LIFE Magazine

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela will once again accept repatriation flights from the United States carrying its deported nationals after reaching an agreement with the U.S., a Venezuelan official said on social media Saturday.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro suspended flights on March 8, after the U.S. Treasury Department announced the withdrawal of Chevron’s license to export Venezuelan oil.

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“We have agreed with the U.S. government to resume the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants with an initial flight tomorrow, Sunday,” said Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s Assembly and Maduro’s chief negotiator with the U.S.

Venezuela accepted the deal to guarantee the “the return of our compatriots to their nation with the safeguard of their Human Rights,” Rodríguez said.

Read More: What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced

In his statement, Rodríguez referred to the deportation by Donald Trump’s government of some 250 Venezuelans to a high-security prison in El Salvador.

“Migrating is not a crime and we will not rest until we achieve the return of all those who require it and until we rescue our brothers kidnapped in El Salvador,” Rodríguez said.

Maduro ratified the measure during a public event later in the day. “We are resuming flights to rescue and release migrants from U.S. prisons,” Maduro said.

The Venezuelan leader also said that he held the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, responsible for the well-being of the Venezuelans deported to that country.

“You guarantee their health and, sooner rather than later, you have to hand them over and release them, because they are kidnapped,” Maduro said.

Trump alleged the deportees were members of the Tren de Aragua gang. He labeled the Tren de Aragua an invading force on March 15 when he invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a little-used authority from 1798 that allows the president to deport any non-citizen during wartime. A federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations, but flights were in the air when the ruling came down.

Tren de Aragua, which the U.S. Department of State designated a foreign terrorist organization, originated in a prison in the South American country. Members accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone last decade.

Trump’s administration has not provided evidence that the deportees are members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crime in the U.S.

Maduro’s government has mostly refused the entry of immigrants deported from the U.S. Those deportations have sharply picked up since Trump took office on Jan. 20.

In recent weeks, some 350 people were deported to Venezuela, including some 180 who spent up to 16 days at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Trump administration said that the Venezuelans sent to Guantanamo are members of Tren de Aragua, but offered little evidence to back this up.

Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation in one North Carolina county as emergency crews fought separate fires in an area of the state still recovering from Hurricane Helene, while South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation starting at 8:20 p.m. Saturday for parts of Polk County in western North Carolina about 80 miles (129 kilometers) west of Charlotte.

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“Visibility in area will be reduced and roads/evacuation routes can become blocked; if you do not leave now, you could be trapped, injured, or killed,” the agency said in a social media post.

The public safety department said a shelter had been established in Columbus, North Carolina.

The North Carolina Forest Service’s online wildfire public viewer indicated three active fires in Polk County, with the two largest spanning between 1.7 square miles (4.4 square kilometers) to 1.9 square miles (4.9 square kilometers). Two other fires were active in nearby Burke and Madison counties, with a third wildfire burning in Stokes County on the northern border with Virginia.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency Saturday as part of an effort to stop a blaze in Pickens County called the Table Rock Fire that started the previous day in an area within the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“As this wildfire continues to spread, the State of Emergency allows us to mobilize resources quickly and ensure our firefighters have the support they need to protect lives and property,” McMaster said in a statement that reinforced a statewide outdoor burning ban issued Friday by the South Carolina Forestry Commission.

Local fire officials called for voluntary evacuations Saturday of some residents near Table Rock Mountain, the forestry commission said in a social media post.

The Pickens County Sheriff’s Office posted an update late Saturday saying crews had ceased operations and would resume Sunday morning with ground personnel and machinery and assistance from helicopters and air tankers. The fire was about 110 acres (45 hectares) and the public was asked to avoid state Highway 11.

North Carolina’s western region already had been hit hard by Hurricane Helene in September. Among the extensive damage, flooding washed away more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) of eastbound lanes on Interstate 40 leading to eastern Tennessee and remained partially closed to traffic until March.

The hurricane damaged or impacted 5,000 miles (8,046 kilometers) of state-maintained roads and damaged 7,000 private roads, bridges and culverts in North Carolina.

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service, meanwhile, has been battling a wildfire that broke out in the Wharton State Forest on Saturday. The fire had consumed about 2.7 square miles (7 square kilometers) as of early Sunday morning. Firefighters had contained about half of the blaze according to an 8 a.m. update on the service’s Facebook page.

Emergency officials said they have evacuated two campgrounds in the park and 18 buildings were near the fire but the flames were moving away from them and no structures had been evacuated.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

VATICAN CITY — A weak and frail Pope Francis returned home to the Vatican from the hospital on Sunday after surviving a five-week, life-threatening bout of pneumonia, making a surprise stop at his favorite basilica on the way home before beginning two months of prescribed rest and recovery.

The motorcade carrying the 88-year-old pope entered the Perugino gate into Vatican City, and Francis was seen in the front passenger seat wearing nasal tubes to give him supplemental oxygen.

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During the trip home from Gemelli hospital, Francis took a slight detour to bring him to the St. Mary Major basilica, where his favorite icon of the Madonna is located and where he always goes to pray after a foreign visit. Francis didn’t get out of the car, but handed a bouquet of flowers to the cardinal to place in front of the Salus populi Romani icon, a Byzantine-style painting on wood that is revered by Romans.

Before leaving the hospital, Francis gave a thumbs up and acknowledged the crowd after he was wheeled out onto the balcony overlooking the main entry. Hundreds of people had gathered on a brilliant Sunday morning to say goodbye.

“I see this woman with the yellow flowers. Brava!” a tired and bloated-looking Francis said. He gave a weak sign of the cross before being wheeled back inside.

Chants of “Viva il papa!” and “Papa Francesco” erupted from the crowd, which included patients who had been wheeled outside just to catch his brief appearance.

Doctors, who announced his planned release at a Saturday evening news conference, said he needs two months of rest and convalescence, during which he should refrain from meeting with big groups of people or exerting himself. But they said eventually he should be able to resume all his normal activities.

His return home, after the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy and the second-longest in recent papal history, brought tangible relief to the Vatican and Catholic faithful who have been anxiously following 38 days of medical ups and downs and wondering if Francis would make it.

“Today I feel a great joy,” said Dr. Rossella Russomando, a doctor from Salerno who didn’t treat Francis but was at Gemelli on Sunday. “It is the demonstration that all our prayers, all the rosary prayers from all over the world, brought this grace.”

Pope is happy to go home

At the Vatican Sunday, pilgrims flocked as they have all year to St. Peter’s Basilica to participate in the 2025 Holy Year. They swarmed St. Peter’s Square and progressed through the Holy Door in groups, while big TV screens in the square were turned on to broadcast Francis’ hospital greeting live.

No special arrangements have been made at the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican hotel next to the basilica where Francis lives in a two-room suite on the second floor. Francis will have access to supplemental oxygen and 24-hour medical care as needed, though his personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, said he hoped Francis would progressively need less and less assistance breathing as his lungs recover.

While the pneumonia infection has been successfully treated, Francis will continue to take oral medication for quite some time to treat the fungal infection in his lungs and continue his respiratory and physical physiotherapy.

“For three or four days he’s been asking when he can go home, so he’s very happy,” Carbone said.

Two life-threatening crises

The Argentine pope, who has chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli on Feb. 14 after a bout of bronchitis worsened.

Doctors first diagnosed a complex bacterial, viral and fungal respiratory tract infection and soon thereafter, pneumonia in both lungs. Blood tests showed signs of anemia, low blood platelets and the onset of kidney failure, all of which later resolved after two blood transfusions.

The most serious setbacks began on Feb. 28, when Francis experienced an acute coughing fit and inhaled vomit, requiring the use of a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe. He suffered two more respiratory crises a few days later, which required doctors to manually aspirate “copious” amounts of mucus from his lungs, at which point he began sleeping with the ventilation mask at night to help his lungs clear the accumulation of fluids.

He was never intubated and at no point lost consciousness. Doctors reported he always remained alert and cooperative, though they say he has probably lost a bit of weight given a natural loss of appetite.

“Unfortunately yes, there was a moment when many were saying that he might not make it. And it was painful for us,” said Mario Balsamo, the owner of coffee shop in front of Gemelli. “Instead, today with the discharge, we are very happy that he is well and we hope he will recover soon and will recover his strength.”

“I’m still alive!”

Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the medical and surgical chief at Gemelli who coordinated Francis’ medical team, stressed that not all patients who develop such a severe case of double pneumonia survive, much less are released from the hospital. He said Francis’ life was at risk twice, during the two acute respiratory crises, and that the pope at the time understandably lost his typical good sense of humor.

“But one morning we went to listen to his lungs and we asked him how he was doing. When he replied, ‘I’m still alive,’ we knew he was OK and had gotten his good humor back,” he said.

Alfieri confirmed that Francis was still having trouble speaking due to the damage to his lungs and respiratory muscles. But he said such problems were normal, especially in older patients, and predicted his voice would eventually return to normal.

No confirmed appointments for now

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, declined to confirm any upcoming events, including a scheduled audience on April 8 with King Charles III or Francis’ participation in Easter services at the end of the month. But Carbone said he hoped Francis might be well enough to travel to Turkey at the end of May to participate in an important ecumenical anniversary.

Francis is also returning to the Vatican in the throes of a Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration scheduled to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome this year. The pope has already missed several Jubilee audiences and will presumably miss several more, but Vatican officials say his absence hasn’t significantly impacted the numbers of expected pilgrims arriving.

Only St. John Paul II recorded a longer hospitalization in 1981, when he spent 55 days at Gemelli for minor surgery and treatment of an infection.

—Associated Press writers Giada Zampano in Rome and Colleen Barry in Soave, Italy contributed to this report.

Chuck Schumer delivered a defiant message amid growing calls for him to step down as the Senate Minority Leader. In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, the Democratic leader said he was not planning on leaving his post.

Schumer has received backlash since helping to avert a government shutdown by aiding the Republicans in passing their stopgap spending plan over the objection of the majority of his fellow Democratic Senators and House Democrats. He has lost favor with many of his fellow party members, especially those who believe the Democrats need a more aggressive tactic to go against President Donald Trump.

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But, Schumer says that despite the fallout, he is not yet done leading the minority party in the Senate. He defended his decision to vote for the bill in order to avoid the “horror” of the government shutdown, saying he believed he was doing the “right thing for America” and for his party. It was a decision he says was made out of “pure conviction.”

Read More: As Schumer’s Stock Falls, Here’s Who’s Vying to Lead Democrats Against Trump

“Look, I’m not stepping down,” Schumer told host Kristen Welker, stating that he knew he would get backlash for his decision. “A shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse. Under a shutdown, the Executive Branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, ‘essential.’ And they can determine without any court supervision.”

In the pre-taped interview which aired on Sunday, Schumer went on to tell Welker that Democrats are “united” in fighting Trump “every step of the way,” and that their goal is “to make Donald Trump the quickest lame duck in modern history by showing how bad his policies are.”

Read More: What to Know About John Roberts, the Chief Justice Challenging Trump

Schumer also said that “democracy is at risk” under Trump, responding to his recent call to impeach a judge who ruled against him on the deportations of immigrants alleged by the U.S. to be Venezuelan gang members. Trump’s call for the judge to be impeached earned him a rare, and public, rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, who stood firm against the notion of the impeachment of judges over judicial differences.

“Look, Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man.” Schumer said in response to a question about whether or not the U.S. is at constitutional risk. “He thinks he should be king. He thinks he should do whatever he wants, regardless of the law, and he thinks judges should just listen to him.”

If Trump defies the Supreme Court, Schumer says the Democrats will “rise up” against him, and that the public may as well. “It will trigger a mass movement from one end of the country to the other, something that we haven’t seen in a very long time,” he predicted.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas negotiated in mid-January seems to have been written on tissue. It frayed midway through the first of three phases, when Israel declined to negotiate for the second phase. Since then, it was only a countdown until the first hours of Tuesday morning, when the Israel Defense Forces executed a swift and punishing series of airstrikes throughout Gaza.

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By Thursday, the IDF’s ground operation got underway with a three-part pincer move, operating in the north of Gaza, in the Strip’s midriff around the Netzarim corridor (from which it had redeployed as part of the deal), and in Rafah in southern Gaza.

At least 400 Gazans were killed on the first day of strikes, in what was one of the deadliest single-day tolls of the war, the Associated Press reported. The toll climbed to as many as 700 by Friday, according to Palestinian health officials. Social media is awash in photos of dead babies. The IDF says it is routing out terror infrastructure and picking off specific Hamas military and political leaders; Palestinians say they are taking down anyone in the vicinity. Hamas and the Houthis have revived rocket fire at Israel.

Where is all this leading? Ironically, it was much easier to predict where things would go two months ago, when the ceasefire deal was agreed, than it is now. 

From the moment the details of the agreement became known, analysts gave the deal a poor prognosis. 

The first phase involved the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, while the two sides suspended the fighting and Israel withdrew from heavily populated areas and from the Netzarim corridor. The second phase was to include a sustainable ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and further hostage and prisoner release. The third phase would have ended the war and seen the release of the remains of Israeli captives and Palestinians. 

But there were two signs that the deal would never reach beyond its first phase. 

Read More: A Roadmap to Lasting Peace Between Israelis and Palestinians

The first was that leaders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most important coalition partners, the Religious Zionist and Jewish Power parties, made clear that they would bolt the coalition if the fighting stopped—they want to capture and resettle Gaza. When the deal was finally signed, Itamar Ben Gvir, who runs Jewish Power, resigned from Netanyahu’s government, weakening his coalition. Betzalel Smotrich, who runs the Religious Zionist party, remained in government but insisted that Israel must restart the war or he too would leave—which would mean scrapping either the deal or the government.

The second was Israel’s history of decision-making, particularly when it comes to Palestinians: Phased deals don’t usually work. Case in point is the phased, conditional Oslo peace process during the 1990s that Palestinians saw as a path to an eventual Palestinian state and a permanent end to the conflict, neither of which materialized. 

Did Hamas want to complete the current ceasefire deal more than Israel? Most likely yes. Gaza is in ruins, nearly 50,000 people have been killed in the war, and polls show that Palestinian hostility toward Hamas has risen. The group holds two main cards for credibility among Palestinians: forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, and being the only Palestinian faction able to end the war. Beyond that, Hamas’ only recourse to staying in power is brute force.

The first phase of the ceasefire went through. But then Israel declined to open negotiations for the second phase, after Trump took office and began talking about expelling 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. Netanyahu became emboldened to resist the second phase; Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff began negotiating that phase seemingly from scratch, introducing a new ceasefire plan different from the one both sides agreed to in January.

Now Netanyahu is facing an avalanche of domestic political crises. There is a budget deadline this month that could sink his government; mass street protests have resumed, with tens of thousands calling for a new ceasefire and criticizing Netanyahu for failing to get the remaining hostages home.

Israelis on some level have known more conflict was coming. A February poll by the Institute for National Security Studies found just 40% thought the deal would reach the second phase; more thought the chances were low (46%).

Yet no one knows what happens next. How long will this resurgent war go on? Israel hasn’t been able to eliminate Hamas nor secure the release of most hostages through military pressure throughout the war—why would it be able to do so now? Do exhausted Israeli reservists have the morale for a forever war, and does a forever war lead to a complete military re-occupation of Gaza, alongside the continued expansion of settlements and de facto annexation in the West Bank? If the Israeli government has answers, it’s not saying.

For its part, will Hamas accept a U.S.-backed “bridge plan” to restore the ceasefire and extend it into April, to allow time for continued negotiations? Or will Israeli demands to simply release all hostages and oust Hamas under heavy military pressure work this time around?

There is a better path: ending the occupation through Palestinian self-determination and statehood, possibly anchored in regional normalization deals between Israel and Arab states. That would guarantee Israel’s security and contribute greatly to a more peaceful Middle East.

But those with the power to make peace a reality, apparently prefer to make war.

BROOKLINE, Mass. — Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, who spoke openly about her struggles with depression and addiction, has died. She was 88.

Dukakis died on Friday night surrounded by her family, her son, John Dukakis, said on Saturday by telephone. She fought to make the world better, “sharing her vulnerabilities to help others face theirs,” her family said in a statement.

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“She was loving, feisty and fun, and had a keen sensitivity to people from all walks of life,” the family said. “She and our dad, Michael Dukakis, shared an enviable partnership for over 60 years and loved each other deeply.”

Dukakis won high marks as a political campaigner during her husband’s 1988 presidential efforts, stumping tirelessly for him. She was called a key influence in his decision to seek the presidency.

She even figured in the opening question of a 1988 presidential debate, when her husband was asked: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Dukakis said he would not, and his unemotional response was widely criticized.

Earlier in the campaign, in 1987, Dukakis revealed she had overcome a 26-year addiction to amphetamines five years earlier after receiving treatment. She said she began taking diet pills at age 19.

Her husband made anti-drug efforts a major issue and she became prominent in the effort to educate youngsters against the perils of drug and alcohol abuse.

But a few months after Michael Dukakis lost the election to Vice President George H.W. Bush, Kitty Dukakis entered a 60-day treatment program for alcoholism. Several months later she suffered a relapse and was hospitalized after drinking rubbing alcohol.

In her 1990 autobiography, “Now You Know,” she blamed her mother for much of her alcohol and drug addiction and a long history of low self-esteem. In 2006, she wrote another book, “Shock,” which credits the electroconvulsive therapy she began in 2001 for relieving the depression she had suffered for years. The treatment, she wrote, “opened a new reality for me.”

Current Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey called Dukakis “a force for good in public life and behind the scenes,” a leader in the effort to ensure that the Holocaust is never forgotten, and an advocate for children, women and refugees.

“She spoke courageously about her struggles with substance use disorder and mental health, which serves as an inspiration to us all to break down stigma and seek help,” Healey said in a statement.

Dukakis used her personal pain to help others, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement on social media on Saturday.

“Her legacy will live on in the policies she helped shape and the people she inspired to speak their own truths,” Campbell said.

Dukakis broke ground by speaking openly about her struggles and championed support for the homeless and political refugees, said Maria Ivanova, director of Northeastern University’s Policy School, which hosts the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy.

“Kitty Dukakis brought honesty, compassion, and strength to public life,” Ivanova said in a statement. “Her legacy is one of service, resilience, and truth-telling.”

Dukakis and her future husband met while attending high school in Brookline, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb. He was dull and frugal; she was dramatic and fancy. He is Greek Orthodox; she was Jewish.

Dukakis, who was divorced and had a 3-year-old son, married Dukakis in 1963, and they had two children, Andrea and Kara.

Dukakis, whose late father, Harry Ellis Dickson, was associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, earned degrees in modern dance and broadcasting.

After the presidential election, in 1989, Bush appointed her to be a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

She earlier served on the President’s Commission on the Holocaust in 1979 and on the board of directors of the Refugee Policy Group. She has also been a member of the Task Force on Cambodian Children.

By the late 1990s, Dukakis and her husband divided their time between Massachusetts and California, where she was a social worker and he was a professor for part of the year at the University of California, Los Angeles.

—Former Associated Press writer Lisa Flam contributed to this report.

ROME — Pope Francis will be released from the hospital on Sunday, after 38 days battling a life-threatening case of pneumonia in both lungs, his doctors said.

Gemelli medical director Dr. Sergio Alfieri said Saturday that Francis will require at least two months of rest and rehabilitation as he continues recovering back at the Vatican.

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Francis was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14 after a bout of bronchitis worsened. He later developed a life-threatening case of pneumonia.

Pope Francis ’ doctors provided their first in-person update on the pontiff’s condition in a month, in a sign that he has made good and steady progress in his battle against double pneumonia.

The Saturday evening briefing is the first since Feb. 21, a week after the 88-year-old Francis was brought to Gemelli hospital. He subsequently experienced several respiratory crises that landed him in critical condition, though he has since stabilized.

In another development, the Vatican announced that Francis would appear on Sunday morning to bless faithful from his 10th floor suite at the hospital. While Francis released an audio message on March 6 and the Vatican distributed a photo of him March 16, Sunday’s blessing will be the first live appearance since Francis was admitted on Feb. 14 for what has become the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy.

The Argentine pope, who has chronic lung disease, is prone to respiratory problems in winter and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted after a bout of bronchitis worsened.

Doctors first diagnosed a complex bacterial, viral and fungal respiratory tract infection and soon thereafter, pneumonia in both lungs. Blood tests showed signs of anemia, low blood platelets and the onset of kidney failure, all of which later resolved after two blood transfusions.

The most serious setbacks began on Feb. 28, when Francis experienced an acute coughing fit and inhaled vomit, requiring he use a noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask to help him breathe. He suffered two more respiratory crises in the following days, which required doctors manually aspirate the mucus, at which point he began sleeping with the ventilation mask at night to help his lungs clear the accumulation of fluids.

At no point did he lose consciousness, and doctors reported he was alert and cooperative.

Over the past two weeks, he has stabilized and registered slight improvements, the Vatican press office has reported. He no longer needs to wear the ventilation mask at night, and is cutting back his reliance on high flows of supplemental oxygen during the day.

President Donald Trump has made good on his promise of revoking security clearance for former President Joe Biden. Issued late on Friday night, a memo titled “Rescinding Security Clearances and Access to Classified Information from Specified Individuals,” laid out Trump’s instructions for Biden, several members of the Biden Administration, and other political rivals to have their security clearances rescinded.

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Trump determined it was “no longer in the national interest” for said individuals to still hold “any active security clearance” or “unescorted” access to government facilities. “This action includes, but is not limited to, receipt of classified briefings, such as the President’s Daily Brief, and access to classified information held by any member of the Intelligence Community by virtue of the named individuals’ previous tenure in the Congress,” the memo reads.

The action was applied to Biden and “any other member of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s family.” Joining the former President on the list was his former Vice President, and Trump’s one-time opponent in the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris. Trump’s 2016 opponent and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also listed, alongside former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former National Security Advisor Jacob Sullivan, and former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

In addition, New York Attorney General Letitia James and the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—both of whom prosecuted Trump—as well as Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Republicans and former Representatives who served on the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, were added to the list of people who will have such privileges rescinded.

The memo also includes whistleblower lawyer Mark Zaid and Fiona Hill, Trump’s former Russian analyst who testified during Trump’s first impeachment hearing. Norman Eisen, an attorney leading various lawsuits against the Trump Administration,  and former National Security Council official Alexander Vindman also joined attorney Andrew Weissmann and Alexander Vindman, the former Director for European Affairs, on the list. Vindman responded to the memo via social media, saying: “I’m not a weak-kneed billionaire or a massive spineless law firm, so I don’t care what noises Donald Trump makes about a security clearance that hasn’t been active for five years.”

Some of the names included in Trump’s memo had also seemingly already had their security clearances revoked earlier this month by the newly-instated Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

What does “security clearance” mean?

Security clearance, according to the State Department, is a determination of whether an individual has access “to classified national security information.” For some government employees, levels of access to this information is determined by their job functions via a formal security clearance process and vetting actions.

For the President, Vice President, and members of Congress, their election alone affords them major security clearance privileges, rather than vetting.

According to Congress, there are three different levels of security clearance, including “confidential,” “secret,” and “top secret.”

Former Presidents and other previously-serving officials are often given access to classified information as a courtesy, even after they leave office. In 2021, though, Biden took away Trump’s security clearance—citing what he said was Trump’s “erratic behavior” around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trump had earlier announced his intention to revoke Biden’s security clearance on Feb. 7, posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, about his decision. “There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Trump said. “I will always protect our National Security — JOE, YOU’RE FIRED.”

Meanwhile, on March 17, Trump announced he was revoking Secret Service protection for Biden’s adult children, and earlier this year, the Administration reportedly took away security details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

A lawsuit filed late Friday accuses the Trump Administration of unlawfully shutting down the Voice of America and asks a federal court to restore the outlet that for decades has supplied news about the United States to nations around the world — including many that lack a free press of their own.

The case, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, was brought by Voice of America reporters, Reporters Without Borders and a handful of unions against the U.S. Agency for Global Media and Kari Lake, the failed Arizona candidate who is President Trump’s representative there.

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“In many parts of the world, a crucial source of objective news is gone, and only censored state-sponsored news media is left to fill the void,” the lawsuit said.

Lake has described the broadcast agency as a “giant rot” that needs to be stripped down and rebuilt.

Voice of America dates to World War II as a source of objective news, often beamed into authoritarian countries. Funded by Congress, it is protected by a charter that guarantees its product pass muster for journalistic rigor.

Suit accuses the Administration of taking a ‘chainsaw’ approach

The lawsuit charges that the Trump Administration has effectively shut it down unlawfully in the past week. Republicans have complained that the news source is infected by left-wing propaganda, a contention its operators say isn’t backed up factually.

“The second Trump Administration has taken a chainsaw to the agency as a whole in an attempt to shutter it completely,” the lawsuit said. There was no immediate response Friday to a request for comment from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America and a handful of sister networks.

In an interview with Newsmax earlier this week, Lake described Voice of America as “like having a rotten fish and trying to find a portion that you can eat.”

In a post on X, she said the Agency for Global Media is “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer — a national security risk for the nation — and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule.”

Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders in the United States, said his organization was compelled to act to protect Voice of America and the broader press freedom community.

There are other media-related actions, too

At VOA’s sister operation, Radio Free Asia, unpaid furloughs took effect on Friday for roughly 240 people in the operation’s Washington office, or 75% of the staff members, spokesman Rohit Mahajan said. Radio Free Asia has also moved to cancel freelance contracts with people who helped the agency gather news overseas.

Radio Free Asia also expects to file a lawsuit to keep congressionally-appropriated funding flowing, Mahajan said.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty filed suit on Tuesday, asking the U.S. District Court in Washington to compel the U.S. Agency for Global Media to make its next payment. RFE/RL currently broadcasts in 23 countries across Europe and Asia, in 27 different languages.

In its lawsuit, the organizations called the denial of funding unprecedented and said it has already forced operations to be significantly scaled back. “Without its congressionally appropriated funds, RFE/RL will also be forced to stop the vast majority of its journalistic work and will be at risk of ceasing to exist as an organization,” they argued.

The global water crisis is one of the most urgent and complex challenges facing humanity today. More than 2.2 billion people lack access to safe water, and 3.5 billion lack access to safely managed sanitation. This crisis undermines health and safety, education, and economic opportunity. For communities already struggling, the consequences are devastating: children miss school, women spend hours each day collecting water, and families face increased exposure to waterborne diseases.

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When we talk about the global water crisis, we often focus on water scarcity. However, in many regions, even where water is available, access can be unreliable and unaffordable. And for the billions of people who live without safely managed water and sanitation, this lack leads to contaminated water sources, and also undermines public health, reduces financial stability, and perpetuates cycles of poverty.

These challenges are exacerbated due to rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, and extreme weather events intensifying water scarcity and disrupting fragile systems, leaving families—particularly those in poverty—without reliable access to safe water. In cities like Mexico City, groundwater depletion and erratic weather patterns make water trucks a daily necessity. Without resilient infrastructure, communities face compromised water quality, greater exposure to disease, and limited economic opportunities. Investing in sustainable water solutions is essential to address immediate needs, safeguard public health, and reduce the escalating costs of climate-related challenges.

Read More: The Water Crisis No One In America Is Fixing

Achieving safely managed water and sanitation for all by 2030 requires an estimated $114 billion per year, starting in 2016. Yet, with only $28.4 billion currently being invested annually, a staggering $85.6 billion gap remains—one that keeps millions of families without access to these essential resources. This shortfall isn’t just a funding issue; it’s the single biggest barrier to solving the global water crisis. Traditional aid alone is not enough to bridge this divide. To close the gap, we must mobilize the full spectrum of capital—philanthropy to innovate and prove solutions, and investment capital to scale them. By harnessing market-driven approaches, we can accelerate access to safe water and sanitation, transforming millions of lives and unlocking improved health, access to education and jobs, and opportunities for families around the world to define their futures.

We must close this gap. Doing so would both advance progress toward universal access to water and sanitation and unlock significant economic benefits. According to the World Bank, every $1 invested in water and sanitation yields a $4 economic return, driven by reduced health-care costs, increased workforce productivity, and lower mortality rates.

For too long, capital has been viewed in silos—philanthropy on one side and investment on the other. Today, we recognize capital as a spectrum, from charitable contributions to impact-driven investments with both risk and potential returns. Philanthropy can address market failures and lay the groundwork for scalable solutions, while investments follow to drive growth. This spectrum is particularly critical in solving the water and sanitation crisis, where engagement at every level is needed to create sustainable impact.

Philanthropy plays a catalytic role by empowering local financial institutions to serve families in need. It helps build markets and strengthen institutional capacity, enabling the development of affordable loan products for water and sanitation solutions. This foundation attracts impact investors, who bring additional capital to expand these efforts and meet growing demand. Together, philanthropic and private investments create a sustainable cycle: loans are repaid, markets grow, and millions of families gain access to safe water resulting in improved health, resilience, and financial stability.

The global water crisis disproportionately affects women and girls, who spend 200 million hours collecting water. In many regions, this time-consuming task prevents them from fully participating in education or income-generating activities, caring for family, and achieving their potential. Through our work with Water.org and Water Equity, we’ve seen countless examples of the impact even small, individual investments can make. Zipporah, a small-scale farmer from Kenya, took out a loan to install a rainwater collection tank, allowing her to balance her farming with her education and reducing the time it takes to source water for her family. Now studying to become a nurse, Zipporah plans to open a clinic in her community and take out another loan to ensure her clinic has a reliable water supply.

Stories like this demonstrate how the right blend of philanthropic and investment capital can accelerate progress by making life-changing solutions available today while also laying a foundation for long-term growth. By harnessing the full spectrum of capital, we can scale this proven approach to reach more people faster, creating lasting impacts for families and communities. Solutions like these improve health and education outcomes, empower women, and enable families to thrive, transforming their futures.

The global water crisis is one of the most urgent challenges of our time. And solutions exist today. By closing the $85.6 billion annual financing gap, leveraging the full spectrum of capital, and scaling sustainable access to safe water and sanitation, we can unlock profound social and economic benefits.

George Foreman became the heavyweight champion of the world in his 20s, only to lose his belt to Muhammad Ali in perhaps the most memorable fight in boxing history.

A full 20 years later in 1994, the 45-year-old Foreman became the oldest man to win the heavyweight championship, throwing one perfect combination to steal Michael Moorer’s title in an epic upset.

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Few fighters ever had more big moments than Big George Foreman — and even after he finally left the ring, he was only getting started.

The fearsome heavyweight, who lost the “Rumble in the Jungle” to Ali before his inspiring second act as a surprising champion and a successful businessman, died Friday night. Foreman was 76.

Foreman’s family announced his death on social media, not saying how or where he died.

“A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father and a proud grand- and great-grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility and purpose,” his family wrote. “A humanitarian, an Olympian and two-time heavyweight champion of the world, he was deeply respected. A force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name— for his family.”

A native Texan, Foreman began his boxing career as an Olympic gold medalist who inspired fear and awe as he climbed to the peak of the heavyweight division by stopping Joe Frazier in 1973. His formidable aura evaporated only a year later when Ali pulled off one of the most audacious victories in boxing history in Zaire, baiting and taunting Foreman into losing his belt.

Foreman left the sport a few years later, but returned after a 10-year absence and a self-described religious awakening.

The middle-aged fighter then pulled off one of the most spectacular knockouts in boxing history, flooring Moorer — 19 years his junior — with a surgical right hand and claiming Moorer’s two heavyweight belts. Foreman’s 20 years is easily the longest gap between heavyweight title reigns.

Foreman’s transformation into an inspirational figure was complete, and he fought only four more times — finishing 76-5 with 68 knockouts — before moving onto his next career as a genial businessman, pitchman and occasional actor.

Outside the ring, he was best known as the face of the George Foreman Grill, which launched in the same year as his victory over Moorer. The simple cooking machine sold more than 100 million units and made him much wealthier than his sport ever did.

“George was a great friend to not only myself, but to my entire family,” Top Rank president Bob Arum said. “We’ve lost a family member and are absolutely devastated.”

In the first chapter of his boxing career, Foreman was nothing like the smiling grandfather who hawked his grills on television to great success.

Foreman dabbled in petty crime while growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward, but changed his life through boxing. He made the U.S. Olympic team in 1968 and won gold in Mexico City as a teenager, stopping a 29-year-old opponent in a star-making performance.

Foreman rose to the pinnacle of the pro game over the next five years, but was also perceived as an aloof, unfriendly athlete, both through his demeanor and through the skewed racial lenses of the time.

Jim Lampley, the veteran boxing broadcaster who worked alongside Foreman for many years at HBO, told The Associated Press on Friday night that Foreman’s initial demeanor was an attempt by his camp to emulate Sonny Liston, the glowering heavyweight champ of the 1960s.

“At some point somewhere along the way, he realized that wasn’t him,” Lampley said.

Foreman stopped Frazier in an upset in Jamaica in January 1973 to win the belt, with his knockout inspiring Howard Cosell’s iconic call: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”

Foreman defended his belt against Ken Norton before accepting the fight with Ali in the now-immortal bout staged in Africa by promoter Don King. Ali put on a tactical masterclass against Foreman, showing off the “rope-a-dope” strategy that frustrated and infuriated the champion. Foreman was eventually knocked down for the first time in his career, and the fight was stopped in the eighth round.

Foreman told the BBC in 2014 that he took the fight almost out of charity to Ali, who he suspected to be broke.

“I said I was going to go out there and kill him, and people said, ‘Please, don’t say you’re going to kill Muhammad,’” Foreman said. “So I said, ‘OK, I’ll just beat him down to the ground.’ That’s how easy I thought the fight would be.”

Exhausted and disillusioned, Foreman stopped fighting in 1977 and largely spent the next decade preaching and working with kids in Houston after his religious awakening. He returned to boxing in 1987 in his late 30s with a plan to defy time through frequent ring appearances, and he racked up a lengthy series of victories before losing to Evander Holyfield in a surprisingly competitive title fight in 1991.

Three years later, Foreman got in the ring with Moorer in Las Vegas, more for his celebrity than for his perceived ability to beat Moorer. The champion appeared to win the first nine rounds rather comfortably, with Foreman unable to land his slower punches. But Foreman came alive in the 10th, hurting Moorer before slipping in the short right hand that sent Moorer to the canvas in earth-shaking fashion.

Lampley, who was calling the fight, named his upcoming autobiography — which includes a prologue about Foreman — after his famous call of that moment: “It Happened!”

Foreman quit the ring for good in 1997, although he occasionally discussed a comeback. He settled into a life as a boxing analyst for HBO and as a pitchman for the grills that grew his fame and fortune. Much of the world soon knew Foreman as both a lovable friend and a ferocious fighter.

“He started performing as this pitchman, this product pitchman with the big, ever-present giant grin on his face,” Lampley recalled. “When I was working with him, people would say, ‘George is a big clown.’ And I would say, ‘Well, you can call him a clown, but he’s actually a genius. He may be the greatest genius I’ve ever met.’ And people would say, ‘Well, genius, what do you mean?’ I’d say, ‘Well, check the bank account. If that isn’t proof enough, I don’t know what is.’ So, he was a genius. He was a human genius.”

Foreman briefly starred in a sitcom called “George” in the 1990s, and he even appeared on the reality singing competition “The Masked Singer” in 2022. A biographical movie based on his life was released in 2023.

Foreman had 12 children, including five sons who are all famously named George Edward Foreman.

“Legendary boxing champion, life-changing preacher, husband, father, grand- and great-grandfather and the best friend you could have,” WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman wrote on social media. “His memory is now eternal, may Big George rest in peace.”

—AP Sports Writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this report.

The reservation of the Kashia Pomo Tribe, based in Sonoma County, Calif., is nearly two hours away from the nearest hospital or center providing critical medical services. 

Reno Keoni Franklin, chairman emeritus of the Kashia Pomo Tribe, says the long commute is just one of several inconveniences impacting American Indians, whose medical care is funded by federal dollars. Funding for Indian Health Service (IHS), the agency that provides Native Americans with medical care, is under threat by slashes to national spending imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which tribal leaders say could worsen their situation.

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“These cuts are jeopardizing a system that’s working. The notion by DOGE is that it’s of no real value… They don’t know what these workers do to provide essential services,” says Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. “They’re an essential pipeline to help the community. We do what we can to make a difference. And we’re still struggling.”

Tribal reliance on federal funds for medical care is part of the existing legal trust obligation to provide certain services, including health care, to Native Americans because the government took over Indigenous land. 

But looming DOGE cuts could upend the already-underfunded IHS. For fiscal year 2025, IHS received a budget of some $8 billion, far below its estimated need. The IHS National Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup recommended the agency receive $73 billion—nine times the amount allotted to the agency. Administrators for tribal public health boards are able to supplement lack of funding by applying for federal grants—which are also being gutted by DOGE—and other third-party revenue reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid. While President Trump has said that Medicaid and Medicare will not be cut, Congressional Republicans have pledged to make massive cuts to their budget, and constituents fear the two programs will be affected.

Read More: Top Democrats Probe Whether DOGE Is Operating ‘Outside the Bounds’ of U.S. Law

The medical care system for American Indians is complex. Tribes can opt in to receive direct services from IHS—meaning the agency runs and oversees the clinics and services they provide tribes—or they can take the funds that would have been allotted to them and assume responsibility for the management of their own health care, typically through a tribal public-health board.   

“DOGE is starting to look at all of these inefficiencies across Indian Country, closing down facilities or limiting the amount of staff that can be hired at each one. It sounds like this is going to be a trickle-down effect; it’s not. It’s a tidal-wave effect. It happens instantly,” says Franklin, who is also the chair of the California Rural Indian Health Board.

DOGE has shut down at least 12 IHS offices or facilities in the U.S. At least two of these locations provided essential services, including water and sewage inspection, and inspection of kitchen facilities where food is prepared for local nutrition programs, according to Franklin. “Our drinking water system is in need. Our wastewater system is in need of updating and modernization. And those field offices, those engineers, were working to get that done for us,” he says.

Neither the White House nor IHS responded to TIME’s request for comment regarding the closure of these offices.

Health care leaders argue that the lack of funding for the IHS limits improvement to medical tools and systems, which affects the quality of care. “It’s about making sure that the facilities are up to date, making sure that we have the latest equipment,” says Locklear. “So much changes in the medical field that it’s hard for facilities to keep up, so that’s probably one of the biggest barriers and burdens.”

Read More: Measles Is Back. And a Lot More People Are at Risk

The IHS funding gap also deters people from becoming health care workers or staying in these jobs. The vacancy rate for IHS professionals stands at about 30%, and 36% for physicians, according to the NIHB. The U.S. at large is already experiencing a physician shortage. 

“What’s Sec. [Kennedy’s] proposal in terms of how will he address the trust and treaty trust obligations with our sovereign nations, if he has less people to do more work?” says Allen. “How would that not be a breach of trust responsibilities?”

Current DOGE cuts put IHS at imminent risk of losing some 2,500 employees, A.C. Locklear, interim CEO of the National Indian Health Board (NIHB), told Native News Online. IHS clinics and facilities, even those that are self-run by tribes, already only  provide basic services. Tribal leaders in Sonoma County and the Great Plains say that their facilities—and those of other tribes—are not open overnight. Many elsewhere do not offer any emergency aid, meaning American Indians and Alaska Native must travel to the nearest hospital when in need of urgent care. Several tribes also do not provide any local obstetric care, limiting the access to maternal health and wellness services. “One percent [in funding] can make an extreme difference in the ability to provide care,” says Locklear. “It can make the difference between having one physician to two physicians.”

American Indian and Alaska Natives, who account for more than 11 million people in the U.S., face serious health risks. These groups have the lowest life expectancy at birth when compared to all other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., according to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. Nearly a fifth of the American Indian and Alaska Native population reported being in fair or poor health in 2023.   

The future of the IHS is also threatened by a federal hiring freeze. While IHS medical professionals are exempt, hospital administrators have been affected by budget cuts. Because tribes rely so heavily on third-party revenue, administrators play a big role in ensuring the clinics receive money in exchange for the services provided. An estimated 31.5% of American Indians and Alaska Natives are enrolled in Medicaid, with another 12.8% enrolled in Medicare, according to the NIHB.

Still, some tribal leaders who have participated in meetings with IHS officials and other government leadership are hopeful that Trump Administration officials will listen to their concerns. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. previously spoke about his commitment to the Indigenous community and met with tribal leaders in late February, promising to make “Indian Country a priority.” Some tribal leaders are hopeful. Franklin notes that his tribe upgraded from a well system to a septic system thanks to legislation introduced by Kennedy’s late uncle, the former President John F. Kennedy, after he visited the reservation.

“Secretary Kennedy is aware and understands the [legal] trust responsibility to American Indian tribes from the federal government,” says Franklin. “Now, is he going to be able to act on it or advise the President and his budget to include these increases that are needed? I’m hoping so.” 

But fears from a potential impact still loom over officials. A January memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed agencies to pause any federal financial assistance programs, on which many tribal public health boards rely. 

“We have an agreement with the federal government to provide these public health services and implement these grants to provide services to relatives in the Great Plains area,” says Jerilyn Church, president and CEO for the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board. The potential impact of the OMB memo, without a court order, could have been devastating for the Oyate Health Center, which she runs. “It would have brought to halt all of the services and programs that we were providing through our grants.”

In the Great Plains, tribal leaders are able to fund care for substance abuse—a problem that Native Americans have historically faced—and food assistance programs. 

HHS recently issued a memo offering employees a $25,000 buyout for early retirement. Church identified at least 22 employees—including administrators—who received a letter from HHS offering the early retirement buyout, which she says would cause the Oyate Health Center to lose the most-experienced nurses and employees. In total, the hospital has some 20 providers that care for 24,000 patients. At least one individual confirmed to Church that they will be leaving the clinic due to the buyout. “We also know that typically the voluntary employment offer is rolled out ahead of involuntary, so we’re concerned about that,” says Church. 

While leaders remain optimistic, they still feel wary about what could come next, and believe DOGE should act with better caution before they act. “There are administrative costs to the Indian Health Service that I think need to be looked at first before just doing a blanket invitation to leave the health system to reduce the workforce,” says Church. 

“Tribes paid in full with their land, with their resources, and entered into agreements with the government to provide for health, among other things,” says Locklear. “There is a history of broken treaties that has been acknowledged time and time again.”

“We want to make sure that they are aware that shutdowns and appropriations decisions and funding decisions can have substantial impacts to the lives of American Indian and Alaska Native people and their ability to be healthy.”

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Residence.

Executive producer Shonda Rhimes is taking a break from the world of Bridgerton to serve up something with a little less romance and a lot more red herrings: The Residence.

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Created, written, and produced by showrunner Paul William Davies (Scandal, For the People), the new Netflix murder mystery series, all eight episodes of which are now streaming, centers on the investigation and subsequent Senate committee hearings surrounding the death of White House Chief Usher A.B. Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito) on the night of a state dinner President Perry Morgan (Paul Fitzgerald) and First Gentleman Elliott Morgan (Barrett Foa) were hosting for Australia.

After Elliott’s mother discovers A.B.’s body in the third-floor Game Room, idiosyncratic detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba)—an avid amateur birder in her spare time—is brought in by Maryland Police Department Chief Larry Dokes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) to take on the case. Over the course of the next seven episodes, the show jumps back and forth between the night of the murder and the hearings to illuminate what happened that evening from the perspectives of a number of different White House residents, guests, and staff members.

The Residence keeps viewers guessing right up until the near end, only revealing the true culprit and their motivations in the final stretch of its feature-length finale.

Read More: The Residence Is an Overstuffed White House Whodunit With a Delightful Detective

Who killed A.B. Wynter?

The eighth and final episode of The Residence, aptly titled “The Mystery of the Yellow Room,” opens by rehashing the night of the state dinner from the perspective of A.B. himself, right up until the moment he walked into the Yellow Oval Room, where he was killed.

Then, in the present-day, Cordelia finally appears before the Senate committee overseeing the hearings to relay the story of how she solved the murder. After discovering some new clues at the White House that she realized she missed the night of the state dinner, Cordelia gathered her full roster of suspects and walked them through what she had already figured out.

Although A.B. was killed in the Yellow Room, engineer Bruce Geller (Mel Rodriguez) had moved A.B.’s body from the Yellow Room to the Lincoln Bedroom before carrying him up the stairs to Room 301, the room undergoing a fake renovation, and placing him next to a sleeping Tripp Morgan (Jason Lee), the president’s degenerate brother. Bruce did all this thinking he was covering up the crime of his lady love, housekeeper Elsyie Chayle (Julieth Restrepo), who had gotten into a fight with A.B. earlier that evening. When Tripp woke up next to a dead A.B., he panicked and moved the body down the hall to the Game Room. Then, fearing he’d be blamed, Tripp stole a knife from the office of pastry chef Didier Gotthard (Bronson Pinchot) and used it to slit A.B.’s wrists in order to make his death look more like a suicide.

However, none of those people were the true culprit. After realizing that a large painting had been moved into the Yellow Room to try to cover up the fact that a door to a passageway that led to the neighboring Treaty Room had recently been sealed and hidden away by a new wall, Cordelia was at long last able to deduce who the killer was: White House social secretary Lilly Schumacher (Molly Griggs).

Rich heiress Lilly hated not only the White House itself, but everything it represented: the history, the traditions, the staff. She had wanted to reinvent the residence and, to her, that meant tearing it down both literally and figuratively. So she hated A.B. because he represented what the White House represented, and he loved and cared about the house and the people who lived and worked there. After finding A.B.’s journal in the library, Cordelia figured out he had not only been documenting Lilly’s bad behavior, but had been keeping a record of all the money she had misappropriated as well as the various criminal statutes and ethical codes she had violated securing contracts, trading favors, and much more.

On the night of the state dinner, Lilly had found out A.B. was planning to expose her and had tried to rip the journal out of his hand. When she realized that the scrap of a page she had come away with could be read as a suicide note, she formed a plan to kill A.B. and frame it as a suicide.

First, she went to the White House gardening shed and secured some poison in the form of the pesticide paraquat. She then called A.B. and told him to meet her in the Yellow Room for a chat before calling the Secret Service, impersonating the First Gentleman, and telling them to clear the second floor. After giving A.B. the page of journal back and watching him put in his pocket, she slipped him some poison in a glass of scotch. However, she quickly realized he hadn’t drunk enough to die and ultimately ended up bashing him over the head with a large clock she grabbed off the room’s mantle. She then escaped into the Treaty Room passageway and stuffed the clock into a secret storage drawer before the rest of the night’s events unfolded.

It’s a bit of a convoluted ending but still works to get across the point the show seems like it’s trying to make: that the institution of America that A.B. represents and believes in is worth fighting for. Whether viewers will necessary agree with this optimistic take at this particular moment in time is another matter.

As measles cases in West Texas are still on the rise two months after the outbreak began, local public health officials say they expect the virus to keep spreading for at least several more months and that the official case number is likely an undercount.

But there’s a silver lining, officials say: More people have received a measles, mumps and rubella vaccination this year in Texas and New Mexico, which also has an outbreak, compared to last year — even if it’s not as high as they would like. And pharmacies across the U.S., especially in Texas, are seeing more demand for MMR shots.

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As of Friday, the outbreak in Texas was up to 309 cases and one measles-related death, while New Mexico’s case count was up to 42 and also one measles-related death. Forty-two people have been hospitalized across the two states.

Read More: The Pandemic Turns 5. We Are Still Not Prepared for the Next One

Texas’ outbreak, which has largely spread in undervaccinated Mennonite communities, could last a year based on studies of how measles previously spread in Amish communities in the U.S. Those studies showed outbreaks lasted six to seven months, said Katherine Wells, director of the public health department in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock’s hospitals have treated most of the outbreak’s patients and the public health department is closely assisting with the response.

“It being so rural, now multistate, it’s just going to take a lot more boots on the ground, a lot more work, to get things under control,” Wells said during a media briefing this week. “It’s not an isolated population.”

The outbreak includes 14 Texas counties, two New Mexico counties and four probable cases in Oklahoma, where health officials said the first two were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks.

Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases. The way it spreads makes it especially hard to contain and outbreaks can have multiple peaks, said Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Many people spread the measles virus unknowingly for days before the telltale rash appears. The virus also can hang in the air for up to two hours after a sick person has left a room.

“Within this community, it’d be perfectly reasonable to think probably another couple months before things die out,” Lessler said. “But if it gets into another community, you just potentially start that clock over again.”

If the outbreak goes on until next January, it would end the United States’ status of having eliminated measles, which is defined as 12 months without local virus transmission, said Dr. William Moss, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center.

“We’re only three months in. I think if we had a strong response where the messaging was clear that measles vaccination is the way to stop this outbreak, I would be surprised if it went for 12 months or more,” said Moss, who has worked on measles for 25 years, mostly in Africa. “But we’re not seeing that type of response, at least from the federal government.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instead has sown doubt about the measles vaccine, which has been safely used for more than 60 years and is 97% effective after two doses. In an interview with Fox News last week, Kennedy said MMR shots cause “deaths every year,” although he later added that vaccinations should be encouraged.

Vaccinations are up in Texas and New Mexico

Still, there are signs the outbreak has had an effect on vaccinations, especially locally.

Between Feb. 1 and March 18 last year, New Mexico Department of Health registered 6,500 measles vaccines. During that timeframe this year, more than 11,600 measles vaccines were administered in New Mexico — about half given to adults and half to children.

Southeast New Mexico, where the outbreak is located, represents a large portion of the count, with 2,369 doses administered.

In Texas, at least 173,000 measles doses were given from Jan. 1 to March 16, compared to at least 158,000 over the same timeframe last year, according to the state health department. That includes more than 340 doses in given by public health in the West Texas outbreak area as of March 11.

Texans must opt-in to the state’s immunization registry, so most people’s vaccinations are not captured in the Texas Department of State Health Services numbers, department spokeswoman Lara Anton said.

“We don’t know if more people are opting in or if this is a true reflection of an increase in vaccinations,” Anton wrote in an email. “It may be both.”

Read More: Measles Is Back. And a Lot More People Are at Risk

Pharmacy chains Walgreens and CVS told The Associated Press that they’re seeing higher demand for MMR vaccines across the U.S., especially in the outbreak areas.

Texas health officials say they’d like to see more uptake in the communities at the epicenter of the outbreak, especially in Gaines County — where the childhood vaccination rate against measles is 82%. That’s far below the 95% level needed to prevent community spread, and likely lower in the small religious schools and homeschooling groups where the early cases were identified.

Prasad Ganji is a pharmacist in Seminole, the biggest town in Gaines County. He said he ordered a 10-dose box of the MMR vaccine as cases started to spread.

He can give vaccines to people older than 14. But he still has doses left.

“The uptake for vaccines been definitely been a struggle,” Wells said of Gaines County, “I want to be honest with that.”

Eggs are a staple for cooking and baking. But if you’re scrambling for a replacement, your kitchen is full of dupes, from ground flaxseed to canned pumpkin. Many offer health benefits that make them comparable or even superior to actual eggs.

Depending on what you’re making, eggs can contribute structure, moisture, flavor, and color, or act as a binding agent (holding ingredients together) or leavening agent (helping baked goods rise and become light and airy). So when you’re considering egg substitutes, it’s important to think through what purpose any replacement will serve in your recipe: “Do you need it as a binder, or as more of a fluffy agent? Is it in a baked dish?” asks Rebecca Russell, a functional medicine registered dietitian in Denver. Seeds tend to be great binders, for example—they’re perfect in meatballs and burgers—while applesauce and silken tofu are just right for baking.

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We asked registered dietitians for their favorite swaps.

Ground flaxseed

Meet “flegg,” also known as ground flaxseed that’s gelatinous enough to sub for eggs in baked goods. To make it, mix 1 tablespoon of flaxseeds with 3 tablespoons of warm water, and let the concoction sit for about 5 minutes until it thickens. It works as a one-to-one substitute for eggs, Russell says. While you can technically use whole flaxseeds, grinding them up makes them easier to digest and improves their texture, she adds.

Read More: What’s So Great About Cottage Cheese?

Expect a mild, nutty flavor with lots of health benefits. “Flaxseeds are a great source of soluble fiber, which is important for gut health, blood sugar balance, and even weight loss,” Russell says. She likes using flegg in pancakes, banana bread, and other breakfast pastries. Because it’s a great binding agent, it also works well in dense dishes like meatloaf. Unlike many of her clients, “I can tolerate eggs just fine,” she says. “But I often still use flegg for the added benefit of the fiber.”

Chia seeds

When you combine 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and 3 tablespoons of water, you get a “chia egg,” which replaces one traditional egg in all kinds of recipes. The mixture, which is thick and more gelatinous than flegg, has a neutral taste but can be texturally grainy. Russell recommends using it as a binding agent in poppy seed muffins, or baked goods that have walnuts or pumpkin seeds, all of which can help conceal its texture. Chia egg also works well in veggie burgers. 

Russell often recommends it to her clients because it’s a great source of fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. “Chia seeds are great for brain health, heart health, and inflammation,” she says.

Applesauce

A quarter cup of applesauce is an easy swap for one egg in recipes that require moisture. It works especially well in structured baked goods like muffins, breads, brownies, and cakes, says Kaytee Hadley, a registered dietitian nutritionist in Richmond, Va. (You wouldn’t want to use it in a fluffy meringue.) Because applesauce is naturally sweet, consider slightly tweaking your recipe. “You’re going to be getting a decent amount of sweetness, so you might want to cut back on whatever added sugar you’re using,” she suggests. “It’s a nice natural alternative—plus, you’re getting the fiber that’s in there, which is great for heart health and gut health.”

Read More: 6 Things to Eat to Reduce Your Cancer Risk

“Bean water”

The liquid that comes in a can of chickpeas is often discarded—but can actually be repurposed as an excellent egg replacement. Officially, it’s called aquafaba, but Russell thinks of it as “bean water.” When it’s whipped, it takes on a light, fluffy texture similar to egg whites, she says, and works well in recipes that call for aeration, such as chocolate mousse, meringues, and homemade mayonnaise. Simply substitute 3 tablespoons per egg. “It’s virtually tasteless,” Russell says, which means it works well in both sweet and savory dishes.

Next time you use a can of chickpeas, pour the aquafaba into an ice cube tray or small container and freeze it for up to four months; that way, you’ll have some on hand when you need it. You can either thaw it in the fridge the night before, or microwave it for a minute or two.

Silken tofu

Silken tofu—unlike its firm cousin—has a creamy, yogurt-like consistency that makes it ideal for baking as well as dishes such as quiche and frittatas. A quarter cup replaces one egg, and Russell recommends blending it first to make sure it’s as smooth as possible. She often encourages clients with dairy intolerance to experiment with silken tofu, since it’s so versatile. “It can soak up any sauces, seasonings, herbs, or whatever you put on it, because it has a super mild flavor,” she says. Plus, it packs a nutritional punch: Tofu is a complete protein, which means it provides all nine essential amino acids, and it’s rich in nutrients like calcium, iron, and magnesium.

Greek yogurt

What can’t you do with Greek yogurt? Add “egg replacement” to its long list of uses: a quarter cup is a convenient substitute for one egg. It adds moisture, creaminess, and a slight tang to baked goods, keeping them soft and tender, says Russell, who also uses it in pancakes. The only caveat, she adds, is that not everyone is wild about its taste. “You can try it out, and if you don’t like it, maybe go to something like a flaxseed or chia seed egg,” she says.

Read More: Why You Should Eat a Dense Bean Salad Today

Pumpkin puree

If you’re the type who longs for pumpkin spice lattes year-round, you might enjoy this swap, which calls for replacing one egg with a quarter cup of pumpkin puree. “You get a little bit of pumpkin color, and a little bit of that flavor,” says Maggie Michalczyk, a registered dietitian nutritionist in Chicago. (She also happens to be the author of the cookbook Once Upon a Pumpkin, which is all about creative uses for the festive squash.) Pumpkin puree works particularly well in baked goods like breads, muffins, and cookies, she says. In addition to its pleasing taste, she gives it bonus points for adding vitamins A, C, and E to your recipe, as well as potassium and fiber.

Vegan egg replacements

You can now find commercial egg alternatives at almost any grocery store. JUST Egg, for example, makes plant-based substitutes that are similar to traditional eggs in taste, texture, and function but made from ingredients like mung bean protein and canola oil. Hadley, who is not affiliated with the company, eats its products every morning. “You can scramble it, or you can bake it into a nice egg dish,” she says. “The texture is shockingly similar, and it’s super convenient and mess-free.” Since it tastes somewhat mild, she recommends adding black salt to ratchet up its egg-like flavor. (The condiment’s sulfur content gives it an authentic eggy taste.)

Hadley also enjoys Crackd, a plant-based product made out of pea protein, which doesn’t have any saturated fat or cholesterol. “You can cook it in a skillet or microwave, and use it in baking as an egg replacement,” she says. 

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has become a leading champion of small economies in global climate discussions. And so I took note at last year’s United Nations climate conference when she said she thought countries should engage then-President elect Trump to try to explain the importance of climate work. 

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“I am not one of those who will come out and say immediately that with the election of President Trump all is gloom and doom,” she said at a fireside chat last November. “We need to find mechanisms… to have the conversations.”

Mottley’s position has evolved since then. Trump entered office in January with an aggressive agenda to attack clean energy and end collaboration on climate change. Last week, as delegates from around the world gathered in Barbados for a sustainable energy conference, Mottley instead insisted that small countries would need to find their own way forward. “You don’t spend time or energy praying over what could have been,” she said. “But we deal with the world as it is.”

Across three days of talks at the SEforAll Global Forum in Barbados, Trump barely came up explicitly. It’s not that anyone there underestimated the consequences of his election for global climate progress. Rather, his election has finally sunk in, and attention has turned to paving a path forward—without the U.S. 

It’s a telling glimpse at how climate discussions may be shifting. The gravitational pull of the U.S. should not be dismissed; some countries will inevitably follow his lead. Nonetheless, if the conversations in Barbados provide any indication, many emerging and developing economies remain eager to forge their own clean energy path.  

The U.S. shadow has always loomed large over international climate collaboration. As the world’s largest economy and only superpower, climate negotiators had to adjust language carefully to respond to the U.S. political context. 

With the Paris Agreement in place, conversations have largely focused on finance—getting money flowing to energy transition projects, particularly in developing and emerging economies. But despite the central role the U.S. played in setting up the system, U.S. public money never came to represent the lifeblood of international climate finance—even as developing countries and climate advocates insisted that the country owed it to the rest of the world to pay up because of its historical emissions. Even in the climate-friendly Biden Administration, it took significant wrangling for the White House to commit to $11 billion in annual international climate finance. To put that in perspective, developing countries left last year’s U.N. climate talks disappointed that their wealthier counterparts committed only to a total $300 billion in annual climate finance.

In other words, on the finance front, the U.S. isn’t leaving that big of a gap to fill. So where will the money come from? One key area under discussion at the SEforAll forum, where I spoke with officials in the public and private sectors based everywhere from Fiji to Sierra Leone, was so-called south-south collaboration. Instead of looking to the U.S. and Europe to pony up capital, developing and emerging market countries can work together—providing the goods and finance without the help of their wealthier counterparts.  

According to research from the Brookings Institution, trade between Global South countries recently surpassed trade between Global North countries. “This is a great signal of progress,” Arancha González, a former foreign minister of Spain who is now the dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, told me on a panel I moderated at the forum. “It tells us that there is a new world out there.”

Potential sources of finance include development banks located in large emerging economies like Brazil and South Africa. Institutions like the New Development Bank, formed in 2014 by the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, have financed billions in clean energy development. And, of course, it’s impossible to talk about this financial picture without talking about China. The country’s Belt and Road Initiative has been a source of more than $1 trillion in capital for infrastructure since its inception in 2013. In recent years, the country has increasingly focused its funding on green projects.     

Many developing countries have also focused on raising capital locally to fund projects—pushing savings and pension fund money to invest in the local market rather than looking abroad for higher returns. 

And then there are the new methods of what is often called blended finance. Traditionally, the term refers to a combination of public and private capital where the public money lowers the risk for private investors. More recently, philanthropy has entered the blended finance conversation, playing an increasingly important role providing money

“We have what we call strange bedfellows, where… institutional investors are partnering with a philanthropic organization, and together coming up with a blended finance solution that is innovative in approach,” says Ije Ikoku Okeke, who runs catalytic climate capital for the Global South at RMI, a clean energy non-profit.

A right-wing populist might not object to this new dynamic. In such a world view, American money should support Americans—leaving other countries to their own devices. But is the U.S. really better off if the rest of the world builds a coalition with Americans on the sidelines? 

Putting U.S. strategic interests aside, it is a little refreshing to hear a conversation about clean energy in the Global South that doesn’t get bogged down in whether the U.S. is going to live up to its moral responsibility as the world’s biggest historic emitter and instead focuses on solutions.

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TIME receives support for climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. TIME is solely responsible for all content.

When oil and gas executives first began using the phrase “all of the above” more than a decade ago, it was their pitch that climate advocates and sympathetic policymakers should keep natural gas alongside renewables in their vision of a new energy future. The grid needs abundant, reliable natural gas as back up when the wind isn’t blowing, they argued.

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This year, the tables have turned. With renewable energy in the Trump Administration’s crosshairs, energy industry big wigs have come to use “all of the above” as a reminder that renewable energy—particularly solar—has an important role to play in keeping the lights on.

“We believe in all forms of energy,” said John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy, the world’s most valuable electricity company, at a CERAWeek side event. “When we go to customers, we don’t really care if we’re selling wind turbines or gas turbines, we want to give them the lowest cost solution.”

To hear some activists talk about the new Trump Administration, the president blindly does the bidding of his fossil fuel benefactors. And, in public, many top executives are keen to praise Trump and show close relations with the White House. But behind the scenes many in the industry are more measured, and even critical.

Projections of soaring power demand in the U.S. have led utility executives to turn to whatever power source is available—including wind and solar—even as the Trump Administration tries to diminish renewables. Tariffs have threatened the bottomline. And oil executives have woken up to the reality that Trump’s vision of low oil prices doesn’t align with increased domestic production—or industry profits.

It’s certainly possible that these tensions remain under wraps. Corporate executives are not inclined to cross Trump, and market forces may be strong enough to keep the energy sector humming along mostly in line with expectations. Nonetheless, understanding the complicated nuance—which in many ways is counterintuitive—is important to grappling with the opportunities to minimize emissions in the coming years. 

There is no better place to digest energy industry sentiments and trends than the annual CERAWeek conference by S&P Global in Houston. The conference, held last week, draws energy executives and government officials from around the world. 

This year’s conference, which I attended for part of last week, offered a prime example of the phrase “two things can be true at once.” Industry officials widely praised some of the new administration’s deregulatory moves, but at the same time many expressed deep concerns about the uncertainty that Trump has created.

“Swinging from one extreme to another is not the right policy approach,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said on the CERAWeek main stage. “We have allocated capital that’s out there for decades, and so we really need consistent and durable policy.” 

Jack Fusco, CEO of natural gas company Cheniere, praised the administration for pivoting the “regulatory machine” in a direction that’s “fair and transparent.” But he followed his praise with a hint of apprehension, saying he hoped the agenda would “hold up in a rule of law”—an acknowledgement of the litigation and uncertainty that surrounds much of Trump’s policy agenda.  

Even attacks on the Inflation Reduction Act, former President Joe Biden’s landmark climate change law, have some corners of the industry worried. Oil and gas companies had planned to pursue tax incentives for technologies like hydrogen and carbon capture and storage—and dedicated billions in capital to doing so. “We’re looking for the continuation of 45Q,” said Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum, referring to a tax credit for carbon capture on the conference main stage. “To accelerate the technology at the pace that the U.S. needs it to accelerate, to start having the positive impact on our energy independence, we need 45Q to happen and to stay in place.” (The provision is thought to be one of the credits most likely to survive though everything will be in play during negotiations).

Behind the scenes many executives offered more vocal concern. As stocks plummeted on the conference’s opening day, executives stewed over tariffs that Trump imposed on Canada’s energy sector, which is highly integrated with the U.S. And Trump’s unpredictable approach more broadly drew concern. In the long term, different views on the price of oil may represent the biggest potential collision. Trump has repeatedly suggested he would like to see the price of oil come down as low as $50/barrel. (Right now the U.S. benchmark for crude oil is around $72/barrel). Voters love low energy prices because it means affordable gas at the pump. But oil companies hate when prices sink too low because it’s harder to turn a profit. 

For utility executives, the complication of rising power demand remains top of mind. Analysts have predicted soaring demand for electricity as technology companies grow their data center footprint in response to artificial intelligence. That has led the industry to pursue whatever electricity it can build quickly—a lot of natural gas, yes, but also a lot of solar.

As I’ve written before, the dynamic nature of the Trump Administration’s policymaking makes it difficult for companies to plan. And predicting what comes next is folly. But whatever happens it’s safe to say that the convenient narrative of a Trump Administration moving in lockstep with the energy sector is, at the very least, missing several puzzle pieces.

It also means, oddly, that the most influential advocates in Washington for some decarbonization provisions—like carbon capture, sustainable aviation fuel, and hydrogen—may be energy executives embracing the “all of the above” mantra. But even that may not be enough to save climate-friendly tax incentives.

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TIME receives support for climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation.TIME is solely responsible for all content.

The environmental organization Greenpeace was ordered to pay more than $660 million dollars to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer this week over its role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests nearly a decade ago.  

The outcome was a blow to the environmental advocacy group, which has previously said that a lawsuit of this size could bankrupt its U.S. operations. 

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Energy Transfer, the operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline, accused Greenpeace USA and International of playing a central role in organizing the resistance to the pipeline at Standing Rock in 2016 and 2017. The protests drew national attention as activists set up camp on land owned by Energy Transfer in an attempt to delay the project’s construction. Law enforcement responded by deploying water cannons, tear gas, and other weapons on unarmed protesters—injuring hundreds. Greenpeace denied the company’s claims, and has said the case is “one of the largest Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) cases ever filed.”

“Greenpeace played an extremely limited role at Standing Rock, and is proud of showing up in solidarity with Standing Rock activists,” Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal advisor for Greenpeace, said in a statement in February. The protests brought together thousands of activists from around the country who opposed the development of part of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock reservation. “At no time did Greenpeace engage in property destruction or violence. All claims to the contrary are a reckless disregard for the truth.”

Experts say that the success of the so-called SLAPP lawsuit—and heavy penalty Greenpeace was dealt—stands to silence other activists who speak up against big companies. “This verdict, especially given its scope, really changes the calculus for advocacy groups who are engaged in, not just environmental issues, but more generally, in advocacy,” says Jennifer Safstrom, director of the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic at Vanderbilt Law School. “They too could face liability for their advocacy efforts.”

What are SLAPP Lawsuits?

SLAPP lawsuits are a type of strategic civil litigation aimed at silencing speech by burying an organization or private citizen in legal fees. The term was coined by two professors in the ‘90s, Safstrom says, who notes that the practice was created in large part to target environmental activists—so much so that the professors used another term, “eco-SLAPP,” to define the practice.

“It’s an abuse of the court system, not for a legitimate legal end, but to try to shut somebody up,” says Gabe Walters, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. The practice has grown in prominence in the last decade. EarthRights, a non-profit environmental law group, identified 152 cases by fossil fuel companies between 2012 and 2022 that used strategic lawsuits against critics. A report by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) documented 820 SLAPP suits in Europe as of August 2023, with 161 lawsuits filed in 2022, and 135 cases filed in 2021. (The European Union passed an anti-SLAPP directive in April 2024, which aims to provide safeguards against strategic lawsuits that target public participation.)

Thirty-five states and Washington D.C. have anti-SLAPP laws in place, though what protections they provide may vary. Some states require that verdicts be reached on expedited timelines, while others have implemented “fee shifting,” which allows a defendant to recover legal fees if they win their case. 

But in states that don’t have protections in place, the impact of a SLAPP lawsuit can be devastating for organizations and individuals alike. 

“The goal is not even necessarily to win in court,” says Walters. “Just having to defend a lawsuit can be financially ruinous for a private person or for a nonprofit advocacy organization because the costs of litigation are so high.” 

How are Environmental Groups Responding? 

Environmental groups have said they won’t back down from their work. 

In a statement released after the verdict was announced, EarthRights, said that the decision would not silence environmental advocacy. “EarthRights proudly joins Greenpeace USA in speaking up against brazen legal attacks and ensuring that the environmental movement only continues to grow stronger, despite the appalling result in North Dakota.” 

Rebecca Brown, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law, said that “no abusive company, lawsuit, or court decision” would hinder the climate fight. “This misuse of the legal system stifles legitimate dissent and must be seen as a direct threat to environmental justice and democratic freedoms,” said Brown. “Such tactics will not deter us, they only strengthen our commitment to resistance and solidarity and defense of the constitutionally-protected right to protest.”

ClientEarth CEO Laura Clarke, said in a statement to TIME that the loss “highlights the growing trend of big polluters using the legal system to intimidate and silence critics.”

“The message they seek to convey is a deeply chilling one: that no organization that challenges polluting industries is safe.”  

Greenpeace has said it plans to challenge the ruling. The group’s international arm also filed a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer in 2024—one of the first tests of the European Union’s newly-enacted anti-SLAPP Directive. “Energy Transfer hasn’t heard the last of us in this fight. We’re just getting started with our anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Energy Transfer’s attacks on free speech and peaceful protest,” Kristin Casper, Greenpeace International General Counsel, said in a statement. 

In the meantime, Walters warns that, without national anti-SLAPP protections in place, Wednesday’s verdict will likely embolden powerful companies—and potentially silence activists and groups that are unable to afford a costly legal battle. “The judgment in the Greenpeace case has two practical effects,” he says. “One is that the sheer size of the judgment will chill speech. It will deter others from criticizing powerful interests. The other effect is that it may incentivize copycat lawsuits. A large judgment like this can be a powerful incentive to file further litigation and try to silence critics.”

WASHINGTON — SpaceX founder and President Donald Trump’s chief government efficiency liaison Elon Musk met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday at the Pentagon, saying he was ready to do “anything that could be helpful.”

According to a CNN video of the two men exiting their meeting, Musk refused to answer questions as to whether he received a classified briefing on China as part of the visit. Hegseth had said late Thursday that he would be meeting with Musk to discuss “innovation, efficiencies & smarter production.”

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The Pentagon is in the middle of identifying personnel and programs it can cut to save between 5% and 8% of its budget, but lawmakers and government watchdogs have questioned whether Musk should have any role in decisions at the Pentagon, where his company SpaceX receives billions of dollars in federal contracs.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has played an integral role in the Trump administration’s push to dramatically reduce the size of the government. Musk has faced intense blowback from some lawmakers and voters for his chainsaw-wielding approach to laying off workers and slashing programs, although the Republican president’s supporters have hailed it.

A senior defense official told reporters Tuesday that roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs will be cut in the Defense Department.

In a post on Musk’s X platform, Hegseth emphasized that “this is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans,’” denying a newspaper report.

In a movie climate where remakes tend to draw sneers of derision and claims that people have just gotten too lazy to invent anything new, Disney’s remakes of its own products are always a chief target. It should surprise no one that a media behemoth would try to make big bucks recycling past hits. Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion King, conceived as both a prequel and sequel to the 2019 live-action version of The Lion King, itself a reimagining of the 1994 animated film, may be the best example of the hall-of-mirrors nature of this type of filmmaking. And because Disney remakes of one sort or another just keep coming, from Mulan to Pinocchio to The Little Mermaid, the temptation to be cynical about them is enormous.

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Yet a surprising number of the Disney-remaking-itself projects have been wonderful, or at the very least, have found inventive ways to build on the appeal of their source material without slavishly duplicating it. Kenneth Branagh’s vivacious and clever Cinderella (2015), Bill Condon’s joyous, gonzo Beauty and the Beast (2017), Rob Marshall’s practically perfect Mary Poppins Returns (2018): all of these films stand proudly on the shoulders of their predecessors rather than noisily trying to improve upon them. Some of the Disney reinventions, like the 2018 Christopher Robin, Marc Forster’s almost-melancholy meditation on how easy it is to be crushed by the pressures of adulthood, are deeper than you might expect them to be—though even then, there’s always a Pooh Bear or a Piglet padding through the landscape to remind us what really matters.

Now Marc Webb’s Snow White, a live-action reimagining of Walt Disney’s enchanting 1937 animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, joins the ranks of the surprisingly pleasurable Disney remakes, thanks largely to the no-nonsense charms of its star, Rachel Zegler, whose Snow White dreams less of finding the right princely guy than of building a better world for everyone.

Read more: Every Disney Live-Action Remake, Ranked

You already know the essence of the story: Snow White is an orphaned princess forced into servitude by her vain wicked stepmother, played by a slinky-icy Gal Gadot. Webb, director of pictures like The Amazing Spider-Man and 500 Days of Summer, working from a script by Erin Cressida Wilson, begins with the backstory of the kingdom over which Snow White’s parents ruled, a place of singing, dancing peasants who celebrate not just tending the land, but sharing its riches equally among themselves. Snow White’s mother dies; her father remarries, making Gadot’s evil enchantress the new queen of the land. Then Snow White’s father leaves her behind as he embarks on a journey, never to return. The evil queen seizes the opportunity to turn the kingdom into a place of hardship and fear, and to turn Snow White into a servant-prisoner: Zegler plays her, at this stage, as a lonely young woman filled with longing for something she can’t name.

Jealous of Snow White’s beauty, the evil queen orders her killed. The footsoldier charged with the mission can’t bring himself to do it, and she escapes into the surrounding haunted forest—a terrifying place, where gnarled black tree branches grab at her as she tries to run, a detail handily re-created from the original—eventually landing at the quaint home of a group of hardworking dwarves.

The dwarves may be the biggest misstep of this Snow White: rather than being played by real actors, they’re computer-animated figures, and though their characters are vested with appealing attributes—Grumpy is suitably crabby, and Doc is the loquacious, brainy one—there’s no getting around the creepiness of their almost-alive-but-not-quite-verisimilitude. But reimagining an old story also means new opportunities to tweak details that may have rankled in the past. In the Brothers Grimm version of Snow White most of us are familiar with, Snow White ingratiates herself with the dwarves by tidying up their living space; she’s happy to make up their small rustic beds and sweep away the crumbs from their dinner. No wonder they adore her: who doesn’t love a housekeeper who works for free? In the animated version, the animals of the forest, in thrall to Snow White’s gentle, generous nature, gamely help out—a moderate improvement. In this version, Snow White puts the dwarves to work, giving them each a job and acting as a kind of foreman. The 2025 Snow White has enough work to do, getting her kingdom back. The dwarves can make their own damn beds.

Read more: Why Disney’s Snow White Remake Is Creating Controversy

This is where the real value of a remake comes in. It’s convenient to grumble about updates that mess with the classics, but there’s nothing in the new Snow White that dishonors the earlier Disney version. If anything, it reminds us why we loved it. That goes for Condon’s Beauty and the Beast, too: its exuberant live-action retooling of the “Be Our Guest” number—replete with its Maurice Chevalier-esque singing candelabra, as well as a chorus-line-cutie lineup of dancing plates and cutlery—has a zany go-for-broke audaciousness. It’s over the top to the point of madness, but how else do you compete with the artistry of animation, which makes just about any image you can dream up possible? Condon pulls out all the stops; it’s the only rational choice.

There’s something else about these Disney remakes that sets them apart even from a lot of other current big-budget movie projects. So much of today’s moviemaking feels rushed and cheap, as if the studio-money guys have already conceded that most people are just going to watch these movies at home, slumped on their couches, anyway—why splash out? But the Disney remakes, Snow White among them, don’t skimp on the lavish details. Snow White opens with a familiar kind of movie frontispiece: the opening of a story book, this one a leather-bound beauty guarded by a chubby hedgehog. (The new Snow White features a delightful assemblage of computer-generated animals—squirrels, bunnies, swerving, tootling birds—that are much more appealing than the dwarves.) This is how we’re introduced to the story of Snow White’s parents, two kind, generous rulers who long for a child and are thrilled by their daughter’s arrival. The page margins of this storybook introduction are decorated with vivid medieval-style illuminations that appear to come to life before us. They’re just one of those little touches that show evidence of human thought and care.

That’s true of the costumes as well, designed by the great Sandy Powell, who also created a host of sumptuous and cinder-girl looks for Cinderella, as well as a gorgeous array of suitably rustic-looking World War II-era handknits for the children in Mary Poppins Returns. Powell is the master of the telling costume detail: In Snow White, she gives the evil queen a whole wardrobe of glittering, honking jewels that let us know she has grand, extravagant taste. One of the queen’s necklaces, a circlet of ruggedly cut gemstones, conjures the decadent spirit of early-1970s Yves Saint Laurent. I’d wear it in a heartbeat. Does that make me evil, too?

People often laud Disney films for their wholesome messages, even if those are almost always the least interesting things about them. And by now, Disney’s endless parade of modern-day empowered princesses have become their own cliché. The problem with cheerfully and aggressively reminding little girls that they can do anything is that it never occurs to some little girls that they can’t: only when a grownup bends over backwards to encourage them do they begin to question their own confidence and capabilities. Refreshingly, this new Snow White pulls back a bit in the empowered-princess department. For one thing, Zegler’s prince charming isn’t actually a prince. He’s a common bandit, essentially fighting for human rights. (He’s played by Andrew Burnap.)

Snow White may resist her “prince” at first—he wins her over, funnily enough, with a slightly mocking song about her “princess problems”—but she’s not so superhuman that she can deny the pleasures of human companionship. That said, her chief goals here are civic ones, and as the kingdom of her now-dead parents lies in ruins, she dreams aloud of a better future, warning those around her not to become so accustomed to the wicked queen’s status quo that they become hardened themselves: “You’ve forgotten how things used to be,” she tells them, “when people were kind and fair.” Historically, Disney movies are anything but political; they tend to studiously avoid controversy to the point of toothlessness. But this Snow White, emerging in an era of government-sanctioned cruelty, seems to know exactly what it’s saying, even if it chooses to speak only in a discreet whisper. It’s the right Snow White for this moment. Like the animated version that preceded it—released in the midst of a depression that must have seemed never-ending to those living through it—it’s a story in search of a happy ending. Or at least an assurance that no dark, haunted forest can stretch on forever.