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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>TIMEhttps://time.com/<!\[CDATA\[Breaking news and analysis from TIME.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science and entertainment news.\]\]>Tue, 22 Sep 2026 11:21:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1<!\[CDATA\[Revisiting Childhood Hobbies Is a Way to Learn Who You Are as an Adult\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/22/revisiting-childhood-hobbies-is-a-way-to-learn-who-you-are-as-an-adult/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Returning to a childhood hobby can engage the past as we remember it, the present, and the future we imagine, writes Rainesford Stauffer.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Flashvector—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4372d403cc49989e/6aa40a1f369239678c3c7e4e/revisiting-childhood-hobbies.jpg?branch=production)

 —Flashvector—Getty Images

I swept my arm overhead, forming a half-moon shape as my body bent into a side stretch. I could almost hear the ballet instructors of my childhood calling out steps: _Plié first position. Keep your heels down. Legs straighten, lift your kneecaps. Stretch toward the barre._

When I started experimenting with ballet as an adult, it had been well over a decade since I last took a class. I started alone with no mirrors, clutching my kitchen counter in tennis shoes. It was as if this routine had been lying dormant in my muscles and my memory. I still knew the steps. I could still hum music that had been paired with certain exercises. But now, this melody was accompanied by my knees snapping, crackling, and popping. 

In addition to being floored by what I could recall (even if my body couldn’t quite execute it), I was taken aback by how an activity that defined my childhood and young adulthood felt like an opportunity for my preteen self to tell me something about who I was now.

Dan P. McAdams, professor of psychology at Northwestern University, focuses on narrative identity. Part of that entails “this business about going back to the past, sometimes the distant past, and bringing something forward,” he said. While he hasn’t studied that exact process with a childhood hobby, he said that bringing something back that you feel good about “can be a very positive experience and make you feel like you're kind of integrating your life around something that was once really important to you.” 

For some, revisiting these activities brings up memories. Kristen Martin, author of [_The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow_](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kristen-martin/the-sun-wont-come-out-tomorrow/9781645030348/), grew up in a multigenerational household, and her grandmother was constantly knitting. She was known for making everyone slippers in different color combinations of stripes, in addition to full-sized blankets. 

She taught Martin to crochet as early as kindergarten, and by fourth grade, they made a blanket for Martin’s childhood dog together. “I always think about her sitting and knitting,” Martin said. “I think that she did it as a way to keep her hands busy throughout the day as her mind worked.”

When Martin picked up knitting and crocheting again in adulthood, she noticed something similar in herself. She typically practices her hobby at night with the TV on, a wind-down activity. “I find it very relaxing as something that I can focus on, but without my full attention,” she said. She loves making things for other people, just as her grandmother did.

Benjamin Vigeant, 40, who works as a social media manager in Chicago, grew up with a pinball machine in his basement. He stopped playing until his late 20s, when he and a friend would play when they spotted pinball machines at bars, getting competitive with each other.

Eventually, he started a pinball league in Chicago. “I really enjoy competing, and now there's a bunch of people competing with me,” Vigeant said. 

In a 2023 [_Teen Vogue_](https://www.teenvogue.com/story/3-young-people-reclaiming-childhood-hobbies-healing) article, Aiyana Ishmael interviewed Gen Zers who revisited hobbies they loved earlier in life, from swimming to fashion, as a means of “healing their inner child.” Revisiting childhood activities, in particular, can feel like a chance to reclaim part of your own story. 

According to Hollen Reischer, visiting assistant professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, narrative identity refers to the “internalized, evolving story of the self,” including the past as we remember it, the present, and the future we imagine.

“Returning to a hobby abandoned in childhood has the potential to engage all three of these temporal selves at once: It draws on our reconstructed memory of what the activity meant to us then, it alters what we are actually doing in the present, and it gestures toward some version of ourselves we hope to become,” she said.

The more frequently I took myself through basic ballet steps, the more I noticed glimmers of my younger self present-day: The preteen who wanted to show up early and stay late at the studio, trying to get a step just right, became an adult who painstakingly fiddles with sentences to find the right words, reaching for the same “ah-hah!” moment. I wondered about my younger self’s fearlessness—her willingness to throw herself into steps that were too hard, even if she stumbled. I no longer leap across studios, but I yearn for more of that freedom to try in my adult life. 

As I talked about my own return to a beloved childhood activity, I heard from others revisiting theirs, like someone who recently retired and went back to piano lessons, or the parent who started playing pick-up basketball games again after his kid expressed interest in playing, too. 

There are plenty of conversations around how hobbies provide [fulfillment](https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/23/health/childhood-hobbies-adult-playfulness-wellness) and build community, and endless debates about what hobbies can be monetized. But by revisiting childhood hobbies specifically, we can discover how much we’ve changed, or how the parts of us that once loved this thing remained all along.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt15366a7a8ca4ab91 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 10:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rainesford Stauffer\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Priest Preparing to Care for 31 Children If ICE Detains Their Parents\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/22/El-Salvador-priest-standby-guardian-31-kids-immigration-TPS/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[“I feel a lot of responsibility, and a very heavy weight," says Rev. Vidal Rivas.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Dee Dwyer\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Rev. Vidal Rivas has served at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church for almost two decades.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd25e0813fc262385/6aab2edaeffc545ddfdfb588/DDwyer_St_Matthew_s_Church_Deportations-6.jpg?branch=production)

Rev. Vidal Rivas has served at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church for almost two decades. —Dee Dwyer

When a mother returned to Maryland earlier this year after four months in [Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention](https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/ice-detention-strategy-private-prisons-immigration-deportation/), her children, ages one and four, did not recognize her at first. In her absence, they had lived with Vidal Rivas, an Episcopal priest who had agreed to be their temporary guardian if immigration authorities took her into custody. 

Rivas’ wife slept beside the children to soothe them while their mother was gone. When his wife became sick, Rivas took on more of the childcare.

The experience was demanding. But Rivas, 62, stands ready to do the same for 29 other children whose immigrant parents have named him as their standby guardian. Two more families are making similar arrangements with him, he says.

“I feel a lot of responsibility, and a very heavy weight,” says Rivas, who has served at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in suburban Washington for nearly two decades.

Inside the church hangs a sign bearing the same message in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole: “We love migrants.” For Rivas, the words have become a commitment to the families who fear an immigration arrest could suddenly separate them from their children. 

Rivas began encouraging families to name him as a standby guardian last year, shortly after President Donald Trump returned to office. Nearly all of the parents are Salvadoran, like him, and have been bracing for the Trump Administration to end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for roughly 170,000 [immigrants from that country](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RS20844#%5FToc207985215).

“It's not easy for parents to know that they could be arrested and their children could be left \[in the U.S.\] without them,” says Rivas.

# **How standby guardianship works**

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## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ

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### FAQ

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TIME digital-only is $20 for one year. Print and digital is from $29 for one year, or $49 for two years. Both plans can be cancelled at any time. Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent.

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

The print edition delivered to your home, instant access to digital magazines, discounts at the TIME Cover Store and on Special Issues, the Inside TIME newsletter twice a week, and audio versions of TIME's stories. It is from $29 for one year or $49 for two years at time.com/subscribe-agent.

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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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Under [Maryland law](https://www.peoples-law.org/standby-guardianship), parents can designate a standby guardian in the event they are arrested by immigration authorities. The designated guardian automatically becomes the child’s legal guardian for six months, with the possibility to extend if approved by a judge. Rivas says some parents have talked to him about contingency plans in case they remain in a detention center for longer.

Maryland was among the first states to revise its guardianship laws to help prevent the children of detained immigrants from entering foster care. During Trump’s first term, state lawmakers [passed](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/SB1239?ys=2018rs) a law allowing families to name a temporary guardian if detention or deportation separates their family. In July, Massachusetts made a [similar change](https://www.mass.gov/news/governor-healey-signs-protect-act-to-keep-ice-out-of-courthouses-schools-and-hospitals) in state law, joining Virginia, New York, California, Nevada, and Washington, D.C. to streamline such arrangements. 

# **Salvadorans await TPS decision**

After the mother of two young children was released, Rivas and his wife remained close to the family. “We now feel like the children's grandparents, because we still have a close relationship with her, looking after her and looking after the children,” he says.

Caring for the two children made Rivas acutely aware of the scale of what he has agreed to. If immigration enforcement ramps up in Hyattsville, a small city where [more than a third](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/hyattsvillecitymaryland/RHI725225#RHI725225) of the population is Hispanic, he could be called upon to care for many children at once

Such fears have been further exacerbated by the uncertainty surrounding TPS, a program Congress created in 1990 to protect immigrants who cannot safely return to countries affected by armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions. El Salvador was the first country designated for TPS in 1990 due to its civil war, and that protection was renewed in 2001 after the country. Since 1990, [more than 170,000](https://www.congress.gov/crs%5Fexternal%5Fproducts/RS/PDF/RS20844/RS20844.83.pdf) Salvadorans have been granted TPS status, becoming one of the largest groups protected by the program. 

The Trump administration has recently [rolled back](https://time.com/article/2026/08/13/haitians-Springfield-Ohio-Florida-TPS-deportation-fear-ICE-DHS/) TPS protections for [more than a dozen](https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status) other groups—including Haitians, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans—fueling fears that El Salvador could be next.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltabdf1fd51c896a6b/6aab2f9bef556f660ec2c09d/IMG_2077.jpg?branch=production)

A sign in St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church reads "We Love MIgrants" in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole —Philip Wang

In early September, hours before the TPS designation for Salvadorans was set to expire, the Department of Homeland Security released a notice that suggested it would remain in place for now. The [short notice](https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status/temporary-protected-status-designated-country-el-salvador) said Salvadorans under TPS would continue to “retain protection including work authorization,” but added that an announcement on the program’s future “will be made at the appropriate time.”

The statement offered little reassurance. Reports quickly emerged of Salvadorans in Hyattsville and elsewhere losing their jobs amid confusion over their immigration status. Even those still employed worry that the Trump Administration’s reprieve is only temporary.

“Many people have left the church for other cities, and some have returned to their country,” Rivas says. “People are in fear and become insecure.”

Maryland is home to many Salvadorans who fled to the United States in the 1990s or the early 2000s. Around that time, El Salvador was just rebuilding itself from a brutal civil war, before [a powerful hurricane](https://time.com/archive/6733979/murderous-mitch/) and a pair of earthquakes hit the Central American country. 

For those who have been in the United States for more than 20 years, returning home may no longer feel like a viable option. [More than 27%](https://pip.worldbank.org/country-profiles/SLV) of El Salvaror’s population lives below the national poverty line, according to the World Bank. It also has the highest imprisonment rate in the world, according to data from [the World Prison Brief](https://www.prisonstudies.org/world-prison-data/highest-lowest/highest-lowest-prison-population-rate?language%5Fcontent%5Fentity=en-gb), a database compiled by the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR) at Birkbeck, University of London. [President Nayib Bukele](https://time.com/7015598/nayib-bukeles-iron-fist-el-salvador/) has overseen an aggressive crackdown on gang violence as well as critics of his administration. The strategy is credited with reducing the country’s crime rate, but [rights groups accuse](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/07/el-salvador-el-costo-humano-del-regimen-de-excepcion-podria-constituir-crimenes-de-lesa-humanidad/) his government of arbitrary detention and abuses in prison. Last year, Trump sent hundreds of deported Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s [CECOT](https://time.com/7291757/trump-deportation-ice-el-salvador/), a maximum security jail designated for gang members. 

# **"A moral obligation"**

Rivas grew up in El Salvador during another tumultuous era. [A military coup](https://time.com/archive/6850744/el-salvador-a-coup-against-chaos/) in 1979 led to a deadly decade-long civil war between the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government and a left-wing guerrilla group backed by Cuba. 

Rivas decided to become a Catholic priest at age 27\. He says the military viewed Catholic clergy who advocated for social justice and human rights as communists. He was detained, beaten and hospitalized, he says. 

Rivas came to the U.S. in 1998 to work at a Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., where his advocacy work put him at odds with the church’s leadership. He eventually converted to the more liberal Episcopalian Church, and joined St. Matthews in 2008\. 

As the church’s Hispanic membership has grown, Rivas has felt an increasing responsibility to help parishioners struggling with immigration issues. Watchingparents cry as they discussed what might happen to them—and their children—convinced him that he had to do more.

Rivas says the support from the community over his guardian commitments has been overwhelming. Many have donated clothes and toys, and other churches and immigration organizations are also helping parents with standby guardianship arrangements. 

If he ultimately takes in more children, he intends to open a bank account in the church’s name to accept donations to cover the costs of childcare. “I know that there are also other churches that are willing to support us,” he says.

Rivas acknowledges that caring for so many children at once would be an enormous challenge. But in the current political environment, he sees it as “a moral obligation.” 

“I'm going to keep doing it as much as I can,” he says. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltace00122d0e79e87 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 10:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Philip Wang\]\]><!\[CDATA\[White House Launches ‘Trump TV’ Amid Feud With Press\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/22/trump-tv-white-house-press-pool-ban-boycott-state-media/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Critics labeled the 24/7 feed as “state run” media as its launch coincided with traditional news outlets being banned from the White House.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Screenshot from White House's X account (@WhiteHouse)\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The White House promotes "Trump TV" on X on Sept. 21, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta841a8fa168df0e2/6ab23d194988853e99133dab/trump-tv.png?branch=production)

The White House promotes "Trump TV" on X on Sept. 21, 2026\. —Screenshot from White House's X account (@WhiteHouse)

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new helipad in the White House on Monday, the sound of Marine One’s engines [drowned out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVC%5FnOngJw0) the White House’s feed of Donald Trump’s brief speech. Newsmax, which was also broadcasting the event, had a host [comment on their muted coverage](https://x.com/Phil%5FLewis%5F/status/2102105300606005662?s=20): “There’s no microphone because the pool cameras aren’t there.”

But as major networks boycotted pool coverage of the President over his [ban on multiple news outlets](https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/cnn-ms-now-politico-to-sue-trump-administration-over-white-house-ban/), the White House promoted a new 24/7 video feed focusing on Trump and his achievements.

It’s unclear if the YouTube-hosted stream, called “[Trump TV](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2102172574822048160),” is meant to potentially fill the void of television pool coverage of the President’s events. But it went live at 7 p.m. ET, according to the White House, with a rerun of Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore on July 3\. 

The White House described the stream as putting “top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the Administration all in one place.” In its social media post, the White House added: “Not every big moment has made it on your tv, now it can.” 

Kaelan Dorr, a deputy assistant to the President and head of digital strategy at the White House, [posted on social media](https://x.com/Kaelan47/status/2102171149241041341) about how Trump TV would show “the Administration’s greatest hits, unfiltered.” Dorr added: “The press, in some cases, reported inaccurately or not at all on the Administration’s many record breaking accomplishments on behalf of all Americans.”

CNN was supposed to shoot for the pool on Monday, with footage distributed to other networks, but it was one of the three organizations, alongside MS NOW and Politico, which were banned [from the White House on Friday](https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/trump-bans-3-news-organizations-from-white-house/) over their negative coverage of the President. The outlets have sued the Administration on free speech grounds, and, in seeming solidarity against the ban, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC subsequently suspended television pool coverage of presidential events. “No Administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” their [joint statement said](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/joint-network-statement-on-white-house-press-ban-302884835.html). 

## Critics slam ‘state-run’ TV

Trump TV’s rollout coinciding with the ban on traditional media outlets has only fueled criticism of the Trump Administration’s efforts to control narratives about the President.

[Gavin Newsom](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/gavin-newsom/), the Democratic Governor of California [widely seen as a presidential contender for the 2028 election](https://time.com/7328485/gavin-newsom-cbs-president-trump/), described “Trump TV” as “state-run.”

“First, Trump banned independent news from the White House,” Newsom [posted on social media](https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2102188172402987045?s=20). “Now, he’s launching what is quite literally state-run TV to try drowning out the fact that he and his corrupt administration are failing the American people. This is truly autocratic behavior from a failed President.”

Democratic U.S. Senator for Arizona Mark Kelly also slammed the Trump Administration’s recent spate of actions [in a social media post](https://x.com/CaptMarkKelly/status/2102185964579754039): “State run media, state owned enterprises, prosecuting political opponents, gifts from foreign countries, selling pardons, massive amounts of money flowing into the President’s bank account, and banners with his head plastered on government buildings. NONE OF THIS IS NORMAL.”

Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former White House Press Secretary during his first term, [suggested on social media](https://x.com/OMGrisham/status/2102120453837877387) that “Trump TV” is similar to what U.S. adversaries use. “You know who else does this? Russia, China, and Iran to name a few…”

Before the launch of Trump TV, former White House Correspondents’ Association President and CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang already warned on [Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/video/6405330056112) Sunday about increasing attempts by the government to shape news coverage in light of the press ban.

“America cannot have state TV,” Jiang said. “That’s what makes America America … You need independent actors to be able to be the observers. And if the government is only showing you what it wants, then you have to question: What are we missing?”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltb4592e205524b938 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:46:16 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chad de Guzman\]\]><!\[CDATA\[‘Healthy and Delicious Can Coexist’: Experts Discuss Making Food More Joyful and Sustainable\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/bel-group-time100-talk-recap/<!\[CDATA\[TIME100\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Taylor Hill—FilmMagic/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky—NYCWFF/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt829620a4dabe8ea2/6aadba14b9c5174296680b45/bel_group_time100_talk_recap_(1%29.png?branch=production)

 —Taylor Hill—FilmMagic/Getty Images, Dave Kotinsky—NYCWFF/Getty Images

At a TIME100 Talks event in New York City on Sept. 21, chefs and food industry experts discussed the challenges our communities face in making food healthier, more accessible, and more joyful for everyone.

Cecile Beliot-Zind, the CEO of Bel Group, which sponsored the event, said that her company believes “there is a model to make healthier and sustainable food for all possible,” but one of the issues facing the industry today is that people “keep on opposing instead of combining” ideas.

“We believe that the right way to define healthier food is to combine what usually people tend to see as trade-offs,” she said. “The big issue of our industry: If you want to scale healthier and sustainable food, you are first to make sure and to believe very strongly that health can be combined with taste, that nutrition can be combined with accessibility, that fair revenues for the farmers—who, by the way, feed all of us—could be combined with fair values for the communities we feed.”

She gave an example: Bel Group makes Babybel, the popular small cheese snack wrapped in a red wax coating, which Beliot-Zind called “the perfect snacks.”

“The reason why kids and I love Babybel is because it’s convenient, because it’s a great natural source of protein, because I play with the wax. It gives me joy,” she said. Bel Group, she continued, focuses on balancing these two ideas: making food both healthy and desirable.

“Healthy food will have an impact on the world if we are capable to make it nutritious enough to matter, accessible enough to be everywhere for everyone, and desirable enough to be chosen,” she said. “The issue with the food industry is that the big food manufacturers have created desire for product\[s\] that provide empty calories. They scale it, they spread it all over the world. We feed the world with fat and sugar at a low cost. … It hurts the planet, and it hurts the health of the people.”

TIME executive editor and panel moderator Nikhil Kumar then asked [Vikas Khanna](https://time.com/article/2026/05/07/who-decides-what-greatness-tastes-like/), a chef, author, and filmmaker, how he navigates making healthy food as a restaurateur. Khanna, who was on the [2026 TIME100 list](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/vikas-khanna/), talked about how, at his New York City restaurant Bungalow, he and his team have worked to make their food delicious, healthy, and sustainable.

“There’s also an extreme stigma around ethnic cuisines not being healthy,” Khanna said, but it isn’t necessarily accurate. Much of Indian cuisine, he said, “is based on the principles of Ayurveda and sustainability.” And eating healthy doesn’t have to come at the cost of authenticity. For instance, Bungalow has reduced the ratio of creams used in its foods. “I do understand you adding 40% cream makes everything taste more delicious,” he admitted, “but I want people to feel as if they’re eating at home. I have never met an Indian who says that we use cream in our home cooking.”

Marcus Samuelsson, a chef and author, spoke about how there’s been a long-held belief that healthy food can’t be tasty—and how it’s the role of a chef to disprove that idea.

“Healthy and delicious can coexist. Healthy and delicious definitely can be celebrated together,” Samuelsson said. “We think about healthy and delicious constantly. And it’s not either or.”

He went on to urge everyone to learn how to cook: “Learn how to cook, and with that, you will follow your own curiosity and you will feel better. Guaranteed.”

[Ertharin Cousin](https://time.com/collections/2014-time-100/70914/ertharin-cousin-2014-time-100/), the CEO and managing director of Food Systems for the Future, said that, while she thinks it’s a great idea for everyone to learn how to cook their own food, it can be a challenging task for people from low-income communities who may not have access to regular refrigeration or electricity or gas to support cooking.

“When we think about making that nutritious plate more available, we also need to think about how to support the households without access to the cooking and storage that we take for granted,” Cousin said. “Everyone wants to put a plate in front of their child that is going to ensure that that child thrives. Not everyone has the capacity to do it from a financial standpoint or from the tools that are required to make it available.”

Cousin also spoke about how “we grow enough calories,” but not enough food “to support the nutritious, diverse diet that’s necessary for the body to thrive.” That has led to nutritious and diverse diets becoming unaffordable for many Americans, and for many people around the world, which results in malnutrition, according to Cousin. At the same time, she said, “we have made food that is less nutrient-dense more affordable and available,” which has led to an overconsumption of unhealthy foods.

She went on to say that it should be the responsibility of everyone—ad companies, food processors, retailers, policymakers, and even consumers—to make changes across the entire system to make our food healthier.

The panelists ended the discussion by emphasizing the idea that food should be both joyful and healthy—that the two are not mutually exclusive. Cousin even said that “there’s a place for indulgent food,” though it shouldn’t be “at the center of your plate.”

“Food is joy. It’s health. It’s family. It’s culture. It’s love. You think about what moms go through to put food on the table for their families every night and how they think about what they’re providing for their children, for their futures. And we’ve lost some of that,” Cousin said. “We need to ensure that they have access to that diverse diet that is required for them to thrive—for the child to thrive.”

_TIME100 Talks: Architecting Healthier Food Systems for All was presented by Bel Group._

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltc1def5ba9bed8947 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 06:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Trump and Iran Exchange Threats as Leaders Converge for Key U.N. Gathering. Can the Meeting Cool Rising Tensions?\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/trump-iran-war-united-nations-general-assembly/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Trump and Iranian leaders have exchanged fresh threats ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, where delegations from the warring countries will be in attendance.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Spencer Platt—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Law enforcement secures an entrance to the United Nations during the start of the General Assembly in New York City on September 21, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt09843eb506f7b636/6ab1ae7582c1fd2f46b08540/GettyImages-2296433115.jpg?branch=production)

Law enforcement secures an entrance to the United Nations during the start of the General Assembly in New York City on September 21, 2026\. —Spencer Platt—Getty Images

Delegations from the U.S. and Iran are traveling to New York for the [world’s largest diplomatic gathering](https://time.com/7319639/trump-un-speech-takeaways/) this week in what experts say could be a key moment for determining the direction of the [Iran war](https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/us-iran-israel-war-crimes-strike-minab-school-un-report/) [nearly seven months](https://time.com/article/2026/09/15/us-iran-peace-talks-deal-stalled-houthis-leverage-shipping-disruptions/) in.

Tensions between the warring countries are mounting ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), with [Iranian leaders](https://time.com/article/2026/05/06/irans-new-leaders/) and [President Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/) exchanging a fresh round of threats.

Trump on Sunday weighed whether he should “blow the entire nation up” in an interview with [Fox News](https://x.com/foxnews/status/2101672307622101431?s=46), warning that Iran “better behave” and saying that “very big things” would happen in the war, without offering more detail. According to the outlet, Trump described his options as “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically, or making a deal.”

A spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Mohebbi, responded with a warning that if the U.S. were to launch fresh attacks against Iran, Tehran would use “new weapons and capabilities,” according to Iran's Fars news agency. “If a new aggression takes place, we will definitely change the weapons and geography of the war,” Mohebbi said. 

The threats come after active hostilities in the conflict [resumed](https://time.com/article/2026/09/02/us-iran-deadly-strikes-attacks-civilians-sirik-strait-hormuz/) in the last month when the U.S. and Iran traded fresh strikes amid tensions over the [Strait of Hormuz](https://time.com/article/2026/03/17/what-is-the-strait-of-hormuz-global-trade-oil-flow-iran-war/), a key waterway in the global oil market. Meaningful negotiations between the two countries have meanwhile been stalled for weeks following the breakdown of a [memorandum of understanding](https://time.com/article/2026/06/17/us-iran-peace-deal-agreement-leaked-draft-text/) leaders signed in June. And Yemen’s Iranian-backed [Houthi rebels](https://time.com/6554861/yemen-houthi-rebels-history-cause-israel-hamas-war/) have further shaken the Gulf region by launching attacks against Saudi Arabia and capturing Perim[ Island](https://time.com/article/2026/09/11/yemen-houthi-red-sea-bab-el-mandeb-shipping-iran-war/), a strategic foothold in the [Bab El-Mandeb Strait](https://time.com/article/2026/04/08/bab-el-mandeb-strait-iran-houthis-threat-trade-hormuz-war-ceasefire/), another vital maritime trade route in the region.

**Read More:** [_What Is the Status of the U.S.-Iran Peace Talks? Here's What Both Sides Are Saying_](https://time.com/article/2026/09/15/us-iran-peace-talks-deal-stalled-houthis-leverage-shipping-disruptions/)

Experts tell TIME that the U.N. General Assembly gathering, where delegations from Iran, the U.S., and key Gulf states will be in attendance, could offer a critical chance to deescalate the situation and attempt to revive peace efforts—although making progress in negotiations could be an uphill battle.

“This week in New York, there is an opportunity, especially for the mediating countries, to try to prevent tensions from once again spiraling, and potentially this time spiraling out of control,” says Ali Vaez, the deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group. “It's the last best opportunity to try to prevent an escalation either in October or in November.”

## What to expect at this week’s U.N. General Assembly

Top officials from the U.S. and Iran will be present at the U.N. meeting this week, including Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will be in [attendance](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-war-united-nations-visas-3f91ccc8def4a9d5499b7c8620450864) as part of a slimmed-down delegation from the country. Both Trump and Pezeshkian are set to deliver addresses to the assembly.

Vaez says, however, that any effort to revive peace talks between the two countries during the event will largely rely on mediation by Gulf states. 

Trump is set to hold talks with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council—a regional alliance including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain—on the sidelines of the gathering in the coming days. Sources with knowledge of the anticipated meeting told Axios, which first [reported](https://www.axios.com/2026/09/16/trump-iran-talks-gulf-leaders-un) the news, that discussions are expected to concern next steps in the war with Iran, with a focus on U.S. ideas for a strategy after the conflict concludes.

Vaez believes that the Qataris could play a leading role in mediation efforts, with the support of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt. 

“It all depends on whether the mediating countries would be able to find a mutually acceptable formula,” he says of the possibility of the U.S. and Iran coming to some kind of agreement. “Because at this moment, both sides are in a zero-sum situation in which there is literally no overlap between what the Iranians demand and what the U.S. is seeking to achieve.”

Given what he characterized as maximalist demands from both the U.S. and Iran, Vaez contends that “some sort of a sweetener,” or incentive, must be given to each side for a deal to be reached, which he says may come in the form of revisions to the now-expired memorandum of understanding.

Sanam Valki, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the policy institute Chatham House, agrees that it is far more likely that Gulf states mediate between Iran and the U.S. But, she adds, a direct exchange between U.S. and Iranian delegations is also a possibility—albeit a very slim one.

“The big question out there is: Will there be some sort of surprise encounter between the Iranians and the U.S.?” Valki says.

Trump [told](https://www.foxnews.com/video/6405331395112) Fox News’ Trey Yingst on Sunday that he would be willing to meet with Pezeshkian during the U.N. gathering.

Beyond either mediated or direct discussions during the event, another potential outcome of this week’s General Assembly meeting is a United Nations Security Council Resolution regarding the Iran conflict, Vaez says. Unlike a memorandum of understanding like the one the U.S. and Iran previously reached, a security resolution would be legally binding by international law and would compel both parties to abide by certain conditions in the war. 

Adopting a resolution would require the votes of at least nine out of the 15 members of the security council. And as a complicating factor, the U.S.—as well as the other four permanent members—would have the ability to defeat any such measure by casting a veto.

## How could the U.N. meeting impact the Iran war moving forward?

“This is a very important week at UNGA for regional states, as well as the Iranians themselves, to try and roll back or manage how things evolve,” Valki tells TIME. “The President is very clearly weighing and considering the military options that are on his desk, which include not just responding to the Houthis, but another round of serious and severe strikes against the Islamic Republic.”

If a direct exchange between the U.S. and Iranian delegations does unexpectedly occur during the gathering, she says, “it's a big deal. It's a big outcome. It means that the Iranian president is willing to risk his standing at home, attacks at home, in order to stave off a serious military attack and build a direct lifeline to the Trump team.”

Up until now, both sides have sought “maximalist outcomes with minimal concessions,” Valki says. But Iran, through direct conversation with the U.S. delegation, could “signal a more transformational type of policy outreach, rather than the defensive reaction of traditional hardliners in the country.”

On Trump’s end, Vaez says the President could potentially make concessions to Iran by removing naval blockades on Iranian ports, rolling back sanctions against Tehran, or returning access to certain frozen assets. “That's what the President can put on the table … The most important thing for Iranians is economic reprieve and that's precisely where President Trump has tremendous leverage.”

A security council resolution, meanwhile, “could provide a degree of assurance about the sustainability of a new understanding between Iran and the U.S.,” Vaez says. He adds that through such a resolution, the U.N. could also establish an “observer mission”—what he describes as “an established mechanism that could look into disputes and adjudicate” if there are disagreements over alleged violations of the resolution, as there were previously over June’s memorandum of understanding.

Vaez stresses, though, that the odds of this week’s gathering resulting in a meaningful breakthrough in the stalled negotiations appears unlikely.

“There are very serious differences, and there's deep mistrust,” he says. “And so that's why I'm not very optimistic.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt534c09de3b4eb6af Mon, 21 Sep 2026 23:01:58 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Connor Greene\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Why Older Americans Are Drinking More Alcohol—Not Less\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/why-older-americans-are-drinking-more-alcohol-not-less/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A new survey finds that young adults are going sober as older adults drink more alcohol.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[LAW Ho Ming—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf477537efc844161/6aada19eb9c5177388680a62/GettyImages-1885145555.jpg?branch=production)

 —LAW Ho Ming—Getty Images

The U.S. is in the midst of a temperance boom. Drinking rates have been steadily declining nationwide, with an August Gallup poll showing that [only 54% of Americans ever consume alcohol](https://time.com/article/2026/08/20/americans-drinking-less-gallup-poll/)—sharply down from 67% [as recently as 2010](https://news.gallup.com/poll/353858/alcohol-consumption-low-end-recent-readings.aspx). 

Now, [a study](https://dx.doi.org/10.7326/ANNALS-26-01824) in the _Annals of Internal Medicine_ takes those findings a step further, reporting that younger adults in the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts—people born from 1981 to 2012—are driving that trend. Meanwhile, older Americans, aged 50-64, are actually consuming more [alcohol](https://time.com/7210400/why-is-alcohol-unhealthy/) than they used to, with rates increasing by more than one third since 2018.

“It’s encouraging to see alcohol use decline for the first time since the start of the pandemic,” said lead author Dr. Brian Lee, a hepatologist and liver transplant specialist with Keck Medicine of USC, in a statement that accompanied the release of the report. “However, use remains above pre-pandemic levels and certain groups continue to have concerning trends.”

Lee and his collaborators conducted their work by sifting through the responses from more than 114,000 U.S. adults who, from 2018 to 2024, participated in the [National Health Interview Survey](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis/about/index.html)—an annual study conducted by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The survey consists of several face-to-face interviews throughout the year. In the current study, researchers looked at whether and how much respondents drink; heavy drinking, for instance, is [defined](https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-drinking-patterns) as five or more drinks per day or 16 or more per week for males, and four or more drinks per day or eight or more drinks per week for females.

Americans saw a 2% drop in overall drinking and 8% in heavy drinking in just the 2022 to 2024 window. Total drinking dropped most dramatically among Gen Z, with rates falling nearly 6% from 2022 to 2024, compared with about 2% for Millennials. Heavy drinking fell by roughly a fifth in both generations.

Older Americans, however, went in the opposite direction, with those in the 50 to 64 age group seeing an increase of 4% in overall drinking, and 36% spike in heavy drinking from 2018 to 2024.

The reasons for the changes are not clear, but greater public awareness of the health risks of drinking may play a role in alcohol’s overall decline. Alcohol has been linked to 62 different diseases, [according to](https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/alcohol-is-the-root-of-62-diseases-and-a-partial-cause-of-dozens-more/) the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, especially liver disease, cardiovascular disease, and various forms of [cancer](https://time.com/7364435/alcohol-cancer-risk-carcinogens/). But not all Americans are equally aware of alcohol’s health harms. [Past Research](https://news.gallup.com/poll/648413/alcohol-consumption-increasingly-viewed-unhealthy.aspx) from 2024 found that far more younger people know that alcohol negatively affects health compared to older adults. 

Some of that knowledge may track back to the COVID-19 pandemic. “There was a lot of messaging around young adults who were dying more from alcohol-related harm during the pandemic,” says Lee. “So they could have been targeted for this.” 

It’s seniors, however, who could most use the same kind of public information, especially as their drinking rates go up—because the older people get, whether they drink or not, the more likely they are to contract most diseases. “This age group faces some of the greatest risks of harm from alcohol, including cirrhosis and alcohol-related cancers,” Lee said in the statement.

Public information campaigns are just one of the possible causes of the drop in drinking among young people. It’s also possible that Gen Z and Millennials are simply swapping one intoxicant for another. “The idea of substitution is a leading theory,” says Lee. “With the legalization of cannabis, are people using that rather than alcohol?”

And sometimes, it might simply come down to money—which most older folks have in relative abundance compared to younger people. “Younger adults in general have less disposable income \[to spend on alcohol\] than middle-aged or older adults,” says Lee.

Reducing drinking—or cutting it out altogether—may ultimately be a self-reinforcing habit, as social expectations shift in a newly temperate demographic. “When fewer people around you drink, there is less and less societal pressure,” says Lee. “Older adults grew up in an era where everyone was drinking heavily around them and it was acceptable, whereas that's no longer the case among Gen Z or Millennials.”

Whatever the causes of our society’s new sobriety, the less alcohol anyone consumes, the better. Young people may have tumbled to that truth first, but the older age groups among us would benefit from doing the same.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltb5a728683f5350ae Mon, 21 Sep 2026 21:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Jeffrey Kluger\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What Russia’s Parliamentary Election Results Mean for Putin and the War\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/what-russia-s-parliamentary-election-results-mean-for-putin-and-the-war/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[United Russia’s projected record majority reinforces Putin’s control over parliament—and gives the Kremlin a result it can portray as support for the war against Ukraine.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Vyacheslav Prokofyev—POOL/AFP\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the head of the Federal Customs Service in Moscow on Sept. 21, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f448e9f390948cd/6ab18b30370ef417c834419c/GettyImages-2295851432.jpg?branch=production)

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the head of the Federal Customs Service in Moscow on Sept. 21, 2026\. —Vyacheslav Prokofyev—POOL/AFP

Russia's electoral commission on Monday said that United Russia, the ruling party aligned with President Vladimir Putin, is [projected to win](https://tass.com/politics/2190479) the parliamentary election that has been widely criticized as a “[sham](https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-ruling-party-secures-majority-russian-parliamentary-elections/).” The Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that 95% of the votes have been counted after a three-day [election](https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/russia-elections-parliament-state-duma-putin/) that began last Friday and ended Sunday. 

While the final counts are not expected to be certified until later this week, preliminary figures show that the pro-Kremlin party is projected to win a record 355 seats in the country’s 450-seat Duma, the lower house of parliament, giving United Russia an even larger supermajority than its 2016 record high of 343 seats.

**Read More:** [_Why the Outcome of Russia's First Parliamentary Elections in Years Is All But Assured_](https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/russia-elections-parliament-state-duma-putin/)

Voter turnout was high at just over 59%, according to [a briefing](https://tass.com/politics/2190683) from the CEC.

The election is the first parliamentary poll since Russia's [full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022](https://time.com/6150858/russia-ukraine-invasion-photos/), and the Kremlin has cast it as a referendum on support for what it calls a “special military operation” rather than a war. It was also, therefore, the first parliamentary election to include voters from four partly occupied regions of Ukraine—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia—which Moscow claimed to annex illegally in 2022 but does not fully control. Voting also was held in Crimea, which was illegally annexed in 2014.

Despite the vote being framed as an opportunity for citizens to express sentiments about the war, it is widely considered an illusion of choice: Russia’s supreme court last month banned the federal candidate list of the one registered antiwar party, Yabloko, from participating in the State Duma.

“I would be very careful to kind of unpack the distribution of votes as something indicative of what people think of the war,” David Szakonyi, a professor at George Washington University whose research focuses on Putin-era Russia, tells TIME. “They were not given the choice to vote against it.”

“This playing field was tilted before the votes were even counted, and this was not by any means a free and fair election,” he adds. 

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov [told members of the press](https://www.facebook.com/alarabiya.english/videos/kremlin-election-results-show-russians-united-around-putin/933356149845223/) Monday that the election showed how Russians support the country’s leader and “point to the highest level of consolidation within Russian society around the head of state.”

Experts believe that the election will allow the Kremlin to continue justifying its war with Ukraine—and it could further consolidate Putin’s power.

## How the results could shape Russia’s war against Ukraine

United Russia’s supermajority could embolden parliament to pass “drastic legislation” with regard to future war efforts, Szakonyi says. Although United Russia already held a constitutional supermajority in the outgoing Duma, the larger margin could embolden lawmakers to pursue more severe measures.

“They have every resource available to them to change the political system as Putin directs,” Szakonyi says, “and the propaganda in the next week or two is going to heavily emphasize the fact that United Russia improved its performance.”

Parliament could specifically use the election to request more sacrifices from citizens for the war effort, according to Szakonyi. He says, for example, that the party could support legislation expanding military recruitment or defending “greater investment in the war effort, at the expense of healthcare, education, and domestic spending in general.” 

“It is highly possible that they will at least kind of build on these electoral results when they demand more from voters and citizens in the next couple months in order to win the war,” he continues.

Olena Lennon, a practitioner in residence of National Security at the University of New Haven, agrees that Putin did not necessarily need any more legislative power to exact his objectives. Instead, the election was “more about creating an image of national unity and demonstrating to various audiences that Putin has total political control," she says, adding that hosting an election offers the “optics of popular legitimacy, institutional strength, and political stability.”

“That potentially gives Putin greater political cover and legitimacy for unpopular measures in the future—such as putting the economy in wartime production mode and potentially full mobilization," Lennon says.

A new mobilization campaign could inject new momentum into Russia’s offensive campaign and replenish battlefield losses. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last month that he believes Russia is planning ​to draft an additional 300,000 troops for the war effort.

“We are confident that following the elections, they will carry out a mobilization. We believe this will not take place in the major cities,” Zelenskyy [said](https://x.com/NOELreports/status/2097258475516518718) on Aug. 23\. “They’ll lose all 300,000 of these newly mobilized Russians there; we’ll wipe them out.”

Putin has denied that a new mobilization campaign is planned, calling the rumors “[utter nonsense](https://www.reutersconnect.com/item/putin-says-rumours-that-russia-is-planning-a-new-mobilisation-to-expand-army-for-ukraine-are-utter-nonsense/dGFnOnJldXRlcnMuY29tLDIwMjY6bmV3c21sX1ZBOTU1NTAxMDkyMDI2UlAx)” on Sept. 1\. Two days later, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin [emphasized](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sPXS3tbvxM) that there “is no scenario today that would require mobilization.” 

More than four years into the war, Russians are facing rising living costs amid inflation that some economists attribute partly to military spending, with the prices of several [food staples](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/05/as-everyday-prices-creep-upwards-russians-feel-the-pinch-a91798) in rising this year. The country is also experiencing [fuel shortages](https://time.com/article/2026/09/13/trump-wants-ukraine-to-stop-striking-russian-refineries-what-would-that-mean-for-the-war-/) as Ukraine continues to strategically target its oil refineries and depots.

U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the tactic in recent weeks, arguing that it is impacting global fuel prices. Energy-market [data](https://www.iea.org/commentaries/how-global-oil-supplies-have-readjusted-to-help-fill-the-huge-gap-left-by-the-strait-of-hormuz-shock) over the past six months, however, shows that the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and subsequent constrictions of major oil passageways like the Strait of Hormuz is the much larger disruption to global [oil and diesel supplies](https://time.com/article/2026/09/15/iran-war-cost-inflation-cbo-report/).

Trump’s latest comments on the matter came Monday.

“Russia has unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry due to its War with Ukraine. A large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission,” Trump said on [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117308930224398545) on Sept. 21\. “This ridiculous and never ending War with Ukraine must be ended.”

Beginning Saturday, as Russia entered its last day of voting, the government said it intercepted more than 1,600 Ukrainian drones, including 450 directed toward Moscow. The figures, attributed to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin and [reported](https://tass.com/politics/2190247) by state media TASS, have not been independently verified.

According to a statement by Sobyanin on [Telegram](https://t.me/mos%5Fsobyanin/21849), this was the largest ever drone attack on the Russian capital, damaging the city's oil refinery.

## How the world reacted to the preliminary election results

European powers have largely condemned the results. That includes France's foreign ministry, which released a [statement](https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/presse-et-ressources/decouvrir-et-informer/actualites/russie-elections-legislatives-en-russie-et-dans-les-territoires-ukrainiens-illegalement-occupes-par) ​on Monday saying that the vote ⁠did not meet the conditions for “free, pluralistic, democratic elections.”

“Heightened repression against civil society and the opposition, ⁠the exclusion of several political parties, growing ⁠restrictions on freedom of expression and the banning of independent media have undermined the Russian people's ability to freely form ⁠and express their choice,” the statement said.

A joint [statement](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-on-russias-sham-elections-in-ukraines-temporarily-occupied-territories) from the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand was also released Monday, calling the vote a “sham”—particularly as it pertained to the four occupied Ukrainian territories.

“Holding Russia’s State Duma elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, as Russia did in Crimea and Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, is a gross violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, and the UN Charter,” the statement said. “We call on the international community to reject Russia’s attempts to normalise its occupation, condemn the holding of sham elections on Ukrainian territory.”

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief and a vice president of the European Commission, called the elections “another major setback for Russian democracy” [in a post on X](https://x.com/kajakallas/status/2101929462036050415).

“The Kremlin silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed its war in Ukraine, and shut out international election monitors,” she said. “The veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt86e536c864113d3c Mon, 21 Sep 2026 19:50:43 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Schneid\]\]><!\[CDATA\[RSV Vaccines Are Highly Effective in Older Adults\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/rsv-vaccines-are-highly-effective-in-older-adults/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A sweeping study covering the first year of RSV vaccinations in older adults finds dramatic results.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Kateryna Kon/Science Photo Library—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Computer illustration of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt77e29ac599611c30/6ab15516246d21f558066dc8/GettyImages-713782123.jpg?branch=production)

Computer illustration of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) —Kateryna Kon/Science Photo Library—Getty Images

In 2023, two new [vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)](https://time.com/6275289/rsv-vaccine-history/), which kills thousands of older adults annually in the U.S., hit the market. As [millions of people aged 60 and older received the shots](https://time.com/6309106/flu-rsv-vaccines-covid-19-boosters-fall-winter/), researchers watched and waited to see whether the efficacy numbers seen in clinical trials, which were quite high, would be mirrored in the real world. 

“There was a little concern that maybe these vaccines will not turn out to be quite as potent as they appeared,” says Dr. Edward Walsh, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester. The trials had rolled out in the later phases of [the COVID-19 pandemic](https://time.com/tag/covid-19/), when there wasn’t as much RSV circulating as usual, which made some researchers wonder how later studies would play out. 

However, in a [study published Sept. 18 in _JAMA Network Open_](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2854241) looking at 14.8 million seniors, researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that the vaccines were highly effective, reducing the chances of an RSV-related hospitalization or death by around 80%. 

## Vaccines protect against RSV in older adults

Since the rollout, a handful of studies have [looked at the effectiveness of these two vaccines](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002870326001596), which are made by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer. “These have all—very interestingly, and comfortingly—really paralleled and mimicked the exact results of the efficacy trials,” says Walsh, who was not involved in the new study. But this new work examines the entire U.S. population over 65 who are enrolled in Medicare, which is “vastly greater than the other studies,” he says. So these results are particularly reassuring. In general, both vaccines performed similarly.

The study found that people who received an RSV vaccine were more likely to live in affluent areas and more likely to have been vaccinated for flu and COVID, raising the question of whether their higher survival numbers have to do with access to health care. However, when researchers performed an analysis meant to test for whether access to health care was a factor, the high efficacy of the RSV shot remained. “That was nice to see, that the data really was identical,” says Walsh.

## Do people need RSV vaccine boosters?

One of the big questions now is whether and when to give people another shot, says Walsh. Many of the people in the target population received them in the first year they were available, so much so that an RSV vaccine [released in 2024](https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-approves-modernas-rsv-vaccine-its-second-marketed-product-2024-05-31/), Moderna’s mRNA version, [saw less uptake](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12840037/), he says.

Would giving people another shot two or three years after their first refresh their immunity to the virus? That’s a subject of active research. The second time an RSV shot is given, “you don't get the same vigorous antibody response that you got when you gave the vaccine for the first time, and whether that is important, I don't think we really know,” Walsh says. (Flu vaccines, by contrast, require annual shots because strains change so much from year to year that this is the best way to get protected.) Researchers will need to explore this in more detail before patients get a recommendation.

While this new study confirms that these RSV vaccines protect against the worst outcomes of the virus, work to develop vaccines against other viruses, such as parainfluenza, is [ongoing](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2316376121). And there could be more broad-spectrum options available someday. 

“It may very well be that the ultimate goal would be some sort of [a respiratory vaccine that would cover multiple viruses](https://time.com/7382892/universal-vaccine-respiratory-illnesses-research/),” Walsh speculates. “One of the thoughts is, well, maybe you can stimulate the innate immune system in a non-specific way such that it would prevent any viral infection.” Working from the observation that having one virus often protects people from getting another, researchers have been [delving into new ways of inducing immunity](https://medicine.yale.edu/lab/foxman/research/viral-interference/). “These are the kinds of things that immunologists are thinking about,” he says.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt0b96a1438fb98235 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:19:06 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Veronique Greenwood\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Can ‘Pink Noise’ Help You Sleep Better?\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/can-pink-noise-improve-your-sleep/<!\[CDATA\[Health\]\]><!\[CDATA\[In a recent study, researchers watched bursts of sound alter the flow of fluid in the sleeping brain.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt893eea8b04f5bd27/6988c0d7f887dc5b90e99a91/time-health-stock-sleep-baby.jpg?branch=production)

 —Getty Images

When you’re asleep, [your brain is still keeping tabs on the world outside](https://time.com/collections/guide-to-sleep/4694555/pink-noise-deep-sleep-improve-memory/). Sounds and even smells have been shown to alter brain activity during sleep. 

“Evolutionarily, it makes sense,” says Hong-Viet Ngo-Dehning, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex in the U.K. “There might be some danger, and we need to respond.” But [some sounds might actually nudge us deeper into sleep](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079215001240).

In a [recent paper in _Science Translational Medicine_](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aea5469)_,_ researchers report that when they played a type of sound called “pink noise” to people sleeping in an fMRI machine, they could see the fluid surrounding the brain pulsing in response. That might indicate that such noises could provoke changes in the quality of sleep.

## What happens to the brain during sleep

The reason sleep feels restorative is [still a subject of active research](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi8375?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F), but scientists are curious whether the [movement of cerebrospinal fluid](https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-mysterious-flow-of-fluid-in-the-brain-20250326/), which might remove biochemical waste products during sleep, could be involved. “A few years ago, we [made this discovery](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax5440) using MRI imaging that when people fall asleep, there are these really large waves of fluid flow that pulse around the brain,” says Laura Lewis, a neuroscientist at MIT and an author of the new study. “Ever since then we've been really interested in understanding what controls these waves…and we think it would be really interesting to see if you could maybe make more.”

For this study, Lewis and colleagues drew on prior research using “pink noise,” which is similar to white noise many people use while falling asleep but a bit lower-pitched and more even sounding. “It's less harsh-sounding than static white noise that people might be familiar with,” Lewis says. In 2013, Ngo-Dehning and colleagues found that [playing pink noise to people during sleep seemed to improve their performance on memory tasks the next day.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23583623/) In the years since, findings have been mixed, Ngo-Dehning says, but he suspects that this type of noise does do something for the brain, at least under certain conditions. 

Lewis was curious to see whether bursts of pink noise, which have been shown in previous work to influence a type of brain waves [called slow waves](https://time.com/archive/6670622/why-we-sleep/), would change brain fluid flow, too. Her coauthor graduate student Joshua Levitt developed an algorithm allowing him to play 50 millisecond bursts of pink noise precisely as slow waves peaked in the brain’s activity, while people were sleeping in an MRI—a tricky proposition, but one that allowed the team to see what the sound did to fluid flow in the brain. (Levitt and Lewis have applied to patent this technology and hope to commercialize it in a product that could be worn during sleep.)

## Next steps in sleep research

What the researchers saw confirmed [what others have found](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12146431/): Pink noise amplified slow waves during sleep, potentially making sleep deeper. But they also saw that CSF flow increased in the wake of that amplification. “The most exciting part of our results, at least for me, was that we also observed an increase in cerebrospinal fluid inflow from the fourth ventricle into the brain,” says Levitt. “This was the first example that I'm aware of, at least in humans, of some stimulus being able to modulate cerebrospinal fluid flow non-invasively.” 

The study is exciting because it shows clearly that pink noise, slow waves, and these pulses of CSF flow are closely linked, says Ngo-Dehning, and it opens the door to studies where researchers intentionally boost CSF flow to see if it can help, say, people with poor sleep or people with neurodegenerative conditions that may be caused by impaired waste removal from the brain. “That would be the next step,” he says. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltebd5acf69fe01b2a Mon, 21 Sep 2026 13:05:31 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Veronique Greenwood\]\]><!\[CDATA\[CNN, MS NOW, and Politico Sue Trump Administration Over White House Ban\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/cnn-ms-now-politico-to-sue-trump-administration-over-white-house-ban/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\["Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference," read a joint statement from the three media outlets.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[President Donald Trump announced on Friday he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, setting up a new test of the First Amendment’s protection of a free press as his Administration moves to punish news organizations whose coverage he dislikes.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

President Donald Trump announced on Friday he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, setting up a new test of the First Amendment’s protection of a free press as his Administration moves to punish news organizations whose coverage he dislikes.

CNN, MS NOW, and Politico [sued the Trump Administration](https://www.politico.com/f/?id=000001a0-c343-d2df-a1f4-f7cf04bf0000) on Monday following [President Donald Trump](https://time.com/7280106/trump-interview-100-days-2025/)'s decision to [ban the three media outlets](https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/trump-bans-3-news-organizations-from-white-house/) from the White House.

"This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the companies [said](https://x.com/CNNPR/status/2101976271324348731) in a joint statement.

Trump took to [Truth Social ](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117308890736529824)shortly afterwards and insisted the White House "is not instituting an assault on the free press" but is instead targeting "fake news"—something he argued is "totally out of control" and "a threat to our national security."

Vice President J.D. Vance, when asked about the lawsuit, argued that Trump is not "banning" media outlets. "What he's doing is saying we're not gonna give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda," he [said](https://x.com/cspan/status/2102063163780788428).

The White House later doubled down on its stance, issuing a [press release](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/09/white-house-access-is-a-privilege-not-a-right/) titled "White House access is a privilege—not a right," during which they argued "the First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool."

CNN, MS NOW, and Politico said their reporters were denied access to the White House over the weekend and had their badges seized following Trump's ban issued Friday.

MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner on Saturday described arriving at the White House campus to discover her badge no longer worked. "The officer asked me to hand over my badge. He said that it was disabled. I asked why I was not able to get inside. He said it was above him," she [recounted.](https://x.com/brianstelter/status/2101287238860468697) Reporters from [CNN](https://x.com/CNNPR/status/2101310670805377091) and [Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/19/ms-now-journalists-denied-access-to-white-house-after-trump-media-ban-01085082) shared similar experiences.

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference," the joint statement from the outlets continued.

Trump announced his decision to ban the three media outlets Friday afternoon in [a Truth Social post](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117293599348325006) that warned other news outlets could face similar restrictions.

“Effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW... and Politico... from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ fake news!” Trump said. “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report fiction and lies when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”

When asked in the Oval Office later that day if the media ban is likely to be struck down in court, Trump [responded](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KpXHJLRUGEs): “I think it's good to point it out whether it survives or doesn't. I don't think that a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day.”

The ban has presented a new test of the First Amendment’s protection of a free press as his Administration moves to [punish news organizations](https://time.com/7325465/multiple-media-outlets-wont-sign-new-pentagon-press-rules-face-possible-exclusion/) whose coverage he dislikes.

The [First Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/) forbids the government from "abridging" the freedom of the press—a principle intended to allow news organizations to scrutinize those in power without fear of government retaliation over their reporting.

### TV networks unite in solidarity against Trump's White House media ban

CNN is one of five U.S. news outlets in the White House press pool that rotates responsibility for pooled live video coverage. The network was originally due to cover Trump's trip to the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Monday.

In light of the ban, the other major television networks are standing with CNN by declining to replace its White House pool crew. The decision means the shared TV pool will not cover Trump’s events that have been designated for pool coverage.

In a [rare joint statement,](https://x.com/brianstelter/status/2102038637814693967) ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC said: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No Administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Bryan Boughton, current chair of the TV pool and Fox News Washington bureau chief, had earlier issued a memo to the White House press corps detailing the decision. "This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” read the memo, [according to CNN. ](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/20/media/cnn-trump-white-house-pool-ban)“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place. All other pool coverage will continue as normal, including Congress, VIPs, and selected events in Washington and around the country.”

The Associated Press also sent a note to media late Monday morning, informing them of the changed plans. "Please be advised that no network travel pool is expected to be with U.S. President Donald Trump today as he heads to New York for the United Nations General Assembly," read the notice.

In a show of support, some media publications—including the [New York _Times_ ](https://x.com/NYTimesPR/status/2102132772366057652/photo/1)and [_Washington Post_](https://x.com/WashPostComms/status/2102107463969321069/photo/1)—announced they would hold off on publishing or distributing still photographs taken as part of the White House pool coverage on Monday until midnight E.T.

TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

### The Trump Administration's battle with the press

Trump has made several previous attempts to bar or restrict reporters from government spaces.

During his first term, he revoked the White House press credentials of Jim Acosta, who was then a CNN correspondent, after a tense exchange during a news conference. CNN challenged the decision in court and a judge ordered the White House [to reinstate his press pass](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/16/media/cnn-trump-lawsuit-hearing).

In early 2025, shortly after returning to office, Trump tried to bar Associated Press journalists from spaces where access is limited, such as the Oval Office and Air Force One, when the news organization declined to update their stylebook after Trump signed an Executive Order renaming the "Gulf of Mexico" as the “Gulf of America.” The [Associated Press sued](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277682/gov.uscourts.dcd.277682.1.0%5F1.pdf), and the case remains ongoing.

The Department of Defense has also imposed various restrictions [limiting journalists’ access in the Pentagon](https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/sean-parnell-chief-pentagon-spokesperson-driscoll-army-secretary-replacement-contender/).

In an unprecedented move in June, the department designated its press office a classified area.

“The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War sharing the facility,” [said](https://x.com/JoelValdezDOW/status/2061546760116588815?s=20) deputy Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez. “As a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that.”

Trump has also verbally [lashed out at several female reporters.](https://time.com/7337058/trump-female-journalist-attacks-new-york-times-katie-rogers/)

Last month, CNN [issued a statement](https://x.com/CNNPR/status/2089441657192099848) in defense of its reporter Kristen Holmes, after Trump told her to "be quiet" and called her a "loud, boisterous person" during a tense exchange in the Oval Office.

The White House's Rapid Response social media account later [shared a clip](https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2089413421368291507) of the exchange, referring to Holmes as “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.”

In its response to the rhetoric, CNN said: “Public officials are free to challenge reporting they disagree with, but personal attacks on journalists for asking questions are beneath the office and inconsistent with the principles of a free press."

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blta75d3dab4123a65a Mon, 21 Sep 2026 12:43:09 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Olivia-Anne Cleary and Callum Sutherland\]\]><!\[CDATA\[TIME Appoints Mike Duffy as Managing Director, APAC\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/20/time-appoints-mike-duffy-as-managing-director-apac/<!\[CDATA\[Press Room\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Mike Duffy returns to TIME as Managing Director, APAC, to lead commercial growth and expand partnerships across the region.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbf505813d94ce186/6ab0125eac25e10c659d1a4a/2026_Staff_Announcement_Mike_Duffy_10Sept2026_900x600.png?branch=production)

_TIME's Chief Business Officer Viktoria Degtar sent the following note to staff on Monday:_ 

Team,

I’m excited to share that Mike Duffy will return to TIME as Managing Director, APAC, beginning September 21\. Based in London, Mike will report to Damian Douglas and join TIME’s global commercial leadership team.

TIME has built a strong and growing international commercial business, supported by long-term partnerships with leading global organizations, a growing slate of events in key markets around the world and an expanding portfolio of international editions. APAC is a critical priority for our next phase of growth. Mike will build on this momentum, leading our commercial business across the region and working across TIME’s platforms to expand our presence and develop enduring partnerships.

Mike will lead our commercial business and work across TIME’s platforms to expand our presence and build long-term partnerships throughout the region.

Mike brings more than 17 years of experience building strategic partnerships across global markets. Most recently, he served as Chief Commercial Officer of The Observer. 

As many of you know, he previously spent six years at TIME, ultimately serving as VP, Partnerships and Head of EMEA. During his tenure, he helped grow TIME’s international business and developed several multiyear partnerships, including the inaugural TIME100 AI Impact Awards in Dubai. He also expanded the TIME100 Impact Awards into new markets and led the launch of TIME100 Africa in Rwanda. 

Mike’s extensive knowledge of TIME, international leadership experience and proven ability to build meaningful partnerships position him well to lead the next chapter of our growth across APAC.

“I’m incredibly excited to return to TIME,” Mike says. “The six years I previously spent here were among the most rewarding of my career. Asia-Pacific is producing the next generation of global leaders, companies, ideas and cultural movements, and TIME is uniquely positioned to convene the people shaping the region. I see enormous potential to deepen our presence, create ambitious new partnerships.”

Please join me in welcoming Mike back to TIME.

Thank you,

Viktoria

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt51e337d6ea7aaf7a Mon, 21 Sep 2026 11:00:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[TIME PR\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Why K-Pop Took Off When C-Pop Didn’t\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/why-k-pop-took-off-when-c-pop-did-not/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[“For more than a decade, China has looked on with undisguised envy as its Korean neighbor has accumulated soft power through cultural exports,” writes Bobby Ghosh.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Kayla Bartkowski—Los Angeles Times/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[BTS performs at SoFi Stadium during their "ARIRANG" World Tour on Sept. 1, 2026 in Inglewood, CA.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte5275ba95d2c3325/6ab0a66edee4e36fcc9f38cb/BTS-SoFi-ARIRANG.jpg?branch=production)

BTS performs at SoFi Stadium during their "ARIRANG" World Tour on Sept. 1, 2026 in Inglewood, CA. —Kayla Bartkowski—Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

It’s not often that an 18th century folk song can be said to be the inspiration for a pop concert. But those who attended the finale of [BTS](https://time.com/collections/next-generation-leaders/5418827/bts-members/)’ “ARIRANG” North American concert tour at Los Angeles’ giant SoFi Stadium earlier this month will long remember the tens of thousands of fans who [waved South Korean flags](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/amp/entertainment/k-pop/20260908/bts-concludes-n-american-tour-with-record-breaking-la-shows) and sang along to the traditional Korean melody. 

The four-night run in LA was the finale to a tour of 31 sold-out shows, with combined attendance of approximately [1.92 million,](https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260908001900315) according to figures released by the band’s agency. For comparison, Beyoncé’s 2023 [Renaissance tour](https://time.com/6251869/beyonce-renaissance-tour/) sold about [1.73 million](https://touringdata.org/2023/06/29/beyonce-renaissance-tour/) tickets across 35 North American shows. 

The [flag-waving scenes](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PNuntoEJoeA) from the SoFi capped a banner year for Korean pop, following BTS’s World Cup final [halftime performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3nWu1VgRJU). Earlier in the year, _Golden_, from KPop Demon Hunters, [collected a Grammy](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/kpop-demon-hunters-grammys-2026), followed by an Academy Awards performance and the Oscar for [best original song](https://www.bmg.com/news/kpop-demon-hunters-golden-wins-best-original-song-at-2026-oscars). 

Those performances and prizes will have brought smiles to the faces in Seoul’s foreign-policy circles, where there is a keen appreciation for the soft power that K-Pop brings South Korea. In Beijing, it will have led to much gnashing of teeth.

For more than a decade, China has looked on with undisguised envy as its Korean neighbor has accumulated soft power through cultural exports. As far back as the 2014 National People’s Congress, the Communist Party heavyweight Wang Qishan [marveled](https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1443830/wang-qishan-draws-lesson-craze-korean-drama-chinese-media) at the reach of Korean culture, citing popular TV dramas like _My Love for the Star_ and the breakout dance hit _Gangnam Style_ by Psy, arguably the first K-Pop star to break big worldwide. 

The interest went beyond public musing: Beijing resolved to learn from Seoul’s example. China’s culture ministry signed an agreement with its South Korean counterpart, providing for annual cultural-industry [forums](https://en.sedaily.com/society/2026/09/08/in-china-forum-marks-10-years-as-key-korea-china-exchange) and [cooperation](https://cc.pacforum.org/2014/01/crying-uncle-no-stark-choices-relations/) in marketing cultural products abroad. 

But it is one thing for Beijing to study Seoul’s cultural outreach, and quite another to match it. China, despite possessing a vastly larger population, an extensive diaspora, and the [world’s fourth-largest recorded-music market,](https://www.ifpi.org/global-music-report-2026-global-recorded-music-revenues-grow-6-4-as-record-companies-drive-innovation/) has failed to produce a music machine comparable to the international following of the marquee K-Pop acts. And while Taiwan’s Mandarin-language stars and Hong Kong’s Cantopop veterans have their own histories, they haven’t as yet spawned an act as ubiquitous as Blackpink or Stray Kids.

The audience Wang wondered about now extends well beyond America and Europe. Blackpink’s leading [Spotify](https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-08-01/celebrate-8-years-with-blackpink-on-spotify/) markets in 2024 included Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Brazil, spanning across the Global South, where Beijing has invested [billions](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/chinas-big-bet-soft-power) in the pursuit of soft power. These audiences' affection for K-pop reaches across linguistic and political boundaries, giving Seoul a welcome that its diplomats would struggle to arrange. 

One obvious reason for China’s failure to produce pop stars of global reach is the sheer size of the domestic market. “A concert tour of 10 Chinese cities is probably as big as if they go around the world,” Anthony Fung, professor of journalism and communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, [told](https://www.ft.com/content/1df7a8c0-7ba3-4474-958d-c2f03097f2e5?syn-25a6b1a6=1) the _Financial Times_. Why spend years trying to understand Brazilian teenagers when there is so much money to be made in familiar surroundings? Chinese musicians have perfectly sound commercial reasons to focus on the home market, regardless of their government’s geopolitical ambitions. Korean companies, with fewer customers at home, had more reason to take on the risks and costs of finding fans abroad.

That incentive would have achieved little without companies willing to adapt to foreign tastes. Korean [agencies](https://ecipe.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Parc-Kim-2020-K-pop-and-digitization.pdf) combined intensive training with production and promotion, recruited performers internationally, and hired foreign songwriters and choreographers. They built acts whose appeal survived the loss of the lyrics. For instance, fans didn’t need to understand Korean to dig Psy’s dance moves. The resulting music would not satisfy a purist’s definition of national, but its borrowings helped it travel: Korea’s entertainment industry learned to please people elsewhere.

Those listeners could also help find the next audience. YouTube let fans share performances without waiting for local broadcasters to discover them; viewers could join in by making videos of their own. When _Gangnam Style_ passed a billion views in December 2012, [YouTube reported](https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/ytvev/%29) that it had already drawn at least a million views in nearly 75 countries. Fourteen years later, KPop Demon Hunters shows how much further this can go. The [Sony Pictures Animation film distributed by Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/kpop-demon-hunters-sequel) made Korean pop culture its selling point. In other words, American businesses now have their own reasons to keep the world interested in Korea.

Chinese performers, on the other hand, face greater difficulty getting that circulation started. YouTube and Instagram [are blocked at home](https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-net/2024), separating their domestic following from the platforms where potential foreign fans congregate. They can release music overseas, of course. But their most enthusiastic supporters cannot pass it along as easily, so a hit on a Chinese platform has further to travel before it reaches a Mexican listener. Beijing’s determination to police what enters the country complicates its ambition to export what comes out.

The policing also reaches into the relationship between performers and fans. In 2021, China’s internet authorities abolished online rankings of entertainers and [tightened supervision of fan accounts](https://english.www.gov.cn/statecouncil/ministries/202108/27/content%5FWS61289d9bc6d0df57f98df436.html). Broadcasting regulators banned idol-development shows and demanded political correctness from entertainers, expressing special [disdain for supposedly effeminate men](https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/china-tells-broadcasters-to-shun-effeminate-and-vulgar-entertainment-artists/85ibt41x4). Some restrictions addressed legitimate concerns about children being induced to overspend. But a state that prescribes acceptable masculinity is doing much more than protecting young consumers: It is claiming jurisdiction over the tastes that pop music exists to indulge. 

This is an expensive preference for a government seeking friends. Joseph Nye, the political scientist who developed the concept of soft power, [wrote that](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/10/22/2003276897) “popular entertainment often contains subtle images and messages about individualism, consumer choice, and other values that have important political effects.” The messages themselves—lyrics about youthful love and angst—needn’t concern foreign policy to help a foreign minister. A country that others around the world have encountered as a source of pleasure has a better chance of receiving a sympathetic hearing when it asks for support. Seoul still needs persuasive policies, but K-pop gives it an advantage over governments whose principal introduction to foreign publics is a dispute or a threat.

China itself has supplied a demonstration of how stubborn that affection can be. Beijing’s unofficial [restrictions on Korean entertainment](https://apnews.com/article/61f517d9ca5c468ca5b9bceeb60d5b21), imposed after Seoul agreed to host an American missile-defense system, have not prevented Chinese fans of K-Pop from traveling abroad to see the performers they love. 

Seoul has good reason to encourage an industry capable of sustaining such loyalties. Chinese officials might point to the Korean government’s [support for entertainment companies](https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/jletters/vol52/iss1/2/) to argue that the state has a useful role in cultural exports, but public assistance doesn’t entitle officials to supervise the relationship with the audience. Foreign listeners bring tastes no ministry can predict, and successful performers need room to accommodate them. China can afford the studios, the training, and the promotion. Its leaders must decide whether they can tolerate a pop star whose first obligation is to please the fans.

Meanwhile, back in the US, there is every expectation that K-Pop will continue to break new ground in 2027: BTS and Blackpink feature prominently in speculation about who will perform in [next year’s Super Bowl](https://www.rollingstone.de/super-bowl-2027-miley-cyrus-bts-3098555/) halftime show. The best Chinese officials can hope for is to score tickets to the game.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt03b6cdf98ded9516 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 10:30:03 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Bobby Ghosh\]\]><!\[CDATA\[We Have a Climate Imagination Problem\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/we-have-a-climate-imagination-problem/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[We’re missing an emotional architecture for change: how it feels to want a different future and believe we can reach it, writes Solitaire Townsend.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Megane Adam—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcd0f000bd6c1669e/6aa2fe90ce760a1633495eec/climate-imagination.jpg?branch=production)

 —Megane Adam—Getty Images

Earlier this year I stood in a draughty sports hall, facing rows of 10-year-olds sitting cross-legged on the scuffed floor. I asked them a question: “What does climate change mean?”

Small hands shot up: “The sea rises and floods everything,” one child said. “Fires are gonna burn all the forests,” another added. “We all die.”

The litany of apocalypse continued until I interrupted with a second question. “And what can we do about it?”

Silence.

After some shuffling, one girl tentatively offered: “Solar panels?” Then a louder boy called out, “Recycle!” His classmates nodded.

And that was pretty much it.

I've worked in climate communication for nearly 30 years, interspersing sessions with CEOs, activists, and politicians with talks to school kids. Over those decades, I’ve watched the average 10-year-old acquire an increasingly sophisticated picture of the climate crisis they will inherit. They can imagine burning forests, flooded cities, dying species, and an uninhabitable planet. Many of them seem to understand climate science better than some CEOs.

But ask these children to picture what we do about it, and suddenly their extraordinary imaginations contract to a recycling bin.

To be clear, I am enthusiastically in favour of recycling—just not as our answer to a planetary emergency. But I understand why I’m still hearing that [inadequate response](https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/climate-action-change-behaviour-impact-survey/). Since the greenhouse effect and global warming first entered [mainstream](https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1975813%5F1975844%5F1976439,00.html) public consciousness [in the 1980s](https://theconversation.com/30-years-ago-global-warming-became-front-page-news-and-both-republicans-and-democrats-took-it-seriously-97658), we’ve offered people ever more detailed maps of the apocalypse with barely a sketch of the way out. 

The climate movement, of which I’m a proud member, has been complicit in this communications crisis. Most messages shared by progressive forces are merely an ad nauseam echo of: climate change is real, humans are to blame, and the consequences are catastrophic. I call this framing the [earned dystopia](https://futerra-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/StoriesToSaveTheWorld%5Ff3cmn4j.pdf), and it’s so ubiquitous most pre-teens can parrot it. 

After so many years, can we not imagine a different story?

One reason for this imagination deficit is that storytelling has been treated as merely the spoonful of sugar to help the scientific medicine go down. Storytellers are asked to act as the marketing department for climate science. 

But if that subservient role for storytellers was ever needed, it’s increasingly futile now that climate change has started communicating itself. Our growing count of [horrifying floods](https://time.com/article/2026/09/01/flood-deaths-trishuli-tibet-himalayas-china-nepal/), [fires](https://time.com/article/2026/08/08/what-happens-when-the-world-is-on-fire/), [storms](https://time.com/7268239/how-to-prepare-for-a-storm/), and [droughts](https://time.com/7381402/water-rights-colorado-river-drought/) capture headlines without my help. 

We have clear science and brutal direct experience of climate change, so why haven’t politicians and populations sprung into action? 

The logic of the climate crisis is clear. What we’re missing is the magic.

Long before humans measured atmospheric carbon, we whispered tales of flood and fire. Stories have always helped us understand who we are and what we might become. Increasingly, [researchers are proving](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392115690%5FThe%5FPower%5Fof%5FStorytelling) this singular power of stories to spark ideas, possibilities, and acts of imagination.

I believe part of this magic comes from stories’ purpose in curating emotions rather than evidence. 

Today, we don’t particularly lack information about [heat pumps](https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318347/jetson-air/), [electric vehicles](https://time.com/article/2026/04/08/how-the-iran-war-is-pushing-more-people-to-buy-evs/), or [regenerative agriculture](https://time.com/collections/earth-inc/6166190/climate-better-way-to-farm/). More details than you could ever want are just a click away. What we’re missing is an emotional architecture for change; how it feels to want a different future and to believe we can reach it.

That’s where great storytelling could change everything. Our ability to enter a story and temporarily experience the character's world as our own is called [narrative transportation](https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/positively-media/202506/when-fiction-feels-like-fact-why-stories-shape-our-beliefs). Studies prove that this experience of emoting along with fictional people can directly influence real people’s attitudes, intentions, and even our [behaviors](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs/pii/S0065260124000145). Few other mechanisms can achieve the same effect. 

Climate politics has sensed this power, but translated it into the narrower language of “public narrative.” Politicians now plot narratives for electrification and renewables. Campaigners construct counter-narratives to fossil fuels. Brand teams test sustainability narratives against each other. In climate circles, everyone is searching for the breakthrough narrative that will finally unlock action. But too often the term is simply a cypher for messaging. And messaging is not the same thing as mythology.

A political narrative tells us how to understand an issue while mythology helps us understand ourselves. And climate change is mythological in scale. It contains terrifying monsters, underdog heroes, unexpected allies, destruction and rebirth. Or at least it should. My problem is with the enormous cultural library of apocalyptic narratives compared to a surprisingly small shelf of fables that foreshadow a better ending.

We need a plot twist in climate storytelling, moving beyond the threat and into the thrilling adventure of solving it. Tales of the messy decades in which billions of people change how they power homes, grow food, travel, build cities, and protect one another from a climate that has already changed

That’s a job for storytellers. 

Culture makers are beginning to catch on. I’ve been invited by television and film writers, social-media creators, and brands to help climate solutions appear in comedy, drama, adventure, and everyday life. Ever [more box-office hits](https://greentitles.sustainableentertainmentalliance.org/), like [_The Wild Robot_](https://time.com/7015187/most-anticipated-movies-fall-2024/), [_Avatar_](https://time.com/7341098/avatar-fire-and-ash-review/), and the upcoming [_Digger_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=job8V254NAE), reflect our fight against climate and nature crises. _Sesame Street_ is [helping kids cope](https://time.com/article/2026/08/05/sesame-street-extreme-weather-climate-experts/) with extreme weather. New [climate fiction novels](https://www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2026/08/17/stories-to-save-the-world-5-novels-of-climate-solutions/) weave answers into stirring worldbuilding. These all work because they are compelling and moving stories above all, not climate science lectures dressed in a thin veil of narrative. Many other scriptwriters, novelists, social media creators, musicians and artists must add to this list.

I passionately believe that climate solutions are the most important story of this century. 

When I return to that classroom over the coming years and ask the same two questions, the first answers will remain frightening. But when I ask what we can do about it, I hope every hand will shoot up, because we’ll have filled kids' imaginations with enough possibilities that they can start inventing answers we haven’t thought of yet. That will be a good day. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt5b8c981a5ea48076 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 10:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Solitaire Townsend\]\]><!\[CDATA\[We Need to Stop Talking Like Climate Change Is Partisan\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/we-need-to-stop-talking-like-climate-change-is-partisan/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Climate change should be seen as a shared challenge to solve together, not a political debate, write Katharine Hayhoe and Dana R. Fisher.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[leolintang—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5410b808f2c7d09d/6ab0a3209f335ed5efc35fb1/climate-change-partisan.jpg?branch=production)

 —leolintang—Getty Images

This summer of disasters has shown us that climate impacts are not political, and it is past time we stopped talking about them as if they were. A flood doesn’t knock on your door and ask who you voted for in the last election before it sweeps your house away, nor does wildfire smoke distinguish between Republicans and Democrats before it chokes the air.

People who raise awareness about climate change know that how you communicate your message matters, and there’s much to learn from them. We surveyed the top organizations and individuals who regularly communicate about climate change across the U.S. and Canada. Almost none said that advocating for candidates or policies was the goal of their work. Their top priority was helping people understand what’s happening and why it matters: we’ve always had heatwaves and droughts, storms, and floods—but the faster the planet warms, the worse these events get. 

Climate change is loading the weather dice against us, and its effects are growing. A recent study estimated that deaths caused by extreme heat are [vastly under-reported](https://www.npr.org/2026/08/31/nx-s1-5724225/heat-wave-death-toll-tracker). Air pollution, whether from burning fossil fuels or wildfire smoke, is responsible for a growing list of [health impacts](https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/air-quality-energy-and-health/health-impacts), from increased risk of asthma and dementia to premature death. The financial toll of climate change is also on the rise as [climate-related expenses](https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/why-climate-change-costing-u-s-households-hundreds-dollars-a-year), including rising utility bills and insurance premiums, are already adding at least $400 to $900 to yearly household budgets. And as we have seen over the past few years, there are [no climate havens](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-climate-haven/): we are all at risk. 

Here’s the thing, though: when people connect _what’s_ happening to _why_ it’s happening, their support for all sorts of climate action grows. This fact is true in the U.S., in Canada, and in dozens of other countries too. Why? Because we need solutions at scale that make the easiest, most affordable choice the best choice for the planet and our future. This requires action at [every level](https://time.com/collections/time100-voices/6315768/climate-leadership-global-conversation/): individual, community, and corporate action, but also government policy that enables and accelerates the rest. 

Even as the impacts from climate change grow, data show that we still aren’t hearing or talking about it enough. Just under half of Canadians and 41% of Americans read or hear about climate change once a week. Only 20% of Americans discuss global warming with family and friends a few times a month or more. And nearly half, 44%, say they never discuss it at all. 

Why aren’t we hearing about it more? Why do so many articles about the devastation of the Nepal floods, the soaring costs of home insurance, or the escalating health risks of wildfire smoke fail to make the connection between these issues and climate change?

There are many reasons, but one is the fact that polarized public discourse has made climate conversations more difficult, and even well-meaning efforts to “move climate change up” people’s priority list often fundamentally misrepresent the risks. The reality is that climate change doesn’t need to move up any list; it is already impacting any homeowner’s, farmer’s, teacher’s, or parent’s top concerns. But that connection isn’t always obvious: it needs to be made, again and again.

Given this contraction in public climate conversations, we wanted to learn from those who are still doing climate communication. What’s working, and how can we amplify it? Here’s what we found.

The first and most important lesson is that talking about climate change means talking about everyday life. When we asked climate newsletter writers, podcast hosts, people who regularly post on social media, and those building climate content for non-profits, their response was clear. Their first priority is to connect the climate crisis to other concerns people face: our jobs, our health, the places we love. They don’t set up climate change as a rival to those worries. Instead, they understand that climate change is already shaping the things people worry about. When we connect the dots between what we love and how climate change threatens it, it becomes obvious that nearly all of us have our own reasons to care and act. 

The second priority climate communicators identified was shifting public perceptions and norms. And this issue is equally vital. Three years ago, 71% of Canadians and 63% of Americans [reported](http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/app/uploads/2023/11/international-public-opinion-climate-change-2023.pdf) they were worried about climate change. But most people keep their worries to themselves and underestimate how many others share their concerns. When people don't hear their neighbors, coworkers, and friends talking about climate change, they’re less willing to bring it up themselves. Conversely, of everything people can learn about climate change, knowing that _others care_ [best predicts](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/understanding-six-key-truths-about-climate-change-predicts-policy-support-discussion-and-political-advocacy/) whether people speak up. And here's why it matters: if we don't talk about climate change, how will we know who else cares about it—and if we think we're alone in our concern, why would we act?

Climate communicators are not pushing to make this a partisan issue—in fact, only 4% prioritized advocating for elected officials or candidates. Instead, they’re working to inform and educate their audiences about climate action, climate science, risks, and impacts, in hopes of equipping others to talk about climate change themselves. 

Climate communication that isn’t polarizing and connects directly to what we already care about is exactly what we need; we just need _more_ of it. Yet only 41% of the communicators surveyed report having received any financial support for their climate communication in the past five years. A third work entirely alone, and two-thirds work either alone or with a small team of ten or fewer colleagues. Even with these limitations, they are producing content and getting the word out: nearly eight-in-ten say they’re publishing content about climate change at least once a week.

We know that climate shocks, like the ones we’ve experienced this summer, open windows of opportunity: people who [live through](https://cup.columbia.edu/book/saving-ourselves/9780231557870/) climate change-exacerbated extreme events are more supportive of climate science and climate action and are more civically and politically engaged. On this warming planet, we all need to learn from what the few who _are_ talking about climate change are already doing. Research has shown that friends and family are trusted messengers who can initiate a [pro-climate conversation loop](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1906589116). We all need to become climate communicators and stop letting those who want to delay climate action as long as possible polarize it and silence us.

To care about climate change today, one doesn’t need to be anything other than a human being living on planet Earth. And when we stop talking about climate change like it’s a political issue and start talking about it as a shared challenge that we all need to work together to solve, that’s when we’ll finally be able to start talking about saving ourselves. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltb684ae4b8b7517d1 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 10:00:03 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Katharine Hayhoe and Dana R. Fisher\]\]><!\[CDATA\[German Far-Right Expands Gains in ‘Disaster’ State Elections for Chancellor Merz\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/german-far-right-expands-gains-in-disaster-to-chancellor-merz/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The AfD won its second first-place result in state elections this year, bringing the party closer to regional power than any far-right party since WWII.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Sean Gallup—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) wave German flags as they attend an election campaign rally ahead of state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Neubrandenburg, Germany, on Sept. 18, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2e74c3912c0caa5a/6ab0fcdb62e62eeb3d6cab6b/afp_rally.jpg?branch=production)

Supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) wave German flags as they attend an election campaign rally ahead of state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Neubrandenburg, Germany, on Sept. 18, 2026\. —Sean Gallup—Getty Images

[Alternative for Germany (AfD)](https://time.com/article/2026/09/12/afd-election-germany-trump-maga/) has won the most votes in northeastern Germany, marking the far right party’s [second first-place result](https://time.com/article/2026/09/07/germany-saxony-anhalt-election-afd-party-far-right-ulrich-siegmund/) in state elections this year.

The AfD won 38.2% of the votes in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, according to [preliminary official counts](https://wahlen.mvnet.de/dateien/ergebnisse.2026/landtagswahl/html/l%5F99.html). It was followed by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) with 35.5%. The results add onto the AfD’s [earlier success in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt](https://time.com/article/2026/09/07/afd-election-victory-germany-Saxony-Anhalt-merz-/), bringing the party closer to regional power than any far-right party since WWII.

“We are the strongest force and have reached the mainstream of the population,” AfD national co-leader [Alice Weidel](https://time.com/7260499/alice-weidel-far-right-afd-germany-musk-vance-trump/) declared on Sunday.

Sunday’s results were a significant blow to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the mainstream conservative party of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The CDU won just 4.9% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, its lowest ever result in any state election and below the 5% threshold needed to enter state parliament.

“We can’t sugarcoat the results,” Merz said after the first exit polls were released. “It’s a disaster.”

Despite the AfD’s success, it faces an uncertain path to governance. Without an outright majority, the party would need support from lawmakers outside its ranks to govern, but mainstream political parties in Germany maintain a “firewall” against the AfD.

Merz has also vowed to stay on and continue his reform agenda, bucking speculation that he might resign.

## AfD ran on anti-immigration, opposition to Ukraine aid

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, state party co-chairs Leif-Erik Holm and Enrico Schult, together with secretary general Dario Seifert, [led the AfD’s campaign](https://www.welt.de/regionales/mecklenburg-vorpommern/article6a76873a0e3689919ec74815/wahlkampfauftakt-der-afd-mecklenburg-vorpommern.html). Like the national party, the state organization [ran on](https://afd-mv.de/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/AfD-Regierungsprogramm-Mecklenburg-Vorpommern-2026.pdf) a hard-line anti-immigration platform, calling for more deportations, a state border and deportation police force, and potentially a statewide halt to accepting asylum seekers.

The party also promised to stop further wind power development, lower property-transfer taxes, and reduce the size of the state administration. It also proposed withdrawing from the interstate broadcasting treaty as part of an effort to overhaul public broadcasters.

Holm said his goal was an AfD-only state government, but he softened towards the end of the campaign and expressed openness to coalition discussions with any other party. But while CDU state leader Daniel Peters previously said there was [effectively no longer a firewall](https://www.welt.de/regionales/mecklenburg-vorpommern/article255960212/CDU-Landeschef-sieht-in-Ost-Kommunen-keine-Brandmauer-zu-AfD.html) against the AfD in eastern Germany, the SPD, Greens and Die Linke—the three other parties elected to the state parliament in Sunday’s election—have thus far [rejected cooperation](https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/mecklenburg-vorpommern/landtagswahl/historisches-wahlergebnis-in-mecklenburg-vorpommern-cdu-raus-afd-vor-spd,mvwahl-370.html) with the AfD.

The SPD came second in the state after Manuela Schwesig, state premier since 2017, propelled the party to a late surge in polls. Schwesig cast herself as a bulwark to an AfD government, while also criticizing the federal government’s reform agenda.

The CDU, alongside its sister party in Bavaria the Christian Social Union (CSU), is in a governing coalition with the SPD at the federal level.

Asked by broadcaster ARD why around 45,000 former SPD voters had [switched](https://www.rtl.de/news/mecklenburg-vorpommern-afd-sieg-dank-nichtwaehlern-und-spd-stimmen-id31328010.html) to the AfD, Schwesig [cited](https://www.tagesschau.de/video/video-1652248.html) dissatisfaction with the federal government and growing opposition to Germany’s financial and military support for Ukraine. She said the AfD had appealed to voters by campaigning to reopen the Nord Stream pipelines, which carried Russian gas ashore in the state.. The pipelines were [damaged by explosions](https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/nordstream-anschlag-faq-100.html) in September 2022, months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

## CDU weakens but Merz vows to stay on

Merz’s approval ratings have fallen sharply since he became chancellor in May 2025\. As of early September, he [polled at 13% approval](https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/ard-deutschlandtrend/2026/september/), down from a [peak of around 42% in July 2025](https://www.infratest-dimap.de/umfragen-analysen/bundesweit/ard-deutschlandtrend/2025/juli/).

The CDU has fared little better. The CDU/CSU alliance has fallen in popularity from 30% support in July 2025 to 21% in early September.

The party [came second in Berlin’s election](https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BE2026/Afspraes/AGH/index.html) on Sunday with 18.8% of the vote share, down [9.4 percentage points from 2023](https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BE2023/AFSPRAES/agh/index.html), when it returned to power in the capital after more than two decades. It trailed Die Linke, a far-left party that has never before come first in a Berlin state election, with 25.7%. The AfD also made significant gains, increasing its vote share from 9.1% in 2023 to 16.3%, according to preliminary official results

The CDU more than halved its vote share in Saxony-Anhalt’s state election earlier this month, falling from 37.1% in 2021 to 17.2%. The AfD, on the other hand, more than doubled its support to 43.8%. The AfD has risen in popularity across the country, leading national opinion polls with [nearly 30% support](https://dawum.de/Bundestag/YouGov/2026-09-15/).

But mainstream parties [continue to rule out](https://www.cdu.de/aktuelles/zusammenhalt/merz-keine-gemeinsamkeiten-mit-der-afd/) forming a coalition or otherwise cooperating with the AfD. Some branches of the AfD, including the one in Saxony-Anhalt, are designated as right-wing extremist organizations by domestic intelligence, a classification the party rejects.

Earlier this week, the leaders of all eight CDU-governed states [publicly backed](https://www.welt.de/newsticker/dpa%5Fnt/infoline%5Fnt/Politik%5F%5FInland%5F/article6aaa41e2bfb40073cb2f3349/die-erklaerung-der-cdu-ministerpraesidenten-im-wortlaut.html) Merz and called for party unity.

On Sunday, Merz vowed to plow on with his reform agenda.

“What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness, and patience,” Merz said at CDU headquarters on Sunday. “I would go so far as to say that these reforms are the antidote to the authoritarian poison that is penetrating ever deeper into our society, driven by the allure of authoritarianism.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltc793ce9f53a24845 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:55:00 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Miranda Jeyaretnam\]\]><!\[CDATA\[In Europe, Today's Children Will Live Through Nearly Twice as Many Fire Weather Days Than Their Grandparents\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/children-europe-extreme-fire-weather-climate-future/<!\[CDATA\[Climate\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Scientists calculate just how much more extreme fire weather new generations will live through.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[John Thys—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Smoke emanating from burnt soil and vegetation during a wildfire at the Hautes Fagnes (High Fens) nature reserve near Baelen, south east of Brussels, on Aug. 17, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24faf35c0cf45034/6aad9a58ef556f92b7c2cfc0/europe-children-fires.jpg?branch=production)

Smoke emanating from burnt soil and vegetation during a wildfire at the Hautes Fagnes (High Fens) nature reserve near Baelen, south east of Brussels, on Aug. 17, 2026\. —John Thys—Getty Images

Children born in Europe now will live through almost twice as much [extreme fire weather](https://time.com/article/2026/07/27/france-spain-europe-wildfires-destruction-photos/) as their grandparents (an 84% increase), according to a new study [published](https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae93de) today in the journal _Environmental Research Letters._ 

A child born in Europe in 2025 will live through more than three additional years of extreme fire [weather](https://time.com/article/2026/06/25/europe-heat-wave-infrastructure-air-conditioning/) compared with someone born in 1950, the researchers found. 

The largest increases are projected in the Mediterranean—a region already hard hit by wildfires. There, people born in 2025 are projected to face up to 2.5 times the exposure to extreme fire weather than those born in 1950—the equivalent of over five additional years of extreme fire weather over their lifetime. That’s for a scenario where global warming increases by 2.6°C above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100, as is currently [predicted](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/global-temperature-rises-exceed-15-celsius-within-few-years-unep-says-2026-09-02/) under current global [climate](https://time.com/section/climate/) and energy policies.

To map out potential outcomes, researchers used climate model projections for fire weather known as the Fire Weather Index. Fire weather refers to the hot, dry, and windy conditions that make fires more likely to ignite, spread faster, and become harder to suppress—conditions that are becoming more common due to climate change. They define extreme fire weather as days when the fire weather index exceeds the top 5% of days for that country over 1985-2014\. 

“It doesn't mean that there \[will be\] a wildfire on all of those days, but it does mean that the risk is much higher,” says Rosa Pietroiusti, lead author of the study and PhD researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. 

Portugal, the European country that has seen the [highest proportion](https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-fire-weather-conditions-in-spain-and-portugal-now-common-due-to-climate-change/) of its area burned in recent decades, can expect to see extreme fire weather days more than double under current climate policies, from 14 days per year from 1950 to 1970, to 32 days per year by 2100\. 

Each additional degree of global warming by the end of the century adds around 272 days of extreme fire weather to the life of a Portuguese child born in 2025\. A child born in Greece can expect to see 473 additional days of exposure to extreme fire weather during their lifetime, while children in Spain and Italy will see 448 days. 

Exposure to wildfire smoke comes with a number of immediate health impacts, including stinging eyes, wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath. Over time, long-term exposure can [cause](https://www.who.int/health-topics/wildfires#tab=tab%5F2) and exacerbate [diseases](https://www.who.int/health-topics/wildfires#tab=tab%5F2) in the lungs, and heart, and has been shown to lead to cognitive impairment and memory loss. Long-term exposure to wildfire smoke is also [associated](https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/long-term-exposure-to-wildfire-smoke-associated-with-higher-risk-of-death/) with higher risk of death.

The study notes that rapid measures to reduce emissions could reduce exposure in all regions. If we limit warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century, “a lot of exposure could be avoided,” says Pietroiusti. “While younger people will be more exposed than older generations under all pathways, every fraction of a degree of warming counts, and every fraction of a degree of avoided warming can reduce the hazard that we're exposing young people to during their lives.”

The world, however, has strayed far from that goal. A U.N. [report](https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/unep-world-set-cross-15degc-global-warming-can-still-limit-adapt-and) published at the beginning of September found that the planet is set to pass the 1.5°C threshold for global warming set out in the Paris Agreement within the next few years. Optimistic scenarios estimate temperature rise peaking at 1.8°C, while other estimates predict even higher peaks. 

Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent. Temperatures have risen by approximately 0.56°C per decade since the mid-1990s—more than double the global average.

This summer alone brought several severe heat waves to the continent, with the [European Forest Fire Information System](https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/scientific-activities/natural-and-man-made-hazards/forest-fires/current-wildfire-situation-europe%5Fen) reporting that wildfires burned over 668,000 hectares (over 1.6 million acres) across the E.U., including Belgium’s worst wildfire in a [century](https://www.brusselstimes.com/2288837/how-belgium-went-through-one-of-its-biggest-wildfires-ever) and the largest [recorded](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/world/europe/europe-fires-france-spain-what-to-know.html) wildfires in France and Spain since data collection began. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently proposed a new European Heatwave Plan as well as a future European firefighting fleet of airplanes to address the realities of climate change, [calling](https://apnews.com/article/european-union-heat-wave-climate-change-wildfires-55aa1da3b3b18c4986a69f7e186a6383) this summer “the summer of truth.”

“We're really seeing that these conditions are not just climate model projections and simulations and results,” says Pietroiusti, “but they're really real world conditions and risks.”

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt7ae4a64954ccba76 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Simmone Shah\]\]><!\[CDATA\[ICE Shooting of Immigrant in Texas Under Investigation: What to Know\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/21/ice-austin-texas-shooting-venezuela-immigrant-investigation/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm is leading a probe into the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant in Austin.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

The Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm is leading a probe into a federal agent’s shooting of an immigrant from Venezuela in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.

Protesters immediately gathered at the scene to denounce the latest instance of violence involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, with [videos on social media showing](https://x.com/VinnyMartorano/status/2101841738386063798/video/1) them paralyzing traffic. Texas law enforcement was deployed to the scene to respond and [attempt to disperse the gathering](https://x.com/VinnyMartorano/status/2101873851751698878), CBS Austin reported, detaining multiple protesters and firing pepper balls into the crowds.

“I’m very angry about this,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said in a press conference about the shooting, adding that local police were not involved in the incident, which happened during a traffic stop.

Watson said he was not surprised by ICE’s involvement, given “the nature of ICE and the way ICE is doing its business these days.”

Watson and other Texas Democrats have also called for independent investigations into the incident. [James Talarico](https://time.com/article/2026/09/17/trump-paxton-talarico-texas-senate/), who’s campaigning for a U.S. Senate seat, said he was “closely following” the reports and urged a probe that released available footage of the shooting. “Previous incidents have shown that this agency cannot be trusted to report all the facts,” Talarico [said](https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/ice-officer-shooting-anderson-lane-research-boulevard/269-c1767e3e-1622-45d6-b30c-8b734a03890b) in a statement released to the media.

The District Attorney’s Office in Travis County, which includes Austin, [requested](https://districtattorney.traviscountytx.gov/statement-reported-ice-agent-shooting-community-member/) to partner with city police in the investigation and for the federal government to cooperate in providing access to evidence. It added: “As has occurred in other jurisdictions, it is possible that this incident included violations of state law.”

Rep. Greg Casar (D, Texas) [wrote a letter](https://x.com/RepCasar/status/2101828250146140160/photo/1) to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE director David Venturella seeking a congressional briefing on Sept. 28, and asked the agencies to publicly release all body and dash camera footage from federal officers present at the scene and recorded communications between agents before and after the shooting.

Casar and Watson claimed that ICE activity in Austin has increased in recent weeks amid President Donald Trump’s implementation of his strict anti-immigrant agenda. “It’s a disturbing pattern,” Casar said, “and it has got to stop.”

Here’s what we know so far.

## What happened?

The shooting occurred near the intersection of Anderson Square and Research Boulevard in Austin. [_The Texas Tribune_](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/09/20/austin-immigration-shooting-texas/) reported that Texas state troopers received a call at around 12:50 p.m. from ICE officials, citing Sheridan Nolen, a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Public Safety. The officials reportedly asked for help to pursue a blue Toyota Corolla. 

But Nolen said that before the state troopers arrived, an ICE agent had shot a man, and upon the troopers’ arrival, they treated the driver of the Toyota Corolla. 

Austin-Travis County EMS received notification from city police of a shooting around 12:56 p.m. CT, according to its chief Rob Luckritz. They identified a man who sustained a gunshot wound to the torso, with Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis adding that preliminary information pointed to a “small foot pursuit” happening before the shooting.

Authorities then added that the man was transferred to the Dell Seton Medical Center in stable condition.

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch is the Austin-based immigration lawyer representing the man who was shot and his wife. According to Lincoln-Goldfinch, the wife received a phone call on Sunday afternoon from her husband, who said that he had been shot before the line went dead. 

She then went to the scene of the incident, the attorney said, but her husband had already been moved to the hospital.

In [videos](https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19VcmD2ub1/) posted to her social media channels on Sunday evening, Lincoln-Goldfinch reported that she and the wife were subsequently barred from entering the hospital or learning about the condition of the man who was shot. They were later told that the man was already in ICE custody; he had been taken into custody four hours after he was shot, according to Lincoln-Goldfinch.

She posted an update on Instagram on Monday [confirming](https://x.com/AttorneyKateLG/status/2102080782898504092) that the man had been transferred and was being detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall—more than 100 miles away from Austin. At a press conference Monday, she said that the transfer to Pearsall occurred at about 4 a.m.

"\[He\] still has the bullet lodged in his body. He’s received no pain medication and had to sleep on the floor," she wrote.

Lincoln-Goldfinch told CNN on Monday that she had used “back channels” to determine where her client was being held. His name does not appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System.

The _Associated Press_ on Sunday [reported](https://apnews.com/article/ice-detainee-locator-disappear-removal-orders-c3329a70bce424879bc5880b286c019c) that ICE has "stopped publicly revealing where it is holding thousands of detainees who are subject to final deportation orders." The change was not announced to the public. Thousands of names were also removed from the database as of Sept. 15, _AP_ reported.

## What do we know about the people involved?

Lincoln-Goldfinch identified the man who was shot as a 28-year-old Venezuelan named Wilber Rafael Garces Perez. 

The _Tribune_ reported, citing Lincoln-Goldfinch, that Perez had a work permit and had entered the U.S. legally. According to Lincoln-Goldfinch, Perez was delivering for DoorDash when the shooting occurred.

A DHS spokesperson said, without naming Perez, that the Venezuelan immigrant who was shot “illegally entered our country under the Biden Administration and had a final order of removal.” The man is stable and “in federal custody pending removal,” the spokesperson added.

“If ICE deports him, the key witness to their shooting disappears,” Rep. Casar [posted on social media](https://x.com/RepCasar/status/2101853717003673667). “He must not be removed from this country, and he must receive proper medical care.”

As for the ICE agent, who has not been publicly identified, when authorities were asked about his whereabouts, Mayor Watson said: “We do not know that. But my hope would be that an agent that’s involved in an officer-involved shooting would not leave the city; certainly not leave the state.”

## Is this part of a pattern?

Sunday’s shooting involving federal immigration agents follows another widely reported shooting in July. In Houston, an ICE agent shot and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, while conducting a traffic stop. ICE said Salgado Araujo was not the intended target of the operation, though the DHS has claimed, without proof, that Salgado Araujo was in the country illegally and attempted to ram ICE vehicles.

**Read More:** [_These Two Brothers Are Fighting to Protect Immigrant Families After a Tragedy_](https://time.com/collection/latino-leaders/2026/ronaldo-salgado-lorenzo-salgado-araujo-jr/)

Since Trump’s return to the White House, his Administration has deployed federal agents to Democrat-run cities around the country to carry out the President’s strict immigration agenda, and these agents have been involved in multiple high-profile violent incidents. 

Among the first people killed in such operations was 23-year-old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez. A federal agent [fatally shot Martinez](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/20/us/texas-ruben-ray-martinez-shooting) in South Padre Island, Texas, on March 15, 2025.

Shootings involving federal agents, such as those of [Renee Good](https://time.com/7345319/ice-shootings-renee-good/) and [Alex Pretti](https://time.com/7362321/trump-alex-pretti-agitator-insurrectionist-minneapolis-shooting-federal-agents/) in Minneapolis, have sparked debate over how immigration policy is enforced nationwide. Demands for accountability over the shootings, mainly from Democrats, have triggered funding battles and partial shutdowns of the DHS.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt1e6f685029282bfb Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chad de Guzman\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How National Security Became Central to Trump’s D.C. Construction Projects\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/20/why-trumps-building-projects-national-security/<!\[CDATA\[U.S.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The President’s new plan for a militarized triumphal arch echoes the national-security rationale used to defend construction of the White House ballroom.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Samuel Corum—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Work continues on the White House ballroom on Sept. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt803760bffa8c526f/6ab030ec9f335e5c72c352b2/GettyImages-2295673731.jpg?branch=production)

Work continues on the White House ballroom on Sept. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. —Samuel Corum—Getty Images

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that his proposed “[triumphal arch](https://time.com/article/2026/04/11/how-trump-s-proposed-triumphal-arch-stacks-up-against-others-around-the-world/)”—which is planned for Memorial Circle near the Virginia end of Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C.—will serve as a military complex with drones, ammunition storage, and sniper facilities.

“There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World,” he wrote on [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117303154231930646), adding that the arch would “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones” and that there would be snipers “on both the roof and plaza areas.”

The announcement comes almost a year after he [debuted](https://time.com/7326081/trump-president-arch-washington-project-construction/) a model of the 250-foot arch in the Oval Office on Oct. 15, 2025\. In his initial proposal, Trump said that the arch was meant to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary.

**Read More**: [_How Trump’s Proposed Triumphal Arch Stacks Up Against Others Around the World_](https://time.com/article/2026/04/11/how-trump-s-proposed-triumphal-arch-stacks-up-against-others-around-the-world/)

Trump has also argued the arch is significant because it brings the United States on par with other world capitals featuring similar monuments. He emphasized that point again on Sunday, writing: “Out of the 59 top cities and Capitals, Washington, D.C., IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A TRIUMPHAL ARCH, but it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all.”

Trump did not identify the 59 cities he was referring to or explain the basis for the comparison. He appeared to mean that Washington was the only one among a group of leading world cities and capitals that lacked a triumphal arch.

His post said that the changes to the plan for the arch came “at the strong request of the United States Military” and had been made “for National Security purposes.” 

The President’s post did not elaborate on the security role that a militarized arch would play in Washington, and Trump has not made public any revised proposal, model, or mockup of what changes that might entail. 

TIME has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon for comment. 

Trump’s new description of the arch echoes the Administration’s defense of another signature construction project: the White House ballroom.

## How Trump’s White House ballroom project became a ‘military complex’

The White House ballroom was initially presented as a privately funded venue for state dinners and other large events. In subsequent litigation, however, the Administration argued that the ballroom and the underground military facility beneath it constituted a single, integrated project.

That argument emerged amid [legal challenges](https://cdn.savingplaces.org/2026/03/31/17/32/14/0f9ba8ca-a461-4fd2-95e2-542ea3f41de7/Civil%20Action%20No.%202025-4316.pdf) to construction already underway at the site of the former East Wing. On March 31, a judge ordered the ballroom project halted unless authorized by Congress, while leaving open an exception for work necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House. The Administration subsequently [argued](https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/white-house-military-complex-bunker-trump-ballroom/) that the security exception allowed the entire project to continue—claiming that it is one “massive” military complex that is “vital” to national security. 

Prior to litigation, Trump had [called](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/07/the-white-house-announces-white-house-ballroom-construction-to-begin/) the $400 million ballroom a social and diplomatic space to “host major functions honoring world leaders.” But in [court documents](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A203/419462/20260819113718408%5FAugust%20Ballroom%20Reply%20-%20FINAL.pdf) filed last month, Solicitor General John Sauer raised the stakes, writing: “Every day the President does not have access to the vital security features of the military complex presents unacceptable risk.”

On Aug. 31, the Supreme Court [stayed the injunction](https://time.com/article/2026/08/23/the-supreme-court-let-trumps-ballroom-proceed-for-now-heres-what-that-means/), allowing construction to continue while the government seeks further review. The Court did not rule on the project’s legality.

Much like the ballroom project, the triumphal arch has been the subject of legal and political scrutiny since it was announced in 2025\. 

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts—whose members were all appointed by Trump—approved the project’s design in May. House Democrats called it a [“vanity” project](https://time.com/article/2026/05/28/trump-arch-plans-democrat-legislation-construction-projects-backlash/) and introduced a bill to Congress to block its construction, along with the construction of any triumphal arch exceeding 50 feet on any National Park Service (NPS) lands in Washington “except by express authorization of Congress.” Democrats also argued that the arch was an unnecessary expenditure amid the affordability crisis affecting Americans.

“As President Trump strips away the necessary safety nets from Americans who are struggling to afford their basic needs like groceries and healthcare, he builds his unauthorized, grandiose Triumphal Arch,” Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada, one of the representatives who introduced the bill, [said](https://beyer.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=9127) in a statement in May. 

A group of Vietnam War veterans and a historian have jointly sued to block construction, arguing in _Lemmon v. Trump_ that the monument would disrupt historic sightlines between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The group has also argued that the plan requires congressional authorization.

“The President’s new justification for this wildly unpopular construction does nothing to cure its fundamental illegality,” Nicolas Sansone, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said in a [statement](https://www.citizen.org/news/the-law-is-clear-trumps-vanity-arch-cannot-move-forward-without-congressional-approval/) Sunday. “Congress has not authorized the arch, and unless and until Congress does so, building the arch on Memorial Circle is unlawful.” 

## How national security matters can expand presidential power

The difference between a construction project that is a matter of national security and one that is not can inform the role of Congress, according to Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Framing a project as a national security matter could give the executive branch a basis for arguing that Congress has less authority to constrain it.

Wehle tells TIME that Administrations have, for decades, used this understanding to expand presidential powers. There has been a “lot of deference” given to Presidents in the past when they invoke such reasoning, she says, pointing to the example of the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping and torture efforts after 9/11\. At the time, the Justice Department [argued](https://time.com/archive/6913607/bush-torture-memo-slapped-down-by-court/) that Congress cannot limit a President’s core military and national security decisions during a time of war. 

Although the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that President George W. Bush’s military commissions had to comply with restrictions imposed by Congress, the decision did not foreclose broader claims of presidential power over national security. Successive administrations continued to invoke those claims—or expansive congressional authorizations—to defend actions including surveillance, targeted killings, and military operations undertaken without a formal declaration of war. 

Wehle says that decades-long accumulation of authority has brought the Executive Branch close to treating the President as “above the law.”

“Trump’s authority is at its apex when it can be tied to the Commander-in-Chief power,” Wehle says.

Republicans control both the House and Senate, she says, and Trump could have attempted to get Congressional approval for both the ballroom and arch projects by rallying his own party’s support—but he didn’t.

Instead, the Administration has opted to add military justification to its efforts, she says, which “makes it more convenient for the court to reinterpret the Constitution around unaccountable, unlimited, concentrated power in one person.”

## Can Trump’s triumphal arch also function as a military site?

Trump has not given much information regarding what military use the arch would have, but George Washington University law professor Sara Bronin, who is also an architect, tells TIME that she is not aware of any other structures that double as commemorative monuments and military infrastructure.

“It seems crazy to include national security infrastructure in a site that is intended to be used by the general public and is intended to be a tourist attraction,” Bronin says, calling the two intentions “fundamentally incompatible.”

“Take the Pentagon, for example. Obviously, that is a site of national security importance, but that is not a site where members of the public are generally welcome,” she adds. 

Bronin also points out that the National Park Service [prepared a 22-page memorandum of agreement](https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/b432bfa4-ff64-4fed-8543-337490a98a5a.pdf) last week, acknowledging that the arch will unavoidably harm historic sites in the capital. The document sets out measures intended to mitigate those effects.

“NPS recognizes that Memorial Circle is located within a highly sensitive historic and commemorative landscape and that the undertaking’s location contributes to adverse effects to historic properties whose significance is associated with setting, design, feeling, association, spatial organization, circulation, and contributing views and vistas,” the agreement said.

It concluded, however, that the project cannot be located anywhere else since erecting it at Memorial Circle is “central to the undertaking.” To mitigate any adverse impacts, NPS said officials would create interpretive signs, webpages, and other materials documenting the site, its history, and the views affected by the project.

That document did not take into account any proposed military infrastructure.

“If this type of use and these physical improvements will be incorporated into the memorial arch, the memorandum of agreement will have to be completely redrafted,” Bronin says.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over _Lemmon v. Trump_, has not ruled on the central question of whether the arch can be built without Congressional authorization. On Sept. 4, she [ordered](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/veterans-seek-pause-of-any-construction-on-trumps-planned-arch) the Trump Administration to provide 48 hours’ notice before undertaking arch-related activity other than specified archaeological work. She also reminded the government of an earlier consent order requiring final NPS authorization and 14 days’ notice before construction or demolition. Last week, she denied the Justice Department’s request to dissolve the 48-hour requirement.

The Administration has not yet presented the arch’s new military rationale to the court or released plans showing how the proposed military infrastructure would be incorporated into the monument. That leaves the legal significance of Trump’s remarks unresolved.

But the claim places the arch on a path already taken by the ballroom. Both were introduced to the public principally as civic or ceremonial projects; both are now being described in military terms amid disputes over whether Trump can build them without Congress. Together, the projects may test how much additional authority a President gains by recasting a building project as military infrastructure.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltd85cd3c5a71cb314 Sun, 20 Sep 2026 19:13:43 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Rebecca Schneid\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire on Arc, the Future of Quantum and the Agentic Economy\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/circle-ceo-jeremy-allaire-interview/<!\[CDATA\[Business\]\]><!\[CDATA\[“Arc is built from the ground up for what the financial system needs," says Allaire of the new launch.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Courtesy Circle\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4dc5ca09789f344a/6ab00d8c2f463de12d636f01/Jeremy-Allaire.jpg?branch=production)

 —Courtesy Circle

Circle is known to many as the issuer of the $74 billion digital currency USD Coin, or USDC. But co-founder and CEO [Jeremy Allaire](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/jeremy-allaire/) believes the company’s latest launch may be the “most [consequential](https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/09/15/circle-debuts-arc-blockchain-which-jeremy-allaire-calls-more-consequential-than-usdc) major platform launch” in its history.

“Arc is built from the ground up for what the financial system needs: fees paid in dollars, settlement that is final in under a second, confidentiality with compliance built in, and operators that boards and regulators can trust,” Allaire wrote in a recent email.

Allaire likens the Arc blockchain and full-stack platform, launched on Sept. 16, to an Android operating system for the global economy, facilitating payments, lending, trading, and even, one day, commerce between AI agents. “Humans tolerated money that sleeps on weekends; machines will not,” he says.

The platform has more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders including global banks, asset management firms, payment networks, exchanges, and AI platforms. Its founding validators include BlackRock, Standard Chartered, Mastercard, Visa and Intercontinental Exchange. 

Allaire, who co-founded Circle 13 years ago, is a serial entrepreneur. Before his work on [stablecoins](https://time.com/7274685/what-are-best-stablecoins-crypto/), he founded cloud-based online video platform Brightcove, and before that, software company Allaire Corporation with his brother, which was acquired by Macromedia in the early aughts. He spoke with TIME in June, ahead of the launch of Arc.

**How are you thinking about the different regulatory environments in all the markets that you're operating in?**

Blockchain networks are just technology services. They're soft, open software protocols that run on the internet. They're general purpose computers, and so general purpose computers and network protocols are themselves not regulated activities. It's what people do on top of it. It's a little bit like the internet itself. The internet is unregulated, but the activities on the internet become regulated, whether it's privacy, data, or financial activity. 

But one of the biggest challenges of actually \[having\] what we think of as the core of the financial system run on public internet infrastructure like this, has been that the major regulators have had concerns about \[whether\] this infrastructure \[is\] too decentralized, where it's a bunch of unknown actors and therefore, even though it's meant to be trustless, it's sort of not trustworthy, or you could have the commingling of bad actors and good actors. The other is slightly more technical, but important, which is: central banks, for example, care about that. When a transaction happens, it's a final transaction, and the way a lot of these networks have worked in the past is there's what’s called probabilistic finality. And so if you're building a system where I bought or sold a stock or I made a transfer of value from one point to another point, you need to know that it actually happened. That has to be final. So regulators have a framework for that that is applied to the infrastructure that runs the existing financial system, and what we've done with Arc is we've designed Arc specifically to meet those standards, so that from a central bank perspective, or from the \[perspectives of the\] regulators that oversee, for example, the guts of the stock market, essentially think of it as the service guarantees that are required in the traditional financial system. 

So, in that sense, we do think about the regulatory environment. Does this technology stand up to the demands of that? Even though it's a general purpose technology that can be used for thousands of different use cases, it needs to stand up to that scrutiny, and so, in that way, it's not so much we're worried about people regulating Arc; it's more \[for\] Arc and the people who want to use Arc, can it meet the regulatory expectations?

**What does this mean for the future of trading desks, and how will that look in the future? Presumably, fewer people, more agents?**

There's several things all happening. One is getting this general purpose economic infrastructure out there, where machine software can deploy and run and intermediate value all programmatically. The second is taking existing financial contracts, and digitizing those onto these networks—tokenization. An equity is a contract. It conveys governance. It conveys a waterfall of economic participation. Taking the financial contract itself and the instrument itself, and digitizing those fully, that whole process of tokenization is going to take years, but it's already begun. Once that happens, then all of these become themselves programmable. Just like we have with things like USDC, we now have programmable money, and that's really powerful. The second piece is basically the development of agentic infrastructure. There's the development of the agentic infrastructure from an AI platform perspective, and then there's this convergence of agentic infrastructure and economic infrastructure. I call it the agentic economy, and this convergence of those will, I believe, completely reconstitute the way every firm in the world operates. 

Yes, the job of trading, essentially will be increasingly driven by AI agents, and whether they're operating on behalf of a treasurer in a company, they're operating on behalf of a household, or they're operating on behalf of a financial institution or a financial intermediary, a trading firm, etc. All of these will increasingly be executed agentically, and that's happening quite fast. Things are happening on exponentials, and it's very hard for humans to think in exponentials. 

**You have said that you consider Circle to be in the very early stages of what it could be, even though you are already a very big business. Where do you see the future of Circle going?**

When I founded the company, I was thinking about it over a multi-decade timeframe, and we're broadly a decade into this, and the first thing that we wanted to achieve was this idea of programmable money, open protocols for dollar digital currency on the internet, and getting that into a place where it could scale. It took around 10 years or so to get there. We're now there, but the adoption of that is still at the very start. So there's $360 billion of stablecoin money in circulation. There's a lot of transaction volume, but if you look at the total supply of electronic money in the world, roughly $120 trillion of electronic money in the world, there's an enormous amount of growth to happen, and I believe that this kind of money is a superior form of money and will eat into the electronic money base over time. It's at the front end of penetrating all these different areas of markets and commerce and the financial system. 

At the same time, I have a bigger thesis, which is these economic operating systems that are emerging, whether it would be like the mobile operating systems or the cloud platforms, they're emergent environments that will take 10 or 15 years to really mature. But what they portend is a world where more and more of what a corporation is will become transformed into being pure software—and that's not like we have SaaS applications or software that we interact with. The nature of the firm itself will become software, the economic activity of the firm—so that's the money, the contracts, the governance that is there, the coordination mechanisms that are part of the firm—will become run by software machines, and then the actual work of the firm, which for many companies is basically cognitive work, will be decomposed into agentic work, and will get reconstituted as agentic infrastructure with a mix of AI and humans, all of this being run on these new operating systems. That's a transformation of the very basis of the economic system, it's a transformation in the nature of the firm. It's a transformation in the way economic coordination and governance and contracts and other things work, and I think we're at the very beginning of that. I view Circle's opportunity as being a company that provides the platforms to help make that happen, that provides the infrastructure to the agentic economy that builds and issues money for that system, and that builds applications that support that change. So, we're going from, “we did the digital dollar” to “let's build the comprehensive platforms to think about this complete upgrade to the economic system that's going to take place over 10 or 15 years.”

**How are your efforts around building quantum resilience going? Has AI overtaken those concerns?** 

There's the countdown to quantum, sort of like [Y2K](https://time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/). It's very clear quantum is coming, and for us there's two things that we have to be thinking about. One is we have an existing financial infrastructure which runs on 35 different blockchain networks, which is USDC, and there's money issued on all of these, and those networks themselves are going to be vulnerable to quantum. So we have to track all the existing infrastructure and the progress that they're making, and if they're not making progress, we have to think about how do we help those people safely get somewhere else. The other is, we're building de novo—from scratch—new infrastructure, and we have the benefit of building that new infrastructure at a moment in time where post-quantum cryptography is beginning to be available, and so I think we're going to be the very first public blockchain network with Arc that has post-quantum features from day one when we launch, and so that's a piece of the puzzle. And then there's a whole roadmap for every layer of what we do in this infrastructure to be post-quantum prepared. My view is this is coming. AI may accelerate the timeline to quantum coming, because AI is just assisting with advancements in technology design in general. So it may continue to solve essentially scientific problems that are needed to solve quantum. So in some ways, AI accelerates the need to figure this out, but we do have the benefit of building now in a moment where there has been enough progress and an understanding of what that first wave of quantum might look like. That kind of quantum cryptography is something that we can apply in our own infrastructure.

**You're a serial entrepreneur. What skills do you think are required to be a successful founder?**

There are many pathways to being successful as a founder and an entrepreneur, but I'll describe what I've experienced at least in my in my realm. There are some founders who are, let's just say, really difficult, and who drive people extremely hard and have huge success, and then there are founders that are demanding, but also operate with more human compassion. So I'm more of the latter. What I'd say is, it’s critical that founders have to really have deep conviction about what it is that they're trying to accomplish, a belief of some significant change that you can bring to the world—and it doesn't have to all be rosy sunshine. Without that core, it's very difficult to be successful because the reality is that the odds are so against you. One of the hardest parts of being a founder is you're envisioning something that doesn't exist, and so inherently the world is skeptical. Inherently you're going to be told over and over again why you're wrong, why it's not going to work, why the existing world already solves the problem. It's endless. And if you go back and read through media coverage of Circle from 13 years, you'll see for probably about 10 years it was all skepticism, and still. And so, whether it's hiring people, retaining people, people have to feel like they believe in the founder, the mission, and even when you're slapped in the face or you have a huge setback and a huge failure—which you're going to—you're going to have endless failures. Failures happen every day; they happen every month. There's small scale failures and there's large scale failures. You have to have that perseverance.

**Are there things that you've learned about leadership over the course of your career that you come back to?** 

There are a variety of things. I believe in openness and transparency. I believe it's really important for everyone to understand what the strategy is, and communicate and overcommunicate about those things. That openness and transparency is extremely critical during the early stages of a business as well, and that includes total transparency about your financial circumstances. 

I've learned a lot from a talent perspective. There are phases that you go through in terms of of scaling, and the people who are willing to be joining you when you found a company are not necessarily the people who are going to be the right people for leading during the bigger commercialization phase, and those may not be the right people for being a public company. There's a constant organizational evolution. There's lots of smaller lessons like hire slow, fire fast. It's like a motto I have. When I was a young entrepreneur in my 20s, I was very skeptical about the importance of culture and values. That has really evolved for me a lot and so I really got religious about mission, values, culture, and overcommunicating about it, interviewing for it, performance managing around it, making it central because a company is an organism, and you want a healthy organism. Results really comes from that. 

**There's a lot of consternation about what AI means for young people entering the workforce. What would your advice be to someone early career in the age of AI?**

I'll give you a real-world example. I have two sons who both graduated college in the last two years, and they're entering the workforce. One of my sons studied finance and marketing, and he wanted to get into business development. He went to a startup, and he got a job but \[became\] frustrated. But he got AI-pilled in January of this year, and he does not have a background in technology in any explicit way, but he just poured himself into learning these agentic systems, and he came to me and he said, "I'm going to quit my job and I want to master these skills. I want to build things. I want to create things.” I'm like, “OK, go do that.” And it is essentially my advice for anyone who is at any stage in their career, but I'll say for young people who are coming in, the opportunity right now is incredible. If you're a generally good thinker, you can become a master of literally hundreds of different domains, and you can learn how to create and orchestrate and build things that it was impossible to do before, and so it's one of the greatest periods ever in human history for individuals and individual agency, and that's why we're seeing a huge surge in solo founders. That's why we're actually seeing record numbers of new business creation that are happening in the U.S. Agents give agency. So, my recommendation is that people should dive in whatever their domain interest is and master these tools, because it effectively is going to give you superpowers. And that’s the exact message I've given every single employee at Circle. I’ve said everyone's jobs are going to be transformed. We are going to reconstitute this company. We're going to reorganize this company around the capabilities of agentic \[AI\], and it's the greatest career opportunity you're ever going to have. Take as much time as you want to master this, because you're going to be more valuable in Circle, or if you choose to go do something else as well. 

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltbe50460af5412019 Sun, 20 Sep 2026 11:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Ayesha Javed\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Helicopter Parenting Can Help Children Recover From Concussions\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/20/helicopter-parenting-can-help-children-recover-from-concussions/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A caregiver willing to temporarily micromanage their child’s life is invaluable for healing after a concussion, writes Dr. Teena Shetty.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Malte Mueller—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdea2d7d43c905d9d/6aac047694866da2295439a5/concussion-kids.jpg?branch=production)

 —Malte Mueller—Getty Images

Concussions in children are alarmingly frequent, affecting [over a million children](https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/142/6/e20183074/37534/Sport-Related-Concussion-in-Children-and) in the U.S. each year. An estimated [50%](https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/diseases/concussion/) of all concussions are undetected, unreported, and untreated. 

As the founder and director of a concussion clinic in New York, I see my fair share of concerned parents who want to do everything they can to help their kids heal from concussion. It’s a good instinct: [Early and active intervention](https://www.upmc.com/media/news/010620-kontos-early-treatment-jama) with targeted therapies is critical. From years of caring for children and adolescents with concussion, my team and I wondered if the parents most involved in their children’s recovery—some might call them “[helicopter parents](https://time.com/3528619/in-defense-of-helicopter-parents/)”—could be a key part of navigating a serious medical problem which, left untreated, may have devastating consequences. 

Our society has turned against helicopter parents, viewing them as [unnecessarily controlling](https://time.com/archive/7134116/roughhousing-the-answer-to-helicopter-parenting/). But they are uniquely valuable as a temporary framework for healing. The treatment regimen for concussion involves drastic lifestyle changes surrounding their daily screen-time exposure, shifting circadian rhythms, intellectual stimulation, and the cognitive demands of school or work. Everything has to be turned down or dialed back, sometimes for weeks at a time. The brain heals gradually, and each lifestyle change removes a source of strain it would otherwise have to contend with while heeding a vigilant dietary and sleep schedule.

I see often in my clinic that the children with very involved parents are the ones most likely to recover swiftly and without complications. After their child gets a concussion, these are the parents who diligently and methodically plan waking hours, sleeping hours, meal times, recreation, and exercise, and gradually adjust screen time. These strict parental accommodations are fundamental to recovery. 

Although the degree of supervision may be controversial to developmentally favored ideas of nurturing independence in adolescence, a brief “helicopter” approach in the context of youth brain injury can be remarkably effective. Parents of young children or young adults who are recovering from concussion must be involved from the start and commit to executing all [aspects of the recovery](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53b5362ee4b056f1fea2ecab/t/67e1693f8dab6d65b58463d3/1742825796418/From+acute+stress+to+persistent+post-concussion+symptoms++The+role+of+parental+accommodation+and+child+s+coping+strategies.pdf) plan while modeling positive coping styles. 

These interventions can also be effective for young adults in their 20s who had already adjusted to and embraced an independent life. One typical reaction of a parent to their twenty-something offspring could reasonably be that their child has to navigate their treatment and recovery on their own. 

Yet irrespective of their age or how long they had or had not lived at home, my team and I found, time and again, that it’s extremely beneficial to have a parent swoop in, micromanage a patient’s schedule, and deliberately revert to the past concern and meticulous care that they took on when their child was very young. The person they are caring for who has to adhere to the concussion regimen cannot easily follow the regimen without them. 

A young woman was hit in the back of her head in a boating accident, and suffered an “out of body” experience. Her father reluctantly traveled from far to come to her side, believing she was a young adult who could surely manage this invisible injury by herself. He found her to be different: she had confusion when calculating tips, struggled with maps, and complained of headaches in her entire head accompanied by eye pain. After a few days together, she reluctantly pulled out of the marathon she had signed up for and allowed her father to regulate her protein intake and remind her when it was her bedtime. 

Another young man was skiing and fell forward down a hill, landing 30 feet downhill. Every time he looked at a screen, “it was the shape of a lightbulb, surrounded by tiny little pinwheels” and said “my mental compass was off and I could hear my internal monologue.” Here began the necessary dialogue with his family and his mother was soon at his side, ensuring that he took the correct vitamins at the correct time, cutting tablets into half when doses needed to be titrated, and counting his eye and neck exercises.

No matter how motivated a concussed individual is to achieve recovery, they rarely have the capacity to follow the treatment regimen, which involves drastic lifestyle changes affecting their daily screen exposure, shifting circadian rhythms, intellectual stimulation, and the cognitive demands of school or work. The intriguing and undeniable result was a patient who recovered more swiftly and with fewer complications or setbacks when compared with their independent counterparts. The helicopter parent actively reinforces the details, effectively guiding an incremental and purposeful exposure to stimuli. The parent also validates the recovery process as an active coach, facilitating and motivating the path ahead.

Concussion recovery is best accomplished using a systematic and methodical approach. Each advancement toward complete recovery is closely calibrated whether it be bedtime, the number of minutes of breaks between screen exposure, or even the heart rate at which the first cardiovascular exercise is attempted. A helicopter parent can be taught and also encouraged by their child’s doctor to maintain strict sleep and waking schedules, specific protein-based meals, drastically reduce screen time, supervising exercise, and with a constant willingness to adjust specific circumstances of exposure to monitor recovery. 

The goal of medicine is to heal, and we found that healing is best accomplished by a clear adoption of the helicopter approach, albeit for a transient period. 

We often triumphantly declare the last visit to a concussion clinic as graduation. It marks a return to normal activities: sports, homework, time spent with friends. Their commencement to self-governance has begun.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt1ecc6a760029a5d9 Sun, 20 Sep 2026 10:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Teena Shetty\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Can Kevin Warsh Change the Federal Reserve?\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/can-kevin-warsh-change-the-federal-reserve-/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Warsh took the helm of the century-old institution amid stubborn inflation, supply shocks, and tariff threats. Now, he wants to make his mark.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

On Sept. 15 and 16, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh presided over his third Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the body responsible for setting the interest rates that shape the American economy. 

With August jobs numbers coming in [stronger](https://www.reuters.com/business/view-strong-august-jobs-report-sends-yields-higher-2026-09-04/) than analysts expected, the Fed unanimously decided to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point for the first time since 2023\. Its new benchmark interest rate sits at a target range of 3.75% to 4%, and markets are expecting at least one additional interest rate hike by the end of the year. That decision unfolded against a striking backdrop: [inflation](https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-inflation-its-stronger-than-it-looks-2026-01-14/) has run above the Fed's 2% target for more than five and a half years. 

“The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long,” [stated](https://www.federalreserve.gov/mediacenter/files/FOMCpresconf20260916.pdf) Warsh. Few economists disagreed with Warsh’s determination and the Fed’s decision—but President Donald Trump did. 

Trump quickly [critiqued](https://time.com/article/2026/09/17/fed-interest-rate-hike-trump-kevin-warsh/) the committee’s undivided vote to raise rates via social media. “LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!” he cried. 

And upon landing in North Carolina for a campaign rally, the president told reporters he [blamed](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6094303-trump-blames-fed-rate-hike/) Warsh’s Board of Governors for the decision. “I told Kevin, I said, ‘You might as well vote with the board because it’s just not going to matter.’ The board is very hostile,” he said. “They’re very political. They’re doing the wrong thing. They’re a bunch of politicians.”

Warsh took the helm of the more than century-old institution [earlier this year](https://time.com/7362318/kevin-warsh-federal-reserve-fed-chair-trump-nomination/) and has moved quickly to put his stamp on it, launching five task forces within his first month, each charged with developing recommendations across a different area of the Fed's mandate. How far he can take that reform agenda will depend on his ability to build coalitions among fellow board and FOMC members and to hold the confidence of financial markets.

At the press conference following his first FOMC meeting in June, Warsh [announced](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/task-forces.htm) several initiatives covering the Fed's communications strategy, balance sheet, data sources, productivity and jobs, and inflation framework. Each is led by three outside experts drawn from academia and industry. The groups are expected to deliver preliminary findings this fall, with most wrapping up by year's end. 

The pace and ambition of the efforts signal that Warsh is serious. Whether it proves truly transformative remains an open question.

## Watch the data, not the Fed

Of his five reform areas, communication has drawn the most attention, and Warsh moved on it before the task force even convened. He stopped offering long-term projections on Fed policy actions and simplified its press releases, signaling a clear break from recent practice. At the heart of this shift is Warsh's belief that markets have grown too dependent on Fed communication, paying more attention to what officials say than to the underlying economic data. He argues this creates a feedback problem: if markets are reacting to the Fed rather than to the data, the Fed gets a distorted read on where markets actually stand.

Central to this critique is his skepticism of forward guidance, the practice by which Fed officials provide long-term outlooks to signal predictability and transparency. Forward guidance in various forms has been used since the 1990’s but became central as a policy tool when the policy rate reached “the zero lower bound” during the 2008 financial crisis. It was never fully retired. Warsh wants to end it, arguing that it ties the Fed's hands and leaves officials with less room to respond to new information as it arrives.

"The role of forward guidance should be limited and circumscribed. Otherwise, it risks creating ambiguity in the name of clarity. Oversharing policy deliberations and overcommitting to future decisions can lead markets, businesses, and households astray,” [argued](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/warsh20260828a.htm) Warsh. “And I believe when policymakers make quasi-commitments on interest rates through the cycle, we inhibit our own freedom to make the right calls when it's time to decide."

Yet even a more restrained communication style does not insulate a Fed chair from market scrutiny. After his second FOMC meeting in July, Warsh learned that lesson firsthand. Many observers felt he underperformed at the press conference, and markets responded with [alarm](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-07-30/how-fed-chief-kevin-warsh-baffled-markets-on-inflation), raising questions about his credibility at a moment when inflation remains stubbornly high and the chair, while acknowledging the problem, has appeared reluctant to deploy his most powerful tool: raising interest rates. 

To be sure, Warsh is not the first Fed chair to rattle markets during a first-year press conference. Both [Jerome Powell](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-45602079) and [Janet Yellen](https://www.npr.org/2014/03/19/291475112/in-first-press-conference-new-fed-chair-goes-vague) had similar stumbles early in their tenures. What matters is the recovery, and Warsh moved quickly to make one. At the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Wyoming at the end of August, he delivered a forceful address on the state of the economy and the urgency of bringing inflation to heel, reassuring markets and resetting the tone ahead of September's meeting.

Warsh's [push](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/business/federal-reserve-warsh-meetings.html) to streamline Fed communication extends to the meeting calendar itself. He has proposed reducing the number of annual FOMC meetings from eight to six, which would mark the first such structural change since the 1980s. Fewer meetings, he argues, would give the committee more time between sessions to absorb incoming data and deliberate before acting. [Critics](https://www.axios.com/2026/08/03/warsh-fed-policy-meetings) counter that the tradeoff is agility. With only six scheduled meetings a year, the Fed would have fewer opportunities to respond to fast-moving economic conditions without resorting to emergency sessions and inter-meeting moves. Importantly, Warsh has not convinced critics that the current schedule leads to worse policy outcomes.

## Every corner of the Fed under review

Among Warsh’s remaining reform areas, the balance sheet and inflation framework task forces carry the greatest consequence. After the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed began purchasing long-term government bonds and other securities to inject liquidity into the economy, a practice known as quantitative easing. Its balance sheet [swelled](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-payment-system-puts-a-floor-on-the-feds-balance-sheet/) from roughly $1 trillion before the crisis to nearly $9 trillion in the wake of the Covid pandemic. It currently [stands](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/shrinking-feds-balance-sheet-easier-said-done?utm%5Fmedium=StanfordGSB&utm%5Fsource=facebook) at $6.7 trillion, a level Warsh views as [excessive](https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/04/14/2026/nomination-hearing). Bringing this total down is one of his [stated](https://www.rev.com/transcripts/warsh-confirmation-hearing) goals, but doing so is acutely market sensitive. Any reductions will need to be phased in gradually and communicated with care, as an abrupt shift risks triggering the kind of market disruption the Fed is expressly trying to avoid.

The inflation framework task force operates under similarly intense scrutiny from policymakers and markets alike. The 2% inflation target itself is not on the table. The task force will instead examine the drivers of inflation, how it is measured, and what tools are available for delivering price stability in a changing economy.

The fourth task force examines the economic impact of technology, and artificial intelligence in particular, on the Fed's dual mandate of keeping prices stable and employment high. The fifth focuses on data sources, evaluating new information streams and methodological changes to improve how the Fed collects data and measures inflation. The goal is to give policymakers more current information on the state of the economy. 

## What Warsh needs

To enact any of these changes, whether on the balance sheet, the inflation framework, or the number of FOMC meetings, Warsh will need to bring his fellow policymakers along. The chair has the authority to convene the task forces and shape their composition, but any resulting changes require approval from the seven-member board of governors, or in the case of FOMC meetings, the full 19-member committee. All proposed reforms will face intense internal debate. The recent frequency of dissents during FOMC meetings suggests that not all members will greet the reform agenda with equal enthusiasm. How transformative Warsh's tenure proves to be will therefore depend not only on the ambition of the proposed reforms but on his ability to bring a majority of colleagues on board. And as his July press conference demonstrated, financial markets will be watching and rendering their own verdict throughout.

Warsh has taken over the Fed at a turbulent moment. Inflation has been running above the 2% target for half a decade. Supply shocks from the [conflict in Iran](https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/gas-groceries-war-in-iran-cost-of-living-crisis/) and the closure of the [Strait of Hormuz](https://time.com/article/2026/08/29/iran-escalation-trump-economic-war/), combined with repeated tariff threats from the White House, have injected fresh [uncertainty](https://time.com/article/2026/05/13/inflation-gas-prices-food-tariffs-trump/) into the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, the effects of artificial intelligence, beyond an immediate boost to economic activity, and the [potential](https://time.com/article/2026/05/30/replace-reshape-how-ai-could-change-the-way-we-work/) productivity gains as well as the potential job losses, remain difficult to measure and even harder to predict. And with midterm elections approaching, political pressure is only likely to intensify. Trump has repeatedly called for lower interest rates, and he seems unlikely to quiet his calls.

Faced with these pressures, Warsh has set out on an ambitious reform path. Whether he succeeds will come down to two things: the pace at which he can advance his agenda, and his ability to bring enough of his fellow Fed members with him. Most importantly, Warsh and his colleagues will need to convince the public, the financial markets, and Congress that the changes adopted will lead to better policy making. 

This is his ultimate challenge.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt48481a2be9146e2b Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:00:04 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. and Maximilian Hippold\]\]><!\[CDATA\[What 1,000 Women Workers Can Teach Us About Surviving Extreme Heat\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/19/what-1000-women-workers-can-teach-us-about-surviving-extreme-heat/<!\[CDATA\[Ideas\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Heat adaptation rarely reaches the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk bear the price themselves, writes Satchit Balsari.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Video: ONE HOT DAY, produced by Julie Winokur & Ed Kashi / Talking Eyes Media. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[A new study looks at the the how the impact of high temperatures affects the body over time. Produced by Julie Winokur & Ed Kashi/Talking Eyes Media. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

Video: ONE HOT DAY, produced by Julie Winokur & Ed Kashi / Talking Eyes Media. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

On Sept. 2, 2026, the United Nations Environment Program report,[ Limiting Overshoot](https://www.unep.org/resources/limiting-overshoot-navigating-exceedance), declared that the world has fallen short of keeping global warming to [1.5°C above pre-industrial levels](https://time.com/7382950/climate-change-speeding-up-science/), and that urgent action is needed to course-correct. That same week, NPR[ reported](https://www.npr.org/2026/09/04/nx-s1-5945241/a-new-investigation-shows-heat-is-even-deadlier-than-we-thought) that extreme heat killed nearly five times as many people in the United States as official records indicated. 

These findings followed two consecutively brutal summers. Death counts from heatwaves across Europe dominated[ news cycles](https://time.com/article/2026/06/23/heatwave-europe-record-high-temperatures-deadly-extreme-heat-stress-safety/) this year as the continent’s aging infrastructure struggled to cool down. “Heat domes” trapped heat [across the United States](https://time.com/article/2026/06/29/extreme-heat-wave-dome-high-temperatures-us-fourth-july-explainer/).

But merely counting deaths from heat risks missing its impact on human life. Each heat dome in the U.S. affected over [100 million people](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/29/weather/record-heat-wave-us-east-climate-hnk). Among them were construction workers, [outdoor workers](https://time.com/6299091/extreme-heat-us-workers-economy/), delivery workers in unairconditioned cabs, farm workers, the unhoused, the [poor](https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/the-cost-of-extreme-heat-is-displacement/) who could not afford [air conditioning](https://time.com/article/2026/06/11/how-climate-change-is-making-your-life-more-expensive/), those on [medications](https://time.com/6202849/extreme-heat-health-risks/) on whom the impact of heat was amplified, those with [mental health](https://time.com/6280073/how-heatwaves-impact-your-brain/) disorders, and those with little or no access to healthcare.

According to the International Labor Organization,[ billions](https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/tripartite-experts-agree-measures-protect-workers-and-enterprises-weather) of workers around the world are exposed to extreme heat every year. While the vast majority of them do not die, many [suffer deeply](https://clje.law.harvard.edu/heat-worker-safety/) from the arduous ignominy of a life exposed to heat, day and night, year after year. 

While counting deaths from heat is an imperfect science, the quantification of heat’s impact on mental health, physical well-being, wages, food security, habitat, and infrastructure is even more complex. One thousand women working in India’s informal labor economy have set out to quantify this burden—to understand what impact the heat and humidity in their lived environments at home and at work have on their health, wages, and well-being.

Partnering with our team at [Harvard](https://mittalsouthasiainstitute.harvard.edu/climate/), the [Self Employed Women’s Association](https://www.sewa.org/) in India has recruited women from trades including street vendors, waste recyclers, home-based artisans, and farmers to participate in the Community Heat Adaptation and Treatment Strategies ([CommHATS](https://home.community-hats.net/)) study. For 13 months, each woman is equipped with a wrist wearable, microsensors measuring heat and humidity at home and workplaces, labs measuring critical biomarkers, and surveys documenting home and work layouts, wellbeing, and wages. Considered together, this data constructs one of the world’s largest such databases of the impact of heat on human health.

Building on prior work that has shown that long exposure to heat impacts multiple organ systems, including the [heart and kidneys](https://time.com/6294155/heat-stroke-risks/), the CommHATS project seeks to address unanswered questions in our attempts to adapt to extreme heat: How do we know if cool roofs work? What should our metric of success be? If the temperature drops a bit, but I still cannot sleep restfully, is the intervention valid? What should the threshold for a new heat insurance product be: the temperature at the airport where the weather station is, or the temperature in my home, which is actually how hot I feel? In India, where over half of women of reproductive age are [anemic](https://www.sansad.in/getFile/annex/270/AU425%5FMIrPYP.pdf?source=pqars), how does heat further [stress their hearts](https://time.com/3729021/7-things-mess-with-heartbeat/)? 

Through community meetings and WhatsApp groups, research findings are regularly shared with all participants, who routinely ask how the data will help improve their lives. Early findings, which we will share at[ New York Climate Week](https://salatainstitute.harvard.edu/user%5Fevents/harvard-climate-week-nyc-2/), reveal devastating wage losses on hot days, shortened sleep spans, and high cardiac stress. This kind of relentless, unforgiving heat forces a different kind of reckoning that goes beyond OSHA regulations and market solutions. 

In places like India, where around [90% of workers](https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/2024-08/India%20Employment%20-%20web%5F8%20April.pdf) are informally employed, there is no employer to hold accountable. The poor have no choice but to adapt. They change working hours at the cost of childcare. They reallocate savings to protect health and wages. They buy water jugs to carry potable water, and awnings to create shade, and ice chests to cool their produce. The woefully underfunded global financial instruments for heat adaptation have no existing structural mechanism to actually reach the most vulnerable, and so those most at risk[ bear the price themselves](https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2025.01671).

The CommHATS project is implemented daily by grassroots workers, a testament to its ease of use. They check on the sensors and the wearables, and most importantly, the participating workers. The participants are invested in the questions, the tools, and the analysis. The tool is thus built for scale and can help communities anywhere in the world understand what their environmental exposure is at an actionable scale that is relevant to decision-making. It helps measure exposure as well as the efficacy of interventions.

In our study, we find that the cost of our collective inaction is already being borne by those whose lives are already stressed. The human spirit is resilient, and perhaps life goes on. But in this warming world, life is compromised and diminished. Millions may still live through extreme heat and not yet enter the death counts, but they cannot thrive.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=bltbf0420a22cad9d3a Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:00:03 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Satchit Balsari\]\]><!\[CDATA\[How a New Trump Administration Rule Could Restrict Access to Green Cards—and Confront Immigrants With a Tough Choice\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/trump-green-card-public-assistance-benefits-immigration/<!\[CDATA\[Politics\]\]><!\[CDATA\[The rule updates a policy dating back to the 19th century that has long been used to prohibit immigrants deemed likely to become a “public charge” from getting green cards.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[President Donald Trump walks on his way to attend a dinner in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5378e078a0155369/6aadae85bce81b856f420032/trump-green-card-immigration-public-assistance-benefits.jpg?branch=production)

President Donald Trump walks on his way to attend a dinner in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C. —Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images

President [Donald Trump](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/donald-trump/)’s Administration is rolling out a new rule that experts predict will make it more difficult for immigrants to get [green cards](https://time.com/article/2026/05/23/green-card-changes-trump-explained/) if they access public assistance programs, such as [Medicaid](https://time.com/7298772/medicaid-big-beautiful-bill-health-insurance/) and food stamps—and could deter those hoping to obtain the status from enrolling in public benefits.

The rule, which [goes into effect](https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-on-making-public-charge-inadmissibility-determination) on Friday,updates a policy dating back to the 19th century that the U.S. has long used to prohibit immigrants who are believed to be likely to become a “public charge” from getting green cards.

Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has [argued](https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2077749808660422942) that the change “is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves,” adding that it is “reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources, and ending policies that encouraged dependency on hard-working American taxpayers.”

The rule marks the latest move in Trump’s efforts to sharply restrict both illegal and legal immigration.The President [enacted](https://time.com/5384007/trump-administration-public-charge-rule/) a [similar change](https://time.com/5650284/green-cards-immigration-public-charge-trump/) during his first Administration, but the effort was subjected to court challenges and ultimately rescinded by his successor, Joe Biden.

The new rule has already been [challenged](https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/court-filings/new-york-et-al-v-u.s-department-of-homeland-security-et-al-complaint-2026.pdf) in court by a coalition of more than a dozen states, including New York and California. It’s unclear at this point how the ongoing litigation will affect the rollout of the rule.

Here’s what to know about the new rule and how it could affect immigrants.

## What is the “public charge” rule?

With its new policy, the Trump Administration is implementing a change to what’s known as the “public charge” rule, a policy first established under the Immigration Act of 1882\. Since then, one factor that the U.S. government has considered when reviewing green card applications is whether the applicant is likely to become dependent on government assistance. 

Historically, officials reviewing these types of applications have only taken into account cash benefit programs—for instance, Supplemental Security Income from Social Security—as “public benefits” that could lead to an immigrant being deemed a “public charge” and having their green card application denied. They have usually not deemed non-cash public benefits, such as Medicaid and food stamps, as programs that would disqualify an immigrant from obtaining permanent resident status.

During his first term in the White House, Trump tried to expand the programs that could result in an immigrant being deemed a “public charge,” but a federal judge ruled that the policy had to be vacated, saying it had “numerous unexplained flaws” that made it “arbitrary and capricious.” 

When former President Joe Biden was in office, he officially rescinded Trump’s rule and [stipulated](https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/22%5F0217%5Fnprm-public-charge%5F0.pdf) that non-cash benefits would not result in an immigrant being considered a “public charge.”

## How is the Trump Administration’s new policy different from the long-standing “public charge” rule?

In July, the Trump Administration revealed that it was revoking the Biden-era policy and was rolling out a change similar to the one that faced legal challeges during Trump’s first term. Under the new rule, officials reviewing green card applications are able to consider a broader scope of public benefit programs. The Trump Administration has [noted](https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-issues-guidance-on-making-public-charge-inadmissibility-determination) that the new “public charge” rule does not apply to some immigrants—for instance, refugees.

The guidance, though, is vague—it doesn’t include a full list of the benefits that can be taken into consideration, saying only that immigration officers will be “using good judgment and discretion” and will be “making individualized, fact-specific public charge inadmissibility determinations, based on a totality of the alien’s circumstances.”

“Now, the officers who are reviewing and adjudicating these cases have much more discretion in how they make that determination—whether they believe the person is likely to become a public charge,” says Melissa Shepard, the legal services director at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “The difference now is that it’s a much broader analysis, whereas before it was a little more limited.”

Adriana Cadena, the executive director of the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition, says she worries that, because the new policy is so broad, it “opens the door for abuses by immigration officials” during the green card application process.

“It’s going from having guidance and clarity and understanding to opening the door to any kinds of programs,” she says.

## How could the Trump Administration’s new rule affect immigrants?

Immigration experts say that the new policy could result in more green card applications being rejected, as well as cause many immigrants to delay seeking permanent resident status. 

Charles Kuck, an immigration lawyer and former national president of the American immigration Lawyers Association, says that he expects there will be “massive numbers of denials” of green card applications as this new policy is rolled out. He adds that he and his colleagues have heard from some of their clients that they plan to wait until after Trump leaves the White House before filing their green card applications.

People who do not have permanent resident status in the U.S. are not eligible for many public assistance programs, but experts also warn that the new rule could result in immigrants disenrolling from public benefit programs that they or their children are eligible for because they are afraid of potentially harming their chances of obtaining a green card in the future.

Experts are additionally concerned that the Trump Administration’s new rule opens the door to immigration officials taking into account whether a green card applicant’s family member used a public benefit. The new rule stipulates that “if there is evidence in the record the alien’s family members whom the alien is legally obligated to support receive means-tested public benefits based on the alien’s income falling below the designated threshold, DHS would consider that fact.”

Kuck says he fears that this could lead to a situation where, for example, if a green card applicant’s child who is a U.S. citizen receives a public benefit, such as a free school lunch program, that could lead to their parent’s application being denied.

According to Shepard, it’s not yet clear how exactly the new policy will be applied in practice because it is so broad and gives immigration officers “so much discretion.” But she says she believes the change will cause people to be “a lot more cautious” and potentially fearful to access public assistance programs.

Cadena says the new rule is “forcing families to choose between either being able to adjust their status in the future or be able to have access to essential programs like food and child care.”

“In the current environment that we are in, where immigrant family safety is constantly being threatened, immigrant families … want to be able to keep their families together,” Cadena says. “And if keeping their child enrolled in an important program like Medicaid is going to threaten that, then they would more than likely disenroll their children from these programs.”

DHS has previously estimated that the rollout of the “public charge” change could lead to more than 950,000 people disenrolling from or choosing not to enroll in public assistance programs.

The change is the latest action the Trump Administration has taken to [restrict](https://time.com/article/2026/07/16/student-journalist-media-visa-limit-rule-trump-administration/) [immigration](https://time.com/article/2026/07/15/trump-says-ice-is-loved-and-respected-in-america-is-that-true-/), including ramping up efforts to [limit](https://time.com/7338064/green-card-rules-immigration-changes-trump/) several legal pathways to immigration and proposing [raising](https://time.com/article/2026/06/22/trump-administration-immigration-citizenship-naturalization-application-cost-dhs/) the fees associated with applying for citizenship.

“This is just one small factor or small piece of the entire immigration system, I think, that is under attack,” Shepard says.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt2fc37212100de3fd Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:35:45 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Chantelle Lee\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Why the Outcome of Russia's First Parliamentary Elections in Years Is All But Assured\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/russia-elections-parliament-state-duma-putin/<!\[CDATA\[World\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Russians have begun casting votes in the country’s first parliamentary elections in years. Here’s why the results are in little doubt.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Alexander Kazakov—AFP/Getty Images\]\]><!\[CDATA\[In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a ceremony to present state awards in the defence industry sector at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 18, 2026.\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a2fe93b460da7fb/6aada41694866d76c35445d0/GettyImages-2295288113.jpg?branch=production)

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a ceremony to present state awards in the defence industry sector at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 18, 2026\. —Alexander Kazakov—AFP/Getty Images

[Russia](https://time.com/article/2026/09/17/russian-sanctions-bill-trump-new-tariffs-power-democrats-backlash/) is just one day into three-day [elections](https://time.com/6312126/russia-local-elections-putin/) that will determine the makeup of the lower house of the country’s parliament, the State Duma. But the outcome of the vote has been all but guaranteed since before the first ballots were cast.

The elections, the first parliamentary vote the country has held since its [invasion of Ukraine](https://time.com/article/2026/09/13/trump-wants-ukraine-to-stop-striking-russian-refineries-what-would-that-mean-for-the-war-/) in 2022, are widely expected to result in the Kremlin-aligned United Russia party maintaining its overwhelming dominance in the Duma. 

The party currently holds 310 of the 450 seats in the chamber, giving it a supermajority and the power to make major legislative decisions without the input of other parties. It needs to keep at least 300 seats to retain that supermajority. 

Four other political parties are also expected to be represented in the Duma following the election, all of which generally vote in line with United Russia and support the war in Ukraine. They are the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the A Just Russia party, and the New People party. 

Democracy watchdogs and foreign governments have denounced Russia’s elections as being [neither free nor fair](https://time.com/6957938/russia-election-putin-speech/). Russian officials have rejected such claims in the past, saying that the country carries out its voting process in line with the law.

But experts tell TIME that the Russian government exerts its influence in ways that all but predetermine the results of elections and ensure that [President Vladimir Putin](https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2022/6177689/vladimir-putin-leaders/) and United Russia maintain control. 

And this year’s vote, says David Szakonyi, an expert on Russia and election fraud who is professor at George Washington University, is “occurring in the most repressive political environment in Russia's post-Soviet history.”

Here's what experts have to say about how the Kremlin ensures elections result in its desired outcome—and why it continues to hold them.

## Restricting opposition

The Kremlin uses multiple levers to influence elections on the government level, at the polls, and in daily civilian life, according to Szakonyi. 

“Without a doubt, the most powerful tool” in the Kremlin’s arsenal, Szakonyi says, is limiting which candidates appear on the ballot in the first place.

In the case of the ongoing parliamentary vote, the one anti-war party that was registered by the Central Election Commission, the Yabloko party, was prohibited from participating in the election by Russia’s Supreme Court. The high court ordered that the party be removed from the ballot last month in response to a lawsuit from the pro-Kremlin Rodina party that accused the Yabloko party, which has garnered support from young Russians and those opposed to the war in Ukraine, of copyright infringement, receiving foreign funding, and extremism.

Szakoni says that the Kremlin has the ability to “harness the judicial system to pass rulings” such as the Supreme Court’s decision against the Yabloko party, which it uses as a “legal veneer” that shields the influence of Putin’s government over the ballot. 

This screening of anti-war and other opposition parties, he says, comes months in advance of elections, creating a list of candidates that includes little or no meaningful opposition at all. 

The Kremlin has also labeled opposition figures who oppose the war as “[foreign agents](https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/russia-labels-acclaimed-filmmaker-andrey-zvyagintsev-foreign-agent-2026-09-18/),” a designation that prevents them from holding public office. In other instances, opposition leaders and activists such as Alexei Navalny have been prosecuted and imprisoned. Still others have fled the country.

## The vote count

Experts tell TIME that the Russian government has also exercised its influence more directly on vote counts to achieve its desired election results. 

“Historically,” Szakonyi says, Russian electoral officials have “intervened regularly to deliver votes to the ruling party and take them away from competitors.” 

In the past, this was done via “crude ballot box stuffing,” he says; now, he asserts it is also performed by altering the results of online votes.

Online voting is used in more than a third of Russia’s regions, which Szakonyi asserts puts more power in the government’s hands since it eliminates the physical tally represented by paper ballots. 

“The way that the electronic votes are being counted is almost completely a black box for the rest of society,” he says. 

Regina Smyth, an expert on Russia and authoritarian regimes who is a professor at Indiana University, says that “falsification,” or the practice of altering the number of votes that are counted, occurs at precinct election commissions, of which there are over 90,000, all across Russia, that she says are “mostly staffed by loyalists, and they will simply report false numbers.”

There is also fraud, Smyth alleges, in “mobile voting,” when officials deliver and pick up ballots from people in their homes who are, for example, disabled or ill and unable to vote otherwise. 

## ‘Implicit threat’

On a deeper level, an “implicit threat” stemming from the Russian government sways countless votes each election cycle, Szakonyi contends. 

“Many Russian voters do not have the autonomy to cast an independent vote. They work for the state,” he says. He argues that many university students, healthcare workers, and teachers, whose livelihoods depend on state-run organizations, belong to a “block of captive, vulnerable voters” who fear prosecution by the Kremlin more than they value the influence of their ballot. 

Voting is also taking place this year in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine: in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. 

“In the occupied territories of Ukraine, where the elections are being held in these illegally occupied territories, soldiers, heavily armed soldiers, travel from house to house coercing people to vote,” Smyth tells TIME.

## A lack of independent election oversight

On top of the various methods the Kremlin allegedly uses to achieve the voting results it wants, there are slim to no oversight mechanisms in place to document election interference in the country. 

Golos, which was the only independent election watchdog within Russia, [shuttered](https://www.reuters.com/world/independent-russian-election-monitoring-group-announces-its-closure-after-2025-07-08/) in 2025 following years of governmental pressure after its chairman was found guilty of working with an "undesirable organization" and imprisoned in a penal colony. 

Szakonyi describes Golos’ loss as the “biggest blow toward any type of accountability” for the Kremlin, saying it was “the biggest tool that civil society had to identify, uncover, and publicize the fraud that was basically happening in every single electoral cycle.”

Russia has also refused to invite international election monitors from the Organization for Security ​and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organization, to observe this year’s elections. 

Maria Telalian, director of the OSCE’s election-monitoring office, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said in a [statement](https://odihr.osce.org/odihr/667020?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) last month that the decision not to invite any OSCE monitors was “deeply regrettable, particularly as it continues a pattern of not implementing the commitments that every OSCE participating State has undertaken towards its own citizens and the international community.”

The ongoing vote marks the third nationwide election in Russia to take place without OSCE observation. Russia previously imposed severe limits on OSCE election observation in 2021 that the organization said made monitoring that year’s parliamentary elections in the country [impossible](https://odihr.osce.org/odihr/elections/russia/494488). It did not invite the group’s monitors to the 2024 presidential election at all.

## So why is Russia holding elections at all? 

Despite the results of the parliamentary elections being all but determined, they carry a symbolic weight crucial to Putin’s legitimacy in the public eye and his desire to continue the war against Ukraine, experts tell TIME. 

“There's lots of reasons to have elections. First and foremost, the Russian population expects elections,” Szakonyi says. “Putin's legitimacy depends on his ability to win election votes to the presidency and have his ruling party win on a regular interval, and demonstrate that they're popular and that their policies are in demand from the citizenry.”

During an address in which Putin urged Russians to vote days before the elections began, the leader said that “your choice and resolve will show once again that millions of people stand behind our fighters” and that “participating in the elections is our shared contribution to Russia’s victory.”

“This is a way for him to theoretically show that the Russian population is united behind his war and wants to continue fighting, and that Russia has had this referendum and will continue to push harder,” Szakonyi says.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt9b9dd881e5a1bcdc Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:18:06 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Connor Greene\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story Has Nothing New to Say About Female Rage\]\]> https://time.com/article/2026/09/18/monster-lizzie-borden-review/<!\[CDATA\[In conflating female murderers from across history, Ryan Murphy's Netflix true-crime anthology comes to maddeningly simplistic conclusions\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Netflix\]\]><!\[CDATA\[Ella Beatty in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story\]\]><!\[CDATA\[

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt793a8279de87d98c/6aad85a2ef556f8443c2ce17/Monster_The_Lizzie_Borden_Story_n_S1_E3_00_03_27_02R.jpg?branch=production)

Ella Beatty in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story —Netflix

**_This article discusses the full season of Netflix’s_** **Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story**

_Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story_ is about female rage and repression. That isn’t my personal interpretation of the latest installment of Ian Brennan and [Ryan Murphy](https://time.com/5667752/ryan-murphy-netflix/)’s [Netflix true-crime anthology](https://time.com/7323654/monster-ed-gein-adeline/). It’s the talking point that the show’s makers have been leading with, in [publicity materials](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/monster-season-4-lizzie-borden-release-date-cast-news) and in [multiple](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/monster-lizzie-borden-story-female-rage-lesbian-theories-1236704571/) [interviews](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/16/arts/monster-the-lizzie-borden-story/). These are fine themes for the first season of _Monster_ with a female subject, even if they’re not exactly unique within a [post-_Big-Little-Lies_](https://time.com/4722273/big-little-lies-finale-review/), [#MeToo-informed](https://time.com/collections/time-person-of-the-year-2017/7375307/time-person-of-the-year-2017-the-silence-breakers/)TV landscape where so many [dramas aimed at women](https://time.com/7357214/housemaid-hunting-wives-domestic-thriller-trend/) double as amplifiers for gendered frustrations. The well of misogyny isn’t in danger of running dry anytime soon. But if we must keep diving into it, each descent should at least leave us with some new insight or nuance.

_Lizzie Borden_, now streaming, fails to clear even that bar. Perhaps the least historically accurate _Monster_ yet—and that’s saying something—the season uses the [infamous tale](https://time.com/5395515/lizzie-borden-history-chloe-sevigny-kristen-stewart/) of a Fall River, Mass. woman who _probably_ hacked her wealthy father and stepmother to death with an axe in 1892 as a conduit to just about every plague on womankind you can imagine, past, present, and perennial. Rape. Domestic violence. Pregnancy and childbirth. Housework. Menstrual maladies. Pressure to marry. The premium put on physical beauty. The perils of sex work. Confinement in the home and subjugation to male relatives. By tying together Lizzie’s story with the legends of supposed forerunner Elizabeth Báthory and descendent [Aileen Wuornos](https://time.com/7329607/aileen-wuornos-netflix-documentary/), Brennan, who wrote every episode, suggests a simplistic kinship between all female killers.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5dd54880ef979eb1/6aad8673bf6e64439ad1adf0/MONSTER_404_Unit_00356RC.jpg?branch=production)

Rebecca Hall, left, and Ella Beatty in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story —Suzanne Tenner—Netflix

There’s no use fretting over the extremely purposeful anachronisms and inaccuracies in this retelling, which plays as fast and loose with the Borden family as that [classic nursery rhyme](https://www.britannica.com/story/lizzie-borden-took-an-ax). With 26-year-old Ella Beatty starring as a dreamy, blank-screen Lizzie, who ages from 32 to her 60s by the end of the season, and Charlie Hunnam and [Rebecca Hall](https://time.com/5935403/passing-review-rebecca-hall/) cast as parents who were really a couple of decades the actors’ seniors, everyone is much younger and prettier than their real-life counterparts. And more shocking, in some ways, than the hyperspeed double murder reenactment that opens the premiere, is what immediately follows it: a flashback to four months earlier, when Lizzie scares off a suitor by passing a bucket of menstrual blood on the white sofa where they’re sitting. As it turns out, what the fictionalized Bordens refer to as her “lady time” had [_some_ relevance](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lizzie-borden-case-blood-evidence-48-hours/) to the actual case. But _Lizzie Borden_ is such a massive remix, mingling facts with half-truths and rumors and fabrications, it barely matters which detail is which.

Because its source material is not especially extensive—one double homicide, as opposed to the lengthy and lurid sagas of [most past _Monster_ subjects](https://time.com/6218411/jeffrey-dahmer-netflix-controvesy/)—the show is forced to stretch. The series is padded with Fall River horror scenes that either never happened (the oyster poisoning that leads to so much operatic barfing) or didn’t transpire remotely the way they’re shown (the murder of Bertha Manchester, played by Linda Reiter). Brennan also adds queer love to Lizzie’s life, in the form of the family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan, who they [really _did_ call Maggie](https://famous-trials.com/lizzieborden/1460-sullivantestimony), after a former servant. He is far from the first to investigate this angle; the 2018 film [_Lizzie_,](https://time.com/5395515/lizzie-borden-history-chloe-sevigny-kristen-stewart/) to take just one example, is also built around a romance, between Chloë Sevigny’s Lizzie and Kristen Stewart’s Bridget. 

_Monster_ is, however, the first dramatization to make such imaginative use of the character. [_Phantom Thread_](https://time.com/5075162/phantom-thread-movie-review/)breakout Vicky Krieps, who played ‘Bitch of Buchenwald’ Ilse Koch in _Monster_’s Ed Gein season, is a conspicuously Germanic Irish maid, with an ahistorical shag haircut dyed a series of shades reminiscent of, by turns, Wuornos and [Ziggy Stardust](https://time.com/4183587/david-bowie-fashion/). She has picked up skills in everything from cooking and cleaning to pharmacology in the course of her global travels. It’s no mystery why the awkward, sheltered Lizzie, who craves a bigger life, is enchanted by this glamorous, androgynous outsider. Maggie is easily the best part of the season, thanks in no small part to Krieps’ at once humane and otherworldly performance.

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt04fdd47fb7aaa53e/6aad86f4e87b2a2d74989ea6/MONSTER_403_Unit_01099RC.jpg?branch=production)

Charlie Hunnam and Vicky Krieps in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story —Suzanne Tenner—Netflix

She’s also the unstuck-in-time character who first connects Lizzie to murderesses from other eras. As Maggie reads from a French book about Báthory, a 16th century Hungarian noblewoman said to have killed hundreds of young women and bathed in their blood in pursuit of eternal youth, we see Krieps—with hair and makeup straight out of the goth club—as the so-called Blood Countess. The Runaways’ anthem of teen-girl rebellion “[Cherry Bomb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FEBvXpjudf8)” blares. And Lizzie is electrified by the story. She feels a kinship with Báthory. Never mind that killing your cruel parents to free yourself and massacring a village’s worth of peasant girls because La Mer has yet to be invented are about as different as murder motives get. The fact that each woman is acting in response to some form of sexism is, I guess, supposed to bridge that gulf.

It takes almost half the season for the third member of the deadly trio, played by Murphyverse MVP [Sarah Paulson](https://time.com/collections/2017-time-100/4736222/sarah-paulson/), to show up. Often framed as America’s first female serial killer, Wuornos, a Florida sex worker who killed seven johns between 1989 and 1990, is, in this telling, as inspired by Lizzie as Lizzie is by Báthory. Her presence, and her unsuccessful attempt to claim in court that she acted in self-defense against rape, allows the show to take on—and force us to watch—sexual violence. I’m not sure it needed to be shoehorned into the rare true-crime drama where it doesn’t have an obvious place. Brennan also connects Aileen’s well-documented queerness with the speculative relationship between Lizzie and Maggie. On a pilgrimage to the Borden home, now a bed and breakfast, Aileen and her girlfriend (Jessie Lee) have public sex. A fantasy sequence has the two couples dancing side-by-side in Lizzie’s sacred garden shed. But it’s never clear what _Monster_ is trying to say about lesbians and murder, and this is a case where ambiguity leaves space to insert some pretty dark assumptions. 

The outcomes for each of the three female killers are as different as their motivations. Lizzie is acquitted and [buys a mansion with her inheritance](https://time.com/article/2026/09/16/lizzie-borden-monster-netflix-maplecroft-history/), presumably because sexist men can’t conceive of a woman committing such physical murders—and because she learns to correctly perform femininity, crying and fainting at appropriate moments, during the trial. Despite wrenching testimony, coarse, unfeminine Aileen is convicted and executed. This might lead you to conclude that privilege and falling in line with patriarchal expectations are what it takes for a woman to get away with murder. But then there’s the rich, powerful, and apparently quite appearance-obsessed Báthory. Our last glimpse of the countess is as a rotting corpse, bricked up in her castle for her sins. So what is really being said here?

![](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaade07d76f67d056/6aad8775ef556f43b8c2ce20/Monster_The_Lizzie_Borden_Story_n_S1_E6_00_01_20_14R.jpg?branch=production)

Sarah Paulson, left, and Jessie Lee in Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story —Netflix

Not much, as far as I can tell. _Lizzie Borden_ certainly makes a strong case that women have always been repressed, that rage is the obvious product of that repression, and that liberation is the only antidote. (_Of course_ we get a scene in the finale where Lizzie celebrates suffrage.) But if you didn’t know that, it’s probably also news to you that water is wet and the pope is Catholic. The show’s obsession with women’s bodies as the sites of unending horrors reminds me of [_House of the Dragon_’s repeated depictions of traumatic childbirth](https://time.com/6315514/birth-and-trauma-on-tv/). It’s as though viewers are expected to go in completely ignorant of basic hardships afflicting half the human population and must see them reproduced over and over again in gory detail to be enlightened, much less empathetic. And in that case, I suppose it’s also necessary to render interchangeable three notorious women defined by actions rooted in a near-universal form of rage. 

But theirs are old stories, already told and retold in every conceivable media, and often, effectively, by women. Wuornos was, of course, most famously portrayed by [Charlize Theron](https://time.com/article/2026/04/23/apex-review-charlize-theron/), in writer-director [Patty Jenkins](https://time.com/collections/time-person-of-the-year-2017/7375263/patty-jenkins-time-person-of-the-year-2017-runner-up/)’ career-making, Oscar-winning 2003 film also titled _Monster_. Isabelle Huppert stars as Báthory in _The Blood Countess_, a new feature by German experimental cinema legend Ulrike Ottinger, which is earning praise on the festival circuit for its strangeness and sense of humor. Meanwhile, on TV, creator Liz Meriwether just gave us [_Furious_](https://time.com/article/2026/07/24/furious-review-hulu/)—another story of female rage, female repression, and yes, even a (fictional) female serial killer. While Krieps is mesmerizing in _Monster_ and frequent Murphy production designer Matthew Flood Ferguson has outdone himself with lavishly suffocating Gilded Age interiors, _Furious_ is the superior show because it takes “being a woman is hard” as the given it is rather than as the endpoint of many repetitive episodes. It has dark, lived-in comedy and real stakes, posing the question of what can realistically be done about systemic misogyny and the anger over it that stains women’s lives.

“All your books are written by men,” Maggie scolds Lizzie in _Monster_’s season premiere. When you consider how heavily male the creative team behind _Lizzie Borden_ is (executive producer Max Winkler directed six episodes and Sarah Adina Smith, two), this kind of has to be a self-aware line. But whether it’s intended as a wry apology or a small joke, I couldn’t tell you.

\]\]> https://time.com/?p=blt507cabdcb39f0b7d Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:06:48 +0000<!\[CDATA\[Judy Berman\]\]>