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I do my best thinking when I run. I love to run. So why don’t I do it more? Where to start? Working full-time for decades while raising two kids, with most of my career rooted in office culture before remote work was even a concept. That meant late nights, early wake-ups, work events, and heels that wreck your feet, plus years of jet lag from endless travel. My family knows all the personal sacrifices I’ve made.
But a recent run got me thinking. It was sparked by New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s essay, A Free People Need a Free Press, originally delivered at Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute. Sulzberger writes passionately about the existential threats facing a free press, from economic collapse to political intimidation, and how journalism must stand as a bulwark in a time of profound civic deterioration.
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His message resonated deeply. My career has spanned legacy media institutions, each one in need of all the “re-” words: reinvention, revitalization, recalibration, and most of all, revenue transformation. We can’t protect a free press unless we also make it a viable business. These institutions must be sustainable, not charitable.
We are at an inflection point unlike any in media history. Journalism is under siege, attacked by our politics, by the economy and by technological change. As Sulzberger notes, a third of newsroom jobs have vanished in 15 years, and newspapers are shuttering at a rate of two per week. The attention economy is controlled by tech platforms that are indifferent, if not outright hostile, to quality journalism. At the same time, public trust in media is near historic lows, and the financial models that once supported enterprise journalism are unraveling.
On the business side, media leaders are battling declining advertising revenues, rising content costs, platform dependency, and the relentless pressure to scale and innovate amid economic uncertainty. On the editorial side, journalists face growing threats, from political interference to online harassment. They are confronting the complex mandate to maintain editorial independence while navigating cultural polarization, disinformation, and now, generative AI.
And yet, amid this upheaval, something remarkable is happening: many of the world’s leading media companies are now being led by women. CEOs at AP, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, The Guardian, Hearst, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Politico, X, and yes, TIME are all women.
What do we share? Quite a lot.
We are operators. We’ve been responsible for P&Ls. Many of us came up through commercial roles: CROs, CFOs, COOs, CCOs, CBOs. We’ve run companies through digital disruption and audience fragmentation. We’ve moved legacy organizations from print to digital, from linear to streaming, from traditional to social, and now, into the AI era. We’ve done the work not once, but repeatedly. We’ve operated through cycles of boom and bust, advertising highs and market contractions. Several of us have worked for high-profile owners who acquired these institutions not just for passion but as forms of civic responsibility.
Some will label this a “glass cliff” moment, one where women are being appointed to leadership roles during times of crisis or downturn, situations where the risk of failure is high. But this doesn’t feel like a glass cliff. There are too many of us. We’re not symbolic hires or last-ditch efforts. We’re experienced, prepared, and yes, resilient. We didn’t arrive at these roles by accident. We’ve earned the opportunity to lead, and we are doing so in one of the most consequential moments in media history. We’re not here to disrupt. We’re here to rebuild, smarter, stronger, and more sustainable businesses.
I’m writing this to recognize this moment and to recognize the women leading it.
To the men who supported me, mentored me, or made space for me—thank you. To the women who came before me, especially pioneers like Katharine Graham, who shattered ceilings in eras far less welcoming, we are standing on your shoulders. And to the women rising behind me, I see you.
Oh—and this summer? I plan to run more. I do my best thinking out there.
Former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with a “more aggressive” form of prostate cancer, his office said in a statement on Sunday.
According to the statement, Biden, 82, was diagnosed with cancer on Friday, May 16, upon a medical check after experiencing “increasing urinary symptoms.” It added that Biden’s cancer was characterized by a Gleason score of 9, with metastasis to the bone.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” the office said. Biden and his family are reviewing treatment options.
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It’s not Biden’s first brush with cancer: he had a skin lesion removed in 2023 that turned out to be basal cell carcinoma, and his son Beau died in 2015 of brain cancer. The elder Biden also had a brain aneurysm in the late 1980s that almost killed him. But the new prostate cancer diagnosis has been met with a wave of support for the former President, given his age as well as longstanding concerns about his health condition.
Here’s what to know about the disease Biden was diagnosed with.
What is prostate cancer?
According to the National Cancer Institute, prostate cancer is a type of cancer that forms in the tissues of the prostate—a gland in the male reproductive system that adds fluid to semen.
Signs and symptoms may include trouble starting to urinate or trouble emptying the bladder, frequent urination, or weak and interrupted urine flow. In its advanced stages, it may include pain in the back, hips, or pelvis that doesn’t go away, shortness of breath, malaise, fast heartbeats, dizziness, or anemia-caused pale skin.
As men age, the prostate may grow bigger—a condition called benign prostatic hyperplasia—and cause such blockages, which can mimic the symptoms of prostate cancer. Doctors can perform a range of tests, from a digital rectal exam to a blood test, to determine whether a patient has prostate cancer.
Most prostate cancers grow slowly. Those who have genetic or hereditary prostate cancer may have malignancies appear earlier or grow at a faster rate.
When confined to the prostate, the cancer is potentially curable. The chances of surviving prostate cancer decrease at later stages when the disease has metastasized, or spread to other parts of the body.
What is the Gleason score?
The NCI defines the Gleason score as a way to describe prostate cancer depending on “how abnormal the cancer cells in a biopsy sample look under a microscope and how quickly they are likely to grow and spread.” It is “used to help plan treatment and determine prognosis (outcome).”
The Gleason score is calculated by adding the grades, the measures of that abnormality, of the two types of cells that make up the largest portion of the biopsied prostate tissue.
A Gleason score usually ranges from 6 to 10, with a lower Gleason score meaning the cells look more normal and are likely to grow and spread slowly.
Biden’s score of 9 indicates a more aggressive cancer. Scores of 9 or 10 are considered “high-grade”, or Grade Group 5.
The statement did not indicate the stage (I, II, III, or IV) of Biden’s cancer, which describes the cancer’s size and spread and is often used to understand prognosis, though based on the description it is likely to be Stage IV. (There is no “stage 5,” as Donald Trump Jr. suggested about Biden’s diagnosis in a post on X.)
Is prostate cancer curable?
While advanced prostate cancer cannot be completely cured, it can be treated, though treatment largely depends on the stage of its development. With treatment, it is possible for some patients to see the disease go into remission, which means the cancer cells are undetectable.
Treatments can include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy.
The announcement from Biden’s office said his cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive. Hormone therapy blocks male sex hormones, which can cause prostate cancer cells to grow.
What are the statistics for prostate cancer?
Prostate cancer is common in older men, with the NCI estimating that about 1 in 8 males in the U.S. will be diagnosed with the disease. Prostate cancer, according to the NCI, is most frequently diagnosed in men aged between 65 and 74, with the median age of diagnosis at 68. The median age of death is 79.
The NCI estimates that in 2025, there will be 313,780 prostate cancer cases—or 15.4% of all new cancer cases—and some 35,770 prostate cancer deaths or 5.8% percent of all cancer-related deaths.
The five-year relative survival rate—or the estimate of the percentage of patients expected to survive the effects of their cancer for five years or longer—of those with prostate cancer is 97.9%.
While NCI reports that prostate cancer diagnoses have increased at a year-on-year rate of about 1.8% from 2013 to 2022, death rates have been falling on average 0.6% each year from 2014 to 2023.
Political leaders from across parties in the U.S. extended their sympathies to Democratic former President Joe Biden, 82, after his office announced Sunday that he was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.
Biden, who served as Vice President from 2009 to 2017 and President from 2021 to January, and his family are reviewing treatment options, according to the announcement. His Administrations had made addressing cancer a priority, launching the “Cancer Moonshot” initiative to try to make it such that “a diagnosis isn’t a death sentence.” Biden lost his son Beau in 2015 to brain cancer.
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Here are some of the messages of support for Biden that have come in since his diagnosis was made public:
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump, who has constantly attacked Biden’s health and cognitive ability from the 2024 campaign trail to the present, sent well wishes to Biden in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis,” Trump said, referencing the First Lady. “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff
Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2024 election after Biden pulled out of the race amid concerns about his fitness, posted on X: “Doug [Emhoff] and I are saddened to learn of President Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis. We are keeping him, Dr. [Jill] Biden, and their entire family in our hearts and prayers during this time. Joe is a fighter—and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership. We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery.”
Doug Emhoff, the former Second Gentleman, replied with a brief message of his own to Biden: “Sending love and strength to my friend @JoeBiden.”
Barack Obama
Former President Barack Obama, whom Biden served with as Vice President for two terms, also wished Biden well in a post on X: “Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family. Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.”
Bill and Hillary Clinton
The Clintons also wished Biden well.
Former President Bill Clinton, who was diagnosed with skin cancer at the end of his presidency in 2001, posted on X: “My friend Joe Biden’s always been a fighter. Hillary and I are rooting for him and are keeping him, Jill, and the entire family in our thoughts.”
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also posted a message for Biden and his family. “I’m thinking of the Bidens as they take on cancer, a disease they’ve done so much to try to spare other families from,” Clinton posted. “Wishing you a speedy, full recovery.”
Marco Rubio
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a brief statement on X on behalf of himself and his wife: “Jeanette and I are united in prayer for the Biden Family during this difficult time.”
Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg, who ran against Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and then worked under Biden as Transportation Secretary, posted on X: “President Biden is a man of deep faith and extraordinary resilience. Chasten and I are keeping him, and the entire Biden family, in our prayers for strength and healing.”
Xavier Becerra
Biden’s former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra extended his well wishes to Biden and his family on X: “Sending our strength and prayers to President Biden, Dr. Biden and family as they navigate his treatment together.”
Mike Johnson
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R, La.) also extended well wishes to Biden. “This is certainly sad news, and the Johnson family will be joining the countless others who are praying for the former President in the wake of his diagnosis,” Johnson posted on X.
Steve Scalise
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R, La.), who battled blood cancer after a 2023 diagnosis, also posted on X: “Praying for former President Joe Biden as he battles prostate cancer 🙏”
Hakeem Jeffries
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D, N.Y.) issued a statement shortly after Biden’s cancer diagnosis went public. “The House Democratic Caucus and our nation are praying for President Joe Biden and his family as he battles this challenging medical diagnosis,” Jeffries said. “Over the years, the Biden family has confronted unimaginable adversity with grace and steadfast perseverance. We stand with President Biden as he confronts this moment with the same courage and resilience he has shown throughout his life.”
Nancy Pelosi
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) posted on X: “President Joe Biden is a great American patriot. Paul and I join the millions across the country and around the world praying for him to have strength and a swift recovery in the battle against cancer. Sending love to him and his family.”
Chuck Schumer
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y.) posted on X: “I am praying for President Biden and the entire Biden family.”
Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy, former 2024 Republican presidential primary candidate who is now running for Governor in Ohio, posted on X: “Politics aside, let’s pray for the health of our nation’s former President. His case of metastatic prostate cancer appears to be still in the hormone-sensitive disease stage, which leaves open the possibility of effective treatment.” Ramaswamy, a billionaire, made his fortune building a biotech company that went on to develop drugs including for prostate cancer treatment.
Governors
Mike Dunleavy
Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R, Alaska) posted on X: “Rose and I are praying for Joe Biden and his family, and we wish him a swift recovery.”
Katie Hobbs
“This is horrible news,” Gov. Katie Hobbs (D, Ariz.) posted on X. “My heart is with former President Biden and his entire family.”
Gavin Newsom
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D, Calif.) posted on X: “Our hearts are with President Biden and his entire family right now. A man of dignity, strength, and compassion like his deserves to live a long and beautiful life. Sending strength, healing and prayers his way.”
Brian Kemp
Gov. Brian Kemp (R. Ga.) posted on X: “All Georgians send our sincere wishes to former President Biden for successful treatments and a full recovery. He and the Biden family will remain in our thoughts and prayers in the coming days and weeks.”
JB Pritzker
Gov. JB Pritzker (D, Ill.) also posted a message of support for Biden on X: “President Biden knows that when you get knocked down, you get back up and fight. I join the nation in sending strength to President Biden and his family and hope for a full recovery. We’re with you in this fight, Joe.”
Wes Moore
Gov. Wes Moore (D, Md.) posted on X: “Dawn and I carry @JoeBiden and his family in our hearts today. He stood with me during some of the toughest times in our state, and we stand with him today. We pray for his strength and a swift recovery.”
Tim Walz
Gov. Tim Walz (D, Minn.), who was Harris’ running mate in 2024, called Biden “a truly decent man and a friend” in a post on X. “Gwen and I are praying for President Biden and his family,” Walz wrote. “We’re wishing him all the best.”
Phil Murphy
Gov. Phil Murphy (D, N.J.) posted on X: “Tammy and I are keeping former President @JoeBiden in our prayers and wishing Jill and the entire Biden family strength during this difficult time.”
Kathy Hochul
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D, N.Y.) posted on X: “President Biden has served our nation with distinction. During this difficult time, Bill and I are praying for his health and a speedy recovery.”
Josh Shapiro
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D, Pa.) posted on X that he and his wife Lori were praying for Biden’s family. “May they find strength and hope in one another, and be lifted up by the thoughts and prayers of Americans across the country who are thinking of them right now,” Shapiro wrote.
Other Democratic lawmakers
Chris Coons
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, where Biden formerly served as Senator from 1973 to 2009, posted on X: “Annie and I are praying for Joe and Jill as they confront his prostate cancer diagnosis. Over his decades of public service, Joe comforted so many of us in tough times and contributed so much to fighting cancer. Now we need to support and encourage him.”
Eric Swalwell
California Rep. Eric Swalwell posted on X: “My thoughts and prayers are with Joe Biden and his family as they navigate this challenging time. I am wishing him strength and a swift recovery.”
Jasmine Crockett
Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett posted on X: “My heart is with President Biden and his family. Lifting him up in prayer and wishing him a peaceful, successful healing journey.”
John Fetterman
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has battled with his own health issues, posted on X: “Joe has been a fighter his whole life. He will prevail. Sending Dr. Jill Biden and their family my absolute support.”
Joyce Beatty
Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty expressed support for Biden in a post on X. “President @JoeBiden your resilience and strength have always inspired us. As you face this health challenge, my prayers are with you—for continued courage, grace in this moment of trial, and a full recovery.”
Lisa Blunt Rochester
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware posted on X: “To President Biden, know that I am sending you prayers for peace and healing. And to Jill and the entire family, you have a legion of friends and supporters who stand with you on this journey.”
Peter Welch
Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont posted on X: “Margaret and I are praying for President Biden, Jill, and the Biden family during this difficult time. We join Vermonters in wishing him a full recovery.
Ro Khanna
California Rep. Ro Khanna posted on X: “Praying for @JoeBiden and his family to defeat the cancer he’s recently been diagnosed with. He and Jill have always been fighters and I am confident they will meet this challenge with grit and grace.”
Ruben Gallego
Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona posted on X: “My heart goes out to President Biden and his family in light of this terrible news. Sydney and I are praying for his strength and recovery.”
Tim Kaine
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election, said in a post on X that he was praying for Biden and his family “as they take on this challenge.” Kaine added: “Americans will be with them every step of the way.”
Other Republican lawmakers
Anna Paulina Luna
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said in a post on X that she was praying for Biden’s recovery. “This is very sad news,” Luna added.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an outspoken critic of Biden and Democrats, expressed sympathy for the former President and his family after the diagnosis was revealed. “I’m sorry to see this news,” she posted on X. “Cancer is truly awful. My Dad passed away in 2021 with cancer. Prays for Joe Biden and his family.”
Mike Lawler
New York Rep. Mike Lawler, who also lost his father to cancer, posted on X: “Keeping former President @JoeBiden and his family in my prayers. Cancer is a vicious disease that spares no one. We all hope for a speedy recovery.”
Roger Marshall
Sen. Roger Marshall from Kansas posted on X: “Laina and I are sending heartfelt prayers for President Biden and his family as he fights cancer. Please join us in praying for strength, comfort, and hope during this difficult time.”
Susan Collins
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine posted on X that she was “saddened to hear of President Biden’s cancer diagnosis” and is “wishing him and his family well as he begins treatment.”
Thom Tillis
Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina posted on X: “Susan and I are saddened to hear about President Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis and are praying for his full recovery.”
WASHINGTON — Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday.
Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.
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“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said. “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Biden’s office said his score was 9, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive.
When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasized cancer is much harder to treat than localized cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumors and completely root out the disease.
However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Biden’s case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumors of hormones.
Many political leaders sent Biden their wishes for his recovery.
President Donald Trump, a longtime political opponent, posted on social media that he was saddened by the news and “we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
Pete Buttigieg, who was Biden’s transportation secretary, called the former president “a man of deep faith and extraordinary resilience.”
The health of Biden, 82, was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking reelection, Biden abandoned his bid for a second term. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee and lost to Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus.
But in recent days, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book “Original Sin” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aides had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while serving as president.
In February 2023, Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And in November 2021, he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous lesion.
In 2022, Biden made a “cancer moonshot” one of his administration’s priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his older son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015.
His father, when announcing the goal to halve the cancer death rate, said this could be an “American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things.”
—Associated Press writer Jon Fahey in New York contributed to this report.
Some days it seems we live in a horrid world where the majority of humans couldn’t give a fig about art. How many people in that world are going to care about a 66-year-old black-and-white movie—one that, for anyone who doesn’t speak French, requires the reading of subtitles?
Yet here comes a comet: Richard Linklater’s sensational Nouvelle Vague, an agile, witty, elegant picture about the making of a movie that possibly only film lovers and bona fide old people care about—Jean-Luc Godard’s cannon-shot of a debut, 1959’s Breathless—may end up being appreciated by only about 2.6 percent of the general population. Who would make a picture like that? Only someone who cares. Nouvelle Vague, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, is the ultimate inside-baseball making-of movie. But even more than that, it’s a picture that stands strong on the side of art, of history, of working to solve the puzzle of things that maybe at first you don’t fully understand. It’s both a shout of joy and a call to arms. It’s all about the bold, muscular act of caring.
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Jean-Luc Godard was just 29 when he made À bout de souffle—the movie that would come to be known among English-speakers as Breathless—and yet he felt he was lagging behind his peers at Cahiers du Cinéma, the movie journal whose critics became, almost magically, some of the era’s greatest filmmakers. Critics as filmmakers? Beware: it’s a lousy idea. Yet Godard’s Cahiers colleague François Truffaut had already made The 400 Blows, a picture Godard loved, and envied. Ambitious, bratty, and brilliant in a playing-behind-the-beat way, Godard wanted to make his own movie. But who would give him the money?
Nouvelle Vague tells the story of how the enigmatically charming yet sort-of-a-jerk Godard—played, marvelously, by Guillame Marbeck—wheedled his way into making Breathless, shot in just 20 days, guerrilla-style, largely on the streets of Paris. He already had ideas for several films, and in an early scene, he pitches them excitedly to producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürsft). But Beauregard will hire him only if he shoots a script that Truffaut (played here by Adrien Rouyard) has already written. That script, inspired by a real-life story Truffaut had seen in the newspaper, followed a raffishly alluring French layabout, Jean Paul Belmondo’s Michel Poiccard, who steals a car, shoots a cop, and is ultimately betrayed by his American journalist girlfriend, Jean Seberg’s gamine femme fatale Patricia Franchini.
Godard gets to work finding his cast. He wants his friend Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) to play Michel: he goes to the boxing gym where the amiable, loose-limbed actor is working out, joining him in a jump-rope session as he makes his pitch. Can he get Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutsch), already a star, to play Patricia? Boldly, he makes his move, first approaching her husband, François Moreuil (Paolo Luka-Noe), who’s managing her career. She doesn’t like the idea: she doesn’t want to work with this newcomer; she thinks the whole thing will come crashing down; and even after shooting begins, she threatens to quit. Somehow, she sticks with it, at times following Godard’s capricious lead but just as often challenging him. He finds a DP he likes, the gentle giant Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat). There’s a persnickety script girl, Suzon Faye (Pauline Belle), who tries to tell her boss Godard that for continuity’s sake, he can’t remove a cup from a table in one of the small flats the crew has commandeered as a set. “Reality is not continuity!” he says, just one of the many bossy, spontaneous, maddeningly delightful pronouncements he will make as he and his friends—all of them under 30, most of them with virtually no idea what they’re doing—launch into the adventure of making a moving picture.
Don’t know who any of these real-life characters are, or what they look like? Linklater’s got you. He has filled his cast largely with unknowns, seeking actors who closely resemble their real-life counterparts; most of these aren’t faces you’ll recognize, playing people from the past you may never have heard of. But Linklater introduces each player with his or her name neatly emblazoned at the bottom of the screen, similar to the way characters (and often the actors playing them) used to be identified in silent movies, so audiences could get their bearings quickly. It’s easy to follow along, and before you know it, you’re surfing this nascent New Wave with the people who helped create it, held aloft by the buoyancy of Godard and his ramshackle—yet perfectly chosen—team of accomplices.
Godard would start each day of shooting with fresh ideas. When he ran out of them, sometimes after shooting only one or two scenes, he’d quit for the day. Some days, on a whim, he’d call off shooting altogether, causing Beauregard to materialize seemingly out of nowhere in an understandable huff. To shoot on the street without attracting attention, they obtain a postal cart and put the camera—as well as Coutard—inside. Every five minutes or so, Godard blurts out a favorite aphorism. You may already know some of them, like “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.” But so many of them flow from his lips that they become a running gag. He quotes Gaugin (“Art is either plagiarism or revolution”), Duke Ellington (“I don’t need time, I need a deadline”), Leonardo Da Vinci (“Art is never finished, only abandoned”). Marbeck, peering out at the world through dark glasses, shaking his pipe at his cast and crew as he spins out his sometimes puzzling directives, captures the impish magnetism of the young Godard. You want to slug him; you also adore him.
And to watch him, his cast, and his friends make this thing—a movie we freely call a masterpiece, though that’s too snoozy a word for the blast of cool energy that is Breathless—is a particular kind of bliss. Nouvelle Vague is filled with lore: Godard has hired a stuntman to film a somewhat complex scene in which a pedestrian is hit by a car. In the end, he decides to shoot just the aftermath of the accident, getting his friend and fellow filmmaker Jacques Rivette (Jonas Marmy) to lie down in the street and play dead. Deutsch, with her ragamuffin-chic blond pixie cut, is a perfect Seberg. To hear her speak in French, perfectly capturing the way Seberg’s dang-flat midwestern vowels insinuated themselves even in that most beautiful of languages, is a delight unto itself. (Seberg was born in Iowa, though she’s buried where she belongs, in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.) And as Belmondo, Dulling gives a performance of spectacular physicality, whether he’s scrambling in his pocket for chicken feed to buy a small café meal, or, after being shot, staggering and stumbling down a Paris street in a half-tragic, half-funny promenade, with Godard and his camera crew trailing behind. Watching Breathless, we see Belmondo’s jagged ballet from behind. In Nouvelle Vague, we see Dullin-as-Belmondo’s face as he swerves and zigzags toward his demise. Passers-by look alarmed; he tells them not to worry. “It’s for a movie!” he says cheerfully, channeling the essence of Belmondo’s rubbery charm.
Nouvelle Vague was filmed in Paris, but required extensive digital-effects work to make it look accurate for the period. This is filmmaking as leap of faith: Nouvelle Vague may seem glowingly modest, but unlike Breathless, it couldn’t be made on the cheap. At the same time, its layers of details are gorgeous and priceless. Pascaline Chavanne’s costumes, especially Seberg’s wardrobe of minute cardigans and jaunty silk scarves, strike every note perfectly. (And I’m dying to know what Derek Guy, the eminently knowledgeable wag behind the social-media account Die Workwear!, will think of Marbeck-as-Godard’s gently rumpled jackets and scuffed-just-right loafers.) Cinematographer David Chambille gives the images a lustrous, pearly depth. The soundtrack is a buffet of rapturous period jazz, some of it silky, some of it vibrating with skittery energy, much like Martial Solal’s score for Breathless itself. You’ll hear songs you maybe don’t know, like Zoot Sims’ version of “My Old Flame,” and if this is the first time it reaches your ears, I envy you the discovery.
Cannes is obviously the place to premiere a movie like Nouvelle Vague. That 2.6 percent of the population that cares about Breathless? Ninety-eight percent of them are here. But from things he’s said about the film, it seems Linklater doesn’t think of it as niche. And really, isn’t that the only way to go? According to the movie’s press notes, when an apprehensive financing executive asked him who he thought this film was for, he said, “Like all my films, this one is for young people.” It is, after all, about young people making their first movie. He said that if he did his job right, young people would walk out of the theater thinking, “I can do this too! In fact, I’m going to do it!”
But even if you will never in your life pick up a movie camera, Nouvelle Vague is film as invitation—the best kind of film. If you don’t know Breathless—what are you waiting for? And if you do know it—even if you’ve seen it a dozen or a hundred times—Nouvelle Vague will make you see it anew. Is there a difference between loving a movie and being in love with one? Maybe the distinction is subtle. But when a movie that makes you want to weep with joy, you know something is happening. There’s no resisting the gangster of love.
While the Trump Administration’s sharp increases in tariffs have received much of the political and economic attention in our public discourse, there is another subject that could have a far more profound and longer-term negative effect on America which deserves equal, if not greater, attention. This is the serious threat to America’s basic, early stage medical and scientific research.
During World War II, Dr. Vannevar Bush took a leadership role in ensuring U.S. preeminence in science and research by creating the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which led to the creation of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Other similar scientific research institutions followed. And our academic, government, and business innovation collaboration has over time attracted some of the best talent—among both our own citizens and top scientists worldwide.
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But now, support for basic science and medical research is in danger of flatlining. We have witnessed a decline in trust for basic research in recent years. This has been accompanied by significant cuts in government financial support leading to sharp cuts in vital personnel in critical scientific and medical research programs at universities, laboratories, and highly regarded medical and scientific centers throughout the country.
These cuts do not discriminate. They are occurring in red and blue states alike—in Middle America as well as along the East and West Coasts. And this is not just occuring in highly prestigious and heavily funded institutions, but also on a broader scale. As a second order effect, innovation and advanced research in this country is not, and should not be, a monopoly of a few schools and institutions; and we run the risk that these cuts could also be imposed on smaller universities and research institutions in a wide range of cities and regions.
Over a decade ago, as Undersecretary of State responsible for overseeing the Department’s international economic policy, I wrote about the role of innovative, basic science in sustaining America’s global economic power, enhancing domestic prosperity, producing lifesaving new medicines, modernizing the technology used by our military, and creating breakthroughs in many transformational technologies.
Advancements in these areas have been critical to the prosperity and wellbeing of our society, as they are now with accelerating advances in AI and quantum computing. The ultimate benefits of these advances—if sustained—could last for generations to come, potentially providing the basis for many successful new businesses in our country, attracting the world’s top research talent to our nation, and generating millions of high quality jobs for those creating and applying new technologies.
Sustaining this progress will be especially vital to future domestic medical advances and the prosperity of millions of Americans in future generations. It could also enable this country to maintain a strong and technologically preeminent military—an ever more critical need today given the formidable technological competition from China—and shape the future of international scientific cooperation.
Preeminence in science, advanced technology, and medicine is also a key element of America’s soft power, strengthening friendships and alliances with countries that want to develop closer collaboration with U.S. universities, companies, and research centers. It benefits not only Americans but also provides better health and faster economic progress for others around the world.
Preeminence is also needed for continued U.S. leadership in setting rules, norms, and common international practices to ensure that the results of this research are used for the good of our citizens—as opposed to doing harm to our national or global interests.
This dynamic created institutions, and an environment, in the U.S. which supports the best and brightest scientists and researchers from within this country and attracts many thousands who come here from around the world. Today, approximately 16% of all scientists and other STEM workers in the U.S. are foreign born. This is why leaders on both sides of the aisle have strategically prioritized research, as well as the cultivation and attraction of scientific and technological talent, during much of the post-war period.
Many German scientists who could, fled here before or during World War II. After the war, one of our most important innovative initiatives was the highly clandestine “Operation Paper Clip” which brought German scientists here. And during the Cold War era, many of these scientists were critical to our successes in space, nuclear, and broader military achievements. Albert Einstein, being a prime example, taught at America’s advanced universities, but large numbers also taught in small colleges and junior colleges.
And over the past several decades, talented scientists from places such as India, Israel, Japan, China, South Korea and Eastern Europe came to the U.S. as well. Many of them became students and researchers across the country. Some, such as Andy Grove and Sergei Brim, founded, built, and ultimately ran America’s most successful tech companies.
It was in part because of our pro-science, pro-innovation environment and openness to foreign talent, that so many brilliant scholars and researchers came to the United States. They did so for freedom and the opportunity to do innovative research. One did not see such foreign-born scientists falling over one another to go to the Soviet Union, a nation characterized by a heavy-handed and oppressive environment that was not conducive to this. In the end, many of these scientists—and the investment in American science in general—played instrumental roles in winning the Cold War and the Space Race.
But now, support for vital basic early-stage research is falling sharply. Recent, large, and sudden cuts seriously endanger American scientific preeminence and thus America’s prosperity, social wellbeing, and national security. For example, as the result of NSF and NIH funding being dramatically cut, or placed on hold, we are seeing the reversal of talent out of the United States. Companies and governments in many countries are actively advertising to attract researchers being let go by our government institutions, our companies, and our universities due to funding and personnel cuts. Many are highly unlikely to return.
This it is hardly encouraging, considering how vital AI is to our future, that, as Nvidia ‘s CEO recently reminded us, roughly one half of all AI researchers in the world now are Chinese. We used to be the magnet for talent from around the world. Now China, Singapore, other countries in Asia and several European countries as well aim to be—and to create a reverse brain drain.
Those who care about America’s global research and technology leadership, should be alarmed by the deep cuts we are witnessing in research funding, the firing of personnel with enormous scientific expertise, and a sharp shift away from the attraction of foreign scientists—many of whom are critical to our healthcare system, technological innovation, and entrepreneurial success.
For example, recent budget proposals call for a 40% cut in funds for NIH, which would lead to similarly large terminations in vital medical research projects, and an over 50% cut in NSF funding, which will mean terminations in critical STEM education programs. Fortunately, business has significantly increased research and development over the last two decades, but only a small fraction of that goes to critical early stage, basic research.
I am a great believer in reducing this nation’s debt and deficits, which endanger our economy and place an enormous burden on future generations. Cutting unproductive personnel from some parts of the government also makes sense and I commend those in both parties aiming to do this. These cuts, however, must be strategic, justified, and well placed to be effective.
Large and sudden across-the-board cuts, however, inevitably end up cutting or killing essential research funding and the firing of highly talented people. They frequently come at a cost to the health outcomes and economic wellbeing of large numbers of Americans now and for generations to come. Lastly, they threaten our country’s research and technological preeminence on which our strategic and defense capabilities depend—which is especially troubling given the rapid rise of Chinese technical and military prowess.
These are not isolated events that have occurred only in the recent months of this administration or even in recent years. This broad erosion has been taking place for several decades during periods of both Democratic and Republican leadership. Large numbers of Americans have become skeptical about, and some openly hostile to, advanced science and basic research. Some groups are especially skeptical, in most cases due to a plethora of inaccurate information over social media, about immunizations and therapies produced by modern medicine.
This sadly stands in sharp contrast with the virtually unanimous social and bipartisan support and sense of national pride in America’s scientific achievements in decades past, which have led to remarkable breakthroughs: the dramatically successful Salk polio vaccine, various lifesaving HIV/AIDs therapies, mapping the human genome, remarkable U.S. feats in the space race, military technologies that helped win the Cold War, computer and wireless communications technologies that have dramatically boosted business, and countless new medicines being developed in labs throughout our country that have cured or helped prevent, as in Operation Warp Speed, so many diseases in the last several decades.
We need to ensure renewed American leadership and dynamism in these areas. To do so we must reverse this downward course and ensure sustained U.S. leadership in basic medical and scientific research and 21st Century technology development.
President Donald Trump has an enormous opportunity to exercise world class leadership in this area, as American leaders did after World War II. The opportunity is now and the need is urgent, especially while the budget is being debated in Washington.
Making and keeping “America great” will depend heavily on a robust, well-funded, and multifaceted basic research effort by our institutions and scientists, sustaining America’s already remarkable technological and medical advances.
By shifting their emphasis from sharply cutting back support for basic research to enthusiastically funding supporting it now, our leaders in Washington can transcend any one period, party, or administration and instead benefit large numbers of Americans now and for generations to come, who could enjoy opportunities for a longer, healthier and higher quality of life, better jobs, and more defense security.
If America is to have a new “golden age,” investing in research is an indispensably important path to achieve it.
A producer behind reality shows like The Millionaire Matchmaker,Duck Dynasty, and Alpha Dogs has pitched a new reality show idea to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—one in which immigrants compete for U.S. citizenship.
“I’m putting a face to immigration. This is a great celebration of America,” Rob Worsoff told CNN in an interview that aired on Friday, May 16, noting that he himself is an immigrant from Canada.
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Worsoff says that he also pitched this reality show during both previous Democrat Administrations.
In an emailed statement to TIME on Saturday, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary who oversees the DHS’ public outreach, said: “DHS receives hundreds of television show pitches a year, ranging from documentaries surrounding ICE and CBP border operations to white collar investigations by HSI,” adding that each of these proposals goes through a vetting process.
“We need to revive patriotism and civic duty in this country, and we’re happy to review out-of-the-box pitches. This pitch has not received approval or rejection by staff,” she said.
McLaughlin also denied, as she had on Friday via social media, that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was backing the show in any way, and said that Noem is “not even aware of the pitch.”
Meanwhile, Worsoff claimed during his CNN interview that the DHS appears to be “seriously considering” the show—which he said would include a series of elimination challenges across America. Examples he gave of such challenges included a “pizza-making challenge” in New York, a “rocket-launching challenge” in Florida, and a “gold rush challenge” in California. Per his vision, each episode would culminate in a town hall-esque style vote, one he said is akin to a “presidential election.”
“The people of Tennessee, let’s say, will get to vote on which one of our future Americans they would most like to represent the state of Tennessee,” Worsoff offered as an example. Then, a winner would be granted citizenship.
The pitch comes at a time when President Donald Trump and his Administration have launched a crackdown on U.S. immigration—embroiling themselves in legal battles to end birthright citizenship, upping mass deportation goals, and overhauling asylum access.
On Friday, the Supreme Court barred the Trump Administration from using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged gang members to prisons in El Salvador. The Trump Administration had previously been utilizing the act to expedite deportations of Venezuelan nationals alleged to be in the Tren de Aragua gang, though the court argued that Trump only gave these migrants 24 hours to receive legal advice, and that they were “devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal.” The ruling extends the court’s April emergency order barring Trump from using the wartime law to deport migrants held in a detention facility in Texas.
The stakes are high, Worsoff recognized in his interview, but he argued that his reality show idea is “not The Hunger Games.”
“It’s not some mean spirited thing that’s trying to deport people; it’s exactly the opposite of that,” he said. “I’m very fortunate and lucky and honored to be an American. And I want everybody to understand the process.”
The world sighed a breath of relief this week when the U.S. and China agreed to hit pause on unprecedented tariffs between the world’s two most powerful countries. Although the decision is a major breakthrough in the trade war, both sides should take the further step of pursuing détente.
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Fortunately, that may be on the cards. That is because only two men—Donald Trump and Xi Jinping—must be convinced. And they have both shown an openness to the idea.
Trump had repeatedly expressed desires to meet with Xi and strike a wide-ranging deal earlier on in his presidency. But the April 2025 tariffs created a bilateral impasse. The 90-day truce announced on Monday has changed that, and Trump has subsequently suggested that a direct call with Xi could be imminent, putting a broader rapprochement back on the agenda.
If they talk, Xi might find Trump a more appealing negotiating partner than Joe Biden. The prior President’s approach to China was highly ideological and competitive, stressing democracy versus autocracy, and seeking to align countries against China—while offering Beijing few incentives for cooperation.
But unlike the Biden team, which focused on technocratically managing tensions, Trump seems to share China’s preference for negotiating fundamental issues. On contentious problems like TikTok’s status in America, Trump has already bucked political orthodoxy, delaying a ban repeatedly to convince China to allow its sale.
The leader duo might conclude that moving toward détente could allow them to better address their shared concerns over domestic economies, growing debt, and social stability. Simply put, Trump and Xi might prefer nation-building at home to escalating a costly and dangerous rivalry. But if the two leaders wait too long, rivalry will gain momentum as hawks on both sides continue pushing for a New Cold War and preparing for a possible armed showdown.
For a reset to begin, both men must be confident that an agreement can be rapidly struck. They need to speak directly but also empower their advisors to make concrete and actionable proposals. And ideally, a phone call leads to a face-to-face summit. This process will not be easy, but if Trump is prepared, he can make history.
The two sides should look to resolve the most acute points of tensions. Trump could begin orchestrating a new trade deal while also trying to defuse the emerging nuclear weapons rivalry. Finding common ground with one could help with the other.
China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal to over 600 warheads and—if U.S. intelligence assessments are correct—is on a path to matching America’s and Russia’s deployed arsenals of about 1,500 warheads each. Trump has repeatedly voiced a desire to negotiate nuclear cuts, yet Beijing has resisted, citing the huge gap between its nuclear arsenal and that of Washington. So how could this dynamic shift?
There are reasons to believe that China is still open to arms control. A significant step forward for U.S.-China nuclear diplomacy could be a joint “sole purpose” declaration that nuclear weapons are only for deterring nuclear attacks. This would address a major Chinese concern, as some in Washington are advocating using nuclear weapons first against Chinese conventional military forces in a Taiwan conflict. Yet the most bold and adroit diplomatic maneuver for Trump could be to induce China into “meeting halfway”: coordinating a trilateral cap between China, Russia, and the U.S. at 1,000 warheads each, averting an unprecedented three-way nuclear weapons race.
The Taiwan issue is also ripe for compromise and would strongly enhance a U.S.-China détente. Trump could be the right leader to forge compromise. Mutual accommodation could involve Washington adhering more closely to its “One China Policy” and removing the U.S. troops working as military advisors on Taiwan’s outer islands. In return, Beijing could ease its nearby force deployments and slow the tempo of its military exercises around Taiwan.
Lowering the temperature on Taiwan would have positive impacts elsewhere. China-Philippines frictions might subside if Washington adopted more caution in building up military forces in the archipelago—a buildup linked to Taiwan conflict scenarios. A wider South China Sea agreement could encompass both joint resource development and reciprocal limits on military deployments.
Likewise, diplomatic compromises could alleviate Korean Peninsula tensions. A new government in Seoul might favor working with Trump on fresh overtures to Pyongyang. American and Chinese diplomats could work together to end North Korea’s direct participation in the Russia-Ukraine War, while jointly reassuring South Korea that it does not need to develop its own nuclear weapons.
A successful Trump-Xi meeting would allow both superpowers to claim diplomatic wins, stave off armed confrontations, and most importantly, keep talking and solving problems. But waiting too long risks closing a golden window of opportunity and allows tensions to fester.
If Trump acts now, while conditions are ripe, he could help secure American peace and prosperity for the 21st century and beyond.
It’s one of the world’s most-watched non-sporting annual events, and this year, all eyes will be on Basel, Switzerland, the host of the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
The competition organized by the European Broadcasting Union is in its 69th year, created a little over a decade after the end of World War II, but the event known for its spectacular choreography, onstage pyrotechnics, and lack of subtlety is also bracing itself for another year of protests over the inclusion of Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
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Here’s what to know.
How does Eurovision work?
Each year, participating countries submit a song and artist who will perform during three live televised shows, typically in May. Countries are chosen to participate based on their membership in the EBU, hence why some non-European countries like Australia and Israel have participated.
Songs have to be original and no longer than three minutes, lead vocals must be performed live, there can be no live instrumentation, and no more than six performers can be onstage at a time during a performance.
Fans then cast their votes via telephone, SMS, or the Eurovision app by giving songs points ranging from 1 to 12 (with 12 being the best score). Juries—representatives from each participating country—also give songs points over Zoom call. The one caveat is that jurors and voters at home are not allowed to vote for their own country.
During the semi-finals, only voters from countries that qualified and from non-participating countries can vote, and only the audience televote points determine the qualifying countries.
In the grand final, all competing and non-participating countries can vote. The audience televote is added up with jury points to determine the winner.
From the 37 countries that participated this year, 26 will compete in the grand final. Fan favorites include Sweden’s “Bara Bada Bastu,” which roughly translates to Let’s Just Sauna, performed by KAJ.
When is the Eurovision final and how can I watch?
This year’s grand final will be on May 17 at the Jakobshalle, a 12,000 person-capacity arena in Basel. Switzerland is this year’s host country because Swiss singer Nemo won last year’s contest with pop-rap song “The Code.” Traditionally, the winning country hosts the next year’s contest, except in 2023 when the contest was hosted in Liverpool, U.K., in lieu of Ukraine, whose Kalush Orchestra won in 2022 but which could not host due to its ongoing war with Russia.
In the lead up to the final, there were two live semi-finals on May 13 and May 15. Performances are available to watch on the Eurovision Song Contest’s official YouTube channel.
The final will be shown on each of the participating countries’ broadcasters and livestreamed on YouTube. In the U.S., it will be exclusively streamed on Peacock, starting at 3pm E.T.
Who is competing in the final?
This year’s finalists in alphabetical order are:
Albania: Shkodra Elektronike – “Zjerm”
Armenia: PARG – “SURVIVOR”
Austria: JJ – “Wasted Love”
Denmark: Sissal – “Hallucination”
Estonia: Tommy Cash – “Espresso Macchiato”
Finland: Erika Vikman – “ICH KOMME”
France: Louane – “maman”
Germany: Abor & Tynna – “Baller”
Greece: Klavdia – “Asteromáta”
Iceland: VÆB – “RÓA”
Israel: Yuval Raphael – “New Day Will Rise”
Italy: Lucio Corsi – “Volevo Essere Un Duro”
Latvia: Tautumeitas – “Bur Man Laimi”
Lithuania: Katarsis – “Tavo Akys”
Luxembourg: Laura Thorn – “La Poupée Monte Le Son”
Malta: Miriana Conte – “SERVING”
Netherlands: Claude – “C’est La Vie”
Norway: Kyle Alessandro – “Lighter”
Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – “GAJA”
Portugal: NAPA – “Deslocado”
San Marino: Gabry Ponte – “Tutta L’Italia”
Spain: Melody – “ESA DIVA”
Sweden: KAJ – “Bara Bada Bastu”
Switzerland: Zoë Më – “Voyage”
United Kingdom: Remember Monday – “What The Hell Just Happened?”
Ukraine: Ziferblat – “Bird of Pray”
Six of those countries automatically qualified for the finals: the host Switzerland, along with the “Big Five” countries that contribute the most financially to the contest—France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.
Out of 15 countries that competed in the first semi-final, five were eliminated: Slovenia, Belgium, Azerbaijan, Croatia and Cyprus. Six of another 16 countries were then eliminated in the second semi-finals: Australia, Czechia, Georgia, Ireland, Montenegro and Serbia.
Why are there protests?
Eurovision in November 2023 permanently adopted the slogan “United by Music,” but it seems more hopeful than declarative.
Israel’s Yuval Raphael qualified for the grand finals this year. During her performance of “New Day Will Rise” at a preview show on Thursday, six people in the audience blew whistles and held up Palestinian flags that were larger than the arena’s limit on flag size. The demonstrators were escorted out of the arena. Others have marched in Basel in protest of Israel’s inclusion in the competition. Several have pointed to the fact that Russia was excluded from the contest following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In past weeks, national broadcasters in Iceland, Ireland, Slovenia, and Spain expressed concerns about including Israel, which first took part in the contest in 1973. The EBU told NBC News in a statement that it will “continue to listen to all members. As we did in 2024, we will have a broader discussion when the Contest concludes with all participating broadcasters to reflect on all aspects of this year’s event.”
This year, more than 70 former participants, including last year’s winner, Nemo, signed a letter calling for Israel to be excluded from the contest because of its ongoing bombardment of Gaza, which is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of at least 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023.
“By continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalising and whitewashing its crimes,” the letter reads. “The EBU has already demonstrated that it is capable of taking measures, as in 2022, when it expelled Russia from the competition. We don’t accept this double standard regarding Israel.”
Raphael was a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the Nova music festival in Israel that ignited the last year and a half of war, and last year she described to the United Nations Human Rights Council her experience seeking refuge in a bomb shelter for eight hours. “The physical injuries I sustained are healing, but the mental scars will stay with me forever,” she said.
Raphael told the BBC that she expects to hear boos, “but we are here to sing and I’m going to sing my heart out for everyone.”
Last year’s contest was similarly roiled by protests as thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through the host city of Malmo, Sweden, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Hundreds gathered outside the Malmo Arena before the final, including climate activist Greta Thunberg. Eden Golan, who represented Israel last year, was met with a mix of cheers and boos when she took the stage.
“There were a lot of things that didn’t seem like it was all about love and unity, and that made me really sad,” Nemo said at last year’s contest. “I hope this contest can live up to its promise and continue to stand for peace and dignity for every person.”Nemo told HuffPost U.K. this year: “Israel’s actions are fundamentally at odds with the values that Eurovision claims to uphold—peace, unity, and respect for human rights.”
It was back in September 2021 when Jazmin “Minet” Aguisanda-Jerusalem received a phone call from some farmers that her NGO was helping outside the eastern Philippine city of Tacloban. “They said, ‘the Army is telling us to come and stage a rally outside your office,’” recalls Minet, the executive director of the Leyte Center for Development (LCDE), which provides humanitarian relief to the region’s poorest. “The Army even said they will provide transportation and food.”
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As beneficiaries of the LCDE, the farmers were reluctant to attend. But then Minet began receiving more phone calls from friendly journalists saying they had been “invited” to cover the protest. Sure enough, that Sept. 21 around 20 bewildered people turned up and fastened placards to her office gates that had all clearly been written by the same hand that accused the NGO of supporting local communist rebels. “Apparently, some people were forced to attend,” Minet tells TIME.
It wasn’t the first sign of brewing trouble for the LCDE, which provides livelihood emergency aid, including rain gauges, sleeping mats, blankets, solar lamps, and other equipment to better prepare for typhoons or floods, to around 3,000 families comprising 21,000 people annually.
By highlighting lapses in public services, the LCDE had occasionally rubbed up against officialdom, and Minet had received regular intimidation and occasional death threats. The fact that the LCDE works in arcane mountainous regions of the Philippines where rebel groups also operate had periodically been used as a cudgel by security forces looking for a scapegoat. “Maybe the state armed forces put us in the same basket as the community whom they believe are supporting the rebels,” says Minet.
But overall, their relations with the government were robust as evidenced by several high-profile awards. But what had been a periodic annoyance became crippling last May when five bank accounts of the LCDE and related persons—including Minet and her son, who is not even an employee—were suddenly frozen by the national Anti-Money Laundering Council.
Also frozen were the bank accounts of two suppliers where the LCDE sources relief donations and even a local mechanic where they had recently got their Toyota Hilux repaired at a cost of some $300. While intimidation is sadly par for the course for local NGOs in the Philippines, the freezing of the bank accounts was devastating. The authorities even rescinded the Hilux’s vehicle registration so they would have no way to reach far-flung villages.
The LCDE case was bizarre in many ways but none more so that no criminal case was filed for six months after their accounts were frozen. And when charges for financing terrorism were brought against Minet the following November, the prosecutor dismissed them a month later for lack of evidence. But their accounts remained frozen, and in February three more charges of terrorism financing were levied against Minet so that she was forced to post 600,000 pesos ($10,500) bail. Mounting challenges were making it more and more difficult to keep fighting. After 37 years of helping society’s most vulnerable, “We’ve had to stop operations,” says Minet.
The Philippines has a long and unfortunate history of NGOs under attack. In 2023, it was the most dangerous country for climate activists, accounting for 17 of 197 murdered or “disappeared” worldwide.
That nadir occurred under the term of autocratic ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, under whom climate activists were often “red-tagged,” which refers to the labeling of individuals or organizations as communists, subversives, or terrorists to discredit and silence them. After Duterte came to power he formed the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, or NTF-ELCAC, as part of a “whole of nation” effort to finally quash leftist rebel groups. However, the true targets were often indigenous leaders, anti-mining advocates, environmental restoration campaigners, and community organizers.
In February 2020, Marissa Cabaljao, the spokesperson of People Surge, a network of disaster survivors also in Tacloban, was arrested and charged with terrorism offenses after a raid at her office. She has lived in hiding away from her family ever since.
Marinel Sumook Ubaldo was also red-tagged under Duterte when at 22 she organized the Philippines’ first youth climate strike in 2019. Today, she works in Washington D.C. for the League of Conservation Voters environmental advocacy group and has testified on climate issues at the U.N. and U.S. Senate. “The scary thing was they also tried to intimidate my family, telling my parents to get me to stop,” she tells TIME. “And even our local government unit was part of those people that were intimidating me.”
Despite the new administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. declaring “red-tagging” would end, the practice of using terrorism charges has become more widespread, say human-rights groups. “While red-tagging is not as bad as during Duterte’s time, ‘terror-tagging’ has worsened,” says Carlos Conde, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch based in Manila. “That’s the most worrisome part.”
The Philippine Justice Department didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment from TIME for this story, although the Marcos administration has previously denied red-tagging. However, the reason behind the surge in terrorist-related prosecutions is an open secret.
In June 2021, a year before Marcos came to power, the Philippines was placed on the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list” due to a lax approach to countering money laundering and the financing of terrorism, meaning the country was subject to increased monitoring and potential economic penalties. Suddenly, prosecuting these crimes was thrust to the top of the security agenda and every ambitious army and police official was incentivized to find easy targets. The presumption is that job security—as well as promotions, funding, and possibly bonuses—were linked to progress on this score. At last count, some 64 NGOs across the Philippines are facing criminal charges including financing terrorism or even murder.
“It’s about money,” says Minet. “We’re just pawns in this numbers game.”
The targeting of NGOs and activists is especially damaging given the Philippines is consistently ranked as among the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. “Local partnerships are eroded when NGOs or grassroots groups are red-tagged,” says Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross. “The shrinking of the civic space makes climate and environmental organizations reluctant to engage in public discourse for fear of reprisal.”
But the Philippines is far from an isolated case. Minet’s experiences follow a worrying pattern of civil society from Australia and India to the U.K. reporting dwindling space and more legal hurdles to their advocacy. Even the U.S. is not immune. President Donald Trump’s gutting of USAID has ripped some $75 billion from the world’s poorest people, including $104 million from the Philippines, while his withdrawal from the WHO stands to slash some 12% from the organization’s $6.8 billion annual budget. But perhaps more damaging has been his administration’s assault on critics—especially foreign students and even green card holders—that has cast a pall over climate activism in the world’s top economy, not least since Trump once again withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.
“This is not even Duterte 2.0,” says Ubaldo of the current climate of fear engulfing environmental advocacy in D.C. “This is 10 times what we experienced in the Philippines. I don’t feel safe here.”
It’s a feeling shared some 8,500 miles away by Minet, who had her latest court hearing on Thursday, when the judge indicated she would rule on a petition to dismiss at their next hearing on July 14. In bitter irony, the Philippines was removed from the FATF grey list in February, yet the “persecution,” as Minet puts it, of environmental NGOs continues to spiral.
“President Marcos is trying to tell the diplomatic and international community that all is well in his administration,” says Minet. “But our situation is getting worse. Our voice needs to be heard.”
Warning:This post contains spoilers forSecrets We Keep.
When young Filipino au pair Ruby Tan vanishes from one of Denmark’s wealthiest neighborhoods, just north of Copenhagen, her neighbor Cecilie (Marie Bach Hansen) becomes convinced something is terribly wrong. Cecilie’s own au pair, Angel (Excel Busano), begins digging into the rumors circulating in the gated community as suspicions of foul play mount. But the case of a missing foreign domestic worker is not a priority for local police, and newly minted investigator Aicha Petersen (Sara Fanta Traore) needs all the help she can get.
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Cecilie and Angel are ready to assist, and as they do, the social structures of privilege and power that govern the elegant homes around them begin to crumble. Cecilie’s commitment to finding the truth is tested when Ruby’s disappearance reveals ties to her own family, forcing her to confront her blind spots and reexamine the environment in which she’s raising her children.
That’s the premise of Secrets We Keep (Reservatet, in Danish), a six-episode Netflix crime drama releasing on May 15. Below, we break down the gripping finale of a show that imagines the hidden darkness beneath Denmark’s wealthiest enclave.
In Episode 1, Cecilie drives through her exclusive neighborhood and waves to a young Filipino woman throwing something in a dumpster. The woman ignores her and walks away. Cecilie’s son Viggo invites his friend Oscar over for dinner that night, and Angel asks if Ruby, Oscar’s family’s au pair, can join too. During dinner, we realize Ruby is the woman Cecilie saw earlier, but she is puzzled when Ruby denies seeing her. Later that evening, Oscar’s mother Katarina visits Cecilie, and the two chat. Before leaving, Ruby privately tells Cecilie she needs help and can’t stay with Katarina’s family, the Hoffmanns, anymore. Cecilie advises her to speak to her employers and insists she can’t interfere in her neighbors’ affairs. Ruby looks at her, pleading for help, but leaves with the Hoffmanns at the end of the evening.
The next day, Katarina arrives at Cecilie’s house and asks if she’s seen Ruby. According to Katarina, Ruby has disappeared. She then asks Angel if she’s spoken to her, but she hasn’t talked to Ruby since dinner. Cecilie asks her friend if Ruby said anything to her after dinner, and Katarina says no—she doesn’t understand why Ruby would do something like this right now, with Oscar’s classes starting again.
While taking Viggo to school and pushing Cecilie’s young daughter, Vera, in the stroller, Angel runs into other Filipino au pairs from the neighborhood at the school gate. She asks her friends if they’ve seen Ruby and tells them she’s gone missing, but they think—mistakenly, as we’ll see—that she’s exaggerating and Ruby will show up soon.
Over the course of the episodes, with the police already investigating Ruby’s disappearance, Cecilie starts to suspect that Rasmus Hoffmann, Katarina’s husband, may have something to do with the disappearance of his family’s au pair. She goes to the trash bin where she saw Ruby throw something away—notably far from the house where she worked—and finds a pregnancy test on the ground. This leads her to wonder if Rasmus had gotten Ruby pregnant. She shares her suspicions with police officer Aicha Petersen, who tells her that Ruby had spoken with a couple in Holte over the summer and was supposed to start working for them after the holidays. However, that family never heard from her, so contacted the police after seeing the alert about her disappearance.
But another suspect emerges after police find Ruby’s purse in a bush: Mike Winther-Jensen, Cecilie’s husband. Inside Ruby’s purse, police find a key card from a luxury hotel in the area. Aicha discovers that Ruby had been there with a man driving a Porsche Taycan Turbo. Very few people in the area drive that model, and only one of them has a prior rape conviction—Mike. Aicha goes to speak with the pastor of the church Ruby used to attend, convincing him that the urgency of the matter supersedes the confidentiality of Ruby’s confessions. He says Ruby had come to him suspecting she was pregnant as the result of a rape. Ruby had considered having an abortion but felt she couldn’t go through with it because of her faith. The pastor’s questionable advice: to speak to the father of the baby, her rapist.
Ruby’s body is finally found at the end of Episode 4 at a marina. At the beginning of Episode 5, Katarina asks Cecilie to identify Ruby’s body in her place, saying she’s not strong enough to do it. As she leaves the house, Cecilie is stopped by her son Viggo, who says he has something to tell her. She asks him to talk to her later. At the police morgue, Cecilie identifies Ruby’s body, which is bloated from drowning. The coroner confirms Ruby was indeed pregnant, between five to eight weeks along, and that her body had been in the water for as long as a week, meaning she could have died the same night she ran away. Despite no clear signs of a crime, the police could still attempt to identify Ruby’s rapist through DNA testing, which is exactly what Aicha sets out to do.
Aicha tries to contact Mike, to no avail, so she visits him at work. Mike claims he was at the office the night Ruby disappeared and insists he never touched her, let alone raped or impregnated her. Aicha suggests that if he wants the police off his back, he should take a DNA test, and he agrees, claiming he’s innocent. Cecilie, who had also begun to suspect her husband was involved in Ruby’s disappearance, reminds him after the negative results he doesn’t get to play the victim—the only victim was Ruby, and she was dead.
With no new leads, Aicha’s boss, Carl, begins to believe that Ruby may have committed suicide. She was raped, likely tried to speak to the baby’s father, didn’t want an abortion, and couldn’t go back home pregnant. But Aicha doesn’t believe it was suicide—the same faith that prevented Ruby from having an abortion would likely have kept her from taking her own life. Dissatisfied with the direction of the case, Aicha visits the Hoffmann home and speaks to Rasmus, who offers to pay for Ruby’s body to be sent back to the Philippines. He also asks the police to publicly state that he had no involvement in the case and volunteers to take a DNA test.
In the final episode, Aicha discovers that Rasmus Hoffmann’s DNA tested positive for paternity—but he’s not the father. The match was only 24.1%, meaning the father was a close family member. The father of Ruby’s baby was Oscar Hoffmann, the underage son of Rasmus and Katarina.
In parallel with the case of Ruby’s disappearance and death, another storyline gains prominence and becomes directly connected to the au pair’s fate. Oscar, Viggo, and other classmates have a messaging group where they share disturbing and pornographic content. In this group, every member is required to post something or else be kicked out. This seems like an easy task for Oscar, who is frequently seen in the series flying his drone, often filming Cecilie at home—sometimes with her noticing, other times without her knowledge. What at first appears to be “innocent childish behavior” turns out to be deeply unsettling. Viggo clearly dislikes it but is encouraged by the other boys to share inappropriate content. He ends up filming his family’s au pair, Angel, as she bends down to organize things in a cupboard. That seems to be the only time Viggo contributes to the group, and afterward, he appears weighed down by guilt. Every time he tries to talk to someone in the family, everyone is too busy to listen.
In Episode 5, Viggo’s teacher asks all the students to put their phones away during class, but Viggo keeps his in hand. The teacher approaches him, takes the phone, and her tone turns serious. The boy had been watching something he wasn’t supposed to, but he seems relieved that an adult is finally paying attention. Cecilie goes to the school after receiving a call from the teacher. According to the teacher, Viggo filmed his au pair naked and shared it in a group that included Oscar and other friends. He says he called the parents of the boys involved for a meeting, and at Cecilie’s request, he lets her watch the video. In the recording, which is set to a remix of a song, the au pair is seen changing clothes after a shower. But the bedroom shown isn’t Angel’s, and the woman in the video isn’t Angel either. When the woman turns toward the camera, Cecilie shocked: that is not her family’s au pair.
At the parents’ meeting, Katarina Hoffmann sits next to Cecilie. Another of the parents present is Dorte, the mother of Mille, a minor who was secretly filmed by Oscar. One of the other mothers accuses Viggo of filming his au pair, and Cecilie clarifies that it was Oscar’s au pair in the video. After Katarina asks to see the video and watches it, she tries to minimize the situation. However, according to another mother, it’s clear that Oscar is the ringleader, and the parents demand that he be expelled.
In the woods near their home, Viggo runs while Oscar chases him. When they fall to the ground, Oscar chokes Viggo and tells him not to say anything about the video he showed him—a video that wasn’t shared in the group—and even threatens him: if he tells anyone, he’ll die. When Cecilie gets home, she searches for Viggo until she finds him in the forest and asks what’s going on. Viggo says Oscar showed him a video, one no one else saw, and that he threatened to kill him if he told anyone.
Is Oscar punished?
After Cecilie reported Oscar, the police went to the Hoffmanns’ house to seize the devices Oscar had access to. However, the search turned up nothing—Katarina had already disposed of anything that could incriminate her son.
In a conversation between Mike and Rasmus at Cecilie’s house, the two friends discuss the legal situation, as Mike is a lawyer and Rasmus is one of his clients. Since Oscar is under 15, he cannot be interrogated, but if the police find him guilty, it will become a case for the juvenile court. Rasmus believes the police have no grounds to charge his son with rape and that they need to make it clear to the authorities that they reject the insinuations, based on a video of Ruby undressed that he shared on the Internet. Cecilie joins the conversation, adamant that Oscar raped Ruby, but Rasmus argues that they don’t know that for sure, and Viggo might be lying. In Rasmus’ view, if Ruby chose to have sex with a minor, she committed the crime, and while they might have moral responsibility for what happened in their house, in this case, Oscar is the victim.
Oscar admits to Cecilie what he did to Ruby when he entered her house through the broken glass door of the kitchen. He said that he controls Ruby, that she can’t say no, and that she is paid to like him. When she tells her husband Mike, the lawyer points out that without evidence of rape, the blame might fall on Ruby for having had a relationship with a minor. Officer Aicha still tries to move forward with the case, asking if Cecilie’s son, Viggo, could testify against Oscar, but Cecilie refuses to put her son in that situation. From Aicha’s perspective, if the neighbors were able to destroy evidence of the rape their son committed, what else might they be capable of? Still, Cecilie’s response remains no.
In the final minutes of the last episode, Mike informs Cecilie and their son Viggo that Oscar will be going to a boarding school in a few days, and the Hoffmanns ask them to say goodbye to the boy. The boy, in addition to not being punished for the crime due to lack of evidence, would be going to a new school to stay away from the “problems.” Oscar’s privilege led him to believe that his au pair was practically his “personal maid,” as his parents paid her to take care of him. And it was these privileges that resulted in Ruby’s death.
Who is responsible for Ruby’s death?
Just as Oscar isn’t punished for raping Ruby, the person responsible for her death is also not captured, as the police continue to believe she committed suicide and have no evidence of murder. When Cecilie goes to the Hoffmanns’ house before Oscar’s departure, the boy appears and asks if she has heard that he’s going to the boarding school. Oscar says he knows Cecilie hates him – which she denies – but claims it wasn’t his mother’s fault and shares that he overheard an argument between Katarina and Ruby before the latter disappeared.
With her husband and the neighbors, Cecilie decides to go to Katarina, who is on a bridge at their property. Cecilie says she thought her friend hadn’t spoken to Ruby on the night she disappeared, and Katarina asks what that matters now. Cecilie wants to know if Ruby told Katarina about the rape, but Katarina simply says that they are two different kinds of mothers: while Cecilie teaches her children the importance of clearing the table after dinner, Katarina teaches her son to fight for his privileges and everything he has.
When Cecilie asks how Ruby died, Katarina questions whether she’s asking because she believes Katarina killed Ruby. “What if I did?” asks Katarina, adding that “those men think everything sorts itself out.”
The series’ finale makes the audience question who the real culprit is and whether Ruby committed suicide or was murdered. Katarina’s statement only highlights the kind of mother she is, one who fights to protect her son and the family’s privileges, even though her “invisible work” is often unrecognized by her husband. The impression is that Katarina killed Ruby, but this is never confirmed in Episode 6, and it remains just a suspicion of the public – and Cecilie.
WillSecrets We Keephave a second season?
Secrets We Keep was announced as a six-episode miniseries from the start, so it’s not clear whether the series will have a new season to answer the questions that remain unresolved. We’ll have to wait to find out whether Netflix will announce more episodes to address Oscar’s crime and the person responsible for Ruby’s death.
