RSS Feeds
Senator Lindsey Graham died of aortic tear, examiner says
Weather tracker: Unusually warm rivers affect French nuclear power plants
High temperatures and below average rainfall put pressure on waterways used to cool reactors
Above average temperatures combined with below average rainfall across much of western and central Europe during June and the first half of July have placed increasing pressure on rivers, ecosystems and energy infrastructure. Persistent high pressure brought prolonged sunshine, suppressed rainfall and enhanced evaporation, causing river levels to fall and water temperatures to increase.
These unusually warm rivers are affecting electricity generation in France, as several nuclear power stations rely on river water for cooling. Under French environmental regulations, operators must limit the amount of heat discharged back into rivers, meaning electricity output may need to be reduced when water temperatures become too high.
Continue reading...British couple return to village at heart of deadly Spanish wildfire
Heavy rains and flash floods in Bangladesh leave 51 dead
US Senator Mitch McConnell says absence due to fall and pneumonia
Infantino opens door to 64-team World Cup
Men disguised as police kill Ecuadorean drug lord's brother
Senator Lindsey Graham died of aortic tear, examiner says
Truck carrying wedding guests hit on Indonesia highway, killing 13, police say
Lindsey Graham’s legacy and a new dinosaur discovery: Morning Rundown
Budget cuts put men’s and women’s tennis tour merger on indefinite hold
Negotiations break down over proposed revenue share
Women’s game faces significant cuts to operations
The creation of a joint commercial venture between the tours of the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women’s Tennis Association has been put on hold indefinitely as the women’s game faces the prospect of making significant cuts to its operational budget.
Negotiations over a merger, which would have meant the tours pooling their commercial and media rights, have broken down over the terms of the proposed revenue share, with the WTA in effect walking away from a deal that had appeared close to being finalised last year.
Continue reading...Trump Brands Them ‘Godless Communists,’ Democrats Divided on How to Respond
More than three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a U.S. President is once again casting the threat of communism as one of the biggest issues facing American voters.
At rallies and campaign-style speeches across the country this summer, President Donald Trump is increasingly portraying Democrats as communists, betting that the message will sharpen the ideological contrast heading into November's midterm elections. The attacks intensified after a string of democratic socialist-backed candidates won high-profile Democratic primaries in New York in late June. According to a TIME analysis, Trump has invoked communism 94 times in public remarks and social media posts since June 25, describing some of the party’s candidates as "hardcore, godless communists."
The Republican President used similar language at the NATO summit with world leaders, in his Fourth of July address on the National Mall, in remarks to religious conservatives, and during a stop in North Dakota, where he argued that communism poses a greater threat to the United States than major historical attacks and wars. "You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot," Trump said in his Independence Day speech. "You cannot be both."
The barrage has become one of the central themes of Trump's political message heading into the November midterms, even as polls continue to show that voters remain most concerned about the economy and the cost of living. Republicans see the recent primary victories as an opportunity to shift the conversation away from those issues and toward a broader ideological debate. Progressive candidates have argued that addressing affordability requires expanding government-funded programs, raising taxes on wealthy Americans, and strengthening labor protections—positions Republicans increasingly characterize as evidence that the party is embracing socialism or even communism.
Democrats, meanwhile, are divided over how much attention Trump's attacks deserve. Some centrist Democrats worry that the “communist” charges will resonate with enough voters to cost them competitive races, and blame the party's recent embrace of democratic socialist candidates for giving Republicans an opening.
"I would hope that Democratic primary voters pick more mainstream candidates, because every time they pick a radical, it makes it harder for people elsewhere to run and win," says Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the centrist Democratic organization Third Way.
Others argue that trying to distance the party from its left flank only reinforces Trump's framing and distracts from the economic message they believe propelled many of those candidates to victory.
“If running on that agenda invites attacks, I think we should lean into it,” says Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, a liberal group founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders. “The best way to guard yourself against attacks is to stand for nothing…The electorate wants candidates who are fighting to challenge the status quo.”
The President’s critics are also quick to highlight the irony of Trump accusing Democrats of embracing communism while he touts deals in which the U.S. government secures ownership in private companies. During his second term, Trump has committed billions in taxpayer funds to transform the federal government into a direct corporate shareholder, commanding minority equity positions and governance rights in Intel, critical mining firms like MP Materials, and major industrials like U.S. Steel.
Trump's attacks echo the anti-communist politics of the Cold War and the Red Scare, when accusations of communist sympathies could end political careers. Trump came of age during that period and was mentored by Roy Cohn, who served as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the infamous anti-communist hearings of the 1950s.
To be clear, the Democratic Party has not been taken over by communists. The democratic socialists who have won high-profile primaries this year generally support expanding government programs while still operating within a market-based economy. There are also no members of Congress who openly identify as members of the Communist Party, and no Communist Party candidate has won state or federal office in modern American history.
Trump and other Republican leaders largely dismiss such distinctions as they center attacks around Democrats aligned with the democratic socialist movement, most notably New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “We WILL NOT let MINI MAMDANIs take over the greatest nation in the history of the world," Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on social media last week with a political cartoon depicting New York City awash in communist signifiers including a sickle.
Republicans employed a similar strategy in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests in 2020, after some Democrats backed the slogan "defund the police." Democratic leaders spent years distancing themselves from that movement.
Bennett argues that, while Trump's rhetoric is characteristically exaggerated, Republicans have been handed openings by a few prominent candidates with past statements expressing admiration for communist thinkers or flirting with communist labels. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist congressional candidate in New York who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat in last month’s Democratic primary, had a social media account that she has since deleted featuring posts in which she appeared sympathetic to communism. “He is not making this up out of whole cloth,” Bennett says of Trump’s attacks. “It's much harder to push back when there's a grain of truth to the charge.”
Some centrists have responded by drawing explicit distinctions between themselves and the party's left flank. Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York recently unveiled a platform emphasizing capitalism after democratic socialist-backed candidates swept several primaries in his state.
Even candidates who have merely been endorsed by progressive organizations have sought to draw distinctions. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Senate candidate backed by Bernie Sanders, told TIME he supports capitalism and rejects the socialist label, underscoring the discomfort some Democrats feel about allowing Republicans to define the party through its most ideological wing.
The debate reflects a broader reckoning over what kind of party Democrats want to become after Trump's return to power. Progressives argue the recent primary victories reveal an electorate hungry for a more confrontational form of economic populism centered on affordability, health care, wages, and inequality rather than the incremental politics that has defined much of the Democratic establishment. In Maine, the party is speedrunning through that debate as it rushes to pick a replacement for its Senate nominee Graham Platner, who ended his bid last week in the wake of sexual assault allegations.
"Public opinion suggests Trump's message could resonate differently across the electorate. Gallup has found that most Americans continue to view socialism unfavorably, though Democrats express more positive attitudes than Republicans. Younger voters, however, appear considerably more receptive. A recent Cato Institute survey found Gen Z respondents viewed socialism more favorably than capitalism, and were more likely than older Americans to support candidates identifying as democratic socialists. At the same time, Republicans are betting that anti-communist rhetoric will carry particular weight among older voters and many Hispanic communities whose families fled left-wing authoritarian governments, making the message as much about energizing the party's base as persuading swing voters.
Extended interview: Sean Evans on his path to "Hot Ones," his Conan O'Brien interview and more
Python Is So Slow. Can Julia Solve the Two-Language Problem?
The Viceroy of Venezuela
Millions evacuated in China as severe flooding traps villagers and sweeps cars away
Sam Neill, New Zealand Actor Known for ‘Jurassic Park,’ Dies at 78
Trump says U.S. military will reimpose blockade on Iranian ports
The one thing MAGA nativists get right
President Donald Trump blames immigrants for virtually every problem in American economic life. In the president’s telling, the undocumented have been taking American-born citizens’ jobs, lowering their wages, driving up their costs, and bankrupting their welfare programs.
These claims are largely false.
Most studies suggest that immigrants do not typically reduce wages or job opportunities for the American-born — and actually pay more in taxes than they receive in social welfare benefits (this is especially true of undocumented immigrants, due to their ineligibility for Social Security and Medicare).
But there is at least one way that immigration really can hurt American-born people economically: When migrants come to a locality in large numbers, they can push up housing costs for longtime residents.
The president called attention to that fact earlier this week. In a Truth Social post Sunday, Trump wrote, “Fed Reserve working paper suggests Biden illegal immigrant wave drove up home prices 30%.”
Here, the president was garbling the findings of a recently published Dallas Federal Reserve study, which mostly contradicts his narrative about immigration’s economic harms.
Still, that paper did find that unauthorized immigration pushed up both rents and home prices during the Biden era (albeit by much less than Trump claimed).
This is a real problem. Yet, the solution is not to close America’s borders. Throttling immigration would make America less prosperous, while doing little to make housing more affordable.
Fortunately, there is a way to secure immigration’s considerable economic benefits while limiting its more modest downsides: We can simply make it easier to build more homes.
What the Dallas Fed study actually shows
The spike in unauthorized immigration under Biden was genuinely massive.
Between 2021 and 2024, seven million unauthorized immigrants settled in the United States. Put differently, America added 1.75 million unauthorized migrants per year during this period. For context, between 2000 and 2019, the US added an average of 0.1 million annually.
The extraordinary scale of the Biden-era wave provided researchers at the Dallas Fed with a unique opportunity to gauge unauthorized migration’s material consequences. Drawing on court records that revealed where immigrants had settled, the economists examined how local economic trends varied between places with more or fewer migrants, controlling for other variables.
As the president suggested, the immigration spike had some adverse impacts on local housing markets. Between early 2021 and early 2024, unauthorized migration pushed up the average American municipality’s home prices by 6.6 percent (not 30 percent, as Trump claimed) and its market rents by 4.3 percent.
In some contexts, rising home prices aren’t entirely unwelcome. Immigrants have helped spur the economic revival of many declining localities, which had previously suffered large drops in population, and, thus, in tax revenues and job opportunities. When such communities become more economically vibrant, property values tend to rebound — a welcome development for local homeowners.
Nevertheless, many American cities currently suffer from perennial crises of housing unaffordability. And the Fed’s research suggests that the Biden-era immigration surge made this problem worse, accounting for 30 percent of the overall increase in home prices during the period.
That’s significant, even as other factors played a collectively bigger role, among them tight post-pandemic labor markets, the soaring cost of construction materials, a jump in demand for floor space due to remote work (as middle-class families sought larger homes to accommodate home offices), and America’s pre-existing housing shortage.
This finding is consistent with past research into immigration’s impact on housing costs. And it is also intuitive, given the inherent and artificial constraints on housing construction in the United States.
After all, cities can add new residents much faster than they can build new housing. When a large number of immigrants show up in a city all at once, demand for homes will inevitably grow quicker than supply.
In a healthy housing market, this would merely be a short-term problem. Eventually, rising home values would encourage more building until prices fell back towards their pre-surge trajectory. Recent trends in Austin, Texas, are a case in point. Between 2021 and 2025, rents in that city fell by 4 percent, even as its population increased, thanks to a boom in housing construction.
In most US cities, however, land-use rules make it functionally impossible for housing supply to keep pace with demand. Bans on the construction of apartment buildings, large minimum lot size requirements, and other rules effectively cap the amount of housing that can be erected, no matter how much the population rises. Under these conditions, the Trumpian vision of immigration — in which American-born people and new arrivals are locked in a zero-sum struggle for scarce resources — becomes a little more true.
Slashing immigration is not the answer
It would be a mistake to respond to this by throttling immigration rather than fixing our housing markets.
Immigration is still economically beneficial for Americans on the whole. In truth, the Dallas Fed’s study does more to undermine nativists’ arguments than to support them.
According to that paper, the Biden-era migration wave did not take a fixed set of jobs from American-born people. Rather, it added roughly as many new jobs as new workers to local economies.
Which makes some sense: Immigrant workers do not just provide goods and services, but also consume them. Thus, although they increase an area’s labor supply, they also boost its labor demand, sparking job growth.
Further, contrary to nativists’ expectations, unauthorized immigration had no statistically significant impact on local wages during the Biden era and drove down government transfer spending per capita in impacted localities, likely because undocumented immigrants are ineligible for many social welfare programs.
Meanwhile, we know from previous research that immigration benefits economies in myriad ways, not least by fostering a more efficient division of labor and, thus, higher productivity. This is partly because immigrants are far more willing to move in response to shifting economic conditions than American-born workers, which makes them uniquely effective at filling gaps in local labor markets.
More critically, as the American population ages in the coming decades, our nation’s ratio of workers-to-retirees is set to fall. That will make supporting seniors’ pensions and health care cost more onerous for the young while also depressing economic growth and boosting deficits. Welcoming more working-age immigrants into America is the simplest way to mitigate these problems.
In any case, choking off immigration would do little to resolve America’s housing crisis. After all, even during a historic surge in unauthorized entries, 70 percent of the increase in home prices — and 80 percent of the rise in market rents — was due to factors other than immigration, according to the Dallas Fed’s report.
Thus, if we want to maximize Americans’ prosperity, we need to find a way to reconcile robust immigration with affordable housing.
This will probably require avoiding another abrupt surge in unauthorized migration, like that which transpired under Biden. Rapid, disorderly spikes in irregular immigration are politically toxic and economically disruptive. Even in a well-functioning housing market, a sudden jump in population will generate short-term price spikes.
Above all, however, we must pare back barriers to homebuilding. Until we do, housing will remain unaffordable in much of America, no matter how few immigrants we take in — and policymakers may struggle to sell voters on high levels of legal immigration, no matter how many facts they have on their side.
An oligarch speaks out
A hawk who flew on political winds: Lindsey Graham
Man hospitalized after bison charge sends him flying at Yellowstone
China’s graduate glut: millions enter a job market with little use for them
Record numbers find there is little demand for their skills, as entry-level tech roles are hit by AI and automation
This time of year is graduation season in China: traditionally a bittersweet period of solemn goodbyes and family celebrations as university students transition from campus life into adulthood. Now it also increasingly represents trepidation about the future.
Each year, millions more graduates are thrust into China’s already saturated jobs market. The situation for this year’s cohort, flooding into an increasingly crowded pool of applicants fighting for an insufficient number of positions, is arguably the bleakest yet.
Continue reading...Speedboat capsizes off southern Vietnam, killing 15 tourists
White Supremacists Love Armie Hammer’s New Movie
BBC experts pick their England World Cup semi-final starters - do you agree?
Chinook crash families say MoD 'cannot be allowed to win' over inquiry call
EU Proposal to Curb Minors’ Access to Social Media Coming Later This Year
Lebanese Hold Fast to Their Land Despite Threat of Long Israeli Occupation
Share your tributes and memories of Sam Neill
We would like to hear your tributes and memories of celebrated actor Sam Neill – whether you met him, or appreciated his work
The death of actor Sam Neill was announced today. He was 78.
Known to many for his role as Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, he also starred in The Piano and Peaky Blinders.
Continue reading...UK in ‘firewave’ as extreme heat provides ideal conditions for wildfires, experts warn
National Fire Chiefs Council say emergency services dealing with 19 wildfires across Britain, many near urban areas
The UK is in the grip of a “firewave”, as the summer’s extreme heat produces the ideal conditions for wildfires, scientists and environmentalists have warned.
A particular danger was that more blazes seem to be taking place closer to urban areas rather than in remote countryside, causing hazards to homes and health, they said.
Continue reading...Ted Lasso actor Fernandez makes professional debut
Lindsey Graham’s Unexpected Death, and How Marco Rubio Is Running Venezuela
Fire at Bangkok bar kills 27; exits may have been blocked, officials say
Witness says he crawled for exit as flames swept through Bangkok bar
WATCH: Woman goes viral by tackling public speaking fear
UK seeking extradition of man suspected of killing wife and two daughters
Republicans return to Capitol Hill with agenda complicated by Graham death
Lawmakers face obstacles, including demands from Trump, Mitch McConnell’s absence and senator’s sudden death
Republican lawmakers return to the Capitol this week facing a lengthy to-do list and Donald Trump’s demands for new voting restrictions, as Democrats jockey for an advantage ahead of the November midterm elections.
Lawmakers from both parties are eager to highlight before voters legislative victories ahead of the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake. But for Senate Republicans, who are already navigating an array of demands from Trump, their agenda grew further complicated over the weekend with the death of Lindsey Graham, the budget committee chair who was a key player in negotiating a party-line bill to fund additional defense spending and other priorities outlined by the president.
Continue reading...Beloved or not, Lindsey Graham was a critical dealmaker in Congress
Senator played major role in critical negotiations with Democrats and members of his own party on key issues
When Democrats and Republicans were earlier this year locked in a standoff that had plunged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the longest partial government shutdown in US history, news of a path forward emerged in the form of a statement from Republican senator Lindsey Graham.
By announcing that the budget committee he chairs would set to work on a measure to fund the agencies leading Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign for the remainder of his presidency, Graham played a major role in rallying the GOP behind a plan that reopened DHS.
Continue reading...Zaghari-Ratcliffe condemns Iran’s ‘cruel’ rearrest of wildlife activist couple
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in prison with Sepideh Kashani, who worked with husband Houman Jokar to save Asiatic cheetah
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has described the rearrest of two Iranian environmentalists, one of whom she met at Evin prison, as “unimaginably cruel and alarming”.
Husband and wife Houman Jokar and Sepideh Kashani were arrested by the ministry of intelligence at their home on 1 July. No reason has been given and their whereabouts are unknown.
Continue reading...Burnham set for No 10: BBC correspondents on what Trump, Putin and others will make of him
How Lindsey Graham’s Senate Seat Will Be Filled—and What It Means for the GOP
Lindsey Graham’s sudden death has left his congressional seat vacant, potentially complicating the Republican legislative agenda.
Graham, who died on Saturday at age 71, served as U.S. Senator for South Carolina for 23 years. He was campaigning for a fifth term this year, after winning the Republican primary in June with 57% of the vote.
Graham was a critic-turned-staunch ally of Donald Trump and backed the President’s war with Iran. His death leaves Republicans with a smaller Senate majority, which could hamper the party’s voting strength with Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell already absent from the chamber due to hospitalization.
The vacancy could also be significant for Democrats’ prospects in the mid-term elections this November.
Republicans will need to choose a new Senate nominee to take on Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician whose campaign has focused on healthcare, abortion rights, and gun safety. Before Graham’s death, the state was not considered a battleground. The last time a Democrat was elected to the Senate in South Carolina was in 1998. But Graham’s death adds uncertainty to the race.
How Graham’s seat will be filled
Under South Carolina law, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster can appoint a temporary replacement to serve the remainder of Graham’s term, which ends Jan. 3. Like Graham, McMaster is a close ally of Trump.
On Sunday, Trump said he had someone in mind that “would be great” to fill Graham’s seat, but that it is “too soon” to publicly name them.
McMaster could fill the seat himself, but he would first have to resign from the governorship. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette would then serve as governor for the remainder of McMaster’s term, which ends on Jan. 13, and she could appoint McMaster to the Senate seat. But doing so has historically been a losing game in the long run. In 1965, South Carolina Gov. Donald Russell resigned after Sen. Olin Johnston died, allowing Lt. Gov Robert McNair to appoint him to the Senate. Russell then lost the 1966 Democratic primary to Fritz Hollings.
Evette could also be considered for the seat. She has not publicly commented on whether she is interested. Trump endorsed her when she unsuccessfully ran in the state Republican gubernatorial primary in June. The nomination was ultimately won by Alan Wilson, the son of Rep. Joe Wilson (R, S.C.), whom Trump also endorsed.
Graham’s vacancy also triggers a special primary election to take his spot on the ballot to compete for the next U.S. Senate term, according to state election law. That special election will take place on Aug. 11. Candidates will have a week beginning July 21 to declare their intent to run.
Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, who also ran against Wilson, could be contenders. Mace told CNN that she does not plan to fill the seat in the interim, but she said “there will be time to decide” about running for it in the special election. Norman is expected to announce whether he will run on Tuesday, and he said that he has spoken with Trump about an endorsement, according to Bloomberg Government.
The five Republicans that challenged Graham in the June primary could also enter the special election. Greenville businessman Mark Lynch, who criticized Graham’s interventionist foreign policy approach and support for foreign aid, came second with 29% of the vote. Motivational speaker Thomas Dismukes, Horry County Republican Party executive committeeman and businessman Pat Herrmann, Duncan city councilmember Calvin Cowen, and Columbia-based “Hip-Hop Republican” Darius Mitchell also ran.
Joe Wilson said he has no plans to replace Graham. He posted on X that he “assured President Trump I intend to remain in the House for his agenda.”
What the vacancy means for the GOP’s agenda
The vacancy could complicate efforts to pass the remaining items on the GOP’s legislative agenda. Republicans held a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but after Graham’s death and amid McConnell’s hospitalization, Republicans have just 51 voting senators, narrowing their margin at a time when some Republicans have bucked party leadership on issues like the war with Iran.
Graham has been described by both Republicans and Democrats as capable of working across the aisle to broker bipartisan deals. His relationship with Trump also made him an influential intermediary with the President, including in efforts to secure aid for Ukraine. Graham has consistently lobbied for providing aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, despite Trump’s repeated efforts to scale back U.S. support for the ally. On Friday, Graham announced that a bipartisan group of Senators had reached an agreement with the White House on an updated sanctions package targeting Russia.
In turn, Graham played a key role in shepherding some of Trump’s key legislative goals through the Senate, including the passage of the President’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
Several major bills remain on the legislative agenda.
These include Trump’s SAVE America Act, which would require voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote. Graham strongly advocated for the bill, which has faced strong opposition from Democrats and some Republicans. Trump told NBC on Sunday that Graham’s death will be “a big blow” to the act.
Republicans were also hoping to pass a reconciliation bill, which would be the third this legislative session after the OBBBA and another bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies. The package was expected to include funding to replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles depleted by the war with Iran. As Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Graham would have been instrumental in crafting the package.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom Trump nominated to replace Pam Bondi as AG, is also waiting to be confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Graham served on. With all 10 Democrats on the committee opposed, Republicans can afford no defections. If any of the remaining 11 Republicans crosses party lines then Blanche’s nomination would fail to advance out of committee.
Bad Reputation review – powerful look at sex workers’ fight for dignity on the Uruguayan streets
Everyday life takes precedence over sensationalism in a galvanising portrait of union founder Karina Núñez and her community
A sex worker and activist living in Uruguay, Karina Núñez is a force of nature. The charismatic subject of Marta García and Sol Infante’s galvanising documentary, she is introduced by way of a somewhat provocative image: a closeup of her chest, tucked behind a lacy brassiere. The shot, however, is far from objectifying: Núñez is fully in control, and her breasts are simply a tool of her trade. This opening scene expands to take in a road intersection at night, where she is hoping to find her next customer among the stream of cars that passes by.
Núñez might be standing by herself at a crossroads, in a framing that suggests the precariousness of her occupation, yet she is far from alone. As the founder and leader of Otras, a union for Uruguayan sex workers, she has rallied a dedicated community around the fight for social acceptance, better labour conditions and legal protection. Swerving sensationalism, García and Infante’s film does not focus on individual customers, foregrounding instead the everyday struggles faced by the sex workers themselves. In moving scenes, Núñez speaks of the dismissive treatment she receives at a health clinic, as well as her difficulty in transitioning to another line of work. In the eyes of the law and society, she and her fellow workers are merely as faceless statistics or cautionary tales, rather than human beings with rights and dignity.
Continue reading...Did the media fall short in its reporting on Graham Platner? | Margaret Sullivan
The twisting road to the candidate’s exit left a lot to be desired. But ultimately, reporters ferreted out the truth
After the New York Times published an article in early June about the Senate candidate Graham Platner’s treatment of the women he dated, the story’s main source reacted with disappointment and anger.
It was a “gift to the Platner campaign”, charged Lyndsey Fifield, who had dated the Democratic combat veteran years ago and who spoke candidly to the Times about that experience.
Continue reading...Can a ‘power phrase’ turn a spineless worm like me into a go-getter? I doubt it – but it’s worth a shot | Emma Beddington
The psychotherapist Amy Morin says uttering a ‘short, positive sentence’ can offer the cognitive reset we need. The idea makes me cringe – but then I can barely cope with returning defective trousers
Are you dreading a high-stakes meeting, a challenging professional task or an awkward conversation? I’m not, because I’m a craven coward who has dodged that kind of unpleasantness for years. If only I had a “power phrase” to activate, maybe things would have been different.
That is the psychotherapist Amy Morin’s advice for dealing with sticky situations. The author of The Mental Strength Playbook, Morin explained in Business Insider that a “short, positive sentence you say to yourself in the moment” is an effective two-minute cognitive reset. She used hers, she says, while answering challenging questions to land her book deal: “I activated my power phrase and told myself, I’m a strong, straightforward communicator.”
Continue reading...The pet I’ll never forget: Daisy the border collie, who swapped farm life for yoga and modelling
The breed is supposed to be hard-working and hyperactive. This one would rather put her paws up or strike a pose for some adoring human
We didn’t plan on getting a dog, but someone told us about a working sheepdog in Ireland who wasn’t up to the job and therefore needed a new owner. In 2023, we travelled from Nottingham to meet her and I fell in love. It was clear that she was not cut out for working and wanted to be a lady of leisure. She was really affectionate and I could tell that she loved being around people.
Border collies are known for being hyperactive, wanting to chase a ball, wanting to do things all the time, but Daisy is the opposite. She is happy to cuddle up next to you. She brings a smile to people’s faces whenever we’re out. As soon as anyone meets her, she gets giddy and excited, rolling on her back and wanting tummy tickles.
Continue reading...Republicans return to Capitol Hill with agenda complicated by Graham death
Lawmakers face obstacles, including demands from Trump, Mitch McConnell’s absence and senator’s sudden death
Republican lawmakers return to the Capitol this week facing a lengthy to-do list and Donald Trump’s demands for new voting restrictions, as Democrats jockey for an advantage ahead of the November midterm elections.
Lawmakers from both parties are eager to highlight before voters legislative victories ahead of the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake. But for Senate Republicans, who are already navigating an array of demands from Trump, their agenda grew further complicated over the weekend with the death of Lindsey Graham, the budget committee chair who was a key player in negotiating a party-line bill to fund additional defense spending and other priorities outlined by the president.
Continue reading...Pythons' extreme biology may hold clues for treating human disease
These snakes can go for months without eating, grow and shrink the size of their hearts and jump start their metabolism on a dime.
(Image credit: Ari Daniel for NPR)
Mitch McConnell Breaks Silence With Statement and Photo Amid Questions About Health Status
After a month of uncertainty over Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health, the Republican Senator for Kentucky broke his silence on what sent him to the hospital this time around: another fall.
McConnell’s office on Sunday evening shared with TIME and other media, as well as posted on the Senator’s social media channels, a statement from McConnell and a photo of him sitting with his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, while holding what appears to be the Sunday Washington Post newspaper.
The 84-year-old, in the statement, pushes back against rumors of more serious ailments, though he said he had to “deal with a mild case of pneumonia.”
“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion,” the statement added. “I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital.”
As for McConnell’s seeming silence in recent days, which prompted speculation of more serious health issues and even death rumors, the statement added: “You all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older. Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct—I can’t help it.”
McConnell’s absence from office and the apparent secrecy around it sparked questions over his fitness to work and what would happen if he vacated his seat before his planned retirement at the end of the term. Republican allies only provided scant and almost formulaic details about McConnell’s condition and unverifiable claims of having spoken to him in hospital, further fueling suspicions from critics. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, criticized the lack of information from the Senator’s office and last week issued a public letter seeking McConnell’s office for updates.
The Senator, who has had several health scares in recent years, including freezing and falling incidents, in his statement on Sunday attributed the latest fall, like previous ones, to having survived polio when he was a child, which left lingering effects on his left leg.
But McConnell said in his statement that he’s since been able to move from hospital care to a rehabilitation center, where he’s set to regain his strength. “I’m continuing to do everything they ask to speed my recovery,” the statement added.
However, the statement from McConnell said he will remain unable to vote in the Senate, where an already-slim Republican majority has been temporarily reduced following the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Saturday.
Doubts loom about McConnell’s health
What appeared to be a proof-of-life photo appeared just as Beshear renewed his concerns over McConnell’s prolonged absence Sunday. “I get that we all have a right to privacy for our health, but when you run for an office like mine or Sen. McConnell’s, you answer to the voters,” Beshear said.
McConnell’s absence has brought attention to how the Kentucky Governor was recently stripped by state lawmakers of the ability to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy via appointment: Kentucky passed a statute in 2024 requiring the Governor to sign a proclamation for a special election instead. The special election’s victor would take the seat for the remainder of the term if the vacancy occurs more than three months before the next election, which in McConnell’s case would have a cutoff date of Aug. 3 ahead of Nov. 3 elections.
It seems, however, that McConnell is keen to remain in his seat, until his planned retirement by January 2027. “I still have unfinished business to complete on your behalf, and I have every intention of finishing the job you elected me to do,” McConnell’s Sunday statement said.
McConnell’s statement, however, did not satisfy some users on the internet. Some have cast doubt on the authenticity of the photo; others have called for other forms of proof of life, such as a video; and others have questioned why a fall with no more serious complications has prevented McConnell from carrying out his Senate duties.
The Senator’s office also attached for media remarks from the Office of the Attending Physician, which provides emergency medical services to Congress’ members, staffers, and visitors to the Capitol. The Office also stated that McConnell was admitted to the hospital four weeks ago and had sustained “minor injuries.”
“A comprehensive evaluation by a multidisciplinary team determined that he had no fractures, cardiac abnormalities, stroke, tumor, or hemorrhage,” the Office of the Attending Physician said. It added that McConnell developed pneumonia while hospitalized and was treated with antibiotics and that his continued hospital stay was for “physical therapy and strategies to reduce his risk of future falls.”
A history of health problems
Throughout his time in office, McConnell has become one of the more consequential Republicans in modern U.S. politics. He became a U.S. Senator in 1985 and led the GOP in the upper chamber from 2007 to 2025, becoming the longest-serving Senate party leader in American history.
McConnell backed Trump’s presidential bid in 2016, and he helped reshape the Supreme Court by facilitating the confirmations of Trump’s nominations of justices. But, unlike most other Republicans, McConnell has on occasion bucked Trump on some issues, particularly since the President’s return to the White House in 2025, notably rejecting some of the President’s Cabinet nominees.
At 84, McConnell has remained active as a rank-and-file senator, though his physical condition has visibly deteriorated in recent years, and before his hospitalization, he had been using a wheelchair to get around.
In March 2023, he missed several weeks of work after falling in a hotel in Washington and being hospitalized for a concussion. He had another fall that year at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The following year, McConnell fell and sprained his wrist while walking out of a GOP luncheon. And in 2025, he suffered multiple other falls.
Gap Years Are Wasted on the Young
Fresh off the heels of graduation from high school, many rising freshmen are choosing to step off of the treadmill for a year before matriculating in college. Gap years have become a viable option in the United States, where taking a leave of absence is as easy as clicking a button. At colleges like Harvard, between 3 and 4% of the student body step away for a leave of absence in any given year.
That leaves those of us who missed our chance to take a gap year sometimes jealous, or even indignant. The best time to plant a tree, they say, is 20 years ago. But the second best time is today. So it is with gap years.
In the process of writing my book on sabbatical-takers, people who intentionally take extended leave from their routine jobs, I found many parallels between the experience of taking a gap year and embarking on a midlife break from work. My conclusion: gap years are wasted on the young.
Here’s why a gap year, at any age, should be in your concrete plans instead of your bucket list.
First and foremost, breaks from the stress and toil of work are essential components of healing from burnout. Professionals who have taken sabbaticals from their careers describe it taking as long as eight weeks to feel healthy and like themselves again. Restoring our energy and disengaging from our work identities takes time, and cannot be magically found over a weekend.
Second, extended breaks from work—ideally more than two months, with four to six months as the ideal—are necessary to undergo a deeper journey of self-exploration. In this process, we can examine who we’ve become and actively choose how we’d like to live going forward.
For those who worry whether leaving your career could negatively impact your next steps, there is ample evidence for both the young and old that the opposite is true. Academic administrator Joe O’Shea studied gap years and found that gap year alumni return with greater confidence, self-awareness and readiness for their next steps. Former Middlebury College Dean Robert Clagett found gap year students were more likely to graduate on time and to occupy leadership positions on campus.
My research echoes these findings. Sabbatical takers return with more creativity and enhanced perspective on what matters. As we exit our teens and 20s, few obvious inflection points exist to catalyze taking stock, which usually means we stay on the same path, choosing inertia over evolution.
And these extended breaks from routine life are incredibly fun, fulfilling, and self-affirming. Brochures for gap year programs extol the “lifelong impact” had on alums, and sabbatical takers use similar language. We found that people describe their time off as a “peak life experience”—as important as the birth of a child or one’s wedding day. People describe “feeling human again,” and not being able to imagine living the rest of their lives without the lessons gleaned on sabbatical.
Of course, taking a mid-life gap year or sabbatical can be difficult to pull off. Here are some concrete steps to make it feasible:
First, find someone in your orbit who has taken an extended leave. Knowing someone who has already set out from routine life and successfully returned gives much-needed permission.
Second, use a longer-term lens for planning and motivation. Almost no one can afford to take a sabbatical immediately, but make a plan for five to seven years from now and begin to budget and strategize to make the logistics work. Think about the next decade of your life from a “eulogy” lens—what would you regret not doing with your life—instead of letting the inevitable short term inconveniences and excuses win the day.
Finally, allow yourself to dream about your ideal sabbatical. Write that dream down in specific detail. This helps make it real in your mind, like a life you could actually live, instead of an abstract concept.
If completely abandoning your career path feels too intimidating, look for a socially-acceptable gap year hidden-in-plain-sight. One year mid-career graduate degrees offer a chance to open the aperture on what’s possible in your life, and many universities are beginning to offer people in their “twilight career” a chance to audit classes alongside a cadre of pre-retirement seekers, such as the Inspired Leadership Initiative at Notre Dame. Or sign up for an age-agnostic volunteering or research opportunity like the Peace Corps or the Fulbright program. If you require neither permission or external motivation, perhaps a self-directed learning project, like how to upskill with AI, is more your speed.
In some ways, before college is the perfect time to take a gap year. It’s an unprecedented time in the life of most teenagers to quiet the noise about who they should be and look inwards to begin to map out an authentic path forward.
But later in life you have much more material to work with, and (hopefully) more resources to fund the expedition. Jungian psychologist and author James Hollis talks about the transition to mid-life as going from a “magical thinking” mindset where anything is possible to a more realistic perspective which takes into account your realized talents, interests, and constraints.
A gap year—at any age—gives you the chance to reflect, explore, and even wind back the clock to remind you that how you live your life is a choice. Stepping away from that life, even for a relatively small chunk in the grand scheme of things, isn’t an abdication of adulthood, but an investment in a life worth living.