Most Americans think that Donald Trump is profiting off the presidency either illegally or unethically, according to a new AP-NORC poll. The findings, published Tuesday, also illustrate that the President is perceived as prioritizing his business ventures above the country.

According to the poll, which surveyed 2,140 adults from Sept. 24 to 28, 4 in 10 respondents believe he has done something illegal and another 18% see his actions as unethical but not illegal.

Read More: 3 Ways Trump’s Wealth Has Soared Since He Returned to Office

A majority of respondents (56%) also said Trump has prioritized his personal business interests “a lot,” while only 23% said he has prioritized the country overall. Just 11% say he has prioritized “people like them,” while half of respondents said Trump has not prioritized people like them at all.

Republicans were much more likely than Democrats or Independents to say that the president prioritized the country overall; however, they were not without criticism. Only about 1 in 10 Republicans said Trump had done something illegal; most said he had done nothing wrong or that they did not know enough to judge.

“It's fairly unprecedented how much wealth increase this President has gotten in the past two years,” Raymond La Raja, a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst and the co-director of the UMass Poll, tells TIME. 

He points to last year, when a business tied to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) invested half a billion dollars into Trump’s crypto ventures, raising conflict-of-interest questions from watchdog organizations and lawmakers. According to his latest annual financial disclosure from June 30, Trump earned more than $1.4 billion from these ventures last year alone.

“It's really a structural conflict-of-interest that he is regulating policies that directly benefit his family—and it's also incentivizing not just Americans, but foreign entities, like the United Arab Emirates, to invest in his family's projects,” he says. “So that's really worrisome.” 

A separate UMass Amherst poll, conducted in August, points to broader concerns about government corruption. It showed that 75% of respondents noted a “great” amount of corruption in the federal government. Another 53% ranked the presidency as the “most corrupt institution in government”—above the Supreme Court, Congress, and the federal bureaucracy as a whole. 

A majority of respondents (54%) said it was “definitely” corrupt for a public official to use their office to benefit themselves or their family financially, even if doing so was legal. Another 29% said it was “probably” corrupt.

Why Trump’s wealth and the economy could matter in the midterms

La Raja argues that the amount that constituents care about a politician’s enrichment or find it “unethical” often depends on how the country is doing overall.

“If you look at other countries when there's some time when there's somebody who's perceived as corrupt, people are more likely to tolerate it if the economy is booming,” he says, pointing to countries like Hungary. “But when the promise of prosperity is not showing up for the electorate, then they start to say, ‘What's going on?’ And that's when corruption looms larger.”

Just 28% of 2,275 respondents approved of Trump’s handling of jobs and the economy, according to a Financial Times/Focaldata poll released Tuesday. Consumer prices were up 3.4% in August from a year earlier, the latest figure available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Two sources of price pressure have been Trump’s tariffs and the U.S. war with Iran. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026. The war has also driven up fuel prices, raising costs for industries that rely heavily on diesel. 

“[Trump] promised a better economy, and now inflation is up,” La Raja says. “There’s a war, and importantly, the war is linked to inflation.”

The AP-NORC poll comes less than a month before the midterm elections, where the Republican Party is looking to hold onto its majorities in the House and the Senate. Experts are viewing the midterms not just as a referendum on Trump, but whether Republican candidates’ connections to Trump will help—or harm—them on Election Day.

“Presidential approval often serves as a political anchor in midterm elections—meaning dissatisfaction with Trump could extend to Republican candidates down the ballot, particularly among independents and suburban voters,” Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, tells TIME. “Even Republicans who are personally popular may find it difficult to separate themselves from perceptions of the President.”

According to Rottinghaus, concerns around “presidential self-enrichment” are not unique to Trump. In fact, a 2023 AP-NORC poll asking respondents about former President Joe Biden’s handling of his son’s overseas business deals invoked similar concerns about conflict-of-interest that fell along partisan lines. 

“But Trump's extensive business interests have made the issue particularly visible,” Rottinghaus continues. “Historically, voters have often judged presidential ethics through a partisan lens, with supporters more willing to excuse questionable conduct and opponents more likely to interpret it as evidence of broader problems with presidential accountability.”

How much income did Trump report in 2026?

Supporters are being told that the President took a financial hit by returning for a second term.

“There’s no financial gain like the past Presidents have had. It’s cost him to be in office,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told attendees at an Oct. 1 rally in Durant, Oklahoma.

According to his 927-page financial disclosure for 2025, Trump’s total reported revenue was $2.2 billion. In comparison, his total reported revenues for 2024 were closer to $622 million.

That spike can largely be attributed to the $1.4 billion windfall he received from his family’s crypto venture, including more than $550 million from World Liberty Financial token sales—nine times the amount he earned from the same token sales in 2024. 

Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, has also capitalized on his second term by expanding its real estate, golf, and licensing footprint in the Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia and Qatar—two countries that have become crucial to U.S. foreign policy, especially amid the war with Iran. These deals alone garnered around $14 million, according to filings from July 2026.

The overlap between Trump’s business interests and the presidency could extend beyond his time in office.

His representatives have proposed building a retreat for future presidents on land beside Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. The club would pay for the lodging and provide government access free of charge, while Trump’s family business would continue to operate the adjoining golf course. Local officials are considering the plan, which could make the private club a destination for influential political visitors long after Trump leaves the White House.

President Donald Trump is facing growing backlash over his plan to import diesel from Russia, with some Republican and Democratic lawmakers insisting that the controversial deal “violates” the law.

Congress four years ago passed the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act, which prohibits U.S. imports of Russian-origin energy products covered by Chapter 27 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, including diesel. Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, the bill's chief sponsor, argued Monday that Trump is “directly violating that law” by “lifting sanctions to permit the first Russian diesel imports into the United States since the law took effect, without satisfying the specific legal conditions it requires.”

He suggested the lack of congressional oversight on Trump’s deal with Putin renders it unlawful, and noted how the plan showcases a sharp turn from Washington, as it comes just weeks after Trump signed a sweeping Russia sanctions bill intended to target the country's financial institutions and the energy industry, which has largely financed the assault on Ukraine. The sanctions bill was named after Lindsey Graham, the late Republican Senator who spent the final year of his life building support for the measure.

“Russia can [now] export fossil fuel to the U.S. after Trump violated the specific provisions of a federal statute,” Doggett said on Tuesday in a statement to TIME. “While offering little benefit for Americans, this unlawful action will provide substantial new funding for Putin‘s war machine to continue murdering Ukrainian civilians.”

Doggett’s concerns match those of Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who told NBC’s Meet the Press over the weekend that he believes “there’s a legitimate case for saying the President’s not following the law.”

Tillis was one of seven Senators who publicly urged the Administration on Sunday to “immediately reverse course” on the agreement announced Friday, arguing that it goes against the 2022 law.

“Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine,” read the statement co-signed by Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and John Curtis of Utah, alongside Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

“President Trump’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the U.S. runs directly counter to that law. The Administration has also failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation to justify its decision as required by statute,” they said.

In a letter sent to Trump on Tuesday, Tillis, Collins, and Murkowski, were joined by fellow Republican Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, John Cornyn of Texas, and Alan Armstrong of Oklahoma alongside six Democratic Senators as they told the President the deal “is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies [and] should be rescinded.” The letter came a day after Trump publicly dismissed the criticism stemming from within his own party.

"Well, I think these are Republicans that can't really be serious," he told reporters at the White House. “Anything that could help our farmers, our ranchers, I like.”

Trump’s deal to "immediately" supply 300,000 tons of diesel to American and global markets comes as he faces growing political pressure ahead of the November midterms. Spiraling energy costs have become a key concern for voters, threatening to undermine Republican efforts to maintain their majorities in Congress. The financial upheaval has meant that Trump risks losing his hold on farm country. However, experts are skeptical that an influx of Russian fuel will bring relief to struggling Americans, given how short the supply is due to the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.

While some lawmakers also predict the impact on American consumers will be slight, the key sticking point for many centers on whether Trump’s diesel deal with Putin violates the 2022 law, with some Republicans and Democrats insisting that Trump is pushing the limits of presidential authority. Here’s what to know about the debate—and where legal experts stand on the matter.

According to the 2022 law, what must happen for the import ban on Russian diesel to be lifted?

While Presidents typically have broad authority to waive sanctions, Congress placed specific limits on that power in the April 2022 legislation, says Kristen Eichensehr, a professor of law at Harvard Law School.

“In many sanctions authorities, the President has broad authority to waive imposition of the sanctions or to issue licenses that basically provide an exception to the sanctions,” she tells TIME. “The [2022 act] is an unusual law, given how careful and specific Congress was in providing that the President lacks that flexibility.”

Under Section 3 of the legislation, the President must first consult with the House Ways and Means and Foreign Affairs Committees, along with the Senate Finance and Foreign Relations Committees, and submit a report at least 45 days before providing the required certification.

Lawmakers have argued that the Administration has failed to follow this process.

“The President has to provide a certification to Congress in advance before lifting the prohibition,” says Eichensehr, pointing to the specific criteria set out in the wording of the law.

The law requires a determination by the President to Congress that the Russian Federation has withdrawn and ceased hostilities accepted by Ukraine; poses no immediate threat to any NATO member; and recognizes the right of the Ukrainian people to freely and independently choose their own government.

But Eichensehr insists that these are “not certifications that the President could make at the current moment” because “none of those things have happened, and that's the main restriction in the law.”

Even if all these conditions were met, the legislation would still require the President to wait an additional 90 days before the termination of the import ban could take effect, during which, Congress could enact a joint resolution of disapproval.

“On the substance, the President cannot, as a factual matter, make the certifications because Russia is still attacking Ukraine,” says Eichensehr. “As a procedural matter, [because he reportedly has not consulted Congress], he hasn't followed the process that the law sets out.”

Edward Swaine, a research professor at George Washington University Law School, suggests these restrictions were put in place to ensure that “when the President and the Treasury Secretary decide that circumstances have changed, they go back and explain this to Congress, and give it notice so that it can disagree.”

“The President is supposed to make this determination that Russia has withdrawn its forces and doesn't pose any further threat of aggression. These are fairly high standards,” he tells TIME, noting that the statue provides “Congress with adequate notice to allow it to generate a joint resolution of disapproval.”

“They don't want the President to be able to change this regime on a whim, and so I imagine Congress looking at this action and justifiably thinking that this is inconsistent,” he adds.

Treasury says the diesel deal is being carried out within the legal authorities

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has defended the legality of the agreement, insisting that the Trump Administration is acting within its existing legal authority to help bring energy prices down.

“We’re doing it with all the legal authorities we have, so anyone in Congress who says that—whether it’s an old bill or the current Lindsey Graham bill—prohibits us from doing it, is wrong,” he told Fox News on Sunday, without elaborating on which legal authorities he was referring to.

On Friday, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a temporary general license authorizing transactions involving Russian diesel fuel, including its importation, until April 7, 2027.

Swaine says that the Administration could argue that “the general license isn't [a] termination of the statutory prohibition; it's a suspension.”

“The [Treasury] Secretary could say this isn't the same thing as ending the prohibition on imports, it's just suspending it until April,” says Swaine. “The second thing [the Administration] could say is that it doesn't apply to all affected products, just a subcategory concerning diesel fuel, so there's [potentially] a difference between the actions that are required for the President to terminate the entire program and the actions that the Secretary is taking here.”

Responding to claims on social media that Bessent and the White House had broken the law, the Office of the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, part of the Treasury, insisted that the Administration had followed established procedures.

“The granting of this general license is consistent with similar actions previously taken by OFAC and is in compliance with all applicable laws,” the office said over the weekend.

The OFAC permitted transactions involving Russian oil and petroleum products already loaded on vessels, including from vessels previously under U.S. sanctions, to Indian ports in March; the office had also allowed the entry of specified diamonds in August that had been outside Russia before set cutoff dates under a previous Executive Order.  

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

How Congress could challenge Trump's diesel deal

Lawmakers could pursue congressional oversight and other political measures to challenge the Administration’s decision.

Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania has already announced plans to introduce “bipartisan legislation to block any and all purchases of Russian oil” under the proposed “Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act.” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who has clashed with Trump on other high-profile issues, said he has agreed to co-sponsor the bill, because “Congress must make a stand.”

However, experts tell TIME what Congress is able to do may be limited to more of a symbolic display rather than anything that can move the needle.

“There's limited ability of Congress to do much besides pass legislation and politically enforce that,” says Swaine, suggesting that methods such as “withholding money, appropriations, and hearings” could be used if the situation escalated to that point.

Cornell University said on Tuesday that it is barring fraternity houses from hosting parties for the remainder of the academic year in an effort “to strengthen campus safety” after the school faced widespread backlash over its handling of an alleged gang rape by fraternity members in 2024.

Cornell President Michael I. Kotlikoff announced the news in a letter addressed to the campus community, which said that the ban will be effective immediately. He also outlined ways that the university would work to improve how it handles allegations of sexual assault in the future. In addition to strengthening campus safety, he addressed the need to provide better support to survivors—which involves allowing the New York State Police to independently investigate sexual assault allegations—and change the social culture at the university.

Cornell did not respond to questions about how the new measures would be implemented or tracked, but referred TIME to its FAQ page regarding the 2024 incident.

The announcement comes about a month after a woman, known as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit against several entities, including Cornell, the Chi Phi fraternity, and seven members of Chi Phi that she alleges sexually assaulted her in 2024. The case has made national headlines, and many people have criticized how Cornell and local authorities handled the incident. Hundreds of students and staff members held a protest on campus earlier this month, with some calling for Kotlikoff to resign and others chanting phrases like “Ban the frats!”

Read More: After the Cornell Case, Should Colleges Ban Fraternities?

In his letter on Tuesday, Kotlikoff addressed the backlash, saying that his conversations with various members of the campus community and the campus protests “have underscored my deep conviction that we must do better: that the time for meaningful and lasting change at Cornell, and at campuses across the country, is now.” 

“I am deeply sorry for the harm Jane Doe suffered in 2024, and appalled that this act of sexual violence occurred within our Cornell community,” Kotlikoff said. “It is clear that women on our campus continue to question whether they are safe. We must meet this moment by acknowledging where we have fallen short and taking meaningful action.”

Amid mounting pressure, Cornell’s Board of Trustees announced earlier this month that Sally Yates, a former acting U.S. attorney general, will lead an independent review into how the school handled the case. Kotlikoff also addressed the review in his letter, but said “it is clear that we cannot wait for these findings to take action.” Cooperation with the New York State Police would coincide with the independent review; Kotlikoff said in his letter that investigators will interview survivors who decide to pursue criminal charges and “prepare comprehensive investigative summaries for the appropriate law enforcement agency.”

Kotlikoff said that Interfraternity Council houses will be barred from holding parties and social events, which “will provide time for a thorough review of fraternity life at Cornell to determine whether and how it can safely continue.” He added that the university will have a “zero tolerance” policy if fraternities violate the new rule, and that any fraternity that hosts “an in-house party or social event will receive an immediate emergency suspension.” Cornell has previously said that the Chi Phi fraternity on campus "was closed in 2024 and remains barred from campus."

Other measures that Kotlikoff announced include strengthening support for survivors, such as by adding staffers to the Cornell Office of Civil Rights, and “changing the social culture at Cornell” through several initiatives, such as enhancing “existing education and programming to address the bystander effect.”

“These are first steps toward systemic change on our campus,” Kotlikoff said. “We will take all necessary steps to address the conditions that led to Jane Doe’s experiences, and those of other survivors. Cornell must be a place where safety is not an open question.”

Here’s a workout tip that sounds like it belongs in a nursery rhyme: Bring your toes toward your nose. That’s how physical therapist Joseph Hribick reminds patients to do toe raises. Fortunately, it’s not a flexibility test: Your toes don’t have to get anywhere near your face. Keep your heels on the floor, lift the fronts of your feet, and you’ll work the muscles along your shins.

“Each time we step, we need to be able to clear our toes from the ground,” says Hribick, a clinical assistant professor of physical therapy at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. Otherwise, your toes could snag on the carpet or catch as you walk through a doorway, making you more likely to trip.

If you’ve ever done calf raises, you know the opposite move: lifting your heels and rising onto the balls of your feet. Toe raises give the other side of your lower legs some attention. They require no equipment, you can do them while you’re sitting at your desk, and they can make your shins burn (in a good way) after surprisingly few reps.

What are the benefits of toe raises?

The star of the toe raise is the tibialis anterior, a muscle that runs along the front of your shin. It helps lift your foot as your leg swings forward—and then controls how your foot lowers after your heel touches the ground, Hribick says.

Your calves do the opposite job: They help push you forward. Daniel Safford, an assistant professor of physical therapy at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, suggests giving both sides of your lower legs some attention. “You’re covering a lot of your bases if you do just those two things,” he says of calf raises and toe raises.

That can be especially useful if the muscles that lift your feet are weak. But will adding toe raises to your day make you a faster runner or keep you from falling? “That’s a little bit more of a question mark,” Safford says. Those muscles matter for walking and balance, but studies haven’t established that toe raises alone deliver those bigger benefits. Still, they’re a useful addition to a routine that also works your calves and challenges your balance.

How to do toe raises correctly

You can do toe raises sitting or standing; if your balance isn’t what it used to be, choose the chair. Plant both feet on the floor and lift the fronts of your feet while keeping your heels down. The balls of your feet should come up along with your toes—wiggling your toes alone doesn’t count. Take one to two seconds to lift, pause briefly, then two to three seconds to lower. “If you just bring your toes up and let them slam down, you’re not getting as much of a benefit,” Hribick says.

For a bigger challenge, try them standing. That means your legs are supporting your weight, and staying steady adds a challenge, so hold on to a sturdy counter. Lift the fronts of both feet at once. It’s fine to shift a little weight onto your heels, Safford says, but don’t lean your whole body backward to get your feet off the floor. Lift as high as you comfortably can; even if your feet barely budge, the muscles are still working.

Shoes or bare feet? Whichever you prefer. Barefoot, you may even get a glimpse of the exercise in action: Safford says the tendons can “kind of pop out on the top of the foot” as you lift, a bit like the tendons on the back of your hand.

How many toe raises should you do—and how often?

Start with five to 10 repetitions a few days a week, Safford suggests. That might sound almost too easy, but try a set before you decide. “You might feel more fatigued than you’d expect,” Hribick says.

As your shins get used to the exercise, add a few reps. Safford says you could eventually work up to 20 repetitions on most days of the week, but give yourself a couple of months to get there. “You don’t wanna go for broke,” he says. Mild soreness is possible when you start; if you have pain that’s severe or won’t go away, stop and get it checked out. The same goes for a new problem lifting your foot or toes that keep catching on the floor. 

The best part about toe raises is that you can do them almost anywhere. Try a set at your desk, or do them standing at the bathroom sink. “You could do it when you’re brushing your teeth,” Safford says. “Just hold on to the counter.”

Cancer can seem random. It’s often the result of many factors, including genetic mutations that build up over a lifetime of exposure to sun, pollution, and other sources of DNA damage, combined with a person’s genetic predisposition. DNA damage accumulated over time can weaken the body’s ability to suppress out-of-control cell growth, which is how tumors form. 

But infections are another significant cause of cancer. Uncovering the links between certain infections and cancers raises the hope that by preventing infection, one could prevent certain malignancies. A recent report from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published in the Lancet Oncology found that 12% of new cancer cases in 2024—the most recent year for which data were available—were caused by 12 infections.  

Which infections are associated with cancer?

Certain human papillomaviruses, or HPV, are behind the majority of cervical cancers and a number of head and neck cancers as well, says Harriet Rumgay, an epidemiologist at IARC who is an author of the new report. About 4% of new cancer diagnoses in 2024 could be attributed to HPV infection. 

Doctors and researchers have known for decades that hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections also drive many cases of liver cancer, linked to 2% and less than 1% of new diagnoses respectively, according to the report. 

There is also strong evidence linking Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that infects the stomach and small intestine, with gastric cancers. This infection was calculated to be behind about 4% of new diagnoses. And Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), which causes mononucleosis and affects more than 90% of the world’s population, was involved in around 1% of new diagnoses, including lymphomas, nasopharyngeal cancers, and gastric cancers. Seven other infections, including HIV, were also flagged as carcinogens in the study.   

Most people who have these infections will not develop cancer. It’s not also immediate—there may be a years-long delay. And infection is often only one of a number of factors contributing to a given cancer. For instance, when it comes to the relatively high rates of EBV-driven nasopharyngeal cancers in China, researchers believe that some genetic predisposition and environmental factors are also involved. 

Why do some infections cause cancer?

It depends on the infection. In the case of HIV, the virus suppresses the immune system, making it easier for other carcinogenic viruses to replicate. H. pylori causes tissue damage and produces toxins that destabilize the body’s natural control of cellular growth and division, which can lead to cancer. 

With EBV, says Claire Shannon-Lowe, a virologist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. who studies EBV and cancer but was not involved in the research, it has to do with how the virus hides within immune cells called B cells. “It's a whole host of things that the virus itself is doing to the B cell to make it continually grow,” she says. That includes blocking normal cellular housecleaning procedures that would both root the virus out and arrest cancer development. 

How can these cancers be prevented?

Some of these infections have treatments. H. pylori can be cleared with antibiotics, for example, reducing the risk of gastric cancer, and treating HIV reduces cancer risk from the infection as well. Some other infections on the list have vaccines.

In fact, for some of these vaccines, cancer prevention was a major goal driving their development. “The hepatitis B virus vaccine was the first vaccine that was developed against cancer,” says Rumgay. Likewise, the HPV vaccine, which was approved 20 years ago, is intended to prevent cervical cancer. Cancer epidemiologists may start seeing the effects of widespread HPV vaccination in future analyses, Rumgay says. “More and more people who have been vaccinated are starting to reach the age where we would potentially see the impact on cervical cancer rates or other cancer rates,” she says.  

However, these vaccines aren’t making it to everyone who might benefit from them. In the U.S., hepatitis B vaccination rates in newborns have declined steeply over the last two years.

For other infections, no vaccines are available. For EBV, a nearly ubiquitous virus with a long, clearly documented history of contributing to cancer, “we don't have an effective vaccine yet, or an effective way of preventing it,” says Rumgay. “This is something that we want to highlight with our study.” 

Historically, it was difficult to interest pharmaceutical companies in vaccines for viruses like EBV that are common and nonlethal, says Lawrence Young, a virologist and emeritus professor of molecular oncology at University of Warwick in the U.K. who has spent his career studying cancer and EBV. (Young was not involved in the IARC research.)

But thanks in part to research suggesting EBV might be involved in multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disorder, “they've all become very interested,” he says. A number of vaccine candidates are now being studied, with some in clinical trials. 

For some of the infections implicated by the latest study—the Kaposi-sarcoma associated herpes virus, in particular—there’s need for much more research into prevention, says Rumgay. The hope is that “these new findings might stimulate more development in that area,” she says. 

Friday the 13th is proof that a movie need not be a cinematic masterpiece to become a franchise-fueling horror classic. Sean S. Cunningham’s low-budget 1980 film brought the teen-slasher thrills of Halloween to a summer camp preparing to reopen years after two counselors were murdered there. Its plot was skeletal and its performances workmanlike. The attitude it implied toward sex and drugs was as hysterical as any “Just Say No”-era afterschool special. Yet the movie was also viscerally effective, cycling through the sensations of suspense, titillation, and terror so quickly that, for its hormone-addled young audience in particular, it was impossible to look away. Say what you will about Friday the 13th; it’s not boring.

So it’s extra disappointing that Crystal Lake, an eight-episode Peacock horror series that reboots the franchise around the mother of victim turned bogeyman Jason Voorhees, is such a slog. Four years in the making, it emerges from a development morass involving the departure of original showrunner Bryan Fuller (who had previously reinvented The Silence of the Lambs franchise in his stylish cult crime drama Hannibal) over creative differences with production company A24. Brad Caleb Kane, whose credits include quality shows like Lodge 49 and Tokyo Vice along with It: Welcome to Derry, replaced Fuller, who retains a story credit, in 2024. This might help to explain why the series, premiering Oct. 15, turned out to be such a convoluted, dull, incoherent, ultimately pointless mess. Whatever the reason, it epitomizes everything wrong with the TV adaptations of horror touchstones that IP-crazed streamers keep churning out.

Jason’s mom, Pamela, is the villain of the original movie, where she’s played by Betsy Palmer, though at that point in the franchise she’s identified only as “Mrs. Voorhees.” The boy’s death by drowning in 1957, due to the negligence of the same horny counselors who would be killed the following year, unhinged his mother—to the extent that, in the film, she carries on both sides of conversations she imagines she’s having with him, in a reverse-Norman-Bates type scenario. Mrs. Voorhees enters almost 80% of the way through Friday the 13th and is dead a little over 10 minutes later, her head macheted off in lurid slow motion by final girl Alice (Adrienne King).

The series’ version of Pam is a single mother in early-’70s Crystal Lake, NJ, the small town where the eponymous camp is located. Played by Linda Cardellini, whose casting as a woman who’s equal parts loving and driven by repressed rage is Crystal Lake’s one stroke of genius, she cooks at the camp and the local school by day and cares for Jason by night. Her boy is a sweet preteen who has physical differences (his head is large, bald, and lumpy) and is prone to seizures. Fiercely protective, she enrolls him in Camp Crystal Lake in order to keep him close by, even though the cruel campers ostracize him. But Pam’s helicopter parenting backfires when he disappears in the lake as the two counselors who are supposed to be supervising, Claudette (Danielle Kotch) and Barry (Phoenix Parnevik), sneak off to snog. Jason’s only friend, an empathetic fellow outcast named Grace (Gwendolyn Sundstrom), stumbles upon the couple and freezes, transfixed. By the time Pam realizes something is wrong, Jason has vanished.

But a body is never found, and so she’s convinced her son isn’t dead. In part because of that apparently irrational belief and in part because she’s hurt to see her neighbors moving on so quickly after the death of a child they treated like a freak, she can’t abide the camp reopening the very next year. This is where the plot gets unwieldy. A pair of thugs disguised as state troopers arrive to drag Pam back to some dark past that is only hinted at throughout the first six episodes of the season. She kills them, kicking off a cat-and-mouse homicide investigation led by the local police chief, Levon, a.k.a. Lee (William Catlett), a Black cop whose race underlines his outsider status in a town full of white yokels, and who carries some unspecified baggage from a past stint in Newark. A tentative romance takes root between Lee and the woman he doesn’t realize is on a mini murder spree. He also, conveniently, has a newspaper-reporter sister (Devin Kessler) to help him investigate what brought the victims to Crystal Lake. 

The series plods forward from there, punctuated by some mild scares and semi-inventive kills, generating lots of clutter but negligible momentum. Kane dutifully remixes memorable aspects of the franchise—the snake in the cabin, the sex and drug panic, the trap-door endings. The ‘70s setting is exploited for side plots, from the trendy encounter group to which Pam accompanies liberated diner denizen Rita (a fun but underused Joy Suprano) to an itinerant band of Central Casting hippies, that mostly serve as time wasters. Clichés are nested within clichés; a prototypical penultimate flashback episode takes us back to the ’50s, where every nightmare of suburban womanhood is on display. Crystal Lake invokes various themes, some latent in the movies and some not: small-town racism, fear of difference, corporate cruelty, the strain of sexism that underestimates the anger of a woman like Pam at everyone’s peril. Yet its engagement with these societal ills rarely goes deeper than the acknowledgment that they exist.

Maybe there’s a better show buried under all this. A24 has a reputation for aesthetics, and while this isn’t its most visually inventive work, the retro-VHS flourishes are well done. As she did in Dead to Me, Cardellini makes us feel the love and pain behind Pam’s violence. Grace could’ve been a fascinating character, but she fades away in the final third of the season, before her precociousness and confusion can develop into anything worth exploring. The most intriguing plot twist happens in the flashback episode, yet it’s no sooner introduced than abandoned.

There’s no context in which Crystal Lake would’ve been satisfying. Like too many horror series (Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, Hemlock Grove), it stretches a feature’s share of plot into a season that feels interminable. And like too many horror series adapted movie franchises (I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Purge, Scream), it tries to extend a premise that was never especially rich in its original incarnation and has since been exhausted by endless sequels. But Crystal Lake suffers especially from its poor timing, premiering just a few months after Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a brilliant meditation on how the sex and violence of Friday the 13th and its ilk shoot straight to the subconsciouses of fans who encounter them while still young enough to be figuring out who they are, what turns them on, and what scares them senseless. Schoenbrun understands something crucial that seems to have eluded Kane: It isn’t the characters or the setting or even the creativity of the bludgeonings that make a slasher movie indelible. It’s the way they make us all into Grace, forever changed by a voyeuristic spectacle we may not understand but can never un-see.

Kimberly Guilfoyle on Tuesday announced her resignation as President Donald Trump's Ambassador to Greece, amid a deluge of negative press including allegations that she asked a political donor to handle her $100,000 personal American Express bill.

"Serving as the United States Ambassador to Greece has been the honor of a lifetime," Guilfoyle wrote in a lengthy statement posted to X. "From my first day as Ambassador, I have worked tirelessly to advance President Trump’s America First agenda, strengthen our strategic alliance with Greece, and deliver meaningful victories for the American people."

Guilfoyle's announcement came soon after Katie Zacharia, the White House’s new press secretary, confirmed at her first briefing that Trump had asked for the resignation of Guilfoyle.

“We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign. She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well,” Zacharia said in an unusually brief debut in the briefing room.

Along with recent allegations about her dealings with a campaign donor, Guilfoyle, who was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr. and a major player in the MAGA movement, racked up a reputation for hard partying in Athens and living large as Trump’s personal rep in the region.

Allegations about Guilfoyle's conduct

The controversy began in late September, when The Wall Street Journal published a series of reports about Guilfoyle’s conduct before and during her tenure in Athens. The reports included allegations that she promoted a Greek construction company’s business interests, traveled on private jets and stayed in luxury accommodations paid for by businessmen, and sought money from a Trump donor to cover her personal credit card debt.

In one of the most serious allegations, the Journal reported that Guilfoyle exchanged text messages with businessman Eric Deters, a Trump donor, ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing in July 2025, asking him to wire $100,000 to clear her American Express bill. According to the report, Guilfoyle offered to use her connections to the Trump Administration, including her relationship with Trump Jr., to help Deters gain access to administration officials. Deters told the Journal that he did not pay her.

The Journal also reported that she promoted the Greek construction firm Aktor Group and that its lobbyist, Christos Marafatsos, attended diplomatic meetings across Balkan countries. It reported that Guilfoyle encouraged governments in the region to work with the company. Lawyers for Guilfoyle and Aktor Group disputed allegations that she acted improperly in promoting its business interests.

In another report, the Journal cited an audio recording in which Guilfoyle allegedly discussed luxury travel paid for by businessmen, including a private jet trip to the January 2026 World Economic Forum with Aktor Group CEO Alexandros Exarchou.

Guilfoyle’s lawyers have denied wrongdoing. Her attorney, Jesse Binnall, disputed the authenticity of the reported messages and said the money she sought was payment for earlier unpaid services, including travel and appearances at events before her nomination. 

"These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity," Guilfoyle said in her post on Tuesday announcing her resignation. "I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional. I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service."

The allegations prompted scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties. Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sought answers from Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a September letter, saying the reports suggested potentially corrupt influences on U.S. foreign policy. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, later requested financial and communications records from Guilfoyle, citing public corruption and national security concerns. Senate Republican Majority Whip John Barrasso called the reports “very troubling” and said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would examine the matter.

Guilfoyle's history with Trump's family

Guilfoyle’s departure comes as the controversy has drawn attention to her relationship with the Trump family and her transition from conservative media personality to diplomat. A former prosecutor in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Guilfoyle rose to prominence as a co-host of Fox News’ The Five, which she joined in 2011. She left the network in 2018 and helped raise funds for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign. She was also a witness to events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and met with the House committee investigating the insurrection in 2022.

Trump announced his intention to nominate Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece in December 2024, amid reports that she and Trump Jr. had split. The Senate confirmed her nomination in 2025, and she was sworn in that September, becoming the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to Greece.

Guilfoyle was previously married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender. The two were married from 2001 to 2006, before Newsom became governor.

“Kimberly Guilfoyle was not a member of my family. I guess she dated my son a long time ago,” Trump told reporters outside the White House, shortly after Guilfoyle announced her resignation.

The President suggested Guilfoyle’s ouster was driven by recent negative stories about her coming to light. “We didn’t like what we were reading,” he said.

On Saturday, New Delhi, the Indian capital, was under siege. The Indian government deployed more than 20,000 police and paramilitary personnel, barricaded the city center, and suspended internet access. By evening, more than 7,000 people were detained by the police, including leaders from India’s opposition parties, lawyers, and journalists. Despite the crackdown, thousands turned out in Delhi on Monday to protest with even greater vigor.

The repressive effort sought to deter a planned protest at Jantar Mantar, a traditional protest site in New Delhi. The protest centered on two core demands:  the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner and the rollback of a nationwide process known as Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

The chief election commissioner heads the national electoral body and is appointed on the recommendation of a committee headed by the prime minister. The SIR ostensibly seeks to clean up and update the electoral rolls but has removed 130 million Indians from the rolls—more than half the number of Americans eligible to vote in the midterm elections.

The troubles truly began in the summer of 2025. Several Indian states were about to hold elections for their state legislatures. Ahead of those elections, the Election Commission announced an electoral revision in those states, citing the need to “clean up” electoral rolls. Numerous voters would be required to prove that they were citizens and entitled to be on the rolls by producing one or more documents from a select list. Election Commission officials would scrutinize the documents and either accept or reject them.

Judicial avoidance

Civil society groups and political activists promptly challenged the proposed electoral revisions before the Supreme Court of India in June 2025. They questioned the power of the Election Commission to undertake electoral revisions at such a scale. India’s election law does authorize the commission to undertake a revision of electoral rolls in specific electoral constituencies, provided it records its reasons in writing. The petitioners argued that it does not grant the Election Commission overarching power to require voters already on the rolls to prove their eligibility afresh.

The petitioners also argued that Election Commission’s list of acceptable documents was exclusionary and would result in large scale disenfranchisement. In India, access to documents issued by the government depends heavily on caste, class and gender. Many people simply lack necessary documents or the ability to navigate the bureaucracy to obtain them.

For months, the Supreme Court did not rule on the legality of electoral revisions on such a vast scale, allowing the exercise to become a fait accompli. Instead, it engaged in prolonged courtroom negotiations with the Election Commission over which documents Indian voters would have to provide to remain on the electoral rolls. There was an extended debate on whether Aadhaar, India’s national digital identity document, would be accepted.

But even as the legal debates continued, exclusions from electoral rolls mounted. In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had never won a state election, nine million people—around 12% percent of the electorate—found themselves excluded from the rolls.

Faced with these exclusions, and still unwilling to rule on the legality of the SIR, the Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of creating an entire administrative machinery: tribunals staffed by judicial officers to hear appeals from excluded voters. When the petitioners warned that these tribunals would take years, if not decades, to resolve all the appeals, the Supreme Court judges effectively said that it was fine for excluded people to note vote in the upcoming election as long as they would eventually be put back on the rolls.

The West Bengal election went ahead using the new electoral rolls and the BJP won. One indication of how flawed the SIR may have been was that around 90% of the voters in West Bengal, whose appeals were decided, were eventually restored to the rolls.  Nine out of every ten excluded voters had been wrongfully removed. Yet even as exclusions numbered in the millions in each state, the Supreme Court noted that the data did not indicate “systemic disenfranchisement.”

Unchecked bureaucrats

Eventually, when the Supreme Court finally issued its judgment in the summer of 2026, it upheld the entire exercise. It affirmed the wide powers of the Election Commission to conduct the electoral revisions as it saw fit.

A central argument against the exercise was that by requiring every elector, including those already on the electoral rolls, to prove their eligibility afresh, the Election Commission was treating each individual as presumptively ineligible to vote. This was a grossly disproportionate exercise of power, particularly because more proportionate methods were available to the election commission.

The court rejected this argument too and, I believe, effectively immunized the commission from the requirement to act in a proportionate manner. As the legal scholar Vasudev Devadasan noted, the judgement had the effect of creating a "permanent class" of disenfranchised persons who simply cannot participate in political life.

The consequences soon became apparent: the new BJP government in West Bengal threatened, on more than one occasion, to cut off welfare benefits for people excluded from the electoral rolls through the SIR. Although the Supreme Court noted that the SIR was not meant to determine citizenship, by the summer of 2026, that distinction was becoming difficult to sustain.

Beyond the threat to people’s welfare entitlements, there were widely reported cases of passport renewals being denied because applicants had been excluded from the electoral rolls through the SIR.

In 2020, the Indian government’s attempts to create a National Register of Citizens (NRC) had been widely criticized because of how it would force every individual to prove their citizenship to state authorities, and lead to widespread exclusion. After widespread protests across the country against it, the NRC was shelved. The SIR now appeared to be a way of introducing the NRC through the backdoor.

As the SIR proceeded across multiple states—with large-scale exclusions in each—patterns began to emerge: disproportionate exclusions among vulnerable and marginalized people and of religious minorities, especially Muslims; and the use of algorithms to exclude even voters who possessed the required documents, citing "logical discrepancies" such an arbitrary age gap between parent and child, judged by arbitrary criteria that varied from state to state.

Other disturbing facts also came to light. In certain neighborhoods, people had submitted pre-filled forms in bulk, seeking to have Muslims removed from off the electoral rolls by questioning their citizenship. India’s electoral law allows third parties to object to anyone’s  inclusion on the electoral rolls.

In Delhi, the omission of some prominent people from the rolls provoked public outrage. The Election Commission then introduced a “VIP portal” through which their names could be restored, creating a two-tier system of class privilege.

A tenacious reporter

Against this backdrop, an investigative report by Ritika Chopra, a journalist with the Indian Express newspaper in the last week of September, landed like a bombshell. Her report showed that although the Election Commission’s decisions were supposed to be taken by consensus among its three commissioners, the chief election commissioner had been taking them unilaterally, often over the objections of, and sometimes without involving, the other commissioners. (The Election Commission responded by describing differing “views and observations” as part of “deliberation in any institution.”)

More reports followed, documenting more unilateral decisions, opaque algorithms built by private corporations, and the increasing centralization of authority within the Election Commission to add or remove voters. It was a clear departure from India’s decentralized electoral system, which is designed to guard against decisions made in bad faith.

These reports crystallized latent anger, particularly against the chief election commissioner. Under Indian electoral law, election commissioners are appointed by a committee in which the political executive holds a two-to-one majority; they are, in effect, executive appointments. The Supreme Court’s 2023 attempt to reform this system was bypassed by subsequent legislation. The court then left a challenge to that legislation on the back burner. All of this explains why the chief election commissioner became the primary focus of public anger.

The story of the SIR is both an account of large-scale voter disenfranchisement in India and one of institutional crisis. Two failures converged: the failure to entrench the Election Commission’s independence in law and in the Constitution, and the failure of the Supreme Court to intervene despite evidence of disenfranchisement placed before it. Together they culminated in the furious popular protests in Delhi and the Indian government’s crackdown.

It is difficult to see how this story ends. The right to vote is hard won and its loss keenly felt. History shows that once people lose confidence in the institutions meant to protect that right, restoring their trust is exceedingly difficult. A long shadow hangs over electoral integrity in India. Lifting it will require urgent, systemic reforms. Whether those reforms will come remains uncertain.

On a tense debate stage in Georgia on Thursday, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff branded his opponent a bigot: "You've hired half the Third Reich.”

In Michigan, Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed dismissed former Rep. Mike Rogers as a yes-man for the Trump agenda who is “weak, cowardly, won’t stand up until his poll numbers drop.”

And in Maine, Democratic nominee Troy Jackson denounced Sen. Susan Collins as a war profiteer: “Senator Collins and her husband are making money—more—off this war, and so are a whole bunch of other people.”

The trio of Republicans in those marquee Senate races had their own rejoinders—attempting to paint Ossoff as a trust-fund kid, El-Sayed as having family ties to terrorist networks, and Jackson as being inconsistent on abortion rights. But it was the Democrats’ jabs that were ricocheting across social media like the viral moments that they were intended to be. 

It’s that dynamic that reveals why the Thursday night trifecta of high-profile debates was an anomaly this election season. In dozens of races up and down the ballot, candidates are forgoing the hallowed tradition of facing their opponent in person to debate actual policy.

 In more than half of the races for Governor and Senate, the two major-party candidates are not expected to participate in any debates before Election Day. The trend holds even in races viewed as competitive. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates five races for Governor as true toss-ups. Three—Georgia, Nevada, and Ohio—are not likely to hold a debate. The same is true so far for two of the hardest-fought Senate races—Texas and Ohio.

Strategists explain the evolution as a response to how voters are consuming information. They say few voters watch the debates themselves. The more in-depth coverage of a debate offered by local journalists rarely reaches as many voters as the gaffes and gotchas from the event that are clipped and amplified by partisan media. 

It’s a cliche in the political class that no one really wins a debate, it’s just that someone loses. Sen. Darlene Graham learned that last lesson the hard way. After being appointed to fill the balance of her late brother’s term, her bid for a full term left her stumbling in August through her first debate showing: “I’m just going to be honest here,” she said. “I’m not that informed on national security.” The audience gasped in shock given how much Sen. Lindsey Graham’s legacy was tied to his shaping of U.S. foreign policy.

In Texas, Trump Prods Paxton to Debate 

Nowhere has the debate over whether to debate been more tortured than in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton are vying for a Senate seat. Talarico has been trying to bait Paxton to the stage for months, going so far as to suggest they do it on GOP-friendly Fox News. Paxton has so far refused. 

Which made things all the more awkward last week when Trump inserted himself in the discussion. As Talarico had been missing from the trail for days—his campaign said he was recovering from the flu—Trump mercilessly mocked the Democrat at a San Antonio rally, suggesting he was absent from the trail because he is a secret vegan whose body is rejecting the barbecue he’s been eating at photo-ops. 

The President then punched up the messaging on his way out of Texas, calling on Paxton and Talarico to get together for a debate to show voters who was physically up to the job.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, upon information and belief, James TalaFREAKo, who is running for the United States Senate in Texas, is MISSING IN ACTION!” Trump wrote Wednesday night on his social media platform. “He should immediately report to a Debate Stage against Ken Paxton, who is ready, willing, and able.”

Talarico jumped at the clear opening: “President Trump just said Ken Paxton should debate. I agree,” Talarico said on social media. “Ball’s in your court, Ken.”

Do debates matter?

On-stage debates have long been treated as race-defining moments—the event in which the candidates, unable to lean on spin doctors or teleprompters, show who they really are. 

Of this year’s 36 races for governor, 21 races, or 58%, won’t see a debate between the two major-party candidates, according to a recent ABC News analysis. The same ABC News analysis pegs the share of Senate races likely to reach Election Day without a debate at 60%.

The Brookings Institution has been tracking this trend for a quarter century. In 2000, the top five most competitive Senate races had a combined 17 debates. That number hit single digits in 2018.

Some political pros also question how much debates even matter, particularly in the most hard-fought races where voters are being bombarded with ads. In the fierce Texas Senate race, for instance, voters there have already seen more than $425 million in political ads and counting. Or, as one savvy ad buyer noted, more than four times the cost of the final season of Game of Thrones. 

Two years ago, Donald Trump became the presidential nominee for a third time without ever debating any of his fellow Republicans. His argument then was that he was so far ahead in the polls, there was no point in elevating the also-rans.

A similar argument is being made this cycle in Alabama. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for Governor, has refused to debate former Sen. Doug Jones, saying the evening would be “about differences of opinion” and not actually governing. Republicans argue they’re already all-but-guaranteed a win in the race and putting Jones on the same stage would diminish Tuberville.

And then there’s those who insist they are rejecting a debate on principle. Amy Acton, who is in a tight race to become Ohio’s first Democratic Governor since 2011, has refused to debate the Republican nominee, Vivek Ramaswamy.  Acton’s campaign says it refuses to “platform” Ramaswamy. Or as Acton put it recently: She doesn’t want to debate “a chronic liar.”

The absenteeism from the debate stage in the midterms may be a harbinger of what’s to come in 2028—which is shaping up to be dominated by two crowded and noisy fights for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations. As recently as 2024, trailing Republican candidates fought to claw their way on the main debate stage, lest they end up seated in undercard debates that were often unfavorably compared to a holiday kids’ table. Looking ahead, candidates may rethink that strategy, sidestepping the potentially tough questioning of televised debates in favor of viral moments and base-serving showmanship that they can better control.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who also spent more than $250 million for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, said in May last year that he planned “a lot less” in political spending for future elections—including the upcoming midterms. But newly disclosed donations to Republican groups have since made him the biggest known donor ahead of the November elections.

For the 2026 election cycle, which began in January 2025, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has already spent $366 million—of which more than $276 million went to Republican groups and his super PAC since July—according to new reporting by the New York Times and Reuters. Representatives for Musk gave the media outlets data on his political largess ahead of the Thursday deadline when many super PACs must ​disclose their third-quarter spending.

Of the $276 million, $158 million reportedly went to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tasked with helping Republicans maintain their majority in the chamber; it is one of the largest known political donations in history. Another $20 million went to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which was set up to re-elect House Republicans aligned with House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Musk’s America PAC, which was created for the 2024 elections, received over $76 million to try to reach Republican voters and boost turnout. America PAC ⁠is boosting Republican candidates in seven battleground states and nearly three dozen House races.

Other conservative groups also received funds from the U.S.’s most high-profile billionaire. The Lone Star Liberty PAC, which backs Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign for the U.S. Senate, received $10 million. Paxton, a Trump-backed Republican, is in a tight race with Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico.

Another $10 million went to the Republican Governors Association, and $2 million to the Republican Attorneys ​General Association. The Times also reported that Musk has donated more money through groups that have not disclosed their donors.

Andrew Romeo, spokesman for America PAC, told the Times that the “robust investments have allowed the G.O.P. apparatus to get its message out so Republicans can have a fighting chance to defy history.”

Musk’s donations signal his commitment to the political right and improving his relationship with Trump and the GOP after a public falling out with the President last year and threat to create a third political party. Republicans are looking to defend their majorities in Congress this November, but the task has appeared much harder as Democrats have made major gains among voters disgruntled by Trump’s policies. 

Musk’s evolving attitude toward political spending

Musk’s massive donations for the 2026 midterms are a far cry from his previously conservative approach to political spending, though his positions have changed over the years.

At a 2015 Vanity Fair event, Musk said he would “get involved in politics as little as possible,” adding that he spends only a nominal amount for his business interests. Federal Election Commission records show that in 2015, Musk donated $5,000 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and another $5,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. 

But Musk shifted in 2017: his donations began to lean Republican, and he spent nearly seven times more on GOP campaigns than Democratic ones. In 2018, amid reports that he donated a large sum to a Republican House PAC, Musk posted on then-Twitter that he was “not a top donor to any political party.” Musk took over Twitter in 2022, reinstated Trump’s account, and, months later, rebranded it as X. 

Since then, he’s continued to court the GOP through financing election efforts. During the 2024 election cycle, he created America PAC, though Musk denied reports at the time that he was donating as much as $45 million a month to boost Trump’s election campaign. He’s also targeted swing-state voters, even saying that he would give out a legally questionable $1 million prize to registered voters in a bid to boost turnout.

On an X livestream during the 2024 election, Musk said that America PAC “is going to keep going after this election, and prepare for the midterms and any intermediate elections.”

Musk then took a brief role in the Trump Administration as a special adviser to the President and led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to reduce federal spending. He oversaw a government restructuring effort that disrupted services, eliminated hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, and led to numerous legal battles. As Musk officially stepped down in May 2025 amid a spat with Trump, he said that he thought he had “done enough” of political spending. But he included a caveat: “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason.”

In 2025, Musk apparently saw a reason to channel more funds into political causes, namely midterm primary elections. He first threatened to help defeat lawmakers who voted for the Trump Administration’s gargantuan spending bill, vowing that he would help make them lose their primaries “if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” Musk even suggested he would support Rep. Thomas Massie (R, Ky.), a vocal Trump critic, in his reelection campaign. (Massie would later lose the primary.)  

The latest data on Musk’s spending isn’t surprising, given what’s at stake for him if Republicans lose. 

House Democrats have called for probes into his companies’ government contracts that are worth tens of billions of dollars, as well as into his work running DOGE. He rejects accusations that his companies depend on those contracts: in an Oct. 2 post on X, Musk wrote that “roughly 90% of SpaceX’s revenue this year will be commercial” and that its government revenue for the last quarter of the year will be less than 5%. “SpaceX is FAR MORE commercial relative to the average company in America,” he said.

In a Bloomberg podcast published last month, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said that Democrats had privately told her they planned to subpoena Musk over DOGE if they gained the power to do so. House Democrats have had multiple unsuccessful attempts to subpoena him since Republicans repeatedly blocked them.

I didn’t know the term yet, but early in the second year of my daughter Karuna’s life, I’d fallen into something psychologists call normalcy bias: the tendency to assume that things will continue as they always have, that nothing in our future will diverge too far from what we expect. I already had two healthy children, and assumed that our third would be the same. 

My memories of Karuna’s first year of life are filled with joy. My younger son Sohaum  squeezed her cheeks while saying gleefully, “You’re just mine, you’re all mine,” as she giggled and wiggled on the shaggy carpet next to her crib. My older son Abhay carefully held both her hands in our living room as she tried to take her first steps and then let her go to give her a chance to walk by herself. And my wife, Amisha, who had never seemed so tired, had also never looked so full of unabashed love.

It was the kind of year that feels like it will never end. We had reached the pinnacle, and now we were here to stay. 

But a few months after her first birthday, Karuna began refusing meals. First, she refused the pureed vegetables, then the fruits. She was a bottomless pit for olives and loved rice and daal, but beyond that, she just didn’t eat much. She’s just a picky eater, I thought.

But a few months later, at her 18-month appointment, the standard graph that plotted a child’s weight against their age showed her weight slipping off the curve. She weighed less than 97% of children her age. We needed to do something about it, the pediatrician told us, but we still weren’t too worried.

We started consulting with a nutritionist to see if we could broaden her food preferences and started her on PediaSure to supplement her intake. She’ll be okay, I thought. She’ll catch up. But she got worse.

She stopped eating anything but olives. She became irritable. The nutritionist recommended one bottle of formula per day to supplement her intake, then two, and then multiple bottles per day.

By September 2019, she was sleeping more and tired all the time. We started getting calls from her day care center. While the other children played with blocks and crayons, sitting at their tables, Karuna just wanted to lie on a mat in the corner of the room.

When I noticed her breathing was labored, I took her back to the pediatrician, who listened to her lungs and thought she had pneumonia. After five days on antibiotics, Karuna was no better.

A few days before Karuna’s second birthday, Amisha and I noticed swelling around both of her eyes and fluid accumulating in her eyelids. She was crying, irritable, and breathing rapidly, but my parents had flown in from North Carolina to be with us for her second birthday. They looked so pleased, so melty with love for their first granddaughter, and so we lit the candles and cut the cake.

Normalcy bias means that despite all evidence to the contrary, our mind protects itself. It says: Even if things are bad, they can’t be that bad. It says: Bad things happen to other people, in other places, at other times. It says: Everything will be okay.

But it’s a bias, a logical fallacy, a cognitive blind spot.

The next day, we scheduled an urgent appointment at the clinic. There, the nurse practitioner suggested we get a chest X-ray at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Amisha and Karuna drove off while I went to pick up the boys. I had just arrived at their school when I got the call.

“The X-ray shows her heart is more than double the size of normal,” the doctor said. “Her lungs are filled with fluid.”

My own heart skipped and lurched. I had spent my medical career caring for patients with heart disease and other medical illnesses. I knew what that meant. Our daughter had heart failure.

In crises that develop gradually, like Karuna’s heart failure, we tend to ignore the signs until they reach an acute tipping point. With early signals that are ambiguous and without a clear shock, mobilization lags.

Crises eventually reach what researchers call a moment of liminality (from the Latin limen, meaning “threshold”)—the threshold between what was and what must now become.

After the doctor said heart failure, I knew there was no denying it: We were in crisis. Suddenly, reality set in. Our daughter’s life was on the line. Our family teetered on the cusp of something ragged and broken. Our sense of safety, our sense of normalcy, our sense that everything must be fine because it had been fine—all of that was crushed in the short minutes I spent on the phone that day while my boys tugged at my legs.

Karuna moved into Boston Children’s Hospital’s pediatric ICU, where Amisha and I spent countless sleepless nights. Those days went by in a blur, interrupted by sharp moments of urgency and clarity. I talked cold science with doctors. I held Amisha while nurses put a breathing tube down Karuna’s throat and trachea. I gripped my father when he took me in his arms and held me while sobs shook my chest.

By December, Karuna was back home.

The acute crisis had stabilized, but she was on nearly a dozen medications to support her heart and still didn’t have a clear diagnosis. Her heart cells had been infected with parvovirus B19, the virus that more commonly causes Fifth Disease. At the same time, genetic testing revealed a variation in her genetic code, though it was unclear whether it had caused her illness.

As for the future, the doctor laid out a few scenarios. Her condition could worsen. She might need a heart transplant, and if one was not available, she would die. Her heart might recover partially, but she could need medication to support its function for the rest of her life.

Or she might make a full recovery, though that could take months or years. In the uncertainty, we were meant, somehow, to go back to life as usual.

Four years after Karuna's diagnosis, Amisha and I took our daughter to the cardiologist for her biannual visit. After recovering, she had come off all her medications. Her latest heart ultrasound looked normal. I watched her face soften with relief before turning to the doctor.

“So she’s okay now?” I asked. “We don’t need to come back?”

The doctor smiled gently.

“We still don’t know.”

Today, there is no more certainty than there was on the day Karuna was diagnosed. But maybe that’s the point. 

Actively reflecting on her condition, I find I cherish the small moments with Karuna—watching her play with her brothers or teasing her grandparents—precisely because of the uncertainty inherent in it. 

I wish she had never become so sick, but I also can’t imagine being so conscious of how precious life is if it had gone any other way. Our family has forged stronger relationships because of life’s uncertainty, not in spite of it.

Adapted from SAFER—A Playbook: Turning Fear into Action and Crisis into Community by Raj Panjabi, MD and reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2026.

President Donald Trump on Monday defended his plan to import diesel from Russia amid mounting calls from within his own party to reverse course on the controversial deal. "I made the right choice for the American People—always America first," Trump said of the move.

Lawmakers across party aisles, however, argue that the deal goes against a 2022 law which banned Russian oil imports and is not in the best interests of the American public.

“Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine. Congress was clear: The U.S. should not import oil from Russia until it ends its aggression against Ukraine and ceases threats against our NATO allies,” read a joint bipartisan statement released Sunday by four Republican Senators and three Democrats.

The lawmakers argued that Trump’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the U.S. “runs directly counter to that law” and criticized the lack of congressional overview, insisting that the Administration had failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation over its decision. “The United States should not provide [Russian President Vladimir] Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians. The Administration must immediately reverse course,” they urged.

The statement was co-signed by GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of ⁠Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and John Curtis of Utah, alongside Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Ron Wyden ​of Oregon, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Trump said Friday he had reached an agreement with Putin for Moscow to "immediately" supply 300,000 tons of diesel to American and global markets. The move comes amid a renewed push by the Administration to lower energy prices for Americans, which have skyrocketed since the Iran war began in February. The increased diesel fuel prices have shaken the loyalties of some of Trump’s most ardent support groups, with farmers telling TIME their day-to-day operations are being severely impacted.

In the wake of the diesel supply deal, Trump on Sunday claimed Russia and Ukraine had “agreed” to an energy cease-fire “effective immediately.” However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said Russian strikes overnight and into the morning had included attacks on energy facilities, with 33 people wounded across the country.

“So there were Russian violations of the energy cease-fire announced by President Trump,” said Zelensky. “For now, this is Putin’s answer to Trump—Russian attacks. But we are waiting. We are waiting for the details of the conversation between the Americans and the Russians. We are waiting to see what specific steps the Americans are ready to take.” Trump over the weekend responded to Zelensky's initial criticism of the diesel deal by telling reporters "it's time for Ukraine to get a new President."

U.S. lawmakers pushing back against Trump’s Russia diesel plan had sternly warned against putting trust in Putin.

Sen. Tillis, during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, expressed concern that the diesel deal could place American lives at risk. “These are bad people hanging out with bad people, putting American lives at risk—particularly our Special Operators and forward-deployed personnel,” Tillis said, insisting that Putin “cannot be trusted.”

He also doubled down on his argument that the President’s deal may violate the law passed by Congress four years ago, as it outright banned Russian oil imports unless specific criteria were met, including a full Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.

“I do believe there’s a legitimate case for saying the President’s not following the law,” Tillis said. “We were very clear that Russia is the aggressor. Russia is the one who can end this war by backing out of [the] territory they occupied.”

Just three weeks ago, Trump signed a sweeping Russia sanctions bill, intended to target the country's financial institutions and the energy industry, which has largely financed the assault on Ukraine. The bill was named after Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, the late Republican Senator who spent the final year of his life building support for the measure.

Some Republican lawmakers mentioned this legislation as they criticized the diesel plan. “The President should be using those authorities instead of allowing Russia to export diesel, rake in revenues, and continue its catastrophic war in Ukraine,” said Murkowski.

“I oppose President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on the purchase of diesel from Russia,” said Collins. “I was a co-sponsor of the Russian sanctions law, which the President recently signed, but is now not following.”

TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania announced Saturday he plans to introduce a bipartisan bill intended to stop Trump from lifting sanctions on Russian oil.

“We will be introducing bipartisan legislation to block any and all purchases of Russian oil. It will be called the ‘Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act,’” said Fitzpatrick. 

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who has clashed with Trump on other high-profile issues, said he has already agreed to be a co-sponsor of the bill, insisting that “Congress must make a stand.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has defended the move, insisting the agreement with Russia will work through existing legal channels the U.S. has to help bring prices down.

"We're going to do it with all the legal authorities ‌we have. ⁠So anyone in Congress who says whether it's an old bill or the current Lindsey Graham bill [that] prohibits us from doing it is wrong,” he told Fox News.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso ​of Wyoming has also defended the diesel deal, telling CBS' Face the Nation that the President “​has to make tough ⁠decisions.”

European leaders warn Trump's diesel deal could bolster Russia's war

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.'s foreign policy chief, announced Monday that during a Foreign Affairs Council Meeting in Luxembourg, European Foreign Ministers had adopted nearly 1,600 new sanctions targeting Russia's military-industrial complex, underscoring the contrast between Washington's decision and Europe's continued push to economically isolate Moscow.

Ahead of the sit-down, Lithuania's Kęstutis Budrys led the criticism of Trump's deal with Putin, saying it "doesn't help neither the price of oil products nor the unity of the transatlantic community" and insisting “it is not the European way.” Latvia's Baiba Braže said the bloc’s position has “not changed” and that there “is no other way, just pressure on Russia, [and] support to Ukraine.”

Ireland's Helen McEntee called Trump’s deal “concerning” and agreed that European countries need to "redouble [their] efforts" in keeping the pressure on Russia.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson led the initial response from Europe last week, expressing his “regret” over Trump's deal with Putin and warning that “energy revenues are central to the Russian war chest.” Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal similarly said the agreement was a “big miscalculation,” arguing that it “is opposite to the long-term activities of the western world to limit the flow of energy carriers to Putin.” Both Sweden and Estonia were among the top 10 countries providing aid to Ukraine as a share of their GDP between January 2022 and February 2026.

The U.K. has also opposed Trump's agreement. Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said Sunday that Britain did not support the deal with Putin and would instead look to "strengthen sanctions” against Russia. Prime Minister Andy Burnham acknowledged that “the last 24 hours had been difficult for Ukraine and reiterated his complete solidarity” during a phone call with Zelensky.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also spoke with Zelensky on Sunday and expressed his view that the “agreement is in direct opposition to the efforts of Ukraine, Canada, and our allies to create peace and stability in Europe.”

Eva Erdmann took the helm at Kate Spade New York in the fall of 2024, and has been tasked with leading a turnaround at the fashion brand, owned by Tapestry. The brand’s revenue has been in decline for multiple quarters, but Erdmann is looking to right the ship by streamlining the business and targeting Gen Z consumers nostalgic for the ’90s and attracted to the whimsy of the brand. South African singer Tyla recently became a brand ambassador, and other campaigns have featured Ice Spice, Laufey, and Charli D’Amelio.

Whether it’s in fashion, culture, or politics, “Gen Z is the most influential generation ever in history,” Erdmann believes. She is also tapping into the brand’s sense of fun, from animal-shaped bags to accessories that nod to Kate Spade’s New York City heritage, like a bagel-shaped bag charm or a wallet designed to look like a Metro Card. “Today, in this world, where everything feels very heavy and uncertain and fragmented and isolated at the same time, I think that a brand that brings optimism and joy and lightness has a role to play—has always had a role to play—but even more today, and that's really what we are building at at Kate Spade,” Erdmann says.

The brand, named after co-founder Kate Spade, was launched in 1993 with just six handbag designs. The founders sold it to Neiman Marcus in 2006. The business was later bought by Liz Claiborne, which was then acquired by Tapestry for $2.4 billion in 2017. Designer Spade died in 2018, having changed her name to Kate Valentine in 2016 to "separate the two worlds." 

The fashion brand has become known the world over. “I deeply believe that great brands do more than selling products,” says Erdmann. “They shape culture…they bring a vision on the world, they help people feel differently about themselves, or they solve something for them.” 

Erdmann made the leap to Kate Spade New York from the beauty business, having spent much of her career at L'Oréal, most recently serving as global president of Urban Decay at the company. 

TIME spoke with her earlier this year about navigating that transition, her turnaround effort, and how she’s seeking to preserve the brand’s history.

(This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

You've now been in your role coming up to a couple of years. You were previously at L'Oréal. What lessons did you learn through that transition into the world of fashion?

I've always been very interested in brands with a strong heritage and that have a story to tell, that have a vision on the world, and I've always thought that it's such a precious gift, when you're given a brand with a heritage that you have not only to keep alive, but to reinvent, to modernize for a new generation of consumer. I am very grateful that I worked for brands with fantastic heritage throughout my career, whether it is beauty or now with Kate Spade, so the transition felt very natural to me, and there is much more overlap than we think between the two industries, because at the end of the day, we're talking about an emotional product, we are talking about brands that are doing more than selling products, we are talking about brands that are bringing a vision to the world, offering a very emotional connection with the consumer, so in that sense there is so much similarity between those two industries that it made the transition easier.

I think what I brought from the beauty industry and the CPG (consumer packaged goods) background is that discipline around the consumer, the consumer being at the center of everything, testing before we invest, really organizing everything around the consumer, and also about the discipline to build hero products that you know you're going to become known for. When you build a hero product, you are also building trust with your consumer, because then they know that if they buy something, it's going to still be relevant the next season or the year after, so, when they start investing in that product, you're also building that trust for them in the long term. 

Is there anything that has surprised you since you joined?

Even before I joined Kate Spade, every time I would talk about this brand to friends or acquaintances, they would never tell me, "Oh, I love the brand" or "I love this handbag.” They would always tell me a story—the first handbag they bought for their first job, or the first bag their mother gave to them for their graduation party, or the bag their sister gave to them for that very specific life moment, for their engagement party. Always a very emotional story. That was something I've never seen for any other brands. So I came with the conviction that there was a very special emotional connection with the consumer. 

What was the surprise when I joined is that it's even more than what I thought, and the data confirmed that impression. What I discovered through the data after joining is that Kate Spade has a fantastic awareness in the U.S. Everybody knows this brand. A brand with this emotional connection, that's very unique. We receive thousands of letters every month from consumers—and it's not letters to ask for discounts or promotions—it's letters to tell us how much they love the brand. So, we've created a wall in the office. I discovered it when I joined the brand, and that feeling I had before joining, it was already very strong, but after joining, when I saw that, it was a fantastic surprise, because you feel you've discovered treasure, and the treasure is this emotional connection that this brand has with the consumer today.

Does that add an additional layer of pressure, making sure that you maintain the core elements that make people love the brand, while going through a transition with the business, and not tarnishing that?

It makes the mission even more meaningful because this brand is iconic. In the ’90s, this brand was everywhere. It was a social phenomenon, you couldn't escape the brand, it was everywhere in the street. So it makes the mission very precious and meaningful to me, and also I always say to my teams, you have to move forward, you have to look backwards. What I mean with that is that you have to respect the true essence of a brand, you have to go back to what made the brand very distinctive and very unique at the beginning. What made the brand successful at the beginning, and when you understand that essence [and] vision, then it becomes your compass for everything you do. Kate Spade brought a new vision of femininity in the ’90s, [when] if you wanted to be successful in your career, you had to dress like a man. You needed to have the big shoulders, the suit, the serious suitcase, and Kate Spade came with a very different vision. She offered a handbag that was still very functional, made for work, but also this touch of femininity, touch of wit, and she actually gave the freedom to women to be feminine and have a career at the same time, to be feminine and be a mother at the same time. That was a very interesting approach, and it was a revolution.

When you stay true to that really distinctive vision at the beginning, then it can live forever, because what it means to be feminine in 2026 is maybe not the same as in the ’90s, but this is the essence of the brand. We spend hours unboxing bags from the Kate Spade era, from the first years, really looking at all the thoughtful details, the vision of that moment was incredible—the interior, the hardware—I want to start from there, from the true beginning of the brand, and reintroduce it to a new generation of consumers today, that's really the idea.

This is a challenging moment for the sector—there’s a lot of competition, particularly at the same price point, and you're going through a strategic shift that partly explains revenue declines in recent quarters. Could you tell me more about the strategy for the business and how you're thinking about standing out in the crowd?

This is a very competitive market, but we have a very enviable position, today, because 25 million young women are turning 18 every year, and they're looking for their first handbag, and especially their first luxury handbag, and we are here for them at that moment, and that has always been our positioning, and not everyone can claim this positioning. Even more than talking to Gen Z, I'm talking really about this point of market entry, when the consumer wants to buy that first very serious and luxurious handbag, and it's who we are.

In terms of strategy, and what you've been seeing in the results lately, we are really focused on strengthening the foundation of this brand, and we've been really focused on strengthening the product and building the hero product. We've been very, very focused on improving, elevating the store experience, but overall the whole consumer experience across all the touch points with something that's very cohesive and consistent. We've been very focused into pulling back on the promotion and reducing our dependency on promotions and discounting. We've been very focused on upgrading our talents and welcoming new talents to the team as well, and most importantly, investing to reconnect or to introduce the brand with this new generation of consumer and present to them this uplifting vision of luxury, and investing more in brand marketing for the long-term for them. And of course we are making some actions today that are impacting the short-term intentionally, because we want to rebuild not only for growth but we want to rebuild for the long-term and for something healthy, so we've been closing stores that were not profitable, and this is what we're optimizing. This is all intentional, as we are building something that is here to last.

What new skill sets or types of talent are you seeking for the next stage of the business's evolution?

We've been reinforcing the teams where we knew we had to bring a difference, so we've been reinforcing the marketing teams, so that we could really build this vision, build the brand, build that connection. We've been reinforcing the design teams as well. We have newcomers coming into the design team as well, because product is everything, and we have to have the right product. And we've been reinforcing, as well, the consumer insight teams, and the way we work with the consumer, because one of my convictions is that we have to test before we invest, and even more, when you are in a transformation process, you have to go fast, you have to take some risk, but when you test before you invest, when you really listen to the consumer, it allows you to test new ideas, break through things that you do very differently, but know before you start investing—whether it is in the product, whether it is in a campaign, or a new store design.

You mentioned the 18-year-old buying her first handbag. Does Gen Z account for most of your customers today?

We are really focused on acquisition of Gen Z, and why? I was in Asia recently, and from Singapore to San Francisco, what I'm hearing is the same thing—and I've never seen a generation so homogeneous in the way they think—they want more connection, they want small moments of lightness and joy. Today, the world is fragmented for them, it's very anxious, so they're really craving this real-life moment. And this is where our brand has something to play, and where we have a very true connection with the consumer, because this really has always been our positioning, sparking joy that spread, sparking the little moments, being there for the life moments, and bringing some touch of lightness and fun. This is our positioning, and this is what the Gen Z consumer is looking for today. So, there is something that's very natural between what they're looking for, what they desire to see, and even what we can offer to them. 

How do you think about the other generations that have grown up with Kate Spade? As a brand, it cuts across Gen X, Millennials, and now Gen Z. How are you thinking about catering to those different consumers?

We love all our consumers, and you're right, that we're talking to all consumers today, and very connected to all of them. That said, what the data is telling us is Gen Z is the most influential generation ever in history, and not only in fashion or handbags—across the board, in politics, and everything, and that's fascinating. And what we see in your, in our data, is that when you start being relevant for Gen Z, when you start being appealing for them, and when they start being obsessed with you, there is a trickle down effect on every other generation, and when you start winning with Gen Z, quickly you see as well the other generations, Millennial and Gen X, growing at the same time. This is the impact they have on other generations today. So this is almost like the halo effect of winning with Gen Z that we see today.

The current ’90s resurgence ties in nicely with the history of the brand as well.

Totally, I mean they're all about nostalgia. At the same time, I don't want to position the brain on nostalgia. What's interesting is what they're looking for. They are nostalgic of a moment they have never lived. They're nostalgic of a moment where we had no phones in high schools, where people would talk to each other, where they would have parties with no reports afterwards, with all the pictures. This is that connection moment, this real-life moment that they're nostalgic about. And this is where it's interesting that this is what we can bring to them, not necessarily going into the nostalgia of how it looked—it's also about what it meant. That's the most important, I believe.

As a CEO, what are the metrics that you pay most attention to in the business?

As a CEO, you're going to always track the lagging indicators, right? Your sales and your acquisition. When you are in a transformation, when you are in a reinvention, you have to pay attention as much on all the leading indicators, all the metrics that are telling you about your brand health, because this is what you are rebuilding. The connection with the consumer, how they see the brand, all the consumer insights, how they see the brand in their world, how they consider the brand, so the consideration, the engagement they have, the Google search as well—which kind of consumer, and how you're acquiring the consumer—is also critical on the long term. So, tracking all those metrics that tell you about the brand health is critical in this transformation, because there are also early indicators that you are on the right path, that this is what's happening for the brand. So, this is what I'm tracking, and I'm also tracking very closely the teams, and team engagement, how they're doing, because what we often forget is that a brand transformation is first of all a human transformation, and how you create the space and the culture for people to test new things, to be creative, to feel very passionate about the brand is also something very important to monitor in this moment of transformation.

The 2026 Nobel recognitions concluded Monday with Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences. The laureates, two American professors, were honored for developing "new macroeconomic models that have significantly improved our ability to implement effective stabilisation policy."

The rest of the Nobel Prizes, for physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, and literature, and peace were announced last week.

Winners will receive a diploma, a medal, and 12 million Swedish kroner—the equivalent of roughly $1.2 million—during the award ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo in December.

Here's what to know about the winners and why their work is being recognized.

Physiology or medicine

Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday for their pioneering discoveries in optogenetics, a method that uses light to determine how cells operate in the brain or even to exert control over those processes. 

“Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of,” said Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for physiology or medicine. 

Hegemann is a professor of biophysics at Humboldt University in Berlin. Nagel teaches plant physiology at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. And Deisseroth is a professor of behavioral sciences at Stanford University.  

The laureates' use of optogenetics will allow researchers to “discover exactly which of the nerve cells in a complicated bundle control different brain functions,” such as those related to pain, social behavior, thirst and hunger, and reward and attention, the committee wrote. 

Nagel said in an interview with the Nobel Institute that he was “very surprised” upon receiving the news and that he thought it was “too early to get this prize in medicine optogenetics,” given his belief that other medical discoveries have benefited a greater number of people. Hegemann said to the institute that he was “overwhelmed” upon receiving the news. 

Deisseroth, who has similarly said he was “quite surprised” to receive the honor, told Stanford Medicine that he “couldn’t be happier,” noting that “the trio that the committee picked spans the progression from the early algal explorations all the way to advanced neuroscience experiments.” 

“So this prize really captures the full journey of discovery,” he said.

Physics

Francis Halzen was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his work studying neutrinos, extremely small, ghostly particles that are all around us but rarely interact with other matter. 

Neutrinos carry no electrical charge, allowing them to travel great distances and pass through most matter without losing energy or changing direction. This quality makes the particles potent messengers for information about distant cosmic phenomena. But it also makes them exceedingly hard to detect and study.

Halzen, a professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, came up with the idea of using ice at the South Pole to track the elusive particles. His work, the Nobel committees said, has been “fundamental” for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which is equipped with thousands of light sensors embedded in the transparent glacial ice that enable researchers to observe and capture the faint flashes of light produced in the rare instances when neutrinos do interact with other particles. Not long after the observatory was completed, IceCube detected the first high-energy neutrinos from far-away galaxies.

“Francis Halzen has led an international team of researchers and engineers who have provided us with a fantastic instrument. His tenacity and scientific vision has paved the way for a new kind of astronomy,” Mark Pearce, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in a press release. 

Halzen was at a science festival in Bergamo, Italy, working on a proposal when he received the news that he had won the prize. “As I joked in one of the meetings, I hope it helps to get it funded,” he said in an interview with the Nobel Institute.

Halzen explained how his team at IceCube discovered that blue light can travel for hundreds of meters through the ice at the South Pole, which allowed them to observe neutrinos’ interactions. “This is ancient snow that fell on Antarctica 50,000 years ago. It’s ultra pure, and that’s why it’s so transparent,” he explained. 

The tracking of neutrinos, Halzen added, may provide insight even in the study of black holes.

“This is obviously a place from which light doesn’t escape,” he said of the cosmic vacuums. But, he noted, the very first time IceCube researchers identified a celestial neutrino source, tracing the particles back to an active galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center, “is already an example of looking into the very close regions of the black hole, where presumably only neutrinos escape.”

Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai on Wednesday for finding the solution to a mystery about the chirality, or “handedness,” of molecules that had confounded scientists for decades.

Many molecules possess two variants that are mirror images of each other, similar to a right and a left hand, But one of those variants heavily predominates when the molecule is found in nature, and is the only variant of the molecule that is found in living beings. And, despite their similarity, each of the variants produces a different effect, meaning that in pharmaceuticals, for instance, only one of the mirror-image versions of the molecule can contribute to the desired result of a drug.

Scientists were long mystified by how to create a particular mirror image, finding that the two variants were produced in equal proportions when they did experiments that formed these “handed” molecules.

It was Kagan, who teaches at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and Kenso, who teaches at the Tokyo University of Science, who figured out the process for producing a desired variant, demonstrating how homochirality—or same handedness—occurs in molecules. 

“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously. The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular,” Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a press release. 

No human had manufactured a chemical reaction that created only one of two possible mirror images of a molecule until Soai succeeded in doing so in 2003. That milestone came after an earlier breakthrough made by Kagan in 1986, when he developed a way of manipulating chemical reactions that enabled him to produce one molecular variant in a notably greater proportion. 

Soai and Kagan’s discoveries have contributed to the development of countless drugs and medicines. 

“There’s a huge number of drug molecules that are used by incorporating what they have developed,” Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in an interview. “The left handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right handed can have one effect.”

“I think many international people in international countries, researchers are attracted to that phenomenon,” Soai said of the reaction he used to produce molecular homochirality in a brief interview with the Nobel Institute. “And so I’m very pleased to know that they are examining our reaction.”

Literature

The Canadian poet, essayist, and translator Anne Carson received the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for what the Nobel committees described as “her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

Carson is known for her experimental writing that blends prose, poetry, and translation. Perhaps her most celebrated work, Autobiography of Red, is a prosimetrum—a combination of prose and poetry—that reimagines the myth of the Greek hero Herakles slaying the winged red monster Geryon into a teenage love story. Other seminal works of Carson’s include Eros the Bittersweet (1986), The Beauty of the Husband (2001), and Nox (2010).

Carson has won many accolades throughout her writing career, including a MacArthur Fellowship, Griffin Poetry Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award. She became the first woman to win the TS Eliot prize in 2001 for her “fictional essay” The Beauty of the Husband, a collection of narrative verse inspired by the poet John Keats’s conception that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” that tells the story of a marriage.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered his congratulations to Carson on Thursday. 

“With wit, imagination, and a style entirely her own, Canadian poet Anne Carson has reimagined the classics,” Carney wrote in a post on X. “She has brought ancient stories to new audiences and transformed the way we think about literature.”

In an interview with the Nobel Institute, Carson described her writing as “inadvertent.”

“I always try to do something else,” she said, speaking from her seaside home in Reykjavik, Iceland, while eating crackers and drinking tea next to her husband. 

When asked if she had thought about what the prize means to her, Carson responded, “No, I haven’t. We’re just thinking of ways to give the money away. We have a friend who needs a house. And we always give a lot to Doctors Without Borders.”

Ingrid Carlberg, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, delivered the news to Carson over the phone before it became public. Calberg said that when she called, Carson told her she was “listening to the wind.”

Peace

 Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, the South African jurist who received the peace prize on Friday, has served in several roles throughout her career during which she acted as a “legal pioneer, confronting deep structural discrimination, segregation and exclusion,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee wrote. 

Pillay has served on the High Court of South Africa and on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She was previously the United Nations human rights commissioner. And today, she serves as a judge on the International Court of Justice in a case where Myanmar is being accused of genocide.

“Pillay’s commitment to universal legal principles and her firm moral compass are constants in a long career,” the committee wrote. “In historic international court cases, she has shown that legal measures can help prevent acts of war and violence … Her independence, expertise and steadfastness have made her one of the most respected international jurists of our time.”

Read More: Navanethem 'Navi' Pillay Wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize

Pillay was also the chair of the U.N. International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded last September that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. 

Israel dismissed the report at the time, calling it "scandalous" and “fake.”

The country’s Foreign Ministry expressed strong opposition to Pillay receiving the prize on Friday.

“If there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner,” the ministry wrote in a post on X, adding, “Awarding Pillay the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t a recognition of justice. It’s the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.”

Other world leaders and international organizations have congratulated Pillay for receiving the honor and praised her work.

“Justice Pillay’s crowning as winner of the Nobel Prize allows us to celebrate the progressive contributions she has made to strengthen peace, uphold human dignity and bring hope in South Africa and to peoples globally,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement. “She has served humanity with principle and the belief that the world can and should be a better place.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called the decision to award the prize to Pillay “a tribute to all those working to uphold & defend international law, the rule of law & human rights, and secure peace, justice & human dignity.”

In her various roles, Guterres wrote in a post on X, Pillay “has shown that the force of law must prevail over the law of force and that defending human rights is the surest safeguard against injustice.”

Upon receiving her prize, Pillay said she was still “reeling with surprise” and dedicated her award to “all of the survivors of international crimes as well as to practitioners and defenders of international justice whose compassion and courage continue to ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign.” 

“This award strengthens my conviction that we must stand together in defense of the rule of law, in defense of independent courts, and an international legal order based on principle rather than selectivity,” Pillay said. 

Pillay also made a joke about President Donald Trump, who has long coveted the peace prize, on Friday, referencing his open campaigning for the prize and last year’s winner, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, gifting her award to him. 

"If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump," Pillay said, prompting laughter from the audience at the Nuremberg Court in Germany.

Machado, who was awarded the 2025 prize to honor her work fighting against dictatorship and promoting democracy in her country for nearly 25 years, gave Trump her award after the U.S. ousted former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a military raid in January.

The committee, however, issued a statement in the wake of the gesture declaring that laureates cannot share or transfer prizes. 

“The decision is final and applies for all time,” the committee wrote.

Economic sciences

Hall and Woodford received the economics sciences award for "demonstrating how economic models could be reconstructed to revitalise stabilization policy."

Rather than assessing economic stabilization based on traditional Keynesian models, linking between macroeconomic variables, Hall and Woodford’s models look instead towards a microeconomic foundation, including the impacts that individual households and businesses have on the wider economy, said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences alongside its announcement.

Hall is a professor of economics at Stanford University and Woodford is a professor of political economy at Columbia University. Woodford said he was “elated” to receive the award. “It’s a tremendous honor, it’s a surprise, but I’m feeling very good about it,” he told the Nobel prize committee in a phone call.

“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world. With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume,” said John Hassler, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.

Woodford said the pair's work stressed “the understanding of the people who are in the markets and making decisions about spending.”

“And so, creating a framework that allows governments to talk to the public about what they’re doing, I think is also important. And that was one of the key goals of trying to develop an analytical framework was not simply to use it on people, but to also talk to people about why the things that are being done are being done," he added.

This year has seen a number of external shocks hit global economics, no more so than the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, which has severely disrupted global energy markets.