While Mormon temples may be a common sight in many cities across the United States, the average American may not realize how much land is owned by the Mormon Church. Using a largely obscure real estate company, the Mormon Church has been quickly expanding its holdings in numerous states and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

How is the Mormon Church acquiring land?

The church largely purchases land through its real estate management brand, Property Reserve. While this company is “relatively unknown to many,” it plays a major role in the Mormon Church, said Bloomberg. Through a “web of subsidiaries,” Property Reserve has “accumulated billions of dollars of properties from farms and ranches to apartments and hotels, becoming one of America’s largest — and least transparent — landowners.”

Though the Mormon Church is mostly known for purchasing land to build its sprawling temples on, it is recently “starting to get more involved in housing and master-planned communities — putting in some cases decades-old land holdings to work in high-growth areas including Colorado, Florida and Arizona,” said Bloomberg. The church recently “paid $240 million to acquire an apartment complex in Boca Raton, marking one of the priciest multifamily deals in South Florida” in 2026, said The Real Deal.

One of these regions in Florida being developed sits on a swath of land “almost as large as San Francisco,” said Bloomberg. The project is so massive that Florida created an “independent local government — usually first appointed by the landowners — designed to oversee funding of major infrastructure and development.” The deals have not been without controversy. The church has, for example, bought 3,000 acres of ranch land in Kyle, Texas, a “property that has been entangled in a lawsuit from an environmental group seeking to prevent the land from being developed,” said the San Antonio Express-News.

Why is the church doing this?

The purchases “reflect both opportunity and a willingness to pay up,” said Bloomberg. The church does not disclose much financial information, but a Bloomberg review of property records “shows that the Mormon Church owns at least 2.4 million acres across the U.S. — an area almost twice the size of Delaware — with an assessed value in excess of $20 billion.” The real value of the Mormon Church’s holdings is “almost certainly much higher: The estimation doesn’t include holdings in nondisclosure states like Texas.”

The church’s most consequential purchases are driving “development on a scale that can reshape entire regions,” Bloomberg said. It comes amid an effort to further Mormon culture within the United States, from “influencers with millions of followers to TV shows such as ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.’” But the church has also “faced criticism over its multibillion-dollar real estate portfolio.” The criticism has been compounded due to the Mormon requirement that members donate 10% of their income to the church as a tithe, according to the Mormon Church’s website. The church has been sued for allegedly using these tithings to fund real estate projects.

There have also been allegations that the Mormon real estate portfolio is part of a larger shell company scheme, an accusation the church denies. In 2023, a whistleblower told “60 Minutes” that the church’s nonprofit investment manager, Ensign, was “really a clandestine hedge fund” and that “once the money went in, it didn’t go out.” Mormon officials have denied any wrongdoing. The whistleblower’s story included “unfounded allegations by a former employee who has a different view on how the church should manage its resources,” the church said in a statement.

Fill the grid with numbers one to nine so that each row, column and square contains every digit exactly once. This game will update daily.

Guess the four-digit number in six tries. Choose your number and tap enter to submit. Each tile will change to green if the digit is correct and in the right position, or orange if it is correct but in the wrong position. A dark grey tile means the digit does not appear anywhere in the number. Come back here tomorrow for the next Guess the Number game.

You have six tries to guess the five-letter word. Type in the letters and hit enter. After each guess, the colour of the tiles will change if you choose the correct letters. A green tile means the letter is in the correct spot. A peach tile means the letter is in the word but is in the wrong spot. The tile will not change colour if the letter is not in the word. This game will update daily.

Fill the grid with numbers one to nine so that each row, column and square contains every digit exactly once. This game will update daily.

Fill the grid with numbers one to nine so that each row, column and square contains every digit exactly once. This game will update daily.

Even “the liberal intelligentsia” expressed alarm when America’s national debt recently surpassed the $40 trillion threshold, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Blame the entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which “keep growing on autopilot,” along with a pandemic-era “spending binge” by both political parties that has doubled annual deficits to nearly $2 trillion. The initial Covid relief bill in 2020 was necessary, but continued sending out checks for far too long. The Biden administration spent trillions on additional stimulus for a “mostly recovered” economy, as well as a “bipartisan infrastructure bonanza,” and “a climate extravaganza.” Because of these spending sprees, the gross national debt has ballooned by $17 trillion since 2019—about as much as the country accumulated “during the entire first 225 years of its history.”

The true culprits are 21st-century GOP tax cuts, said Bobby Kogan in MS.now. Data show that those massive reductions in revenue, passed under George W. Bush and President Trump, are “driving this fiscal imbalance.” It was not a secret that raw federal spending would increase as Baby Boomers aged and health-care and retirement costs rose, but our old tax system “was set to keep pace with it,” and “debt was projected to shrink continuously as a percentage of the economy.” Bush even inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton (who raised taxes), but he squandered that gift by reducing taxes on wealthy Americans. Trump doubled down on that irresponsible strategy, and slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Now Republicans insist we must cut “crucial aid that Americans rely on,” rather than undo the tax cuts “that are responsible for creating the fiscal gap.”

President Trump promised to cut the deficit, said Alan Rappeport in The New York Times, but he’s “only exacerbated America’s financial woes.” Elon Musk’s now-disbanded DOGE failed to achieve its goal of slashing federal spending by $1 trillion, and it’s unclear it saved any money at all. Trump’s tariffs backfired when the Supreme Court ruled most of them illegal, which led to refunds to companies of $160 billion. Trump’s expensive war against Iran has only added to the sea of red ink. Getting out of this mess means “putting everything on the table,” said Ingrid Jacques in USA Today. That includes tax increases and cuts to popular benefits. Sadly, neither Democrats nor Republicans have the “gumption” to tell voters that hard choices must be made.

Conservative voters in Texas have a new bogeyman, said J. David Goodman in The New York Times: Muslims. Though only 1% to 2% of Texas residents are Muslim, the community is growing fast—and so is fearmongering from the Christian hard right about the spread of “sharia law” and a planned Islamic “takeover.” A proposed mosque development outside Dallas was denounced by influencers as a threat to Western civilization and investigated by state authorities. Multiple conference panels at this summer’s state Republican convention “warned of a Muslim invasion.” And Gov. Greg Abbott has jumped on the bandwagon: He has designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national civil rights group, a terrorist organization; ordered the cancellation of a private water-park party celebrating a Muslim holiday; and earlier this month threatened to pull state funding from Texas airports that provide ritual washing stations for Muslim travelers. “We experience waves of Islamophobia,” said Shaimaa Zayan of CAIR’s Austin chapter. “This is the worst wave.”

It’s not just Texas, said Asma Khalid in The Atlantic. Twenty-five years after 9/11, anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. “has grown.” In Washington, D.C., prominent GOP lawmakers “have made it clear that they don’t see people like me as Americans.” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina recently posted that every “Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan Horse,” while Rep. Randy Fine of Florida has said, “We need more Islamophobia.” I first noticed this shift in the run-up to the 2016 election, when Donald Trump called for a “Muslim ban” and claimed falsely that “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheered when the Twin Towers fell. When a presidential candidate spouted Islamophobia, others felt free to join in the hate.

For American Muslims, the worst could still be to come, said Joel Mathis in his Substack newsletter. Texas lawmakers are now trying to craft a legal definition of “religion” that would exclude Islam. A decade ago, I’d have said such a law “would be laughed out of the Supreme Court.” Today, I’m not sure. Can you say with confidence that Justice Clarence Thomas “wouldn’t vote against Islam with the First Amendment on the line?” Conservative Christians must tread carefully, said Bonnie Kristian in Christianity Today. With secularism on the rise, it’s “naive” to believe that a statewide ban on religious practices could never be used against them. The First Amendment is clear: If we want religious liberty, “we must defend it for everyone.”

What is life like in Afghanistan today?

For the vast majority of Afghans, it is grim. Around 90% of the population lives below the poverty line, more than twice as many as before the U.S. pullout, and more than 3.5 million children suffer from malnutrition. Under the Taliban’s draconian interpretation of sharia, watching movies, playing chess, singing, and playing or listening to music are all banned. Men must wear long beards and attend daily prayers. And for women, whose movements are governed by some 200 Taliban edicts, it is the most repressive country on Earth. Women can’t attend school past sixth grade, work in most jobs, travel without a male relative accompanying them, uncover their faces in public, or even speak in public. “Imagine living every day not knowing whether the door to freedom will ever reopen,” said former Afghan lawmaker Shukria Barakzai, who now lives in exile in the U.K. “The psychological trauma is immense.

How did the Taliban take control? 

In February 2020, the first Trump administration struck a deal with the Taliban—sidelining the teetering Afghan government—that traded U.S. troop withdrawal for Taliban assurances that the country would not be used as a base for terrorist attacks on Americans. Incoming President Joe Biden then promised to get the troops out before Sept. 11, 2021, but the execution was chaos. When the Afghan government collapsed on Aug. 15, 2021, thousands of desperate Afghans rushed the Kabul airport trying to board U.S. planes as the Taliban overran the capital. At least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were killed in an ISIS-K suicide bombing. While the Taliban have mostly succeeded in containing ISIS-K and other terrorist groups, their promises to govern more moderately than they did before 2001 proved worthless. They soon reintroduced floggings, public amputations, and stoning. When women tried to march for their rights, they were violently suppressed, and by 2023, nearly all those in Afghan jails were political prisoners, and many were tortured. Now Afghanistan is a global pariah, its Taliban government recognized only by Russia.

Has that hurt the economy?

Yes, deeply enough that a third of its population of 45 million is going hungry. Taliban rules have stifled the formal economy, though they tolerate some opium cultivation and have turned themselves into arms dealers hawking the $7 billion worth of military hardware the U.S. and its allies left behind. But ordinary Afghans have been further battered by Taliban repression, major earthquakes in 2022 and 2025, and the rollback of most U.S. and other Western humanitarian aid. Rural Afghans must contend with water shortages and contamination from U.S. burn pits and bomb residue. The country has long had one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, now exacerbated by the Taliban’s ban on medical training for women and the requirement that women patients be accompanied to appointments by a male guardian. “In the beginning, I found it very hard when I saw children dying,” said Fatima Husseini, a nurse in central Ghor province. “But now it has almost become normal for us.”

How do Afghans cope?

Some resort to selling their children into bondage or forcing them into marriage. More than 6 million Afghans fled to neighboring Iran and Pakistan, but both those countries have kicked out nearly all their Afghan refugees in recent years—even Afghans who arrived back in 1979, during the Soviet invasion. In Iran, Afghans have been attacked by mobs and baselessly accused of collaborating with Israel; some legal residents have had police tear up their documents in front of them. In Pakistan, authorities have demolished Afghans’ homes, stripped them of their valuables, and forced over 2.5 million refugees to march back across the border. Once back home, they often have no access to employment or basic services; roughly 25% of returnees are homeless. Western countries, too, have been seeking to deport Afghans, even collaborating with the Taliban to make it happen.

What about the U.S.?

The Biden administration welcomed more than 190,000 Afghans into the U.S. after the troop withdrawal, prioritizing former interpreters, U.S.-allied fighters, and others who aided the American war effort. But the second Trump administration moved to cancel their immigration status, and last year, after an Afghan national trained by the CIA and resettled in the U.S. shot two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., President Trump halted all visas for Afghans. More than 100 have been deported directly to Afghanistan; hundreds of others have been shipped to unsafe “third countries.” Currently, the administration is trying to send most of the 1,100 Afghans at a U.S. base in Qatar—all of them thoroughly vetted exiles who either helped the U.S. military or are the spouses or children of U.S. service members—to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. The only other choice, officials tell them, is returning to Afghanistan.

What happens to returnees?

They face imprisonment, torture, and death. Kamin Jan, a former interior ministry employee deported from Iran, was shot dead in Takhar province in October 2025, just weeks after he was expelled from Iran. Hundreds of Afghans who once worked with American forces have been executed; some reported having their toenails pulled out and being hung by their feet during Taliban prison interrogations. Some U.S. military officials warn that the deportations could set a precedent that undermines American interests. Potential allies are likely to think twice if American promises “have the shelf life of one administration,” says Marine veteran Kyleanne Hunter, head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “You cannot win a future war with partners who watched you abandon the last ones.”

Egg freezing is becoming an increasingly popular and visible choice among women. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently joined the ranks of public figures who have shared their experience, detailing on social media her own decision-making and the realities of undergoing the process.

The procedure, in which eggs are harvested from the ovaries and then frozen for storage, can offer women an option if they are not yet ready to conceive or have health concerns and anticipated treatments that could later impact fertility. For many people, however, the cost of egg freezing is a major obstacle.

What is the average cost of freezing your eggs?

A single cycle of egg freezing “nationally averages around $16,000,” said The Sacramento Bee, citing FertilityIQ’s patient-reported data. This “includes roughly $11,000 for the clinic procedure and about $5,000 for fertility medications.” In addition, “egg storage is typically billed separately and can cost up to about $1,000 a year, depending on the facility,” said CNN Health.

Of course, there are a number of variables that influence how closely the actual cost aligns with these averages. One is location: “Clinics in mid-size cities may charge around $10,000 per cycle, while coastal metros like New York or San Francisco can exceed $18,000 for the procedure alone,” said The Sacramento Bee.

Also, “many women need to undergo multiple cycles to get their desired egg count,” said Dr. Marcelle Cedars, a professor and director at the University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Reproductive Health, to CNBC. That multiplies the initial estimate. Finally, when women are ready to use their eggs, they have the cost of IVF to navigate, which “averages roughly $23,000 per cycle,” said The Sacramento Bee.

How much does it cost if you decide to freeze embryos instead?

Despite the price tag, there is no guarantee that egg freezing will lead to a successful pregnancy. Freezing embryos can yield a higher success rate, which is why some women opt to freeze both their eggs and their embryos. Of course, this further compounds costs.

Since the process of embryo freezing also includes sperm banking and fertilization, it generally has a higher starting cost, averaging around “$10,000-$20,000 per cycle,” said the North Carolina Center for Reproductive Medicine. Storage is also necessary; this can run up to $1,000 a year.

What options are there to help cover the costs of egg and embryo freezing?

While “some high-profile tech companies, including Meta and Apple, have advertised egg freezing as an employee perk,” the reality is that “most insurance does not cover the cost unless there is a medical reason, such as ahead of cancer treatments that will damage or destroy a woman’s eggs,” said CNN Health. In fact, said The Sacramento Bee, “only about 20% of large U.S. companies include egg freezing in their benefits.” Still, the first step when assessing costs for the procedure is to check with your health insurance plan to see what costs it may help cover, if any.

A total of “21 states have fertility preservation mandates, which means they may cover some aspects of medically necessary egg freezing (and/or sperm freezing) for qualified patients,” said CCRM Fertility. The fertility clinic itself may be willing to offer discounts or payment plans, and there are various organizations that offer financial assistance and even grants or scholarships. You might also consider using your Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds toward qualified expenses.

‘Mirror life is theoretical. The danger is anything but.’

Nidhi Kalra at The Washington Post

Mirror life “could theoretically be built out of biological molecules that are mirror images of the ones that exist naturally,” as it’s “possible to imagine — and maybe even create — a living organism made of mirror-image counterparts to natural biomolecules,” says Nidhi Kalra. Scientists “warn that mirror bacteria could devastate most life on Earth,” as it “might not be recognized by the things — immune systems, enzymes and other predator microorganisms — that keep normal bacteria in check.”

Read more

‘Tanzania’s dam is a massive moment for African self-finance’

Mihir Sharma at Bloomberg

Tanzania’s new hydroelectric dam has “doubled domestic generation capacity,” and “that’s the sort of energy abundance even developed countries dream of,” says Mihir Sharma. The country “has achieved this almost entirely on its own dime.” Given the “many pitfalls associated with big dams, it’s remarkable that Tanzania has pulled this off.” Western investors have “turned away from big projects in the emerging world and from hydropower in particular,” but “countries are discovering they can do it for themselves.”

Read more

‘Uzbekistan’s startups could give the US an edge in Central Asia’

Bruno S. Sergi at Newsweek

A “few years ago, the idea of a billion-dollar Uzbek tech company would have sounded far-fetched,” but “today, investors are searching for the next Uzum, Uzbekistan’s largest digital ecosystem,” says Bruno S. Sergi. This is “exactly why Uzbekistan matters.” If the U.S. “wants Central Asia in its orbit and not locked into Russian surveillance tech, Chinese AI models and processing of its critical minerals, it needs a success story that is not built on sanctions or pressure, but on commerce.”

Read more

‘Why we love watching robots fail’

Kyle MacNeill at Time

Robotic “tumbling records will likely be, in the pop cultural consciousness, eclipsed by something far more entertaining: tumbling robots,” says Kyle MacNeill. Along with the “epic wins, there have been some seriously old-school, epic fails,” and “these slapstick scenes are deliciously satisfying.” This “robot schadenfreude is fueled by a fear of the future,” as “pointing out their flaws makes humanity’s finish line feel further away, even if that’s a highly unintelligent thing to think.”

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America is plagued by a housing crisis. One possible solution is manufactured housing, which can be produced quickly and relatively cheaply. A new federal housing law could open the door to the sector’s expansion. To succeed, though, manufactured housing must overcome the stigmas against mobile homes and trailer parks.

Federal law, local codes

Manufactured homes are quietly “filling the suburbs,” said The Washington Post. The dwellings were long looked down on as “low-quality, less-safe housing” that was mostly “limited to trailer parks and rural properties” for decades, but higher-quality models are springing up in the “typical American suburban subdivision.” Cost is a big factor: The average price of a manufactured home is just $90,700, though many structures “can run far more than that.”

Prebuilt housing is the “most efficient, effective way to allow homeownership in the United States,” said Joel Farkas of Fruition Communities, which is planning an 8,000-unit neighborhood in the Denver suburbs, to the Post. The median U.S. single-family home price now runs more than $400,000, and elevated mortgage rates are “suppressing housing turnover, constricting supply and inflating prices,” said the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank. Young families are finding that “suitable homes are scarce” as a result.

Sears’ prebuilt home kits in the early 20th century made housing widely available and relatively inexpensive for generations of Americans. A proposed program to “deliver 500,000 high-quality, factory-built homes” across the country would create a “permanently affordable” source of housing that harkens back to those Sears homes, said the Groundwork Collaborative. The housing crisis “will not be solved by half measures.”

The new federal housing law does not go as far as Groundwork’s proposal. But the legislation “aims to slash some of the red tape” that has hindered construction of manufactured and modular housing, said The Wall Street Journal. One provision eliminates a requirement that such structures be built with a permanent steel frame to make the houses easier to move. (Fewer than 5% of mobile homes are ever relocated “from their original placement,” said Axios.) Ending the rule could reduce construction costs for a single unit by up to $10,000, said the Journal.

One obstacle: The feds “can only do so much” in a country where housing policies are largely set at the state and local levels, said the Journal. “Every city, every municipality has a different code,” PTM Partners’ Michael Tillman told the outlet.

‘More support’ needed

Manufactured housing still has its own “affordability problem” even with the red tape stripped out, said Politico. Loans to buy such housing are different from regular mortgages and often feature interest rates “near double digits” that can “lock out many prospective buyers.”

Some members of Congress want “more federal government support” to make factory-built home loans cheaper, said Politico. Those efforts will be needed because the “market is not doing them,” said Scott Olson, the executive director of Community Home Lenders of America, to the outlet.

The president may not have had his name on the ballot in South Carolina, but Senator Darline Graham’s narrow win over Rep. Ralph Norman in that state’s GOP Senate primary last week was a major victory for Trump himself. By pulling Graham over the electoral line with massive cash infusions, backroom arm-twisting and MAGA vote-whipping, Trump reestablished himself as an electoral force to reckon with, even as his personal unpopularity threatens the GOP’s midterm prospects. But while Trump reaps the benefits of engineering Graham’s victory, some Republicans worry he’s also sown the seeds of future electoral agita.

Win that ‘defied electoral expectations’

Trump “stuck his neck out” on Graham’s behalf, putting his credibility “on the line” in a state that “twice in the last six months has rejected his preferences,” said The New York Times. Not only did Trump visit Myrtle Beach to “rally supporters,” he “personally called high-level state officials” to “compel them to endorse” his candidate of choice.

The MAGA Inc. super PAC associated with the president’s inner circle, which was “notoriously wary to spend on races this cycle,” also spent “nearly $800,000 on phone calls” for the Graham campaign, said the Times. The president’s pitch to voters was essentially to “treat Graham as an extension of himself,” said Politico.

“What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot,” said Trump at his Myrtle Beach rally for Graham. “Just say that I’m on the ballot one more time.”

Graham’s win came “not only” thanks to Trump’s endorsement but also the “fact that he was willing to come down and campaign on her behalf,” said Jordan Ragusa, a political science professor at the College of Charleston, to South Carolina’s The State. As for “whether Trump still has the same clout” he previously enjoyed, “I think the answer is undeniably that he still has it.”

As Trump has “done often” since first being elected president, he “defied electoral expectations,” said the Times. South Carolina voters have “signaled that the party’s political identity, and perhaps its fortunes, remain tightly intertwined” with Trump, even as the GOP “begins to imagine what it might look like” after his presidency.

Clamoring for the ‘Darline treatment’

While Trump may have carried Graham over the line, he “lost a lot of support in South Carolina” in the process, said The New Republic. Attendees “booed and jeered at mentions of the president’s name” during Rep. Ralph Norman’s concession speech to Graham in a sign of “palpable aggravation” over Trump’s “unwanted involvement in the contentious Senate runoff.”

“I never understood why he got in this race,” said Norman in his concession speech. Still, he allowed that it was Trump’s “prerogative” to involve himself and that the president’s “policies are good.”

Adding to some Republicans’ frustrations is Trump has not “yet campaigned as hard” for other conservative candidates “looking to stem their party’s expected losses in the midterms,” said WPDE. Trump “hasn’t taken a meaningful step” into the states and races “that will matter in a few short months,” said Politico, despite Republicans in those races “clamoring for him to spend his MAGA Inc. money.”

After seeing how Trump helped Graham, “it’s now or never,” said one GOP consultant to Politico regarding other campaigns seeking the “Darline treatment.” With just months to go before polls close, “it’s put up or shut up time, and it’s really time to start to see if he’s going to get serious.” However, it “just doesn’t seem like there’s any sense of urgency” or understanding that “we are down big in some of these states.”

Trump’s “desire for sycophants” has “hollowed out his party and likely hurt his own cause,” said Bloomberg. Had congressional Republicans “pushed back” and “saved him from his worst instincts,” maybe his “policies might be more popular.” Trump must now instead “broaden his coalition” to convince potential voters who “may not be total MAGA loyalists” to “show up for weak candidates like Graham in November.”

What happened

NASA on Sunday launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4.3 billion repurposed spy satellite designed to capture panoramic views of the cosmos, cataloguing Earth-like exoplanets and helping solve some of the biggest mysteries of astrophysics: dark matter and dark energy. The bus-sized telescope, named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket en route to an observation point a million miles away.

Who said what

Roman is “NASA’s latest and greatest cosmic cartographer,” The New York Times said. Set to send back a “whopping one terabyte of data each day,” the telescope “promises a panorama so wide and so crisp that it would take more than half a million high-definition TVs to display in full.” While 2021’s James Webb Telescope, like a zoom lens, is designed to “probe very deeply and with exquisite sensitivity ​into the universe,” Roman’s “vast reach will allow us to find the weird, the rare and the unusual,” senior project scientist Julie McEnery said.

The new telescope’s real “superpower is speed,” The Associated Press said. The Hubble Space Telescope, “still churning out celestial glamour shots after 36 years,” could scan the entire Milky Way in a century; Roman can do it in a month.

What next?

Roman is scheduled to arrive at its L2 orbit point in about 100 days. “Its mission is planned for five years,” Reuters said, “though NASA said the telescope may have enough fuel for five additional years.”

What happened

President Donald Trump late last week said his administration had reached the “BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY” with Venezuela. The agreement, later confirmed by acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, gives the U.S. rights to 65 billion barrels of the country’s oil reserves. Trump on Sunday described the oil as a “Gift from Venezuela,” and said it would start refilling the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve “very shortly.” But “no text of any agreement has been released,” The Associated Press said, and “many questions” remain unanswered.

Who said what

Trump has been withdrawing oil for “months to keep prices from rising even higher” during the Iran war, and the strategic reserve “now sits at its lowest level since 1982,” The New York Times said. But refilling the reserve with this Venezuelan oil is “something of a pipe dream.” Experts have “repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure will take years and billions of dollars to repair,” the AP said, and it’s unclear “who would pay for infrastructure investments.”

The details we know “aren’t cause for enthusiasm,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board said in an op-ed. The Trump administration, through the Pentagon, is “essentially getting in bed with a foreign dictator and her favored capitalist,” energy company CEO Alejandro Betancourt.

What next?

Oil companies “will remain cautious even if the terms of the deal, once released, pass legal muster,” Bob McNally, an energy adviser to former President George W. Bush, told the AP. “A future president could withdraw, and Caracas has twice thrown foreign investors out.”

What happened

The U.S. on Sunday struck two missile launchers on Iran’s Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, its first confirmed airstrikes on Iran since July 29. U.S. Central Command said Iran was preparing to fire sea mines into the strait, days after President Donald Trump declared the international shipping lanes clear of mines.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the U.S. strikes killed “several” military personnel and civilians, and warned of “severe repercussions.” Jordan said it successfully intercepted eight missiles that entered its airspace Monday morning, headed for U.S. airbases.

Who said what

The resumption of airstrikes heightened the “risk of a return to all-out conflict,” The Wall Street Journal said, something Trump “has been working to avoid.” The administration recently pivoted to sanctions as it “weighs diminished munitions stockpiles” after six months of war, The Associated Press said.

The “heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force” and other “four-star commanders” warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this month that “prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland,” The Washington Post reported. The U.S. military is “experiencing a ‘beyond critical’ shortage of advanced missile interceptors in Europe,” the AP said last week, citing a U.S. defense official.

What next?

As the war “grinds on, Trump’s talk of finding a quick end” appears to be “fading,” the AP said. He has “repeatedly declared that the ‘Strait of Hormuz is open,’” but Iran continues to strike cargo ships. Brent crude oil jumped 2.8% to $90.57 a barrel after Sunday’s attacks.

We are barreling toward a nuclear problem. Decades-old radioactive waste from discarded containers may be slowly seeping into the Atlantic Ocean and affecting the marine ecosystem. Scientists have conducted dives to collect samples and test the region to determine the extent of the pollution and whether the radioactivity has made its way into the food web.

A barrel of trouble

Between 1950 and 1990, “more than 200,000 barrels filled with radioactive waste were dumped in the depths of the North-East Atlantic,” said a release by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Scientists first mapped the area where the barrels were dumped on a mission in summer 2025. They recently completed a second mission where they “carried out 20 dives to depths of over 4,700 meters (15,419 feet), enabling direct observation of several barrels and their immediate surroundings” using a manned submersible called the Nautile.

The barrels “contain low- and intermediate-level radioactive material” including “process sludge, contaminated metal and laboratory equipment,” said Futura. They sit “between 10,000 and 16,000 feet down in international waters.” Using the “Nautile and other instruments deployed from the vessel, together with the samples collected,” CNRS researchers “were able to document the advanced state of deterioration of several barrels, observe that some of them had leaked their contents and identify the various materials used to encapsulate the waste,” said the release.

While the “photographs from the initial cruise revealed barrels in various stages of degradation and corrosion,” images “alone cannot determine if radionuclides have entered the marine food web,” said Futura. To fill in the gaps, the researchers collected “precise water, fauna and sediment samples directly adjacent to the corroded barrels, allowing scientists to measure exactly how far any escaping radioactive materials have migrated into the deep sea ecosystem.”

Nuclear family

Due to barrel deterioration, there were “significant signals of radionuclides specifically linked to this waste, cobalt 60 and niobium 94, in addition to cesium 137 and americium 241,” Javier Escartin and Patrick Chardon, who were both involved in the research, said at The Conversation. The difficulty now is in “separating any potential leakage from historical background radiation,” said Futura. The Atlantic Ocean in the region “already contains radiation from 20th-century atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and authorized runoff from coastal nuclear power plants.”

Despite the depth and radioactive signatures at the site, it was “not devoid of life,” said The Cool Down. Researchers “saw crabs, sponges, anemones and other organisms on or near the barrels, which have effectively become hard surfaces in an otherwise soft seabed environment.” The question that remains is not simply “whether radioactive material is present” but “whether deep-sea life is absorbing it and whether it is moving through sediment and water in meaningful amounts.” Studying the collected samples will provide more information on the effect these underwater communities have on the transfer of radionuclides.

The barrels were never meant to permanently seal the radioactive waste. These containers were intended to “provide an initial period of confinement rather than act as permanent deep-sea vaults,” said Earth.com. Over time, the “radioactive contents were expected to be released gradually and dispersed in the ocean.”

“It’s too late to undo the damage inflicted on the environment by previous generations,” said Popular Mechanics. But “having a deeper understanding of how these systematic episodes of pollution impacted the world will help future generations avoid making the same mistakes.”

Garrison, N.Y.

Built in 1929, Evarts Hill sits on more than 50 acres in the Hudson Valley about 50 miles from Manhattan. The estate’s updated six-bedroom main home is a stone-and-stucco French Norman château featuring a three-story rotunda with a curving staircase, a living room with hand-hewn beams, and a chef’s kitchen with a canary-yellow BlueStar stove.

The land includes a five-bedroom carriage house, plus a rose garden, pool, and lawn. $8,950,000. Tony Cutugno, William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, (914) 582-7789

Kirtland, Ohio

The Playmore, a 1929 French Provincial–style estate in a Cleveland suburb, overlooks Lake Erie. The expanded and updated seven-bedroom features detailed woodwork, ceiling frescoes, marble floors, a kitchen with a Tiffany skylight dome, and a 3,000-square-foot entertainment wing with a bar, billiards, a hookah lounge, and a wine room.

The more than 12-acre lot has about 20,000 trees, bocce courts, English gardens, and a campground. $5,950,000. David Ayers and Nick Zawitz, The Agency Cleveland Northcoast, (917) 519-0622

Vero Beach, Fla.

Along the Indian River, this 1920 waterfront two-bedroom cottage on Florida’s Treasure Coast has updated systems and a metal roof, plus wood-paneled walls, terra-cotta-tiled floors, a sunroom with French doors, and a primary suite with a private balcony.

The property spans 5 tropically landscaped acres with about 300 feet of river frontage, and includes a bricked dining and lounge area, flat yards, and a dock. $3,995,000. Nic Stover, Engel & Völkers (772) 801-8292

Denver

This 1921 Mediterranean-style four-bedroom is a five-minute drive from Washington Park. The home has an entrance with a stenciled wood floor, two formal sitting rooms, a dining room with a chandelier and window seat, and a chef’s kitchen that steps down to a family room with a fireplace.

The professionally landscaped grounds include a brick patio with a three-tiered water feature. $3,750,000. John Jaster, Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate/Luxury Portfolio International, (303) 322-6200

Los Angeles

Built in 1923, this Spanish-style five-bedroom in Los Feliz features a living room with black lacquered beams, coral built-ins, a starburst chandelier, and a wood-burning fireplace. The dining room has a hand-painted mural of California’s mountains, and the kitchen includes lavender cabinets and a breakfast nook.

On the lower level is a screening room, and outside are a guesthouse, pool, and garage. Griffith Park and the Hollywood Bowl are just minutes away. $6,500,000. Sonya Coke, Sotheby’s International Realty–Los Feliz Brokerage, (323) 829-4440

New Britain, Conn.

This 1927 Dutch Colonial Revival near Hartford features a gambrel roof and shingle siding. The four-bedroom’s open-plan kitchen includes a stone island, a marble backsplash, stainless appliances, and a coffee bar, and the dining room has a corner built-in china cabinet.

The bedrooms are on the second floor, and the finished third level is a bonus space with a half bath. The backyard is surrounded by mature trees. $475,000. Tony Buccheri, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties, (860) 983-0748

‘Coyote vs. Acme’ 

Directed by Dave Green (PG)

★★★

In Wile E. Coyote’s latest misadventure, the hapless would-be carnivore “won’t stop until he defeats [checks notes] Warner Bros.,” said William Bibbiani in The Wrap. In this “gut-bustingly hilarious” romp, Wile E. finally pauses in his Sisyphean pursuit of the Road Runner to try something new: He hires a lawyer to sue the Acme corporation over its defective mail-order products, and Acme turns out to be the parent company of the studio that owns every Looney Tunes character. The really crazy part? Warner Bros. once tried to shelve this movie to earn a tax write-off, only to be forced by a public outcry to sell it to a tiny distributor.

Coyote vs. Acme mixes animation with live actors, said Jacob Oller in The A.V. Club, and it proves to be “slyly intelligent” about what winning means when an underdog takes on an impossibly powerful foe. Will Forte, “maybe the best he’s been since Nebraska,” plays Wile E.’s scruffy lawyer, a guy who’s spent a career chasing tiny payouts for cartoons who’ve been pancaked or blown up. The animation doesn’t match Forte’s level, but it contributes well enough to the movie’s “enjoyably explosive” slapstick humor. “Truth be told, the plotting isn’t quite up to the strength of the premise,” said Justin Chang in The New Yorker. But the “slight slackness” in the narrative allows for cameos by Tweety, Daffy, and other old friends. Most importantly, Coyote vs. Acme isn’t a cash grab. It’s “a fleet, funny throwback, made by artists with an obvious reverence for the original Looney Tunes universe.”

‘Buddy’

Directed by Casper Kelly (R)

★★★

“Buddy is everything you could want from a midnight movie,” said Christian Zilko in IndieWire. A mock horror tale that riffs on the chilling cheeriness of 1990s children’s TV shows like Barney, it features a giant, talking orange unicorn named Buddy who begins murdering the kids in his own series’ cast. In a separate world, a mom played by Cristin Milioti begins digging into buried Buddy history when she comes to suspect she once had a third child, and “the results are electric.” Unfortunately, after a “side-splittingly funny” opening 20 minutes, said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post, Buddy struggles to maintain momentum.

Director Casper Kelly made his name with Too Many Cooks, a 2014 parody of a sitcom’s opening credits sequence, and he’s brilliant here when sending up shows that kids once loved but “upon reflection were nightmarish hellscapes that are surely now paying for therapists’ vacation homes.” Because no real scares are built into the Milioti storyline, however, the movie becomes “rather one-note.” But both threads are studies in the effects of living in “profound denial,” said Sam Adams in Slate, and the cast helps sell the whole package. Keegan-Michael Key, who voices the unicorn, “never drops the aw-shucks lilt from his voice” even when Buddy’s at his most murderous. And while Buddy’s crimes are “brutal, even gory,” Kelly’s movie works because “he knows he doesn’t have to turn the dial too far” to make TV’s phony paradise feel menacing.

Set beside the “cobalt” Moray Firth, a half-hour drive east of Inverness, Nairn is “arguably Scotland’s finest seaside town”, says Robin McKelvie in The Telegraph. Its beaches are beautiful, with their “starched white” sands, and its high street is “as elegant as any in the Highlands”. It is “alive with independent businesses” including bijou galleries, “old-school bakers” and “Instagram-friendly” artisan cafés.

Try the ice cream at James’s (the “creative” flavours, such as almond croissant, are a delight) and the Scottish seafood at Strathnairn Beach Café. The “classiest” place to stay is the Golf View Hotel – “a Victorian palace where time stands gloriously still”. And there’s much to see nearby, including Cawdor Castle (of “Scottish play infamy”) and wild places such as Culbin Forest, where scenes from Christopher Nolan’s recent “The Odyssey” were shot.

A wild coastal walk in New Zealand

At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island lie the Marlborough Sounds, a maze of deep, jagged ocean inlets and forested peninsulas. Tracing the length of one of these wild, winding promontories is the glorious, 46-mile Queen Charlotte Track, says Helen Pickles in The Times.

It’s one of the country’s most spectacular long-distance hiking paths, and the only one on which tour operators (such as Wilderness Guides and Marlborough Sounds Adventure Co) offer daily luggage transfers, typically included in a four-day package with nights in lovely, remote lodges. There are some steep climbs, but the highest point is only at 475 metres, and it’s all worth it for the “breath-catching ridge-line views”, sense of isolation and “dazzlingly empty” beaches along the way. Go between October and April, but note that the weather is always “capricious” – so pack sturdy waterproofs and plenty of spare clothes, including shorts and T-shirts.

Brescia’s amazing Roman remains

Long known mainly as an industrial city, Brescia isn’t touristy – but it’s a handsome place, says Mia Aimaro Ogden in The Sunday Times, and worth visiting especially for its “extraordinary” Roman remains. They include amazingly vivid temple frescoes and one of the finest surviving Roman bronzes, the 6ft-high “Winged Victory of Brescia”.

While in town, be sure to see the frescoes by Giandomenico Tiepolo (son of Giambattista) in the church of San Faustino, and the “marvellous” Santa Giulia history museum, which occupies a monastery dating back to AD753. Stay if you can at Lenel, a stylish new boutique hotel housed in a “surprisingly lovely” old electricity substation; eat at El Licinsì, an excellent osteria; and note that Lake Garda lies only 15 minutes away by train.

I’ve never been as excited by fossilised monsters as I am by living creatures, says Ruaridh Nicoll in the FT, but my four-year-old son is crazy about dinosaurs. Not only can he tell an Opisthocoelicaudia from a Micropachycephalosaurus, he can actually pronounce their names. So I decided to take him on holiday to Utah. With an array of “major dino-sites”, this state is arguably the best place on Earth to entertain a “dinosaur-mad” child, and it has enough glorious wild places to keep most parents happy too. We flew in to Salt Lake City, in the north of the state, and drove three hours east to Vernal, which sits at the top of the Dinosaur Diamond – a roughly diamond-shaped, 486-mile highway loop that passes close to all the places we wanted to see.

In Salt Lake City, we visited the Natural History Museum of Utah, where Santiago was thrilled by some “Tyrannosaurus gnashers” and a whole herd of Allosaurus skeletons “bringing down a massive, similarly unfleshed Barosaurus”. And Vernal itself was fun, with big fibreglass dinosaurs in front of half of its cafés, petrol stations and hotels, including our own, the Dinosaur Inn & Suites. More thrilling, however, was the Dinosaur National Monument, a reserve 30 minutes’ drive away through the foothills of the Uinta Mountains, “a rubble world glistening with every mineral colour imaginable”. Here, in 1909, the palaeontologist Earl Douglass dug up more than 350 tonnes of fossils, including Diplodocus and Stegosaurus, but left many more: there is a covered gallery where 1,500 bones “still poke from the dirt”.

At nearby Green River, we spent an idyllic hour paddling in the cool mountain water, then went kayaking and fishing at Red Fleet Lake, where we saw the footprints left by a Theropod on the rocky shore. Among other highlights were the Utahraptor State Park, the Prehistoric Museum in Price and – my favourite – the wonderfully remote Nine Mile Canyon, where ancient petroglyphs depicting animals and “spooky trapezoidal people” adorn the towering rocks.

I dream about clafoutis for breakfast every day, says Alice Kelly. I can’t make a pancake now without wishing it was a clafoutis instead. Something about its sugary crust, creamy centre and the tangy blackberries won’t leave my head. If you make this, I am almost certain it will be one of your favourites too.

Ingredients (serves 8)

• 30g (2 tbsp) salted butter, melted
• 150g plain flour
• 125g caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 250g whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 125g blackberries for the topping
• 50g caster sugar for the topping
• To serve: vanilla ice cream or warm custard

Method

• Preheat the oven to 190°C. Brush the melted butter all over the base and sides of a large (approx. 30.5cm) ovenproof frying pan.
• Put the flour, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until smooth, then pour the batter into the buttered pan. Scatter the blackberries evenly over the top, then sprinkle over the caster sugar.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until the clafoutis is golden brown around the edges and set in the centre.
• Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or with warm custard.
• Tip: the clafoutis is best eaten on the day it’s made, but if you want to make it ahead of time, store the baked clafoutis in the fridge and reheat it in the oven before serving.

Taken from “Scratch” by Alice Kelly, published by Nine Bean Rows at £30. To buy from The Week Bookshop for £26.99, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk to place your order, or call 020 3176 3835 to speak to a bookseller.

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You finally got a raise at work. Now you feel a little more comfortable ordering in a few times a week, and you are not thinking twice if you need to opt for an Uber over taking the bus. Your quality of life may have improved, but when you look at your bank account, the numbers are more or less the same — even though your salary went up.

This phenomenon is what is known as lifestyle creep, and it’s not uncommon for it to occur when you start bringing in more money, whether due to a pay increase, a bonus or a new job. While there is a case to be made for leveling up as your career does, doing so in lockstep with your income can leave you right back where you started financially.

What is lifestyle creep, and why is it a problem?

Lifestyle creep, sometimes called lifestyle inflation, “occurs when your spending gradually increases as your income rises,” said U.S. News & World Report. Basically, what happens is those two figures move up in tandem, squeezing out the opportunity that a higher income should provide to save and invest more.

What makes it so insidious is that “it happens little by little, so you may not even realize it,” said Investopedia. In other words, “it sneaks (or creeps) up on you.” The small shifts you are making in your lifestyle, whether that be splurging on slightly nicer clothes or making your weekly latte a daily occurrence, can have big impacts. Unfortunately, “lifestyle creep can deplete your savings and prevent you from achieving long-term financial goals.”

What are the warning signs of lifestyle creep?

Improving your lifestyle and overall quality of life is not inherently a problem. To “some degree, lifestyle creep is expected,” said U.S. News & World Report. There are signs, however, that you may have taken it too far.

One sure sign that “your lifestyle may be creeping up too much can be that you begin saving and investing less and less,” said Fidelity. Another tip-off is that you have started accumulating debt, perhaps carrying a credit card balance.

You may also notice your attitude toward budgeting and tracking your spending has changed. For instance, maybe “you have stopped following your budget because you assume you’re earning enough not to have to worry about spending,” or you now “feel as if you can afford to buy whatever you want and no longer stick to previous limits,” said SoFi.

How can you avoid lifestyle creep?

To avoid falling into the trap of lifestyle creep, follow these three steps.

Make a budget. “Give all income a job to do,” said SoFi. Before you start spending, put a portion into savings and invest another amount, making sure to reserve enough to cover essentials. Anything that remains, you can allocate toward fun splurges or upgrades.

Track your spending. Often, lifestyle creep is not an intentional choice but an accrual of small shifts in spending. To make sure that does not happen, keep tabs on where your money is going. Budgeting apps make this easy to do.

Set goals. A new pair of shoes may feel nice, but reaching a financial goal, whether that is finally buying a house or being able to retire early, will arguably feel even better. “One key to avoiding lifestyle creep is to set long-term financial goals and keep your eye on the prize,” said SoFi.

‘Healthcare is more badly broken than political leaders admit’

Marj Halperin at the Chicago Tribune

While “rising costs are a barrier for too many, even those who can afford comprehensive health insurance are finding money can’t buy you a timely appointment,” says Marj Halperin. Americans in cities are “now in much the same bind as patients in rural areas who have long found limited doctors available for routine care, with specialists often a few hours’ drive away.” It is “time for political leaders to spell out a strategy to speed in the opposite direction.”

Read more

‘A wildly popular movie meets the film world’s most revered label’

Sophia Nguyen at The Atlantic

“‘KPop Demon Hunters’ seems to have completely overtaken culture,” says Sophia Nguyen. But “even the most ardent fans likely did not anticipate the mega-hit’s next big merch drop: a disc release from the Criterion Collection, home to some of cinema’s most distinguished titles.” Some of the “label’s longtime devotees greeted the addition of ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ with an eye roll,” but “Criterion has good reason to widen the net: Netflix, Apple and Amazon make and distribute a significant share of films.”

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‘Trump’s tariffs prove even Canada can’t afford to be nice to the United States anymore’

The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board

It “fell to Canada, a country famous for friendliness, to demonstrate the limits of an age-old friendship with the United States,” says The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board. After a “decade of dealing politely with President Donald Trump’s manic ricocheting between trade agreements and trade warfare, supplies of northern niceness are sorely depleted, and rightly so.” Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “defiance in the face of his neighbor’s unprovoked bullying should inspire other traditional American allies to abandon appeasement.”

Read more

‘Meta’s $18 billion settlement could reshape social media for young people’

Tom Jones at the Poynter Institute

Meta “reached a landmark settlement and agreed to pay up to $18 billion to 47 states” to settle claims it “endangered children through addictive features,” says Tom Jones. Meta’s promised changes are “meant to curb endless scrolling, which can interrupt sleep and have other negative effects on young people’s health and well-being.” The “smart move for Meta was to settle,” as a “major challenge for all social media companies is verifying the ages of their users.”

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Falling in love is close to a universal human experience. So it’s no surprise that audiences return again and again to see glamorous movie stars go through both the mundane and sublime beats of getting swept away — and sometimes shattered — by love, as in these ten brilliant films.

‘Casablanca’ (1942)

“Casablanca” may be unique in the history of cinema for its timelessness and cultural staying power. Humphrey Bogart is Rick Blaine, a gimlet-eyed bar owner in Vichy-governed Morocco, who must choose between his desire for his former lover, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), and his ability to use letters of transit for her and her husband, Laszlo (Paul Henreid), an anti-Nazi resistance leader. The iconic film “continues to fascinate audiences in a way that is beyond explanation, except to resolve that the picture seems to result from and fully encompass that somewhat fantastical notion of Movie Magic,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (HBO Max)

‘Roman Holiday’ (1953)

Audrey Hepburn plays Ann, the glamorous princess of some unnamed European kingdom, who is on an exhausting goodwill tour in Rome and slips out for some fun and respite. When she falls asleep on a bench, she is attended to by journalist, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who accompanies her on a tour of the city, planning a scoop but eventually falling for her. The lovingly rendered portrait of Rome has inspired countless romantic getaways to the city. The film “takes an understated, dignified approach worthy of its royal protagonist” and rather than hitting the familiar beats of the romantic comedy, it ultimately “swerves to something more poignant,” said Caroline Siede at The A.V. Club. (Prime Video)

‘Doctor Zhivago’ (1965)

Director David Lean’s follow-up to “Lawrence of Arabia” is another sweeping historical epic, this one set in revolutionary Russia, where doctor and poet Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara (Julie Christie) circle one another before, during and after the First World War and the tumultuous Bolshevik revolution.

Their simmering chemistry carries the narrative through war, hardship, romance and tragedy, set to the now-beloved score by Maurice Jarre. It is a “timeless tale, outliving the era when it was set and the era when it was made,” and even with its 3 hour and 20 minute running time, is an “unforgettable experience,” said William Cook at the BBC. (Prime Video)

‘The Way We Were’ (1973)

Director Sydney Pollack’s “The Way We Were” tells the story of the love between the handsome, conservative Hubbell (Robert Redford) and the rabble-rousing communist Katie (Barbra Streisand), set against the backdrop of the early 1950s Hollywood blacklisting affair. They meet in college, marry and then struggle to reconcile their politics when they move West so that Hubbell can pursue his dreams as a screenwriter. It’s “one of those romantic melodramas that can send you to bed in inconsolable tears,” said Steve Vineberg at Critics at Large, yet is nevertheless a “deeply lovable film. (Prime Video)

‘Before Sunrise’ (1995)

The simple premise of director Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” is part of its enormous charm. Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meet on a Vienna-bound train. Taken with each other, Celine agrees to continue talking with Jesse in Vienna before his morning flight. Their one, magical, conversation-driven night together is now the definitive Gen X romance. A film that “isn't just about 23-year-olds in love, but about the condition of being 23 years old,” it also provides a “breathtaking end to, simply put, one of cinema's finest depictions of the delightful immaturity of being young and being in love,” said Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending. (Prime Video)

‘In the Mood for Love’ (2000)

In perhaps the most beautiful film ever made about unconsummated love, Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) are neighbors in an apartment building, devoted, or at least loyal, to their spouses, who they realize are having an affair with each other. Chow and Su gradually develop feelings for one another, even re-enacting how they believe their spouses’ affair unfolded. Director Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood For Love” is “ravishing beyond mortal words,” said Ed Gonzalez at Slant magazine, and its protagonists “come to resemble butterflies caught in a rainbow-tinted industrial web.” (HBO Max)

‘Love & Basketball’ (2000)

Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps play Monica and Quincy, best friends, aspiring basketball stars and eventual lovers who are torn apart and later brought back together. Told in four segments, the story takes them from childhood rivalry to heady high school romance through college and their respective professional careers. In addition to the consistently riveting relationship story, “Love & Basketball” is also a superb sports film well ahead of its time by taking women’s professional leagues seriously. The movie is, “at its heart, a passionate love letter to basketball and friendship and Black love and ambition,” said Roxane Gay at Current. (Prime Video)

‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (2004)

Jim Carrey plays Joel, a man who decides to have the memories of his relationship with Clementine (Kate Winslet) digitally erased after discovering that she did so first. During the procedure he realizes he doesn’t actually want to forget and races through a prismatic rendering of his own memories to preserve them. It’s a movie that “makes the unique argument that failure is an essential, precious part of romantic experience” and in so doing “celebrates the essential untidiness of love, the beautiful messes two people can make together,” said Scott Tobias at The Guardian. (Prime Video)

‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)

Writer-director Céline Sciamma’s searing love story follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter newly arrived at a gorgeously rendered, remote seaside town in 18th-century France. She is hired to paint a wedding portrait for Héloise (Adèle Haenel), and the two fall madly in forbidden love. It’s a film that is “about the erotic, electric connection between women when they find their desire for creative experience fulfilled in each other, but it is equally about the powers of art to validate, preserve and console after a romance is over,” said Rachel Syme at The New Yorker. (HBO Max)

‘Past Lives’ (2023)

In director Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Na Young (Greta Lee) are childhood best friends whose bond is severed when Na Young moves with her family to Canada. They later rekindle their relationship as adults from a distance before Na Young (who becomes “Nora” in Canada) marries Arthur (John Magaro). When Hae Sung visits Nora in New York more than a decade later, they grapple with their unrealized love and the struggle not to hurt Arthur with their feelings for one another. Its “mix of nostalgia, love and remorse” is what makes the film “so effective and lovely,” said Monica Castillo at Roger Ebert. (Prime Video)

While cooler fall days may be on the horizon, many students returning to school are still dealing with scorching end-of-summer temperatures. As climate change exacerbates the heat, experts say the negative effects of sizzling classrooms are here to stay, especially in school districts that may not have the resources to combat hotter weather.

How do hot classrooms affect students?

Students can often “struggle to learn in hot, stuffy classrooms,” as “air quality, temperature and ventilation” can affect how people “think, focus and perform,” said Time. These factors are aggravated in poorer school districts, where a lack of air conditioning “can impair cognitive function, while excessive heat diverts the body’s energy from learning, slows reaction time and weakens attention.” Average temperatures of 80 degrees to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and above are “known to exacerbate student absenteeism and disciplinary referrals.”

While heat has always been an issue in underfunded classrooms, it “doesn’t just affect places like Phoenix, which is well-known for its scorching temperatures that don’t always drop by much in the evenings,” Allison Poulos and Jennifer Vanos, a pair of health solutions and sustainability professors at Arizona State University, said at The Conversation. A number of cities, even in the northern U.S., are “oppressively hot when the new school year begins in August or September — and they are only getting warmer.”

Many schools have also “moved the start of the academic year earlier into the summer over the last several years,” said Poulos and Vanos, exposing kids to peak heat waves. But these schools “lack the infrastructure — from inadequate air conditioning to fields and play areas that are not shaded — to cope with high temperatures.” In 2025, 156 school districts nationwide saw an average of 30 more school days over 80 degrees Fahrenheit than they did in 1970, according to a study from the Center for Climate Integrity.

How are schools fighting the heat?

Many school districts are working to combat issues with HVAC systems directly amid concerns from parents. The superintendent of the Tulsa School District in Oklahoma “visited several schools and found the buildings she entered were cool but acknowledged that some sites are struggling with their air conditioning systems,” KOTV-DT Tulsa said. For schools that don’t yet have air conditioning, teachers are being asked to “close classroom doors once students are inside and shut blinds to help retain cool air.”

Conditions were even worse during summer school classes. In Boston, classrooms averaged 100 degrees Fahrenheit over several days in June, which parents “say forced teachers in nonair-conditioned buildings to turn off lights and spritz students with water to keep them cool,” said The Boston Globe. Once that heat wave broke, temperatures still “remained stubbornly high in some schools.” The problems continued even after the dog days of summer passed. Toward the end of August, students in a Northern Colorado district “spent the first three school days of the year leaving class two hours early” due to heat, said CBS News.

Experts say modern HVAC systems should “offer schools a way to deliver reliable heating and cooling while reducing exposure to volatile fossil fuel costs,” said Time. Using “energy tax credits and a mechanism known as Elective Pay, public school districts can receive direct financial support to invest in these improvements,” turning “what was once out of reach into a practical, near-term option.” School districts in Indiana, Virginia, Wisconsin and more are already implementing these new systems.

What happened

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly testified in his Senate confirmation hearing last year that a 2019 trip to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines,” but new documents obtained through freedom of information requests “refute that testimony,” The Associated Press said Thursday. Kennedy was a “prominent anti-vaccine activist" at the time, and "critics said the visit fueled anti-vaccine sentiment" before a measles outbreak that killed 83 Samoans. In one letter, Kennedy “explicitly told the Samoan prime minister he wanted to study” the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine there and “used the words ‘vaccine’ or ‘vaccination’ eight times,” said The Guardian.

Who said what

“RFK’s platform is built on lies” that “leave a trail of dead children,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “There are consequences for lying to Congress.” Watchdog group American Oversight on Thursday asked the Justice Department to investigate Kennedy’s testimony for false statements. The Health and Human Services Department told the AP that “any claim or insinuation” Kennedy “lied under oath or to Congress” based on these letters is “not only false but outright defamatory.”

What next?

“Lying to Congress is a crime, whether or not the witness is under oath,” Georgetown law professor Josh Chafetz told The Guardian. But this Justice Department is “unlikely” to prosecute Kennedy.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” inside the U.S. government, needling Canada amid an intensifying trade war. Trump’s order directed the Interior Department and the Board on Geographic Names to remove and replace Lake Ontario on all federal maps and documents within 30 days, though he told reporters the name change was “effective immediately.”

Who said what

Trump’s Lake America rebrand “most likely requires only federal entities to recognize the change,” The New York Times said. “It does not have to be recognized by other countries.” New York, the only state that borders the lake, “won’t be calling it that,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), and neither will any Canadian entities. The name, from the “Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,’” is “more than 400 years old,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said on social media. “America is changing,” but Canadians “know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”

What next?

The hydronym snub is “likely to harden public sentiment against the Trump administration in Canada,” The Wall Street Journal said. But Trump suggested he wasn’t satisfied with Lake America and the Gulf of America. “Now, all we need is an ocean,” he told reporters. “Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.”

What happened

Federal courts on Thursday dealt President Donald Trump setbacks in several ongoing legal battles with broad implications. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a new block on the U.S. Postal Service carrying out Trump’s executive order to limit mail voting. In Northern California, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ordered the Pentagon to end its “illegal and baseless” blacklisting of Anthropic. And U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., stalled administration plans to quickly inscribe Trump’s name back on the Kennedy Center.

Who said what

After Anthropic said it didn’t want its AI used for domestic surveillance or autonomous killing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled it a supply-chain risk using an “obscure government-procurement statute” designed to thwart “foreign sabotage,” Reuters said. The administration’s “contemporaneous words and deeds confirm” it was actually acting to “make a public example out of Anthropic,” Lin wrote. The “empty invocation of national ​security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics.”

Talwani issued a 14-day block of USPS mail voting action a day after lifting an earlier hold in response to a Supreme Court ruling. The “whipsaw of action” could “confuse voters,” The New York Times said. But “each delay has reduced the administration’s chances of clearing the legal hurdles to execute” Trump’s order before the midterms. Now that the USPS’ “likely unconstitutional regulation” is finalized, Talwani wrote, “compliance is practically impossible” before ballots go out “as early as next week.”

What next?

After Cooper threatened to block the Trump inscription if the Kennedy Center stuck to its Sept. 8 start date, the Justice Department last night said it would delay action until at least Oct. 8.

The sight of a white cloud-like trail streaming behind a plane “set against a bright blue sky creates a romantic image of aviation”, said Aerospace Global News. But their existence “also represents the darker side of flying”.

These innocuous-looking trails “are one of the most urgent yet solvable climate challenges facing aviation today”, said Google, which is taking part in a £5 million trial known as Operation Blue Skies headed by the UK government. Together, they are looking to explore whether tweaking flight paths could address this problem.

Heat trappers

The streams are known as “condensation trails”, or “contrails”, said Google, which is partnering with the government, the Met Office, air traffic control provider NATS and researchers from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

These trails form when aircraft engine emissions encounter extremely cold air found at high altitudes, causing tiny ice particles to develop. They often fade soon after they appear, but very cold and moist atmospheric conditions can allow them to linger and spread. Over time, they may contribute to cloud formation that traps heat that would otherwise radiate away from the Earth.

Contrails are sometimes known as “vapour trails” but they’re different to so-called “chemtrails”, which conspiracy theorists claim are secret chemical or biological agents being sprayed on purpose for weather and population control, or geoengineering projects.

Trails ‘persisted and widened’ 

In 2019, around 40 million scheduled passenger flights took place, adding up to around 38 billion miles of travel, said The Economist. And more than 40% of these flights left contrails behind them for at least part of the journey. Many were “ephemeral”, but in more than 5% of the total distance flown – “comfortably enough for 10 round-trips a day to the Moon” – they “persisted and widened”, becoming cirrus clouds. “In doing so they warm the planet.”

Operation Blue Skies is based on a theory that if scientists, using artificial intelligence, can predict the areas of the atmosphere where contrails are likely to form, jets would be able to avoid them.

The trial will focus on the Shanwick airspace in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, which accounts for around 5% of global contrail warming. Using satellite images and flight data to identify where planes have previously produced contrails, and combining these with weather patterns, Google will forecast where the conditions for new contrails are most likely to occur. Air traffic controllers will then direct pilots to avoid those areas.

But far from “dramatically changing” the route of a flight, the aircrafts’ altitude will only change by around 2,000ft. This is the same sort of re-route that occurs already to “avoid turbulence and bad weather” so passengers are “unlikely to notice”, said the BBC.

The data centre question

Testing will take place during evenings and nights in the winters of 2026-27 and 2027-28, when the volume of air traffic is lower. Approximately 10,000 flights are expected to pass through the airspace during the trial periods.

Changing the altitude of an aircraft “can mean it burns more fuel”, which raises the “obvious question” of whether avoiding contrails “simply” creates additional carbon emissions elsewhere. Paul Hodgson, Google’s technical lead for the operation, said the “CO2 penalty is in the order of less than 1%” and that is outweighed by the climate benefit of preventing a warming contrail.

Questions have been raised over Google’s involvement in the project. It is “one of many big tech companies spending billions on new data centres – the giant, power-hungry banks which power AI” and have serious implications for climate change.

Meta has agreed to an $18 billion (£13.3 billion) settlement in the US to resolve claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children.

The social media giant was accused of knowingly and deliberately designing features to get children addicted to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with commentators describing it as the industry’s “tobacco moment”, said Sky News.

What happened?

Meta has agreed to make a number of changes to the way Instagram and Facebook operate for its youngest users, while denying any wrongdoing. The settlement “came as a surprise”, said BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman. “I was expecting weeks of courtroom drama.”

What will change?

The ruling could “fundamentally change the social media experience for young people in the US”, said The Guardian. The “biggest alteration” is that Meta must now “make many of its safety limitations the default setting” for accounts created by teenagers, a “pivot from its previous opt-in approach to child safety”.

The new safety barriers include a two-hour time limit on Instagram and Facebook for known teen users (direct messaging will not count towards the daily use limit). Meta agreed to limit teen accounts to only one hour a day if other platforms bring in similar time restrictions.

Notifications will be muted between midnight and 6am and between 8am and 3pm on school days. ‘Likes’ will be hidden on posts from teenagers. Meta will also enhance measures ‌to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content.

Identification or facial recognition verification systems will be used to make sure teenagers aren’t using regular Instagram accounts. But collecting identifying data poses significant privacy risks, said David Greene, legal counsel at digital privacy firm Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The case was brought by 29 US states and was based on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which is nearly 30 years old. “I would be surprised,” said Kleinman, “if these measures remain within the confines of the US for very long, as other countries will almost certainly be keen to adopt them too.”

What does it mean for social media?

The hearing was labelled as social media’s “tobacco moment”, in reference to the trials tobacco firms faced in the 1990s. A “flurry of state lawsuits” forced tobacco companies to stop sponsoring sport and advertising on public transport, banned adverts that “targeted the youth and prevented cigarette companies from putting cartoons on their packets”, said James Titcomb in The Telegraph.

Other social media companies, including YouTube, TikTok’s parent ByteDance, Snap Inc. and Discord, are facing thousands of lawsuits brought by states, school districts and individuals. The litigants claim the companies intentionally designed their platforms to keep young users hooked. The lawsuits come as politicians are considering stricter rules aimed at protecting young users.

If other tech giants follow Meta’s lead, then social media “might indeed start to look more like tobacco: still a regular part of life, but heavily regulated and restricted, and widely understood to be bad for you”.

GB News went live on 13 June 2021, the first news channel start-up in the UK since Sky News in 1989. Broadcast free on most platforms, it promised to serve audiences on the right who felt ignored by traditional media with a news agenda not governed by liberal metropolitan values and assumptions: it calls itself “the people’s channel”.

GB News had a rocky start. Chair and star presenter Andrew Neil stepped back after just two weeks on air; he later complained of a lack of professionalism and “nutty” politics. It has firmly established itself since then.

In December 2025, GB News announced that it had become the UK’s biggest news channel, by daily average viewers. In 2025 it had over 80,000 viewers between 6am and 2am, narrowly overtaking BBC News’ figures. It still trails BBC and Sky in terms of weekly audience reach, with 2.1 million; the other channels have perhaps twice that. But its higher average viewership suggests it is watched consistently by a smaller and more loyal audience.

Why is the channel’s rise significant?

Its content is not just culturally conservative: it is tilted specifically, and vociferously, towards Reform UK and the right-wing of the Conservative Party. Many of its presenters are politicians. Nigel Farage presents an evening prime-time show three nights a week, while other contributors from Reform include Lee Anderson, Richard Tice, Matt Goodwin and Darren Grimes; from the Tory right there are, among others, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Miriam Cates and Esther McVey. Michelle Dewberry, who has her own evening show, is a former Brexit Party candidate. (One former Labour MP, Gloria del Piero, serves as a presenter.)

The channel has come under fire from journalists for breaching the impartiality rules that apply to news broadcasters. Ex-Sky News editor Adam Boulton called for the channel to be stripped of its broadcasting licence.

What does GB News coverage look like?

Its content is focused strongly on populist-right themes: culture wars and “anti-woke” subjects; climate scepticism; and, most of all, illegal migration. Typically, a GB News evening show will begin with a few minutes of the presenter’s own firmly expressed views. Next, there will be four or five segments of news tilted heavily towards the channel’s favoured talking points. Then a panel of guests will discuss the issues. There’s usually a panel of two: say, Reform’s Zia Yusuf offset by one less-well-known liberal, such as Matthew Stadlen or Benjamin Butterworth, in order to provide a semblance of balance. This person is frequently shouted down by the presenter and the other panellist. Critics describe such guests as the “token leftie” or the “chew toy”.

Is this against impartiality rules?

The Broadcasting Code, a list of rules established by the communications regulator Ofcom, covers both TV and radio broadcasters: all news coverage by broadcasting companies, whether across their main channels, or elsewhere, must be presented “with due impartiality”. Ofcom stresses it doesn’t mean an equal division of time has to be given to every view or every argument represented, only that there must be a level of impartiality “adequate or appropriate” to the subject and nature of the programme.

What does this mean in practice?

In the last decade, Ofcom has permitted greater flexibility in the interpretation of its rules, allowing broadcasters to provide more partisan coverage through presenters and guests, with fewer challenging voices. The boundaries were first tested by radio stations, with LBC and TalkRadio featuring more political presenters, including politicians. GB News and Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV followed suit.

In June, the former chair of Ofcom, the Tory peer Michael Grade, gave some idea of the thinking, saying that sometimes “a sentence in a script” would be enough to comply with impartiality rules. He defended GB News, which he said represented a “majority agenda”, adding that critics just disliked perspectives outside a “liberal, Islington consensus”. Ofcom distanced itself from these views.

However, a High Court ruling from February 2025 also allowed some latitude. It found that “news programmes” must remain impartial at all times, and opinion and fact must be clearly separated, but for “current affairs programmes” – in this case, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s show – broadcasters should be given more flexibility.

Is this a matter for concern?

It opens up the possibility of a much more nakedly partisan and less factually rigorous broadcast media – along the lines of Fox News in the US, from which GB News drew inspiration. Ofcom’s investigation of an interview with Donald Trump conducted by the presenter Bev Turner may be a test case. In the interview, in November 2025, Trump claimed climate change was “a hoax”, parts of London operated under sharia law, and that the capital had no-go areas for police, none of which Turner challenged. She also told Trump it took “real backbone” to “drop so many truth bombs”. Ofcom is now looking at breaches of “due impartiality” and “material misleadingness” rules.

What do its defenders say?

To its critics, GB News is “Reform TV” – a partial, irresponsible outlet that is pushing the news agenda towards the anti-immigrant right. To its defenders, it has taken a vital step in wrenching the news out of the hands of its self-appointed liberal controllers in the mainstream media, and is providing reporting on issues that really do matter to people. A major documentary on grooming gangs in 2023 by Charlie Peters, for instance, helped to refocus attention on continuing police and local authority failures. GB News has also investigated issues such as the abuse of visas. The channel’s critics, argued Simon Evans in The Critic, “just don’t like the plebs having a show that looks them ... square in the eye”.

Who is funding GB News?

The main backers of GB News’ parent company All Perspectives, as listed on its website, are Sir Paul Marshall and the private investment firm Legatum Ventures. Nigel Farage is also a shareholder. Marshall earned the bulk of his estimated £870-950 million fortune from his fund-management company, Marshall Wace. He has long been involved in politics, having migrated from supporting the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives via support for Brexit. He co-founded the political news website UnHerd, and bought The Spectator in 2024. Marshall has said that he hopes his media outlets will fight “progressivism”.

In 2023, he established the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) with the conservative culture warrior, psychologist Jordan Peterson. Legatum, a Dubai-based fund founded in 2006 by the New Zealand billionaire Christopher Chandler, is also a backer of ARC.

GB News has lost investors £131 million since launch, although it is moving closer to breaking even. Its latest figures, for the year to May 2025, showed revenue had grown to £26 million. Its losses were still high, at £22 million, but the annual report stated that there was “no reason to believe” its investors’ support “might vary to a significant degree”.

Find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest news and other global events by putting your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

With three words, Democratic senator Jon Ossoff unleashed a furious row last week, said Jason Kyle Howard on Salon. Speaking at a campaign event, he declared that Donald Trump was neglecting his presidential duties because he just wanted “to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar”.

The Natalie in question is Natalie Harp, Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant. Nicknamed Trump’s “human printer”, she’s always at his side – whether in the White House or on Air Force One or the golf course – armed with a portable printer, from which she feeds him favourable coverage and memes. Until now, Harp hasn’t drawn much public attention. But Ossoff’s comment, and the response to it, have changed that.

Fierce loyalty

Ossoff should be ashamed of his “disgustingly sly” insinuation, said Miranda Devine in the New York Post. Harp battled debilitating bone cancer in her 20s that left her in a wheelchair. Her fierce loyalty to Trump stems from the fact that she believes he saved her life by giving patients access to experimental drugs in his first term.

She expressed her gratitude to Trump in an impressive speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention, after which he offered her a job in 2022. “Does Ossoff really think a hard-working single professional woman can’t succeed without sleeping with her boss?”

An ‘in-house stalker’

If only Trump and Harp were having an affair, said Jonathan V. Last on The Bulwark. Their odd form of co-dependency is somehow worse. Harp has reportedly unnerved other staff by writing intense personal notes to Trump with messages such as “You are all that matters to me,” and “I don’t ever want to let you down.” In one, she thanked him for being her “Guardian and Protector in this Life”. Trump, in turn, reportedly told staff, concerning Harp: “All of you will go off and make money … She’ll never leave me.” It’s not healthy that the president is employing “an in-house stalker”.

This isn’t just tittle-tattle, said Rex Huppke in USA Today. Trump backers are presenting Harp as some “innocent bystander”, but she controls a lot of his media diet and helps draft his social media posts. It turns out she worked in the White House for more than a year without the requisite security clearance. Ossoff was right to draw attention to her, because her case deserves scrutiny and “highlights the weirdness endemic to this administration”.

Over 100 days into the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), “the response is still struggling to keep pace”, said Liz Cookman in The Independent. It’s estimated that more than 2,500 people have now died, with the death toll accelerating sharply in recent weeks.

It is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, spreading much quicker than the deadliest crisis to date, the West African epidemic of 2014 to 2016, which killed more than 11,000 people. To put it in context, that outbreak took a year to reach 2,000 deaths.

Destabilised by conflict

“The situation is bad,” said Devi Sridhar in The Guardian. The mortality rate seems to be nearly 50%. More than half of victims are dying without receiving care. Children make up almost a third of all deaths.

Yet this outbreak isn’t attracting much attention abroad. Compared with the 2014 outbreak, the current silence is “astounding”. That year, Ebola was one of the most Googled terms in the world; this year, “no one wants to hear about infectious diseases”. Things are only going to get worse. “A perfect storm of factors” is making the spread hard to contain. The virus is the Bundibugyo species, for which there is currently no licensed vaccine or specific treatment, although clinical trials are under way.

The location of the outbreak has made it worse, said Matthew Mpoke Bigg in The New York Times. Uganda has succeeded in eliminating an outbreak; but Ituri province in north-eastern Congo is unstable, with ongoing conflict and roaming militias. More than 900,000 people have been displaced, while the region’s gold mines draw workers from a wide area. The virus has now spread to six provinces across the DRC. There are fears that it could spread to South Sudan, and to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, one of Africa’s biggest cities.

Dismantling of USAID

The situation in DRC has been “disastrously compounded” by cuts to Western aid, said The Guardian, above all by the US. The dismantling of USAID has weakened health infrastructure and surveillance capacity, while Washington’s withdrawal from the World Health Organisation has also undermined the response. European countries, too, have started to treat international aid as “luxury expenditure”.

The 2014 outbreak laid bare the risk of Ebola spreading in the region and beyond. In the wake of the Covid pandemic, countless pieties were uttered about disease control. Yet here we are again. “Subsequent actions by governments have belied those words” leaving the DRC exposed to an epidemic that could soon spiral “out of control”.

To the surprise of the nation and the delight of the tabloids, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed last week that they were moving back to Britain. Harry and Meghan, who duly flew in on Wednesday, will base themselves in a private property outside London, thought to be in the Cotswolds.

Their children – Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five – are enrolled to start as day pupils at a mixed independent school next month. The Sussexes, who moved to California six years ago, will retain their homes in Montecito and Portugal, and the Duchess will continue to run her lifestyle brand, As Ever, from the UK.

King Charles was informed of their move a few days before the announcement. He was said to be pleased about having the opportunity to see more of his younger son and family. There are no plans for Harry or Meghan to resume their roles as working royals. It is unclear what provisions will be made for their security.

‘Miserable feud’

News of the Sussexes’ return has “thrown a metaphorical hand grenade into the already fragile House of Windsor”, said The Sunday Times. It raises difficult questions about security arrangements and unresolved family tensions, but it deserves a “guarded welcome”. If Harry is prepared to build bridges with his family and end his “long-running and increasingly ridiculous vendetta against the press”, much good could come of it.

This is an opportunity for a much-needed reconciliation, said The Mail on Sunday. The scandals involving Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor have undermined the reputation of the monarchy, and the King, still receiving cancer treatment, needs family support as never before. Polls suggest that the public today has a poor opinion of Harry and Meghan, but that can be changed. It’s easy to forget how unpopular the Princess Royal once was. Now she’s one of the most-liked royals. Overcoming six years of bitterness and recriminations won’t be easy, said the Daily Mirror, but this is a chance for everyone caught in this “miserable feud” to start afresh. “They should seize it.”

Just 15 months ago, Prince Harry claimed that he couldn’t “see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK”, said Michael D. Shear in The New York Times. Now he has suddenly upped sticks. What changed? It’s an odd decision, said James Ball in The i Paper, given that “none of the issues that drove the pair out of the UK six years ago seem to be any better than when they left – and many look worse”. Among the suggested explanations is that Harry wants to be closer to his father, or is just eager to educate his children in the UK.

Life in America may also have lost its allure, said Sarah Baxter in The Sunday Times. Beautiful as Montecito is, living in “a gated community of semi-retired celebrities” must get very boring after a while, not to mention very expensive. With their Spotify deal axed and their other ventures failing to gain much traction, Harry and Meghan needed pastures new. I, for one, welcome their return, said Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph. The monarchy is Britain’s “longest-running soap opera” and, let’s be honest, the storylines have been “flagging of late”. The Sussexes will deliver a dose of colour.

Difficult future

Having the couple around again will certainly change the dynamic within the royal family, said Anne McElvoy in The i Paper. King Charles, who hosted Harry, Meghan and their children for afternoon tea last month, has decided to give Harry another chance. But whether the bitter rift with William and Catherine can be mended is another matter.

The Waleses will likely give the Sussexes a wide berth, while privately fuming when “eclipsed by each Harry and Meghan news update”, said Tina Brown in The Times. The situation could yet resolve itself peacefully if Meghan returns to acting (there were rumours this week that she had landed a role in Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series, “The Gentlemen”), Harry sticks to appearing in jolly photo ops, and they both manage to carefully steer clear of any controversy. The good news for the tabloids, though, is that “that’s never going to happen”.

The Sussexes’ return presents the royal family with many dilemmas, said Hilary Rose in The Times. It was one thing for Prince William to avoid contact with Harry and Meghan while they were based in the US, for instance, but at what point, now they’re back, will his refusal to engage begin “to look petty and vindictive”? What will happen at Christmas? Will the Sussexes be invited to Sandringham and, if so, will they do the walk to church? And what happens if Harry, who served and lost friends in Afghanistan, lets it be known that he’d like to appear at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday?

Why is it so hard to find somewhere to give birth? Is the pioneer of the Arab Spring preparing for another revolution? And should we welcome a new round of reading rows?

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Dating can take a toll on your emotions. Now it is wrecking people’s finances too, as “dateflation” makes standard dating-related expenses inaccessible for many singles. Faced with the economic pressure of inflation, many are turning to “infladating” and going on budget-friendly dates.

Rising costs

Finances impact “nearly every aspect of life, to varying degrees,” said USA Today. Your dating life is “no exception.”

Not only does the “state of the economy impact the kinds of dates people go on,” said USA Today, but it may also “influence who people decide to go out with.” As dating expenses continue to rise, “people become more selective about who they choose to take out.” People use calculations to determine “which dates to go on” and not just “what they’re doing on the date” but “who is worthy of that date,” Damona Hoffman, a dating coach, said to USA Today. You’ll likely “wait to see that there’s some possibility of this relationship going somewhere” before you’re willing to “make a monetary investment in someone.”

On average, Gen Z spends $205 on a date and millennials spend $252, said CNBC, according to BMO Financial Group’s survey of 2,501 U.S. adults. Nearly 47% of singles feel dating isn’t worth the money, while 48% of Gen Z and 40% of millennials say the high costs of dating are an obstacle to reaching their financial goals.

Those who have embraced “infladating” are “being more mindful about spending on dates due to rising costs,” Susan Trombetti, the matchmaker and CEO of Exclusive Matchmaking, said to Vice. Infladating does not mean “investing less energy into your dating life,” said Vice. Rather, it’s “investing less money into it.” Effort goes a “long way with the right person.”

Better than giving up

If infladating worries people, experts note the alternative could be worse. In reality, many people are “struggling in today’s economy” and are “opting out of dating completely because it’s too expensive,” dating coach Amy Chan said to USA Today. She sees it more in her “male clients who feel embarrassed that they cannot take a date out to a nice restaurant.” If the “antidote for that is infladating,” then she is “all for it!”

In any case, singles should be “wary of the person who pulls out all the stops on a first date,” said Chan. People are taught to “read that as romantic,” but this level of intensity “hasn’t been earned by anything real between you.” It’s a “performance,” and often it says “more about how they want to be perceived than how they feel about you.”

This isn’t “just a dating story” but a story about “how our finances and the things that impact them affect every area of our lives,” including “how we pursue relationships,” Michael McAuliffe, the president and founder of Family Credit Management, said to Vice. Basic everyday costs have been “increasing much faster than most people’s paychecks.”

Produce shelves are becoming sparser and featuring fewer options. Economic, cultural and environmental factors have reduced the variety of vegetables available to consumers. Prioritizing the same produce can have negative health effects and could make crops more susceptible to climate change.

The same stock

Vegetable diversity is “declining due to market homogenization, land-use change and other threats,” and its “current conservation is insufficient,” said a study published in the journal PNAS. There have been “substantial declines in the range of traditional vegetable varieties grown over the past century, while almost one-quarter of assessed wild relatives of major vegetable crops are threatened with extinction,” said a release by the World Vegetable Center about the study.

“Vegetable biodiversity is one of the world’s greatest assets for improving diets and adapting agriculture to a changing climate,” Colin Khoury, the global conservation lead at the crop diversity preservation nonprofit Crop Trust, said in the release. “But we’re losing it at exactly the time we need it most.”

Several factors have reduced vegetable biodiversity. Initially, “humans selected only a portion of wild plants for cultivation, and then the variety narrowed even further due to the industrialization of agriculture, globalization and the spread of mass production,” said the news publication BB. As a result, traditional varieties of vegetables and “their wild relatives have fallen out of favor, leaving just a shrinking selection of tamed vegetables on supermarket shelves,” said IFL Science.

Also, agricultural practices like “monoculture, the practice of growing a single crop variety across vast areas,” are a “risky business, both economically and ecologically,” said IFL Science. If a “disease takes root in one plant, it rapidly spreads through the entire identical field like wildfire.”

Underrated options

People “consume nearly 40% fewer vegetables than recommended by the World Health Organization,” said the release. Low vegetable consumption is “among the five leading dietary risk factors contributing to the global burden of disease.” In addition, “relying on the same familiar crops,” like “standard varieties of eggplant, kale, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, onion and tomato,” may “not be enough to meet the climate challenges ahead,” said Food & Wine. The good news is that there are 1,480 known species of edible vegetables, most of which are underused.

“The solution isn’t simply to grow more vegetables,” Maarten van Zonneveld, who led the research, said in the release. “It’s also to grow more kinds of vegetables.” Many nutrient-rich vegetables, like “spider plant, slippery cabbage and other dark-green leafy vegetables, receive little breeding attention due to their lower commercial value compared to crops such as pepper and tomato,” said the study. The less-consumed vegetables also “carry traits that could help breed new varieties better able to withstand heat, drought, pests and disease,” said IFL Science.

Unfortunately, these underutilized crops “receive only a tiny fraction of the research, breeding and conservation efforts devoted to globally traded vegetables and staple grains,” said the release. The study highlights the need to “strengthen breeding capacity among both public and private organizations, combined with investment in participatory breeding with farmers,” said the study.

“Much of the vegetable biodiversity we need is still out there,” Zonneveld said in the release. The “urgency is to conserve it properly so that we can use it wisely to diversify diets amid climate change.”

“Leaked diplomatic correspondence” shows that Andy Burnham is “embroiled” in a row with Cuba over Britain’s “looming ban” on cigars, said The Telegraph.

Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro, who was often photographed puffing away, said the cigar “made our country famous” and gave “prestige” to Cuba. But now the island’s cigar industry is facing a perfect storm of existential challenges.

Unjustified barrier 

The Cuban ambassador in London has been writing to the UK government since 2024 to express concerns about plans for a “smoke-free Britain”, according to the leaked correspondence. Diplomats from Honduras and the Dominican Republic have also weighed in.

The incoming generational smoking ban brought in during Rishi Sunak’s reign will “disproportionately impact cigar-producing countries” and amounts to an “unjustified barrier to trade”, they said. Cigars “neither contribute to youth smoking initiation nor share the same public health profile as cigarettes”.

The rift is thought to have “deepened” after the UK government opened a consultation on extending the ban to premium cigars.

National pride

Cuban cigars have “held an unrivalled position at the pinnacle of the cigar world”, said Simply Cigars. They are “renowned for their heritage, craftsmanship and distinctive terroir”.

They are a “valuable export” and a “draw for many visitors”, as well as a “historic national industry” and a “point of national pride”, said CBC. The Cubans who farm tobacco are a symbol of “nationalism and resistance”.

But it’s getting harder to farm tobacco in Cuba, because climate change has made growing conditions “increasingly unpredictable, with a longer and wetter rainy season, and more intense storms”, including hurricanes.

Other challenges facing Cuba’s tobacco farmers include “finding workers and making their product financially viable”, as “falling global demand” for cigars means “lower prices for the leaf”.

But since the US imposed a “de facto oil blockade on the island, the Cuban cigar industry is facing its greatest challenge yet”, said Al Jazeera.

Since the start of the year, precious “little oil” has entered Cuba and the resultant energy crisis has “complicated the cultivation” of tobacco crops. The shortage has been worsened by the US seizing oil shipments from Cuba’s long-standing ally Venezuela.

Manufacturing has also been hit. Dried tobacco leaves are driven to Havana, where they are hand-rolled in state-run factories, but the “scarce supply” of petrol makes transportation “difficult”, and the “lack of electricity” to provide lighting for the factories “complicates production”.

In February, Cuba’s “iconic” annual cigar fair was postponed, said The Associated Press. Tabacuba, a state-run tobacco company, blamed “the complex economic situation” that the island is facing, due to the “intensification of the economic, commercial and financial blockade” imposed by the US. The organisers did not set a new date for the 26th edition of the cigar fair.

At a certain point, a “swelling retirement account isn’t really about retirement,” said Daniel de Visé in USA Today. The average American family has a little more than $268,000 saved up in an individual retirement account. But at least 32,000 people have amassed more than $10 million in workplace and individual retirement accounts like a Roth IRA, which can grow without taxes due on the earnings, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. And “at the top of the wealth heap, 208 taxpayers have $85 billion saved in IRA-type accounts” that were originally designed for the middle class. “One might wonder how any American, no matter how wealthy,” could amass so much given the restrictions that govern contributions. After all, even “at its most generous,” the federal government only allows certain older Americans to contribute a maximum of $35,750 to a 401(k). Yet some people have found ways around the guardrails.

The “mother of all tax breaks” comes to those who stash startup shares in a Roth, said Brian Contreras in Inc. Entrepreneurs, hedge fund managers, and Silicon Valley insiders who have access to early and promising startups will often deposit “that stock in an IRA or workplace retirement account” and watch it pile up “massive gains while still enjoying substantial tax benefits.” Because those shares are cheap at first, they remain within annual contribution limits. Roblox board member Gregory Baszucki, for instance, has “at least $68 million worth of Roblox stock in his Roth IRA, and potentially about $158 million in tax-free holdings total.”

That’s how retirement accounts have become “an artifact of ever-expanding wealth inequality,” said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. While 40% of working Americans “don’t have any retirement savings at all,” the rich abuse the system to amass millions tax-free. “The outsize growth of plutocrats’ retirement accounts has bubbled up to public notice” again recently, after Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) proposed legislation to cap IRAs and 401(k)s at $10 million. Even that amount seems “excessive.”

But anyone can supersize their retirement account with some savvy execution, said Anne Tergesen and Theo Francis in The Wall Street Journal. A “little-known fact about 401(k) plans” is that employees can really set aside “as much as $72,000 in these accounts every year, rising to as much as $80,000 for those 50 and older.” To go beyond the usual $24,500 limit, a worker can contribute as much as another $47,500 after taxes—and then convert that money to a Roth 401(k). “Someone who saved the equivalent of today’s $72,000 maximum” every year from 1984 to 2019 would have had $20.6 million by the end of 2024, “assuming returns consistent with the S&P 500 index.”

‘Video gamers alone can’t keep our skies safe’

Sheldon H. Jacobson at The Hill

The FAA is “recruiting video gamers for air traffic controller job openings,” but “adding more people into the existing system does little to resolve the structural issues that have led to persistent shortages,” says Sheldon H. Jacobson. Skills “developed by video gamers” are “similar to the skills used to manage dozens of flights in the sky in real time.” However, recruiting “video gamers to be air traffic controllers makes good sound bites but falls short of resolving staffing shortages.”

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‘A new poll shows how John Fetterman has created a 2028 predicament for himself’

Zeeshan Aleem at MS NOW

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman’s “popularity with Democrats has taken a nose dive in the last couple of years,” says Zeeshan Aleem. Fetterman “should not be shocked by how his own party’s voters have soured on him,” as he “still caucuses with the Democrats, but he’s made a name for himself by defecting from the party on several notable occasions.” Should he “seek reelection in 2028, it’s safe to wager that he would face tough chances of winning in a Democratic primary.”

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‘Trump’s Korean gambit exposes a shifting East Asian order’

Wenran Jiang at Al Jazeera

When President Donald Trump “ordered the Pentagon to cut the annual United States-South Korea Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise,” he “laid bare the transactional logic of his approach to East Asia,” says Wenran Jiang. The move “blindsided Seoul and drew a calculated rebuff from Pyongyang, underscoring how growing doubts about the U.S. defense umbrella are reshaping strategic calculations across the region.” If Trump’s “rapprochement with Pyongyang produces only theater, North Korea’s nuclear program will continue to advance.”

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‘Public health advocates are so desperate for help against conspiracies they’ve turned to the place you’d least expect’

Molly Olmstead at Slate

Public health officials have one “innovative and surprising, if disconcerting, solution to our national public health information crisis: AI has the potential to help stave off a conspiratorial catastrophe during the next pandemic,” says Molly Olmstead. Looking to AI for “rescue is usually an eye-roll-worthy impulse,” as AI is a “Pandora’s box of yet-to-be-imagined evils.” But in “this case, the desperation of the situation might just call for public health advocates leaning into the dangerous new technology.”

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Some of the world’s most important rivers are drying up. The Colorado River supplies water and electricity to millions of people in the Southwest U.S. but is afflicted by a decadeslong drought, while blistering European heat is taking a toll on the Danube and other key waterways on the continent. And adjusting to these environmental changes will be an upstream battle for governments and communities.

Colorado: ‘Legal and political battles’

Record-low water levels at reservoirs fed by the Colorado River have put the region in “uncharted territory,” Utah State University’s Jack Schmidt said to CNN. Lakes Mead and Powell have been “shrinking for 20 years” because of the toll that climate change and overuse have taken on the river, which supplies water to 40 million people and hydropower electricity to 500,000 households. Big cities like Phoenix and Tucson “have taken steps to prepare” for the crisis, but procuring alternative water supplies “might be less feasible” for Indigenous tribes and small towns along the river.

Dividing the remaining water will require “legal and political battles” that are “not remotely close to being resolved,” said the Arizona Daily Star. Cities, farms and businesses along the Colorado say reducing water use is “more urgent than ever,” but the possible loss of Hoover Dam-produced power supplies could raise electricity costs in the region “to the point of being unaffordable.” One hope: The promise that the “biggest El Niño season on record” might replenish the river.

The crisis adds urgency to a federal proposal to require Arizona, California and Nevada to significantly reduce the amount of water they take from the Colorado, said The Associated Press. That would result in a “lot of potential devastating impacts” to farms and other river users, Arizona water official Tom Buschatzke said to the AP. Nevada this week sued to block the plan, said The Hill.

Europe: Altering the ‘old map of power’

The Danube recently measured “just 9 inches deep” in Budapest, Ben Coates said at The New York Times. Italy’s Po River and the Rhine in Switzerland are also in peril. That has nearly halted the “transport of chemicals, oil products and other goods” in Europe, while also forcing Romania to shut down a river-cooled nuclear power plant. The major rivers have served as “crucibles of the continent’s industrial power,” but the evaporation of those rivers could “alter the old map of Europe’s power and wealth.”

The “growing disruption” to commerce has sparked calls to dig deeper channels in the bottlenecked part of the Rhine, said Radio France Internationale. But experts are warning that making rivers deeper “cannot create more water and could make shortages worse” by disrupting sensitive ecosystems. “That is what we call maladaptation,” hydrologist Thibault Datry said to the outlet.

There is also talk of “reconnecting floodplains, protecting wetlands and restoring peatlands” to help rivers “retain more water and improve resilience” during dry periods, said Deutsche Welle. But those efforts may well be “little more than a drop in a fast-flowing river” without decisive moves to reduce greenhouse gasses and mitigate climate change.

The trade war between the United States and Canada has turned white-hot, and it is not clear when or if the conflict will abate. America’s northern neighbor is hunkering down for extended economic pain, while President Donald Trump argues that Canada has been “ripping off” the U.S. for years. Tariffs are flying in both directions. Will anybody blink?

‘Undiplomatic’ bargaining

Last weekend’s breakdown of U.S.-Canada trade talks is a sign that Trump’s “bulldozer approach” to trade “may be reaching its limits,” said The Washington Post. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from negotiations “rather than accept a lengthening list of U.S. demands,” choosing to face new American tariffs on an “array of Canadian products” that includes “hockey sticks and Crown Royal whisky.” (U.S. consumers could also face a surge in toilet paper costs.)

Carney is digging in. Trump’s “undiplomatic style” of bargaining — including frequent references to Canada as a “51st state” — has made once-friendly Canadian public opinion “fiercely anti-American,” said the Post.

Canada is “among the worst Nations in the World to deal with,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. “WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” That proclamation “depends on the meaning of the word ‘need,’” Paul Krugman said on Substack. Canada “dominates” the type of lumber that U.S. contractors prefer for framing houses, and America “imports millions of barrels a day” of Canadian oil. The United States economy is much larger, but an “all-out trade war would create a lot of pain” at home when American voters are “already dissatisfied with Trump’s economic management.”

Trump’s latest trade conflict “makes no economic or political sense,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. GOP candidates are “already getting pounded” on affordability issues on the campaign trail. The president’s abysmal approval rating is the result of voter perceptions as he wages “blunderbuss wars without a strategy.” Now Trump is providing fresh fuel for those concerns a “mere 10 weeks before midterm elections.”

‘United against Donald Trump’

Carney was “right to call Donald Trump’s bluff,” Tony Keller said at The Globe and Mail in Canada. There was widespread fear among Canadians that “Ottawa was about to sign a bad deal” with the United States that would make major concessions to Trump “in return for nothing much.” The good news for Ottawa: U.S. voters “won’t understand why Mr. Trump is so intent on severing our partnership.” Canadian leaders must now “appeal to Americans and American business” for support.

Canada is now “more united against Donald Trump than ever,” Stephen Maher said at the Toronto Star. The Canadian government is preparing aid to assist the country’s hardest-hit businesses. Trump seems equally determined. It is “time to teach Canada you can’t do this anymore,” he said Wednesday to interviewer Glenn Beck, per Reuters. This may be a long fight: Carney “sees little chance” of resuming trade talks until after the U.S. midterm elections in November, said Bloomberg.

What happened

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a first-of-its-kind drug for advanced pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest types of cancer and among the hardest to treat. The FDA’s expedited approval of daraxonrasib, a daily pill developed by Revolution Medicines and sold as Rasonque, followed a clinical trial in which patients on the drug lived a median 13.2 months, twice as long as those who underwent chemotherapy, and with fewer side effects. Some “patients who have gotten the drug through clinical trials have lived for years,” The New York Times said.

Who said what

Daraxonrasib has “electrified cancer specialists and patients,” the Times said. It’s “not a cure, but it is the first treatment to substantially extend the lives of patients” with a disease long considered among the “most hopeless in medicine.” Nearly all pancreatic tumors are fueled by a mutated cellular protein, KRAS, that’s stubbornly resistant to interventions. Daraxonrasib “uses what’s essentially a molecular glue to bind with multiple KRAS subtypes” and shut them down, The Associated Press said. Revolution is “studying its technology for several other forms of cancer, including lung cancer.”

What next?

Revolution said Rasonque is “now available in the United States at $39,800 for a 30-day ​supply,” Reuters said. The “vast majority of the cost is expected to be covered through insurance,” the Times said.

What happened

A catastrophic mix of floodwater and mud crashed through Himalayan valleys in Nepal and China-administered Tibet on Wednesday, killing at least 359 people, officials said this morning. More than 1,300 people were reported missing, including 517 foreigners in Nepal and 260 foreigners in Tibet. The death toll is expected to rise as rescue teams reach areas cut off by washed-away roads and bridges and buried under up to 6 feet of mud.

Who said what

“There are no human-made things, no human settlement left,” Sagar Pandey, CEO of a tourism operator that serves Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims who flock to the area, told Reuters. “Everything is just flat.”

Scientists around the world are “trying to solve the mystery of what caused such a destructive flood,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “leading hypothesis” is that a “large piece of a glacier broke off and tumbled hundreds of feet into the valley below, where the ice was pulverized into water by the sheer velocity of the fall.” The impact of the “enormous chunk of ice — possibly a half-mile wide,” registered as the “equivalent of a 5.2-magnitude earthquake and crushed the ice into a fast-moving mix of water, ice and rock that pulverized everything in its path,” said The New York Times.

What next?

Searchers are using helicopters to seek out survivors and drop supplies to hard-hit areas.

What happened

Social media giant Meta on Wednesday agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and implement new safeguards for underage Instagram and Facebook users as part of a landmark settlement with 47 states and other U.S. jurisdictions. Meta also reached a $1 billion settlement with Texas over similar allegations that it endangered children by designing its platforms to be addictive, like cigarettes.

Meta agreed to limit users under 18 to two hours a day on its combined platforms, lock them out from midnight to 6 a.m., block “beauty filters,” hide “likes” and improve age verification tools. A federal judge in California approved the settlement Wednesday evening.

Who said what

Meta’s “dramatic capitulation” could “signal an inflection point for a social media industry that has largely escaped regulatory scrutiny over the harms its products have caused children,” The New York Times said. It also “effectively ends a bellwether federal trial” underway in California in which four states were seeking roughly $200 billion from Meta.

“In a unique setup,” Meta “will pay out only 70% of the settlement,” The Wall Street Journal said, withholding $5.3 billion, unless YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat agree to also pay the states $5.3 billion and join it in implementing stricter one-hour daily limits for underage users. “This framework will only work if all our peers join us,” Meta chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said in a blog post.

What next?

The $18 billion settlement, representing “about one month of revenue for Meta,” will be paid out over 10 years, Reuters said. “It could provide a template for resolving thousands of other lawsuits against social media companies.”