Shuttering of USAID Will Lead to Millions of Deaths Around the World: Studies

President John F. Kennedy said in 1961 that “there is no escaping” what he described as America’s “moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations; our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy; and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

He was speaking to Congress about foreign aid and later that year would establish through executive order what has since been known as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which helped make the U.S. the world’s largest foreign aid provider. 

For more than six decades, USAID has helped dozens of low- and middle-income countries, including conflict-stricken ones, to improve access to food, water, health care, and education. It’s helped stop disease outbreaks, revolutionize agricultural practices, and in some cases, promote democracy.

But on Tuesday, USAID shutters its doors for good.

The agency’s dismantling began just days after President Donald Trump returned to the White House at the start of this year. Tech billionaire and one-time Trump ally Elon Musk, who was spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency, singled out the agency as a locus of “corruption and waste,” despite the fact that it constituted just about 0.5% of government spending.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who took the reins of the agency in February, said in March that more than four-fifths of USAID programs were cancelled, and the approximately 1,000 that remained would be absorbed by the State Department by July 1, even amid court battles about the constitutionality of USAID’s closure.

On the eve of USAID’s final day, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama gathered with former staffers as well as U2 singer and humanitarian Bono on a video call. Obama described USAID’s gutting as a “travesty” and a “tragedy,” according to the Associated Press.

“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work,” Bush told the USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”

Trump, evidently, does not.

Just how many lives won’t be saved as a result of the closure of USAID has been the subject of several studies and projections. 

On Monday, medical research journal The Lancet estimated that USAID prevented the deaths of more than 90 million people between 2001 to 2021. The study, conducted by researchers from Brazil, Mozambique, and Spain, forecasted that the defunding of the agency could lead to some 14 million deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths of children and babies under the age of 5.

Here are some of the biggest estimated impacts of the U.S. shirking Kennedy’s “obligations.”

Hundreds of thousands of HIV-AIDS deaths

To fight against HIV globally, President Bush launched PEPFAR, or the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2003. The program supports some 20.6 million people with HIV worldwide, including 566,000 children, through providing anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to control the infection. The program also provided HIV testing services to 83.8 million people in 2024.

USAID was PEPFAR’s main implementing agency, and while the State Department is seeking $2.9 billion in funding to continue HIV-AIDS programs, it’s far lower than the at least $4.7 billion budget PEPFAR had. 

A study published in the Retrovirology journal in March said that the suspension of USAID funding could hamper access to ART and cause a potential resurgence of up to 630,000 HIV-AIDS-related deaths annually, with sub-Saharan Africa most affected.

Millions of malaria cases

USAID has invested $9 billion to help tackle malaria, the mosquito-borne illness that is preventable and curable but causes millions of deaths in Africa every year, since the inception of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in 2005.

An impact tracker by Boston University infectious disease mathematical modeller and health economist Dr. Brooke Nichols and Amsterdam-based product manager Eric Moakley forecast almost 10 million additional cases of malaria globally—of which an estimated 7 million would affect children—in just one year due to USAID funding cuts.

The tracker also only considered African countries that were part of PMI and did not include countries in Asia that have also been supported by USAID. “Thus we may be underestimating the effect of PMI’s cessation,” it said.

Millions of Sudanese to lose access to ‘lifesaving’ health services

The war-torn northeast African country of Sudan was among those worst hit by USAID’s suspension. More than half of its 50 million population is in need of humanitarian assistance as residents suffer from famine and disease outbreaks amid ongoing conflict. The World Health Organization estimates that 5 million Sudanese people may lose access to “lifesaving” health services as a result of the cuts, according to the Washington Post.

Naomi Ruth Pendle, a lecturer at the University of Bath in the U.K., wrote for The Conversation in April that the sudden suspension of USAID is “is set to make the famine in Sudan the deadliest for half a century.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/ZhO0sya
via IFTTT

Is Cheese Giving You Nightmares?

For centuries, folklore and popular wisdom have linked poor eating habits and indigestion to nightmares and restless sleep. In A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge at first dismisses the ghosts that torment him as mere dietary disturbances: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato,” he says to one spectral visitor. “There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” Earlier, Benjamin Franklin lamented that “[I]ndolence, with full feeding, occasions nightmares and horrors inexpressible; we fall from precipices, are assaulted by wild beasts, murderers, and demons, and experience every variety of distress.” In the early 20th century, cartoonist Winsor McCay made his name with his “Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend” series, in which his protagonists suffers bizarre dreams and nightmares which they attributed to eating Welsh rarebit—a delicacy of spiced cheese on toast.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

A modest body of contemporary research has sought to explore the link between food and nightmares more empirically. The latest is a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology—finding that if you want to get your z’s, you’d best limit the cheese.

To conduct the current study, Tore Nielsen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal, and his colleagues surveyed 1,082 students at MacEwan University in Alberta. All of them completed a questionnaire about their diet, food sensitivities, sleep habits, dream recall, and more. The students reported how late in the evening they eat, whether they regularly snack without feeling hungry, and if they have any gastrointestinal symptoms, food allergies, or diet-related conditions such as lactose intolerance. They also reported how well they sleep and how often their sleep is disturbed by nightmares.

Read More: What Doctors Really Think of Sleepmaxxing

About 25% of people said that eating certain foods before bed seemed to worsen their sleep, while just over 20% said that some foods improved their sleep. Of the people who reported having more nightmares after eating certain foods, 31% attributed the bad dreams to consumption of desserts and other sweets, 22% pointed to dairy, 16% cited meats, and 13% blamed spicy foods.

The most commonly cited medical condition linked to sleep quality was lactose intolerance—lending legitimacy to Scrooge’s “crumb of cheese” charge. Of the people who believed their diet was related to worse sleep overall, 30% were lactose intolerant.

“Nightmares are worse for lactose intolerant people who suffer severe gastrointestinal symptoms and whose sleep is disrupted,” said Nielsen in a statement that accompanied the release of the study. “This makes sense because we know that other bodily sensations can affect dreaming.” One 2024 meta-analysis, for example, found that all manner of sensory experiences—including sounds, smells, flashing lights, physical pressure, and pain—can be incorporated into dreams when people are sleeping and investigators provide the stimulus.

Food-related nightmares might also be linked to depression and anxiety, the researchers say; lactose-intolerance symptoms like bloating, cramping, and gas directly affect mood, which can carry over into sleep, powering bad dreams. The paper cites an earlier 2005 study by Nielsen showing that “dreaming is more emotionally intense and conflictual when abdominal cramping is at its worst,” including during menstruation.

Read More: What’s the Least Amount of Sleep You Need to Get?

When people eat can make a difference as well. Eating late in the evening or snacking up until bedtime is linked to an “eveningness chronotype”—essentially the state of being a night owl—which by itself has been associated with nightmares in earlier cited studies.

Nielsen and his colleagues concede that their current work does not establish causation, with at least the possibility existing that bad dreams and poor sleep may lead to equally poor dietary habits, rather than the other way around. “Direction of causality in many studies of food and sleep remains unclear,” the authors write.

Not all foods, of course, are linked to nightmares and sleep disruption, and some may even support better sleep. Close to 18% of people who regularly eat fruits reported better sleep, along with 12% of people who consume a lot of vegetables, and 13% of people who drink herbal tea.

Nielsen does not believe the current research remotely closes the book on the food and sleep and dreaming link, seeing a need for a lot of future work. “We need to study more people of different ages, from different walks of life,” he said in the statement. “Experimental studies are also needed to determine if people can truly detect the effects of specific foods on dreams. We would like to run a study in which we ask people to ingest cheese products versus some control food before sleep to see if this alters their sleep or dreams.” 

from TIME https://ift.tt/Xpc1aAx
via IFTTT

After Iran, Trump Aims to End War in Gaza

After brokering a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Donald Trump is urging Israel and Hamas to make a deal that would stop the 20-month-long war in Gaza that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and over a thousand Israelis.

“MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!” the U.S. President posted on Truth Social early Sunday.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Trump told reporters on Friday that an agreement could be reached within the next week. On Saturday evening Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back,” in a post slamming the corruption proceedings against Netanyahu. An Israeli court on Monday postponed this week’s hearings in Netanyahu’s trial after he made a request based on classified diplomatic and security reasons.

“How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.). It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure,” Trump wrote. “This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations.”

Read More: Trump Tries to ‘Save’ Netanyahu as Israeli PM Faces Challenges at Home

An Israeli official told the Associated Press that Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Netanyahu, will visit Washington this week for ceasefire talks. Netanyahu met with his security Cabinet on Sunday evening and plans are being made for him to visit Washington in coming weeks, the official said.

Trump’s shift in focus towards Gaza comes after Iran and Israel agreed to a tenuous ceasefire on June 23, ending the so-called “12 Day War” ignited by Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, renewed a ceasefire push for Gaza after the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Hamas has told mediators that it is ready to resume talks but reiterated that any deal must include an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a Hamas official told Reuters.

Call for ceasefire comes as Israel escalates war

At the same time that Trump called for a deal, Israel continued to escalate its military bombardment of Gaza. The Israeli military ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people live in eastern and northern Gaza City and the Jabaliya refugee camp. The Israeli Defense Forces’ attacks will expand westward to Gaza City center, the order said. People are ordered to evacuate to Mawasi in southern Gaza, which Israel has designated as a humanitarian area.

Uprooting their lives at a moment’s notice has become routine for Palestinians in Gaza over the last nearly two years of war. Humanitarian organizations have criticized Israel’s sweeping evacuation orders in the past as being unpredictable and having short deadlines that are virtually impossible for many, including the sick and disabled. On Sunday, Palestinians in Gaza City were yet again forced to load their children and essentials onto donkey carts before the military’s attacks, the AP reported. United Nations officials have said that nowhere in Gaza is safe. At least five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis near Mawasi, the designated safe area, over the weekend, medics said.

“A month ago, they told us to go to Al-Mawasi and we stayed there for a month, it is a safe zone,” Palestinian Zeyad Abu Marouf told Reuters. Three of his children were killed and a fourth wounded in the airstrike, he said.

“Families have been displaced again and again—and are now confined to less than one-fifth of Gaza’s land,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Friday. “Even these shrinking spaces are under threat. Bombs are falling—on tents, on families, on those with nowhere left to run.”

Roadblocks remain over a deal

In spite of Trump’s optimism, skepticism over a deal remains.

Hamas has accused Israeli leaders of purposely delaying a deal. Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi reportedly said on Telegram on Sunday that Netanyahu set “impossible conditions aimed at thwarting the possibility of reaching a ceasefire agreement and a deal on the hostages.”

Hamas has reportedly offered Israel a deal that includes the release of all hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israel’s military from Gaza and an end to the war. But Mardawi said Netanyahu has insisted on a temporary agreement that releases only 10 hostages. “Netanyahu lies when he claims he is not involved in choosing the names of the hostages,” Mardawi wrote. “He does not want a deal.”

Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri did not address Mardawi’s claims but said, “Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war,” according to the AP. Israel has said it will only agree to end the war in exchange for the full dismantlement and exile of Hamas.

While Trump has repeatedly urged a ceasefire in Gaza, he’s also suggested a U.S. takeover that turns the territory into “a freedom zone” and proposed that Jordan and Egypt take in Palestinians as part of a “clean out” of the Gaza Strip. 

In February, Trump said the U.S. could take a “long-term ownership position” over Gaza, “level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.” That month, he also shared an AI-generated video on Truth Social of “Trump Gaza,” showing a reconstructed Gaza Strip with skyscrapers, luxury cars, and Trump drinking by a pool with Netanyahu.

Even if a deal is reached, it’s unclear whether it will last. Israel and Hamas reached a multi-phase ceasefire agreement in January, just as Trump was taking office. But Israel broke the ceasefire in March when it launched surprise airstrikes on Gaza before declaring that it was resuming the war.

Since then, pressure has been mounting on Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire, both from within and outside Israel. Pro-Palestinian protesters around the world turned out over the weekend to call for an end to the war. And earlier this month, the U.N. adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire, with Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya saying that it is the international community’s responsibility to stop the “slaughter” in Gaza.

Protests in Israel also resumed after a two-week pause during the Israel-Iran war, with demonstrators demanding a deal that would free the hostages still in Gaza. “There’s a deal on the table and what prevents it is Netanyahu’s refusal to end the war,” said Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the hostages, at the rally.

Earlier this month, former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak wrote in a TIME essay calling for Netanyahu to back a Trump-brokered ceasefire: “In the coming few days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face a defining choice between a politically motivated ‘war of deception’ in Gaza and a deal to release all hostages while ending the war. He must choose between his extreme-right ministers—Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich—or aligning with Donald Trump.”

Netanyahu said at the Sunday security meeting that “many opportunities have opened up” after Israel’s “victory” in Iran, and for one of the first times he appeared to prioritize hostage exchange over the defeat of Hamas, potentially signaling appetite for a ceasefire deal: “Firstly, to rescue the hostages,” he said. “Of course, we will also need to solve the Gaza issue, defeat Hamas, but I believe we will achieve both tasks.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/ojXtiaE
via IFTTT

Idaho Firefighters Ambushed: What to Know

Two firefighters were killed and a third badly injured after they were shot at while responding to a wildfire near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Sunday afternoon.

Firefighters responded to reports of a brush fire at Canfield Mountain, north of Coeur d’Alene, at around 1:30 p.m., at which point someone started shooting at them. A shelter-in-place order was lifted just before 8 p.m. Sunday night, after authorities identified a suspect, who was found dead. The names of the victims and the suspect have not yet been released.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“We do believe that the suspect started the fire, and we do believe that it was an ambush and it was intentional,” Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said. “These firefighters did not have a chance.”

Here’s what we know so far about the shooting.

Brush fire believed to be an ambush

Authorities believe that the shooter started the fire in order to lure in the firefighters. Gunshots were reported around half an hour after firefighters arrived at the scene.

“Everybody’s shot up here,” first responders said over a dispatch according to the Associated Press. “Send law enforcement now.”

Law enforcement locked down the hiking area and nearby neighborhoods—marking a more than 17,000 sq. ft. containment area. It was not clear if any civilians were stuck on the mountain or had been injured, Norris said at an afternoon news conference.

Around 300 officers from multiple agencies, including the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, Spokane Police, Coeur d’Alene Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, responded to the scene. Officers exchanged fire with the shooter in an hourslong standoff.

The fire—and the terrain—complicated the scene, with the fire smoke and the brush offering cover for the shooter. “We are actively taking sniper fire as we speak,” Norris said. “We don’t know how many suspects are up there, and we don’t know how many casualties there are.”

Law enforcement exchanged fire with the shooter in an hourslong standoff that ended in the suspect’s death. Norris said at an evening news conference that authorities believe there to have been one shooter.

The shelter-in-place order has since been lifted.

Two killed and one injured

Three victims were transported to Kootenai Health, though two were dead on arrival, according to hospital spokesperson Kim Anderson. One of the deceased was a firefighter from the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department and the other was a firefighter from Kootenai County Fire and Rescue.

The third firefighter was “badly injured” and “fighting for his life” after undergoing surgery, Norris said, but is in stable condition.

Suspect found dead

Police used cellphone data to trace the location of the shooter, identifying a cell signal at around 3:15 p.m. that had not moved for some time, Norris said at the evening conference. There, a tactical response team found a man lying dead with a weapon nearby, whom authorities believe was the shooter.

“There is no threat to the community at this time,” Norris said. “Based on the trajectory and based on the type of weapons that this individual had that we could recover, we believe only the one shooter.”

Because of the encroaching fire, authorities had to “scoop the body up,” Norris said. The scene was “compromised” as a result, he said, but “we had to do what we had to do to preserve the body.” The investigation will continue Monday morning after the fire is cleared and investigators can search the area, Norris said, adding that they believe they may find more weapons placed in the area.

Norris said the shooter used a rifle, but did not release details about the weapon while the investigation is ongoing. Investigators believe there was one shooter who moved around to shoot from different positions, he added. Authorities have not confirmed the suspect’s identity.

Fire continues burning

The fire, later named the Nettleton Gulch fire, was still burning past 10 p.m., according to the Idaho Department of Lands. Kootenai County Emergency Management cautioned residents to be prepared and ready in case it escalates. 

“Crews will be there all night,” Norris said. Firefighting efforts were delayed till around 7:30 p.m. because of the threat of gunfire. The fire has scorched around 20 acres of land on the mountain, but no structures were lost, the department said.

The area around Canfield Mountain has been designated a no-fly zone by the sheriff’s office until further notice, including a prohibition on drones, the county’s emergency management services said.

First responders target of violence

It remains unclear why firefighters were targeted, though this isn’t the first time this year that first responders have been attacked.

Tulsa firefighter-medics were ambushed and shot at earlier this month while treating a victim in Oklahoma, Tulsa Fire Chief Michael Baker said on KOTV-News. In April, a firefighter-paramedic in Kansas City was stabbed to death in an ambulance. And in 2022, Seattle fire medic units reported being attacked on multiple occasions while responding to scenes or in an ambulance.

“This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters,” Idaho Gov. Brad Little said on X after Sunday’s shooting.“The job’s not over,” Jason Pack, a retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent, told CNN. “Somebody’s still got to be around to fight the fires—and that’s the reality of every day, what the men and women who put their lives on the line for folks in America deal with. They have huge personal loss sometimes but just keep showing up, going to work, and doing their job, and what they’re trained to do.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/MmZClti
via IFTTT

Understanding the Breakdown in Trade Negotiations Between the U.S. and Canada Amid Accusations of a ‘Blatant Attack’

Negotiations between the U.S. and Canada have broken down, with President Donald Trump announcing that he is “terminating” all trade discussions with his northern neighbor.

“We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately,” Trump said on Friday. “We will let Canada know the tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven-day period.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Trump’s retreat from negotiations follows a long-standing back-and-forth between the two countries on trade, which kickstarted when Trump implemented the application of an additional 25% tariff on imports from Canada in February. ( Energy resources from Canada received a lower 10% tariff.)

With tensions now reaching a high, spurred on by Trump threatening more tariffs on Canada, parties in both countries have voiced concern over where things currently stand.

What led to the breakdown in negotiations of trade between the U.S. and Canada?

Trump called Canada “a very difficult country to trade with,” blaming the breakdown in progress on Canada’s Digital Services Tax [DST], a levy on tech revenues generated from Canadian users, which is set to go into effect on Monday, June 30. Trump called the 3% digital services tax “a direct and blatant attack” on the U.S.

The Trump Administration has urged Canada to pause or eliminate the tax, which applies to any tech company making more than $15 million from Canadian internet users. In his social media post, Trump said the U.S. had “just been informed” of the tax. The plan has, in fact, been in place since last year, but the first payments are only due to begin on June 30. The bill works retroactively, so large tech companies such as Apple, Google, and Meta stand to be hit with large payments.

“Here’s the irony. To me, this looks like a power play from Canada, because they’re making it retroactive… so Trump came along and said, ‘No, no more deals—watch and learn,’” argues James Mohs, an associate professor of accounting, finance, and taxation at the University of New Haven. He likens the situation to two “bullies” fighting each other on the block to see “who’s the biggest.”

A June 11 letter from Republican members of the U.S. Congress urged Trump to pressure Canada into pausing the tax.

“If Canada decides to move forward with this unprecedented, retroactive tax, it will set a terrible precedent that will have long-lasting impacts on global tax and trade practices,” said the 21 members of Congress, further arguing that 90% of what Canada would collect under its Digital Services Tax Act would be from U.S. companies.

Trump’s announcement of stalled talks came a week after Canada’s Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said that they would not delay implementation of the tax, despite mounting pressure.

“This was voted by parliament so we’re going ahead with the DST,” Champagne told reporters on June 19. “[The Digital Services Tax] is not unique to Canada, by the way. Let’s put that into context.”

In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump told reporters that the U.S. has “all the cards” in its relationship with Canada. “Economically, we have such power over Canada. I’d rather not use it,” he seemingly warned.

Speaking to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday, for an interview of which the first part aired on Sunday morning, Trump delved into his decision to stop negotiations with Canada, saying the country is “very nasty to deal with.” He stated that the negotiations would be paused “until such time as they drop certain taxes,” seemingly referring to the DST.

Trump also once again repeated his belief that “Canada should be the 51st state.”

Read More: Does Trump Still Plan to Annex Canada and Make It the 51st State?

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that though the Trump Administration knew of the Digital Service Tax, they had hoped that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new Administration would, “as a sign of good will,” pause it.

“We think it’s badly unfair to do it retroactively,” Bessent said, stating that U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer is likely going to open a 301 investigation on the tax, which would allow the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to investigate any potential harm on U.S. businesses.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat and current fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, says that Trump has “thrown a grenade into the negotiations,” but hope for a deal is far from lost.

“I look at this as part of the negotiating process. Trump is unpredictable, but my guess is that there are those in the U.S. who would like to see an agreement with Canada,” he says. “I think that the interests on both sides are such that an agreement is possible and desirable—certainly [from] the Canadian side, but for the American side, also. I think they want to be able to show the rest of the world you can make a deal with your closest neighbor and ally. And if you can’t do it with Canada, who can you do it with?”

This is not dissimilar to how Trump does business, as he prioritizes gaining “as much leverage as he can” before making a deal, Robertson argues.

Mohs agrees, stating that this is all “a negotiation tool, nothing more, nothing less.”

How has Canada responded?

In a brief exchange with reporters on Friday, Carney addressed questions about the breakdown in talks.

“We will continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interest of Canadians,” he said, firmly. 

The Canadian government also retaliated later on Friday, placing a steel quota on some imports, with a hefty 50% tariff on products that exceed that quota. The measure went into effect immediately, and is set to be reviewed in 30 days.

“This temporary trade measure will help stabilize the Canadian steel market by addressing the risk that steel originally destined for the United States is redirected to Canada,” stated the government’s press release on the measure. “The combination of tariffs imposed by the U.S. on all steel imports and global overcapacity, caused by non-market practices, has led many exporters to seek new markets.”

Robertson sees this move as “consistent” with what Canada has promised in the past.

“I think that all fits into [how] we had promised we would take action when Trump doubled the tariff from 25% to 50%,” he says, arguing that Canada, as “the biggest steel exporter to the U.S.,” will likely lift these measures if they can get back to a trade agreement.

At the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada on June 16, Carney had said that he and Trump were working towards finding a trade deal within 30 days, something Trump had agreed was “achievable.” But the subsequent blow to their relations puts any deal on shaky ground.

Goldy Hyder, CEO of Business Council of Canada, said that this back-and-forth has only escalated the uncertainty that businesses are struggling with. While change is happening on the geopolitical and economic scale, Hyder pointed out, geography never will change, and these neighboring countries need to find a way out of these stalled negotiations.

“[Canadian] businesses are intertwined not just with the U.S., but also with Mexico. We have smart people, we have a lot of natural resources,” Hyder told Canada’s CTV News. “We’ve grown an economy that’s working and can continue to grow, but it’s challenging because business, of course, likes predictability and certainty, and it doesn’t have a nationality that it’s attached to.”

Sharing a message to the governments of both the U.S. and Canada, Hyder urged: “Let’s not get in our own way here.”

But some experts remain divided on whether or not Canada should pause the tax in order to appease Trump. Julian Karaguesian, a former adviser to Canada’s Ministry of Finance, told CTV that Canada’s Prime Minister and Finance Minister had “different means” to “delay the implementation” of the tax.

“It leads me to think that this was a tactic by Prime Minister Carney—putting a card on the table because, as President Trump said, [the U.S.] has more cards than we do, but we have some,” Karaguesian argued, pointing to Canada as a major energy producer with reserves of oil and gas.

Karaguesian said Canada, as a “natural resource superpower,” could, if backed into a corner, utilize this, and also build out other existing trade relationships with India, China, and beyond.

“It’s not much at all,” Karaguesian said of the amount of money Canada might gain from the tax, emphasizing that the charge is not a tariff. “The tax is part of our domestic policy, and every sovereign nation has a right to pursue domestic policies.”

There’s mounting tension on both sides, says Mohs, but “when it comes to business, a trade war is not going to work well for either Canada or the U.S.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/e5TRnhq
via IFTTT

Musk Reignites Row Over Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ as Senate Republicans Advance It: ‘Utterly Insane and Destructive’

Elon Musk has renewed his criticism of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful, Bill,” showcasing his fierce opposition to the measure at a critical time. As Senate Republicans scrambled to advance the newly-revised 940-page proposal, Musk took to social media on Saturday to highlight his disapproval.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,” Musk said to his more than 220 million followers on X. “Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past, while severely damaging industries of the future.”

Musk, the former lead of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who had a spectacular falling out with Trump not long after leaving the White House, doubled down on his stance in a series of follow-up messages.

The Tesla CEO referred to the bill as “political suicide” for the Republican party, citing poll data that showed an approval of his stance against the measure. Musk went on to say that the bill “raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, the biggest increase in history, putting America in the fast lane to debt slavery.”

Musk’s long-established opposition to the Big, Beautiful Bill proved to be a sticking point during his DOGE leadership, and notably became a point of contention between himself and Trump, his one-time ally whose presidential campaign he helped fund.

Read More: The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space

In early June, Musk said the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.” He took things a step further by telling his millions of followers to “call your Senator, call your Congressman… kill the bill!”

In the midst of Musk’s public criticism, Trump’s domestic policy bill, which centers tax and spending cuts, cleared a significant hurdle on Saturday night. The Senate delivered a 51-49 vote to take up the bill, after holding the floor open for hours to debate with holdouts and secure the numbers necessary to move forward.

Vice President J.D. Vance arrived at the Capitol ready to break a potential tie, and he reportedly held deep talks with people unsure of pledging their support to the bill.

Republicans Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky notably voted to block consideration of the measure.

Sen. Tillis said he could not support the bill due to his concerns over Medicaid cuts and what that would mean for people in his state. “The Senate version… contains significant changes to Medicaid that would be devastating to North Carolina, and I cannot support it,” Tillis said. “The Senate should go back to the House’s common-sense approach to Medicaid reform to enact work requirements while protecting care for those who truly need it.”

Trump took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to air his grievances with Tillis’ oppositional stance.

“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run in the primary against Senator Thom Tillis,” he said. “I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America.”

Sen. Paul, meanwhile, took a stance against the bill’s provision to raise the nation’s debt limit by $5 trillion. On Saturday evening, he shared Musk’s X post showcasing poll numbers being against the bill, and commented: “Not that we should govern by poll, but it is very clear people don’t want this extreme amount of debt and reckless spending.”

Explaining his issue with the numbers, Sen. Paul said: “How about this: Tweak the ‘Big, not so beautiful, bill’ so it doesn’t add so much to the debt? The legislation, as currently written, would pay someone like Elon Musk $1000 per child, and we know how prolific he is . . . No offense, Elon, but is that a wise use of our $$?”

Responding to Sen. Paul’s vote, Trump said: “Did Rand Paul vote ‘NO’ again tonight? What’s wrong with this guy?”

On the other end of the opposition, some hard-right Republicans held off on their votes until the last minute, angling for further spending cuts into the bill in exchange for their support. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who had earlier in the day urged fellow Republicans not to rush through the bill before knowing exactly what it contained, dramatically changed his vote to a yes in the closing moments.

Speaking out after his last-minute change of heart, Sen. Johnson said: “Biden and the Democrats left behind enormous messes that we are trying to clean up—an open border, wars, and massive deficits. After working for weeks with POTUS and his highly capable economic team, I am convinced that he views this as a necessary first step and will support my efforts to help put America on a path to fiscal sustainability.”

Read More: Trump Lobbies for Passage of ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Hours After Big Setback in Senate

The newly-revised bill—released just after midnight on Saturday—may have advanced, in spite of the vocal opposition it faced from some, but there is still a lot of work to be done. The measure will now be debated in the Senate, and if it passes the Senate, it will go back to the House. The timeline is incredibly tight, as Trump has expressed his desire to sign the bill on July 4th.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Trump celebrated the progress the bill has made thus far, saying he was “very proud” of the Republican party.

“Tonight we saw a great victory in the Senate,” Trump said, before going on to name the key people involved in advancing the measure. “I look forward to working with them to grow our economy, reduce wasteful spending, secure our border, fight for our military/veterans, ensure that our Medicaid system helps those who truly need it, protect our Second Amendment, and so much more.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/47RD30q
via IFTTT

Fortnite Players to Receive More Than $126 Million in Refunds. Here’s How You Can File a Claim

Players of Epic Games, Inc.’s popular video game Fortnite could be eligible for a refund from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

“The Federal Trade Commission is sending refunds totaling more than $126 million to players of the popular video game Fortnite who were charged for unwanted purchases while playing the game,” the FTC said in a statement on Wednesday. This latest round of payments come after $72 million was issued out to players in the first round of refunds, sent in December 2024.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The deadline for additional claims has been extended, allowing further eligible consumers, who have not yet submitted a claim, the chance to request a refund.

The FTC’s action against Epic involves “two separate record-breaking settlements.” In December 2022, it was announced that Epic would have to pay $245 million in refunds for “tricking users into making unwanted charges.” The FTC alleged that the gaming company “used dark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases and let children rack up unauthorized charges without any parental involvement.” The FTC further alleged that Fortnite‘s “counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration” aided in these unwanted purchases.

It was also announced that Epic would be required to pay a $275 million penalty for “violating” the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Epic issued a statement regarding the settlement in December 2022. “The video game industry is a place of fast-moving innovation, where player expectations are high and new ideas are paramount,” the statement read. “Statutes written decades ago don’t specify how gaming ecosystems should operate. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough.”

The company went on to say: “Over the past few years, we’ve been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry.”

Here’s what you need to know about whether you’re eligible to file a claim and how you can go about doing that.

Who is eligible to file a claim?

If you filed a claim after Feb. 14, 2025, you don’t need to do anything else right now, per the FTC’s instruction, as they are “still reviewing claims filed after that date and will provide more information soon.”

For those who haven’t already filed, Fortnite players who were charged for “unwanted purchases” may be eligible to seek a refund.

The first eligible party is someone who was charged “in-game currency” for items they did not want, between January 2017 and September 2022. The second is a parent whose child made charges in Fortnite using their credit card, without their knowledge, between January 2017 and November 2018. The third is a player who was locked out of their account when they complained to their credit card company about “wrongful charges” between January 2017 and September 2022.

Players of all ages are eligible for the refund, but the FTC stipulates that those under 18 must have a parent or guardian fill out the claimant form on their behalf.

The refund is also currently only available to players in the United States.

Read More: Fortnite Is a Huge Success—And a Sign of What’s to Come in Gaming [2018]

When is the deadline to make a claim and apply for a refund?

The FTC has reopened the claiming process for eligible people to submit a refund request. People now have until July 9 to file a claim.

How can you apply for a refund?

Eligible persons can apply for a refund via the official Fortnite refund website, using either a claim number sent to their email address or their Epic Games account ID.

In December 2024, the FTC said the average refund amount that an individual would receive was $114, but it now says that the amount of each refund depends on multiple factors, including how many people file a claim.

Read More: What to Know About the Apple Class Action Lawsuit Settlement—and How You Can File a Claim

When can you expect to receive payment?

The next round of refunds are expected to be sent to players in 2026, after all claims are validated.

Claimants can reach a representative through the email admin@fortniterefund.com or by calling number 1-833-915-0880, if they have questions about their payment status.

The refunds are due to be sent by check or via PayPal from the FTC. It’s recommended that successful claimants cash checks within 90 days and redeem the PayPal payment within 30 days.

from TIME https://ift.tt/wB9EUt0
via IFTTT

Trump Issues Blistering Response After Iran’s Supreme Leader Threatens U.S., as All Sides Claim Victory in Conflict

President Donald Trump issued blistering remarks in response to Iran’s Supreme Leader claiming victory over Israel and, by extension, the U.S. In a loaded public message, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had also threatened to attack more U.S. Military bases, further splintering the Middle Eastern country’s relationship with the U.S.

“Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell,” Trump said as he addressed the Iranian Supreme Leader during a White House press conference on Friday. Trump issued an even stronger response on his social media platform, Truth Social, later in the day, and doubled down on his stance once more when he reposted his message early Saturday morning.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In the lengthy post, Trump accused Khamenei of publicly sharing a “lie” by claiming Iran achieved a victory over Israel. He reaffirmed his much debated viewpoint that the U.S. strikes “obliterated” the three key nuclear facilities it targeted on Saturday, June 21. Trump also seemingly made reference to previous reports that stated the White House turned down a plan by Israel to try and kill Khamenei.

“His country was decimated, his three evil nuclear sites were obliterated, and I knew exactly where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces… terminate his life. I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death,” Trump said, lamenting that Khamenei would not “thank” him for this. “During the last few days, I was working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery. The sanctions are biting! But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief.”

According to Congress, the U.S. sanctions on Iran “are arguably the most extensive and comprehensive set of sanctions that the United States maintains on any country.” They block Iranian government assets in the U.S., ban nearly all U.S. trade with Iran, and prohibit foreign assistance and arms sales.

Read More: How U.S. Strikes May Have Inadvertently Helped the Iranian Regime

Trump concluded his charged social media message by saying “Iran has to get back into the world order flow” or else things “will only get worse for them.”

“They are always so angry, hostile, and unhappy, and look at what it has gotten them. A burned out, blown up country with no future, a decimated military, a horrible economy, and death all around them. They have no hope, and it will only get worse! I wish the leadership of Iran would realize that you often get more with honey than you do with vinegar. Peace!”

Khamenei broke his silence on Thursday, publicly speaking out—via a pre-recorded televised address and various social media comments— for the first time since Trump announced the (admittedly fragile) cease-fire between Israel and Iran.

Read More: Shaky Israel-Iran Cease-Fire Appears to Hold After Trump Publicly Rebukes Both Countries

In his televised message, Khamenei threatened to attack more U.S. military bases should any further aggression from the U.S. side occur.

“The Islamic Republic slapped America in the face. It attacked one of the important American bases in the region,” Khamenei said, referring to his country’s air assault on Al Udeid Air Base, a U.S. airbase in Qatar. The strikes were intercepted by the U.S. (except for one that was allowed to proceed as there was no risk of contact), and no casualties were reported. The military action was retaliatory, a direct response to the U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities. 

Khamenei claimed “total victory” over Israel. But Israel, the U.S., and Iran have all claimed to have won the war that started on June 13, when Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, amid growing concern over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. When the U.S. actively joined the conflict on June 21, striking three key Iranian nuclear facilities, world leaders urged de-escalation and a return to negotiations, amid fears of a far-reaching war erupting.

Read More: ‘Gravely Alarmed’ World Leaders React After U.S. Strikes Iran

Though Trump continues to say that Iran’s nuclear sites were “totally obliterated,” others have cast doubts on how effective the U.S. strikes were in setting back Iran’s nuclear program. Leaked U.S. intelligence suggested that the damage to Iran’s nuclear program may not be as severe as Trump has stated. CIA director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that the sites had been “severely damaged” by the U.S. strikes, and that it would take years to be rebuilt. Amid the debate, the White House has put out statements arguing Trump’s stance that the facilities were “obliterated,” labelling reports to the contrary as “fake news.”

But some Democrats left a classified meeting with lingering questions over the effectiveness of the strikes.

“There’s no doubt there was damage done to the program, but the allegations that we have obliterated their program just don’t seem to stand up to reason,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on Thursday. “To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months.”

When asked about concerns of Iran having “secret nuclear sites” at Friday’s press conference, Trump said he was “not worried about it at all.”

“They’re exhausted. The last thing they’re thinking about right now is nuclear,” he told reporters. “You know what they’re thinking of? They’re thinking about tomorrow, trying to live in such a mess. The place was bombed to hell.”

Read More: Key Takeaways From the 2025 NATO Summit

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that Trump needs to retire his “disrespectful” tone towards Khamenei if he wants a deal to be struck between the U.S. and Iran.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers,” he said. “The great and powerful Iranian people, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our missiles, do not take kindly to threats and insults.”

Araghchi was referencing remarks made by NATO chief Mark Rutte who, during the NATO Summit on Wednesday, referred to Trump as the “daddy” who had to intervene in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Amid the back-and-forth between Trump and Iran, on Saturday, thousands of mourners gathered in Tehran for the funerals of top Iranian military commanders and scientists that were killed in the Israeli strikes. According to reports, crowds chanted “death to” Israel and America.

Araghchi paid tribute to those who had been killed, and went on to tell Iranians on Saturday that the “pride of a nation is paramount,” pledging that Iran would return to “new glory and greater strength.”

from TIME https://ift.tt/YRhFkgV
via IFTTT

I Helped Negotiate the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal. It’s Still the Best Way Forward

Questions remain over the true damage to Iran’s nuclear program. But as conflicting comments and reports come in from the Trump Administration and Pentagon intelligence estimates, one thing is certain: Trump’s failed diplomacy got us in this mess. 

I should know. Ten years ago, I was in Vienna as part of the U.S. team negotiating a deal to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. 

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Those negotiations culminated in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was Trump’s decision in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal that ultimately led to the perilous situation in the Middle East today. 

The JCPOA was the result of a sustained campaign of principled, effective U.S. diplomacy. President Obama began laying groundwork for this nuclear deal as soon as he came to office in 2009. His view—shared then and now across the U.S. political spectrum—was that the U.S. cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran. At the time, Iran claimed that its nuclear energy program was for exclusively peaceful uses. Yet given evidence of Iran’s past interest in possessing a nuclear bomb prior to 2003, the U.S. could not take this claim at face value.

To get the nuclear deal, Obama and his national security team rallied the world to increase pressure on Tehran. The U.S., E.U., and other allies put in place punishing sanctions. The U.N. Security Council followed suit with a fresh round of sanctions in June 2010 that were wide-ranging and targeted the nuclear program. 

These sanctions worked: they convinced Iran to come to the negotiating table. To iron out the technical provisions of a deal, the U.S. then put together a team of top career diplomats, nuclear scientists, lawyers, and sanctions experts. It was a remarkable lineup of American patriots and professionals. It was my great honor to serve on that team.

Our goal was to offer Iran phased and reversible sanctions relief in exchange for far-reaching limits on Iran’s nuclear activities. To maximize leverage, we coordinated with other countries, including not just European allies but also Russia and China. It was difficult, exacting, high-stakes work—for months on end.

The effort paid off. Iran agreed to substantial limits on its nuclear activities, including to export out of the country around 98% of its enriched uranium stockpile. Iran’s commitments were then subject to intrusive and permanent international monitoring. By the end of the Obama Administration, the deal was working, with all sides implementing their commitments. 

Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 led to the predictable result: Iran’s nuclear program surged ahead, breaking free of the deal’s constraints.

When Trump returned to office in January, he launched a hasty effort to negotiate a new deal. But it bore a striking resemblance to the deal negotiated by Obama, with one nuclear expert calling the Trump framework a “dollar store JCPOA.”

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu tanked these talks with airstrikes on June 12. The U.S. launched its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22. 

Trump seems convinced the matter is now resolved. But what will be the fate of the tons of enriched uranium that Iran stockpiled after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA? How much Iranian nuclear infrastructure remains intact? Will Iran ever welcome back intrusive international monitoring of its nuclear activities, such as specified in the JCPOA?

To resolve these questions, the Trump Administration will need to do the tedious, difficult work of pursuing complex negotiations. Talks look set to resume next week.

But it will require a high level of technical expertise and diplomatic capacity. And the timing couldn’t be worse, as Trump and Elon Musk’s culture war on the so-called “Deep State” has hollowed out and demoralized the ranks of government experts whose support was critical to achieving the JCPOA in the first place. 

This sad saga has reminded me of what we’ve lost in the Trump era. The JCPOA was a product of effective and principled American diplomacy, undertaken in close coordination with our closest allies. It was a team effort by countless government professionals and specialists, all motivated by patriotism and a sense of mission, and operating in an era where they were celebrated not denigrated. It was a victory of dialogue and diplomacy over bluster and bombs.

Ten years ago that approach delivered results for the American people and the world. I worry about what comes next.

from TIME https://ift.tt/1357l69
via IFTTT

The Real-Life Inspirations Behind Squid Game’s VIPs in Season 3

Squid Game mostly follows its desperate contestants: members of the poor and working class who opt into a series of deadly games for a slim chance at getting out from under capitalism’s boot. While the most cutthroat of these Player characters can become targets of audience ire, Hwang Dong-hyuk’s mirror for late-stage capitalism makes it clear where the blame for bloodshed truly lies: with a cabal of uber-wealthy people, known as the VIPs. First introduced in the seventh episode of Season 1, aptly titled “V.I.P.S,” this group is made up of six disgustingly rich English-speaking men, who watch the Game’s final rounds in person.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The first season VIPs were described to the actors hired to portray them as “total idiots” and “dirtbag millionaires,” and the characters live up to those descriptions. The mask-wearing egotists are pampered at every turn by the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and the Game’s workers as they bet on the Players’ lives like they are horses in a race. The VIPs are led by Oh Il-nam, who earned his own massive fortune as a moneylender. In Season 1, Oh Il-nam enters himself in the Game as Player 001 as a way to pass the time while he dies from a terminal illness. On his comfy deathbed, Oh Il-nam tells Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) that he originally pitched the idea of the Game because he was bored.

In Season 3, which brings Squid Game to an end on June 27, the VIPs take on a more significant role as their moral degradation reaches new lows. “They take their masks off and go into the game and kill others with their own hands,” Hwang tells TIME, through an interpreter, referring to the characters’ arrival in Episode 3. This time, they temporarily trade their dinner dress and opulent animal masks for the soldiers’ signature pink suits and black masks, and swap their champagne glasses for machine guns to hunt down and kill the round’s “losers” themselves. Unlike Season 1, this group of VIPs are not afraid to unmask themselves and reveal their identities.

For the Squid Game creator, the VIPs’ more active Season 3 role stems from his real-world observations. “In the past, those that really controlled the system and maintained power, they were hidden behind the curtain, almost like this big unseen conspiracy. However, it’s no longer the case, especially in America,” Hwang says. “We talk a lot about oligarchy these days, but these so-called big tech owners, they step up, telling everyone who they’re backing with their money. The people who really control the power and the system, they no longer hide behind a curtain. They willingly take their masks off, almost as if to declare, ‘We’re the ones running everything. We’re the ones in control.’”

In 2020, when the first season of Squid Game was filmed, the world had about 2,000 billionaires, worth roughly $8 trillion. In 2025, that number has risen to over 3,000, worth over $16 trillion. (For reference, one million seconds is about 11.5 days, while one billion seconds is about 31.5 years.) Collectively, these billionaire humans have more wealth than the GDP of any country in the world, save for the U.S. or China. Elon Musk’s current net worth of $412 billion is bigger than the GDPs of all but 24 countries, including Denmark, Iran, and Malaysia. The lavish Venice wedding of Jeff Bezos, the fourth-richest person in the world, is set to take place the same weekend as Squid Game Season 3’s release on Netflix. The private event costs at least an estimated $46 million and has reportedly necessitated the use of around 90 private jets for the transport of its guests.

While Hwang didn’t base Squid Game’s VIP characters on any real people, that doesn’t mean they don’t resemble members of the increasingly powerful billionaire class. After finishing Season 1, Hwang noted that one of the VIPs unintentionally resembled Donald Trump, the richest person to ever be president of the United States. A similar realization happened after crafting Season 3. “Elon Musk is everywhere these days, right?” notes Hwang, of the world’s richest person and Trump’s top campaign donor. “Everybody talks about him. Not only is he the head of a huge tech company that controls the world almost, but he’s also this showman. After writing [Season 3], of course I thought, ‘Oh, some of the VIPs do kind of resemble Elon Musk.’”

How real-world political polarization inspired Squid Game Season 3

In a better reality, Hwang would have less inspiration for Squid Game. The series was famously inspired by the director’s own struggles following the 2008 financial crisis, and the broader infrastructure of growing wealth inequality: the cryptocurrency boom, the rise of tech giants, and Donald Trump’s first presidency.

Since the release of Squid Game’s first season, things have arguably gotten worse. The consolidation of wealth amongst a miniscule fraction of the Earth’s population continues, contributing to the conditions for the global rise of facism. “All around the world, including in European countries, we see extreme right-wing [movements] taking power,” says Hwang. “We see a continued divide due to political views. In Korea recently, we had former president Yoon [Suk-yeol] declare martial law. He was impeached, but there are very strong, extreme supporters who believe that all of our elections have been rigged. All of these things are leading to exacerbated social conflict and division.”

Hwang was also shaken by the deadly events of January 6, 2021, which saw a mob of Trump supporters storm the Capital following the president’s loss in the 2020 election. The insurrection was egged on by Trump himself. “America is known for its liberal democracy,” he says, “and to see just how intense of a divide elections and voting and political views can put people in… that was very shocking, honestly, so that was also part of the current events that inspired me.”

We see this theme of global polarization explored in Squid Game through a ramping up of the in-Game voting process in Seasons 2 and 3. Between every round, the surviving Players cast their votes. Those who vote “X” want the Game to end, and for the remaining Players to divide the accumulated prize money equally. Those who vote “O” want to keep playing. In Squid Game, the limits of voting and democracy within a society of such extreme inequality are made clear, as the terms have been set by those in power. The set-up encourages two factions who increasingly dislike and fear one another. The Players are left to fight among themselves, while ignoring the VIPs who enjoy unfettered luxury without having to ever “play” at all. 

In the season’s penultimate episode, during the Game’s final round, the surviving contestants take a vote on which Player to kill next. Their options include a baby, whom they see as an easy target. “Let’s vote on who should get eliminated, and keep it democratic,” one Player says to another, as if they are not talking about murder.

“In the past, through elections, while there were obviously always conflicts based on your political views, at least we all looked at one future together and we had a certain level of tolerance,” says Hwang. “I don’t think that is the case anymore. We no longer think that our views are different. We think that the other view is wrong, and only my view is right. Seeing all of these things happen around the world and in a world where so much of our news and our so-called knowledge is based on algorithms and AI-generated news, I thought that it is time for us to beg the question: Are elections still a very effective system?”

from TIME https://ift.tt/FyY08Dp
via IFTTT

Squid Game Is Back to Its Brutal Best in a Final Season That Cuts to the Bone

If you have a low threshold for spoilers, you might want to save this review for after you’ve watched Squid Game Season 3.

There is an exquisitely devastating episode early in the third and final season of Squid Game. For almost all of its hourlong runtime,“The Starry Night” follows contestants darting around a multi-floor indoor maze of hallways and locked rooms, its ceilings painted deep blue with yellow stars like an elementary school mural, playing a lethal game of hide-and-seek. Half of the players are given knives and told they’ll be eliminated if they don’t kill at least one person from the other group, who get keys that open some of the doors as a sort of head start. It’s a simple setup, but it makes for superb television. More than ever before, we see characters making individual decisions to kill and die; just about everyone comes out a murderer, a hero, a corpse, or some combination of the three. This is the kind of episode that will surely thrill fans and inspire recappers to dissect the ethical and emotional dimensions of each unthinkable choice.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

That, at least, was my reaction. Then I pressed play on the following episode and was embarrassed to see the VIPs—oh yes, they’re back, those monstrous and awkward masked elites who listlessly spectate the last few Squid Games on site—voicing some of the same observations that had occurred to me. Yikes. Welcome to the exhilaratingly brutal last chapter of Squid Game, which ensnares viewers with characters and storylines we can’t help but care about, then implicates us for treating a sadistic spectacle as entertainment. There’s no underestimating the harm Netflix did to Squid Game by merchandising this dark satire of capitalism into consumerist oblivion, then delaying its conclusion with a second season that was mostly filler. But I’m pleased to report that writer, director, and executive producer Hwang Dong-hyuk has wrested his creation from more cynical hands. Despite all the indignities to which it’s been subjected, the show closes with its most unsparing season yet, an indictment of societies where money trumps humanity that roots out all forms of complicity—especially our own.

The groundwork for these final six episodes was laid in a Season 2 finale that ended just as the plot started moving. (Could the 13 episodes that comprised the show’s second and third seasons have been compressed into a single 10- or even eight-part season? Easily, and almost all of the cuts would have come from the first batch.) Our hangdog hero, Squid Game veteran Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), had fomented revolution among some of the players, but that revolution failed, revealing that his ostensible comrade-in-arms, Player 001, was actually the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and leaving casualties that weigh heavily on his conscience. The aftermath is a crushing return to death games as usual. There’s a torturous rendition of jump rope to be played, cash to be won, people to be “eliminated,” and soon enough, VIPs to entertain.

The VIPs were among the most divisive elements of Squid Game’s first season, and it’s not hard to see why. Suddenly, we had a new cast of live-action cartoons in sparkly animal masks speaking a version of English that sounded pretty stilted to Anglophone ears. Their scenes threw the tone out of whack, adding an element of artifice to a show whose emotionally realistic storytelling balanced out a far-fetched premise. None of the actors playing VIPs is in danger of winning an Emmy. And yet, the VIPs are crucial. On one hand, more than even the Front Man who oversees the awful spectacle, they’re the show’s ultimate villains—the people who pay for the annual pleasure of watching hundreds of high-concept murders. Yet their role as spectators of and commentators on the stylized death games that we, too, are watching and talking about also makes them a mirror for the audience. In what could be interpreted as a response to Squid Game’s emergence as a global phenomenon—albeit one neutered by reality competition spin-offs and child-size Player 456 Halloween costumes—the VIPs’ return in the final season emphasizes this uncomfortable identification between viewer and villain.

If the VIPs were Season 1’s sour note, then in Season 2, slow-moving side plots set among the guards and the search party looking for Squid Game Island provided less jarring but more extensive distractions from the main event. Detective Hwang Jun-ho’s (Wi Ha-jun) procedural-like quest to follow Gi-hun back to the island, in hopes of shutting down the abhorrent competition and confronting his brother the Front Man, dominated the first two episodes; once the games began, Jun-ho and his crew mostly drifted around, lost. Meanwhile, a guard, Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young), who’d left her young daughter behind when she defected from North Korea, was putting herself at risk by interfering with her co-workers’ organ-harvesting side hustle. By the Season 2 finale, her purpose in the show remained opaque. Season 3 quickens the pace of both stories, though they function mostly as catalysts for the endgame.

That endgame is nothing short of gutting. Though we do get the occasional glimpse of hope, it’s overshadowed by horror after horror, each revealing a new dimension of Director Hwang’s diatribe against greed. This doesn’t make Season 3 a rehash of Season 1 but a profound, frequently poignant, and, yes, thrillingly twist-packed deepening of its themes. It is, in particular, an acknowledgment that individual heroes, burdened by conscience and a disproportionately low share of resources, can only do so much in the face of systemic evil. As one wise character laments to Gi-hun: “Bad people do bad things, but they blame others and go on to live in peace. Good people, on the other hand, beat themselves up about the smallest things.” To pretend a Squid Game victory could be anything but pyrrhic would be to accept a fairy tale written by the worst people on the planet. The only true victory would be a victory over Squid Game. So, Hwang is asking, when will the millions of us watching impotently from the sidelines join the Gi-huns of the world?  

from TIME https://ift.tt/bPL1x78
via IFTTT

How Gay Marriage Is Under Threat in the Trump Era

What a difference a few months make. Just before Donald Trump returned to office in January, gay marriage was thought to be settled law in the United States. After all, it was only 10 years ago that the U.S. Supreme Court declared gay marriage a constitutionally-protected right with its landmark decision on Obergefell v. Hodges. But a flurry of executive orders targeting the LGBTQ community casts a big shadow over the future of gay marriage.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

On Jan. 25, his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order that declared: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” Soon after, Trump blocked trans women from participating in female sports and the Pentagon banned trans people from serving openly in the military. U.S. park services then deleted LGBTQ references from national landmarks such as Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, the site of some of the earliest gay rights protests. The Trump Administration followed that by canceling $800 million in grants that research LGBTQ health and shutting down a national suicide hotline catered to LGBTQ youth.

But how endangered is gay marriage under Trump? Gay marriage activists and their allies take comfort in the high support that gay marriage enjoys among the American public. According to a Gallup poll from May, more than two in three Americans support it, and nearly as many say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable. Gallup also noted that a majority of Americans have backed gay marriage since the early 2010s.

It is a testament to these sentiments that the U.S. Congress enacted the Respect for Marriage Act (RMFA) in 2022 with broad bipartisan support. This law recognizes the legality of gay marriage for federal purposes, such as allowing same-sex couples to file a joint tax return. It also requires that states accept same-sex marriage licenses issued by another state.

But neither these protections nor the polls should create a sense of complacency. Support for gay marriage among Americans is decreasing not increasing. The 69% support that gay marriage garnered in May is below the 71% recorded in 2022 and 2023. A majority of Republicans also once again oppose gay marriage, with support dropping 14 points since 2022.

Contrary to public perception, the RMFA did not codify Obergefell into law. RMFA primarily allows for federal recognition of gay marriage, by repealing the odious Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was enacted in 1996 at the peak of the moral panic over gay marriage orchestrated by the Christian right. DOMA prohibited federal recognition of gay marriage even if the marriage was conducted in a state that had legalized it.

Consequently, if Obergefell were to be nullified, the RMFA will protect federal recognition of gay marriage. But it will not prevent the reactivation of dozens of gay marriage bans erected across the U.S. prior to 2015, most of which are still in the books. Nor will the RMFA prevent states from erecting new legal barriers. In fact, the legislation exempts nonprofit religious organizations from providing “any services, facilities, or goods for the solemnization or celebration of marriage.” All of this explains why the RMFA got a chilly reception among gay rights activists.

Until recently moribund, the anti-gay marriage movement is also showing signs of life. It has been re-invigorated by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended 50 years of legalized abortion in America. In comments that delighted gay marriage foes and alarmed gay marriage activists, Justice Clarence Thomas said the Court should also “reconsider” past rulings on same-sex marriage and contraception.

Just this month, the annual conference of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., called for an end to gay marriage. The move echoes ongoing efforts by half a dozen Republican-controlled states to undermine gay marriage.

Yet other states are fighting back. Democratic legislators in Virginia and Oregon are working to repeal laws and constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage that could in theory be resuscitated should Obergefell be overturned.

Meanwhile, the revived debate about gay marriage offers an opportunity to reframe the issue. During the 1990s, gay marriage activists embraced the view that it was a civil rights matter, noting some 1,000 marriage benefits only available to straight couples. But this framing backfired by coming across as legalistic and materialistic. After several setbacks, especially California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, gay activists pitched a new framing of “love and commitment.” While this narrative boosted support for gay marriage, its modesty meant that a big opportunity was missed to make a more transformative impact on societal attitudes toward LGBTQ people.

Going forward, gay activists should frame gay marriage as something morally sound and intrinsically good. For one thing, the apocalyptic predictions that social conservatives made about gay marriage—from the advent of another Civil War to the disappearance of straight children to the end of marriage itself—never came to pass. There is also now a wealth of data that highlights the benefits of gay marriage for the gay community and society as a whole.

In the 10 years since Obergefell became the law of the land, it is clear that gay marriage has been good for the American gay community, and perhaps even better for America at large. It would be a national shame and a massive setback for LGBTQ equality were it to be revoked.

from TIME https://ift.tt/KdjaoHA
via IFTTT