, health care, and childcare among the most acute pressures.

The problem is that a single statistic can conceal as much as it reveals. GDP can tell us how the economy is performing without telling us how Americans are faring. It can tell us how much an economy produces, but not who receives the rewards, whether those gains improve people’s lives, or what is destroyed and what is sacrificed in producing them. 

Some of the things on which society most depends—unpaid caregiving, clean air, cohesive communities—barely register in its accounts. Economists classify many of these costs as “externalities”: consequences borne by people and places that fall outside the transaction being measured.

[Climate change](https://time.com/5735520/economic-growth-gdp/) provides perhaps the starkest example of GDP’s glaring blind spots. A natural disaster can destroy homes, lives, and ecosystems without being registered as an equivalent loss in GDP; the money spent to rebuild afterward, meanwhile, counts as additional economic activity.The meter can rise even as human welfare falls. 

But the two metrics—GDP, our shorthand for growth, and the Gini coefficient, our shorthand for inequality—are not rival ways of describing the economy so much as incomplete halves of the same story; the two key consequences of capitalism, joined at the hip. One shows us how large the pie has grown; the other, something about how it has been sliced.

### On growth and inequality

When it comes to growing the pie, the relentless efficiency of global capitalism in allocating resources is hard to match. It has allowed, in the aggregate, societies to eke out more from finite resources than ever before. Its advocates point out that most people live longer and better lives: they are better fed, more securely housed, and better protected against diseases that once routinely killed them. 

Capitalism’s champions can reasonably claim that it has helped lift much of humanity above bare subsistence while proving more compatible with individual freedom than its major rivals. It holds out the promise of a game that everyone has an equal chance to play—and win. Its defenders often invoke the specter of repression and unfreedom associated with state-led communism or socialism as a cautionary tale. 

Capitalism’s unique two-plus-two-equals-five quality—its capacity to produce more than the sum of its parts—may also have helped pave the way for the material foundations of modernity. The shift from sustenance to surplus created, in many ways, the foundations for our moral revolutions, from liberalism and feminism to cosmopolitanism. 

Yet, beyond some vague gestures toward “trickle-down economics,” the discipline’s approach has largely been to focus on growing the pie and argue about slicing it later. Economics has tried to separate the two: markets create wealth; politics distributes it. Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who was an[ early and influential proponent](https://time.com/archive/6860709/messiah-of-the-market/) of free-market economics, warned against the[ “fatal conceit”](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3643985.html) that governments could know enough to design an economic order from above. 

The Kaldor–Hicks principle, a dominant idea in modern economics, offered a technical basis for avoiding the reckoning with distributive questions. An outcome counts as an improvement if the winners gain enough that they _could_ compensate the losers—even if they never do. That “even if” is a significant caveat. 

Kenneth Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, another foundational result in economics, exposes the deeper difficulty: there is no perfect mathematical procedure for turning individual preferences into a coherent collective choice. At some point, as even mainstream economists recognize, economic calculation must give way to political judgment. It follows that morality should trump mathematics.

But what if inequality is baked into the pie itself? Thomas Piketty[ coined the famous formulation](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674430006) for the notion that the odds may be stacked against the ordinary person: r > g, the proposition that the return on capital tends to exceed the rate of economic growth. History suggests that the playing field was never level. 

In[ _Empire of Cotton_](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/10461/empire-of-cotton-by-sven-beckert/) and, now,[ _Capitalism_](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541160/capitalism-by-sven-beckert/)_,_ Sven Beckert excavates the blood-soaked origins of modern capitalism through slavery, colonialism, and state power; Ha-Joon Chang[ shows](https://anthempress.com/books/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb) how rich countries used tariffs and industrial policy before prescribing freer markets to poorer ones. Such empirical evidence reinforces a broader idea: markets do not simply materialize, as the spectral metaphor of the “invisible hand” suggests. Markets are made—by human hands.

If the economy is a game, then the question is not merely who wins and who loses. The question instead is: Who designed the board, who wrote the rules, and whether the game was rigged from the start?Today, capitalism treats Monopoly money as real while human beings are reduced to pieces on a chessboard. 

Perhaps the most important omission from the current economic paradigm concerns the psychology of the sport. Research on “[inequality aversion](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2586885),” the idea that who gets what matters as much as how much there is, suggests that people care deeply about how the pie is sliced, even when a fairer division means settling for a slightly smaller one.

### The economics of the everyman 

Can growth, given enough time, deliver widely shared prosperity, as capitalism’s champions still insist? Or does the way the game is designed predetermine who benefits from growth? Far from disappearing, could excessive inequality gnaw away at the very foundations of economic growth?

GDP’s shortcomings have inspired repeated attempts to devise a better answer. In[ _Mismeasuring Our Lives_](https://thenewpress.org/books/9781595585196/), Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi argued for moving beyond economic production and measuring well-being, distribution, and sustainability. Sen’s[ capabilities approach](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/development-as-freedom-9780198297581?lang=en&cc=no) asks a still more fundamental question: not merely what resources people possess, but what those resources actually enable them to be and to do. 

The late Pakistani economist[ Mahbub ul Haq](https://pide.org.pk/research/mahbub-ul-haq-pakistans-growth-pioneer/)’s[ Human Development Index](https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI), inspired in part by Sen’s work, was an attempt to translate that insight into numbers, treating health, education, and income as measures of human progress.

The point is not to dispense with GDP. Growth matters enormously. It has financed scientific discovery, lengthened lives, reduced material deprivation, and expanded the range of human possibility. But human progress may be better represented by a dashboard of indicators rather than by a single number. More fundamentally, what should be a means to an end has too often become an end in itself. A metric intended to crudely measure the output of the market economy has gradually acquired the authority to tell us whether society itself is succeeding.

America’s 250th anniversary offers an unusually apt moment to question that bargain. The Declaration of Independence did not promise Americans the pursuit of economic growth. It promised something considerably more ambitious: the pursuit of happiness. Two and a half centuries later, perhaps the most important economic question America can ask is also the simplest: Who is the economy for? 

Fittingly, this fall, American voters will have an opportunity to offer their answer. If the elections of the past decade were won in part by rejecting an outdatedeconomic playbook, 2026 may present a more constructive opportunity: not merely to discard the economic playbook, but to redesign and rewrite it with Everyman, the ordinary American, as its protagonist.

**_Adapted with permission from_**[ **_Everyman: The Untold Story of Economics_**](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Everyman/Antara-Haldar/9781982179113) **_by Antara Haldar._**

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltad3ddfdae0771254 Sat, 05 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Antara Haldar\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Why the Falklands Is a Pressure Point For the U.K.—and How Milei, Trump Are Stoking Tensions\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/falkland-islands-britain-argentina-sovereignty-dispute-Milei-threats-trump/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Argentina’s President Javier Milei has stepped up his country’s claim over the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, shortly after Trump said the U.S. position on the matter was under review.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Tomas Cuesta—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Javier Milei, Argentina's President, speaks at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange in Argentina on July 16, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt682635242c2c758e/6a9b246d13f16b45a2ad3228/GettyImages-2285783898.jpg?branch=production)

Javier Milei, Argentina's President, speaks at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange in Argentina on July 16, 2026\. —Tomas Cuesta—Getty Images

Argentina’s [President Javier Milei](https://time.com/6980600/javier-milei-argentina-interview/) has escalated his country’s claim over the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory, warning he will place economic pressure by sanctioning oil companies with operations in the area.

The Falkland Islands are "Argentine, by history and by right, there is no debate about it,” he said in a nationally televised address Thursday evening.

Milei argued the “winds of change blowing around the world” are favorable to Argentina’s long-claimed sovereignty over the South Atlantic archipelago, citing remarks made by his ally, U.S. [President Donald Trump](https://time.com/7280106/trump-interview-100-days-2025/), who recently suggested the U.S. would be reviewing its neutrality on the dispute.

The Argentine President flagged a planned oil project in the area as a cause for concern. Within the next 18 months, two companies—one British and the other Israeli—are set to start extractions from the Sea Lion oilfield, which lies north of the islands and holds an estimated [1.7 billion](https://rockhopperexploration.co.uk/operations/falkland-islands/north-falkland-basin/sea-lion/) barrels of oil. 

Milei described the project as an urgent threat to Argentina’s sovereignty. "If we do not act swiftly, in a few months they will have the material capacity to access the oil that lies underneath our sea—something that has never happened before,” he said.

The Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as “Islas Malvinas,” sit roughly 300 miles from the Argentine coast, and have been a British territory for almost two centuries, but Argentina has [never accepted British sovereignty ](https://time.com/article/2026/04/25/falkland-islands-javier-milei-trump/)over the area.

Vowing to take action, Milei said he plans to send a bill to Congress to strengthen Argentina’s response to what he views as attacks on its sovereignty. 

Responding to the economic threats, the U.K. government reasserted its “[unshakeable](https://x.com/wesstreeting/status/2095757882713055436)” commitment to the archipelago on Friday, with British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting insisting: “Milei’s statement overnight tells us more about domestic politics in Argentina than it does about the Falkland Islands.”

“The U.K. supports the right of the Falkland Islanders to develop their natural resources for their own economic benefit, and this is an integral part of their right to self-determination,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Andy Burnham told TIME. “We continue to have a diplomatic relationship with Argentina, and from our perspective we want to continue to strengthen that.”

Here’s what to know about the contentious history of the Falkland Islands and why Milei and Trump’s remarks have sparked concern amid mounting geopolitical tensions. 

### Do the Falklands belong to Britain or Argentina?

The Falklands' defense and foreign policy is handled by the U.K., but otherwise it has an internal [government](https://www.gov.fk/about/) of its own. The territory has its own [constitution](https://assembly.gov.fk/the-constitution/about) and as of [1983](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/6/section/1/enacted), residents of the islands have been British citizens. 

In a [2013 referendum, ](https://www.fiassociation.com/news/press-release-result-of-referendum-remains-clear-10-years-on/)Falkland residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of remaining under British rule. The referendum saw 92% of all eligible voters turn out, with 99.8% of votes being “yes.”

“The Falklands are British because Falkland Islanders choose to be British,” Streeting said Friday, pointing to the will of the voters.

The first [recorded](https://www.falklands.gov.fk/our-history) landing on the island was made in 1690 by English naval captain John Strong. Britain took possession of West Falkland in 1765\. France and Spain each had settlements on the islands at different times, but Britain re-established control in 1833 and has since administered the islands. 

“Argentina claims the U.K. took the islands as an act of imperialism in the 1830s, but the remedy to colonial acquisition would be self-determination,” says [Marc Weller](https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/marc-weller), programme director of the international law programme at U.K.-based think tank Chatham House.

Given the British government’s insistence on Falklanders deciding their future, “it is therefore acting in accordance with the principle of self-determination,” he tells TIME.

Under the rule of military dictator [Leopoldo Galtieri](https://time.com/archive/6883719/argentine-president-leopoldo-fortunate-galtieri-man-of-action/), Argentine forces attempted to stake a territorial claim in April 1982, sparking a 74-day war that Britain won.

Argentina has since continued to claim sovereignty over the islands and the rhetoric has become a unifying issue in the country, experts tell TIME.

The issue recently reared its head during Argentina’s victory over England in the semi-finals of the [2026 FIFA World Cup](https://time.com/article/2026/05/27/fifa-world-cup-2026-complete-guide/), with some Argentine players holding up [a banner](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c75gnkl30vlo) reading "Las Malvinas son Argentinas,” which translates to "The Falklands are Argentine.”

“The Argentinian nation is easily united behind this claim through the Falkland Islands. It's a rallying point, and it's perhaps no accident that as the present Argentinean government is in a little bit of trouble, that they have rediscovered the issue,” says Weller, pointing towards Milei’s controversial [fiscal policies](https://time.com/6980600/javier-milei-argentina-interview/) and [falling popularity](https://thedialogue.org/analysis/why-are-mileis-approval-ratings-falling-in-argentina) among the public. 

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f2d058e3ec38f4d/6a9ae74822b3da357675f624/argentina-falklands-banner-sep4.jpg?branch=production)

Argentina's soccer players celebrate a World Cup victory over England with a banner reading "The Falklands are Argentine" on July 15, 2026\. —Sebastian Frej—Getty Images

### Milei steps up claim over British territory with sanctions threat

Milei has previously [ruled out](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce43zv3qln9o) using force to claim the islands, instead pushing for a diplomatic resolution. Still, his newly-announced plans to impose sanctions against oil companies with operations in the area pose an economic threat. 

The two petroleum firms heading the Sea Lion oil drilling project have already felt the impact of Milei’s proposed sanctions.

British company Rockhopper Exploration’s [stock](https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/RKH/rockhopper-exploration-plc/company-page) value fell by around 10% on Friday morning, with Israeli firm Navitas Petroleum [stock](https://uk.investing.com/equities/navitas-petroleum-unit) value falling by at least 4.5%.

“It's an attempt to add some uncertainty, perhaps to inhibit investment,” suggests Weller, adding he’s doubtful any such threats will impact Downing Street’s position on the sovereignty dispute.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80468ba882301266/6a9ae69222b3da1b1a75f60c/milei-trump-falklands-sep4.jpg?branch=production)

Argentine President Javier Milei alongside U.S. President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2026\. —Fabrice Coffrini—Getty Images

### Trump says U.S. position on Falklands is under review

The dispute over sovereignty remains a tense geopolitical issue. China, for example, has been [vocal](https://apnews.com/article/europe-china-asia-beijing-xi-jinping-df1ca5eebfd3b988813f22bba0b3a7f0) in its support of Argentina’s claim, encouraging negotiations to take place on the matter.

The U.S., meanwhile, has historically [recognized the U.K.’s “administration of the islands,”](https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/01/182294.htm) but has maintained a neutral position regarding sovereignty.

However, Trump has indicated that the U.S. may be open to reversing that position.

The Falklands sovereignty became a talking point in April as the U.S. and Europe drifted on account of Trump lambasting European leaders for refusing to get actively involved in the Iran war.

A [leaked Pentagon email](https://time.com/article/2026/04/24/united-states-spain-nato-suspension-efforts-pentagon-email/), which reportedly suggested various ways the Administration could punish NATO allies it believes let the U.S. down, suggested a review of the U.S. position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands, according to [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/pentagon-email-floats-suspending-spain-nato-other-steps-over-iran-rift-source-2026-04-24/).

Earlier this week, when asked if the U.S. position on the islands was under review, Trump [told](https://x.com/MrHarryCole/status/2094530521451606260) reporters in the Oval Office: “I always review every position. That's just one of many."

In an interview with a British broadcast channel that aired on Thursday, Trump did not directly respond when asked if the U.S. would come to the U.K’s aid if Argentina claimed the Falklands.

Trump instead pivoted to discuss the Iran war, repeating his claims that the U.K. let him down. “Your country was not there to help me,” he [insisted.](https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/2095589823297753497)  

When approached by TIME, a spokesperson for Burnham said such comments “are a matter for the U.S. President.”

TIMEhas reached out to the White House for comment.

Andrew Gawthorpe, a lecturer at Leiden University and an expert in the foreign policy of the U.S., tells TIME a Washington reversal on the issue “would be an enormous defeat for the U.K. diplomatically and a huge blow” to the special U.K.-U.S. relationship.

Weller agrees, adding that if any U.S. policy were to go against the territorial integrity of the U.K., then “Britain would have to respond quite strongly.”

Trump’s remarks on the Falklands this week could prove difficult for Burnham, who [inherited a splintered Washington-London relationship](https://time.com/7382464/trump-starmer-conflict-uk-us-relationship-iran-war/) upon [replacing Keir Starmer as Prime Minister](https://time.com/article/2026/06/22/uk-prime-minister-keir-starmer-resignation-reports-burnham-leadership-potential/) in July.

“On the one hand, Burnham needs to appear like a strong leader,” says Gawthorpe. “But on the other hand, I think he's very aware that he needs to not annoy Trump any more than is strictly necessary.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltf32c17dfb78da580 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 20:13:05 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Callum Sutherland\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Who Is Adam Telle, Trump’s New Acting Army Secretary?\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/adam-telle-acting-army-secretary-trump-driscoll-resignation/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Telle will step into his new role in the Army at a time of turmoil both abroad and within the Department of Defense.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Kent Nishimura—Bloomberg/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army nominee for President Donald Trump, during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on May 13, 2025.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt09ed883e4565515c/6a9afeeba44fab5a7dab7010/Telle-Army.jpg?branch=production)

Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army nominee for President Donald Trump, during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on May 13, 2025\. —Kent Nishimura—Bloomberg/Getty Images

President [Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/) announced on Thursday that Adam Telle, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, will temporarily replace Dan Driscoll as the Army’s top civilian leader following Driscoll’s [abrupt resignation](https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/sean-parnell-chief-pentagon-spokesperson-driscoll-army-secretary-replacement-contender/) from the role earlier this week.

Trump lauded Telle as "a Great Patriot, who is respected by all” in a [Truth Social post](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117209499032712444), saying Telle would take over as acting Army Secretary “effective immediately.”

The news comes after Driscoll, who Trump nominated as Army Secretary last year after returning to the White House, stepped down amid [reports of tension](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/31/politics/army-secretary-dan-driscoll-resigns) between him and Defense Secretary [Pete Hegseth](https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/trump-response-hegseth-run-for-president-2028-top-contenders/).

Hegseth praised Trump’s announcement on Thursday, calling Telle “strong and whip smart.”

“Huge congrats to Adam,” Hegseth said in a [post on X](https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/2095648650034593910). “He is indeed a great Patriot — and will be an immediate asset to the @USArmy.”

Here’s what to know about Telle.

## Telle has overseen the Army Corps of Engineers since last year

Telle was sworn into his current role as the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works last August, becoming the second person nominated by the President to an Army position in Trump's second term to be confirmed by the Senate, according to Telle's [biography](https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2025/08/29/0fa3fc32/final-asa-cw-hon-adam-r-telle-bio-as-of-28aug25.pdf) on the U.S. military’s website.

In that position, Telle has served as a civilian official in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, an agency that builds and maintains infrastructure, including dams. According to his bio, he has had “principal authority to establish policy direction and to provide supervision of all aspects” of the civil works tasks that the agency performs for the Army, including projects aimed at reducing flood and storm damage.

## Telle previously worked under multiple Republican senators

Before being appointed to his current role in the Trump Administration, Telle served as the chief of staff to Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee from 2021-2025, according to [Legistorm](https://www.legistorm.com/person/bio/6769/Adam%5FR%5FTelle.html). He previously worked under another Republican, then-Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, for about a decade from 2007-2017, and held various roles in the office, including deputy chief of staff and legislative director, according to Legistorm. While serving in Cochran’s office, he helped with the lawmaker’s work on Hurricane Katrina recovery, according to his Army bio.

Telle also served on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee that was responsible for overseeing the Department of Homeland Security’s budget, according to his bio.

## Telle served in the first Trump Administration

During Trump’s first term in the Oval Office, Telle served on the White House Office of Legislative Affairs’ Senate team and “was President Trump’s chief liaison to the Senate,” according to his Army bio.

## Telle will take over as acting Army Secretary at a tumultuous time

Telle will step into his new role in the Army at a time of turmoil both abroad and within the Department of Defense. 

The war in Iran, which [began](https://time.com/7346357/iran-strikes-news-us-trump-protests/) on Feb. 28, has now [stretched on for longer than six months](https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/vance-iran-war-press-briefing/) and has [sparked backlash](https://time.com/article/2026/03/26/us-iran-war-poll-americans-public-opinion-approve-democrats-republicans/) from many Americans.

And Telle will also be taking on the new position amid upheaval within the U.S. military’s senior ranks. About 20 military and civilian leaders have been [ousted or have resigned](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/military-leaders-fired-forced-out-resigned-hegseth-defense-secretary-trump-pentagon/) since Hegseth took over the Department of Defense, including Driscoll earlier this week. Even some Republicans have criticized Hegseth for the chaos at the agency, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has [called on Trump](https://time.com/article/2026/09/02/trump-hegseth-tillis-driscoll-resignation-pentagon/) to replace the Defense Secretary.

“\[Hegseth\] is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks,” Tillis said in a [social media post](https://x.com/SenThomTillis/status/2095175195648512020) this week. “I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltfa3f067e67b67aa5 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:44:05 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Rooney and Kate Mara Are Brilliant in Werner Herzog's Fractured Fairytale Bucking Fastard\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/bucking-fastard-review-werner-herzog/<!\[CDATA\[Entertainment\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The real-life sisters play scorned sisters, inspired by a real-life duo from York, in a meandering story that's pure, sweet, gaga Herzog.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Courtesy of Gateway to Orkney LLC\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Rooney Mara and Kate Mara as Joan and Jean Holbrooke\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2eb29e752f7d2960/6a9ae4683b8dfc776dd05dbe/114367-BUCKING_FASTARD_-_Rooney_Mara_and_Kate_Mara_Credits_Gateway_to_Orkney_LLC_2_.JPG?branch=production)

Rooney Mara and Kate Mara as Joan and Jean Holbrooke —Courtesy of Gateway to Orkney LLC

Almost nothing in [Werner Herzog’s](https://time.com/5212236/werner-herzog-film-director-movies/) fractured fairytale _Bucking Fastards,_ playing in competition here at the Venice Film Festival, makes literal sense. But it all makes a kind of sideways sense, especially if, before watching, you can will yourself into a Herzogian brainspace, a place where possibly nonexistent elephants roam the Earth, where [ancient cave drawings bear witness](https://time.com/archive/6911548/cave-of-forgotten-dreams-werner-herzogs-3-d-trip/) to the enduring creativity and wonder of humankind, where mad dreamers insist it’s possible to haul a multi-ton ship over a mountain. In that context, two inseparable sisters who speak only in unison, who are crazily lovesick over the man who has spurned them, and who believe they can dig a literal tunnel into a land of freedom, acceptance, and love: in a world where our deepest desires are so seldom met, how nuts does that really sound? 

Real-life sisters [Rooney Mara](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atime.com+rooney+mara&sca%5Fesv=8366ebc584332cb8&rlz=1C5GCCM%5Fen&sxsrf=APpeQnvwghYpBZoaX6XJwXyLoYa3DNu4UQ%3A1788535669165&ei=deOaatnPCeaGptQPrJbV8Qs&biw=1353&bih=788&ved=2ahUKEwiZ3unJntWWAxVmg4kEHSxLNb4Q4dUDegQIBhAM&uact=5&oq=site%3Atime.com+rooney+mara&gs%5Flp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiGXNpdGU6dGltZS5jb20gcm9vbmV5IG1hcmFIjAtQ5QJYtgpwAngAkAEAmAE5oAGwBKoBAjExuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIAoAIAmAMAiAYBkgcAoAeEAbIHALgHAMIHAMgHAIAIAQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#:~:text=role%20was%20playing%C2%A0...-,Great%20Performance%3A%20Rooney%20Mara,https%3A//time.com%20%E2%80%BA%20World%20%E2%80%BA%20LightBox,-Feb%209%2C%202012) and [Kate Mara](https://time.com/5907497/a-teacher-review-fx-hulu/) play Joan and Jean Holbrooke, sisters living in Ireland—they are _not,_ they adamantly insist, twins—who share every emotion, every thought, every waking moment as if they were a single entity. They dress exactly alike, in droopy trenchcoats and modest granny-style skirts; they both wear their long, silky hair parted neatly in the middle and tied partially back, like identical waterfalls. They don’t finish each other’s sentences; instead, they form their thoughts and words in unison and speak as one. It’s an eerie effect the first time you hear it. Even more unsettling, it comes to sound completely normal as the movie wears on.

Joan and Jean have fallen for a single man, their handsome rapscallion neighbor Gareth Mulroney (a saucy, salacious Orlando Bloom). It’s love at first sight—or is that sights?—when he bursts into their local church, a tankard of beer in hand, stirring up nothing but trouble. Afterward, they breathlessly wait for him to emerge through the church doors. Their eyes gleaming like double constellations, they proposition him: “I’d love to show you my inner cowgirl!” they tell him, the words tumbling out more like a song than a sentence. He’s charmed, intrigued; he’s horny. The trio land in bed, with Gareth in the middle flanked by his semi-nude cutie cowgirls, who ooh and ahh over him adoringly. They’re Goldilocks and he’s their just-right. This is how a sex scene, as imagined by Herzog, plays out.

But their bliss is short-lived. That meet-cute and its aftermath are relayed in flashback as the sisters huddle together in a courtroom, essentially defending themselves against charges of stalking. Gareth, after dallying with Joan and Jean for a time, has thrown them over and taken a wife. They can’t believe it—in their futile rage, they set the interior of his car on fire. (Their procurement of the gasoline they use to do so is a cracked mini-adventure by itself.) They also set the postbox outside his house aflame. Before the bewigged judge, Gareth’s lawyer tries to argue that the relationship was purely sexual. Joan and Jean justify their actions plaintively. “It was love!” they cry in unison, and later, “I am never going to stop loving him!”

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt636fd527f2cd5ec3/6a9ae4b6da48d58ee1096c32/114369-BUCKING_FASTARD_-_Rooney_Mara_and_Kate_Mara_Credits_1_.jpg?branch=production)

Joan and Jean, forever in sync —Courtesy of Courtesy of Gateway to Orkney LLC

But there’s no hope. Their linked hearts are broken, and the court case has brought them both fame and embarrassment. A kind villager (John Kavanagh) takes pity on them, knowing that the best thing for them is to get away. He offers them the use of a flat he doesn’t need, located in another town. He urges them not to open the door to strangers, people who want only to take advantage of them. From there, _Bucking Fastard_ becomes a set of wriggly vignettes more than a linear story. There’s a sleazy neighbor (Malcolm Adams) who attempts to take, and post on the Internet, pictures of them undressing. (They put their heads together and cook up a giggly-devious plan to outwit him.) A kind social worker, played by Domhnall Gleeson, tries to show them how to collaborate in the task of opening a tin of sardines. But soon even their cozy flat comes to feel like a prison: they strike out on an adventure, going to live with an aunt who loves them (Marion O’Dwyer) and who encourages them to explore a mysterious cave near her country property, one whose twists and turns ignite their two-for-one imaginations. A fox named Cupid, with a perpetually alarmed-looking face, becomes their mascot. Through it all, they continue to mourn their lost love. But perhaps they can find a new one?

What does any of this mean? Though the story was inspired by real-life twins from York, England, Freda and Greta Chaplin—who spoke in unison and, like Jean and Joan, did everything together—the meandering storyline is pure, sweet, gaga Herzog. The picture’s most radiant sequences take place in the girls' beloved cave, where they toil for years to dig their way, admittedly nonsensically, to a better life. Herzog and his frequent cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger film the two of them, within a halo of light as they dutifully chip through a rocky passageway—their twin images are as luminous as a delicately carved shell cameo.

The Mara sisters are brilliant here, their eyes as hungry and haunted as those of an orphan in a Keane painting. You laugh with them, not at them, when they take revenge on that peeping tom. But there’s also something deeply touching about their refusal to give up on love. There’s a metaphorical idea shimmering beneath the surface of _Bucking Fastard:_ it’s as if, through this strange and somewhat simple story, Herzog were trying to explore the things women want but don’t dare demand. Here, those longings are voiced in stereo. And yes, men can sometimes drive you crazy. What can you do?

The ending of _Bucking Fastard_ might be considered a flaw; it’s hard to know exactly what has happened, or what it means. But then, an ambiguous ending is one we’re free to write ourselves. How can you not want the best for these dreamy, heartbroken girls, who at one point race through their cave in matching gauzy white gowns, like freedom-loving butterflies? You’ll want to believe that their hearts have at last found a home—a cave not of forgotten dreams, but of remembered ones, made sweeter with every recounting.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt0696481411adfdc7 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:34:01 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Stephanie Zacharek\]\]><!\[CDATA\[U.S. Investigates Deadly Strike on Wedding in Iran, Vance Says\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/did-the-u-s-strike-an-iranian-wedding-/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The U.S. said it’s investigating whether its forces were involved in an attack that killed civilians.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Morteza Akhondi—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[An aerial view of funeral and burial ceremonies for victims of an alleged U.S. strike on a wedding party in Kuhestak, southern Iran, on Sept. 3, 2026\. Iranian officials said four people, including a child, were killed and 68 injured in the strike.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta6806a9c18f00c91/6a9adf8a739f670e2fa4dcdb/GettyImages-2293378169.jpg?branch=production)

An aerial view of funeral and burial ceremonies for victims of an alleged U.S. strike on a wedding party in Kuhestak, southern Iran, on Sept. 3, 2026\. Iranian officials said four people, including a child, were killed and 68 injured in the strike. —Morteza Akhondi—Getty Images

The U.S. is investigating a strike on a wedding in [southern Iran](https://time.com/article/2026/09/02/us-iran-deadly-strikes-attacks-civilians-sirik-strait-hormuz/), [Vice President J.D. Vance](https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/vance-iran-war-press-briefing/) said Thursday, as reports suggest American weapons killed at least five people and injured dozens of others.

“We’re investigating it because obviously we care,” Vance told reporters. “We want to know.”

The strike represents the U.S.’s latest controversial action in [its war with Iran](https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/irans-president-willing-to-resume-peace-talks-what-stands-in-the-way-/), raising questions about its conduct and civilian harm. Washington and Tehran have [escalated their attacks this week](https://time.com/article/2026/08/31/us-iran-strikes-larak-island/), ending a lull in hostilities since July.

But Vance said he was “extremely skeptical” about reports coming from Iranian state media, arguing they have “not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far.”

Iranian state media reported that a residential building in Kuhestak was attacked on Tuesday evening, where a wedding was being celebrated. Among the casualties was a 4-year-old kid. Reuters and the _New York Times_ independently verified footage from the scene and found that a wedding was taking place when the building was struck.

Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs [said](https://en.mfa.gov.ir/portal/newsview/793634/Iran-Foreign-Ministry-Spokesman-US-strike-on-wedding-in-Sirik-war-crime) that it “will respond to these savage crimes with firmness”—and responded to a broader barrage of American attacks by launching missiles and drones at sites used by the U.S. in Middle East states. The Iranian Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group, also [urged a probe from the International Criminal Court ](https://x.com/Iranian%5FRCS/status/2095060929725522170/photo/1)to assess potential violations of international law.

The U.S. Central Command said Wednesday it was already looking into reports of the incident but argued that the “U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the \[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\],” referring to Iran’s armed forces branch.

Vance also defended U.S. military action, telling reporters: “If we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran: when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them.”

## What we know about the strike

On the evening of Sept. 1, CENTCOM [reported](https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2094916573920199143) strikes on military targets, including “air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities, and communications sites.”

Iranian media [later reported](https://www.isna.ir/news/1405061107694/) four deaths and at least 68 injured in Kuhestak, a coastal town on the Strait of Hormuz, where trade has been bottlenecked since the start of the U.S.-Iran war in late February. The strikes happened at around 9:30 p.m. local time, per the Red Crescent.

Analyses of footage from the incident conducted by [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/investigations/deadly-strike-iranian-wedding-was-likely-direct-hit-by-us-munition-analysis-2026-09-03/) and the [New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/video/iran-us-attack-wedding.html)reveal that wedding guests were gathered in a Kuhestak building. Amid the celebration, what was likely a U.S. munition hit the building and, as the _Times_ put it, “brought down the roof.” 

Experts told Reuters and the _Times_ that weapon fragments seen in Iranian media were consistent with what Americans have used.

The attacks on Kuhestak also hit a communications tower roughly 100 m away from the building. A human rights group [told the Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-war-strike-wedding-casualties-0b8dbb60863eb28e3dde59ff59e88735) that one of the four people initially reported killed—a 16-year-old—was struck by shrapnel near the tower rather than at the wedding. Iranian state television said Thursday that a 22-year-old woman had since died in hospital following the strike, bringing the reported death toll to five.

Axios [reported](https://www.axios.com/2026/09/04/iran-wedding-strike-us-military-investigation) that CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper ordered an internal review of the strike. 

## Civilian casualties raise concern

The Red Crescent sent a letter to the International Criminal Court Wednesday calling for “an independent, impartial, thorough, and effective investigation,” citing the “civilian character” of the strike’s location.

The organization also argued that under the Rome Statute, intentionally directing attacks on civilians and knowingly launching a clearly excessive attack may constitute “war crimes.” However, both Iran and the U.S. are nonparties to the Rome Statute, so the ICC does not have automatic jurisdiction over them.

Still, “the laws of war state that civilians are protected from military attacks,” Melanie O’Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, tells TIME. “A wedding is not a military objective, particularly in a civilian residential building. It is clear that there was a direct missile hit to the home. This would render the attack unlawful.”

It’s also not the U.S.’s first involvement in strikes that hit civilian structures without obvious military use and that endangered or killed civilians. On the first day of the war with Iran on Feb. 28, a U.S. Tomahawk missile hit a primary school in Minab—just 30 km (18 mi) away from Kuhestak—where more than [100 children were killed](https://time.com/7381982/iran-girls-school-killed/).

O’Brien, however, says she is skeptical about any result from the U.S.-led investigation of the wedding strike: “The U.S. track record is to only investigate when allegations gain significant public traction, and even when any convictions occur, the penalties are minor or pardons are given.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltdec9d08b1c7aee15 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 15:26:32 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chad de Guzman\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How to Support Someone With Postpartum Depression\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/how-to-support-someone-postpartum-depression/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What to say, how to lighten the load, and when to seek emergency help.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[J\_art—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf291d204687ce919/6a99c61422b3da1f0e75ef15/GettyImages-1345215882.jpg?branch=production)

 —J\_art—Getty Images

When Iza Thiago-Munoz brought her [first baby](https://time.com/6967372/postpartum-care-america-essay/) home, she instituted a rule: She was the only person allowed to carry the baby upstairs. At the time, she lived in a narrow Philadelphia rowhouse with a steep staircase. If anyone else—including her husband—wanted to take the baby up, they had to buckle the infant into a car seat first.

Her husband occasionally tried to reason with her. He could hold the baby tightly, he pointed out. “But what if you fall down the stairs?” she would reply.

She didn’t know it at the time, but Thiago-Munoz was struggling with [postpartum depression](https://time.com/3932136/postpartum-depression-screenings/) and anxiety, which amplified her lifelong tendency to imagine the worst-case scenario. She also felt enormous pressure to be a perfect mother. “I thought I had to do everything,” she says. Otherwise, she worried, “people would just think that I wasn’t good enough.” Asking for help felt like admitting that they were right.

Thiago-Munoz is now a lactation consultant, postpartum doula, and founder of [Clementina Health](https://clementinahealth.com/), a postpartum and lactation telehealth company. Her work is informed by what she experienced after giving birth—and by what she wishes the people around her had understood. “I just didn’t feel joy in anything,” she says. “I felt like I was supposed to be happy because, wow, this major thing just happened. And I was happy, but I wasn’t joyful.”

Supporting someone with postpartum depression starts with knowing how it can show up, even when it doesn’t match the image you have in your head. 

## **Know the difference between “baby blues” and postpartum depression**

Both the “baby blues” and postpartum depression can cause sadness, tearfulness, irritability, and feeling overwhelmed after giving birth, says Dr. Kelli Burroughs, an ob-gyn and vice chair of clinical affairs and patient experience at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. But the baby blues are generally mild, begin within the first week after delivery, and improve within about two weeks. Postpartum depression lasts longer and interferes more significantly with daily life.

Signs can include a persistently depressed mood; losing interest in things that usually bring joy; withdrawing from other people; difficulty eating, concentrating, or sleeping even when the baby is asleep; extreme fatigue; and feeling disconnected from the baby. Postpartum depression can also begin months after giving birth—not only during those first blurry weeks at home.

It doesn’t always look the way people expect, either. Sometimes, the moms who are suffering the most appear to have everything under control, says Jayme Scarfo, a licensed professional counselor in Surprise, Ariz., who specializes in working with pregnant and postpartum women. They’re showering, cooking, going to the gym, and insisting: “It’s hard, but don’t worry. I’ve got it.”

You don’t need to decide whether someone meets the diagnostic criteria before checking in. Describe what you’ve noticed without labeling her, Scarfo suggests: “I know this is a huge adjustment, and you haven’t seemed like yourself lately. How are you really doing?” Or: “You seem much more anxious than usual, and I’m worried about you. Can we talk about it?”

Consider who should initiate that conversation, too. “The best person to ask those hard questions is often going to be whoever she feels the least pressure to perform for,” Scarfo says. That might be a sister, best friend, therapist, or fellow mom—not necessarily her partner or mother. 

Burroughs also likes asking questions that are harder to brush off with a reflexive “I’m fine.” For example: “Are you having more good days or bad days?” It’s also helpful to ask when she last slept for more than two hours or ate a real meal sitting down. Those answers can help you understand where she’s struggling—and how you might lighten the load.

## **Don’t argue with how she feels**

When someone declares they’re a “terrible mother,” your instinct might be to disagree. _Of course you’re not! You’re doing an amazing job._ But depression and anxiety symptoms can start to feel like part of someone’s identity, says Emma Basch, a clinical psychologist in Washington who specializes in perinatal mental health. Trying to prove her wrong might leave her feeling even more misunderstood.

Instead of correcting her, acknowledge how much she’s hurting: “It must be so painful to feel that way. I’m here for you.” Burroughs likes: “I’m glad you told me. I’m glad you feel comfortable confiding in me.” That signals that you can handle the truth, and that your friend doesn’t need to resume pretending everything is fine. 

Skip the sunny reassurances, like “Enjoy every moment,” “They’re only this little once,” and especially “You just had a baby—you should be happy.” Those comments suggest she can simply choose her way out of what she’s experiencing. “Postpartum depression is a true medical condition,” Burroughs says. “This is not a sign of weakness. This is out of the control of the new mom.” 

## **Listen without panicking**

Loved ones should try to remain calm if a new mom shares an intrusive thought, Scarfo says. A frightening flash like “What if I drop the baby?” isn’t the same as wanting it to happen. An alarmed reaction—or immediately suggesting an intervention like hospitalization—could make her less likely to confide in you again.

Acknowledge that the thought sounds scary, and gently ask more: “How often are you having these thoughts?” “Do you feel like you might act on them?” “Do you feel safe right now?” “Who can we call together?”

You don’t need to act like the thought is no big deal; it clearly feels like a very big deal to her. The goal is to become a safe place for her to say the things that aren’t picture-perfect, Scarfo says—and then help her figure out what she needs next.

## **Know when it’s an emergency**

Talking about suicide or harming the baby does require immediate intervention, Basch says. The same is true of signs of [postpartum psychosis](https://time.com/article/2026/07/21/postpartum-psychosis-is-rising-we-are-not-ready-/), which can include hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, confusion, or a decreased need for sleep accompanied by a surge of energy. “It’s not a layperson’s job to diagnose,” she says, “but it’s a layperson’s job to take action.” 

Anyone experiencing a mental-health crisis can call or text[ 988](https://988lifeline.org/). The[ National Maternal Mental Health Hotline](https://mchb.hrsa.gov/programs-impact/national-maternal-mental-health-hotline), available at 1-833-TLC-MAMA, also provides free, confidential support 24/7 to pregnant and postpartum women and their families.

## **Make a concrete offer**

“Let me know if you need anything” might sound kind. But it puts the burden back on the person who’s already overwhelmed. She hears “ball’s in your court,” Scarfo says, and “a depressed mom is not picking up the ball. She has 17 other things to do.” 

Instead, tell your loved one exactly what you’d like to do, Basch advises. “I’m dropping off dinner tonight—does 6 p.m. work?” is much easier to answer than “Can I bring you something sometime?” She can still say no or suggest another time, but she doesn’t have to identify a need, invent a solution, and delegate it to you.

Be careful not to turn helping into unwanted visits. Scarfo and her sister-in-law used to leave meals on each other’s porches and say: “I’m dropping off dinner at 6\. I’m going to leave it on the porch, and I’ll text you when it’s there.” There was no expectation that the recipient would invite anyone inside or make conversation. “It doesn’t put that burden of gratitude on the new mom,” Scarfo says—“that burden of performing or hosting.” 

## **Take the legwork out of getting help**

Professional treatment might include therapy, medication, or both. Yet finding a provider, staying on top of insurance, making calls, and arranging child care can feel impossible when someone is already overwhelmed.

Basch has seen loved ones do that legwork themselves and say: “I found a few therapists who specialize in postpartum mental health. I’d be happy to help you connect with one.” You might offer to make the call, accompany your loved one to an appointment, or watch the baby while she goes.

If your partner keeps insisting that she’s fine but you remain concerned, Burroughs suggests contacting her ob-gyn, midwife, or other maternal-care provider yourself. Be specific about what you’ve observed: persistent sadness, repeated crying, withdrawal, difficulty bonding with the baby, or struggling to complete essential tasks. You might say: “I’m concerned about my partner’s emotional recovery after giving birth. These are the changes I’ve noticed at home.”

The provider can then reach out to the patient without necessarily revealing who called, Burroughs says. They’ll usually open by saying: “I’m just calling to check on you. I want to see how your recovery is going.” Then, they’ll ask how the new mom feels emotionally on a scale of 1 to 10, whether she’s bonding with the baby, how often she feels sad, and whether she’s having more good days or bad ones. Those specific questions can make it harder for serious symptoms to disappear behind “I’m fine.”

## **Keep showing up**

Support tends to pour in immediately after a baby is born, when everyone wants to deliver a casserole and tickle the newborn’s toes. Then people return to their own lives, even though the need for support often outlasts that initial flurry of attention. 

Continue checking in without demanding a response: “Thinking of you today. No need to text back.” Keep offering specific help, even if your loved one turns you down the first time. Scarfo suggests making it clear that you’ll come over whether she wants to run an errand alone or lie down on the couch while somebody else handles the chaos around her.

Thiago-Munoz still remembers the neighbor who noticed that she had stopped taking her dog on his usual 9 a.m. walk. If Thiago-Munoz hadn’t appeared by 9:15, her neighbor came over and walked him herself. “I honestly never would have asked her to take the dog for a walk,” she says. “I didn’t have the capacity to look for someone to do it. She knew my routine.” 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt764bf455991f7132 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 14:41:55 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Angela Haupt\]\]><!\[CDATA\[AI Will Transform Work, But It Can't Replace Relationships\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/ai-will-transform-work-but-it-can-t-replace-relationships/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[“AI can't demonstrate genuine empathy, navigate difficult conversations, inspire confidence, or build lasting relationships,” writes Tom Flanagan.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Monty Rakusen—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbabf49748c164ffe/6a9acb8622b3daa29e75f53d/AI-relationships.jpg?branch=production)

 —Monty Rakusen—Getty Images

AI is everywhere. It's [reshaping](https://time.com/7322933/ai-changing-white-collar-work/) industries, [accelerating](https://time.com/7282334/the-quantum-era-has-begun/) innovation, and [changing](https://time.com/article/2026/05/30/replace-reshape-how-ai-could-change-the-way-we-work/) how millions of people work. 

And while AI will transform work, it is crystal clear to me that AI can not replace relationships. Working in real estate has taught me this firsthand. 

Great real estate agents are more than just salespeople. Real estate agents help people as they build, and often rebuild, their lives. They act as crisis managers, trusted confidants during divorce, empty-nester therapists, grief counselors, life coaches, matchmakers, and above all, trusted advisors who guide clients through some of life's biggest transitions. 

This is not to say that the real estate sector is beyond disruption. In fact, it is a particularly turbulent industry. And yet, the role of real estate agents has survived global pandemics, market ups and downs, shifting mortgage rates, and every other major industry disruption. AI will be no different for real estate agents, or other relationship-based professions. 

## Transforming work 

To be sure, AI is reshaping how we all work. And many workers are understandably anxious. 

Relentless [reports](https://time.com/7312205/ai-jobs-stanford/) [predicting job loss](https://time.com/article/2026/05/30/replace-reshape-how-ai-could-change-the-way-we-work/) and [economic disruption](https://time.com/7289692/when-ai-replaces-workers/) have perhaps unsurprisingly deepened public skepticism about AI, particularly among [young adults](https://time.com/article/2026/06/22/why-young-people-are-sounding-the-alarm-on-ai/) and recent college graduates. Numerous commencement speakers who [touted AI](https://time.com/article/2026/06/10/the-fight-over-ai-is-really-a-fight-over-who-governs/) this graduation season were booed, including both Google’s [former](https://time.com/7339638/eric-schmidt-ai/) and [current](https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-stanford-students-booing-sundar-pichai/) CEOs.Communities across the country are [pushing back](https://time.com/7371825/trump-data-center-ai-backlash-ai-america-china/) against the rapid expansion of AI data centers, raising legitimate concerns about rising energy demands, water consumption, and the environmental impact these massive facilities can have on the places they call home. Even [Pope Leo XIV](https://time.com/article/2026/05/25/pope-leo-encyclical-ai-magnifica-humanitas/) weighed in on the rise of AI, publishing his first encyclical letter, _Magnifica Humanitas_, which thoughtfully evaluates the future of humanity in the age of AI. All of these concerns have exacerbated the AI trust gap.

However, once a transformative technology is unleashed on society, there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. When Netflix sunsetted DVDs and made it possible for people to stream movies from the comfort of their homes, people stopped going to Blockbuster. When Spotify put a million songs in our pockets, people stopped buying CDs. 

AI is also a service that can make people’s lives easier. For example, it's really good at writing code. In my own industry, AI has dramatically lowered the barrier to innovation by empowering real estate professionals to build software and workflows tailored to their unique business needs—something expensive, off-the-shelf software often fails to deliver. 

Before AI, if a real estate professional had an idea for a new tool or workflow, they typically needed to hire a software developer, secure funding, and wait months—sometimes even years—for a finished product. Today, that equation has changed. With AI and vibe coding, they can turn an idea into a working prototype in a matter of hours with a fraction of the financial investment once required. I have a colleague who owns a real estate brokerage that now builds all of its technology in-house. Using Claude, he has created dynamic market reports, interactive sales dashboards, and even a custom Gmail widget that allows his agents to access and update the company's CRM without ever leaving their inbox. There's no need to log into another application or juggle multiple browser tabs. 

This kind of change isn't unique to real estate. It’s happening in education, finance, manufacturing, and virtually every other industry. No matter your profession, you may spend tremendous amounts of time on administrative work: writing spreadsheet formulas, analyzing documents, sending email, producing marketing content, organizing information, preparing presentations, and tackling repetitive tasks that add little strategic value.

## What AI can’t replace

But whether you're an attorney, consultant, plumber, financial advisor, or sales executive, your greatest value doesn’t come from routine administrative work. It comes from solving problems and building relationships.

Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can analyze contracts, create reports, summarize research, review documents, and automate a plethora of other tedious tasks. They allow professionals to spend less time on administration and more time serving their clients and building meaningful relationships. But AI isn't replacing the qualities that matter most. 

AI can't demonstrate genuine empathy, navigate difficult conversations, inspire confidence, or build lasting relationships. It can't sit across the table from a family deciding whether to move across the country or coach a struggling employee. It can't read the room, recognize when someone is hesitant, or understand the deeply personal circumstances behind many of life's biggest decisions. Those are uniquely human capabilities and always will be.

As AI becomes better at technical tasks, human skills become the differentiator. Communication, empathy, and trust will define the next generation of successful professionals. The future of work isn't choosing between people and AI. It's using AI to amplify the human experience. Because AI will transform work, but it can't replace relationship

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt91c9ffcf04dd5f0a Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:46:10 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Tom Flanagan\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What a Record Hunting and Fishing Expansion Means for America’s Wildlife Refuges\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/95-of-wildlife-refuge-land-is-open-to-hunting-and-fishing-what-happens-now-/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Fish and Wildlife Service’s expansion spans 32 states, raising questions about how the new rule will impact local ecosystems and conservation efforts.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Third Party via Associated Press\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Snow geese fly over Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt245ba7dcac6f743a/6a982405643c9e0880a5b392/AP19023839024178.jpg?branch=production)

Snow geese fly over Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. —Third Party via Associated Press

The Department of the Interior [implemented](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/01/2026-17895/national-wildlife-refuge-system-2026-2027-station-specific-hunting-and-sport-fishing-regulations) a massive expansion of fishing and hunting access in the United States, opening 1,488 opportunities across 32 states. With the rule in effect as of Monday, more than 92 million acres, or 95% of National Wildlife Refuge System land, are now available for the practices.

Expanded hunting and fishing are now allowed in areas where the practices were never before legal, including Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado and Stewart Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota. 

The rule also permits hunting and fishing for additional species and expands some seasons at locations where those activities were already allowed.

“America’s hunters and anglers now have something significant to look forward to in the fall,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the press release announcing the rule Aug. 13\. “We are also promoting good government by reducing the regulatory burden and working with states to facilitate these outdoor activities.”

**Read More:** [_Trump Administration Scales Back Endangered Species Protections—Again_](https://time.com/article/2026/07/19/trump-scales-back-endangered-species-protections-again/)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) oversees more than 570 national wildlife refuges that were “established to serve a statutory purpose that targets the conservation of native species dependent on its lands and water,” according to the agency’s [website](https://www.fws.gov/program/national-wildlife-refuge-system).

Christopher Williams, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, says the refuges were [initially created](https://www.fws.gov/esa50/our-history/pre-1973) to protect wildlife and then later helped to combat “extreme market hunting,” or unregulated hunting of animals. They became safe habitats and breeding sanctuaries for endangered species under the 1966 Endangered Species Preservation Act.

Now, hunting and other forms of recreation are permitted across a majority of those refuges when “compatible with each station’s purpose and mission under federal law,” per FWS. 

The very definition of a refuge seems to have “slowly morphed into an entity that was meant to provide an opportunity for hunting access,” Williams says.

The new rule raises a question of compatibility: How can the refuges fulfill their conservation mandate amid the nation’s largest-ever expansion of hunting and fishing?

## Does hunting undermine the purpose of a wildlife refuge?

The FWS said this week’s expansion is about “maximizing access where compatible with conservation goals.” 

It also said that the new rule will help revitalize rural economies, as hunters and anglers contribute more than $144 billion annually to the U.S. economy.

“These activities support jobs, fund conservation efforts, and sustain outdoor traditions that connect communities to the land and to each other,” the August announcement [read](https://www.fws.gov/press-release/2026-08/department-interior-announces-largest-expansion-hunting-and-fishing).

Sporting groups touted the “historic expansion” and its potential ability to help retain hunters and fishers at these refuges, which may rely on them for curbing overabundant and invasive species.

Williams says it makes sense that conservation groups support the expansion, since hunters and anglers play an “enormously important role in American wildlife conservation.”

“And with long-term concerns about declining hunting participation, providing meaningful access remains an important part of recruitment, retention, and reactivation efforts,” he says.

“BHA applauds all efforts to responsibly expand and improve public access for hunters and anglers and appreciates the Administration’s recognition of the important role sportsmen and women play in the conservation and stewardship of public lands and waters,” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers [said](https://www.backcountryhunters.org/news/details/bha-welcomes-usfws-expansion-of-hunting-fishing-opportunities) in a statement when the expansion was [proposed](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/27/2026-10465/national-wildlife-refuge-system-2026-2027-station-specific-hunting-and-sport-fishing-regulations) in May.

This was not the first time the Trump Administration proposed such an expansion. A version of the rule from 2020 opened some 859 opportunities across 2.3 million acres. The increase in scope from his first term is about 73%.

The new rule also makes more than 1,000 modifications to existing federal regulations that previously guided access to the refuges, including simplifications and deletions. The Trump Administration has said the sweeping revisions aim to make it easier to understand and enforce guidelines from state to state. But some conservationists have concerns about how the abrupt elimination of that many regulatory mandates, all at once, will affect the refuges.

Robert Fischman, professor of environmental law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, says that such a dramatic overhaul is worth noting. “I mean, 1,000 rules sounds pretty important,” he tells TIME.

## The new rule reverses restrictions on lead ammunition

One significant change that comes with the new rule is a reversal on lead ammunition and tackle. 

Following a lawsuit in 2021, the government said it would phase out the potentially harmful materials and require hunters and anglers to switch to non-toxic alternatives. 

The Center for Biological Diversity [sued](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3-wagtail.biolgicaldiversity.org/documents/Complaint-Hunting-NWR.pdf) FWS after it proposed an expansion on hunting opportunities during Trump’s first term. The lawsuit argued that the expansion could jeopardize protected species, which are susceptible to ingesting the lead ammunition and tackle. It also claimed that there would be residual harm to the greater ecosystem, as lead ammunition and tackle can contaminate fields and waterways.

The lawsuit was [settled](https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/endangered-wildlife-win-protections-from-lead-on-national-wildlife-refuges-2022-11-30/) under the Biden Administration in 2022, with FWS saying it would phase out the use of lead ammunition and tackle at several refuges across the country. 

Aaron Bloom, a senior attorney with nonprofit Earthjustice's Biodiversity Defense Program, said the phase-out was supposed to [go into effect](https://wildlife.org/usfws-expands-hunting-phases-out-lead-ammunition-at-specified-refuges/) across eight refuges in September 2026\. But with the new rule, the phase-outs will no longer take effect.

In response to the reversal, Bloom says Earthjustice will be looking at litigation—as will other environmentalist groups.

These phase-outs would have “protected both wildlife and human health, hunters and their families, from the adverse impacts of lead poisoning,” Bloom tells TIME. “There's absolutely no reason we should be allowing them in our wildlife refuges.”

## Recent staffing cuts raise concerns about oversight

FWS staffing [decreased by approximately 18%](https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-loses-18-of-staff-under-trump-2025-12-16/) between April 2024 and May 2025, according to agency records obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity. The decline can be attributed in part to the “[workforce optimization initiative](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-workforce-optimization-initiative/)” implemented by the [Department of Government Efficiency](https://time.com/7222251/doge-musk-federal-workers-government/) at the beginning of 2025\. 

Fischman and Williams both express concern about the staffing cuts and how they will impact oversight amid expanded hunting and fishing access.

“What I'm hearing from people who are on the ground is you have whole national wildlife refuges that no longer have any staff there full-time,” Fischman says. “You have a refuge manager running around from one refuge to another, riding circuit to try to keep things together.”

Fischman questions whether there are enough staff left to “really understand” and document the impacts of the new rule. He says that streamlining refuge-specific regulations makes enforcement easier and may partially compensate for staffing reductions; however, he is skeptical that states have enough staff to patrol the affected refuges and ensure that hunters and anglers are complying with the regulations that do still apply.

“It’s dependent on there being people there to maintain trails, to monitor impacts on species, to enforce the law,” he says. “It could be that the rulemaking seems pretty logical \[to the Administration\], but on the ground can't be practically implemented in a way that is consistent with public safety and compatible with both the system mission and the refuge purposes.” 

According to Williams, it's all a balancing act. He points out the need to preserve conservation efforts while boosting the economies of rural communities and reversing a [long-term decline](https://www.fws.gov/story/2024-09/report-offers-snapshot-hunters-and-anglers-us) in hunting participation in the U.S.

“On one hand, are you reaching a point where you might be doing some harm of not having adequate sanctuary for wildlife? Or maybe you are making a net improvement to increase retention and recruitment of hunters, which provides a financial benefit?” he wonders. “The answer is probably yes on both sides of the house.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blta983696de2f89425 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:20:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Schneid\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Philippines' Vice President Sara Duterte Faces Arrest Over Alleged Grave Threat to President Marcos\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/sara-duterte-arrest-warrant-philippines-vice-president/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Sara Duterte is in the midst of impeachment proceedings over an alleged threat to have Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. assassinated, among other accusations.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Noel Celis—Pool/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte arrives before the start of her impeachment hearing at the Philippine Senate in Metro Manila on July 7, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte3c5f99309ea0b2f/6a9ab5a13b8dfc119ed05c6a/sara-duterte.jpg?branch=production)

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte arrives before the start of her impeachment hearing at the Philippine Senate in Metro Manila on July 7, 2026\. —Noel Celis—Pool/Getty Images

A Philippine court on Friday ordered the arrest of Vice President [Sara Duterte](https://time.com/7305463/philippines-impeachment-sara-duterte-supreme-court/) over alleged grave threats to her former ally, [President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.](https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6965183/ferdinand-bongbong-marcos-2/), his wife, and a former House Speaker.

The warrant against Duterte, 48, [set the bail](https://x.com/gmanews/status/2095786699032784936/photo/1) at 120,000 pesos ($1,900) for ​each of the three counts against her.

“Regardless of the question on jurisdiction, she has no intention of evading the law and will continue to exercise all her legal remedies,” Duterte’s lawyer [said in a statement](https://x.com/rapplerdotcom/status/2095772680163143953).

Duterte [has been charged](https://x.com/gmanews/status/2095786699032784936) with threatening the lives of Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

The case stems from a November 2024 virtual press conference where the Vice President revealed an apparent assassination plot against Marcos, his wife, and Romualdez.

“I already talked to someone—I told him, If I’m killed, kill \[Marcos\], Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez,” she[ said in Filipino](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAdpG3nUhm8), “No joke, no joke. I already gave orders. If I die, I told them, ‘Don’t stop until they’re dead.’ And then he said, ‘Yes.’”

The threat is also one of the allegations included in the impeachment complaint against Duterte, on top of alleged misuse of public funds as Vice President and during her stint as Education Secretary. Duterte has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The Vice President is currently standing trial at the Philippine Senate, serving as an impeachment court, [following her second impeachment in May](https://time.com/article/2026/05/11/philippines-vice-president-sara-duterte-impeachment/). If convicted in the impeachment court, she could be removed from office and barred from running in the 2028 national elections, where [she said she plans to](https://apnews.com/article/philippines-sara-duterte-ferdinand-marcos-jr-4b0cf78be1715e57de67520f9a1b2e7a) contest the presidency.

Philippine law typically [allows](https://www.comelec.gov.ph/?r=References/RelatedLaws/OmnibusElectionCode/OECArt1) candidates to run for public office [even if they face](https://www.respicio.ph/commentaries/can-candidates-with-pending-cases-run-for-office-philippine-election-law-explained) pending criminal charges.

### Duterte controversies and public standing

Duterte is the daughter of former [President Rodrigo Duterte](https://time.com/7266779/philippines-duterte-arrest-icc-warrant/), who is [awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands](https://time.com/7319559/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-icc-charges-murder), for the thousands of deaths attributed to his violent anti-drug campaign. 

The Duterte family still enjoys broad public support in the Philippines, despite the controversies. Recent [surveys](https://www.facebook.com/WRnumero/posts/article-feature-the-philippine-starwhat-does-the-latest-public-opinion-data-tell/1513674967442468/) show Sara Duterte herself is the top [preferred candidate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAxtw9JuGEY) by Filipinos to succeed Marcos, whom she had a falling out with. Marcos, who took office in 2022, is limited to a lone six-year term.

The presidential office [said in a statement](https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/1001145/malaca-ang-on-arrest-warrant-vs-sara-duterte-we-respect-the-court-s-decision/story/) that it “respects the decision of the court” to issue an arrest warrant.

Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, tells TIME that “the law has finally caught up with the Vice President,” but questioned the timing of the arrest warrant’s release. Franco said Duterte’s arrest warrant could successfully repel criticisms that Marcos is a “weak” leader as the impeachment proceedings have dragged on.

However, Franco says it remains unclear which political camp—if any—will benefit from the latest political development. “We don't know what will happen because it's still 1-½ years \[until the elections\] and that's a lifetime in Philippine politics.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt8613006cba23caad Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:09:39 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chad de Guzman\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Why You Shouldn’t Work on Labor Day\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/why-you-shouldn-t-work-on-labor-day/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Labor Day is an obvious prompt for U.S. lawmakers to consider a right to disconnect, writes Kara Alaimois.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Deagreez—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0548441c19668323/6a95e7ae739f67391ca4bfea/labor-day-right-to-disconnect.jpg?branch=production)

 —Deagreez—Getty Images

It’s Saturday morning and your boss emails you a question that can wait until Monday. What do you do? If you’re like me, you read the message while walking out of your yoga class and respond before lunch. 

This work culture makes the U.S. an [outlier](https://time.com/collections/guide-to-happiness/4643015/unplug-work-happiness/) among high-income economies. Since 2017, countries including [France](https://time.com/4622095/france-right-to-disconnect-email-work/), [Belgium](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/02/belgium-right-to-disconnect-from-work/), [Spain](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/27/these-countries-grant-workers-the-right-to-ignore-bosses-after-work.html), [Portugal](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/18/portugal-bosses-work-hours-right-to-disconnect), [Ireland](https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2026/0626/1580387-right-to-disconnect/), [Australia](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y32g7203vo), [Slovakia](https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/@europe/@ro-geneva/@ilo-lisbon/documents/genericdocument/wcms%5F836190.pdf), [Greece](https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/06/greece-approves-controversial-new-labor-bill/), and [Argentina](https://www.ibanet.org/alternative-working-arrangements-argentina) have legislated some form of a [right to disconnect](https://employsome.com/blog/right-to-disconnect/). The European Union is working on a [policy](https://employsome.com/blog/right-to-disconnect/) that could take effect as soon as 2028\. In [Australia](https://time.com/7014775/australia-right-to-disconnect-law-work-calls-employers-fine/), employees have the right not to read or respond to employers outside of work hours. In [Portugal](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/13/world/europe/portugal-remote-work-law-pandemic.html), mid-size employers risk fines of over $10,000 for contacting employees when they’re [off the clock](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59263300).

As we think about the employment landscape in the U.S. this Labor Day, we should consider a similar approach that protects the right of employees to not work when they’re not officially working. This could solve a lot of problems for families and communities while actually improving job performance. Since the pandemic, the [boundaries](https://time.com/5938403/how-to-work-from-home-without-burnout/) between work and home have all but collapsed. With many workers still doing a lot of [remote work](https://time.com/6313745/remote-work-compensation/), many of us send our first email early in the morning and our last late at night, creating what Microsoft calls the “[infinite workday](https://news.microsoft.com/de-ch/2025/06/17/new-microsoft-study-reveals-the-rise-of-the-infinite-workday-40-of-employees-check-email-before-6-a-m-evening-meetings-up-16/).” We squeeze in a load of laundry, parent-teacher conference, and family dinner somewhere in between.

Being pulled in so many directions at the same time is awful for our health and the quality of our work, for a simple reason: The [human brain can’t multitask](https://time.com/4737286/multitasking-mental-health-stress-texting-depression/). 

“Each time we are exposed to a new stimulus and engage in the sequential process of disconnecting and reallocating our attention, we are expending valuable metabolic energy,” University of California, Santa Barbara technology management professor Paul Leonardi writes in [_Digital Exhaustion_](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/760833/digital-exhaustion-by-paul-leonardi/)_: Simple Rules for Reclaiming Your Life_. “Our attention is fragmented. We lose focus and become easily distracted. We can’t get things done as quickly or as easily as we should be able to, and often quality suffers.”

Humans just didn’t evolve to keep switching between tasks as quickly and regularly as we do today, Leonardi warns. This explains why so many of us are exhausted and burned out. It also explains why we spend so much time working: We aren’t as efficient as we could be.

When I don’t work on the weekend, I unquestionably show up as a better employee on Monday morning. That’s because spending time with friends and family, exercising, getting outdoors, and volunteering in my community leave me refreshed and energized. What’s more, when I get my kids’ permission slips filled out and the fruit and veggies chopped on the weekend, thoughts of unfinished business aren’t floating through my head while I’m working. That means I can achieve a state of what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi famously termed “[flow](https://time.com/56809/the-science-of-peak-human-performance/),” getting completely absorbed in my work and reaching peak performance.

Allowing workers to disconnect would therefore make them better employees. It could also solve several public policy problems. Our children need present caregivers. It only takes seconds for a child to fall or drown while we’re distracted by a manager’s latest missive. When parents spend more time on screens, their children also [develop poorer language skills](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/developmental-psychology/articles/10.3389/fdpys.2024.1404235/full). And, of course, children are unlikely to open up about their problems while we’re distracted on our phones.

Plus, if workers disconnected during their off-hours, they’d also have more time to nurture the offline connections that our country desperately needs. I would agree that we’re experiencing what psychologist Marisa Franco calls a “[friendship famine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voGIO-2z2jw&t=5s).” Since 1990, the percentage of American adults who say they have no close friends has quadrupled, according to last year’s [American Perspectives Survey](https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/). That is crushing. The quality of our friendships and social connections is one of the strongest predictors of our health, happiness, and how long we’ll live, according to the [Harvard Study of Adult Development](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/). It’s more important than things like our cholesterol, genes, and salaries. And being [lonely](https://time.com/6183058/loneliness-health-effects-what-to-do/) is as toxic for our health as alcoholism or smoking. 

Of course, as Americans know one another less, we help one another less. This can explain why volunteerism has [also been declining](https://dogood.umd.edu/news/new-research-report-examines-recent-declines-giving-and-volunteering-america). That’s particularly sad because banding together has long been a central part of our national character, as [Alexis de Tocqueville](https://time.com/6269091/individualism-ahead-of-the-common-good-for-too-long/) famously wrote in _Democracy in_ _America_. It’s especially important in a country like ours where people can’t rely on a strong social safety net when they hit hard times.

Labor Day is an obvious prompt for U.S. lawmakers to consider a right to disconnect. In the meantime, we can change our behavior and our workplaces. Employers should take the lead. Even without a national law, they should develop their own policies about disconnecting and publish them prominently on their websites so prospective employees can consider them even before accepting job offers. Volkswagen pioneered this approach in Germany in 2012 when it [stopped sending emails](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16314901) to employees who weren’t senior managers 30 minutes after their shifts ended and resumed 30 minutes before their next shifts began. 

A series of [studies](https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/272419/1-s2.0-S0749597821X00064/1-s2.0-S0749597821000807/main.pdf?X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEDwaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJIMEYCIQDROKWZkXu5mdRWis%2BeZJkhh%2F4uWQf6s3KCyw69VpwaawIhAM0boX%2BC%2BtXnBa4Nv5U%2Fft%2FkK4LAPfvDiMWrIJk9FwTtKrIFCAUQBRoMMDU5MDAzNTQ2ODY1IgzFeanAo3GD3JY3q7UqjwUG2av6sHThoj5RPPiurpSecTo0cPsmH3oBFNo8RoHg%2BM03rVVtBAO8BH2iwFDOa0OKXvXQ6SGZNNXUJ306x2aa8ZO254VuvQ%2BaacILYrgKKWVMLfz0FeR%2BBAmfG0BeLkTDChCtVadBU6zsE6xI6DisutJ80yjUdC8xZ8Ac84UER9Vfqi7rD464HfHK%2F1l%2B9DL36lcD0TuVRk3GpiDvLrzTLIlUmVHNLrWSoSwBgpvkMJVh6c12PfzPsYjyBuLY4gGSijpVPBZ8hlohXb1YO8eBDSbDALSmjPTcdYMMVcPYGoAqR%2BqecmFhiYv1Sm9leLiklzzVxbHWMseyMiRR0ojvJsiE%2FQohlor%2FhKhJaXsIlKmcT1EwbdjoCG4pWDyGM%2B52x8L02gH3nfov8ZnppBKG%2B707KbS%2B7gpynlnBZC9%2FgdXWaXn%2BmbrJ%2B%2BXM0AtDX4xgytZsz6zquX2qVe08A1SS8%2BdCs0wx8dXjNpIwqAOrE7k5m3oxrNySA3sjarlllSwiW2Worw7e37MoEjB5kvenck5AxyT1l%2FKObJCcnFehoRt5sd0P3hbUt4SVOWR9zcPKZySfMlhzN0dVV9057xwrIh8mF47oS1XdB08pFZ%2FK37diuQeEqFAwzKa7ejvsyE74w9ApSOh9AIR%2FVR%2BLUsgdMhiAGs4YqOnGwEfUkT2lNeM6%2BH5Fyyorzlmt6oBrTyWxl1eoRF7luLhGeH9KfGmqt5V5G1jLXl1qO6r1%2FGBEFhFHTKti9gcSSXt%2B4ukYpvRmCw406qLPVl8DRSQNDh5sG%2FdyP%2B57nOFX1Oz1wvBi7dBsOTwAjPgEGdduMChUoCKeYGiPfidAxecYFA54k5XX1taEomjihlB18zmmCu3sMKLB5NEGOrAB5tf0aOv%2B4MHjDIbOla4YUQ0GYvU6wljztdnQc5uJA7DzxvhS6Wdr%2BAfXo82Ik2nr2HzH560IQRx6mKb6crsV3s2MPBue1RoWaQ5%2B1W8Xe%2BkpAkFLc2xl20Exw8Zh2zuTNyBCGGP0fhT7%2BoPS2Isj%2FbxJdv23stR4qKVifZT%2BR8jBrmyf1p5PGW9amSv1fMzQgNqSEkQXbrWCLpkXkQa%2FM3RwLk6ovpwRwnYQEc5Q2Yc%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20260622T124946Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAQ3PHCVTY7RKEGTPP%2F20260622%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4%5Frequest&X-Amz-Signature=4a7815393250b89048448f7363989b54b76cf27eb7cccaa7eb2b8b2ef064a6cf&hash=5e4ea9ca8f5f2c32df502d28b94972f5ff9f0d8022e42c2e7a7784e7aeaeff56&host=68042c943591013ac2b2430a89b270f6af2c76d8dfd086a07176afe7c76c2c61&pii=S0749597821000807&tid=spdf-421dbdee-e736-492d-99d9-eff2a6886039&sid=4626153f94e6054a0e7ba910b8d9c2c1baa5gxrqa&type=client&tsoh=d3d3LnNjaWVuY2VkaXJlY3QuY29t&rh=d3d3LnNjaWVuY2VkaXJlY3QuY29t&ua=1015055105075b020003&rr=a0fb5ffb5fb3590b&cc=us) published in 2021 found that when people receive non-urgent work emails outside of work hours, we tend to think we need to respond faster than the senders believe is necessary. Receiving these types of emails also increases our stress and decreases our wellbeing, but senders underestimate the degree to which their messages stress us out. Indicating in the email that a response wasn’t expected right away reduced the pressure on recipients. An even better strategy could be schedule-sending emails so colleagues receive them when they return to work.

Another thing we can combat individually is the urge to check our messages every time we have a spare minute. Pulling out our phones is often a convenient way to avoid negative emotions or [awkward encounters](https://time.com/article/2026/08/13/flirting-is-a-lost-art/). Yet all this task switching leaves us distracted and depleted, and I can’t realistically handle any of the issues in the emails I read in the 30 seconds it takes to walk from my yoga class to my car.

It stands to reason that our brains would be less foggy if we used those small slices of our lives to take a deep breath, notice our surroundings, and have short, pleasant interactions with the people around us. When we returned to our desks, we’d think more clearly, work more efficiently, and send better responses. 

This Labor Day, there’s a way for workers to be healthier, happier, more productive, and solve a lot of our public policy problems, too. We need to stop working when we’re not working.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltb8e44541b536713f Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:00:02 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Kara Alaimo\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Earle Meets World Is One Long ‘Get Ready With Me’ Video\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/08/28/earle-meets-world-review/<!\[CDATA\[Entertainment\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The social media star comes to Netflix with a reality soap that tries too hard to make the Earles the new Kardashians\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Netflix\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Alix Earle in Earle Meets World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1525a1aafb184ba5/6a91e127381f6b81f8e82069/Earle_Meets_World_n_S1_E8_00_09_33_09_R.jpg?branch=production)

Alix Earle in Earle Meets World —Netflix

“You’re gonna see everything on this show,” [Alix Earle](https://time.com/collection/time100-creators/2026/alix-earle/) assures viewers in the voiceover that opens her Netflix reality series _Earle Meets World_. But if the show made a genuine effort to fulfill the 25-year-old [social media star](https://time.com/collections/time100-creators-2025/7299095/alix-earle/)’s vow to reveal the rawest, most intimate aspects of her life, then the only reasonable conclusion to draw from it would be that there just isn’t much to see.

As her fans (she has 8.5 million on TikTok alone) will anticipate, “everything” refers specifically to ongoing drama around Earle’s parents’ divorce, her own breakup with NFL player Braxton Berrios, and her mysterious falling-out with fellow creator and former boss [Alex Cooper](https://time.com/6082311/call-her-daddy-alexandra-cooper/). All of this does indeed come up in the eight-episode series, now streaming in full, which tries mightily to position the large, blended Earle family as the [Kardashian-Jenners](https://time.com/6167337/the-kardashians-hulu-product-placement/) for a new generation. Yet the bombshells teased in months’ worth of promotional materials aren’t especially explosive. Nor is there a breakout personality among a cast that, understandably enough, seems either too chill or too concerned with appearing likable to really entertain. _Earle Meets World_ plays less like a juicy docusoap than like a tediously extended version of the Get Ready With Me (GRWM) videos that made its subject famous—one that suggests less overlap than you might expect between the qualities of a successful influencer and those required for reality TV stardom.

Earle is one of those celebrities who are universally known to people under 30 but barely on the radar of anyone much older. (I’ll admit to having confused her with Cooper, another all-American blonde who parlayed internet fame into a [Netflix series](https://time.com/7292840/call-her-alex-review/), and I know I’m not the only one.) Though I wouldn’t recommend making the show your first trip down the Alix Earle rabbit hole, here is a quick intro for the unfamiliar: Conventionally beautiful yet plagued by cystic acne, Earle grew her following as a University of Miami undergrad with mirror-facing GRWM TikToks, eventually going viral with a vulnerable post about her skin troubles. Then came the brand deals and new platforms. Cooper signed Earle, an obvious heir, to her podcast network; they abruptly parted ways in early 2025 and have been vaguely but publicly feuding ever since. Meanwhile, Earlehas continued her ascent, launching a skincare brand, Reale Actives, and introducing herself to people elderly enough to watch network TV on _Dancing With the Stars_.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte2b54ba5894105b5/6a91e18968801a1a76452e67/Earle_Meets_World_n_S1_E3_00_00_53_22_R.jpg?branch=production)

From left: Sally, Alix Earle, and Ashtin Earle in Earle Meets World —Netflix

Synergistically positioned to bring her social media followers to a streaming platform that needs young subscribers to maintain its dominance while filling gaps in her own reach, _Earle Meets World_ is a multigenerational family soap. Alix and 23-year-old Ashtin—a less-extroverted brunette whose TikTok audience still tops a million—are the It-girl sisters who constantly squabble but consider each other best friends. Their mom, Alisa, and dad, TJ, have been divorced for more than a decade, their split catalyzed by TJ’s affair with Ashley Dupré, a key character in the prostitution scandal that [sank former New York governor Eliot Spitzer](https://time.com/archive/6915987/fresh-revelations-about-spitzer-in-new-documentary/). Now Dupré is Ashley Earle, TJ’s wife and the mother of their three kids; the eldest, Izabel, is, at 13, already cranking out Outfit of the Day videos like the Gen Alpha Kylie Jenner she has the pedigree to become. A recent breast cancer survivor, Alisa has her own longtime partner, Todd. Her messy separation from TJ has evidently given way to a tenuous friendship between the couples, although it seems doubtful they spend as much time together off-camera as on. These relationships are further complicated by the role TJ, who made his fortune in construction, has assumed as Alix and Ashtin’s “dadager.”

All the raw material for an unscripted family drama is present. Somehow, though, the fireworks tend to fizzle as soon as they’re lit. With the divorce so far in the past, a season’s worth of halfhearted conflict among the parents is wrung out of TJ joking that Alisa could be a “young piece of ass” on [_The Golden Bachelor_](https://time.com/6318880/the-golden-bachelor-review/). Ashley’s friction with Alix is framed as fallout from the latter’s history of oversharing about the former but feels more like standard stepfamily tension, heightened by reality-TV producers' prodding and Alix’s hypervigilance about her stepmom’s sometimes-awkward social media presence. Ironically, we only really witness the self-centered, control-freak behavior relatives are always attributing to Alix when she’s struggling to manage her image and brand identity. As a result, the most intense moments of the series tend to involve cringey TikToks or premature glimpses of Reale Actives packaging. You probably have to be a diehard Earle girl to find this stuff compelling. And even if you are, you might be disappointed by how many climactic _Earle Meets World_ scenes, from Ashtin kicking Alix out of her New York apartment to Cooper goading Alix to come at her, unfold in now-ancient vertical videos that already have millions of views.

It doesn’t help the show that the two people with whom Alix seems most preoccupied throughout the season—Cooper and Berrios—aren’t present. Instead, we get her side of these stories, conveyed in interviews and stiff conversations over cocktails at trendy, jewel-toned lounges, often so stripped of details that they come off as, respectively, a generic exploitative mentorship and your typical ambivalent breakup. A scene in the premiere that seems even more staged than the average docusoap grievance dump has Alix talking with TJ about Cooper in sentences that could’ve been scripted by a crisis-PR pro: “I definitely feel betrayed by Alex Cooper.” “She took advantage of my admiration for her.” Neither this storyline nor the Berrios one advances until the very end of the season, and even those late developments are anticlimactic. ([Tabloid headlines](https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/alix-earle-and-tom-brady-are-hooking-up-but-its-not-serious-excl/) linking Earle and [Tom Brady](https://time.com/6251856/tom-brady-retires-career-timeline/), meanwhile, get coy winks but no substantive context.)

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7584dccad1da9e99/6a91e24001c09b7ea1bc7705/Earle_Meets_World_n_S1_E2_00_17_37_11_R.jpg?branch=production)

From left: Ashley Earle, Thomas "TJ" Earle, Alisa Earle, and Todd in Earle Meets World —Netflix

Much of the blame for _Earle Meets World_’s slightness and superficiality, as well as the shapelessness of episodes that drag despite running less than 40 minutes apiece, should fall on the show’s producers. Not only have they failed to identify entertaining narratives within this family’s daily life; they’ve also made their desperation to do so too apparent in the final product. To be fair, they had a difficult assignment. As eager as they look to be on screen together, the Earles are—or act—too calm and conciliatory to drive reality-soap plots. No one wants to look unhinged, least of all Alix, who talks about being unstable but can’t risk her credibility as an entrepreneur, [pitchwoman](https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a44775813/alix-earle-tiktok-interview-2023/), and parasocial companion to millions by getting truly ugly on camera. Which is precisely what natural born reality stars have always done. Compare Alix and Ashtin’s nights at the club to the sloppy-drunk violence and infidelity of the 20-somethings on [_Jersey Shore_](https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6198495/jersey-shore/) and [_Vanderpump Rules_](https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6198524/vanderpump-rules/), or her parents’ relationships to chaotic [_Real Housewives_](https://time.com/5929741/real-housewives-beginners-guide/)marriages, and it all looks rather tame. No one here can quip like the best [Bravo scrappers](https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197788/the-real-housewives-of-new-jersey-table-flip-story-behind/) and [_Traitors_ debaters](https://time.com/6692814/phaedra-parks-the-traitors-interview/), either, so the show lacks the element of humor that suffuses every classic of the genre.

Influencers fall into a cultural gray area between entertainment and entrepreneurship; most excel at one more than the other. Both fields demand storytelling skills. But that doesn’t mean a person with a preternatural ability to sell people the products they watch her apply to her face as she scatters breadcrumbs about her personal life necessarily has the makings of an unscripted drama’s protagonist. Earle might be too shrewd a businesswoman to have unadulterated main character energy. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt391186a85c90340e Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:01:03 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Judy Berman\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Breaking Down the Stunning Finale of Silo Season 3\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/silo-season-3-finale-ending-apple/<!\[CDATA\[Entertainment\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A lot happened in the final episode of the Apple sci-fi show's second to last season. Series creator Graham Yost helps us break it down.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Courtesy of Apple TV\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Ferguson in the Silo Season 3 finale\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf3ddb596e74d4774/6a9a2487a44fab96c7ab6825/SIlo_Photo_031002.jpg?branch=production)

Rebecca Ferguson in the Silo Season 3 finale —Courtesy of Apple TV

Following the stunning[ final scene of Season 2](https://time.com/7206478/silo-season-2-finale-explained/) of [_Silo_](https://time.com/6276524/silo-apple-tv-books/), the third season has diverged into two timelines: one with Juliette ([Rebecca Ferguson](https://time.com/3977847/rebecca-ferguson-mission-impossible-rogue-nation-tom-cruise/)) and company in Silo 18 fighting for their survival, and another unfolding before the silo program began.

The season’s penultimate episode delivered some big revelations: The all-knowing Algorithm program that ensures the survival of the silo isn’t actually a digital algorithm, but a person watching from Silo 1, deciding everyone’s fates. Before he dies in Episode 9, Bernard (Tim Robbins) offers some hope: “A person can be defeated.” Meanwhile, in the past timeline, Daniel ([Ashley Zukerman](https://time.com/6277509/succession-season-4-episode-7-recap/)) and Helen ([Jessica Henwick](https://time.com/7380764/vladimir-netflix-ending-explained/)) discover the origins of the silos, only for a shocking nuclear explosion to separate them.

That’s a hell of a way to end an episode, and the Season 3 finale of _Silo_, “Troy,” brings us straight into Silo 1, where those running the system live, far in the future. How far, exactly? “Three hundred and fifty years,” says series creator Graham Yost. “It’s revealed in Episode 9 that the silos were part of a 500-year plan. And they're 350 years into that.” 

## **A memory suppression system**

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f477aa06f6a3e6a/6a9a27f522b3dabe9075f0e9/Silo_Photo_030909.jpg?branch=production)

Henwick and Zukerman in Episode 9 —Courtesy of Apple TV

Inside Silo 1, we see Daniel waking from cryo-sleep. Except he’s no longer called Daniel: He is now Troy. And while Troy looks physically the same as Daniel, he’s completely changed. That’s made crystal clear when he settles into his shift and has to deal with the outbreak in Silo 17, the same silo Juliette ventured to in Season 2\. Troy, without hesitation, delivers a ruthless decision to execute every single person—man, woman, and child—who left the silo. A top priority of Silo 1 is to prevent silos from discovering that any other silos exist. His decision to unleash drone warfare is met with disapproval by drone pilot Susan, who is actually Daniel’s sister Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay). Neither of them recognizes one another from the past. “He’s completely bloodless about it. Totally unemotional. It’s just his job,” says Yost. (Yost does suggest that Charlotte’s negative reaction to Troy’s behavior is worth our attention, though he won’t say why).

That lack of emotion bears no resemblance to the past Daniel. It turns out there’s a system designed to keep memories suppressed. Yost divulges some key details behind this Silo 1 initiative. “Your skill set, your skill knowledge, your expertise stays with you, and so that's why Daniel, as an engineer, is someone who can solve problems.There is an effort to wipe and control memory, so people don't know who they were. But they know who they became in the project.” Yost says we’ll discover more about specifics next season.

It’s precisely the same idea the Algorithm pushed Camille to implement in Silo 18, a major plot point of Season 3\. If she had done it, the silo would have continued to function, but there would have been huge problems. “People would forget they had kids and not feed them, and people would forget they were married to each other,” says Yost. The memory suppression plotline is influenced by a book by British neurologist [Oliver Sacks](https://time.com/4016218/oliver-sacks-death-twitter/). “In one of his books, a guy has extraordinary short-term memory loss.He’ll say ‘Hello, nice to meet you’ every 15 seconds or so. But if he sits down at the piano, he can play an entire concerto. So there's something about that persistence of memory; that part of his brain keeps going. We modeled it on that.”

## **The person behind the Algorithm**

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt567807188341bcae/6a9a2868a772fc16ae90b49b/Silo_Photo_030802.jpg?branch=production)

Jessica Brown Findlay and Matt Craven in the first episode of Season 3 —Courtesy of Apple TV

We also discover that Daniel reports to Victor (Matt Craven), whom audiences first met as Charlotte’s doctor at the beginning of the season and who is one of the leading minds behind the silo program. Further, we see that Victor is actually the voice behind the almighty Algorithm. Victor seems deeply disturbed by Troy’s willingness to massacre the people of silo. Interestingly, he does not have a different name from the one he had before—and neither does the silo director, Senator Rosalind Thurman (Laura Innes). They have maintained their identities, and unlike Daniel/Troy, they know everything that’s happened in the last 350 years. “Power dictates who is in power, and that power gets to retain memory. But there’s a burden in retaining memory,” Yost says.

Troy comes to Victor with a request. He’s pestered by visions of a woman, who we know is Helen. These flashbacks play on his mind, and he hopes that Victor can help him find out who she is. “The whole purpose and design of the project is to free us from the past,” Victor tells Troy, gently brushing off his request. Victor makes a note of it before Troy goes back to cryo-sleep until his next shift. It’s revealed that Troy has been asking Victor for information about Helen ever since he became part of the silo over 300 years ago, as we see a folder full of the times he’s asked about her.

With Troy back in cryo-sleep, some time later, Victor has a new problem to deal with: the uprising in Silo 18\. Victor has put the dreaded safeguard in motion, a fail-safe created by the silo founders to annihilate an entire silo’s population if rebellion or a discovery of knowledge threatens the entirety of the silo system. Camille (Alexandria Riley), Silo 18’s head of IT, now armed with the knowledge that the Algorithm is human, manages to outsmart it, providing a distraction to stop the safeguard by capping the concealed pipe that would flood the silo with lethal poison gas. 

It’s a monumental success for Silo 18, and a crushing blow for Silo 1, one that could threaten to destroy the entire system and everything that’s been building for over 300 years. And yet, Victor’s face does not register the disappointment we might expect. “He felt relieved that Silo 18 didn’t die,” says Yost.

It’s a surprise, but given what follows, it makes plenty of sense. Victor ends up taking his own life. “We never land on exactly why he killed himself, but there are a lot of different reasons, says Yost. “It's a constellation, more than one trigger. But I think that for him, a big trigger was seeing Daniel, this guy that he quite liked, do this horrific thing. It's like, ‘Is that what we are? Is that what we've done?’ I think when he realized he was actually happy that 18 survived, he knew he wasn't on board with this anymore.”

## **Juliette’s plan for Silo 1**

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebd77ea69dbc2ce5/6a9a28fae6700500d376cc6a/Silo_Photo_030906.jpg?branch=production)

Ferguson in Juliette in the penultimate episode —Courtesy of Apple TV

Thirty-five years later, Troy is awoken from cryo-sleep again, and learns that Victor is no longer alive. Troy is to take over as the Algorithm, and faces off against Juliette, who’s approached the giant door at the bottom of the Silo 18\. In Silo 18, that door is referred to as “the forward vault,” suggesting that the door is actually a path to another silo. This means that the massacre of Silo 17 happened approximately 35 years before we met Juliette for the first time in _Silo_ Season 1.

As Juliette and friends approach the door, the Algorithm (a.k.a. Troy) communicates with them. They strike a deal. If Juliette agrees to stop investigating, Silo 1 won’t attempt any further safeguarding, leaving them in peace. Juliette accepts the offer, but she doesn’t mean it. Troy threatened to kill everyone in the silo should Juliette not agree, and she believes it’s only a matter of time before they try and kill everyone again.  
Juliette has the genesis of a plan. “They’re expecting us to defend ourselves, which means they won’t be preparing to defend against us. If we can get to them first, we can protect everyone. We need to take out Silo 1” she declares. 

Before the season ends, Troy finds an encrypted message from Victor. The message threatens to undo 350 years of memory wiping: “Her name is Helen Drew,” Victor reveals to Troy. We close in on Troy’s face as tears fall down his cheeks as he says Helen’s name out loud, and the episode cuts to black.

## **Hints for what’s to come in Season 4**

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte01474d2d6c50260/6a9a29326ccd605fcad60528/Silo_Photo_030804.jpg?branch=production)

Ashley Zukerman and Jessica Henwick —Courtesy of Apple TV

“The big things we wanted to set up at the end of the season were Juliette saying we have to take down Silo 1, and Daniel saying Helen’s name,” says Yost. These events seem to set up a Season 4 battle between Troy and Juliette, one that could topple the entire silo system. But Troy’s realization seems to suggest that he may in fact revert to Daniel, which could mean that he will instead begin to work _against_ Silo 1, opening a possibility of teaming up with Juliette to take the silos down for good.

Yost, of course, will not reveal if this, or anything like it, will happen in Season 4, the final season of _Silo_, currently scheduled for sometime next summer. But there is one thing Yost will say about the upcoming struggle between Silo 1 and Silo 18: 

“This is war.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt324a2e9055a8badc Fri, 04 Sep 2026 07:00:03 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Barry Levitt\]\]><!\[CDATA\[White House 'Arcade' Invites Players to 'Build the Wall' and 'Fill a Trump Account'\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/04/white-house-arcade-trump-agenda-immigration/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The White House launched a series of arcade-style video games promoting Trump’s immigration and economic policies.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Jon Elswick—AP\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A White House website featuring arcade games is photographed on a computer screen on Sept. 3, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt206734e8eca23a60/6a9aad76448ea6ba1e597c7b/arcade.jpg?branch=production)

A White House website featuring arcade games is photographed on a computer screen on Sept. 3, 2026\. —Jon Elswick—AP

The White House website on Thursday launched a [series of arcade-style video games](https://www.whitehouse.gov/arcade/) promoting President [Donald Trump’](https://time.com/7280106/trump-interview-100-days-2025/)s agenda. 

In “Rio Run,” a spin on the decades-old game Snake, players can gather and deport migrants along the Rio Grande. “Build the Wall,” a Tetris-style game, lets players stack sections of a border wall to “protect the border from the coming horde.” In “Trump Savings Tycoon,” players collect cash and gold bars flying through the air to “fill your kids’ Trump Accounts,” referring to the Administration’s [tax-advantaged investment accounts for newborns](https://time.com/article/2026/07/06/trump-accounts-explained-children-investments-what-parents-should-know/).

Other games include “Supply Line,” where players sort out school lunch items to “Make America Healthy Again,” and “Flappy Bill,” where players fly a bald eagle carrying legislation over the National Mall in the style of popular mobile game Flappy Bird.

“This is an effort to further contrast between a culture of fun and winning and the dark socialist vision Democrats have for America,” a White House official told [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-classic-arcade-games-maga-makeover-online-launch).

TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

Kaelan Dorr, a deputy assistant to the President and head of digital strategy, [referred](https://x.com/Kaelan47/status/2095621002390655140) to the games as “policy you can interact with.”

[https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2095615734567100766](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2095615734567100766)

## The White House’s digital strategy

The video games are the latest effort by the Trump Administration to use the Internet and pop culture to promote its policies.

Across its social media accounts, the White House has [posted](https://time.com/7301939/trump-superman-immigrant-white-house-meme-backlash/) AI-generated [content](https://time.com/7303912/trump-obama-jail-tulsi-gabbard-russiagate-hoax-prosecutions-democrats-republicans/) and [political memes](https://time.com/7382839/pokemon-dhs-white-house-trump-social-media-memes-ice/), as well as mocked its critics online. The strategy has [drawn criticism](https://time.com/7338216/trump-white-house-social-media-music-artists-copyright-sabrina-carpenter/), with artists like [Sabrina Carpenter](https://time.com/7027418/sabrina-carpenter-interview-time-100-next/) and [Olivia Rodrigo](https://time.com/6050587/olivia-rodrigo-sour/) condemning the Administration’s use of their music in videos pushing its agenda.

The “Arcade” has drawn backlash from rights groups, who argue it gamifies mass deportations and trivializes human suffering.

“They’ve been playing games with people’s lives for years, now they’ve made a video game of what they’re doing,” Amerika Garcia Grewal, co-director of the Frontera Federation in Eagle Pass, Texas, told [AFP](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/9/4/entertainment-over-policy-white-house-arcade-games-ignite-backlash).

Democratic lawmakers argued that the games reflect the White House’s misplaced priorities, especially as the [U.S. war against Iran](https://time.com/article/2026/09/02/us-iran-deadly-strikes-attacks-civilians-sirik-strait-hormuz/) has [driven up](https://time.com/7383060/gas-prices-iran-war-oil/) household inflation and fuel costs for Americans.

**Read More:** [_The Price of Happiness: Americans Feel Guilty After Spending on Things That Bring Them Joy_](https://time.com/article/2026/08/26/survey-economy-personal-finance-purchases-usa/)

Rep. Ted Lieu of California questioned the White House’s focus on arcade-style games when the national average gasoline price has [risen to around $4.14](https://gasprices.aaa.com/labor-day-on-track-to-set-record-at-the-pump/). “November is coming,” he wrote in a [post](https://x.com/tedlieu/status/2095644330946117985) on X, referring to the [looming midterms. ](https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/stakes-of-2026-midterm-elections/)

“Heating oil is near an all-time high, but hey you can play Border Czar Tom Homan in a video game,” Connecticut state senator Matt Lesser [posted](https://x.com/MattLesser/status/2095639994480074990) on X.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltf5f8b7960d0812d1 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Miranda Jeyaretnam\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How Americans and Canadians Are Feeling About the Escalating Trade War\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/us-canada-trade-war-trump-carney-tariffs-lake-ontario-name-change-polls/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[As tensions between the U.S. and Canada mount, here's what polling reveals about how people each country are viewing the situation.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Evan Vucci—Pool/AFP/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[American President Donald Trump greets Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during a summit on Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh on Oct. 13, 2025.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt19bff8e5dd041087/6a99ce2e6ccd60f403d60379/Americans-Canadians-Polls.jpg?branch=production)

American President Donald Trump greets Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during a summit on Gaza in Sharm el-Sheikh on Oct. 13, 2025\. —Evan Vucci—Pool/AFP/Getty Images

With relations between the U.S. and Canada becoming more and more [strained](https://time.com/article/2026/06/02/trump-annex-canada-51st-state-rhetoric-carney-us-partnership-message/) following the [breakdown](https://time.com/article/2026/08/22/us-canada-trade-negotiations-breakdown-tariffs/) in trade talks between the two countries, most Canadians are backing their government and the way it has chosen to handle the standoff. But on the other side of the border, Americans are offering the Trump Administration far less support for its approach. 

Trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada collapsed last month, with each side placing the blame on the other. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney [criticized](https://x.com/MarkJCarney/status/2091008744427598021?s=46) the U.S. for requesting what he described as “last-minute changes” that he argued were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.” American President Donald Trump, meanwhile, [accused](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117156429202842827) Canada of “‘Ripping Off’ the U.S.A. for decades” and portrayed the country as being “difficult and unreasonable.”

The day after trade talks broke down, the Trump Administration’s 50% tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Canadian products took effect. Canada then announced [retaliatory tariffs](https://time.com/article/2026/08/25/canada-retaliates-trumps-tariffs-with-levies/) that will go into effect on Sept. 8.

Tensions between the two nations have only [continued to grow](https://time.com/article/2026/08/24/vance-canada-state-freudian-slip-us-trade-trump-carney-ford/). Last week, Trump [signed](https://time.com/article/2026/08/27/trump-lake-ontario-america-order-canadians-boycott-us-travel-trade-war/) an Executive Order directing his Interior Secretary to change the name of Lake Ontario to [“Lake America”](https://time.com/article/2026/08/25/trump-lake-america-ontario-name-change-canada/)—a move that angered Canadians and [sparked pushback](https://time.com/article/2026/08/28/lawmakers-reject-trump-renaming-lake-ontario-us-canada-trade-war/) from political leaders in both Canada and the U.S.

There is no clear resolution in sight for the rift in the countries’ critical trading relationship, with both Trump and Carney remaining firm in their stances.

While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Carney signaled that he would be willing to resume negotiations—but only if U.S. officials stop insulting and mocking his country. “When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough, and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions,” the Canadian leader said.

“It’s not constructive,” he added. “But that’s their democracy.”

Trump, meanwhile, doubled down on his accusations against Canada when asked the following day about the prospect of talks starting back up. “Canada has been ripping off the United States for many, many years, for decades, many decades,” the President said during a Wednesday press conference.

Here’s what recent polls reveal about how Americans and Canadians feel about the heated situation—and how their leaders are handling it.

## How do Americans feel about the U.S.-Canada trade war?

Most Americans—nearly 70%—said they feel that the U.S. should be open to reaching a compromise with Canada, even if that leads to many of the U.S.’s demands not being met, according to an [Ipsos poll](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/facing-trade-dispute-majority-americans-want-us-make-tradeoffs-canada) that was released on Tuesday. In comparison, only 25% of Americans said they believe that the U.S. should take a firm stand against its northern neighbor and push for many of its demands to be met.

Americans were also more likely to hold their own government responsible for the breakdown in relations than Canada’s. About 46% said they think that the U.S. shoulders more of the blame for the ongoing trade war, while only 12% said they believe that Canada is more culpable and 18% said they feel that both parties are equally at fault, according to the poll.

The survey also found that most Americans oppose actions that could or have already escalated tensions between the two countries. For instance, nearly 60% of Americans said they are against the U.S. imposing additional tariffs on Canada, while only 20% indicated support for such an aggressive step. And more than 60% of Americans said they disagree with Trump’s order to rename Lake Ontario, while only 14% backed the move. 

Americans’ objection to the Executive Order in particular was seen across party lines—84% of Democrats and 65% of independents said they were against it, and more Republicans (43%) objected to it than those who agreed with it (33%).

A recent [Economist/YouGov poll](https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/55478-record-high-38-percent-republicans-canada-unfriendly-enemy-of-the-united-states-august-28-31-2026-economist-yougov-poll) produced similar results: nearly 60% of Americans who responded to the survey said they were against increasing tariffs on Canadian products, compared to less than 30% who said they would back such a move. About 45% said they think Canada has not been unfair to the U.S. when it comes to trading between the two nations, while just 28% are aligned with Trump in thinking that Canada has been unfair.

The majority—64%—of Americans still describe Canada as an ally or friendly, according to the Economist/YouGov poll. But while they remain a minority, the portion of Americans who view Canada in a negative light has grown in recent years; about 22% describe Canada as either unfriendly or an enemy, a record high since 2016\. That growth has mostly been driven by Americans who identify as Republicans, the survey found.

Amid the standoff with Canada, Trump’s [approval rating](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html) has remained at around 38%, where it has hovered in recent months. That figure marks a stark 14-point drop from where his approval rating stood when he retook the White House last January.

## How do Canadians feel about the U.S.-Canada trade war?

The majority of Canadians—63%—said they feel that the country made the right choice to maintain its stance and walk away from trade talks with the U.S., “even if it meant higher costs and job losses,” according to an [Ipsos poll](https://globalnews.ca/news/12039524/strong-support-for-canada-axing-u-s-trade-talks-retaliatory-tariffs-poll/) conducted for Global News that was released on Aug. 29\. Even more Canadians—73%—said they agreed with the nation’s decision to [launch retaliatory tariffs](https://time.com/article/2026/08/25/canada-retaliates-trumps-tariffs-with-levies/) on American products worth billions of dollars.

The poll did find, though, that support for those actions was lower among younger demographics than it was among older age groups. For instance, a little less than 50% of Gen Z adults backed Canada’s decision to remain firm in trade negotiations, compared to 80% for elderly boomers.

Another [poll](https://angusreid.org/resolve-apprehension-76-say-canada-was-right-to-ditch-trade-talks-but-two-in-five-have-fear-for-their-jobs/), conducted by the Canadian nonprofit Angus Reid Institute, found that about 76% of Canadians believe the country was right to suspend trade talks, and that 69% said they believe that Carney demonstrated “strength” by turning down a “bad deal.” A majority of Canadians—62%—also indicated support for retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., calling the move “about right under the circumstances.”

Still, 89% of Canadians expressed concerns that the trade war with the U.S. would affect prices, the poll found—though more than 60% of Canadians said they think the country will eventually come out of the dispute stronger.

As Trump’s approval rating has remained underwater, the Carney government’s increased by four points to 56% in recent weeks, while its disapproval rating has dropped two points to just 29%, according to data [shared](https://abacusdata.ca/liberals-open-10-point-lead-as-trump-returns-to-the-centre-of-the-agenda/) by the polling firm Abacus Data on Sunday. Approval for Carney individually has also improved recently, with 53% of Canadians having a positive opinion of him and only 28% having a negative view of him. The polling firm [said](https://abacusdata.ca/canadians-give-the-carney-government-strong-overall-marks-but-its-approval-rests-heavily-on-the-canada-u-s-file/) that its findings indicate that “the Carney government’s political standing is built primarily on how Canadians judge its management of the American relationship.”

The Canadian Liberal Party, which Carney is the leader of, has preserved its narrow majority in Parliament, with its candidates emerging victorious in three special elections earlier this week.

Carney cited his government’s actions in the trade war as a driving reason for the victories. “What’s a clear message from last night in three very different ridings across this great diverse country is that Canadians are behind the plan of the government, which is first and foremost about building strong at home, diversifying with reliable partners, building Canada strong for all,” he said on Tuesday.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltd8aab5e0cc5e6108 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 20:04:10 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[‘I Wouldn’t Call it a War’: Vance Downplays Conflict With Iran, Even as Strikes Continue\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/vance-iran-war-press-briefing/<!\[CDATA\[“Right now, there is no active shooting," Vance told reporters at a White House press briefing\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images)\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Vice President JD Vance speaks at the first press briefing the White House has held in over 40 days, on September 03, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt323285c95c213370/6a99c566a44fabba66ab663e/GettyImages-2293375940.jpg?branch=production)

Vice President JD Vance speaks at the first press briefing the White House has held in over 40 days, on September 03, 2026\. —Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images)

Vice President J.D. Vance said Thursday that he would not characterize the United States as being at war with Iran, even as the two countries have [exchanged strikes in recent days](https://time.com/article/2026/09/02/us-iran-deadly-strikes-attacks-civilians-sirik-strait-hormuz/) and the Trump Administration has declined to say when a conflict now stretching beyond six months might finally end.

“I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vance told reporters at a White House press briefing, the first since [Karoline Leavitt stepped down](https://time.com/article/2026/08/12/karoline-leavitt-white-house-press-secretary-memorable-moments/) as press secretary last month. “Right now, there is no active shooting.”

The distinction was striking after a renewed burst of hostilities this week, including American strikes inside Iran and Iranian attacks in the region. But it echoed an argument that President Trump and other Republicans made in the earliest days of the conflict: that the United States was carrying out a [limited military operation](https://time.com/article/2026/04/14/republicans-face-crucial-test-on-iran-war-as-60-day-deadline-looms/) rather than embarking on another prolonged Middle Eastern war, which, under the Constitution, would require congressional approval.

More than six months later, that distinction has become increasingly difficult to sustain. The United States has repeatedly bombed targets inside Iran as Tehran attacks commercial shipping vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to higher energy prices.

Vance acknowledged what he called a recent “flare-up” but argued that the most intensive phase of the American campaign had ended long ago. “Major combat operations are currently not ongoing, and they haven’t been ongoing in a very long time,” he said.

He said Operation Epic Fury, the large-scale campaign that followed last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer, lasted roughly six weeks. The earlier operation, he said, destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities, while Epic Fury severely damaged Iran’s conventional military and its ability to produce weapons and rebuild its nuclear program.

But Vance offered little indication of when the broader confrontation might end, saying the Administration would not commit itself to a timeline while Iran continued threatening commercial shipping and global energy supplies. Asked whether the conflict would be over before November’s midterm elections, Vance said he did not know. “You would have to ask the Iranians,” he said, adding: “When will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?”

The answer underscored the open-ended nature of a conflict that Trump and others in the Administration repeatedly predicted would be brief. As recently as Wednesday, the President said he did not believe it would last “much longer.” But his Administration is simultaneously intensifying economic pressure on Iran, maintaining a naval blockade, and reserving the option of further military strikes if Iran attacks American interests or interferes with commercial shipping.

## History of avoiding the word “war”

Presidents have long resisted the “war” label in conflicts undertaken without a formal declaration of war. [Harry Truman](https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/united-nations-korea) called the American intervention in Korea a United Nations “police action,” while [Bill Clinton](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-ties-clintons-hands/) avoided describing NATO’s bombing campaign in Kosovo as a war. [Barack Obama](https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/l/releases/remarks/167250.htm) similarly argued that the 2011 intervention in Libya did not constitute a “war” requiring congressional authorization.

In March, Trump openly acknowledged that referring to the conflict as “war” carried legal significance because Congress had not authorized it. “I won’t use the word ‘war’ because they say, if you use the word war, that’s maybe not a good thing to do,” [he told House Republicans](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-national-republican-congressional-committee-annual-fundraising-dinner) at the time. “They don’t like the word ‘war,’ because you’re supposed to get approval, so I’ll use the word ‘military operation,’ which is really what it is.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson similarly insisted shortly after the initial strikes that the country was “not at war,” describing the campaign instead as “a very specific, clear mission.” Democrats have rejected that characterization and [repeatedly tried](https://time.com/article/2026/04/14/republicans-face-crucial-test-on-iran-war-as-60-day-deadline-looms/) to force votes requiring congressional authorization for continued hostilities. Those efforts have failed largely along party lines. The dispute has revived a decades-old argument over presidential war powers and the extent to which a president can sustain military operations abroad without explicit approval from Congress.

## **Economic and military pressure**

Vance said Thursday that the administration would not rely on Iran to negotiate in good faith and would instead use whatever tools it considered necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to protect global energy markets.

He argued that Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz was “effectively gone” and that oil traffic through the crucial waterway was nearing its pre-conflict level. Shipping data, however, shows traffic remains well below where it stood before the fighting began. The Administration has made restoring commercial traffic through the strait a central objective as energy prices have become an increasing political liability ahead of the midterms.

Vance acknowledged the pain of higher gasoline prices but argued that they could have risen substantially more without American intervention in Iran. “Gas, frankly, could have been much, much higher were it not for our efforts,” he said. He declined to predict when prices might return to around $3 a gallon, saying the more important objective was ensuring “that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.”

The Administration is now pursuing what amounts to a strategy of intermittent military force combined with sustained economic pressure. Last week, it announced “Operation Economic Outcast,” an effort to further isolate Iran from its remaining trading partners. But the campaign has so far produced limited results, and imposing sanctions aggressive enough to cripple Iranian trade could require confronting countries including China, India, and Russia.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that the Administration expected the principal pressure on Iran going forward to be economic, while reserving the right to use military force when necessary.

## **Iranian uprising**

Trump himself has resumed publicly encouraged Iranians to challenge the regime, writing on [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/117198788283772326) on Tuesday, “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”

When asked by TIME on Thursday whether the Trump Administration was considering arming Iranian dissidents or providing them with other direct assistance, Vance declined to provide more details. “Everything that could happen is on the table: economic pressure, military pressure, diplomatic pressure, covert pressure,” he said. “Of course, these are tools in the President's toolkit.”

Iranian leaders, meanwhile, have shown little sign of capitulating. Its leadership remains divided between officials advocating negotiations and hard-liners pressing for confrontation, and Tehran has continued striking American interests and allies in response to U.S. attacks.

The renewed American bombing has also brought fresh scrutiny of civilian casualties. Iranian authorities said a U.S. strike this week hit a wedding celebration in Sirik in southern Iran, killing at least five people and wounding scores more, including women and children. A [New York _Times_ visual analysis](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/video/iran-us-attack-wedding.html) and a weapons expert concluded that the wedding was struck by a bomb released by American forces during attacks in the area.

Vance said the episode was under investigation but expressed deep skepticism about Iran’s account. “The Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far,” he said. “So I’m extremely skeptical of this.”

“Obviously, sometimes things happen,” he added. “When our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them, so we’re investigating it very fully.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt1c0f1bc3a3ee5f85 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:51:06 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Nik Popli\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Stakes of America’s 2026 Midterm Elections\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/stakes-of-2026-midterm-elections/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[“Enormous work has already been done to protect the integrity of November’s election,” write Heather Gerken and Robert Rubin.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Mel Musto—Bloomberg/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A sign outside a polling location during a primary election in Marblehead, Massachusetts, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9399c4e6c2f329cc/6a99b81f8210d85bfe477910/vote-here-sign.jpg?branch=production)

A sign outside a polling location during a primary election in Marblehead, Massachusetts, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026\. —Mel Musto—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Five years ago, in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, America’s civic institutions pledged to do more to defend our system of fair and free elections. [Major philanthropies](https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/nation-world/nonprofits-aim-to-keep-aiding-elections/507-aa5fe726-c408-4dcd-9913-2ab76bfb62e3) increased their investments in programs that defend democracy. [Law firms](https://www.thewellnews.com/law/new-pro-bono-legal-defense-network-hopes-to-aid-harried-election-officials/) expanded their pro bono election-protection work. [University presidents](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/01/07/higher-ed-leaders-condemn-riot-us-capitol) publicly condemned the effort to thwart the will of American voters. Many of the country’s [largest businesses](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-04-19/corporations-pledge-donations-politicians-opposed-election-certification-biden) pledged to stop donating to candidates who had tried to overturn an election.

Today, our elections are again under attack. But while some institutions have maintained their commitment to defending democracy, far too many have retreated.

There are fewer than 100 days until the 2026 nationwide elections. Now is the time for everyone to protect the system of fair and free elections upon which our society and prosperity ultimately depend.

Together, the two of us have spent considerable time in all the major sectors of American society: philanthropy, business, academia, and the law. We understand that leaders in these sectors fear [government retribution](https://time.com/7272466/law-firms-trump-wilmerhale-jenner-block-paul-weiss-covington-burling/), and understandably so. But with the integrity of our elections under enormous strain—and with government officials signaling that more aggressive attacks may follow—it is time for all institutions to reaffirm their role as defenders of the free and fair elections at the heart of American democracy.

Defending our democracy begins with a clear-eyed assessment of the threats to it. Over the past 18 months, the Justice Department has [disbanded government agencies](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/us/politics/trump-election-security-cisa.html) meant to protect elections from foreign interference and to help states administer them smoothly. President Donald Trump has [repeatedly](https://time.com/article/2026/06/08/trump-storms-out-of-nbc-interview-after-being-challenged-on-false-claims/) made [false claims](https://time.com/7160689/donald-trump-pennsylvania-cheating/) that the 2020 election was fraudulent and made new ones—without evidence—about the midterms. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin recently [threatened](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/us/politics/markwayne-mullin-election-officials-threats-trump.html) to jail local election officials his department finds were insufficiently responsive to the federal government’s unproven claims of fraud. Overall, the federal government has tried to wrest control of elections [from the states](https://time.com/article/2026/04/02/trump-is-trying-to-nationalize-elections-states-won-t-let-him/), with courts repeatedly finding such efforts illegal. 

Now, experts across the country are deeply concerned about what might occur in the coming months, whether it’s false allegations that cast doubt on individual races, state officials refusing to certify election results as required by law, or baseless efforts to block House members from taking their seats in January.

The good news is the success of these efforts to undermine the midterms is not inevitable. To the contrary, enormous work has already been done to protect the integrity of November’s election from those who would undermine it.

Now, it is time for leaders who haven’t yet joined that effort to get off the sidelines no matter what their politics are. Losing our system of fair and free elections would not just affect one element of American life. It would affect all elements of American life.

There are many ways for institutions to meet the moment and keep our country’s elections free and fair. First, many leaders, particularly those from the business community, meet regularly with members of the executive branch and Congress. They should use these relationships to remind elected officials of the need to respect election results no matter who wins or loses.

These nonpartisan principles are the basic preconditions for a functioning democracy and should be respected by all.

Second, many institutional leaders have strong ties to state and local officials. Now is the time to remind state legislators that attempting to disenfranchise eligible voters via last-minute changes to election rules, baseless claims of fraud, or partisan attempts to deny certification harm our democracy and create the kind of turmoil that negatively affects a state’s reputation and business climate.

Third, leaders should forcefully support the local election administrators who run our elections. These are not professional politicians. They are our neighbors, co-workers, and friends—and recently, they have far too often been subject to [threats and harassment](https://time.com/6565184/violent-threats-public-officials/) by those who wish to undermine their nonpartisan mission. Institutional leaders can help elections run smoothly by encouraging their employees to become poll workers, and by supporting nonpartisan civic organizations that defend election officials in performing their duties, or that bring Americans from across the political spectrum together to support the right of all Americans to have their vote counted.

Standing up for fair and free elections is not without risk. But with the foundation of our democracy under unprecedented assault and our basic rights on the line, the far greater risk is ignoring the threat to our country until it is too late.

One day, leaders of America’s institutions will face the same profound question as every other citizen who loves this country. Future generations will ask, “Where were you when the stakes were highest?”

What will you tell them?

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt22c17d15938fc25a Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:30:02 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Heather Gerken and Robert Rubin\]\]><!\[CDATA\[John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell Are Pure Delight in Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/wild-horse-nine-review/<!\[CDATA\[Entertainment\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Like 'In Bruges' and 'The Banshees of Inisherin,' McDonagh's latest, about 1970s CIA agents sent to Easter Island, deals with fractious male friendships\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Malkovich as Chris and Rockwell as Lee in Wild Horse Nine\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt888db346df6fabac/6a99c367e67005125d76ca89/WHN-03439_V1.jpg?branch=production)

Malkovich as Chris and Rockwell as Lee in Wild Horse Nine —Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Where's the line between shtick and style? If a filmmaker returns to similar themes over and over again but folds them into entertaining shapes each time, is that consistency or a lack of imagination? Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s _Wild Horse Nine_—playing in competition here at the Venice Film Festival—might prompt you to ask those questions, though it doesn’t fully answer them. Like _In Bruges_ and _The Banshees of Inisherin, Wild Horse Nine_—in which John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play 1970s CIA agents stationed in Santiago, Chile, sent to Easter Island on a special mission—deals with fractious male friendships. There are some beautiful four-legged animals—in this case, horses—but one of them must die; it’s as if McDonagh feels he needs to toughen us up to the realities of nature, rather than just allow us to enjoy an animal’s spirit and beauty. And there are ways in which McDonagh gets tripped up by his own excessive cleverness: the screenplay is so packed with quirky quips that you might long for a little breathing room.

But if the writing sometimes comes off as winking and belabored, the acting is not. Malkovich and Rockwell are a joy to watch, and that, after all, is what we continue to go to the movies for: to see actors at play, even as they work. Malkovich’s Chris and Rockwell’s Lee are an odd-couple duo who have been working together long enough to intuit one another’s thoughts and moods. They also bicker, a lot. Lee seems annoyed by his elder partner’s tendency to tootle down trails of fanciful thought. In an early scene, Chris complains that his apartment in Santiago is riddled with moths, and he doesn’t want them to ruin his clothes. But he also doesn’t want to kill them. Instead, he says, “I’ve been escorting them outside.” It’s 1973, not long before socialist president Salvador Allende will be overthrown in a military coup—Chris and Lee know that’s going to happen, given that their job is to destabilize democratic governments here and there around the world. In one of his many pensive moments, Chris muses, “Sometimes I think I care about the moths in Chile more than I care about the people in Chile.” 

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt33d62c613d91eb71/6a99c3ea643c9e06c2a5bd50/WHN-01116_v2.jpg?branch=production)

Malkovich as Chris with "the big heads" he's always wanted to see —Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Yet somehow Chris _does_ care, despite having secretively killed some 68 people in his long career, and possibly, as one of the movie’s running gags suggests, having had a hand in some grassy-knoll shenanigans in November 1963\. He falls asleep listening to one of the saddest ballads ever written, Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” He not-so-secretly hates his boss, MJ (a delightfully ruthless Steve Buscemi) and joyfully spreads lies—or are they?—that he’s a junkie. But Chris himself does heroin, not for pleasure, but because cancer is killing him. He’s happy to have been dispatched to Easter Island—he has long wanted to see what he calls “the big heads”—and he claims that he’s going to get some work done on his long-planned memoir. Lee reminds him that his memory is like a sieve; Chris asserts that working on the memoir will bring it back. He wants his book to begin with a surprise opening, not a boring one, so he decides he’s going to open by talking about dinosaurs. “Did they have souls?" he wonders aloud. Lee scoffs at this idea, but by this point, we’ve already seen the affection, mingled with annoyance, between these men. Chris considers Lee his only friend.

That basic framework sets the stage for lots of acerbic CIA jokes, some flirtation with a duo of pretty student tourists (played by Ailín Salas and Mariana Di Girólamo), and a truly fantastic gag about how the “gay” countries produce the best cheeses. (Chris’ definition of what makes a country gay or not is far from sound, but even so, he may be onto something.) Chris delights in the wild horses that roam Easter Island, forming a kind of soul communion with one in particular, a striking, sensitive beast who nods his head perceptively whenever Chris asks him a question. McDonagh never wants our emotions to get too squishy—remember the donkey in _The Banshees of Inisherin_?—and thus this noble creature meets an unexplained, albeit gentle, end. But there’s still a degree of warmth here, perhaps more so than in most of McDonagh’s films. This one, at least, has none of the smug superiority of _Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,_ a film ringing with condescension toward small-town America.

McDonagh may often be excessively arch, but he does know how to write for actors. Rockwell’s Lee is essentially the straight man here, absorbing the vibrations of his friend and colleague’s meandering thoughts on mortality and other subjects. That doesn’t make it a minor role; Lee is Chris’ mirror and sounding board, the trustworthy compatriot who both protects his friend and gives it to him straight. This is a generous performance, one that favors listening over mere line delivery. And Malkovich is simply wonderful. Chris, nearing not just the end of his CIA career but his life, has blown out his filter; now he just blurts the truth. When one of the young, earnestly leftist tourists speaks, with sparkling eyes, about the power of organized protests, Chris gives it to her straight: “Marches are just the places we can get the clearest photos of you without your knowing.” Malkovich doesn’t make the line sound cruel or demeaning. He launches it with a kind of bounce, the way you’d serve a tennis ball. He’s having fun here, and his pleasure becomes our delight. He makes you believe in a guy who would send an invasive, wool-munching insect out into the night air without crushing it. No one can deliver a moth soliloquy like he can.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt1ba9b4206165ce39 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:01:16 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Stephanie Zacharek\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How Democrats Are Pushing for a Supreme Court Overhaul\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/how-democrats-are-pushing-for-a-supreme-court-overhaul/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A Republican-led attempt to permanently limit the Supreme Court to nine Justices fell at the first hurdle.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Win McNamee—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett attend the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a5a7eddc8560247/6a99ae4822b3dafb0a75ee94/GettyImages-2263545392.jpg?branch=production)

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett attend the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026\. —Win McNamee—Getty Images

The [House of Representatives](https://time.com/article/2026/08/14/congress-turnover-house-senate-republican-democrat-primaries-midterm-elections/) on Wednesday struck down a Republican-led attempt to permanently limit the [Supreme Court](https://time.com/article/2026/04/29/the-supreme-court-is-dangerously-broken-here-s-how-to-fix-it/) to nine Justices, with lawmakers voting largely along party lines.

The attempt to preserve the makeup of the country’s [top court ](https://time.com/7221710/supreme-court-stand-up-to-trump/)was already a long shot: GOP Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona’s proposal was a constitutional [amendment](https://time.com/article/2026/04/06/25th-amendment-constitution-trump-war-iran-threat-insanity/) that required two-thirds of the chamber to approve. Even if the proposal had passed the chamber, it faced similarly long odds in the Senate and would have then needed ⁠to be ratified by 38 of the 50 U.S. states. But the attempt fell at the first hurdle in the House, with a [212-206 vote](https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2026293).

Still, the effort has put the Supreme Court—which Democrats have recently targeted over the conservative leanings of its decisions—firmly in the spotlight ahead of the November midterms. The Supreme Court may have bucked President Donald Trump’s agenda in [tariffs ](https://time.com/7380033/supreme-court-tarriffs-ruling-trump/)and [birthright citizenship](https://time.com/article/2026/06/17/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-order-fourteenth-amendment-us-constitution/), but it equally handed him [victories in federal elections](https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/), his attempts to [remake the capital](https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/white-house-east-wing-ballroom-trump-supreme-court/), and his Administration’s [enforcement of a robust anti-immigration agenda](https://time.com/article/2026/07/27/haitian-immigrants-ice-operations-temporary-protected-status/).

The GOP has [argued against “packing” the court](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/us-house-gop-attacks-proposals-expand-supreme-court-and-counter-conservative-majority), whose current 6-3 conservative set-up often benefits Trump and his allies.

But Democrats claim the conservative-led court’s latest rulings show it’s pandering to politics instead of law. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland [dismissed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHpBDVitfeQ) the proposal to cap the number of Supreme Court judges as “another ⁠partisan power grab by MAGA, our colleagues who fear for the results in the November election.”

Democrats’ criticisms coincide with signs of negative [public opinion](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/30/favorable-views-of-supreme-court-remain-near-historic-low/) about [the Supreme Court](https://news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx), with a [July 2026 Washington _Post_\-Ipsos poll](https://www.washingtonpost.com/tablet/2026/07/15/july-8-13-2026-washington-post-ipsos-poll/) showing that 46% of Americans believe the court is ruling on Trump’s policies based on ideology rather than the law.

The conservative Justices have denied that the court's decisions are politically motivated.

“I think, at a very basic level, people think we’re making policy decisions, we’re saying we think this is how things should be, as opposed to what the law provides,” said Chief Justice John Roberts [at an event in May](https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-chief-justice-8933cfe269c90746e200f2588801dfae). “I think they view us as purely political actors, which I don’t think is an accurate understanding of what we do.”

The past few months have nonetheless seen Democratic lawmakers proposing other ways to revamp the court in an attempt to weed out partisan politics and rein in judicial powers. Here are some of those efforts:

## Ongoing discussions over court size

The U.S. Constitution does not state how many Justices make up the Supreme Court, and the number of seats has [changed over ​time](https://www.fjc.gov/history/courts/supreme-court-united-states-legislative-history), from as few as five Justices to as many as 10\. Since 1869, however, the court has had nine authorized seats for Justices.

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to expand the court by up ​to six Justices after the incumbents struck down ​parts of his ⁠New Deal agenda, but lawmakers decisively thwarted this.

Since 2021, some Democrats have [attempted](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democrats-unveil-bill-expand-us-supreme-court-by-four-justices-2021-04-15/) to increase the number of Justices. In April that year, four Democrats [introduced](https://hankjohnson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/expand-supreme-court-senator-markey-and-reps-nadler-johnson-and-jones) a bill envisioning a 13-Justice Supreme Court, claiming it “would restore balance to the nation’s highest court after four years of norm-breaking actions by Republicans.” Former Vice President[ Kamala Harris](https://time.com/7009317/reintroduction-of-kamala-harris/), who lost to Trump in the 2024 presidential election, also [said](https://x.com/Acyn/status/2083252009566867877) that Democrats should have a “real conversation” about changing institutions, including “expanding” the court.

As recently as May, Rep. Al Green of Texas [filed a bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8647/text) to increase the number of Justices to 13.

“I think that we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress, and we ought to expand—and 13 is a pretty good number,” Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina [said in an interview with NBC News last month](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/transcripts/meet-press-august-30-2026-rcna595113). “A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court. And I would hope we would get people on the court who will follow the constitutional underpinnings of this great nation of ours.”

## Proposed term limits

In July, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and his fellow Democrats in the upper chamber [proposed to limit new Justices’ active terms to 18 years](https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-booker-blumenthal-padilla-reintroduce-supreme-court-term-limits-bill-to-restore-americans-trust-in-the-court/). 

Per [Whitehouse’s bill](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119s5076is), the next President would nominate two new Supreme Court Justices in the first and third years after a presidential election. 

The bill also states that only the nine most recently appointed Justices on the bench would rule on cases under the Court’s appellate jurisdiction. A Justice will spend about 18 years participating in those cases, after which the Justice would be limited to hearing original jurisdiction cases and performing other duties.

“Term limits and regular appointments would make the Court more representative of everyday Americans and help restore the Supreme Court to the proper independent body it was created to be,” Whitehouse said.

[Multiple polls](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/supreme-court-term-limits#position-19597), dating back to at least 2014, show broad public support for Justices’ term limits.

## Other ethics concerns

Beyond debates over judicial tenures, some Supreme Court Justices have been hounded by ethics controversies.

[Clarence Thomas](https://theweek.com/in-depth/1022846/a-running-list-of-clarence-thomas-scandals) and [Samuel Alito](https://newrepublic.com/article/210477/samuel-alito-recuse-fossil-fuel-case) have faced allegations of conflicts of interest and questions over financial disclosures, including accepting undisclosed luxury trips and other gifts—claims they have disputed.

Democrats have since introduced a handful of bills in hopes of restoring confidence in the judiciary. One bill sought to [ban federal judges from receiving gifts](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr9688ih) valued over $50 in an instance or $100 in total per year per source save for specific exceptions, and a bill also seeks to [require Justices and other members of the judiciary](https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr9784ih)—as well as their spouses and children—to put certain assets in blind trusts. 

The Supreme Court has [also been accused](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-abuse-shadow-docket-under-trump) of “abusing” what is called the [“shadow docket”](https://time.com/6280539/supreme-court-shadow-docket-shaping-america/)—the docket which the Trump Administration has resorted to in seeking emergency relief in cases challenging the President’s agenda. The Trump Administration has applied for dozens of emergency appeals before the Supreme Court, and the court has, [in most cases](https://hls.harvard.edu/today/shedding-light-on-the-supreme-courts-shadow-docket/), ruled in the Administration’s favor. Rep. Raskin has [introduced a bill](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr8991ih/pdf/BILLS-119hr8991ih.pdf) that would require the Supreme Court to issue public legal justification for certain orders issued from this docket.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut [introduced a bill](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s5121is/html/BILLS-119s5121is.htm) in July mandating an ethical code of conduct for the Supreme Court, appointing an Ethics Investigations Counsel, and requiring Justices to publicly disclose why they decided to recuse themselves from a case. The bill aims to strengthen enforcement of the court’s [previous ethics code](https://time.com/6983758/supreme-court-ethics-rules-enforced/).

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltebc539abead89987 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:02:55 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chad de Guzman\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What Dolly Parton Said in Her Last Interview Should Terrify Us\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/what-dolly-parton-said-in-her-last-interview-should-terrify-us/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Supporting caregivers is one of the biggest unmet societal needs of our time, writes Neal K. Shah.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Jason Kempin—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Dolly Parton visits the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on May 19, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1333b54d00eb2165/6a99a05604193c107f96a84f/dolly-parton.jpg?branch=production)

Dolly Parton visits the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on May 19, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. —Jason Kempin—Getty Images

Dolly Parton did so much in her life to help others. In her final days, I think she did one last thing that will help millions of people, if we pay attention to her warning and take action.

Just four days before she died, [Parton said](https://people.com/dolly-parton-shares-health-update-while-announcing-plans-for-museum-exclusive-12065750) that she was being treated for health problems that she “didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl.” She was talking about the years she spent caring for her husband through a long illness. The interview moved on to her upcoming projects, and that line went by so quickly that most people missed it. As we reflect on her death, I think it was a clear wake-up call to America.

This is caregiving in 2026\. [More than 60 million Americans](https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/ltss/family-caregiving/caregiving-in-the-us-2025/) are going through it, a 45% increase over the past decade. We are struggling in the shadows at great sacrifice to our own health and well-being, and caregiving rarely gets airtime as few people want to hear about it. Even worse, hardly anyone wants to talk about it.

In my mid-30s, I suddenly became a spousal caregiver for my wife through her cancer battle. It took an enormous toll on my own health, and woke me up to the harsh realities that millions of Americans face. I realized that supporting caregivers is one of the biggest unmet societal needs of our time, and I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to helping caregivers. 

I left my thriving career as a hedge fund manager to build a social impact organization [CareYaya](https://www.careyaya.org/), where I’ve worked directly to help thousands of caregivers, people taking care of their spouses and their aging parents, who are caring for loved ones through serious illness, dementia or disability. The toll that millions of us are facing is enormous and completely in the shadows.

But with our [rapidly aging population](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/older-adult-population-projections.html), rising rates of [dementia](https://time.com/7273212/dementia-murali-doraiswamy-eric-stallard-essay/), [cancer](https://time.com/7213490/why-are-young-people-getting-cancer/), and serious illness, all of which place a huge caregiving burden on spouses or adult children, I think now is a critical time to talk about caregiving, before it totally breaks our society. Parton’s death can be the wake-up call to change the societal narrative and bring about much-needed changes to support caregivers. 

Parton’s own words suggest that for years, her health was going untended while she tended someone else’s, and that no one caught it. In October 2025, when posting a video to quiet fans who had begun to worry about her health, [she said](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYQol4eJXqE) that while Carl was sick and after he died, “I didn’t take care of myself,” and that she had let things slide. A few months later in March 2026, opening the season at Dollywood, [she said](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/dolly-parton-health-update-dollywood-postponing-las-vegas-shows) she had gotten “worn down and worn out.” And in August 2026, she said it a final time, only four days before she passed. For years, one of the most famous women in America was doing the unseen and unheralded work of a caregiver.

We have known for a quarter century that this work can literally kill the person doing it. In the [Caregiver Health Effects Study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10605972/), published in _JAMA_ in 1999, elderly spousal caregivers who reported strain had a four-year mortality rate 63% higher than non-caregiving spouses.

Scientists like Janice Kiecolt-Glaser have mapped in detail the biology underneath this phenomenon. Give a caregiver and a matched non-caregiver an identical small wound, and the caregiver’s wound takes about [nine days longer](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7475659/) to close. Caregivers’ immune cells show [accelerated telomere erosion](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2262924/), the hallmark cellular signature of faster aging.

When Blue Cross Blue Shield went into its own claims database and identified 6.7 million members who were caregivers, it found that caregivers had [26% poorer overall health](https://www.bcbs.com/news-and-insights/report/the-impact-of-caregiving-on-mental-and-physical-health) than a matched benchmark. They were 64% [more likely](https://www.bcbs.com/media/pdf/HOA-Impact-of-Caregiving%5F2020.pdf) to have high blood pressure, 37% more likely to have major depression, and 34% more likely to have anxiety. Among Millennials, the so-called “sandwich generation” raising their children while managing an aging parent’s illness, the rates of hypertension ran 82% higher and hospitalizations ran 59% higher. The health care system can already see clearly what caregiving does to someone’s own health. It simply has not adjusted the way it responds to help caregivers.

Even when the person they’re caring for dies, the risk does not end, as a well-documented “Widowhood Effect” shows the surviving spouse has an [excess mortality of over 30%](https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2007.114348) in the first three months after the passing of their loved one.

So what’s the solution? We can start with making caregiving a diagnosis.

Let’s take high blood pressure as an example. It often causes no symptoms and does not hurt. Yet we screen for it, code it, track it, and treat it anyway, simply for one reason: it reliably increases your risk of dying early. That is the logic of preventative health care, to address the risk factor before it becomes an emergency.

By that standard, caregiving should be at the top of the list. It elevates blood pressure, depression, and inflammation, suppresses immune response, correlates with a measurable rise in mortality. And unlike most other risk factors, it is very obvious who might be affected. 

The caregiver is often the person standing in the clinic exam room with their loved one, doing the paperwork and answering questions on someone else’s behalf. Yet currently, they are invisible to our health care system. 

In my years as a cancer caregiver for my wife, taking her to dozens of appointments and treatments, I was never once asked how I was doing or how my health was holding up. Only [15% of caregivers](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/27/health/dolly-parton-husband-caregiving-wellness) have ever been asked by a health care provider how they are doing. Even on the mental-health side, clinicians still [lack the diagnostic pathway](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12179692/) to[ ](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12179692/)bill for supporting caregivers, so even if caregiver burden is documented, it’s not treated because it’s not billable. Our health care system can bill for almost anything these days, yet it cannot bill for one of the most common health exposures in American life.

What else would caregiver support look like?

If you know a caregiver, please stop texting, “let me know if you need anything.” An exhausted caregiver will never ask, and answering requires more work and inventing a task for you. Just name a day and a four-hour window, and show up. Bring food for them and take over the care duties for a few hours, so they can get a much-needed break to go watch a movie, go to their own doctor’s appointment, sit in a park, or take a nap.

If you are the caregiver, treat your own medical appointments as part of the job. Book them at the same time that you book your loved one’s. Tell one clinician on your care team that you are the caregiver, and ask to be checked on, too. That is information the system needs. And think about it as the announcement you hear when you board an airplane: “In the event of an emergency, please put on your oxygen mask before you help others.” If you don’t manage your own health, you may not be capable of helping your loved one.

As a country, we need to see caregivers, name the burden, and pay for it. Register caregivers alongside the patient, and screen them for physical health, mental health, and economic stability, with actual corresponding help. We should fund respite care and tax credits for caregivers. Unpaid family caregivers deliver [over a trillion dollars](https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/valuing-the-invaluable-report-2026/) of economic value in care every year, and we need to decide that’s worth supporting.

The next time a caregiver walks someone they love into an exam room, somebody in the room should ask how they are doing, write the answer down, and support them. 

That is the memorial Dolly Parton earned, and the best way we can honor her legacy.

"I've been blessed": Dolly Parton reflects on her legacy in 2020 TIME interview

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltf1f4ffba5c0e550e Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:30:41 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Neal K. Shah\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Gloria Steinem Brought Women Together to Change the World\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/gloria-steinem-remembrance-meg-wolitzer/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Author Meg Wolitzer reflects on the feminist activist's lasting legacy\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

In the beginning, there was the famous story about the young journalist [Gloria Steinem](https://time.com/author/gloria-steinem/), going undercover in 1963 as a Playboy Bunny, all décolletage and rabbit ears, in order to expose a culture of degradation and misogyny. The Bunny episode is certainly the [Steinem](https://time.com/archive/6595952/10-questions-for-gloria-steinem/) anecdote most often cited, but it’s such an early story that it’s just a canary, really, hinting only a little at what would become a lifelong commitment to feminism. 

Steinem, who [died Sept. 2 in her home in New York City at the age of 92](https://time.com/article/2026/09/03/gloria-steinem-dead-at-92-feminist-activist-icon-tributes/), was an icon of second-wave feminism. As one of the co-founders, in 1971, of both _Ms._ magazine and, along with many other feminists, the National Women’s Political Caucus, Steinem advocated fiercely and vocally on behalf of women’s rights. She was also involved in the fight for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. 

But she didn’t consider her life as an “[active feminist](https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2438/)” to have started until 1969, when in her mid-30s she attended an abortion speak-out in a church basement. Steinem was there as a reporter for _New York_ magazine, but found herself struck by the stories the women told, and the truths that they were willing to reveal in front of other people. She had [her own truth](https://www.npr.org/2020/09/25/916870127/feminist-gloria-steinem-on-finding-herself-free-of-the-demands-of-gender), which she came to share.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte07ff427e465cd6a/6a999278448ea60bdc59768d/TIM260928-Steinem-Cover-FINAL.jpg?branch=production)

 —Photograph by Susan Wood—Getty Images

[_Buy a copy of the Gloria Steinem cover here_](https://magazineshop.us/gsteinem)

Some years ago, she personalized the story further, in the dedication of her 2015 book, _My Life on the Road,_ which reads:

_This book is dedicated to:_

_Dr. John Sharpe of London, who in 1957, a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason other than the health of the woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a twenty-two-year-old American on her way to India._

_Knowing only that she had broken an engagement at home to seek an unknown fate, he said, “You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.”_

_Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death:_

_I’ve done the best I could with my life._

_This book is for you._

What is it that makes these words so moving? There was always something real and approachable about Steinem, visible in this dedication as well as in the interviews she gave and the speeches she delivered. You felt you knew her, or you wished you did. You even imagined being her, just a little.

I definitely had feelings along those lines toward Steinem. As a teenager I watched my own mother, a writer who hadn’t been encouraged by her parents to explore her talents fully or go to college, become truly affected by the women’s movement, publishing her first novel in her mid-40s. We subscribed to _Ms._, and I became part of a consciousness-raising group in school. Though the term "consciousness raising" can feel outdated, I still remember those conversations the other girls and I had. Someone would bring over a container of Lipton’s onion dip and a bag of chips, and we would go around the room speaking about subjects that until then had been kept inside, connected with what we had thought of as privacy, but which in some instances was really shame. 

Later on, I was excited to win the _Ms._ magazine college fiction contest; and still later the writer Mary Gordon invited me to attend Steinem’s 50th birthday party with her. In addition to being overstimulated and thrilled at seeing Steinem, I am pretty sure I also saw Carol Burnett, Sally Ride, and Rosa Parks—if that tells you anything about Steinem’s reach. Beyond that, it was so heady that I can’t tell you much of anything.

“In my old age—really old age, since I’m going to live past 100, I hope,” Steinem once said in an [interview](https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2438/) with _New York_ magazine, “I would love to have a diner.” She envisioned it as having “blue gingham curtains” and being “by the side of the road,” and she went on to explain: “Diners are the most democratic places. Everyone goes—truck drivers go, people from the neighborhood, people in their tuxes after parties go… And in the back room,” she said, “we could have a little revolutionary meeting from time to time.”

Steinem never actually had a diner, although you could make the case that she did have a sort of symbolic one, because her life’s work involved bringing all kinds of people together to talk, often to touch on matters of radical societal change. She seemed to be everywhere, from the nightly news to a mention on [_The Mary Tyler Moore Show_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjBnLUrA9SU)_._ The warmth and genuineness of her personality, as well as her convictions, breadth of knowledge and experience, and her talents both as a writer and speaker, helped make her a reliable figure over all the decades she spent working for women’s equality. In 2013, Barack Obama presented her with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt627dcad437e2a031/6a9955d56ccd608804d6005f/gloria-steinem-obit-05.jpg?branch=production)

Gloria Steinem at the offices of Ms. Magazine circa 1974 in New York City. —PL Gould—Getty Images

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfeff4ed852683c92/6a9955d53b8dfc458bd05464/gloria-steinem-obit-03.jpg?branch=production)

Gloria Steinem and actress Olympia Dukakis take part in the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League's “March and Rally for Women's Rights” in New York City on Oct. 7, 1995\. —LM Otero

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78a55958e4c791a1/6a9955d6739f670b41a4d338/gloria-steinem-obit-10.jpg?branch=production)

President Barack Obama awards Gloria Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 20, 2013\. —Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP

The expression “the personal is political” easily comes to mind when thinking of Steinem, whose own origin story strongly shaped her inclination toward activism. Born on March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio, Steinem lived with her mother Ruth after her parents’ divorce, becoming, at 10, the sole caretaker for her mother, who struggled with mental illness. Among Ruth's many other challenges was keeping a job. Feminism was in Steinem’s DNA (her father’s mother was involved with women’s suffrage and was the first woman elected to the Toledo Board of Education), but Steinem later realized that witnessing the contempt and disregard that people in power expressed toward her mother—seeing how she was treated as invisible—became a formative social justice experience for her.

She took her percolating consciousness off to Smith College, the all-women’s school in Northampton, Mass., where she studied government. But Smith in the 1950s, while academically rigorous, was also sometimes described by its critics as a place where students went to get their "MRS" degrees. This, Steinem knew, was not something she wanted for herself. As she once told _People_ magazine, “In the 1950s, once you married you became what your husband was, so it seemed like the last choice you’d ever have.” She added, “I’d already been the very small parent of a very big child, my mother. I didn’t want to end up taking care of someone else.” (Steinem did eventually marry, but not until her 60s.)

Being responsible for her mother not only molded her convictions about what she didn’t want, but also seems to have allowed her to figure out, earlier than other people, what she did want. And one thing she apparently wanted was experience. Steinem got that, traveling to India on a fellowship; then, later, at _Ms_., and as a journalist, mentor, and speaker to audiences around the world. Along the way, the glamorous Steinem had a well-documented love life that sometimes involved relationships with powerful men. Her stylishness––the signature aviator glasses and great hair––combined with her intelligence and political engagement, challenged retrograde and insulting ideas about graceless, unappealing feminists. 

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte26042d1c1ef4316/6a996dd4448ea602ae5975a8/gloria-steinem-obit-12.jpg?branch=production)

Betty Friedan, Elinor Guggenheimer, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Gloria Steinem, at an early meeting of the National Women's Political Caucus in New York, July 19, 1971\. —Don Hogan Charles—The New York Times/Redux

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0fc4f04b27db9603/6a9955d53b8dfcf922d05468/gloria-steinem-obit-04.jpg?branch=production)

An officer arrests Steinem during an anti-apartheid protest outside the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 19, 1984\. —AP

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0d93c8cd59ca6748/6a9955d5e670052bb576c781/gloria-steinem-obit-01.jpg?branch=production)

Steinem with her cat in her New York City apartment on March 18, 1970\. —AP

It would not be an overstatement to call Steinem the “face” of second-wave feminism, whether it was her preference or not to be known that way. Steinem believed that her personal formation as a feminist had been importantly shaped by Black women. “I thought that they invented the feminist movement,” she [said](https://www.blackenterprise.com/be-womens-history-month-feminist-icon-gloria-steinem-talks-black-women-feminism/) in 2015\. “I realize that things being what they are, the white, middle-class part of the movement got reported more.” Throughout her life, both personally and politically, she was sensitive to the needs of various groups whose interests had been sidelined. 

Steinem seemed to capture the feminist imagination in profound ways across decades, often acting as a convener of women. She was known for the “talking circles” frequently held in her home. In 2009, I received an invitation to her house in New York City for a reception to celebrate the filmmaker Jane Campion. Various women in the arts had been invited, and Steinem went around and briefly described everyone’s work, one by one. I suppose “networking” took place that night, but that seems too corporate a term for what I experienced, which was a series of good conversations with women I admired, in the home of someone who mattered to us all. She somehow had time for all of this—more time, even as the clock sped up the way it seems to do as you get older, before it inevitably slows down, then stops.

I had cause to think of Steinem again some years ago when talking to a friend, the novelist J. Courtney Sullivan, who in fact I met for the first time that night at Steinem’s. Sullivan was a core member of the all-volunteer group Immigrant Families Together, which worked to reunite mothers and children who had been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2018she sent out a mass email, looking for housing for immigrant women and their children. She told me she sent 50 emails, and at that point received only one response in which the person volunteered her own home. It was from Steinem, who told Sullivan, in effect: Any of those mothers and their children are welcome to stay in my house for as long as they need.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltd01eefce599b7dfe Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:48:39 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Meg Wolitzer\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Love Island USA Must Do More to Protect Black Women\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/love-island-usa-black-women/<!\[CDATA\[Entertainment\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The record-breaking reality TV franchise is built on the popularity of its Black female stars, but it does not do enough to keep them out of harm's way.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Courtesy of Peacock\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Aniya Harvey, Melanie Moreno, Trinity Tatum, and Kayda Bosse\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde679eb4818f7277/6a96f12dda48d50cc1095462/NUP_211514_00575.jpg?branch=production)

Aniya Harvey, Melanie Moreno, Trinity Tatum, and Kayda Bosse —Courtesy of Peacock

_Love Island USA_ would not exist without Black women. Their viral moments, reads at the fire-pit, and ability to shape pop culture in their image are the stuff of marketing executives' dreams. Within the timespan of a summer, Season 8’s core four—Trinity Tatum, Kayda Bosse, Aniya Harvey, and Melanie Moreno—gained millions of followers across social media platforms, signed deals with major [talent agencies](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/rise-of-love-island-usa-1236847622/), and received widespread coverage across mainstream media publications. 

The _Love Island USA_ effect is not limited to these four women. The show has also brought notoriety and fame to their male partners and other Islanders, as well. But the breakout stars of the Peacock dating series are experiencing these phenomena on another level, with built-in fanbases that follow and support every campaign they take part in, both on and off social media. In a landscape where fame equates to followers and followers equate to money, these four Black women are [raking in the profits](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/trinity-tatum-took-risk-leaving-185057635.html) and [new opportunities](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/love-island-usa-aniya-harvey-200000019.html?guccounter=1&guce%5Freferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce%5Freferrer%5Fsig=AQAAAKjPrSQRuKH5-2S2n-KTGCPr8gST-Lhyn3G3NFxTZicLEq49BDX8eJMYX-HZgul0tMEQYAC8KRxymovpdSqAoR7KzyE3unlaEQBxMQoTxzYYkG0vPpAHDNNh4WeBzYFLAzoDn5PuVtm%5FOOPE4EWjVM9dt--908OCIRjWP%5FrsL24N) their newfound fame has brought, and Black women are to thank for it. 

But even as their fans prop them up, it often seems as though they are taken for granted by other Islanders, those cast members’ fanbases, and ITV America and Peacock, which have seen their [bottom lines](https://deadline.com/2022/11/love-island-itv-total-revenues-2-9bn-itv-studios-1235167536/) [grow significantly](https://www.engadget.com/2222181/peacock-is-finally-profitable-thanks-to-the-world-cup-and-love-island/) as a direct result of the dating franchise. Despite their success, Tatum, Bosse, Harvey, and Moreno have been subjected to constant anti-Black racism and sexism, and the support network that should be there to protect them has been conspicuously absent: There’s been no statement of support or condemnation from the networks, while cast members defend their mistreatment of the core four rather than have their backs. What’s more, the harm to these women is experienced by Black women watching the show as [vicarious racism](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12442417/#S16)—an indirect exposure to racial and gender discrimination—that elicits feelings of fear, sadness, and anger. (As of publication, representatives from Peacock and ITV America had not responded to a request for comment.)

On the _Love Island USA_ Season 8 reunion, which aired Aug. 31 on Peacock, mistreatment on social media was a recurring theme among the Islanders, specifically the Black Islanders, who spoke about receiving death threats, racial slurs, and discriminatory harassment from fans of the Fiji-set dating franchise. “I don’t stand for racism towards me, towards Titi \[Tierra Davis\], and any of the other cast members, which is a big reason why I haven’t really been on social media,” said [KC Chandler ](https://www.tiktok.com/@karendotcomm/video/7680426397394799885?lang=en)on the reunion stage. “I wanted to get my mind right and really focus on what matters to me, which is my family and my mental health.”

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9b3cebc313a7588f/6a972f72a772fcd88990a28a/NUP_211514_01053.jpg?branch=production)

Aniya Harvey and Carl Schmidt, Melanie Moreno and Sincere during the Season 8 reunion —Courtesy of Peacock

This was not the first time a Black Islander had expressed discontent on the _Love Island USA_ reunion stage. Last year, breakout star Olandria Carthen tearfully spoke about the [racism and bullying](https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/love-island-usa-reunion-olandra-chelly-confront-huda-1236496678/) she experienced from fans of Huda Mustafa, including one who photoshopped her face onto the body of George Floyd. Serena Page, winner of _Love Island USA_ Season 6, told podcast host Kamie Crawford that she talked to production staff about their decision to [cast male Islanders who were not attracted to Black women](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZqSlMiMceI), thus reinforcing the stereotype that Black women are undesirable. And these messages are sent to a massive audience: the most recent season accumulated [nearly 19 billion hours of viewing](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/love-island-usa-season-8-ratings-record-1236828613/)—a streaming record for Peacock. 

It is no secret that reality television has historically been [unwelcoming and unsafe for Black women](https://people.com/reality-tv-hasnt-always-been-kind-to-black-women-heres-why-11783616). Nor is _Love Island USA_ the first unscripted television show to have a toxic fandom. But the lack of protections for these stars, in addition to being an ethical lapse with serious ramifications for their mental health, could pose a threat to the future of the franchise. Fans are loyal to Islanders more than to the show itself, and if the show’s biggest stars are no longer in its orbit, it becomes harder to keep their devotees in that orbit too. The trio of friends nicknamed PPG—Leah Kateb, Serena Page, and JaNa Craig—who catapulted the unscripted series into fame in Season 6, have publicly distanced themselves from the dating show. Carthen took a similar tack after last year’s reunion. And Moreno claimed not to have tuned in to the Season 8 reunion via an post on the [official Shondaland Instagram page](https://www.instagram.com/shondaland/?hl=en).

To be clear, Black women aren’t the only ones who seem to be moving on once their time on the show is done. “ I don't think these people want to be professional reality stars,” says Anna Peele, contributing editor at _Vanity Fair_ and author of [_Enter the Villa: The Unauthorized Reality Behind Love Island_](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Enter-the-Villa/Anna-Peele/9781668205594). “ Huda \[Mustafa\] wanted to keep being on reality TV. I think some of the cast members who left earlier are going to be very happy to be \[on its spinoff series\] _Beyond The Villa_.” But for the most part, she explains, they want to pivot or branch out. “These people want to be models, hosts, presenters, DJs. I don't know if those are higher aspirations than being a reality star, but they are different aspirations. The way that you comport yourself is going to be different than continuing to feed the public interest in your private life.”

The franchise has perhaps inadvertently shown fans the downsides of being a part of it. _Beyond The Villa_ became its first spinoff series following the breakout success of Season 6, which saw significant growth in the show’s stateside audience. The spinoff followed the fan favorites of that seasonas they adjusted to their newfound fame in Los Angeles. The show was meant to be an inside look into the lives of America’s favorite Islanders, but it wasn’t all glamorous. Viewers were privy to these young adults’ experiences of heightened anxiety, depression, struggles with their shifting personal and professional identities, and other issues related to their participation. And its window into Black female cast members’ experiences was grimmest of all. Season 2 of the spinoff did not feature runner-up Nic Vansteenberghe, Carthen, Mustafa, nor Allen “Ace” Steve Greene and Michelle “Chelley” Evelyn Bissainthe, after many of them expressed frustration over the way they were depicted. The spinoff was renewed for a [third season](https://www.nbcuniversal.com/article/peacocks-love-island-usa-caps-record-breaking-season-reunion-special-and-beyond-villa-season-three), but the likelihood of Season 8's core four joining is slim to none—though contractual obligations mean other new opportunities may be temporarily limited.

Islanders are beholden to a one-year exclusivity clause, an industry standard in reality TV. “It gives the network or streamer veto power over any brand or commercial deals the talent may pursue,” McKinley Franklin explains in the [_Hollywood Reporter_](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/why-love-island-usa-not-on-dancing-with-the-stars-1236649740/). “And it gives them a window to see if they want to sign up the talent in question for any future shows or spinoffs.” Jade Sherman, head of digital at Gersh—the talent agency that represents _Vanderpump Rules_ alum Ariana Madix, who hosts _Love Island USA_, as well as Aniya Harvey—spoke about the clause to [_Variety_](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/rise-of-love-island-usa-1236847622/). “_Love Island_ is an incredible brand, and they try really hard to protect their IP. They’ve put things in place to do that, and it’s on us as representatives to be able to pivot and adapt to where their changing rules are,” she said.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3abe24327d3b997d/6a972fdcda48d5ceda0955c0/NUP_211514_01030.jpg?branch=production)

Zach Georgiou and Kayda Bosse —Courtesy of Peacock

Yet no discussion about the series’ record-breaking viewership or Islanders’ post-show deals is complete without acknowledging the impact of the discourse online. Islanders receive a [psychological screening](https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/a-new-reality-for-psychiatry-is-reality-tv-a-friend-or-foe) before they begin filming the show, and they have access to on-site psychological support in Fiji. But the support does not seem to adequately address one of the biggest threats to contestants’ wellbeing: fear of their fans. When Peele interviewed former Islanders for _Enter The Villa_ and conversations touched on their hesitancy to step in when another Islander was being harassed, they described the fans as terrifying. “ There's a moral imperative to do the right thing and to do what's right. But they can't control them,” says Peele. Fred Johnson, a talent manager at Select Management Group, the agency that represents _Love Island USA_ Season 7 fan favorite Jeremiah Brown, told [_The Ankler_](https://theankler.com/love-island-and-the-10-day-war-to-sign-the-stars/), “The audience that takes a typical content creator years to build pretty much arrives overnight” for an Islander. 

There is a lot of power in being a fan favorite, but for Black women Islanders, it exacts a particular toll. Zari Taylor, faculty fellow at New York University and co-author of _From Screen to Store: Exploring the Reality TV to Influencer Pipeline on_ Love Island_,_ spoke to TIME about the double standard they face. "On the one hand, while Black women \[are\] emerging victorious, especially dark-skinned women, they have to go through something” in order to achieve that fan-favorite status. Taylor describes the process as a trial by fire, in which the Islanders have to walk through the hot coals of misogyny and sexism on the show itself. They have to take the male Islander back even after lies and betrayals during the Casa Amor segment of the show, when he is tempted by other women, and are often an object of pity from the audience.

It is impossible to fully curb racism and sexism online. But that doesn’t mean the franchise can’t take meaningful steps toward creating a safer workplace and post-show experience for Black women—one that might encourage them to invest in it rather than move away from it as quickly as contractually possible. When asked what changes could be made to improve the conditions for Black women on _Love Island USA_ and those who watch it, Taylor had one clear starting point. “ Black women put a lot of effort into the show because we've had to fight for the representation that we have. Both franchises \[_Love Island_ and _Love Island USA_\]have had a Black couple win or a Black woman win. \[The producers of these shows\] need to be more conscious of things like online misogyny influencing the people that come on, and misogynoir, misogyny in general, so that they can keep an eye out for it.” This includes in the [casting process](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DT%5FSRXckikA/), when prospective Islanders are asked about their dating preferences.

Peele sees the addition of Ciara Miller as the host of _Love Island: Aftersun_, a recap show where the events of the episodes are discussed postmortem,as a sign that show is trending in the right direction. Her presence helps provide a space for conversations about dating as a Black woman on reality TV, led by a woman with personal experience. And Peele points to the possibility of age-restricted safeguards, barring fans under the age of 18 from participating in the discourse online, as Madix has noted that putting such restrictions on her own content significantly reduced negative interactions.

_Love Island USA_ remains in a moment of major growth and unprecedented attention. Madix secured the series’ first Emmy nomination, for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Program. She will host Season 9 of the franchise, along with _Love Island Games_, in 2027\. Viewership is growing: [35% of viewers this summer](https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/love-island-usa-season-8-ratings-record-1236828613/) were new to watching the series. And the Season 8 reunion closed with an announcement that casting is already underway for the next crew of Islanders. But more eyeballs bring more scrutiny, and growth cannot be sustained without the very people who made it possible. Let’s hope that expansion brings more discussions about continuous protection for the Black women who will join the franchise in addition to those who came before. Because no amount of fame can compensate for the damage done by anti-Black racism and sexism. And the show is nothing without its brightest stars.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt04110c7ae1cec3f6 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:00:06 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Taylor Crumpton\]\]>