Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday a 20% reduction in the number of general roles in the U.S. military.

The new reduction, which Hegseth revealed during an address at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Wednesday afternoon, will double the already 10% cuts to general and flag officer positions that Hegseth instructed the military to make last year.

According to Fox News, which previously reported Hegseth's intention to announce the cuts, military services are being ordered to finish making the reductions by Jan. 1, 2027. The network reported that some of the affected roles are expected to be downgraded, rather than cut entirely. 

The additional cuts come amid turmoil within the military’s leadership: At least 20 military and civilian leaders have been pushed out or resigned since Hegseth was sworn in as Defense Secretary. In 2025, Hegseth told the active duty military to cut 20% of its four-star general officers and the National Guard to cut 20% of its top officials. It is not known if all of those reductions have been completed. 

Hegseth said in a memo at the time that the reduction plan would eliminate “redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership” and that the goal was to prevent “unnecessary bureaucratic layers” within the military, The Associated Press reported.

“This is not a slash-and-burn exercise meant to punish high-ranking officers,” Hegseth said in May 2025. “This has been a deliberative process, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff with one goal: maximizing strategic readiness and operational effectiveness by making prudent reductions in the general and flag officer ranks.”

Hegseth has faced a wave of backlash from Democrats and some Republicans over his management of the Department of Defense, in addition to his handling of other issues, such as the war in Iran. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has clashed with the Trump Administration on multiple occasions since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth earlier this month, including allegations regarding the Iran war.

Before that, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina publicly criticized Hegseth’s management of the agency, after Dan Driscoll resigned as Army Secretary amid reports of tension between him and Hegseth.

“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” Tillis said in a social media post. “I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”

Frailty is more than just slowing down a little with age. It’s a syndrome recognized by medical professionals as a major risk factor for a sudden worsening in health—people who score high on measures of frailty are more likely to develop complications after routine surgeries and to decline swiftly after infections or falls. Signs of frailty include a slow walking speed and taking a while to perform what’s called a “timed up-and-go test,” where someone gets up from a chair, walks a few paces, then heads back to sit down. (If this takes more than about 13 seconds, that’s a possible marker of frailty). 

Researchers believe that exercise can help reverse the condition. A new trial published in the journal PLOS ONE found that people who walked fast were more likely to improve their frailty scores than those who strolled at a leisurely pace, although both groups saw benefits. 

Keeping active in older age pays dividends 

Encouraging older people to take it slowly might sound like reasonable advice, says Margaret Danilovich, a physical therapist and instructor at Northwestern University and an author of the new paper. "People tend to assume, ‘Someone is frail. We shouldn't have them do too much,’” she says. But, she says, that’s a miscalculation, and older folks are capable of more than they might think.

In the current study, she and her colleagues set up exercise groups in 14 retirement homes. Research assistants assessed people’s frailty before and after the intervention and coached them during several months of weekly walking sessions in the retirement community hallways. Each group performed similar walking tasks—walking forward, backward, with walkers and without—but half of them walked casually, while the others were encouraged to walk much faster.

“We wanted to achieve a vigorous level of activity, more than 70% of the heart rate maximum,” says Danilovich. “There were standard scripts at certain timepoints throughout the walk.” If people slowed down, “the research assistant would give them verbal encouragement to walk faster.”

Moving faster helps more

People who kept their pace up saw more improvements to their frailty scores, the team found. “Nearly 70% in the high-intensity walking group improved in at least one category, compared to 46% in the casual group,” says Danilovich. 

However, more people dropped out of the high-intensity group than out of the casual group, points out Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, a professor of medicine at Dalhousie University in Canada (who was not involved with the study). “The differential dropout makes it hard to generalize” how much these results apply to typical older people, he wrote in an email. But any quality research in this field is welcome, he added. “Good on them for doing work to prevent frailty. We need a bunch more of that.” (The researchers found there were no baseline health differences between the groups, suggesting that it’s reasonable to infer that it wasn’t just people in worse shape who dropped out, leaving fitter participants behind.)  

The results are particularly interesting because they suggest that high-intensity exercise can be safe for this population, says Dr. Sara Espinoza, a geriatrician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles (who was not involved in the research). There was only one fall during the study, suggesting that exercise might not be as dangerous among older adults as people tend to assume.

Espinoza cautions that implementing the findings might be difficult. “The application of these findings or the translation to real life is sometimes difficult, because unfortunately our healthcare system does not reimburse/pay for this type of exercise training,” she wrote in an email. “We can order PT [physical therapy], but it is generally not high-intensity exercise that is going to increase the heart rate.” 

The researchers hope to extend their work to healthy older people who wear smart watches, to build an understanding of how to best prompt walkers to go faster. Then someday, perhaps, interventions encouraging high-intensity exercise to reverse frailty might be accessible to anyone who has one of these wrist-worn devices, and who heeds its alerts to pick up the pace. 

When your kid comes home from school and says they hate their stomach, that nobody wants to be their friend because they’re “fat,” or that everyone in their class is better-looking than they are, you’d probably do anything to help them see what you see—which means the reassurance practically flies out of your mouth. “You’re beautiful!” “You’re perfect!” How could they possibly think otherwise?

That impulse comes from a good place—but it can shut down the very conversation you want to have, says Dr. Whitney Casares, a pediatrician in Portland, Ore., and author of Raising Body-Confident Kids. “It tells a child, don’t feel what you’re feeling,” she says. Instead, start by making room for those feelings. “The goal is to help kids feel heard first and really to keep the door open.”

We asked experts exactly what to say when your child is struggling with how they look.

“Tell me more about that.”

Before you can help, you need to know what you’re responding to. Did a classmate make a rude comment? Did your child see something triggering online? Or is their body feeling unfamiliar as they go through puberty? Those possibilities call for different conversations, Casares says. A kid who says everyone is thinner than they are might be comparing bodies in dance class—or feeling left out by a best friend and assuming their appearance is the reason.

Give your child time to explain, and let them know you’re glad they trusted you with something hard to say. “It’s a really good sign if your kid’s coming to you with a question,” says Charlotte Markey, a psychology professor at Rutgers University and author of books including The Body Image Book for Girls. Even if you’re scrambling to figure out how to respond, showing that you welcome the conversation makes it more likely they’ll come to you again.

“I can see why that would have been really upsetting for you.”

It’s important to validate your kid’s feelings without agreeing with whatever harsh judgment they’re making about themselves. That’s why Markey likes this way of acknowledging the hurt without reinforcing the criticism. “It can be really difficult when we feel like someone doesn’t have a positive opinion of us,” she says.

If a classmate’s comment set this off, follow up with: “Why do you think that person said that?” Maybe Preston the fourth-grader was insulting everyone, or didn’t even understand the word he was using. Exploring what happened can help your child question how much weight to give the remark. “If the kid can get to the place of feeling like, ‘No, they’re wrong,’ on their own, it’s much more powerful,” Markey says. After all, your insistence that they’re beautiful comes with an obvious caveat: You’re their parent. Of course you think that.

“Bodies come in different shapes and sizes.”

“Why am I bigger than my friends?” can feel like a loaded question, but there’s room for a straightforward answer: Genetics help shape our bodies, just as they influence our height and eye color, Markey says. Talking about family resemblance can help make those differences feel ordinary. The message is that your child doesn’t need to look like their best friend—and their body isn’t a project they need to fix.

If they ask, “Am I fat?” resist the reflexive “No!” advises Giulia Suro, a clinical psychologist in Washington, D.C., who specializes in eating disorders. That response can reinforce the idea that being fat is something to fear. Instead, get curious about what the word means to them and where they learned to associate it with something negative. You can acknowledge differences in body size without treating one as better than another or promising your child they’ll eventually be smaller.

“What’s the scariest thing about that?”

During her first week of kindergarten, Suro’s daughter came home and announced: “I’m not the prettiest girl in the class.” Even for a psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, it was startling to hear. Instead of reassuring her daughter about her looks, Suro asked what felt scariest about that. Her daughter worried she wouldn’t make friends—that no one would like her, and she’d end up eating lunch alone.

Now Suro had something concrete to help with. They could talk about which classmates her daughter might sit with, whether she could ask a teacher for help, or whether Suro could volunteer at lunch. Asking about the fear beneath an appearance concern can reveal worries about belonging or being good enough that a compliment won’t resolve. As Suro puts it: “How can we help you address what’s really fearful or threatening about this?”

“That sounds like a mean thought.”

When your child says something cruel about their appearance—“My stomach is disgusting” or “I look terrible”—try not to immediately argue with them. Instead, Suro suggests helping them create some distance from the thought by saying: “That sounds like a mean thought.” It’s something their brain produced, not an objective fact or a verdict they have to accept.

Then ask: “How does that thought make you feel when it’s in your head?” You might also dive into what it makes them want to do: Skip school? Change into a new outfit? Quit an activity? Avoid their friends? The goal is to help them notice when a harsh thought starts making decisions for them. “We want actions to always be based on the things that are important to us, our values, our passions, excitement, motivation, and not on critical thoughts,” Suro says. “We really don’t want to give them that much power.”

“I’m actually interested in what you’re interested in.”

If your son’s Instagram or TikTok feed is full of impossibly muscular men, you might be tempted to tell him to log off. Instead, start by asking him to show you what he’s watching, suggests Brian Pollack, a licensed clinical social worker and founder of Hilltop Behavioral Health in Summit, N.J. If he seems embarrassed, try: “I’m actually interested in what you’re interested in.” Then explore the appeal: Is he hoping to play like that athlete? Look like him? “Is this meaningful to you?” Pollack suggests asking. “Is it meaningful to your friends?” Understanding what he’s drawn to gives you a way to talk about the pressure he might feel to measure up.

You can also discuss what goes into the images your child is comparing themselves with: filters, professional photographers, makeup artists, and, sometimes, an entire team devoted to someone’s appearance. “Our job is not to look like a celebrity,” Markey says.

“What did your body do today?”

Your child probably has plenty to say about how their body looks. This question gives them something else to notice, Pollack says: Did they walk the dog? Laugh with a friend? Have a great soccer practice? Build an elaborate Lego creation? Make it part of your everyday conversations, giving them room to appreciate experiences that have nothing to do with a mirror. The lesson: “My body is not for presentation,” Pollack says. “My body is for functionality.”

For children who play sports, that means being mindful of what you celebrate. Rather than admiring emerging abdominal muscles, for example, focus on how their body lets them participate in something they enjoy. And keep the conversation bigger than athletic accomplishments: helping someone, making something, and connecting with friends count, too. Pollack wants kids to experience their bodies as “a vehicle of expression and connection,” not just something to look at.

“Swimsuits can make bodies feel really exposed.”

Sometimes there will be clues that your kid is struggling with their body image. Maybe they don’t want to swim anymore, or they duck out of every family photo. Acknowledge the discomfort before jumping into solutions, Casares says. Then explain that you don’t want them missing out on something they enjoy, and ask: “What are some ways we can get around this so you can still participate?” Ask what would make joining in feel more comfortable—maybe wearing a swim shirt at the pool or taking a photo with the family dog.

If they keep sitting things out or start avoiding more activities, it’s worth getting help from a mental-health professional, Casares says. “It may be that they’re getting bullied. It might be that they’re developing an eating disorder.” Finding out what’s behind the change can help you figure out what kind of support they need.

“I love the way you creatively chose that outfit today.”

None of this means you can’t compliment your child’s appearance. Casares suggests noticing choices they’ve made: “I love your haircut,” for example, or “That color looks great on you.” “Those are things that are about choices and decisions kids are making for self-expression,” she says. That gives you something more specific to appreciate than how closely they happen to resemble a beauty ideal.

Some of the most meaningful compliments won’t be about their appearance at all. Pollack recommends pointing to specific things you’ve seen your child do: taking care of a sick sibling, helping a friend who’s having a bad day, or saving money so they can go to the amusement park that summer. “I’m talking about actionable values, things that can be behaviorally seen versus just believed,” he says. You’re showing them exactly what you appreciate about the person they are.

“You don’t have to love your body, but it’s important to treat it with respect.”

Even adults have days when they don’t like how they look. Kids shouldn’t feel like they’re doing something wrong when that happens to them, too, Suro says. The goal is to help them eat enough, get some rest, and keep doing things they enjoy, even when they’re not feeling particularly confident. “Expecting anyone, even a child, to love their body all of the time is unrealistic and can become another standard they fail to meet,” she says.

That’s something parents can practice alongside them. “Even when you’re not talking directly to your kids, your kids are watching what you say about yourself,” Casares says. They notice the criticism you mutter at the mirror and whether you’re only having a smoothie while everyone else chows down on a full meal. “No script that you can say about self-love to your kids will override what you’re doing in your own body,” she says.

Argentine President Javier Milei has threatened legal action against the U.K. over an oil exploration project off the coast of the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory at the center of a yearslong sovereignty dispute.

Setting a two-week deadline on Monday, Milei said if the Sea Lion offshore oil project—a venture between British and Israeli companies—has not been stopped, then he will take the matter to the “International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea,” an independent judicial body responsible for the application of the United Nations' Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Milei said Argentina’s Foreign Ministry and legal teams have been prepped to “initiate international arbitration” against the U.K. The oil companies—Britain's Rockhopper Exploration and Israel's Navitas Petroleum—have said they have valid licenses for the planned extractions. TIME has reached out to the companies for further comment.

The threat from Milei comes after weeks of escalating tensions between Argentina and the U.K. The Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as “Islas Malvinas,” sit roughly 300 miles from the Argentine coast, and have been a British territory for almost two centuries, but Argentina has never accepted British sovereignty over the area. As such, Milei is adamant the oil exploration project would amount to an “illegal plundering of [Argentina’s] resources.” U.S. President Donald Trump further stoked tensions in late August when he suggested the U.S. is reviewing its neutrality on the sovereignty dispute.

In response to Milei’s deadline, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s Foreign Office told TIME: "These latest threats are another attempt to deny the Falkland Islanders the right to pursue their own economic development and decide their own future. As the Prime Minister [Andy Burnham] has made clear, our support for the Falkland Islanders' right of self-determination is unwavering, and we will always defend it.”

In a 2013 referendum, Falkland residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of remaining under British rule. The referendum saw 92% of all eligible voters turn out, with 99.8% of votes being “yes.” Yet the topic continues to be a rallying cry in Argentina for Milei, as it was for the Argentine Presidents that came before him.

There are vast energy reserves in the Sea Lion oilfield, with the basin estimated to contain 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

“The Argentine Republic will not stand idly by and will continue to firmly defend its sovereign rights, using all the diplomatic, administrative and legal tools recognized by national and international law,” read a presidential statement condemning the oil exploration project. The statement said that Milei’s office would seek to initiate arbitral proceedings under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—an international treaty that sets rules for the use and governance of the world's oceans and their resources.

Marcelo Kohen, a professor emeritus of international law at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, says the two-week ultimatum is tied to a procedure Argentina has to follow before seeking provisional measures from the tribunal.

“Argentina gave the U.K. two weeks to accept the provisional measures requested by Argentina, and in case the U.K. doesn't comply with this request, Argentina will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg,” he says. Once the case has been taken to the judicial body, “both parties will go to the tribunal, and there will be oral hearings, and then the tribunal will decide whether the United Kingdom must stop the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources.” 

This isn’t the first time Argentina has turned to international legal mechanisms to resolve maritime disputes. In October 2012, Argentina initiated arbitration after Ghana detained an Argentine naval training ship. The tribunal unanimously ordered Ghana to release the vessel.

However, experts tell TIME that the international court has previously said it does not view it to be within its jurisdiction to rule on territorial sovereignty disputes.

Milei’s turn to international law comes amid his fierce criticism of the United Nations, which he has accused of looking "the other ​way" amid escalating tensions with Britain.

During his speech at the General Assembly in New York last week, Milei called the U.N. a “useless organization, whose only purpose is to sustain a cast of fatally arrogant parasites masquerading as well-intentioned bureaucrats.”

“The Sea Lion project is moving towards oil extraction on the Argentine continental shelf in the North Malvinas basin under British licenses that Argentina rejects as illegal and illegitimate,” he told delegates.

The ultimatum is the latest escalation from Milei over the Falklands. Earlier in September, he announced that Argentina would sanction oil companies operating in the area and strengthen the government’s ability to respond to what it views as threats against its sovereignty.

Following through on that threat, Argentina's Foreign Ministry on Sept. 15 said it had sent approximately 180 warning and risk assessment notes to individuals and legal entities located in 30 countries and filed three criminal complaints involving 10 companies and their directors.

TIME has reached out to Argentina's Foreign Ministry for further information.

Do the Falklands belong to Britain or Argentina?

The Falklands have been administered by Britain since 1833 and remain a British overseas territory, but Argentina continues to claim them. The Falkland Islands have been on the U.N.’s list of non-self-governing territories since 1946.

In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falklands, sparking a bloody 74-day conflict that Britain ultimately won.

Matthew Benwell, a reader in human geography at Newcastle University, tells TIME that the Falklands remain a “largely self-governing British overseas territory.”

“Aside from the U.K.'s provision of defense and foreign affairs—the islanders continue to rely on that assistance—the U.K. government and political parties across the spectrum support the islanders' right to self determination,” he says, referencing the 2013 referendum.

But Argentina approaches the sovereignty question through a different legal framework.

Kohen says that Buenos Aires regards it as “a case of de-colonization” in which self-determination does not apply.

Argentina points to a 1965 U.N. Resolution, which calls for bilateral sovereignty negotiations and consideration of the islanders’ “interests,” but does not expressly apply the principle of self-determination to them.

The Argentine permanent mission to the U.N. similarly characterizes the issue as a “colonial situation” and “reiterates its willingness to resume bilateral negotiations with the United Kingdom in order to reach a peaceful resolution to this sovereignty dispute.”

Benwell, however, describes the sovereignty argument as a “persistent one-way debate between the U.K. and Argentina, that predominantly comes from Argentina.”

How Trump stoked Falklands tensions

Trump, a long-time ally of Milei’s, prompted discussion in late August when he told reporters in the Oval Office that the U.S. was reviewing its position regarding the U.K.’s administration of the islands. “I always review every position. That's just one of many,” Trump said.

Milei appeared to seize on Trump's comments during a national address on Sept. 3, insisting that the “winds of change blowing around the world” are favorable to Argentina’s long-standing sovereignty claim over the South Atlantic archipelago.

In an interview with a British broadcaster, Trump declined to offer a clear pledge of support while emphasizing the islands’ distance and tying the issue to Britain’s refusal to aid the U.S. in the Iran war. “Your country was not there to help me,” he insisted.

On Sept. 12, Trump, during a sit-down with Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin, called the mounting tensions over the Falklands a “potential disaster” and said he would “probably be able to settle it out,” without providing details of what that would entail.

Burnham and Trump discussed the Falklands issue in New York last week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, but the details of the conversation have yet to be made public.

TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.

Benwell says Trump’s comments, although potentially divisive, are no indication that U.S. foreign policy is set to change.

“These are just statements so far, and there's been no substantive changes to U.S. foreign policy,” he emphasizes.

Even though transgender people represent only an estimated 1% of the United States population, we are increasingly the target of restrictive government policies and election-year fear-mongering. This has been especially true under President Donald Trump, who, since day one of his second administration, has targeted transgender people across all areas of life—from education to employment to military service to identification to health care—and used trans people as political pawns to mobilize his perceived base. 

This week’s announcement that the administration is rescinding Biden-era regulations enumerating protections for LGBTQ students is yet another example of the federal government’s unrelenting effort to bully transgender young people, particularly as elections approach. But while this latest attack is gratuitous and cruel, the rescission does not actually change the law; schools can and should continue to include transgender students equally in all educational programs. 

Title IX, the landmark 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, is often associated with efforts to even the playing field in sports, but the statute addresses all sex discrimination in education from the classroom to the teacher’s lounge to the basketball court. 

In 2024, the Biden Administration took important steps to ensure that LGBTQ students were fully protected. While I would argue that the Biden Title IX rule fell short in some respects, it also included comprehensive regulations prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. Those regulations were blocked in court, however, and never took effect; instead, the government reverted to a 2020 rule issued under then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The Trump administration’s action this week to formally reinstate the DeVos rule does not change the standards currently being enforced or reduce existing legal protections for LGBTQ students. Rather, it is a cruel and unnecessary gesture that demeans the importance of legal protections for LGBTQ students and the dignity of trans youth. 

As much as President Trump may suggest that he can rewrite Title IX, that is not within the power of the executive. Title IX itself still prohibits sex discrimination in education, and the Supreme Court has held that it is impossible to discriminate against someone for being gay or transgender without discriminating on the basis of sex. Unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise, this general proposition still stands, which means LGBTQ students retain protections under federal civil rights law. 

To be sure, earlier this year the Supreme Court permitted the exclusion of transgender students in the unique, zero-sum, context of sports, where, it said, states and schools may exclude transgender women and girls from women’s and girls’ sports. But neither that decision nor the now-revived 2020 Title IX regulations says that schools must exclude transgender girls from girls’ sports. And, outside of sports, both federal and local protections for LGBTQ students remain valid and fully enforceable. With the administration's continued cruel anti-trans rhetoric, it is more important than ever that schools do not waver in their commitment to protecting LGBTQ students.

Even without these latest attacks on their rights, LGBTQ students documented elevated rates of discrimination in school. A recent survey of 2,800 LGBTQ-identified students reported that 68% experienced harassment or assault based on their transgender status and 62% experienced harassment or assault based on their sexual orientation. That same survey conducted a follow-up focus group after the 2024 election. In doing so, they documented significant increases in “hostility, bullying, and harassment” following the 2024 election. 

A vulnerable group of young people is being made more vulnerable by the political conditions and rhetoric demonizing them. Now all eyes must turn to the state and local officials charged with protecting them.

The co-pilot of a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv has been arrested after seemingly attempting to crash the plane after stabbing the pilot, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. 

Passengers helped on-duty Flydubai crew, who were traveling on the flight, break into the cockpit and hold down the co-pilot, allowing the other pilots to safely land the plane ​in Saudi Arabia, according to Netanyahu. Saudi authorities were interrogating ⁠the co-pilot of the flight in question, FZ1073.

Flydubai said in a statement on Wednesday evening that it will temporarily suspend flights to and from Israel while an investigation into the incident is ongoing. The airline said that it would “review the suspension as more information becomes available.”

The United Arab Emirates’ General Civil Aviation Authority announced on Wednesday that it is investigating the incident. The investigation will include reviews of “operational and security aspects,” the aviation authority said in a statement to the state-run WAM news agency, while cautioning the public to not “circulate any unofficial information or anticipate the results of the investigation.”

Netanyahu identified the pilot who was attacked as Capt. Smit Machchhar, an Indian citizen, who the Israeli Prime Minister called a “true hero.”

“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster,” Netanyahu wrote in a post on X. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals."

In an earlier video statement released by his office following the incident, Netanyahu recounted that “during the flight, as they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot and, apparently, tried to crash the plane with its passengers on board."

“I spoke with one of the Israeli passengers, he told me that the plane went into a spin and began to descend,” Netanyahu continued. “He told me that, somehow, he managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crew members and, together, they overpowered the pilot who had carried out the stabbing.”

Netanyahu praised the actions of those who intervened, calling them “heroes” who had “demonstrated extraordinary resourcefulness” and “saved many lives.”

Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport, where the flight landed, said in a statement that both pilots on the Flydubai plane were hospitalized in the country.

Flydubai confirmed in an earlier statement that the aircraft had been "successfully secured by on-duty Flydubai crew travelling on the flight” and relayed that all passengers and crew were safe and accounted for.

"At this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation,” the airline added.

Passengers from the flight later boarded a replacement plane that was coordinated by the airport and Flydubai and landed at their original destination of Tel Aviv Wednesday evening.

For decades, women’s sports were asked to prove themselves. Would people watch? Would fans fill the stands? Would brands invest?

Today, we know the answer. Professional women’s sports leagues like the WNBA and the NWSL are booming.

But as we celebrate what is happening at the highest levels of women’s sports, we should be asking how many girls will never discover what they are capable of because they never got the chance to play.

The sports access gap

According to the Women’s Sports Foundation’s inaugural WSF Sport Report, more than half (54%) of girls ages eight to 18 who have never played organized sports say they want to.

Somewhere among those girls is a child who could discover the sport she loves. A future captain. A coach. An Olympian. Maybe even a champion. Most will never become professional athletes, nor should that determine whether their opportunity mattered. Sports can shape health outcomes, confidence, leadership, and a sense of belonging that lasts well after competition ends.

But none of us can know what sports might unlock in a girl until she gets the opportunity to find out.

As a Women’s Sports Foundation Trustee, I care deeply about what happens long before an athlete reaches the world’s biggest stages. That is why the foundation’s new research feels so important at this moment. Our findings show us where women’s sports are thriving, where barriers remain, and where we need to focus next.

One of the biggest takeaways is the disconnect between girls’ interest and their opportunity to play. Girls want to participate, but too many still are not getting into the game. And the WSF’s report reveals that when they do, families are spending more on their sports than they are on boys’. The question is not whether girls are interested. It is whether we are creating enough opportunities for that interest to become participation.

And getting girls into sports is only the beginning. We have to give them reasons to stay.

The report also points to a belonging gap that is evident among teens. Among the youngest children, 80% of both girls and boys say sports are “for someone like me.” Among teens, girls are less likely than boys to say the same.

Girls do not need to be convinced that sports are for them when they are eight. We need to make sure that, as pressures mount during the teen years, the sports environment does not give them reasons to question whether they still belong.

What opportunity can unlock

I know personally what can happen when a girl gets that first opportunity.

I started running track around 12 years old. There was no grand plan that I would become a professional athlete or an Olympic champion. I was a kid who got the chance to try something, discovered what I was capable of, and had people around me who gave that interest room to grow.

That opportunity ultimately took me to Harvard, where I competed and studied neurobiology and global health, and eventually to the Olympic podium. Along the way, sports helped shape not only the athlete I became, but the person I became and the possibilities I saw for my life beyond the track.

Every girl deserves the opportunity to find out where hers might lead.

No athlete makes that journey alone. Behind every woman competing inside the world’s biggest arenas are years of access, coaching, resources, and people who reinforced that she belonged.

And that path matters at every level. Industry leaders surveyed for the WSF Sport Report overwhelmingly see progress at the professional level. But the picture changes at college, the only part of the pipeline where more say progress has declined than improved.

That contrast should get our attention.

Protecting the path forward

College sports are a critical bridge to professional and Olympic competition. As college athletics undergo historic changes to athlete compensation, revenue sharing, and name, image, and likeness opportunities, decisions being made now will help determine who benefits from this new era.

We cannot celebrate the destination while allowing the road to it to narrow.

And at a moment of such significant change, the WSF Sport Report points to a troubling disconnect around one of the protections that helped make today’s opportunities possible. More than five decades after Title IX helped transform sports for girls and women, 79% of girls surveyed have never heard of it. More than half of their parents haven’t either.

Opportunity can be inherited, but the knowledge of how it was won cannot be assumed. Without that knowledge, how can the next generation protect the rights they may not even know they have?

That lack of awareness is especially striking when nearly half of the industry leaders surveyed for the report identify Title IX rollbacks or weakened enforcement as the greatest threat to continued progress for girls and women in sports.

Our responsibility is not simply to benefit from the doors that have been opened. It is to make sure they remain open, and to open more for the girls coming behind us.

For decades, women athletes were asked to prove that investment in their sports could work. They have. Now, we have the chance to build on that success for the next generation.

That means creating a sports culture where more girls can get in the game, find a place where they belong, understand their rights, and discover where sports might take them.

The greatest legacy of this moment will not only be how far women’s sports have come. It will be how we work together to give more girls the chance to find out how far they can go.

This fall in the U.S., as kids settle into a new school year, measles is spreading at a level not seen in 35 years. Children have died. And in just the past month, 10 children have been infected in an outbreak linked to a single daycare in Georgia. Far too many students are entering classrooms vulnerable to a highly contagious and dangerous virus.

Yet there has been relative silence from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency where I once served as a senior leader, about measles. CDC’s back-to-school messages on X have advised families about sleep, physical activity, healthy lunches, and bullying. All are important. But one message emphasized in prior years at the start of school is noticeably absent and can now be found only in CDC’s online archives: Get your child up to date on routine vaccinations. During the country’s largest measles resurgence in decades, that should be the nation’s most urgent back-to-school message.

CDC’s reticence extends beyond social media. Four measles-associated deaths reported by Pennsylvania were initially absent from the agency’s national dashboard. In late August, CDC posted two of the Pennsylvania deaths, then added an asterisk and language that it was reviewing additional information. The deaths were later removed without a clear explanation. Now two deaths are reported on CDC’s dashboard as of September 28 without identifying the states. This is not transparency; it is silence at a moment when families need clear, accurate information to protect their children.

Why are these deaths being left off the official tally? There’s a disagreement between federal and state officials over how to count measles deaths—even though Pennsylvania investigated each death and reported them to CDC through the established nationally notifiable disease surveillance system that has been used by state and local health departments across the country for years. In late August, when officials from Pennsylvania announced the first two deaths there, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), even questioned if the deaths were fabricated. But Pennsylvania’s definition of a measles-associated death ensures that deaths unrelated to underlying measles infection are not counted.

Leaders at HHS and CDC have said they are working to clearly define measles deaths and that it will update its counts as reviews are complete. But the agency has not explained which deaths they are currently counting, how these decisions are being made, why the data reporting system used by states was changed, and how they will account for the secondary infections and other complications caused by measles.Two former leaders of the National Center for Health Statistics have called this out publicly, writing in STAT that these changes will delay reporting and add to public confusion about the severity of measles.

An important question to ask is whether shifting explanations and new disease-classification systems are clarifying the outbreak or miring it in confusion and making it easier to minimize. A single measles case can expose dozens of classmates, teachers, and siblings, as well as infants too young to be vaccinated. Federal officials should be using their platforms to prevent the next case and not debating the numbers.

Meanwhile, the big picture is being missed: We know how to prevent this.

After the last significant measles surge in the late 1980s, the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that all kids receive a second dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine at age four to six. One dose is approximately 93% effective against measles; two doses are approximately 97% effective. But national MMR coverage among kindergartners fell again during the 2025-2026 school year, and approximately 280,000 kindergartners attended school without documentation that they had completed the MMR series. Vaccine exemptions in 24 states exceeded 5%, meaning these communities no longer have the 95% adequate protection to keep measles from spreading.

The impact extends beyond the child who becomes sick. When an unvaccinated student is exposed to measles, they will often be required to stay at home for at least 21 days. That means missed academics, missed social interactions, and missed work for parents. In addition to the impact on a child and their family, each case of measles costs the public-health system on average $58,600 to respond to, including the cost of contact tracing and quarantines. And measles isn’t over when the rash goes away. It can result in “immune amnesia,” meaning kids are more likely to get other infections over the next two to three years, and approximately one in 10,000 people who recovered from measles will die years later from the rare brain disease subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

Amid the recent deadly outbreaks of measles, our federal health leaders have too often paired a lukewarm recommendation to vaccinate with insinuations and incorrect information about vaccine ingredients, fetal tissue, or waning immunity. The same week families needed clarity about a growing outbreak, Kennedy addressed a conference hosted by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization he once led.

In response to the outbreak, Pennsylvania has opened up nearly 150 pop-up vaccination clinics in homes and community centers, engaged health systems and local clinics across the state, requested federal support for additional vaccinations, developed a dashboard showing community transmission by county, and worked with coroners to investigate deaths. This is boots-on-the-ground public health.

Our federal health leaders should reinforce that work rather than cast doubt on it, giving parents and schools clear guidance and reporting cases consistently and transparently. Data and definitions matter, but we cannot lose sight of the people who are behind each of these data points. Each case number represents someone who became sick, and behind each death is a grieving family and a life that deserves to be counted. Now that children are back in school, our responsibility is both simple and urgent: to use the tools we know work to keep this preventable disease out of the classroom.

It’s been a while since South London singer Raye was a supporting act for another artist. And honestly, she admits, the experience has been humbling at times. With two critically acclaimed studio albums and world tours of her own under her belt, the 28-year-old has racked up countless hours on stage. But opening for pop heavyweight Bruno Mars on his Romantic Tour means she’s facing stadium crowds of around 70,000, a scale that still intimidates her.

This story is part of the 2026 TIME100 Next. Read Anya Taylor-Joy’s tribute to Raye here.

“I think people know ‘Where Is My Husband!’” she tells me on a Zoom call from New Orleans, the 12th stop on her leg of the tour. The hit single has surpassed a billion streams on Spotify since its release a year ago, and she recently performed it at the 2026 MTV VMAs. But that recognition only goes so far when the audience has come to see someone else. “It’s that taste of humility, where you’re like, ‘Right, this person is just staring at me like they are bored out of their mind,’” she says. “But it encourages something within you that’s like, ‘I need to put on a good show for this person!’ It’s quite funny, but also healthy.”

Her determination was forged during years of early-career setbacks that tested her confidence. Raye, born Rachel Agatha Keen, was a teenager when she signed a four-album record deal with Polydor in 2014. She spent the next seven years struggling to release her debut through a label she says stifled her creativity and voice. In the meantime, she wrote songs for global superstars like Beyoncé, Charli XCX, and John Legend while yearning for her own moment in the spotlight. 

She reached a breaking point in 2021, making a public plea on social media: “I’ve done everything they asked me, I switched genres, I worked 7 days a week, ask anyone in the music game, they know. I’m done being a polite pop star. I want to make my album now, please that is all I want.” At the time, a Polydor spokesperson said the label was "saddened" by Raye’s posts and had contacted her management team “to discuss and offer [its] full support.” Soon after, Raye was released from her contract and began a new era as an independent artist, co-managed by her parents, Sarah and Paul Keen.

Reflecting on that pivotal moment during an interview on a scorching hot July day in east London, Raye recalls how her pain drove her to speak out. “The catalyst came when I just had no fear of the worst case scenario anymore,” she says. “Genuinely, I had zero expectations. It was spur of the moment and impulsive, and I was very, very, very emotional and very hurt, and in a lot of pain.”

She channeled the trauma of those difficult years into her 2023 debut album, My 21st Century Blues, which has been streamed more than 2 billion times on Spotify. The album’s breakout single, “Escapism,” a raw depiction of a young woman lost in a cycle of avoidance and addiction, went viral on TikTok, fueled by fans’ sped-up versions of the track. Raye embraced the trend, releasing a sped-up rendition of her own. The original reached No. 1 on the U.K. charts nearly three months after its release. A record-breaking six wins at the 2024 Brit Awards, followed by three Grammy nominations later that year, was a sign of her growing global appeal. 

The record offered an unflinching look at her struggles with substance abuse and heartache. In one track, "Ice Cream Man," she details the sexual assault she experienced as a young woman in the music industry. The song resonated with audiences worldwide and won the Harry Belafonte Best Song For Social Change Award at this year’s Grammys. “A lot of my first album was very cathartic,” she says. “We touched on some heavy stuff. We were able to create a space of emotion and reckoning.”

If Raye’s first album documented her unraveling, her sophomore record, This Music May Contain Hope, captures her piecing herself back together. The album, which has been shortlisted for a Mercury Prize, covers a whole spectrum of emotion, with hope at its center. Songs titled “I Will Overcome” and “Happier Times Ahead” are infused with powerful affirmations, the kind one might repeat in the mirror before they face the day: “Happier times are coming, alright?/ The sun exists behind the clouds/ It's right there, just hold onto happier times, alright, darling.” That determination and resilience runs through the 17-track record. “In the wild and difficult times the world is in right now, I just wanted to make something that had hope laced in it,” she says. “I knew I needed some, and I knew from playing so many shows that the audiences needed some, too.”

A sense of home also permeates the record. In “Beware.. The South London Lover Boy,” she cheekily warns other women about the smooth-talking, Lime bike-riding “strange creatures” lurking on the streets where she grew up. The humor gives away to heartache in “Nightingale Lane,” a ballad she introduces as documenting the “greatest heartbreak I have ever known.” Named after a road in Balham, South London, the song follows Raye through familiar places that hold memories of a former love. 

Earlier this year, Raye and her team placed an unofficial Blue Plaque—which typically denotes a building’s historical link to a notable figure—outside The Nightingale pub, her ex’s favorite drinking spot, to promote the song and make sure “he’ll never forget” what happened. “I thought the pub would've taken it down by now, but [it’s] still up there,” she says, with a laugh. “You’ve just gotta be creative when you're independent and try different things, you know?”

Yet, in the months leading up to the album’s March release, Raye worried about how it would be received. During what she describes as a “silly moment,” the singer even wondered if she had already peaked. Her debut album had set what felt like impossibly high standards and she questioned if she’d “ever have a No. 1 again.” Everything fell into place once she chose “Where Is My Husband!” as the lead track. She had a feeling fellow “single girls” would relate to her  frustration with waiting to find a worthy partner, a hunch that turned out to be right. The song topped the U.K. charts in January and became the soundtrack to countless engagement videos and dating chronicles across social media. 

The song encapsulates Raye as an artist: an undeniably pop sound, but with a big-band twist and elements of jazz and funk that defy easy categorization. Her refusal to be boxed into a genre was fueled by her experience coming of age in an industry that told her “to pick a sound.” At the TIME photoshoot, early-2000s tracks ring out across the studio until Raye raises a hand and asks for “something else, something jazz.” Soon, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” fills the room, with Raye adding her own riffs and runs.

This fusion of traditional and contemporary extends to Raye’s live shows. She performs with a big band, but at one point in her set, giant lightbulbs that spell out “RAYE” are tweaked to spell “RAVE.” (A drunk fan pitched her the idea at a festival a few years ago.) “I love having a nightclub segment in my shows and I love jazz,” she says. “Those are two polarizing genres, they're not supposed to be allowed to coexist, but it's really exciting to be able to get on stage and sing ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ with a seven-piece brass section and then go into letting everyone jump and have green lasers. Why not?”

Realizing she could bring all of these impulses together and take control of her own creative direction was a turning point. “A massive part of that has come from just removing any external opinions,” she says. “It's important to have people who can give you a great perspective, but you don't need too many cooks in the kitchen.” By liberating herself of others’ expectations, Raye was able to tune back into the voice that mattered most: her own. “Being able to clear that noise out allowed me to give myself permission to just do what feels right,” she says. 

Raye’s close-knit network is with her on set. Her mother is present, as is her teenage sister, Katelyn, who dutifully captures behind-the-scenes photos throughout the day. “She’s got a great eye,” Raye says with pride. Her other sisters, Absolutely and Amma, are emerging musicians in their own right; both feature on her album and have previously joined her on tour. Raye’s grateful for the close bond they share, especially because it hasn’t always been that way. “I navigated a whole journey very distant from my family, and it just wasn't ideal for me,” she says. “This job and career path is so weird, in the most amazing way, but also confusing. We're put on pedestals and I’m treated as ‘Raye the artist.’ If you nurture that too much, you can lose your way. My family really helped ground me.”

Raye has also learned to set clear boundaries in her life. “‘No’ is my favorite word, which is really cool because for my whole life, I'd be like, ‘Okay, yes,” she recalls. “You’re not a mean person to say ‘no.’ You're not being selfish. You have to really do the work to learn [that].” 

The singer is still learning to show herself grace as she navigates life’s complexities in front of an audience. Some days, it’s a harder task than others. “I had a tough gig the other day, where I had a lump in my throat from before I even went on stage,” she says. “You know when you get that lump and it’s just gonna take one little thing to just set you off?” Afterward, Raye apologized for the “bad vibes” in a group chat with her band, who reassured her that being open about her emotions is a good thing. “Some days we’re smiling and some days it’s hard,” she says. “And that day I wanted the ground to swallow me and I wanted to run off the stage, you know? But I told the crowd, ‘I’m having a hard day.’ And I did my best.”

When she’s feeling particularly lost, Raye turns to one of her idols: Aretha Franklin. “I watch that biopic and I’m just so inspired by her story,” she says. “I cry my eyes out and then be like, ‘I’m gonna keep trying.’”

Raye also protects her mental space by limiting her social media time. She doesn’t know the password to her Instagram account, for example. Instead, she approaches her team when she wants to log in for a short amount of time. “Them things can have me scrolling for hours, and then I'll start deep diving and looking at stuff I don't need to be looking at, so it's just better for my head and my heart,” she says.

After a whirlwind few months, Raye is preparing to enter the final year of her 20s and has high hopes for what lies ahead. “I'm excited to see what my 30s are going to teach me,” she says. Career-wise, she’s determined to keep evolving and is set to make her film acting debut in Lineage, an upcoming crime thriller from Top Boy director Yann Demange. She has also teased an upcoming project with Michael B. Jordan, though the details remain under wraps.

Even as she welcomes these new opportunities, music will always take top billing. But a third album will have to wait. “I’m falling in love first!” she quips, before we part ways.

Now, where the hell is that husband?

Art Direction and Set Art by Jana Frost for TIME; Photography by Stefano Giuliano for TIME; Hair by Alex Price at Eighteen Management; Makeup by Olly Fisk at Stella Creative Artists; Nails by Angel at A-Frame Agency; Styling by Eniola Dare; Cover: Harris Reed corset and skirt, Audemars Piguet watch; Ladder look: Schiaparelli dress, Audemars Piguet watch; Instrument look: Alexander McQueen dress, Sonia Petroff earrings, Audemars Piguet watch; Boat look: Dreaming Eli dress, The Hirst Collection earrings, Audemars Piguet watch.