From ambitious newcomers disrupting their industries to established businesses accelerating their growth, the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. stand out through innovation, resilience, and the ability to turn momentum into lasting impact.

For the first time, in 2027, TIME will publish the Fastest Growing Companies U.S. ranking, in partnership with Statista, a leading international provider of market and consumer data and rankings. The ranking will recognize U.S. companies with exceptional revenue growth between fiscal years 2022 and 2025.

TIME and Statista are now accepting data submissions as part of the research phase. Submitting data ensures that eligible companies will be considered for inclusion, but it does not guarantee a place in the final ranking.

To apply, click here to complete the online survey.

The ranking will be announced on TIME.com in March 2027.

On Sept. 10, Israel destroyed Hezbollah’s underground command center and weapons stores beneath the Ali al-Tahir ridge in southern Lebanon, about 10 miles from the Lebanon-Israel border. The loss deprived Hezbollah of a fortified position and dealt another blow to Iran’s most important regional ally, which has lost senior commanders and much of its arsenal over the past two years. 

Farther south, another part of Iran’s regional network was gaining ground. In Yemen, the Houthis seized territory along the Red Sea coast, bringing them closer to controlling the approaches to Bab al-Mandab, the passage connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2024 and Hezbollah’s weakening have diminished Tehran’s influence in the Levant. Yet the wider war has created opportunities for Iran and its partners, particularly around the waterways indispensable for trade and energy exports. Thus, Tehran is losing influence in one arena while acquiring new sources of leverage in another.

Iran’s efforts to control passage through the Strait of Hormuz are only one part of the picture. The Houthis’ expanding reach in the Red Sea gives Tehran’s partners leverage over a strategic waterway, while Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq can threaten oil pipelines built to bypass these maritime chokepoints.

For Iran’s neighbors, even the routes meant to provide an escape from one danger are exposed to another. Tehran remains under enormous military and economic pressure,  but its setbacks in its traditional centers of influence have not ended its ability to impose costs elsewhere. 

From the Mediterranean to the Red Sea 

In 2014, Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was at a conference of Iran-Iraq War veterans that was broadcast live on state television. He spoke of Iran’s growing reach through Syria and Lebanon. Iran’s “strategic depth” had stretched to the Mediterranean coast and just to the north of Israel, he declared. Hezbollah’s arsenal and the supply corridor through Syria were central to Iran’s “forward defense,” a strategy intended to deter adversaries and keep conflicts away from Iranian territory.

The foundations of that strategy have since been severely weakened. Assad’s removal cost Tehran one of its few state allies and disrupted its ability to resupply Hezbollah, while Israeli operations diminished the group’s capacity to retaliate on Iran’s behalf. Subsequent attacks on Iran itself by Israel and the United States demonstrated the consequences: its regional partners could no longer be counted on to prevent a direct war.

But Iran has been adapting. Even while fighting its own direct war with the U.S., Tehran has worked to develop other sources of regional leverage. On Jun. 8, Esmail Ghaani, commander of the Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced a “new security belt” extending from the Strait of Hormuz to Bab al-Mandab and from “the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.” His statement pointed to a growing emphasis on the ability of Iran and its partners to threaten maritime transit across both waterways.

The Houthis’ capture of Mokha, a port city on the Red Sea coast, and Perim Island, which lies within Bab al-Mandab, gives them a stronger foothold at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. These positions could allow them to monitor passing vessels more closely and deploy weapons near the shipping lanes.

They do not need to halt all traffic to exert influence over the passage. Although the Houthis claim they are targeting only Saudi-linked vessels, the threat of attack alone has driven up insurance costs and forced shipping companies to choose longer routes.

The Houthis have their own agenda and should not be treated as an Iranian proxy acting on Tehran’s instructions. Their domestic motivations remain important: their campaign against rival Yemeni factions aims to consolidate their dominance and attacks on Saudi Arabia seek to force Riyadh to reduce its involvement in Yemen, lift what the Houthis consider a “siege,” and recognize them as the country’s ruling power.

Still, the ties between the Houthis and Tehran have deepened since Oct. 2023, and Iranian support has been central to the development of Houthi military capabilities. Some reports suggest Tehran has sent IRGC commanders, military advisers, and missile and drone equipment to Yemen to strengthen the Houthis’ ability to threaten Red Sea shipping.

Overall, the Houthis increasingly see the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as a threat to the wider “Axis of Resistance” to which they belong; this translates into a close strategic relationship, even though Tehran may not direct every Houthi operation. As the Houthis see it, supporting Tehran serves both Iran’s and their own interests.

These interests are reinforcing one another. Iran’s disruption of Hormuz has increased the strategic importance of Red Sea export routes, giving the Houthis greater leverage over Saudi Arabia and forcing the kingdom to shift exports back to Hormuz, where—despite a recent significant uptick in traffic—passage remains uncertain. From Iran’s perspective, the goal of pressuring Saudi oil exports is to raise the costs of war for Washington and the global economy, giving President Donald Trump another reason to think twice before escalating the campaign.  

Between Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb

For Saudi Arabia, the interaction between Hormuz and Bab-al-Mandab fronts creates a vulnerability. While it is true that “shuttle runs” through the strait have helped Gulf oil exporters get their goods out and eased market pressure, shipments remain at risk of Iranian disruption.

As with the Houthis and Bab al-Mandab, Tehran need not close the strait entirely: intermittent attacks can sustain uncertainty and raise shipping costs. Given Houthi advances in Yemen, diverting exports to Red Sea ports is not necessarily a safer option. Riyadh can shift between routes but cannot entirely evade the risk of disruption.

The vulnerability extends inland. A recent drone attack launched from Iraq damaged three pumping stations on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline and forced a shutdown. Although the pipeline has resumed partial operations, the message was clear: attacks on this alternative route cannot be ruled out.

Among some Iranian strategists, the attack was also interpreted as a broader warning against building pipeline routes to carry Iraqi oil toward Europe through Turkey and Syria: diverting oil away from the straits would not necessarily put it beyond the reach of Iran and its partners.

The attack was widely attributed to an Iran-backed militia, even though the Islamic Resistance in Iraq—an umbrella grouping of Iran-aligned factions—denied involvement. Since the war began in February, the IRGC reportedly has mobilized smaller cells of Iraqi Shiite fighters operating under its command, giving Tehran a more direct role in operations from Iraqi territory.

There may well not be a unified chain of command across the Iranian, Yemeni, and Iraqi fronts, yet attacks from Iraqi territory must be seen as part of a broader campaign, adding to both Houthi pressure in the Red Sea and Iranian disruption in Hormuz. The cost to Baghdad is high, as it is unable to prevent armed factions from launching attacks that expose Iraq to retaliation and undermine its relations with Gulf neighbors. The resulting tensions could also serve Tehran’s interest in limiting its Gulf rivals’ influence in Iraq.

Together, these developments help explain Tehran’s defiant posture, as it feels it can threaten Saudi exports in numerous ways and thereby heighten the economic costs of the war for the United States and its partners.

This has strengthened the argument within the Iranian leadership that they should hold firm and, with time, improve their bargaining position in potential negotiations with Washington. The problem with this argument is that mounting costs for its adversaries do not necessarily mean Iran can afford a prolonged confrontation.

The costs of waiting

Trump’s campaign has so far failed to force Iran to accept American terms, while giving Tehran and its partners new opportunities to threaten the global economy. The longer the confrontation continues, the greater the likelihood that Tehran will respond by deepening military coordination with its non-state partners and escalating attacks, directly or through them. In this sense, Washington should have an interest in reaching a settlement before such cooperation becomes more entrenched and the confrontation spreads further.

But Tehran risks drawing the wrong conclusion from this dynamic. Recent developments may encourage Iranian leaders to demand more and offer less, believing that mounting economic costs will eventually force Trump to retreat. But such a scenario is far from being inevitable. Washington might instead respond with further attacks or tighter enforcement of the blockade. Each side would then treat the other’s refusal to concede as reason to intensify pressure, prolonging an uneasy standoff while making an agreement even more difficult.

Iran would be wrong to assume that time will improve its position. Its economy continues to bear the costs of the blockade, and disrupting its neighbors’ exports does nothing to finance its own recovery. Saudi Arabia will resist any arrangement that leaves its access to global markets dependent on Iranian and Houthi restraint. If Riyadh concludes that a negotiated deal would formalize that dependence, it could shift toward more open support for American military and economic pressure on Iran.

Saudi resistance to a planned Oman meeting among Iranian and Gulf officials earlier this month already points to limitations in Iran’s strategy. An emerging Iran-Oman agreement over the Strait of Hormuz ostensibly offered a basis for negotiations over maritime passage, but Gulf governments—and notably Riyadh—resisted arrangements that, in their eyes, would legitimize Iran’s unacceptable claim to control transit in the waterway.

Although their vulnerability gave them an urgent reason to seek an agreement, it also led them to resist a deal on terms that would entrench Iran’s dominance. Their refusal to attend showed that Iran’s ability to disrupt their trade has not translated into acceptance of Iranian terms.

Iran’s expanding regional reach, both directly and through its partners, strengthens its position in negotiations. But it also makes it all the more necessary to reassure its neighbors. A settlement will remain difficult as long as Tehran expects those neighbors to accept lasting uncertainty over their legitimate maritime rights in exchange for relief from the immediate threat of disruption.

If you’ve used Google to search for something over the last few months, you may have noticed that the experience has changed. If you ask certain questions, an AI overview will pop up, followed by another search bar that encourages you to “Ask Anything.” Click on that, and you suddenly find yourself conversing with a chatbot in Google’s AI Mode interface.

This pathway has resulted in millions of people—who never intended to use AI in the first place—unwittingly becoming acclimated to a new chatbot reality. Google Search usage hit an all-time high this year, and much of that activity involves AI. Google’s AI Mode has racked up more than 1 billion monthly users, the company says, a figure rivaling the estimated 1 billion monthly active users of ChatGPT in May, according to Sensor Tower.

At the beginning of the AI arms race, Google lagged far behind its upstart competitors like  OpenAI and Anthropic. But by aggressively implementing AI tools into its dominant search engine, Google is arguably doing more to bring AI into people’s everyday lives. In the process, the company is already transforming how users and content creators behave online. 

Introducing AI

AI Mode is just the latest step in a gradual series of AI integrations. In 2024, Google began rolling out AI summaries in response to users’ searches called AI Overviews, above the classic blue links. These AI Overviews are now more prevalent—shown in forty percent of U.S. Google searches, according to Similarweb—and more utilized by the public. This summer, a Pew poll found that more Americans read AI summaries at the top of search engine results than use chatbots (60% to 49%). 

Kevin Indig, a strategy advisor who writes the newsletter Growth Memo, says the introduction of AI Overviews didn’t drastically change how many people interacted with Google: they still scrolled below the Overviews to click on the links to verify information. 

But Indig says that when users are in AI Mode, they behave completely differently. They write much longer queries—three times the length of traditional search queries. And they search for different kinds of things. They brainstorm essay ideas, build study guides, plan trips, and even seek financial advice. 

Crucially, they exhibit a high level of trust in AI Mode’s answers. Once users enter AI Mode, they are more likely to stay inside of it rather than exploring outward to the rest of the web. “It's crazy: they will get an answer, and they'll barely go out of their way to see if it's correct,” Indig says. “That means very few clicks.” 

This year, many Google users have expressed skepticism or distaste for AI. But Google has increasingly implemented design changes that direct its searchers into AI interfaces. For instance, the “Ask Anything” search bar which triggers AI Mode is often no longer hidden under a “Show More” button. More recently, the company has placed an AI Mode button on the Google Search homepage for many users.

These changes are the culmination of a decade-long strategy from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who declared in 2016 that Google would be an “AI-first company.” In April, Pichai told TIME that Google’s mission is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. I view AI as the most profound way we can make progress against that mission.”

Read More: How Sundar Pichai Pushed Google To the Front of the AI Race

These shifts mean that many people, especially older users who would never dream of creating an OpenAI account, are acclimating to chatting with an AI chatbot through Google’s AI Mode. Robby Stein, vice president of product for Google Search, says that for some older users, “this is the first time they've experienced AI … What we’ve built is trying to be the most natural, easy-to-understand experience, where they can expand it, they can ask a follow-up question, and they can get the info they want now.” 

These new types of search encounters could be habit-forming, says Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management. “People need to have something 10 times better to really switch behavior,” he told TIME in April. “And they have something that’s actually really pretty good, but it doesn’t need to be the best.”

Dangers to Creators

Google argues that AI Mode is more fulfilling for users, giving them what they want faster and more directly. But this is threatening the entire business model of websites that have relied on clickthrough ad revenue and optimized their SEO strategies to appear as blue links in search. 

For instance, the world of online shopping is radically changing. The percentage of people who use AI to shop online has doubled in less than two years—a shift that can leave retailers with much less information about their customers. “You lose the direct relationship with customers,” Indig says. 

Another industry getting hit particularly hard is publishing. People want answers, and Google’s AI Mode saves them a click to the actual source of the information. Similarweb data analyzed by Axios shows that U.S. web traffic to roughly 100 of the top news sites fell from above 70 million visits in 2024—the year Google introduced AI Overviews—to 47.6 million visits this July. While that decline cannot be attributed entirely to AI, a separate Ahrefs study found that AI Overviews were associated with a 58% reduction in clickthrough rate to top-ranking search results.

At least some AI leaders are aware of the problem. Earlier this month, newly unsealed court documents from The New York Times’ copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft included worries from both companies that their AI content strategies had started a “doom loop” that would “hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time,” and present an “existential threat” to publishers. 

Stein, at Google, says that having a “thriving, healthy ecosystem of publishers and creators is of paramount importance.” He says that Google has facilitated a “dramatic increase in the amount of links in the content trays we’re providing.” 

“It is critical to our vision to remain the connective tissue to the web,” Stein says. “Users want to hear from experts. They want to be able to verify and feel good about the content they’re seeing.” 

Home-field advantage 

The battle between tech companies to become the default messenger of information to the masses will continue for years to come. But Indig says the dynamic could play out in a similar way to a previous tech race, when Snapchat threatened Instagram. While Snapchat introduced the innovation of disappearing stories and gained a young audience, Instagram simply implemented a similar feature into its app, helping maintain its dominance. Google, in this analogy, has Instagram’s advantage. 

“Younger generations prefer ChatGPT. But when people do research on ChatGPT for products, they will go to Google and look for the brand,” says Indig. “So Google still has an important utility.” 

At the beginning of the AI race, Google was criticized for moving too slowly. Four years into the generative AI boom, its bet on converting its built-in usership to AI has paid off. It remains to be seen, however, if the publishers and content creators Google relies on for quality information will be able to withstand the changes Google has implemented. 

Your bucket list is probably full of big dreams: go sky-diving, learn to speak Italian, finally take that trip to see the northern lights. You might think that all that possibility should give you something to look forward to—but spend enough time staring at everything you haven’t done, and your yet-to-be-checked off aspirations can start to feel like more proof you’re somehow behind.

That’s what bothered Simon Sinek, who hosts the podcast A Bit of Optimism and is the author of books including Start With Why, about the concept of a bucket list. “You’re staring at a list of things you’ve never done, and it’s kind of depressing,” he says. “Even if you make your way through the list and things come off, you die with a list of things you've never done. And that just leads to disappointment and regret.”

About 15 years ago, in a small act of rebellion, Sinek started keeping a reverse bucket list: a log of all the wonderful things he’d already experienced, like the time he saw a complete rainbow instead of just part of one.

Sinek keeps his list on his phone, where he sometimes stumbles across it while searching for something else. Then he gets sidetracked revisiting his own life and remembering experiences he’d forgotten about. “It’s joy scrolling,” he says. “Why shouldn’t I get credit for these things that showed up organically in my life?”

Here’s how to take stock of the big milestones and small moments worth remembering—and give yourself a chance to enjoy them all over again.

How a reverse bucket list can help you feel more fulfilled

A reverse bucket list works because it interrupts one of your brain's most stubborn habits: always looking ahead to what's next instead of pausing to appreciate what's already happened. “So much of daily life is focused on the next goal, the next milestone, or the next thing we haven't done yet,” says Rachel Needle, a psychologist in West Palm Beach, Fla. That translates into rarely stopping long enough to notice “everything we've already experienced, survived, learned, or built.”

Making the list gives you a reason to notice the lovely, surprising, unexpectedly funny things that happen in the middle of an ordinary day, which are easy to miss when you’re already thinking about what’s next. When you start actively seeking out these moments, you may find that you spend more time celebrating what's already part of your life, rather than dwelling on what’s missing. 

“Instead of thinking, ‘I'm not there yet,’ you begin noticing, ‘Look how much is already part of my story,’” Needle says. “That shift alone can change how you see your life.” 

Keeping track of these experiences can be especially helpful for people who feel perpetually behind or tend to compare themselves with others. “We get lost in what everyone else is doing, so we forget what we’re actually doing,” says Alyssa Kushner, a licensed clinical social worker in New York. Writing down your own personal highlights gives you something to revisit when it feels like everyone else is having a better time. She keeps her old journals for precisely that reason: They remind her of the friends, trips, and fun she might otherwise overlook. Rereading them gives those memories a little more time and attention. “You’re feeling it and you’re savoring it,” she says.

Those reminders may lift your mood and support your self-esteem, too—especially when you recognize your own role in making something good happen. As Kushner puts it: “I did take that risk. I did build that friendship. I did get through that season.” When it’s easier to focus on what’s going wrong, the list offers concrete reminders of what’s gone right.

What to put on your reverse bucket list

Aim to make your entries specific, whether the experience was big or small. For example, you might record a Tuesday dinner with friends: “Everyone stayed at the table chatting for three hours.”

There’s room for big milestones (an awe-inspiring trip or promotion at work) as well as what Kushner describes as “micro moments of joy.” “These are the daily things that happen that we might kind of gloss over, but that are just as important,” she says. “Maybe it was a beautiful morning and you got to soak in the sun, and you had your coffee or your matcha, and you just felt content. It could be a random five-minute exchange with a stranger that was a really nice moment of connection. It could be something you felt proud of yourself for.” Every time she sees flowers, for example, she feels happy.

Include a few details that help you return to the scene, Kushner suggests: what you saw, heard, or felt, and what made it worth remembering. Maybe you caught the scent of flowers on your walk or laughed so hard with a friend that you forgot what started it.

You can also give yourself credit for things that didn’t come with a souvenir or a celebration. Needle suggests including challenges you’ve overcome, relationships you’ve nurtured, and moments when you did something that took courage. “You’re more resilient than maybe you’re giving yourself credit for on a regular basis,” she says. On her own list: finishing her book proposal, reconnecting with friends, and planning a trip to London with her mom. 

The point is to choose what mattered to you. As Needle puts it: “You’re not trying to prove anything to yourself or anyone else that you lived an impressive life.”

How to make—and revisit—a reverse bucket list

Keep track of these memories in a journal or notebook, or on your phone—whatever you’re most likely to return to. Treat it as a living document that grows as you have new experiences and remember old ones you’d almost forgotten.

If you like a little structure, Needle suggests a weekly check-in: Add whatever comes to mind, then spend some time rereading old entries.

Or take Sinek’s approach and skip the schedule. He adds things when they happen. “There’s no rules here,” he says. 

Whatever your system, make sure you periodically revisit what you’ve written. Linger over an entry long enough to remember what made you laugh, who was there, or how you felt. As Needle puts it, the point is “letting yourself feel good about it again.”

Senator John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has spent much of the past two years antagonizing his own party, is now turning to Republicans for campaign cash.

In recent weeks, Fetterman has sent fundraising appeals through email addresses associated with Republican candidates and committees, including one from “info@gopsquad.com.” One of the messages declared, “I’m always going to reject Socialism and the Anti-American way of life,” and urged recipients to help Fetterman “stand with America” and “reject the extremes.” The same address has also been used for messages supporting President Trump’s voting restrictions and urging readers to donate to Republican candidates in the midterms.

The emails, reported earlier by The Intercept and also obtained by TIME, are the latest sign of how dramatically Fetterman’s electoral strategy has changed since arriving in the Senate in 2023. The former progressive backed by Bernie Sanders has increasingly built his political identity around opposition to the left, unwavering support for Israel, and a willingness to embrace conservative voters. His campaign is now reaching into the fundraising infrastructure of the party he insists he has no intention of joining, as his support among Democrats has eroded and his fundraising has sharply declined.

The fundraising appeals appeared under several other Republican-linked domains, including Unshakeable Conservatives and Freedom Faction. It remains unclear who owns the lists or the arrangement Fetterman’s campaign has with the groups behind them. Campaigns routinely rent or otherwise obtain access to donor lists as a way of reaching new potential contributors.

Fetterman’s office did not return a request for comment.

Another fundraising email sent this month from the gopsquad handle came with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah listed as the sender. It was focused on Fetterman, and began, “I just got an email from John. He's basically a Republican now.” 

Fetterman has not said whether he will seek a second term in 2028. Over the weekend, during an on-stage interview at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, he said he was raising money with a reelection bid “as the possibility” and suggested he would wait until after the November midterms to decide.

Several Pennsylvania Democrats are already considering a challenge to him in 2028, even as Republicans continue to encourage him to leave the party. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has been critical of Fetterman, says that the latest fundraising effort fit a pattern that was already apparent. “More than a year ago, I called John Fetterman ‘Trump’s favorite Democrat,’” Boyle says, “so it should come as no surprise that he’s now using that label to raise money from Republicans.” 

Rep. Chris Deluzio, another Pennsylvania Democrat, says that Fetterman has become a “distraction” from the party’s effort to win the midterms and combat the Trump Administration. “That’s my focus. Anyone who stands in the way of that work will have to answer to the voters soon enough,” Deluzio says.

Fetterman’s political transformation appears to have hampered his fundraising. He raised roughly $76 million in the two years before taking office in 2023, an extraordinary sum for a first-time Senate candidate, powered by an enormous small-dollar fundraising operation and the enthusiasm of progressives who saw the hoodie-wearing, working-class populist as a different kind of Democrat. But since then, the political coalition around him has steadily come apart. Fetterman raised about $7.4 million during his first two years in the Senate and less than $2 million since the beginning of 2025, according to federal campaign finance records. His political action committee has raised only a few hundred thousand dollars since 2023. 

Fetterman has hardly hidden the shift. His redesigned campaign website boasts that he “thinks for himself” and tells visitors, “You should too.” He has become a regular presence on Fox News and other conservative programs. In July, he attended a retreat hosted by Rupert Murdoch, appearing on a panel with Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama. He has formed a joint fundraising operation with Senator Dave McCormick, the Republican who represents Pennsylvania alongside him, allowing their campaigns and political committees to raise money together.

Earlier this month, he appeared by video at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas. Fetterman introduced McCormick in a recorded message, attacked the “extremes of socialism,” and called on Bernie Sanders to “sit a few out” after the Vermont Senator backed left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries. The appearance was jarring for Democrats in part because Sanders had been among the most prominent supporters of Fetterman’s own Senate campaign.

Fetterman, for his part, has repeatedly rejected the suggestion that his political evolution will eventually lead him to joining the GOP. At the Texas Tribune Festival, he argued that Democrats should be a “big-tent” party with room for someone who supports both Israel’s actions in Gaza and holding Iran accountable. “I don’t have a reason to” join the Republican Party, Fetterman said, noting that he still votes with Democrats on most partisan matters. He has also said he has “no path as a Republican.”

Still, Fetterman voted in support of Trump and the Republican Party on 26% of Senate votes during 2025, the highest rate of any Senate Democrat. He has repeatedly sided with Republicans on immigration, government funding, Trump’s nominees and the President’s use of military force. Most recently, he cast the deciding vote against an effort to curb Trump’s use of force in Iran. Pennsylvania Republicans now view Fetterman more favorably than they view McCormick, the actual Republican Senator representing their state, according to a poll conducted last month by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena University. Nearly two-thirds of Pennsylvania Democrats viewed Fetterman unfavorably.

Asked in Texas why he would not become an independent, Fetterman’s answer captured the peculiar place he now occupies in American politics. “I’m not a Republican,” he said. 

Later in the evening, an audience member asked again why he hadn’t left the Democratic Party. “Because I’m a lifelong Republican,” Fetterman said. Immediately realizing his mistake, he put his hand to his head and joked that he knew the line would get clipped and go viral.

It’s hard to concentrate on a conversation when you’re busy trying to discreetly clear whatever’s stuck in your throat. If you have persistent postnasal drip, you know how quickly that sensation returns—and how little relief another allergy pill or round of gargling might bring.

For people who speak for a living, it can be especially frustrating. “It could be very disruptive when you’re on the phone, when you’re in meetings,” says Dr. Matt Hershcovitch, an ENT and sinus specialist in Burbank, Calif. “You can’t speak for more than 30 seconds without having to cough and clear your throat.”

You don’t have to resign yourself to a lifetime of apologizing for your cough. We asked experts what could be behind that lingering feeling of mucus in your throat, why your go-to remedies might not help, and how to get relief.

What’s driving the drip?

Environmental allergies and chronic rhinosinusitis—ongoing inflammation in the nose and sinuses—are among the most common causes, says Dr. Florence Hsu, a Yale Medicine allergist and immunologist. Inflammation can increase mucus production, sending drainage down the back of your throat.

And having sailed through childhood without allergies doesn’t rule them out now. “Your allergies and sensitivity do change throughout your life,” Hershcovitch says.

Your nose can also react to things you aren’t allergic to. Smoke, strong smells, spicy food, and changing weather can trigger what’s called nonallergic rhinitis, Hershcovitch says. Your nasal lining becomes overly reactive, producing extra mucus.

Another possibility is reflux, which can cause a sensation of mucus in the throat even without the heartburn people tend to associate with it, Hsu says.

And sometimes, the feeling that something is stuck doesn’t mean there’s a stubborn blob you need to dislodge. Irritation from drainage or reflux can leave your throat feeling inflamed, Hershcovitch says, creating what doctors call a “globus sensation”: the feeling of a lump or something lingering there even when nothing is physically blocking it.

Why antihistamines aren’t always the answer

An allergy pill can help with some symptoms, but it won’t address every possible reason your throat feels coated in gunk.

Antihistamines target the effects of histamine, a chemical involved in allergic reactions, Hsu explains. Even when allergies are involved, other parts of the inflammatory response may require a different treatment, such as a steroid nasal spray.

Sometimes, antihistamines can even make things worse. “Antihistamines can also be drying, leading to thicker mucus that is more difficult to clear,” she says.

What you can try at home

Saline nasal rinses—using a squeeze bottle or neti pot—can help wash out mucus and allergens, Hsu says. If you’re preparing the rinse yourself, use distilled, sterile, or previously boiled and cooled water, not water straight from the tap, and follow the device’s cleaning instructions.

For allergy-related symptoms, a steroid nasal spray such as Flonase or Nasacort is another option, Hsu says. But check the label: “Not all nasal sprays are the same,” Hershcovitch says. Steroid sprays are different from decongestants such as Afrin, which he advises using for no more than two or three days. Longer use can cause rebound congestion, leaving you stuffier.

It’s also worth looking for triggers at home and work, including dust mites and pet dander, Hsu says. To help reduce airborne allergens, Hershcovitch suggests using an air purifier and keeping its filters clean.

When to stop playing drugstore roulette

If this has been going on for years—or keeps persisting despite over-the-counter treatment—make an appointment with an allergist or ENT. Hsu says allergy testing can help identify triggers; an ENT may use a thin camera to examine your nasal passages after applying numbing spray.

What happens next depends on what your doctors find. You might need a different medication, treatment for reflux, or, in some cases, a procedure to address a structural problem or blocked sinuses, Hershcovitch says.

Some symptoms are a reason to get checked promptly instead of continuing to try home remedies. These include bloody or one-sided drainage or facial pain, Hershcovitch says. Hsu also flags loss of smell or taste, complete nasal blockage, or new wheezing or breathing trouble.

If you’re wondering why this suddenly became your problem, Hershcovitch offers some reassurance: “This is a very manageable one,” he says. “It’s not something you did or didn’t do.”

In medical emergencies, time matters. Seeing a surgeon soon after your appendix has ruptured or you’ve been in a car accident can mean the difference between life and death.

But more than a third of U.S. counties have no general surgeons, according to a new analysis published Sept. 28 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. 

While many people assume that surgeons primarily perform elective procedures, many surgeons in rural communities serve multiple roles, says Dr. Thomas Tsai, medical director for health policy research at the American College of Surgeons and a co-author of the study. In that way, “access to surgeons is the keystone for the broader rural health care ecosystem,” he says.

The study provides yet another data point that rural health care is in trouble in the U.S. It found that 38% of counties in the U.S.—home to roughly 15 million Americans—have no general surgeons, and 30% of counties have no surgeon across 12 different specialties. Even many rural counties with hospitals, which are often called critical access hospitals, have no full-time surgeon. 

“The question is, what kind of surgical care is being deferred? How far are people being transferred to receive the care that they need? What does that represent in terms of a burden to patients? And what does this mean in terms of costs to the health care system?” Tsai says. 

The lack of surgeons in rural areas could worsen as H.R. 1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is implemented across the country. It includes cuts to Medicaid and is projected to force many hospitals to close.

Overall, access to surgeons was unequal throughout the country: surgeon supply in some specialties was 12 times higher in some regions than others. Rochester, Minn., where the Mayo Clinic is located, has 250 surgeons per 100,000 people, while Harlingen, Texas has just 20.

Part of the problem is that training isn’t keeping pace with demand, especially as the country ages and needs more medical procedures, Tsai says. In other research, the American College of Surgeons recently projected that the U.S. would face a shortage of nearly 28,000 surgeons by 2038.  

But there also needs to be more training for surgeons in rural areas so that they create roots there, which will make them more likely to stay in places far from the big cities where training mostly occurs, says Tsai.

Some other solutions could potentially help improve surgical care in rural areas. Doctors in other countries are experimenting with doing robotic surgeries through telehealth, for instance, but regulatory barriers in the U.S. have prevented that here, he says. By comparison, rural areas can access primary care relatively easily, he says, through telehealth and advanced practice providers. What they often can’t access, he says, is specialty care like surgery. 

“As the population ages and patients have more and more complex conditions, what they will need increasingly is actual access to surgeons and surgical specialists to address their surgical issues,” he says.

A reported monthslong breach in the Defense Department’s human resources database exposed personal information of millions of military personnel and those related to them, including their Social Security numbers and job details.

A Pentagon official confirmed to TIME Tuesday that some 2.76 million “living individuals” and 294,000 “deceased individuals” have been affected by the breach at the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). 

The breach was first reported by defense-focused news publication Military Times on Thursday, citing a breach notification letter to a person whose information was in the affected files.

It remains unclear what particular files were accessed and who was behind the incident. The Defense Department official told TIME that individuals whose personal information were accessed had been notified by mail.

The length of the breach and the amount of personal information exposed present a security risk for many personnel linked with the department, and some experts say it makes other security compromises, like phishing attempts, easier for bad actors.

What we know about the breach

The DMDC collates personnel, manpower, training, financial, and other data for the Defense Department for healthcare, retirement funding, and other administrative needs. Its website says that based on FY2024 data, it has the records of more than 60 million people—including the military, civilians, contractors, family members, retirees, and veterans.

But the Military Times reviewed a Sept. 18 letter from the DMDC notifying its recipient of a data breach. The letter reportedly said it discovered on July 16 a security vulnerability in the center’s file-sharing system. 

The notice reportedly details that between October 2025 and the time of discovery, some “unauthorized users” accessed files on a server containing the personal information. The type of personal information varies from names to dates of birth, contact information, and others.

DMDC then said it updated the file-sharing system to address the vulnerability. The letter reportedly added that there has been no indication of misuse of the recipient’s information.

Not the first hack

The latest incident involving Pentagon data emerged as the FBI confirmed it was looking into criminal hacking group ShinyHunters’s apparent attack on its jobs website. The group claimed to have stolen “very sensitive data” on nearly all agents and job applicants in response to an FBI notice about them issued ⁠in May. (ShinyHunters were also behind a high-profile hack in May of education platform Canvas.)

It’s still unclear how massive the previous FBI breach was, but a New York Times analysis found that it may have involved the stealing of home addresses, Social Security numbers, and job assignments, on top of other personally identifiable information. Reuters reported last week that the hackers claimed they have obtained about 2-3 terabytes of data. Some of the data Reuters reviewed also revealed details of assignments to specific field offices, as well as FBI units engaged in high-stakes intelligence, security, or counterespionage work, which risks endangering national security. 

In a statement to 404 Media and the Times, the FBI said it was “working around the clock to investigate the cyber incident involving FBIJobs.gov and is in regular communication with anyone who may be impacted—including multiple bureau-wide communications within 24 hours of public reporting.”

The FBI incident also follows a breach that may have exposed more than 153 million driver’s licenses in the U.S. and Canada.

What affected personnel can do

Security experts have previously warned that access to troves of records poses a massive security risk, especially if these fall into the hands of foreign actors. 

Justin Sherman, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote about the license data breach earlier this month: “It can be tempting to dismiss the next hack of a database as ‘just another data breach.’... But breaches do not exist in a vacuum.”

The DMDC said in its notice to affected personnel that it was offering year-long credit monitoring and identity-restoration services through IDX, a private firm contracted by the department. The defense official said in a statement to TIME that individuals with questions should contact IDX at https://response.idx.us/DMDC or 1-855-744-4556.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, anyone could place a free credit freeze with each of the three major credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

Active duty personnel and National Guard members could also get free electronic credit monitoring to spot problems that could stem from identity theft.

In the spring of 2014, civil rights lawyers John Burris and Jim Chanin invited me to Oakland, California, to serve as a subject matter expert. They represented a group of plaintiffs seeking justice in a city enduring an especially brutal version of a well-known story: a police department that many perceived as a hotbed of illegal tactics, violence, and discrimination directed largely at the Black community. As I heard one Oakland native put it at a public meeting shortly after I arrived: “People are damaged. People are heartbroken. People have fear. People are scared of the same people that’s supposed to protect them.”

Since revelations of a pattern of wrongdoing first came to light 23 years ago, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has been under federal court oversight—the longest for any American city. 

This week, a federal judge is expected to decide whether that oversight can finally come to an end, after years of progress toward reforms required by the court. Whatever the outcome, Oakland has undergone a substantial transformation over the past two decades. What changed over those years is a remarkable story about what can happen when we finally have the tools we need to see policing clearly.

A decade of body camera data

I’d been summoned to Oakland due to my work as a researcher focused on racial bias and inequality. The plaintiffs’ attorneys wanted to understand what was really happening between officers and civilians that might be contributing to systemic abuses and a breakdown of trust. The job for me and my team was to parse the data and try to quantify racial disparities. But we were also seeking clues about how those disparities took root, and whether anything could be done to address them.

We soon realized there was an all-too-familiar tension that arrest records, crime statistics, and other available data couldn’t solve—a problem of interpretation. The same disparities that community advocates saw as proof of officer bias were viewed by many police officers as proof of where crime was concentrated. The numbers told us what was happening. They were much less useful for helping us understand why. If we had any hope of uncovering the causes of those disparities—let alone finding solutions—we were going to need new tools.

As it turns out, as far back as 2014, Oakland was sitting on an extraordinary trove of data that contained everything we needed to know—it was just that nobody had thought of it as data before. Oakland had been an early adopter of police body-worn cameras, a rare technological innovation that consistently enjoys about 90% public approval. For over a decade now, police departments across the country have amassed troves of footage from these cameras, creating the most comprehensive record of interactions between officers and civilians in history. Yet the vast majority of that footage is never leveraged to improve those interactions. 

That’s because we’ve largely treated body-worn cameras as a source of evidence: footage to be consulted only after a specific encounter goes horribly wrong. But those countless routine encounters where trust is built or broken, rights are upheld or violated, and officer training succeeds or slips have gone almost entirely unexamined. The reason for that is simple: humans could not possibly monitor and evaluate footage at that scale, let alone learn lessons from it in the aggregate.

But AI can.

Can AI improve policing?

Eager for a breakthrough to change the city’s trajectory—and compelled to reform by a federal monitor—Oakland granted Stanford researchers access to their body-worn camera footage. Our team of linguists, social psychologists, and computer scientists spent years building and refining a set of computational tools designed to analyze these videos at scale. Now, we can methodically measure the language of routine police interactions, identifying patterns across millions of encounters that no amount of manual review could surface.

Like a DNA sequencer or an X-ray machine, these insights let us see, for the first time ever, the actual makeup of a police encounter. We discovered linguistic signatures that could reliably predict, within the first 27 seconds of an encounter, which interactions were likely to escalate and which would conclude calmly. We were also able to map the “respect gap” that officers, including Black officers, imposed on Black drivers before the driver even spoke, finding consistent disparities in tone, word choice, whether officers explained the reason for the stop, and expressions of concern for a driver’s safety.

We brought our findings to the OPD and worked together with them to move from generic training to data-driven, surgically targeted reforms. Many were skeptical that our ideas—like requiring officers to briefly record the rationale for a stop before making it rather than acting on hunches—would do anything but drive up crime. But that skepticism evaporated when they saw what happened next.

After implementing new policies and trainings, stops of Black civilians in Oakland dropped by 43%—without any uptick in crime. In one pre-post study of a training designed to improve relations with the public, our footage analysis revealed a marked decrease in officer language that tended to trigger escalation, and a marked increase in language that built trust.

Over a 10-year period, the OPD continued to reform and refine its practices. And, in many respects, that effort paid off. For example, after the department implemented a foot pursuit policy to avoid chasing suspects into backyards and blind alleys, officer injuries dropped by 70%. And officer-involved shootings, which had previously averaged about eight per year, dropped to a total of eight over a five-year period.

Returning to Oakland

When I returned to Oakland not long ago, I found myself in an elevator with a fellow Black woman who worked for the police department. She told me that for years, the department would dismiss claims from community members about how they had been negatively treated, insisting that officers treat everyone professionally. “Data,” she said, “gave us a way to be heard”—a way for individual stories to become fodder for systemic change.

Currently, many new technologies, from Flock cameras to rogue chatbots, are being met with distrust and dread about surveillance, privacy, and safety—for good reasons. However, Oakland’s story offers another possibility: a concrete way for AI to actually improve life in our communities using the very cameras introduced to bring about reform. The city’s experience provides compelling evidence that turning body-worn cameras into the powerful accountability tools they were meant to be can help departments everywhere make police-civilian interactions safer and more respectful for everyone involved. It’s an approach that does not require the building of large AI data centers in neighborhoods across the country, and it doesn’t threaten to take away anyone’s job. It simply requires learning from the data that we already have—and that the vast majority of us feel is useful to have.

At a time when American policing is under enormous strain—with retirement at record highs, recruitment at record lows, officer wellness declining, and public trust in law enforcement diminished—the Oakland model delivers a ray of hope, even as it continues to battle to show the world it is capable of reform. And as more cities adopt this approach, I’m optimistic American policing could be transformed.

When did flying become so expensive, cumbersome, and, in a word, miserable?

While the summer 2026 travel season has officially come to an end, the bite of high airline ticket prices has lasted far longer than anyone would hope. Higher fuel costs pushed up already-steep ticket prices by as much as 27% this summer. But pricey fares show no sign of abating. As we move into the fall season with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve just around the corner, The Points Guy estimates that fares will be anywhere from 9 to 18% higher than last year’s holiday-season tickets.

Even before the war in Iran drove oil prices higher, major U.S. airlines had already become experts at turning the screws on the flying public. The major airlines started charging for checked bags in 2008; nearly 20 years later, U.S. carriers raked in more than $7 billion in 2025 in bag fees alone. Charges for seat selection—windows, aisles, or even just the privilege of sitting further up in the economy cabin—are widespread, even as the seats and legroom have shrunk. And perhaps worst of all, air service has worsened in many smaller cities and at regional airports. This means fewer airlines competing against each other on fares and schedules, more flights with layovers, and in some cases, much higher prices on less-traversed routes. 

The federal government has played an essential role in how we got here. While the 1950s to 1970s, known as the “golden age” of air travel, was certainly not perfect, American travelers benefited in many ways from the era of regulated competition. The federal Civil Aeronautics Board helped ensure that America had a stable, reliable air transportation system that served large and small communities alike and prevented the monopolistic exploitation of passengers. 

But in 1978, in the name of reducing the government’s hand in the airline industry, Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act, with the goal of injecting more competition into the air travel business. The theory sounded great: deregulate the airline industry, and the free market will make everything better. There will be dozens, perhaps even hundreds of new airlines. There will be more competition, lower prices, and no downsides for small communities, workers, or passengers. For a few years, this prediction even appeared to come true, but pretty quickly, the fundamental dynamics of the airline industry came roaring back. 

Scale matters in the airline industry. Big airlines started undercutting small rivals, pushing them into financial crisis and bankruptcy. The big airlines then snapped them up, consolidating the industry more and more. Big airlines shifted toward hub-and-spokes systems, even creating “fortress hubs” where competition is minimal. 

Today, for instance, Delta controls nearly 80% of flights in Atlanta, and American has approximately 90% of flights in Charlotte, N.C. Unleashed by pricing regulations, airlines were the pioneers of dynamic pricing, the practice of changing fares frequently for passengers. They then started “unbundling” their product to charge for every aspect of travel, from seats to boarding order. And now, with technology developing rapidly, the threat of AI-driven “personalized pricing” (read: even higher prices) is just a matter of time.

The good news is that we can have a system of air travel that is more reliable, resilient, competitive, and fair. It starts with acknowledging that the airline industry is essential infrastructure, and that it should be regulated as such. 

For communities, that means ending the idea of “flyover country.” Air travel is transportation infrastructure, and small and regional airports with affordable fares are critical to the foundations of our national economy. Airlines also get a lot of benefits from the public. They should have a duty to serve the country in return. One way to solve the problem of the loss of service in smaller places would resemble the “draft pick” system in the NFL. The airlines would be like the teams and get a pick order, and smaller cities would be like the players who are drafted. Every airline would have to go through and pick cities until all of them are taken, and airlines would be required to provide consistent, affordable service.

We also need a more resilient system, one that can better withstand shocks from nasty summer rains, extreme heat, winter storms, or economic crises. Over and over again, we’ve seen taxpayer bailouts or bankruptcies as airlines fail to deal with crises. And over and over again, delays and cancellations cascade across the country due to weather at big hubs.

We should have a “rainy day” fund for airlines, paid into when the airlines are making huge profits. There should be caps on hub concentration, so airline networks are not so dependent on a small number of airports, and so the whole country isn’t beholden to a crisis in one city. And we need significant investment in the basic infrastructure of flying, too, from air traffic control to airport infrastructure. And for passengers, the answers aren’t difficult: Congress could set minimum seat sizes, ban personalized and dynamic pricing, and require transparent pricing.

Flying is an astonishing achievement of humanity. It has transformed our world in countless ways. We should all be grateful for how extraordinary it is to traverse the country in just a handful of hours. 

But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept the indignities and unfairness that has emerged in this sector. In a democracy, we choose how our society functions. We can make sure airlines serve our national needs, without bailouts or crises. And we can make flying less miserable for all of us.

The U.S. and China have agreed to cut tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods, from U.S. coal to Chinese toys.

The late Sunday announcement falls under the “30-for-30” framework, covering roughly $30 billion of U.S. exports to China and $30 billion of Chinese exports to the U.S. The U.S.-China Board of Trade, established during President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing in May, recommended more favorable tariff treatment for “non-sensitive” products.

The proposed cuts would bring relief to a wide range of goods, including live horses, camels, and fishing tackle. The White House has not yet specified the size of tariff reductions or when the cuts will be implemented, although the Chinese Commerce Ministry said tariffs on around 90% of the products on each list would return to “most favored nation” levels, referring to ordinary baseline tariff rates that vary based on product.

Read More: America, China and the Evolving New World Order

TIME has reached out to the White House and Chinese Commerce Ministry for comment.

“The Trump Administration will continue to pursue fair, balanced, and reciprocal trade with China by ensuring compliance with commitments on agricultural and energy purchases, pursuing balanced trade in non-sensitive goods, and securing market access for American farmers, manufacturers, businesses, and workers,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Sunday.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Monday that the agreement would “further stabilize” U.S.-China trade relations and “create favorable conditions” for Chinese exports to the U.S.

The agreement marks the latest effort to ease economic tensions between the two global superpowers after an escalating trade war last year brought tariffs to prohibitively high levels. It comes days after Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump met in Washington, D.C., and agreed to extend a trade truce until Jan. 10. The two countries have repeatedly extended their trade truce since May 2025, when they agreed to lower additional duties to 30% on Chinese goods and 10% on U.S. goods. After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs in February, the Trump Administration imposed a separate 12.5% levy on many Chinese products, on top of earlier Section 301 tariffs targeting Chinese trade practices and Section 232 sectoral tariffs.

Trump has sought to use tariffs to shrink the U.S. trade deficit with China and bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Greer told CNBC on Friday that the deficit on goods trade with China has fallen by 40% since Trump took office. The deficit is on track to hit $140 billion this year, he said, compared to $295 billion in 2024, according to Census Bureau data.

But the tariff war has also strained both economies and pushed Chinese exporters to seek other markets. American business owners previously told TIME that abrupt tariff changes had driven up costs and forced them to consider shifting production out of China, which could be prohibitively expensive.

Read More: Surveys Show More Americans Warming to China

“This is less the demolition of a tariff wall than the opening of a safety valve: enough to let off steam, not enough to change the structure of the conflict,” says Henry Gao, professor of law at Singapore Management University. “It may give both sides breathing room, but it is better designed to pause a trade war than to end one—and may simply prepare the ground for the next round of fighting.”

Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Singapore-based Hinrich Foundation, tells TIME that the cuts “are a mostly symbolic way of indicating that tariffs can be cut without tackling the major challenges.”

But, she adds, it’s still a positive: “At a minimum, it provides a mechanism for future conversations about trade and tariffs which might be more serious.”

What products are covered?

The agreement recommends lower tariffs on 77 categories of Chinese products. These include bed linen, garden umbrellas, car seats, fish hooks, billiard balls, curtains, electric shavers, inflatable balls, and jute wall hangings. It also includes holiday decorations, which could bring relief to U.S. businesses if implemented before the end-of-year holiday season.

The agreement also recommends lowering tariffs on 1,619 categories of U.S. products. These include a range of food items, like butter, offal, corn, wheat, frozen meat, seafood, and foie gras. It also recommends reduced tariffs on cosmetics, wood products, scientific devices like MRI systems, rabbit hair, and coal. Several types of live animals are also included: donkeys, mules, horses, whales, dolphins, and dugongs.

Washington’s focus on “everyday Chinese consumer goods,” Gao says, demonstrates “an effort to lower household costs and offer voters tangible price relief ahead of the midterm elections” in November. For Beijing, the American goods on its list, including agriculture, energy, timber, and medical equipment, “address domestic needs while also benefiting politically influential U.S. constituencies,” he says.

China’s “extremely long list” covers a huge amount of goods that are not exported to China in significant amounts,” Elms adds.

Zhu Tian, vice president, co-dean, and professor of economics at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, tells TIME the choice of products reflects a “cautious” approach, suggesting the agreement is more “a confidence-building measure” between the two sides.

The White House also said on Friday that China agreed to import at least 10 million metric tons of coal per year from the U.S. in 2027 and 2028. China previously agreed in November to resume purchases of U.S. sorghum and increase purchases of U.S. soybeans.

During Trump’s first term, China pledged to increase its purchases of U.S. agricultural products, including soybeans, but fell short of certain commitments.

What is the “30-for-30” framework?

Under the so-called “30-for-30” framework, the U.S. and China respectively recommended $30 billion worth of non-sensitive trade, based on 2024 trade values, that “could benefit from more favorable tariff treatment in the future,” Greer said on Sunday.

The list would improve market access for roughly 30% of U.S. exports to China, Greer said.

The Board of Trade “gives the détente an institutional framework,” Gao tells TIME. But he notes that it has avoided “the core disputes over technology, subsidies, industrial policy, and national security.”

Many of the concessions, which are likely to be implemented through domestic measures rather than binding treaty commitments, could be easily reversed, he cautions. And with the truce set to expire in January, Gao says “this looks less like durable peace than a half-time break in a boxing match between two heavyweights: both sides get a breather, but the bell has not rung for the final round.”

Sensitive goods, which are excluded from the framework, include semiconductors, batteries, and electric vehicles. “Both governments are liberalizing where it is politically useful, while preserving pressure where it is strategically necessary,” Gao says.

Still, the “30-for-30” framework could become a “useful template for quick, transactional trade bargains” between the U.S. and other countries, Gao says. Such a framework would allow countries to “match concessions by dollar value, shield strategic sectors, and deliver politically visible wins without the burden of negotiating a comprehensive trade agreement.”

What does this mean for businesses and consumers?

The amount of goods covers roughly 21% of U.S. exports to China and 7% of Chinese exports to the U.S. based on 2024 trade values, which put U.S. exports to China at $143.5 billion and Chinese exports to the U.S. at $438.9 billion. The tariff cuts “offer meaningful relief to particular exporters, importers, and consumers,” Gao says, although he cautions that it remains a proposal and is not yet implemented.

Lingering uncertainty, including over whether the trade truce will extend beyond Jan. 10, could still make it harder for businesses to plan, particularly those that began exploring alternative suppliers during last year’s tariff war.

“Equal trade values do not necessarily produce equal economic gains, and easily reversible tariff cuts offer businesses little certainty for long-term investment or supply-chain planning,” says Gao.

Notably, U.S. whole soybeans are not on China’s list and still face an additional 10% tariff. The crop has been a key bargaining point in trade talks after Beijing reduced purchases of the product, taking a toll on American farmers.

“Clearly, if you are an American importer that has not yet received your Christmas ornament orders, these cuts are going to be helpful,” Elms says, referring to the inclusion of wooden Christmas ornaments and artificial flowers on the U.S. list of Chinese products. “But in the main, the tariff cuts on offer are not going to relieve economic pressures on consumers in either market.”

The Trump Administration released a rule on Monday to roll back Biden-era fuel economy standards, saying that the Biden Administration “previously broke the law by setting standards that went far beyond the requirements mandated by Congress” and arguing that they pushed for electric vehicles that Americans did not want.

The announcement, which came from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, said that the previous regulations had been costly for automakers. The changes are meant to reduce their costs and encourage manufacturers to expand production in the U.S. Duffy claimed that, by extension, the rollbacks would make new cars more affordable for Americans.

Read More: How Communities Thrive When City Streets Ditch Cars

When it was first proposed in December 2025, the rule was divisive, drawing ire from environmental advocates while garnering praise from auto-industry trade groups. The Administration finalized it last week with a signoff from President Donald Trump.

The President commented on the forthcoming rule Sept. 26, saying the new standards would “take the waste out of building cars in America.”

“That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car,” he wrote on Truth Social.

The claim that the revisions will pass down cost savings to American buyers, however, relies on several factors, including automakers’ pricing decisions, fuel costs, and broader economic conditions.

What changes under Trump’s new fuel economy rule?

Former President Joe Biden’s regulations were put in place in 2024 to reduce car-based greenhouse gas emissions, decrease dependence on fossil fuels, and spur a transition to electric and hybrid vehicles. The Trump Administration has claimed that its revisions are more focused on bolstering the auto industry and making safer, newer cars more accessible. 

The rollback reduces pressure on automakers to improve fuel efficiency or sell more hybrids and electric vehicles to meet fleetwide standards.

Two federal agencies have traditionally set rules that shape how much fuel vehicles use and how much pollution they produce. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates vehicle pollution and, until this year’s rollback, also limited vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. The Department of Transportation (DOT) sets fuel economy standards—how far vehicles must travel on a gallon of fuel. 

The DOT’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards apply to the average fuel economy of an automaker’s new cars and light trucks. They ensure that if an automaker sold an inefficient vehicle, it would also need to sell efficient vehicles to reach the average standard. 

It is these standards that sit at the center of the latest rollbacks: The Biden Administration projected its standards would bring average fleet fuel economy to approximately 50.4 mpg by model year 2031. The Trump Administration projects 34.9 mpg under its revised standards.

Environmental advocates have pointed out that the change reflects the Trump Administration’s wider deprioritization of environmental protection policies, since electric vehicles give off fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional gas-powered vehicles.

Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July 2025 axed the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit. That same month, the Administration eliminated fines for automakers that failed to meet federal fuel-efficiency requirements. And the EPA in February 2026 repealed vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards.

TIME has reached out to the White House and the Department of Transportation for comment.

What does the rule mean for EV demand?

The Trump Administration believes that Biden-era CAFE standards overestimated consumer demand for electric vehicles. Sam Fiorani, the Vice President of Global Vehicle Forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, says the story is more complicated.

“Americans have been less interested in the shift to electric vehicles than much of the rest of the world, but that's not to say nobody wants it,” he tells TIME. “The success of Tesla has been built on the back of millions of Americans looking for a practical EV.”

An August report from Kelley Blue Book (KBB) showed that new EV sales in the U.S. were down some 47% from 2025; however, the sales of used EVs were on the rise, with a nearly 15% increase. 

The issue is that automakers “need to be incentivized” to produce electric vehicles, Fiorani adds—something that the second Trump Administration has deprioritized.

“Removing the federal incentives did not remove the demand, but it made the transition for the supply of EVs less profitable,” Fiorani says. “Demand for EVs will continue to grow, and manufacturers investing in the technology will ultimately take advantage of it.”

That reflects a trend that can already be seen playing out on the global scale: The International Energy Agency projects that electric vehicles will account for 29% of new-car sales worldwide in 2026.

Will it be more affordable to buy new cars with this rule in effect?

According to the DOT’s announcement, the Trump Administration’s reduced fuel economy standards will save Americans $138 billion over the next five years and reduce the average cost of a new car by $1,300. 

It’s “certainly true,” says Mark Jacobsen, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, that making “a lower-technology car using ultra-gasoline engines” is cheaper for the manufacturer. 

That is a key reason that trade groups representing automobile manufacturers support the change.

“NHTSA made the right call to better align fuel economy standards with the law and current market conditions,” John Bozzella, the President and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement. “The standards finalized under the previous administration effectively required a switchover to electric vehicles that was out of step with market realities and customer demand.”

Read More: Trump Says Tariffs Saved the U.S. Auto Industry. The Data Tells a Different Story

But reducing the cost of production for automakers does not necessarily mean that cost-savings will be passed along to the customer, Jacobsen says, explaining that long-term savings for the average driver would need to take into account myriad additional economic factors.

One is the cost of gasoline. James Michael Sallee, an economist and professor at University of California, Berkeley, explains that customers may wind up paying less for a vehicle that is less fuel efficient—but ultimately spend more over the car’s lifetime. 

“Fuel economy standards will tend to put upward prices—but a lot of that is offset, if not all of it, by future fuel cost savings that consumers enjoy over the course of the life of a vehicle,” Sallee says. 

This question is especially pertinent as the world deals with a global oil shortage, with a barrel of Brent crude oil surpassing $108 on Monday. The U.S. has experienced a surge in gas prices in 2026, peaking around $4.56 per gallon after the start of the U.S.-Iran conflict in February. Even if negotiations proceeded and a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz were reached, economists predict that it would take months for gas prices to drop back to prewar baselines.

“If you look at the analysis the Administration has done, they're projecting very low gasoline prices in the future,” Jacobsen says. “That needs to be true in order to save the consumer money.”

New-car prices are also higher in 2026: Buyers paid an average of $50,089 in August, up 1.9% from a year earlier, according to KBB. Sallee says it is reasonable for the Trump Administration to try to address affordability. “The price of new vehicles is a real issue,” he says. 

But there is reason to doubt that it will play out exactly as the Administration seems to suggest, according to Anna Stefanopoulou, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. She “highly doubts” that lower costs for auto manufacturers will trickle down into lower prices for consumers.

Many manufacturers will just be selling more “larger and more profitable trucks,” she says, once they no longer have to contend with “stringent” CAFE standards of average fuel economy.

The new rule will take effect 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register. Whether drivers ultimately save money will depend on how much automakers lower prices—and how much buyers spend on fuel. With standards extending through model year 2031, and the conflict in the Middle East adding uncertainty to future pump prices, the full impact on consumers’ wallets may take years to become clear.

For three and a half years, ever since the spring of 2023, when SpaceX launched the first of its massive Starship rockets, the company has been promising that before too long the towering, stainless steel machine would get to orbit. This morning, on the 14th such launch, it made good on that boast.

“Starship performs its orbital insertion burn and enters orbit of Earth for the first time,” SpaceX announced on X at 9:15 a.m. ET, along with a video of that engine maneuver. It took just 25 minutes and 17 seconds for the spacecraft to travel from its launch pad in Starbase, Texas, to its circular orbit 170 miles high.

There is no overstating how important today’s success was to SpaceX’s—and NASA’s—long-term plans. Starship is pivotal to getting human beings to the moon and Mars, and SpaceX sees it as an ultimate replacement for its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which accounted for nearly 51% of the global total of commercial launches—including 85% of all satellites—in 2025. Starship’s far larger payload bay can carry a cargo equivalent of nearly five Falcon 9s, ultimately consolidating launches and cutting costs.

Starship is a two-part rocket. Standing 407 ft. on the launch pad, it is equipped with 33 first stage engines, which produce 16.7 million lbs. of thrust, making it far and away the most powerful rocket ever successfully launched—easily eclipsing NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and its 8.8 million lbs. Starship’s first stage represents 236 ft. of the overall stack. Atop it is the 171-ft. spacecraft—also dubbed Starship—a six-engine machine intended for satellite deployment and for crew travel.

In 2021, NASA selected Starship as one of two spacecraft that will land astronauts on the moon as early as 2028. (Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, will provide the other.) In 2027, NASA is planning a crewed test of either or both spacecraft in Earth orbit during the mission of Artemis III.

“Congrats @SpaceX!” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman posted on X after SpaceX confirmed this morning’s orbital success. “Gorgeous launch, getting Ship to orbit and managing every step in a safe, responsible, and especially inspirational way. @NASA, along with the rest of the interested public, is excited to help where we can and for Starship missions to become routine!”

Early on, routine was not remotely how Starship launches were being described. Four minutes into the rocket’s inaugural launch on April 20, 2023, it exploded spectacularly. Concrete and steel debris rained down in a near-400-acre footprint in the surrounding Boca Chica State Park, and a 3.85-acre fire burned south of the launch site. Environmental organizations mounted multiple legal challenges to slow or halt the launches until hazards could be eliminated. But the flights proceeded apace at a rate of once every three months, none achieving stable orbit—until today.

The launch this morning was both imperfect and stripped down to its orbital essentials. On the way up, one of the Starship’s six engines failed to burn properly, requiring the other engines to compensate for the missing thrust to get the ship in orbit. 

In addition, the return to Earth was simplified. SpaceX has made itself famous for safely landing the first stage of its Falcon 9 and Starship boosters—with 641 out of 688 Falcon 9 launches featuring this kind of recovery, allowing the boosters to be reused and make flying cheaper. Starship’s first stage, meantime, performs what has become known as a chopstick recovery, with the booster navigating its way back to the launch tower where two giant metal arms pluck it from the sky. For the current mission, the chopstick recovery was done away with to simplify the flight objectives; instead the first stage made a soft, engine-assisted splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The Starship spacecraft was planned for a six-orbit, 10-hour mission, with the ship’s engines set to fire around the dinner hour Monday to bring the spacecraft down for a similar gentle, watery landing. 

Today’s launch was not just a test flight; it was also an operational mission designed to deliver 26 Starlink satellites to orbit, adding to the whopping 11,000 that already comprise the Starlink constellation—with an eventual goal of 100,000. SpaceX released footage of Starship deploying the satellites with what it has dubbed its Pez dispenser system, because that’s exactly what the spacecraft resembles as it releases its payload one satellite at a time. Ultimately, the spacecraft was brought down early, after just three orbits, since its satellites had all been deployed and the ship proved its flight worthiness quickly. 

The launch of Starship 14 is in many ways only a very small—if critical—step. Even the biggest SpaceX supporters don’t pretend that Starship is anywhere near ready to land astronauts on the moon in 2028. The spacecraft—which is now essentially a giant, flying, cargo truck—has to be adapted to carry crew, with all of the environmental and habitat modifications that implies. It will also have to solve a stubborn refueling problem: before heading out for the moon, Starship will need to enter a parking orbit around the Earth where up to a dozen other Starship-sized tankers will top off its tanks. It will have to fly its Artemis III test flight in 2027, and later, an uncrewed landing on—and liftoff from—the moon before it will be trusted to carry astronauts in as little as two years’ time.

Still, SpaceX promises that an Earth-orbital launch that today is headline-making could become almost as commonplace as the takeoff of a commercial airliner. Elon Musk, the company’s founder and CEO, has spoken openly about Starships launching as frequently as once a day—or even once an hour. Maybe. For now the company is celebrating one launch on one day, on a mission that didn’t even last past east coast lunchtime. But spaceflight is iterative and incremental. And today SpaceX moved one big increment indeed.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that Canada has an issue with its unemployment rate as he criticizes America’s northern neighbor amid the ongoing trade war.

Revisiting the claims last week, Trump insisted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government was “destroying” Canada with its immigration policies that he said were “causing problems.” It’s “already showing up in their numbers,” he said on Sept. 23. “Big unemployment.” Trump had made similar claims in August, amid the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade negotiations. “Canada’s unemployment rate is now at 10%, and rapidly rising. Their businesses are fleeing for the U.S., and it’s all because of their failed policies, and inept leadership,” he falsely argued. 

Trump’s focus on Canada’s unemployment figures comes amid a prolonged trade standoff between his Administration and Carney’s government. Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods took effect earlier this month, with Carney matching the economic pressure imposed by the U.S. Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada, stoked tensions by signing an Executive Order renaming  Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” The U.S. import bans on certain Canadian products, largely centered on alcohol and dairy, are due to take effect Tuesday. Carney, meanwhile, is focusing on strengthening international alliances, including pursuing efforts for Canada to become the E.U.’s first “associate member,” in a bid to reduce the country’s economic reliance on the U.S.

As Trump targets Canada’s unemployment rate, here’s what the data says about how the Canadian economy is currently faring.

What is Canada’s unemployment rate—and is it rising?

Canada’s economy lost 42,000 jobs in August, a decrease of 0.2%, according to the country’s Labor Force Survey released on Sept. 4. The figure came in well below reported consensus expectations for a 15k gain.

The losses were concentrated in areas such as business, building, other support services, natural resources, and utilities. The number of public sector employees fell by 20,000 (0.4%), down for the third consecutive month.

Joseph Steinberg, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, says several factors could be contributing to the job losses, including Canada’s slowing population growth.

Data from Statistics Canada shows the population of Canada reached an estimated 41,798,407 people on July 1, 2026, an increase of 189,425 people from July 1, 2025. This marked the “lowest annual July-to-July (or June to June before 1946) growth in the total size of the population since 1944/1945.”

Despite the job losses, Canada’s unemployment rate in August remained steady at 6.4%, following three consecutive monthly declines from May through July. The unemployment rate is lower in comparison to August 2025, when it stood at 7.1%.

Meanwhile, the employment rate in Canada—the proportion of the population aged 15 and older who are employed—decreased slightly, from 60.9% to 60.8%.

Canada “does not currently have an unemployment problem,” says Steinberg, reflecting on the data.

“Broadly speaking, the labor market in Canada is doing just fine. The unemployment rate is relatively stable,” he adds. “Trump is [also] ranting about immigration as a big problem, but right now Canada's immigration rate is actually quite low.”

Canada revised its immigration policy in late 2024, in an effort to curb rapid population growth that outpaced job creation. According to federal figures compiled by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the number of permanent residents admitted in 2025 was around 328,000, compared to 419,000 the year before.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the unemployment rate in August also remained unchanged at 4.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, slightly below the 4.3% recorded in August 2025.

But anyone looking to compare figures from the U.S. and Canada should be aware they have different ways of calculating headline unemployment rates, experts tell TIME.

The surveys cover slightly different populations: Canada’s unemployment figures include people as young as 15, while the U.S. begins counting once people are 16.

“To be measured as unemployed, you also have to indicate in the survey that you are searching somehow for a job. In the U.S., that requirement for 'search' is much more active than in Canada,” says Skuterud.

Trump has frequently touted U.S. unemployment rates and job growth. He called the addition of 162,000 jobs in August “great news” for a “thriving economy.”

However, late last year, U.S. unemployment had risen to a four-year high and it still remains above the 3.7% average recorded in 2019 before the pandemic.

Read More: 'Buy Canadian': Meet the Consumers Boycotting American Products as Trade Rift Widens

Trade uncertainty amid the U.S.-Canada standoff

Formal trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada halted at the end of August, and while officials have remained in contact with their counterparts, neither side has voiced any significant progress.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Sept. 25 said there was “no urgency” on the U.S. side to reach an agreement.

“President Trump is comfortable where we are on Canada,” he insisted. “The Canadians, again, periodically, they come and they want to have a deal. When they do, we talk. As we saw before, we gave them a deal. They left. They call us now and then, and we have good conversations about potential deals. But no urgency on our side.”

In response, Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada is “always ready to talk to the Americans about trying to find the right agreement," but stressed the country is not “desperate” to reach a trade deal with the U.S. if it has to come at “any cost.”

For businesses, the prolonged uncertainty surrounding the trade standoff can weigh on investment and, in turn, the creation of jobs, experts tell TIME.

“If you're a business, especially in one of these tariff-exposed industries, in an industry where the customer base is in large part in the U.S. this is not a time where you want to invest in a lot of new capital, and so that affects actual job creation, the labor demand side of the economy is impacted,” says Skuterud.

“The most important thing for businesses is certainty, predictability. They've got to know where their customer base is going to be, where their sales are going to be, and there's a lot of uncertainty in those industries right now.”

Should we hit pause on AI development? This question is front of mind for many. 

However, the debate over pacing the frontier cannot be settled neatly. Reasonable people can argue it convincingly from either side: the risks are real, but if one company slows, another actor will advance. 

The world is nowhere near agreement on what should be slowed, by how much, or for how long.  Without consensus, the practical question facing AI industry leaders is not whether to pace the frontier. It is how to advance and control it.

In the most recent Hugging Face incident, the forensic record makes the point with unusual precision. Roughly 1,200 agents exchanged more than 70,000 messages and files through a shared cache that was never intended to become a communications channel. They delegated work without assigned authority, reached the open internet through permissions no role had been granted, attempted to rewrite their own transcripts, and invented coordination conventions because none had been designed. Each of these actions can be traced back to a missing control: defined topology, explicit roles, verifiable objectives, scoped tools and data, tamper-evident logging, and governance established before execution. 

But we would argue that speed was not the ultimate cause of the Hugging Face hack—a poor structure was. 

A safe and smart AI structure

Any lab can choose to slow its own work, and it should be accountable for that decision. If a company advances capability and that capability causes harm, the economic and legal liability should be its own. But what happens if one frontier company paces itself and another actor chooses to advance? The more pragmatic solution is visible and verifiable stewardship: companies that demonstrate responsible guardrails must make that responsibility their calling card; clients should demand the same standard from competitors; and regulation could codify a baseline the market can implement.

The asymmetry across global markets matters too. In the United States, the anxiety about AI is running ahead of excitement; elsewhere, including China, excitement is higher than the anxiety. The issue: A pacing regime built around one country’s risk tolerance will not govern a technology advancing across many markets. It may instead widen the gap between those willing to move and those waiting for common agreement.

Yet the broader frontier-pacing argument rests on a largely unexamined assumption: that the race to build the most capable AI model points toward a single, general-purpose system, broadly capable, widely connected, and free to write and execute whatever code it determines it needs. But improving an underlying Large Language Model (LLM) does not require concentrating every capability in one agent. The same LLM can be more powerful when deployed through a network of specialized agents, each assigned a defined role, bounded tools, and the context needed for a particular use case. The central question then changes: not simply how fast the frontier should move, but which capabilities should be combined, where they should be deployed, and under whose control.

We believe there is another reason to keep advancing: as capability spreads, AI should improve and spawn downstream innovation that no frontier lab can design or predict on its own. By this logic, a coordinated slowdown could do more than delay the next model. It would delay the wider field of experimentation through which the technology becomes useful, affordable, and broadly accessible.

This is a risk in itself because AI's opportunity is enormous. The technology can do exceptional things, and there will inevitably be cases in which a single agent or platform is the right answer. But today, within the complexity of a global business, the same system can struggle with basic tasks because it is not grounded in a company’s broader context. Both of these trends are happening at once: capability is advancing rapidly, while production value remains far behind. The scarce resource is no longer intelligence alone. It is the deployment capacity that turns intelligence into a governed business outcome.

A slowdown is not a substitute for control

A coordinated slowdown in frontier capability becomes a nuclear option precisely when it is used as a substitute for controls. We believe a better path is to advance and control. That requires balancing capability with responsibility, predictability, and reliability—then making that balance visible in bounded workflows and control at the point of use. Pacing capability does not control deployment. Even a slower frontier still delivers models into enterprises that decide how agents communicate, what authority they receive, which tools and data they can reach, how objectives are bounded, whether actions can be verified, and whether the record can be altered after the fact. The Hugging Face incident was serious, but its lesson is not simply that the models were too capable or arrived too quickly. It is that capability was deployed without designed orchestration, declared roles, least-privilege access, bounded objectives, tamper-evident records, or an independent verification layer.

So we would turn the question around and ask what the agent actually needs from the model rather than what the model can do. It needs to reason. It needs to call a small number of tools that belong to one domain. It needs to understand language and produce it. Everything else it needs should be handed to it as part of the setup. That is what context engineering is for.

And the LLM’s pre-trained world knowledge is not neutral in that setup. When a model assumes context it was never given, it is quietly substituting what it learned from the internet for what the company actually knows, and the company's version is the more current one. So the assumption is the risk, not the gap.

What control could look like

So what does control look like in practice? Bounded workflows have four principles: structured inputs, measurable outcomes, high transaction volumes, and short feedback loops. If a workflow ticks all four boxes, we can embed intelligence in it, measure it well, deliver to an outcome, and take end-to-end responsibility for it. 

Compare the Hugging Face incident against those four tests. Its objectives were impossible 30 to 40% of the time, so the work was not bounded by viable inputs. There was no measurable outcome because the verification gate the agents were trying to defeat did not exist. There was no reliable feedback loop because agents could rewrite the logs. And there was no accountable owner because permissions had not been scoped to defined roles.

Not one step in that chain required a more capable model. Every step required a control nobody had built.

So the question we would put to the industry is not whether to pace the frontier. It is whether we are building the right thing, and whether that thing is a set of composable agentic modules rather than one system that knows everything.

So our guess is that the economically dominant form of machine intelligence will not be one general system. It will be specialized, composable modules whose organization is itself dynamically optimized, and the companies chasing the superagent LLM may get there faster by building the building blocks.

Containment as a strategy worked in the nuclear industry because nation-states built the technology, and they built it with a clear view of what that power could do without controls. In the United States, the frontier of AI is largely being built in a decentralized commercial market. That brings a different set of enterprise risks and the same deployment responsibility.

Advancing and controlling AI also requires a clearer sense of what progress is for. The north stars should be more jobs, better cancer care, cures for disease, and breakthroughs in material sciences—not simply doing old things more cheaply. 

Today, too much of the value we place in AI is still concentrated in productivity, and pacing the frontier does not redirect that intent. Leadership does. The future should not be decided by how fast the frontier advances. It will be decided by who takes responsibility for what they deploy.

What's your personality like? There are scientifically validated ways to learn more about yours (though they’re not perfect). But there are also plenty of descriptors that can lead people astray.

One of these is the notion of an “addictive personality,” meaning a single profile of a person who’s at risk for developing an addiction. People often use this term to explain why someone overdoes it with alcohol or other substances, or with habits like shopping or gambling. Likewise, people sometimes claim they don’t have an addictive personality to justify why they feel they can imbibe, consume, or participate in certain acts without restraint..

But experts say there’s actually no such thing as an addictive personality. “The idea that people can have a specific personality type that makes them prone to addiction has been around for a long time, but it’s not scientifically supported,” says Ryan Carpenter, a substance-use researcher and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame.

Despite decades of research on this issue, scientists haven’t been able to identify a personality type that reliably predicts whether someone will have problems with excessive use of alcohol or other substances. “The story is way more complicated than the label ['addictive personality'] suggests,” says Dr. Manassa Hany, division director of addiction psychiatry at Northwell’s Zucker Hillside and South Oaks Hospitals.

And there are risks to putting stock in the concept of an addictive personality, according to experts. It might give someone a false sense of security if they believe they don’t have an addictive temperament, or it may make someone reluctant to seek help if they’re overdoing it with a particular substance or behavior because they believe they’re not predisposed to having an issue, says Hany.

On the other hand, “if we label people as having an addictive personality, that can be harmful,” Hany adds. “It can cause even more stigma and judgment for those who fit the stereotype.”

“Addiction is something that can happen to anyone,” says Dr. Ryan Marino, an associate professor of emergency medicine and psychiatry at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland. “It’s a complex interplay between genetics, our internal biology, physiology, and psychology, and external factors. None of those individual things is the determining factor. It can be a combination of any of those factors.”

Who is at risk for addiction, and why?

While the concept of an addictive personality is not backed by scientific evidence, some research suggests that certain individual traits—but not a single personality “type”—are linked to a higher risk of developing an addiction. Research has found, for example, that impulsivity plays a role in all types of addictive disorders, and drug and alcohol-use disorders tend to be more common among people who score lower on measures of agreeableness and extraversion. People who are sensation-seekers or novelty-seekers also have a higher risk of developing an addiction, according to research.

Other studies have revealed a link between neuroticism and a higher risk of developing different addictions, and there appears to be a connection between compulsivity and a greater risk of behavioral addictions (such as gambling).

In addition, having depression, anxiety, loneliness, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can increase the risk of developing an addiction, says Carpenter. So can having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Experiencing trauma during childhood also can increase the risk, adds Hany.

People with borderline personality disorder have an increased risk of developing a substance-related disorder or addiction at some point in their lives, and the same is true of those with anti-social behavior, Carpenter says.

None of these risk factors adds up to a single personality type. And one of the things that makes these connections tricky is there’s a two-way street between personality elements and addiction, notes Carpenter. “Somebody who is using a substance is caught in a cycle that can impact behavior and how they interact with people.”

Family history and genetic factors can play a part, as well, says Robert Leeman, a psychologist and addiction researcher and a professor in the department of public health and health sciences at Northeastern University. “Fifty percent of one’s risk has to do with family history,” he estimates.

There isn’t a single known gene that predisposes people to developing an addiction. And if substance-use disorders or other addictions run in your family, that doesn’t mean you’re destined to develop one. But it is something to be aware of. “If you have addiction in the family, you’ve got to be a bit more careful,” says Hany.

On the other hand, certain factors seem to protect people from developing an addiction. These include having stable housing and economic security, a sense of meaning and purpose in life, and strong social connections, Hany says. But these aren’t a guarantee, either—and they’re not limited to one type of personality.

How to spot the warning signs of addiction

“The issue with addiction is it creeps in,” says Hany. “It’s a very gradual process.” That’s why it’s important to be alert to signs that a problem may be developing. For a substance-use disorder, these criteria include having impaired control over substance use; an impaired ability to fulfill obligations at work, home, or school; persistent use despite negative consequences from it; or having cravings or a pressing desire to use the substance.

“The more substance use starts to take up more of your time or take over all aspects of your life, the more likely you are to have problems with it,” says Carpenter.

Your individual response to consuming alcohol, for example—which has nothing to do with personality—can also affect your risk. “People who are at risk for problems with alcohol have a greater than average level of stimulation from alcohol and a dampened sedative response,” says Leeman. “They get more of the good and less of the bad effects.”

If you suspect you could be developing a problem with substance use or a behavior, seek help early, advises Hany. And if you have a mental-health condition or chronic pain—either of which could increase your risk of developing a substance use-disorder—seek treatment for them, he urges. With interventions, “the majority of people with addiction recover,” says Hany.

The U.S. embassy in London has issued a security alert for American citizens in the U.K. following a suspected terror plot near an RAF airbase used by the U.S. military, which led to the arrests of five men who have since been released on bail.

“U.S. citizens are encouraged to exercise caution and be mindful of personal security,” read the notice responding to the Sunday incident near RAF Fairford. “U.S.-associated facilities, gatherings, and organizations may be at heightened risk. U.S. citizens are advised to follow instructions of local authorities for their personal safety and security.”

The alert reminded Americans that the U.K. in April raised its national terrorism threat level to “severe” from “substantial,” a decision made after an antisemitic attack in London was declared a terrorist incident by police. The “severe” level, according to the Metropolitan Police, means “an attack is highly likely.”

The warning came after British police arrested five men on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses after they were detained near RAF Fairford in southwest England, an airbase used by the U.S. to strike Iran, in the early hours of Sunday. Officers made the arrests after receiving a tip-off that three "suspicious vehicles" appeared to be heading toward the direction of the base, which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) previously said could be a target on account of its use by the U.S. military.

The U.K.’s Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) confirmed in a statement to TIME that the five arrestees were British nationals in their 20s who live in London. They were all released on bail Monday afternoon, local time. "They are subject to stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others. They absolutely remain under investigation as we explore multiple lines of enquiry," according to the CTP.

British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme early Monday that it is too soon to speculate over the motives during a live investigation. Questioned about a potential Iran link, he said: "We know that Iran and their proxies wish to do us harm. We know that they hate our democracy, and we know that we regularly have to thwart Iranian attempts to threaten either our interests or indeed our allies."

CTP’s deputy assistant commissioner Vicki Evans said she was “very aware of the levels of speculation about the motivation behind this incident, and the geopolitical questions that are being raised,” but stressed more time is needed to work through the case.

Additionally, the head of CTP Laurence Taylor emphasized his officers are considering this case from "every possible angle," including the potential that this "may be activity committed by proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state."

The Iranian embassy in London has said it "categorically rejects and strongly condemns" any attempt to "link Iran to" the arrests made near RAF Fairford. "The circulation of such fabricated speculations... will serve no purpose other than to fuel Iranophobia propaganda in the U.K.," it said Monday.

What we know about the arrests at RAF Fairford

RAF Fairford is a NATO-designated standby deployment and a U.S. forward operating base for U.S. Global Strike Command, according to U.K. government records. It has been used extensively by U.S. military aircraft in previous conflicts, including "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in 2003.

Gloucestershire Police, the local authority responsible for the area, received a call from a concerned resident at 12:45 a.m. local time on Sunday, regarding three suspicious vehicles traveling toward the airbase. 

The local resident, a farmer, told police she had found the road blocked by three white vans. “I saw a large group of hooded and masked men. When they saw me, they ran ahead of me… I then realised that something highly unusual was taking place,” she later told the BBC.

Armed officers responded to the call and five men were arrested on suspicion of committing offences under the Explosives Act, as well as section 5 of the Terrorism Act.

Police evacuated residents from around 85 nearby households and put a cordon in place while the British Army’s specialist explosive ordnance disposal team examined the vehicles.

While the farmer who alerted police has been hailed for their actions, Streeting has indicated they only had a “partial picture” of the matter and appeared to suggest U.K. security forces had been aware of a suspected plot involving RAF Fairford.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed the suspects had been “under view for a long time.”

"Working with Britain, it was an amazing job. We had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage to our fort, and working with the British worked out great… and we got them,” Trump told reporters.

When asked if Trump had been correct, Streeting did not reject the assertion.

“Our security services and our police, they don’t ask for praise, but I think it was a proud moment yesterday to see the President of the United States recognize the extraordinary work that our police and our security and intelligence services do every day throughout the year and throughout the world to keep us safe,” he said. “That’s all I want to say this morning on that.”

TIME has asked the Ministry of Defense and Downing Street whether the British authorities were already investigating a potential plot.

Speaking at the Labour Party conference later Monday morning, Streeting celebrated the U.K. and U.S. alliance as “the closest of any two nations on Earth” and vowed the two countries “will always stand together against those who hate our freedom and those who wish us harm.”

British Foreign Minister Ed Miliband, meanwhile, referred to the incident near RAF Fairford as a “reminder of the threats our country faces.”

The U.K. must be prepared to “confront” all the security threats facing Europe and the world, he told conference attendees, adding that “we will act against the proxies of Iran.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham referred to the seemingly foiled terror plot as "deeply concerning," ahead of holding a COBRA meeting (a session of the government’s emergencies committee) to discuss the incident with top advisers Monday afternoon.

Concerns over the risk Iran poses to the U.K.

The U.K. government gave authorization in March for the U.S. to use bombers based at RAF Fairford to carry ⁠out strikes on Iranian missile sites used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The base’s role in the U.S. military’s seven-month operation against Iran may have made the site a target. 

While British police and lawmakers have said it's too early to determine who was behind the suspected terror plot, the U.K. government has repeatedly issued stern warnings regarding the threat the Iranian regime poses to the U.K.

On Feb. 28, former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer addressed the nation, explaining the U.K. had no involvement in the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran, but emphasizing the government’s belief that Iran cannot be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon.

“Even in the United Kingdom, the Iranian regime poses a direct threat to dissidents and the Jewish community,” he said. “Over the last year alone, they have backed more than 20 potentially lethal attacks on U.K. soil."

In March, four men were arrested on suspicion of conducting surveillance of locations and individuals linked to the Jewish community in London to assist Iran. One man was an Iranian national and the other three were British-Iranian nationals. The CTP said the arrests were “part of a long-running investigation and part of our ongoing work to disrupt malign activity where we suspect it.”

A separate investigation resulted in a man being charged in May with assisting a foreign intelligence service relating to Iran. 

Earlier this month, a man and woman were arrested in London as part of National Security Act investigation. They were apprehended on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Again, the country to which the investigation was linked was Iran. 

The IRGC was designated a threat to national security in the U.K. under new powers in July, after a series of antisemitic attacks across England., including arson offenses against Jewish ambulance services.

“These new powers will make it easier to prosecute and lock up anyone carrying out [Iran’s] dirty work here in Britain,” said Starmer at the time. 

President Donald Trump declares that “this is the final battle” in one of several taxpayer-funded television ads airing ahead of November’s midterm elections, prompting bipartisan scrutiny over whether the spots violate federal law.

The 30-second ad is a black-and-white video of Trump walking down a hall over audio of his warnings against “the deep state,” “warmongers,” “globalists,” “Marxists,” “communists,” and “fascists.”

Trump posted the same video on his Truth Social platform in 2023, but with one difference: Then, the monochromatic ad ended with words on screen calling on the viewer to join Trump’s campaign and fine print saying it was “Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc.” This time, the 2026 ad says at the bottom: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” 

CNN reported that the ad aired during at least two NFL games on Sunday. CNBC also reported that the ad aired during Fox News Sunday, citing data from advertising intelligence company AdImpact, adding that the TV ad has cost more than $362,000 so far.

A second advert with the same “paid for by the U.S. government” disclaimer began airing on Wednesday. The ad, which featured the song “Love Me” by singer-songwriter JMSN, showed a montage of photos and videos of Trump, intercut with campaign talking points like “largest tax cuts in history” and “reigniting American manufacturing.” This ad, which CNBC reported also aired over the weekend, citing AdImpact data, has cost the federal government nearly $920,000 to date. It also apparently did not get the approval of JMSN, who posted on social media that he “would never authorize my music to be used for ANY political agenda or campaign.”

A third, which is a minute long, features scenic views of Mount Rushmore interspersed with parts of Trump’s speech there for the Fourth of July anniversary. 

The ads appear to be part of a campaign blitz ahead of the November midterms, in which the GOP is hoping to defend its majorities in Congress. 

Some lawmakers, including from his own Republican Party, are raising concerns with Trump and the White House over the advertisements. Asked about the ads by CBS News on Sunday, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said: “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves.” (Kennedy was referring to former Homeland Security Secretary Noem, who came under fire for spending $220 million on an advertising campaign for border security.)

When asked about the “Love Me” ad, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said that the use of taxpayer money was reminiscent of the far-right former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “It’s inappropriate,” Tillis told reporters.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican and a vocal Trump critic, posted on social media about the “Final Battle” ad: “Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal… in banana republics.”

Democrats also raised questions. In a Sept. 24 letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire demanded answers on the “Love Me” ad’s production cost, the agencies and external contractors involved, the source of funds, and the legal and ethical bases for the spot. Hassan wrote in her letter that the ad “does not have a clear official government purpose and appears to run afoul of federal prohibitions.” Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey posted to social media about the black-and-white clip: “How much taxpayer money did the government spend on this ad?”

In another Sept. 24 letter, congressional Democrats on appropriations panels wrote to the White House that the “Love Me” ad should be taken off the air, as it was “the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”

But the White House has defended the ads—which it called, in a Sept. 25 press release, “public service announcements.” A White House official told TIME Thursday that the ads weren’t political, didn’t have a call to action, and that the President wasn't on the ballot.

A spokesperson instead said that the ads were “about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.”

What does the law say?

Since the 1950s, yearly funding bills—including the appropriations measure the President recently signed—routinely ban the use of taxpayer funds for “publicity or propaganda.” 

The Government Accountability Office, which investigates how appropriated funds are spent, has interpreted this to refer to material that is “purely partisan,” “self-aggrandizing,” or “covert.” But it also noted that administrations may need to advocate or defend their policies.

Some lawmakers have pointed to potential violations of the Hatch Act, the 1939 act that limits the political activities of federal civilian employees in the executive branch. The President is exempt from the Hatch Act, though some argue that White House employees who facilitated the airing of the ads aren’t. Last week, the non-profit advocacy group Public Citizen filed a complaint before the GAO and the Office of Special Counsel, which is responsible for overseeing Hatch Act violations, seeking investigation and enforcement of relevant laws.

In defense of the “public service announcements,” the White House has pointed to previous ad campaigns during the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. (During the Bush Administration, one campaign did violate the anti-propaganda measure.)

“When prior Administrations utilized the airwaves, it was called ‘public education,’” the Trump White House said. “When this Administration promotes pride in our country, many of those same voices call it ‘propaganda.’”

There is a scene in season two of Friends I think about often. Rachel, Phoebe, and Joey, who have low-paying jobs, decide to have a serious conversation with their more wealthy friends —Ross, Monica, and Chandler—about struggling to pay for expensive group dinners and concert tickets.

Ross says he never thinks about money, prompting Rachel’s famous line, “That’s because you have it!”

Even though this scene aired in 1995, the same dynamic continues to play out in friendships in 2026. 

Last year, my friend wanted to have a birthday dinner at Carbone in London, an Italian restaurant that is arguably more famous for celebrity sightings than its actual food. My friend works full-time at a national magazine, whereas I’m a freelancer. Everyone else cancelled on her birthday, so it was just the two of us. I felt bad for her, so I didn’t mind spending $75 on food. But a few months later, when it was time to plan my birthday, I couldn’t imagine asking any of my friends to spend the same amount on me just to visit a fancy restaurant. It felt like an extortionate amount of money. It felt tone deaf and entitled. So I hosted a house party instead and asked everyone to bring pizza.

Another friend recently ranted to me about how she has spent more than $10,000 over the last year attending destination weddings and bachelorette parties. And while she is, of course, ultimately responsible for her decision to oblige, she has also noticed that the financial pressure to participate in expensive wedding culture tends to breed unnecessary, quiet resentment among her friends. This pattern is painfully, but subtly, common. 

Money can shape friendships and also reveal people’s values. The wealth gap between friends doesn’t necessarily cause dramatic fights or resentment. More often, it shows up in the small decisions: where you eat, which holidays you can afford, whether you can join a last-minute night out, or whether suggesting an expensive activity feels embarrassing in the first place.

And unlike romantic relationships, where finances are often explicitly discussed, friends rarely sit down and talk about the fact that one person earns significantly more than another. Instead, the person with less money can become the one who compromises or simply starts opting out.

The way we handle money with our friends reveals a lot about our values, particularly when there is a significant wealth gap. Someone who can comfortably spend lavishly on a dinner, holiday, or birthday celebration may not realize that they're effectively asking a friend with less disposable income to make a significant financial sacrifice to participate.

The problem is widespread. Too often people go into debt in order to attend a friend’s bachelorette. Then there’s Venmo ghosting where people avoid repaying their friends after a shared bill. When friends repeatedly avoid paying someone back, the problem is that one person is comfortable making another person carry the financial burden.

Money and conversations around money are taboo in our society, says psychotherapist Silvia Dutchevici, a licensed clinical social worker. “In my practice, I’ve seen patients share their most intense fears and sexual desires with little reservation, and then become visibly uncomfortable when asked about their salary, or naming the amount of a bonus or raise.” Think about it: how many of us actually know how much money our friends have or the salaries they make?

Money, it turns out, is never just money. It’s a modern measurement of traits like  freedom, prestige, power, and control. Our society implicitly and explicitly sends the message that money is equivalent to worth. “Neoliberal ideology tells us that financial success is the result of hard work, and that poverty is a personal failure rather than a systemic problem,” points out Dutchevici. When two friends have very different financial circumstances, acknowledging the gap can feel like saying something about who is more deserving, or who is less hard working. 

Both sides can carry shame. The friend with less money may feel judged or inadequate. Meanwhile, many affluent people also carry a deep shame around wealth, feel undeserving of it, and hide their financial means. “I once worked with a woman set to inherit millions who felt she couldn’t accept it until she had proved her worth by earning her own,” says Dutchevici.

It is interesting to witness how wealth inequality is reshaping friendships, particularly as the cost of living continues to rise and people in the same social circles can have wildly different disposable incomes. Many of my friends have had their parents buy them houses, so their entire salary is spent on holidays, shopping, and frivolous hobbies. My paycheck, in contrast, goes towards rent and covering my basic needs. This inherently changes how we spend our days. 

There is an emotional side of the friendship wealth divide, too: the guilt of saying no, the shame of admitting you can’t afford something, the resentment that can build when one friend gets to choose the restaurant or holiday, and the awkwardness of accepting that in the face of a high price tag. All of these pressures have led me to believe that friendship requires more financial negotiation than it once did.

We need new etiquette around money in friendship. What does it look like to make plans that don’t automatically exclude the least wealthy person in the group? Can friends with very different incomes maintain genuine equality? What happens when one person’s idea of a casual dinner is another person’s weekly food budget?

These conversations don’t have to be complicated. Last week, my friend who works in radiology picked a sushi restaurant with a $40 per-person menu. “Is $40 okay for you? We can go somewhere else if not,” she said in a casual tone on the phone. I appreciated her thoughtfulness and conscientiousness. The end result: a closer friendship and no resentment.

Friendship has its own financial morality. Being a good friend means being conscious of what your choices cost other people, not assuming everyone can afford your lifestyle, paying people back without being chased, and being willing to compromise.

The wealth gap simply makes those values much more visible. And money reveals how we treat the people we claim to care about.

South African police have launched manhunts after three mass shootings killed at least 32 people.

Police were searching for suspects early Monday after separate shootings took place over the weekend in impoverished townships, including Wedela in West Rand District outside Johannesburg, Lwandle in Western Cape, and Khayelitsha in Western Cape.

“Violence and criminality continues to spread in our country,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday. “This is the level of criminality that we must bring down, and our security forces are now going to continue pulling out all stops. It cannot go on like this.” He pledged stronger action by security forces to reduce violent crime in the country.

The shootings came amid a recent spate of mass shootings and other killings that have alarmed South Africans. Authorities have linked some of the attacks to criminal gangs fighting over territory or illicit businesses like illegal mining, drug trafficking, and extortion. South African police define a mass shooting as a single attack that results in three or more people shot.

In March, Ramaphosa deployed soldiers to support police as part of a yearlong operation against gang violence and illegal mining, including operations around Johannesburg. The President described organized crime as the most immediate threat to the country’s democracy and economic development. Some observers, however, noted that the deployment was an overdue attempt to address the police’s failure to keep communities, especially in poorer townships, safe.

Read More: What South Africa Can Teach Us as Worldwide Inequality Grows

Wedela shooting kills 18

Eighteen people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in a shooting in the township of Wedela on Saturday night.

Police said eight men opened fire on patrons drinking outside a tavern at around 9:30 p.m. local time, before entering the bar and “shooting at patrons inside.” The perpetrators allegedly searched some patrons and stole cellphones before escaping in two unidentified vehicles. The attackers allegedly carried pistols and AK-47 rifles.

Two vehicles were also burnt during the attack.

Seventeen people died at the scene, including 13 men and four women. Police identified two of the deceased victims as South Africans and another two as Lesotho nationals. Fifteen injured victims were transported to hospital for treatment, with several in critical condition.

Another victim died in hospital, police said on Monday, bringing the death toll to 18.

Gauteng Deputy Police Commissioner Fred Kekana said police had a clear picture of the suspects and their names, according to local media reports. He did not publicly identify the suspects.

Kekana said police are investigating the attack as possible retaliation for an August shooting at the same tavern that killed one person and wounded another. One of those killed was wanted in connection with the earlier shooting, he said.

Gunmen kill 10 in Lwandle

Ten people were shot and killed at a nighttime entertainment venue in Lwandle, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, that began at around 1:46 a.m. local time on Sunday.

Police said gunmen entered an entertainment venue selling grilled meat and fired at patrons. Five victims died at the scene and five after being transported to medical facilities. At least 11 others were wounded.

Police have launched a manhunt for the suspects, with no arrests announced as of Monday morning. Western Cape Police Commissioner Sizakhele Dyantyi pointed to “business rivalry” as a possible motive for the attack.

“People are buying alcohol maybe at cheaper places and they come and drink in this place. But we are still investigating that,” Dyantyi said. Police said they increased deployments in the area after the shooting.

Police said the deceased victims would be publicly identified only after relatives were informed.

Four killed in Khayelitsha

Police are investigating the murder of four people in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town, on Saturday.

Police responded to reports of a shooting at around 7:15 p.m. local time, and found three men dead with multiple gunshot wounds. Two of the victims were found inside a stationary vehicle and the third beside it. A fourth victim who sustained gunshot wounds died upon arrival at a medical facility, police said.

No suspects had been identified or arrested, police said on Sunday morning.

Organized crime drives mass shootings in poorest areas

South Africa is confronting a spate of mass shootings that has affected some of the country’s poorest communities, even as violent crime declined nationally this year. Contact crime, which includes violence or threats against people, between April and June fell 2.3% compared with the same period in 2025, while murders declined 5.9%.

But the country still has among the highest homicide rates in the world. In the same three months, 5,427 people were killed, averaging roughly 60 murders a day, according to police data.

Organized crime researchers have raised alarm about the rise in mass shootings. Julian Rademeyer, an adviser for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, told the Newzroom Afrika broadcaster that the organization has tracked 41 mass killings resulting in around 196 deaths since January. The Associated Press counted seven mass shootings that had drawn national headlines since December 2025, six of which involved multiple gunmen.

The country’s poorest communities bear the brunt of the violence. After a mass shooting in June that killed 12 people in an informal settlement of shacks in Johannesburg, the AP reported that many of the country’s impoverished townships have inadequate lighting, slow police responses, and a lack of security. Those townships at times border affluent suburbs with armed private security controls and substantially lower violent crime rates, highlighting the country’s deep economic divide.

There are also more than 2 million illegal guns in the country despite strict gun ownership regulations, according to civil society groups. Allegations of police corruption have also undermined public trust: allegations that top police officials were colluding with organized criminals prompted Ramaphosa to announce a national investigation last year into police corruption, which has led to more than a dozen arrests of senior officers.

Illegal mining gangs are also a notorious problem in Johannesburg, and often establish their bases in poorer areas with lower policing. The government said last year that illegal mining had cost South Africa more than $3 billion in 2024. Last month, residents in Wedela reportedly described living in fear of rival illegal mining gangs in the area.

On Tuesday night, three gunmen opened fire at a house where around 14 people were gathered for a party in KwaMakhutha, south of the city of Durban. The shooting killed 12 people, including a woman believed to be pregnant. Following the attack, KwaZulu-Natal premier Thami Ntuli raised concerns about illegal guns and drugs in the area, noting that residents hear gunshots every night.

British counterterrorism police are leading an investigation after five men were arrested on suspicion of explosives offenses and preparing a terrorist act near an air base used by U.S. forces.

Police received a report at around 12:45 a.m. Sunday about three suspicious vehicles traveling toward RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, southwestern England. Armed officers responded and arrested the men in nearby Whelford.

Fairford is used as a forward operating location for the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command. The base has hosted U.S. B-52 and B-1 bombers during the Iran war, according to ABC News. American forces have used Fairford to carry out strikes against Iranian missile sites, the Associated Press reported.

Read More: Why More Republicans Are Breaking With Trump on Iran

In a press conference Sunday, Assistant Chief Constable Richard Ocone said that about 85 households in the area were advised to evacuate early Sunday morning as a precaution.

"A 400m cordon has been put in place around the vehicles, while the Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit examine them,” Ocone said. A statement from police earlier Sunday said that they believe the situation is “contained.”

Aerial footage from Sky News shows a bomb disposal robot moving between three white vans at the site, with the rear doors of two vehicles open.

Ocone added that the men remain in custody and will be questioned by police.

The base is home to both the 501st Combat Support Wing Headquarters and the 420th Air Base Squadron, and serves as the “preferred bomber forward operating location in Europe,” according to the U.S. Air Force. 

TIME has reached out to the U.S. Air Force for comment on the incident.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who assumed the post in July, called the incident “deeply concerning” on X.

“The safety and security of the public is our first priority, and I want people to know that we will always take every step necessary to protect our communities and keep our country safe,” he wrote. “The investigation remains ongoing, and I would urge people not to speculate while the authorities establish the full facts.”

When asked by reporters about the arrests, U.S. President Donald Trump called them “fantastic.”

“They were looking to do big damage to our fort,” Trump said of the suspects, “and working with the British worked out great.”

Trump also said the suspects had been under surveillance before their arrests. “We had them under view for a long time, and we got them,” he said.

British police have not confirmed that RAF Fairford was the intended target of the suspected attacks. The Associated Press reported that investigators were considering a possible connection to Iran, but no such link has been confirmed.

As an occupational therapist working in medical respite care, Caitlin Synovec saw people in their 50s or 60s at a moment when their lives had forever shifted. Perhaps a stroke or other serious medical event sent them to the hospital. But too often, during their extended treatment, they lost their jobs and then their housing. Newly homeless, they might manage to snag a spot in a respite care program designed for people without stable housing who need a place to continue their recovery. But then, a question would loom over their future: Where would they go next?

Many patients in that situation wind up living on the streets or in shelters, despite efforts to find them permanent housing. A surprising number of older adults, however, find themselves in a nursing home—even if they don’t need or want that level of care. 

According to research from the United Health Foundation, one in 11 people in nursing homes have “low-care needs,” meaning they do not require physical assistance for bed mobility, transferring, using the toilet, or eating. The ratios vary by state, from a low of 2.5% in Hawaii to nearly 23% in Oklahoma.

It’s an expensive housing solution: One year in a nursing home costs $119,340 on average, compared to around $16,000 per person per year for subsidized permanent supportive housing that includes some services.

Synovec recalls one client in her 50s who lost her housing while she was in the hospital getting treatment for a stroke. Although a family member was willing to take her in, she couldn’t navigate their second-floor apartment. The stroke left her without the use of one arm and with mild cognitive problems, but she still was able to manage most daily activities, including taking the bus to visit family, friends, and her church. She needed some help—for example, with getting dressed—but she valued her independence. 

“She didn’t want to be institutionalized,” says Synovec, who is now assistant director of medical respite at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. “She wanted to be in the community.”

The woman went to a homeless shelter, but then she fell and ended up in the emergency room. The hospital discharged her to a nursing home. Many emergency shelters aren’t equipped for the elderly, even though older adults are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. 

Shelters often house people in bunk beds. Their bathrooms typically aren’t designed for people with disabilities. And shelter residents must leave early each morning and fend for themselves until the shelter reopens in the evening.

Failing a generation

The better option—permanent supportive housing—has an average wait list of over two years, and even that housing may lack accessibility for elderly people with mobility issues. Under the Trump Administration’s shift away from permanent supportive housing toward time-limited transitional housing, wait lists are expected to grow, and some formerly homeless older adults could be displaced. 

“They get to a point essentially where there’s not a place in the community for them to go,” says Synovec. “The option is long-term care—nursing home care—or they die on the street.”

Gaps in the social safety net are widening as Baby Boomers age, says Dennis P. Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania social science researcher with a focus on housing policy and homelessness. In 2025, one out of every five people living in emergency shelters or on the streets was 55 or older. “We’re failing in every direction in terms of not providing shelter—exposing people to greater harm and health risk and disability,” Culhane says.

As a social worker and researcher, Ian Johnson interviewed dozens of social workers, nurses, and other professionals in Seattle who were helping unhoused older adults cope with serious medical conditions. Many of the older adults feared being in a more restrictive environment if they went to a nursing home, and nurses and social workers told of patients who chose to return to the streets from a hospital or rehab unit rather than enter long-term nursing home care.

That’s a common sentiment. Three out of four older adults want to age in their current home and community, according to surveys by AARP, an advocacy organization for older Americans. “Early institutionalization” often separates people from their family, friends, and neighborhood. “That is not different for people living in supportive housing or sometimes living in a tent in the woods or at a homeless shelter,” says Johnson, who is now at Boston University School of Social Work. “People want to spend their end of life still having a sense of self and a sense of autonomy.”

At the same time, stories also abound of nursing homes discharging vulnerable older adults to homeless shelters—or to no destination at all. The triggering event could be a violation of rules, such as smoking or substance use, or depletion of insurance.

Those opposing trends don’t make much sense, except in the context of cost pressures and sparse options. When short-term rehabilitation care ends, patients are expected to pay on their own or leave. Medicaid covers long-term nursing home care, but state eligibility rules vary. Some people who just need parttime help with personal care and medication may end up lingering in a nursing home, covered by Medicaid. In other cases, despite federal rules about safe discharges, nursing homes have dropped off residents at shelters.

An age-friendly option

One answer to this predicament is to build subsidized housing that meets the mobility and care needs of older adults with very low incomes but preserves their sense of independence. In other words, age-friendly, low-income housing would give people who are aging and homeless the “4 Ms” framework that seeks to address mobility, medication, mentation, and what matters most to older adults.

Finding the right care for older adults facing homelessness could be part of a broader rethinking of long-term care. Dr. Jeffrey Farber, a geriatrician who is president and CEO of The New Jewish Home in New York City, has written that “nursing homes serve three distinct populations of older adults—and only one of those actually belongs in what we think of as a nursing home.”

Hospitals tend to discharge patients as soon as they’re medically stable, so nursing homes, also known as skilled nursing facilities, became providers of short-term rehabilitation. When they leave rehab, most patients rely on family caregivers or paid aides for any ongoing help. 

“Some of those patients, when the system breaks down and there’s no place for them to go that’s safe and affordable, they just end up staying” in the nursing home, Farber told me. “They’re benefiting from some services that we provide, but they certainly could be cared for in a lower-acuity setting or a lower-cost setting.”

Farber envisions a remake: Hospitals would provide the sub-acute care and only discharge patients when they are ready to go home. People who are homeless and aging with manageable medical conditions would have access to subsidized housing and special programs tailored to their needs.

The rest would receive long-term monitoring and care for their complex medical needs at a transformed version of nursing homes that he would rebrand as Compassionate Care Homes, “always non-profit, mission-driven.” He added that these homes must be funded adequately, with investment in workforce training. 

The oldest Baby Boomers turn 80 in 2026. By 2030, every Baby Boomer will be 65 or older. Just as they have impacted so many aspects of society, they will overwhelm the capacity for senior housing, long-term care, and emergency shelter. 

It never made sense to house people with low-care needs in nursing homes, but this wave will make doing so unsustainable. Farber wants to spark a conversation about transforming long-term care and the way it’s funded. 

“The system is fundamentally broken,” he says, “and we’re not going to fix it with band-aids.”

President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is seeking to cancel almost $1 billion in federal funding, sidestepping congressional approval and earning criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Using a controversial move known as a “pocket rescission,” Trump said he wanted to nullify $810 million in spending that Congress had approved for programs and agencies, much of which would serve immigrants, minorities, and children.

Read More: A Debt Ceiling Fight Looms in 2027. Could a Democratic Congress Make it the Last One?

Over half of the cuts would land on the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to a request sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday. It said that rescinding the funds is “consistent with the Administration's goal of ending the use of Federal taxpayer dollars to support non-citizens, putting Americans first.”

In a statement accompanying the request, the Trump Administration also called the funds “wasteful” and “harmful.” 

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan government watchdog, has asserted, however, that the move is an illegal sidestepping of the constitutionally protected separation of powers—chiefly, Congress's power of the purse.

What is a pocket rescission? 

A “pocket rescission” is not a formal or legal term; it was coined to reference a “pocket veto,” a process in which a bill fails to become law because the President does not sign it within 10 days and Congress’s adjournment prevents its return. Similarly, the “pocket rescission” aims to withdraw allocated funding without direct congressional intervention.

The timing is important when it comes to pocket rescissions. In order to be fully effective, this “occurs when a president asks Congress to rescind (or cancel) funds very close to the end of the fiscal year—so close that the funds expire before they can be used for new obligations,” according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), helmed by Director Russell Vought, submitted the requests Friday and holds that the move is valid under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act (ICA). 

The Impoundment Control Act was created in response to President Richard Nixon’s heavy use of impoundments to achieve his policy goals. It has since been used to limit or regulate a president’s ability to control spending that has already been appropriated by building in 45 days of continuous congressional session. During this time, Congress is meant to review a President’s rescission requests and either approve them or see the funds released as planned.

Trump’s request to cancel $810 million in funding, however, came just five days before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, all but ensuring that Congress will not have time to review the proposal in full or prevent the cuts from going into effect. 

It is not the first time Trump has used this strategy to thwart spending attempts. He submitted a request on Aug. 28, 2025, to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid funds approved by Congress, including $3.2 billion that had been allocated to USAID. Although the move was contested, the Supreme Court last year stayed a lower court injunction requiring roughly $4 billion covered by the rescission request to be obligated. 

The GAO claims that the move is illegal, writing on its website that this application of the ICA would “cede Congress’s power of the purse by allowing a president to, in effect, change the law by shortening the period of availability for fixed-period funds.”

“If Congress wanted a president to have that authority, it would need to change the law,” it continues.

Zachary Price, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, says that the move is an “abuse” of the ICA. 

“It’s perverse to read that as, instead, creating this mechanism for unilaterally canceling funds,” Price tells TIME, adding that this interpretation is not supported by a lot of “historical practice.”

The maneuver seeks to withhold the funds until they expire at the end of the fiscal year, leaving Congress little time to respond.

In this case, Price says, it further showcases how the ICA is being manipulated.

The government “shouldn't have a lot of money left over at the end of the fiscal year if you've been spending it as you go in the way the statute contemplates,” he says.

He also points out that the American government is distinctly separated into three branches, with Congress, sitting in the legislative branch, being given the power to pass legislation—or, in this case, cancel funds that have already been appropriated. It has been explicitly separated from the authority of the executive branch and the President.

Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, says it even plainer than Price: “The administration has picked a bunch of things that they hate, and they say, ‘Well, we're just not going to do those.’”

The Supreme Court’s intervention last year did not constitute a ruling on the authority of pocket rescissions, meaning that the Trump Administration's latest use of the tactic could face new legal challenges.

Which federal programs would lose funding and what’s at stake?

The largest portion of this year’s proposed cuts will target HHS programs providing nonprofit services for refugees and unaccompanied minors. Trump’s request would withdraw $567 million from those services.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was also impacted, with a request to cancel funding for nonprofits that provide mental health services and social services to migrants. Another cut targets almost $25 million that had been slated for the Department of Education’s Special Programs for Migrant Students. 

The Housing and Urban Development Department’s housing counseling services are also named amid the rescissions; the Trump Administration said that the program included non-governmental organizations with “divisive and DEI-centric agendas.”

The Trump Administration also aims to cancel $15 million from a Department of Justice office that focuses on reducing racial tensions, in addition to $10 million that had been allocated to the Minority Business Development Agency, which supports minority entrepreneurs. 

“I assume that they're picking money to cancel based on some political calculus about what they can get away with,” Price says. When looking at the bigger picture, he argues this is just one maneuver in several to “establish stronger executive control over spending.”

The move also risks future negotiations in Congress, Price says. He explains that this application of the ICA would make it harder for Democrats and Republicans to compromise over spending if they anticipate that the sitting President will simply swoop in and cancel funding after thoughtful agreements have been reached.

“If the executive branch can come in and effectively impose a more kind of party line view of the spending, then you know why would people agree to the package in the first place?” he asks.

Can Congress stop Trump’s pocket rescission?

The rescission has earned blowback from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who believe that the move sidesteps Congress's authority.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, lambasted the move on social media Friday evening, saying she would “work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions.”

“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, Collins’s Democratic counterpart on the Appropriations Committee, called the move “theft from the American people.” 

“Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious, because Vought is saying their votes don’t count,” Murray said in a statement on X. 

The August 2025 pocket rescission was challenged in an existing lawsuit brought by nonprofits, including AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, over the Administration’s prior foreign aid freeze. In September, the Supreme Court allowed the funds covered by the rescission request to remain withheld while litigation continued. This year, similar lawsuits are likely to emerge—but how they might shape future ICA actions remains to be seen.

According to Kogan, this move sets up a potential battle in Congress to claw back these funds in the next fiscal cycle by reappropriating funds to the same programs.

“One thing that Congress could do is they could say ‘I know you illegally didn't spend it this year, but take that money we’re going to slap it right back on,’” he says. “That doesn't make [Vought] spend it next year, but it does say that we are going to make sure this money gets out the door, even if it's years late.”

In 2009, I moved to Middletown, Conn. from Seoul, South Korea to study ethnomusicology. At the time, I admittedly did not listen to K-pop, seeing it as largely teen pop, though I would soon realize how limited my view was. Over the next decade, as the genre became increasingly visible in the United States, it reshaped not only how American audiences encountered Korean popular music, but also how I understood its global significance.

That shift is still unfolding, and recent events have raised new questions about how K-pop is categorized and recognized within the American music industry. Those questions came into particularly sharp relief early this summer, when the Recording Academy announced a new category, Best Asian Pop Music Performance, for the 2027 Grammy Awards. In response, the world’s biggest boy band, BTS, announced that they would not submit their music for Grammy consideration.

The decision sparked heated debates among K-pop fans around the world, some of whom feared that the new category would sideline Asian artists by placing them in a separate “Asian Pop” category while reducing their chances of recognition in the Grammys’ prestigious General Fields awards.

Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. clarified that “The Asian Pop category was created to celebrate the depth, diversity, and extraordinary growth of pop artistry coming out of Asia,” and that submitting music in a genre category would not exclude an artist from also submitting and being considered for Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. 

This controversy raises important questions. Is a category like “Best Asian Pop Music Performance” necessary? Does it risk creating a new form of segregation? Or can it provide greater visibility for Asian artists in American mainstream media?

The United States’ influence on Korean popular music

The first music cassette tape that I bought as a Korean kid living in Seoul in the 1990s was Mariah Carey’s compilation album, #1’s. Well into the 2000s, listening to Western pop was considered “cool” in South Korea. Koreans certainly listened to gayo, or Korean popular music, although Western pop often carried a different kind of cultural prestige. Western pop was typically described as more “intellectual,” “authentic,” and “meaningful.” Radio DJs and music critics did not hesitate to encourage young Koreans to listen to more Western pop rather than gayo.

The cultural hierarchy between Western and Korean popular music was shaped by South Korea’s postwar political and military relationship with the United States. South Korea’s commercial recording industry began to take shape in the early 20th century through the activities of Japanese and American record companies. Following liberation from Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, and the division of the peninsula, South Korea came increasingly under U.S. political and military influence.

In the years following the Korean War in the 1950s, the Eighth U.S. Army shows became an important site for the development of South Korean popular music, employing hundreds of Korean entertainers to perform American popular music and other forms of entertainment for U.S. soldiers. Korean performers would listen to the American Forces Korea Network (AFKN), transcribe music they heard on the radio, and memorize the latest American songs for performances at military bases.

For decades afterward, imported albums, AFKN, and MTV remained important sources through which Korean musicians and audiences encountered new musical trends from the United States.

U.S. military, media, and commercial networks became powerful channels through which American popular music entered South Korea and shaped the development of its contemporary popular music industry. Indeed, American pop was long considered more prestigious and trendier than Korean pop—until K-pop began to command international recognition of its own.

The K-pop universe

K-pop refers primarily to music performed by artists known as “idols,” whose careers are developed and managed by entertainment companies. This integrated system was first established in 1995 by Lee Soo Man, founder and producer of SM Entertainment, to bring artist recruitment, talent management, and music and visual production under one roof. Inspired by Motown’s Fordist model of music production and Japan’s idol industry, Lee developed a cultural industry in which idols could grow into professional artists and, eventually, entrepreneurs themselves.

Shortly after I moved to the U.S., I began encountering more and more American fans who asked me if I knew acts like Girls’ Generation or BIGBANG. These fans introduced me to the world of K-pop, and I gradually stopped listening to American pop. Around the same time, Korean music critics lamented that younger Koreans were no longer listening to Western pop as they once had. Perhaps I was not the only one.

Over the last decade, I have met hundreds of American K-pop fans as a K-pop ethnographer. My first question is always the same: “Why do you like K-pop?” The question carries an assumption: “If K-pop is merely a copy of American pop, as some critics dismissively claim, why listen to the replica rather than the original?”

Their responses were surprisingly similar, as if they had compared notes. K-pop was “magical” and “catchy,” while American pop was “boring” and “always the same.” According to these fans, while American pop stars sang “too much about sex, drugs, and parties,” K-pop offered “dreams, fantasies, and self-growth,” often through elaborate alternative “universes” in which idols developed distinct personas and narratives.

This idea of “universe” was first systematically introduced to K-pop in 2012, when SM Entertainment debuted EXO as extraterrestrial beings from “EXO Planet,” each endowed with a supernatural power. Since then, world-building has become increasingly intertwined with K-pop’s integration of music, dance, costume, stage design, fashion, beauty, digital media, and more recently, virtual idols and AI production, making K-pop an increasingly audiovisual, narrative, and participatory cultural form for audiences worldwide.

Parallel to the fantasy world presented on stage and through mass media, entertainment companies—especially those with smaller budgets and limited access to traditional media networks—began to use online platforms to communicate with fans by revealing more down-to-earth, behind-the-scenes moments. BTS became one of the most prominent examples through its YouTube series BANGTAN BOMB, which captured offstage moments that portrayed the members as humble, playful, and hardworking. Fans, in turn, voluntarily created subtitles in multiple languages, helping introduce BTS to international audiences and expand its global fanbase.

Few popular music industries have institutionalized fan participation as intensively as K-pop. Idol groups compete against one another every week on televised music chart shows, relying heavily on various forms of fan labor, including album purchases, song and music video streaming, and fan voting.

K-pop fans have developed highly coordinated strategies to influence chart performance, spending considerable time, energy, and money to push their favorite idols’ new releases to the top. The scale of this participation can be striking: In 2023, 19 of the top 20 albums on IFPI’s Global Album Sales Chart—which measures physical album sales and full-album downloads worldwide—were by South Korean acts. This collective fandom power became especially visible in 2017, when BTS won Billboard’s Top Social Artist award, a fan-voted prize that helped propel the group into the center of American mainstream attention—a kind of “fan-forced entry” into the American market, as ARMYs sometimes jokingly put it. BTS went on to win the award five consecutive times, from 2017 to 2021, until the category was discontinued the following year.

K-pop’s power in the modern music landscape

Today, people no longer rely on MTV to learn about new releases. Nor do they simply listen to music. They actively seek out new music on platforms such as Spotify and YouTube and participate in fan discussions on X and TikTok. Fans also use these platforms to pressure media and entertainment companies through organized protests, boycotts, and coordinated online campaigns.

Fan power certainly existed in the old media era, but digital media has made it more immediate, visible, and able to reach beyond the boundaries of individual fandoms. Organized fan communities directly influence entertainment companies’ decisions. This means that media industries—including the American music and entertainment industries, which have long served as powerful gatekeepers in the global music market—may not exercise the same degree of control over which artists gain visibility and recognition.

Why, then, is BTS refusing to submit its music for Grammy consideration? The Recording Academy presents Best Asian Pop Music Performance as a genre category determined by musical style, yet its eligibility rules make language a crucial condition of entry.

The Academy states, “The musical style is determinative of eligibility, not the ethnicity or nationality of the performer(s).” Yet it also requires that “an Asian language should play a significant role within the song,” while “incidental or minimal use of an Asian language” does not qualify. A recording performed entirely in English is therefore ineligible for the category. The Academy also prohibits artists from entering different language versions of the same recording in separate performance categories.

For K-pop artists who often release both Korean- and English-language versions of the same song, submitting the English version in another performance category means they cannot separately submit the Korean version for Best Asian Pop Music Performance.

This creates a dilemma. An English-language recording cannot qualify as Asian Pop, while recordings primarily performed in Asian languages have historically had little presence among the Grammy General Field winners.

But before considering this dilemma, a more fundamental question arises: If eligibility is determined by musical style, what does language have to do with it? Why should a K-pop act’s music be labeled “Asian” on the basis of language—and if a recording is performed entirely in English, does it somehow cease to be “Asian pop”? More importantly, why must Asian artists prove their Asianness, rather than simply being recognized as individual musicians, as Western artists often are?

What is ‘Asian pop?’

This raises another question: What, exactly, constitutes “Asianness” in music? K-pop, J-pop, and C-pop, for instance, are only a few of the many musical cultures that may be grouped under the label “Asian,” yet they use different languages and emerge from distinct musical industries and cultural histories. On what musical grounds, then, are they grouped together under a single category called “Asian Pop”?

BTS’s decision not to submit its music for Grammy consideration was a bold one. At the same time, the group can afford to say no. We now live in a world where BTS can walk away from the Grammys and filmmaker Bong Joon Ho can famously call the Oscars “very local.” Artists like BTS can turn instead to other mainstream platforms and reach audiences around the world. The Grammys remain prestigious, but they are no longer the only institution capable of conferring global recognition.

Other K-pop acts will likely continue to submit their work to the Grammys’ Asian Pop category, but not necessarily in pursuit of the symbolic recognition historically attached to the award. They may instead regard it as one among many opportunities for media exposure and broader audience reach.

This leaves us with one last lingering question: Can every “Asian” musician afford to say no to the Grammys? BTS can walk away and still remain mainstream artists in South Korea, receiving recognition through platforms such as the Melon Music Awards and MAMA Awards. But what about Asian American musicians in the United States, for whom the American music industry is not a foreign market they can simply leave behind, but their own domestic mainstream?

The Recording Academy says it wants to celebrate an Asianness that is “widely recognized within Asian markets, including K-Pop, J-Pop, and C-Pop.” But where, then, does that leave Asian American artists whose music may be rooted in the United States rather than in an “Asian market”? For them, the United States is not a foreign market, but home.

The larger question, then, is whether “Asian” can meaningfully function as a cultural category. The Grammys have bet that it will.

My concern is that this framing threatens to collapse distinct cultures into one. A label as broad as “Asian” does not by itself imply a shared language, culture, or musical tradition. Pop music may be more global than ever, but not every artist gets to be just pop.

A few months ago, a new patient sat down in my office and started talking before I had finished my hello. She hadn’t slept well in months, and it showed. She was short with her husband, tired at her desk, and dreading her own bed as if it had betrayed her. My patient turned her phone toward me the way you would hand over bad bloodwork. A sleep score: 61 out of 100. “Look how bad it is,” she said.

I see it all the time. An ordinary bad week or two of sleep turned serious by constant monitoring. For a growing number of my patients, rigid discipline and the effort to sleep perfectly can tip a rough patch of poor sleep into a diagnosis of clinical insomnia.

How did we get here? For decades, sleep was an afterthought. It was the first thing people cut when ambition or parenting demanded more. Thomas Edison called sleep “an absurdity, a bad habit,” and believed his lightbulb would free us from needing it at all. Then, over the last decade, we swung hard the other way. Arianna Huffington’s collapse and Matthew Walker’s best-selling book Why We Sleep turned sleep into a public-health alarm. Wearables placed a number on what used to be a feeling, and adequate sleep became a status symbol. Within a few years, the trend bloated further into “sleepmaxxing,” the latest iteration of optimizing sleep as aggressively as a workout.

Sleep clinicians have named what happens when that grading goes too far. Orthosomnia is an unhealthy preoccupation with achieving perfect sleep that produces the insomnia it was meant to prevent. The condition is a parody of itself. You cannot relax your way to good sleep while obsessively checking whether you are relaxed enough to get sleepy.

Orthosomnia doesn’t have one cause. I often see it begin in earnest attempts at improving sleep hygiene. These are the standard sleep rules most of us absorbed by osmosis: consistent bedtime, no screens before bed, no caffeine after noon. These rules are not wrong. The delivery is the problem. Handed over as a checklist rather than a set of leads worth trying, ordinary advice becomes a pass-or-fail test. After one bad night, the panic sets in. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I fix this? Orthosomnia has taken hold.

Sleep hygiene guidance was built on general associations between behavior and sleep quality, drawn from population averages. Along the way, it calcified into a moral checklist, and a surprisingly rigid one. Patients express genuine shame at “failing” sleep hygiene because they scrolled their phone in bed once, or napped on a Sunday, or had a glass of wine with dinner. None of that failure is clinical. But people start to feel that way when flexible advice is treated as dogma. 

Applied uniformly, sleep hygiene ignores an obvious fact. Sleep is not the same for everyone. A rule that calms one person's nervous system agitates another’s. Some anxious patients sleep better with the TV on. Others, especially shift workers and jet-lagged travelers, need a hard digital cutoff.

The rules were written for the average person who does not exist. They are obsessed over every night by people who very much do.

Even for chronic insomnia, sleep hygiene alone does not solve the problem. British researchers ran a large primary care trial and found that simply providing a sleep hygiene booklet barely moved the needle. A short course of behavioral treatment worked more than twice as well. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine had already reached the same conclusion, advising against using sleep hygiene as a stand-alone treatment for chronic insomnia.

I advise my patients to treat sleep-related lifestyle interventions as a menu instead. Individualize it. Some will work, and some won’t. The only way to find out is to test them one at a time, with nothing riding on the result. Maybe consistent wake times matter more than consistent bedtimes. Maybe a Sunday afternoon nap is harmless. Maybe the phone in bed is fine as long as it’s not the news. What doesn’t work, you cross off. What’s left is your menu, and you don’t order the same thing every night. It changes as your life does.

A sleep menu is a harder sell than a checklist. The certainty of itemized requirements is what anxious sleepers chase. But certainty is a trap. In my experience, what predicts recovery from sleep issues is permission: the willingness to stop treating a bad night as a failure, and to start treating sleep as something worth understanding on your own terms.

My patient with the sleep score did eventually sleep better, in part because she stopped checking her stats every morning like a report card. She discarded her old sleep hygiene rules and adopted a personal sleep recipe that belonged to her. 

Sleep isn’t something to master. It’s a menu you keep rewriting, a recipe you keep adjusting, until it fuels the life you actually live.