Donald Trump ramped up the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro by ordering a “total and complete” blockade of oil tankers subject to US sanctions heading to or from Venezuela. He accused Maduro’s government of using “stolen” oil to “finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping”.

Referring to the US deployment to the region of a dozen warships and more than 14,000 troops, Trump wrote that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”.

Oil prices jumped in the wake of Trump’s blockade order, which came days after US forces had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Since September, the US military has killed around 100 people in more than two dozen strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

Trump has also threatened to strike drug-related targets inside Venezuela. Caracas denounced his “warmongering threats” and called on oil workers to organise a worldwide protest “against the piracy of those who believe they have a licence to plunder the world’s resources”.

Drug blockades

Trump is tightening the screws on Caracas, said The Wall Street Journal – and not before time. While Maduro is accusing the US of piracy, he’s the one who “stole Venezuelan democracy” by refusing to cede power after losing the 2024 presidential election. More than eight million Venezuelans have fled his police state. Trump isn’t concerned about Maduro’s authoritarianism, said The Guardian. Nor is this about tackling drug cartels: Venezuela isn’t a big supplier of drugs to the US. Trump is driven mainly by the desire to stem refugee flows and get rid of the socialist Maduro, a long-term target.

The US blockade carries some risks, said The Washington Post. It could provoke a marine confrontation that drags the US into a land war in South America. And by reducing the regime’s main source of revenue, it could exacerbate a humanitarian crisis. Still, it’s a more “legally defensible” strategy than the US air strikes on alleged drug smugglers. Given that about 80% of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market, and that most tankers stopping there are sanctioned, Trump “can argue that he’s merely stepping up enforcement”. His first-term effort to oust Maduro failed because “his attention drifted”. Will he stay the course this time?

Squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade

Maduro is vulnerable, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail. Venezuela has the world’s largest-known oil reserves and used to be one of the region’s richest countries. But more than 25 years of hard-left rule, initially under Hugo Chávez and then his protégé Maduro, have driven it to ruin. Its poverty rate is now about 80%. People talk about the danger of civil war if Maduro is ousted, but this isn’t a divided country. Nobel Prize-winner María Corina Machado would have coasted to victory had she not been barred from standing in last year’s election. In a recent poll, nine out of 10 Venezuelans said they believed that the man who won that vote by a landslide – Machado’s chosen candidate, Edmundo Gonzáles – is their rightful president.

Trump is hoping that his “drip-drip pressure campaign” can bring about a coup without the need for direct US military force, said Tom Rogan in the Washington Examiner. US navy jets are wearing down Venezuelan defence units by forcing them to remain at a state of high readiness, and CIA assets inside the country are no doubt encouraging top officials to move against Maduro. It’s the right approach. If Maduro is ousted, there’s a good chance that there will be an insurgency involving narco-traffickers and at least some unreconciled elements of the old regime. Given Venezuela’s “abundance of deep jungles and sprawling favelas”, the US doesn’t want to get entangled in any counter-insurgency campaign.

Trump is squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade, said Keith Johnson in Foreign Policy. Activity in its ports has sharply reduced and multiple inbound tankers have turned around mid-voyage in recent days. Some oil is still flowing, said a report in the Financial Times. US-based Chevron, which accounts for about a quarter of Venezuela’s oil production, still has a licence to sell oil; tankers not included in the US’ expanding list of sanctioned vessels can still ply their trade. If the US keeps tightening the noose, though, it will create enormous difficulties for Maduro’s regime. “But given that the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ started by Chávez has survived for a quarter of a century, few are willing to bet on the Venezuelan regime collapsing” without direct US military action.

Lack of storage capacity

Trump says the US military build-up will continue until Caracas returns “all of the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us”. Under Chávez, Venezuela expropriated assets belonging to US oil companies. Trump hasn’t given any further details about how the US blockade on sanctioned tankers will be enforced.

Until recently Venezuela produced about 0.8% of global crude oil output, exporting some 900,000 barrels a day. Most of this ended up in China. Last week, Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, said that crude exports were “continuing as normal”, but experts believe it will soon have to halt production owing to a lack of storage capacity.

Australia’s government announced plans to strengthen the country’s gun control laws, following Sunday’s terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, in Sydney.

In the 20-minute rampage, a father and son opened fire on a crowd of about 1,000 people who had gathered to celebrate the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. The father, Sajid Akram, 50, had licences for six firearms, the number recovered at the scene. He was shot dead by police; his son, Naveed Akram, 24, was arrested and taken to hospital. They appear to have been inspired by Islamic State.

The victims of the attack – Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since 1996 – included two rabbis, a Holocaust survivor and a ten-year-old girl. Many more might have died had it not been for the heroism of a bystander, Ahmed al-Ahmed, who crept up behind Sajid Akram and seized his rifle. This week, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced extra funding for measures to protect the country’s Jewish community.

‘Indelibly stained with tragedy’

This attack on ordinary Jewish people, as they marked the first night of the “Festival of Lights”, was shocking in its malevolence, said The Australian. Bondi is home to many of Australia’s 117,000 Jews; the beach is also a place where people from all creeds and backgrounds congregate. Now, it will be “indelibly stained with tragedy”.

Australia ranks as one of the world’s safest nations, said The Independent. Its gun laws – tightened after the mass shooting in Tasmania 29 years ago – are already among the strictest anywhere. If Jews aren’t safe there, they may now reasonably ask “where in the world they can be safe”.

Australia’s government has suggested that the shooters “weren’t part of a wider cell”, said The Sydney Morning Herald. But the discovery of Islamic State flags in their car, and the revelation that the two men had recently travelled to the Philippines, parts of which are rife with “Islamic extremism”, may be telling.

In 2019, the younger man was actually investigated by Australia’s security services, owing to his links to Islamic State members, said The Times. But he was deemed not to be a threat – an assessment that has “proven to be tragically flawed”.

The global surge in antisemitism

There was a celebratory atmosphere at Bondi on Sunday, said The Economist. “Children wearing face paint crowded a petting zoo. Families held balloons and bubble wands.” Yet as the sun began to dip, two men armed with long-barrelled rifles began firing from a footbridge into the crowd; and the death toll could have been even higher, had they detonated the improvised explosives later found in their car.

It was an appalling tragedy, made worse by its predictability, said Limor Simhony Philpott on UnHerd. Australia’s Jewish community has endured a five-fold surge in antisemitic incidents since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. Jewish schools, synagogues and homes have been firebombed; protesters have chanted “Fuck the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House. In the summer, Australia’s government kicked out Iran’s ambassador, after accusing Tehran of orchestrating antisemitic attacks on its soil. But it has done little else to curb antisemitism. Instead it has alienated Israel, its former ally, by making the misguided decision to join the UK and others in recognising a Palestinian state.

This attack reflects a broader crisis for the world’s Jewish population, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. In the past two years, there have been murderous attacks on Jews on five continents. This summer, there were two in cities in the US, and on Yom Kippur in October, two people were killed in the attack on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester.

When it comes to antisemitic terror, violent words can lead to violent actions, said Dave Rich in The Guardian: hence the anger felt by many Jews when they see banners at pro-Palestine marches demanding an “Intifada revolution” or bearing Hamas symbols.

The frightening reality, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times, is that calls to “Globalise the intifada” and the like have made Jews the target of “warped killers” who think that, by unleashing terror, they are “doing the world a favour”. I will carry on lighting candles in the days ahead, and singing the Hanukkah songs. “But I admit that this year, for the first time in my life, I do feel just a little fear as I do it.”

Reform UK has received a record £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai cryptocurrency mogul, according to the latest quarterly declarations to the Electoral Commission.

It’s the largest-ever single donation by a living person to a British political party. News of the gift comes at a time when Reform is leading in the national polls, but has been forced onto the defensive over a series of other, less welcome, stories.

‘Toxic’ and ‘divisive’

Last week Nigel Farage denounced what he called “a false story” in the Financial Times, which reported that he had told donors that he expected “a deal or merger” between his party and the Tories ahead of the next general election. “The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous,” he said. Reform also faced more questions about Farage’s alleged behaviour at school.

Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers now claim to have witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him at Dulwich College in south London. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said Farage’s accusers were peddling “made up twaddle”.

Farage has admitted that he was “offensive” at school, but insists he never made comments “with malice”. He angrily accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy”, saying it should apologise for all the politically incorrect programmes it broadcast during the same era, such as “The Black and White Minstrel Show” and “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum”.

Farage faced separate accusations of racism last week over a campaign video in which he lamented the “cultural smashing of Glasgow”, citing the recent finding that nearly one in three school pupils in the city speak English as a second language. The comment prompted Keir Starmer to call Farage a “toxic, divisive disgrace”.

This week, it emerged that Farage had been reported to the police over claims of falsified election expenses. A former member of his campaign team, Richard Everett, says the Reform leader exceeded the £20,660 local election spending limit during his successful bid for the Clacton constituency last year by about £9,000, because some costs – including the refurbishment of a Reform-themed bar in the campaign office, and the loan of an armoured Land Rover used in a rally – weren’t declared. A Reform UK spokesman denied any wrongdoing.

This article appeared in History of War magazine issue 153.

In September 2025 President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming the Department of Defense to the 'Department of War', reverting to the original name established during the Revolutionary War. While such a change would officially require Congressional approval, the president cited a tradition of military strength and preparedness as essential to US national security.

"The Founders chose this name to signal our strength and resolve to the world," the order declared. "The name 'Department of War', more than the current 'Department of Defense', ensures peace through strength as it demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our nation at a moment's notice, not just to defend."

The department originally underwent a rebrand during a radical reorganisation of the US military after the end of the Second World War.

As the free world continued to count the cost the war, the most devastating armed conflict in human history, and the early vestiges of the Cold War loomed, President Harry Truman told the American people of his intent to reshape the US military establishment.

In the autumn of 1945 he declared: "I stated that I would communicate with Congress from time to time during the current session with respect to a comprehensive and continuous program of national security. I pointed out the necessity of making timely preparation for the nation's long-range security now – while we are still mindful of what it has cost us in this war to be unprepared."

Among Truman's priorities were a reorganisation of the American armed forces hierarchy to achieve efficiency, co-ordination and unity of command while reinforcing the venerable concept of civilian control of the military.

In December 1945, Truman added: "I recommend that the Congress adopt legislation combining the War and Navy Departments into one single Department of National Defense. Such unification is another essential step – along with universal training – in the development of a comprehensive and continuous program for our future safety and for the peace and security of the world."

The National Security Act of 1947 did in fact create the National Military Establishment (NME) with a framework that separated the US Air Force from control of the US Army and established the position of Secretary of Defense.

This new cabinet post would ostensibly supervise the subordinate offices of the individual branch secretaries. The incumbent was required to be a civilian or to have been retired from the military for at least ten years. This second proviso was later modified to seven years.

Another significant component of the 1947 act was the establishment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, composed of high-ranking military officers, the Central Intelligence Agency (preceded by the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS) and the National Security Council, an advisory body for the president in consideration of domestic, foreign and military policy.

Two years later the NME was formally renamed the Department of Defense. The entire executive initiative had been prompted not only by the command challenges of the Second World War but also in preparation for a potential war with the Soviet Union. Truman's perspective demanded an enhanced national military preparedness and response capability.

While the change of designation from War Department to National Military Establishment and then Department of Defense might be construed at first glance as an effort to quell the connotation of belligerence held with the word 'war', it was in fact necessary to differentiate the new structure from the previous alignment that had endured in various iterations since the 18th century.

Some sources claim that the change from NME to Department of Defense was necessary to eliminate the negative sound when the acronym was pronounced aloud. It simply sounded too much like 'enemy'.

The War Department had been created on 7 August 1789 during the first session of the Congress in the administration of President George Washington. Its purpose was clear: replacing the Board of War and Ordnance that had been created in the midst of the American Revolution in 1776.

The War Department was initially also known as the War Office in a nod to the British influence in North America. The fledgling US Navy was given a separate cabinet post in 1798 and encompassed the command of the US Marine Corps.

Therefore the National Security Act of 1947 effectively separated the Department of the Army from the Department of War and created the Department of the Air Force as a separate branch of the military.

The amended National Security Act, which Truman signed on 10 August 1949, brought the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force directly under the Secretary of Defense and established the post of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The president explained that the revisions constituted a "unification… increased efficiency and economy and greater coordination of our military forces".

In fact, some observers conclude that the comprehensive restructuring fostered an unprecedented era of inter-service rivalry as exemplified in the competition between the Air Force and Navy as the primary custodian and potential deliverer of the American nuclear weapons arsenal during the burgeoning years of the Cold War.

However, such a rivalry may well have been unavoidable and the effectiveness of the realignment remains the subject of debate as it continues to function today.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 153. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

Much has been made of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged ties to Donald Trump, but the president is only one of numerous people with connections to the disgraced financier. The latest revelations, courtesy of a massive batch of Epstein’s emails released by the House Oversight Committee, show that many famous public figures had significant ties to Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019.

While these communications do not necessarily prove guilt, they have raised more questions as the Epstein scandal continues to brew. Notably, all of these email exchanges “took place years after Epstein became a registered sex offender in 2008,” said USA Today.

Lawrence ‘Larry’ Summers

Summers, a former Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration who was also once president of Harvard University, was shown to have corresponded with Epstein over at least seven years. While it was previously reported that the men knew each other, the emails “indicate the two met for dinner frequently, with Epstein often trying to connect Summers to prominent global figures,” said BBC News.

Summers, a Democrat, largely used the email communications to criticize Trump’s agenda but also talked to Epstein about nonpolitical issues. On one occasion, he “appeared to seek advice from Epstein about a romantic relationship he was interested in initiating with a female economist,” said USA Today. After the emails were made public, Summers announced he was stepping back from most of his public positions, including resigning from the board of OpenAI and his professorship at Harvard. “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said to The Harvard Crimson.

Steve Bannon

Presidential adviser-turned-MAGA-influencer Steve Bannon was found to have been “workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life,” said The Guardian. Bannon, who served in Trump’s administration during his first term, was “devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history” in an effort to help Epstein craft a defense. Both of the men were also “strategizing how best to promote Bannon’s right-wing populist agenda and the political fortunes of its standard bearer, Donald Trump.”

There was also evidence that Bannon used Epstein to strengthen his ties with global figures. In one notable exchange from 2018, Epstein emailed Bannon to let him know “‘there are many leaders of countries we can organize for you to have one-on-ones’ with if Bannon agreed to spend eight to 10 days in Europe,” said Politico. In at least one email, Bannon, who has declined to comment on the relationship, also refers to Epstein as an “amazing assistant.”

Noam Chomsky

Like Summers, famed linguistics professor Noam Chomsky was known to have had a relationship with Epstein. When asked about the pair’s relationship in 2023, Chomsky told The Wall Street Journal his “first response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him, and we met occasionally.” However, the new emails reveal that the pair’s relationship may have been more involved than previously thought. This is part of a new light that is being cast on Epstein’s “deep involvement with prominent scientists and scholars,” said Scientific American.

This includes allegations that the association between Chomsky and Epstein “went deeper than the occasional political and academic discussions the former had previously claimed to have with the latter,” said The Guardian. This includes being close enough to discuss potential vacation plans. Chomsky also “reportedly acknowledged receiving about $270,000 from an account linked to Epstein while sorting the disbursement of common funds,” though the 96-year-old has maintained that none of the money came directly from Epstein himself.

Kathryn Ruemmler

Another politically adjacent name who moved to the private sector, Kathryn Ruemmler was White House general counsel during the Obama administration before taking a job as the top lawyer for investment bank Goldman Sachs. When Ruemmler “needed to vent about Donald Trump’s rise in politics, she turned to their mutual acquaintance Jeffrey Epstein,” said Business Insider.

As with other Epstein associates, the new emails “suggest a deeper relationship between Ruemmler and Epstein than was previously known,” said Business Insider. Ruemmler “confided in Epstein when a rival law firm tried to poach her, when looking for a New York City apartment and when she was being vetted for consideration as attorney general.” Goldman Sachs has stood by Ruemmler as this information has come out. These emails “were private correspondence well before Kathy Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs,” a spokesperson for the bank told CNBC. Ruemmler herself told The Wall Street Journal in 2023, “I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein.”

Peter Thiel

While Peter Thiel is best known as the cofounder of PayPal and technology company Palantir, the billionaire has found himself ingrained in conservative politics through his association with figures like Vice President JD Vance. But the new emails show that Thiel may have had a close relationship with Epstein as well. In at least one instance, Epstein appeared to invite Thiel to his private Caribbean island, writing, “Dec visit me Caribbean.”

This island “near St. Thomas in the Caribbean has long been the subject of speculation about which possible conspirators may have visited the island, which Epstein allegedly used to conceal his criminal behavior,” said Politico. Epstein also previously “put $40 million into two funds managed by Valar Ventures, a New York firm that was cofounded by Mr. Thiel,” said The New York Times. Thiel has said he never visited Epstein’s island and has denied any wrongdoing.

Peggy Siegal

Peggy Siegal is one of the most recognizable entertainment publicists and has spent decades crafting a media empire. But she has also generated a fair share of controversy due to her “longtime association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” said The Hollywood Reporter in 2019. Siegal reportedly “helped facilitate Epstein’s return to elite social circles after his conviction through private gatherings she organized at his Upper East Side home.”

But the recent tranche of emails reveals that Siegal and Epstein may have had a closer relationship than many previously believed. In at least one newly revealed email, Epstein wrote to Siegal “with an ask: Could she reach out to media mogul Arianna Huffington to enlist her help in clearing his name?” said Politico. Epstein also asked Siegal if Huffington, the cofounder of HuffPost, could send reporters to investigate one of his most notable accusers, Virginia Giuffre. Siegal “offered to send the message to Huffington on her own behalf if Epstein fixed the grammar,” but both Siegal and Huffington have said nothing ever came of the request.

After days of frantic diplomacy, Donald Trump claimed this week that his negotiators had made “tremendous progress” towards ending the Ukraine War. The Ukrainian leadership indicated that it had accepted the “core terms” of a US-backed peace plan – and Trump said that his envoy, Steve Witkoff, would be dispatched to the Kremlin for talks with Vladimir Putin next week. However, significant doubts remained, both about the exact terms of the deal, and about Russia’s position. On Wednesday, Russian officials indicated that the deal was not acceptable.

Last week, Trump had piled great pressure on Kyiv to sign up to a 28-point plan that the US had drawn up following Witkoff’s talks with Russian envoys in Miami. That proposal echoed Moscow’s maximalist war aims, by calling for Kyiv to cede the rest of the Donbas region, and to limit its army to 600,000 personnel. It caused alarm among Ukraine’s European allies, whose 19-point counter-proposal is believed to form the basis of the deal Kyiv later accepted.

Pro-Russia bias

Effectively, the US-Russia peace plan amounted to a demand for Ukraine’s “outright surrender”, said The Times. It would have handed over Ukraine’s “fortress belt” in the Donbas, which it has spent years defending, and denied it meaningful security guarantees. If Zelenskyy had bowed to Trump’s ultimatum to agree to its terms by Thanksgiving, 27 November, or lose access to US weapons and intelligence, he’d surely have had to resign.

This peace plan was reportedly leaked by Moscow, said The Economist – and AI analysis suggests it was translated from the original Russian. Either way, it again “betrayed” Trump’s pro-Russia bias, and his indifference to Ukraine; as did his dismissive suggestion that Zelenskyy can “fight his little heart out” if no deal is struck, and his grousing on social media that “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS.”

Sobering question

There was a “grim familiarity” to events last week, said The Guardian. As in August, when Trump hosted Putin in Alaska, Kyiv and its European allies had been excluded from talks which would decide their future, and were left scrambling to improve a Moscow-friendly deal.

Europe’s leaders were confronted with a sobering question, said Michael D. Shear in The New York Times: was the US about to force Ukraine to “capitulate”, to the detriment of Nato and the benefit of Putin – “all without even bothering to consult with them”? It looked that way for a while; but by Tuesday, the crisis had been averted by European leaders who have honed their “how-to-handle-Trump playbook” during a year of similar episodes. Rather than lashing out, they “embraced” the plan to keep Trump onside, while insisting that it was only a starting point for negotiations. “The goal was to slow the process and eliminate some of the provisions they saw as crossing Europe’s red lines.”

The Europeans succeeded in shrinking the 28-point plan to 19 points, said Roger Boyes in The Times. But several of Russia’s key demands remained: no Western military presence in Ukraine, no Nato membership. And the fundamental questions – how to divide the land, and security guarantees against future invasions – remained apparently unresolved. As usual with Trump’s “drive-by diplomacy”, nothing adds up.

‘Miserable choice’

With the knotty questions about territory yet to be resolved, Russia is “trying to pour cold water on the prospects of an imminent peace breakthrough”, said Samuel Ramani in The Daily Telegraph. It continues to bombard Ukrainian cities; its officials have dismissed the new proposals as “not constructive”.

For Kyiv, the risk now is that Putin will talk Trump into backing favourable terms for Russia, said Tim Ross et al in Politico. That would leave Zelenskyy with a “miserable choice”: either take an offer “cooked up by Trump and Putin”, or hope that his European allies finally make good on their bold promises of help.

Sooner or later, though, he’ll have to make a deal, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. During four years of war, Ukraine has sustained hundreds of thousands of casualties. Millions of its citizens have fled abroad, and its economy lies in ruins. A bad settlement could imperil its future as a “genuinely independent” nation. But make no mistake: “the continuation of the war is also deeply damaging to Ukraine”.

This article appeared in History of War magazine issue 152.

CIA analysts gathered around U-2 spy plane photographs taken of Cuban military facilities. With horror, they realised they had just discovered Soviet medium-range and intermediate-range nuclear missiles – weapons that were capable of targeting most of the continental US.

The next morning, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy briefed President John F Kennedy. A naval quarantine of Cuba, and the closest the world has ever come to all-out nuclear conflict, followed.

The Cold War pivoted on the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The USA and the Soviet Union looked into the terrifying void and decided to collaborate on limiting horizontal (the number of nations with access to nuclear weapons) and vertical (the size of nuclear powers’ arsenals) proliferation.

International agreements followed, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, gradually bringing the world closer to safety. However, Serhii Plokhy, Cold War historian and author of The Nuclear Age, told History of War that our contemporary nuclear age has become significantly more dangerous.

“None of these treaties have continued. We are back to where we were before the Cuban Missile Crisis.” he explains. “We have entered the second nuclear arms race, and it’s more dangerous than the 1950s, because there are more players and no regulations in place.”

In the past, nuclear powers have pondered using force to limit proliferation. Advisers in Kennedy’s administration considered using covert special operations deployments to stop China from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This planning has escalated to deadly action in the post-Cold War nuclear age, including the invasion of Iraq and US strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025.

Yet the main danger may not lie in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other nations. “Today, we think that the world will end if Iran acquires nuclear weapons,” says Plokhy.

“We have been in Iran-type moments in history many times, and the world didn’t come to an end because there was no monopoly on the use of nuclear weapons. Whatever country acquires them exists in a world with other players that are much more powerful.”

The proliferation of nuclear weapons to other nations has diluted the nuclear monopoly, an essential condition for mutually assured destruction, but that alone has not made the world safer.

Plokhy explains: “The balance of nuclear weapons continues between the U.S. and Russia, who are the nuclear superpowers more than three decades after the Cold War, but the balance of fear has disappeared.

During the Cold War, countries that had nuclear weapons were equally as concerned about the dangers of nuclear conflict. However, “Russia behaves as if it’s the only country with nuclear weapons,” Plokhy explains.

Vladimir Putin appears to have lost his fear of nuclear destruction because economic weakness has backed him into a corner; Russia has not yet fully recovered economically from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“There is an enormous imbalance between the economic and nuclear power of Russia,” says Plokhy. “Nuclear power has become the only card they can play in the global arena and during the Russo-Ukrainian war.” Other nuclear powers have recently taken actions to assert their nuclear readiness, which could lead to a resurgence of Russian fears.

Plokhy indicates that the West also needs to show conventional military readiness: “If Russian drones attack NATO countries and NATO countries don’t send their drones into Russia, that causes a problem with the balance of fear. Russia is not the only country that can send drones into the territory of other states.”

As nuclear powers seek to return to a safe world, Plokhy positions the Cold War not as a “horribly dangerous period in international relations”, but as a “success story” from which “new generations can relearn the lessons that helped their grandparents to survive”.

He explains: “If we look at the Cold War through that perspective, we can ask questions like: ‘Was it just luck that we survived, or did we do something right?’ One of the things that was done right was the balance of fear necessary for equilibrium in international relations.”

Plokhy makes it clear that regenerating the right kind of nuclear terror can make the world a safer place. Whether that will happen before another event like the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world back to the brink remains to be seen.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 152. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

The biological world is always expanding as research is constantly being done. Because of this, many findings often fall under the radar despite having the potential to change the world. Here are some of the most groundbreaking discoveries in biology from the past year.

Slowing Huntington’s disease

Scientists have found a way to slow the progress of Huntington’s disease, a deadly neurodegenerative disorder, by 75%. The disease is largely hereditary and causes a gradual decline in mental and physical functions. Until now, there have been very minimal treatment options.

The new gene therapy treatment, called AMT-130, is “delivered deep into the brain during an eight- to 10-hour surgery,” said Scientific American. A “safe virus” that has been genetically altered to contain a specific DNA sequence is “infused,” where it “acts like a microscopic postman” by “delivering the new piece of DNA inside brain cells,” said the BBC. The treatment “turns the neurons into a factory for making the therapy to avert their own death.” AMT-130 is still in clinical trials and not yet widely available. “We’ve had so many failures, and there’s been a lot of heartbreak over many years in this community,” neurologist Victor Sung said to Scientific American. “So to have something that at least really appears to be having [an] impact is really significant.”

Understanding cell mechanisms

Researchers may be able to see what proteins are doing inside cells more accurately, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. The new method uses “natural proteins produced by a cell as tiny sensors to report on their environment and interactions,” said an article by Cornell University. It does so “without traditional invasive techniques that could interfere with a cell’s normal biology and skew research results.” The scientists were able to track flavoproteins, which are in many organisms and contain magnetic properties that can be detected using a technique called electron spin resonance spectroscopy.

Being able to understand the cell’s internal functions is “mainly useful for understanding new biological mechanisms, such as those that could be involved in disease states like cancer or during infection,” Brian Crane, a professor in Cornell’s Department of Chemistry and the author of the study, said in the article. “One could conceivably track the assembly of a virus using this method to understand how and where its components are built within cells.”

Kangaroo IVF

Scientists, in a hopping success, were able to produce the world’s first kangaroo embryo using IVF. This could be a significant step toward protecting endangered species in Australia. The researchers “assessed how kangaroo eggs and sperm developed in a laboratory, before injecting a single sperm directly into a mature egg, using a technique known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection,” said CNN.

While the eastern grey kangaroo is not endangered, other marsupial species are. “Our ultimate goal is to support the preservation of endangered marsupial species like koalas, Tasmanian devils, northern hairy-nosed wombats and Leadbeater’s possums,” Andres Gambini, who led the research, said to CNN. Australia has a higher extinction rate than any other continent on Earth in recent history, largely because many species are endemic to the region.

Oldest microbial DNA

Researchers “sequenced the DNA of various mammoths — including 440 that had never been sequenced or published before,” as well as “identified DNA from 310 different microbes living on or in the animals’ tissues,” said Smithsonian Magazine. The findings were published in the journal Cell.

While much of the bacteria appeared after the mammoths’ deaths, the scientists also “identified six ‘host-associated’ microbial groups that likely colonized the mammoths when they were still alive” over one million years ago. Host microbes may have “shaped how these Ice Age herbivores digested food, resisted infections and coped with shifting climates,” said Earth.com. “The same methods could be applied to other frozen or well-preserved remains, from ancient horses to extinct cave bears.”

Virtual scientists

Future research could be done in a virtual lab, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Researchers trained AI large language models (LLM) to “mimic top-tier scientists in the same way that they think critically about a problem, research certain questions, pose different solutions based on a given area of expertise and bounce ideas off one another to develop a hypothesis worth testing,” said Stanford Medicine. This essentially led to the creation of a virtual lab, which “consists of an LLM principal investigator agent guiding a team of LLM scientist agents through a series of research meetings, with a human researcher providing high-level feedback,” said the study.

The researchers then had the “lab” devise a new vaccine basis for Covid-19. It created a method using nanobodies that was potentially viable. These types of labs could allow for research to be done quickly, especially when done in collaboration with humans. “Good science happens when we have deep, interdisciplinary collaborations where people from different backgrounds work together, and often that’s one of the main bottlenecks and challenging parts of research,” said James Zou, an associate professor of biomedical data science and lead author of the study.

Of all the scandals that have plagued Donald Trump throughout his lifetime in the public eye, his extensive and well-documented relationship with disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein presents the most clear and immediate danger to the president. While Trump has long denied any wrongdoing, the public contours of his association with Epstein paint a compelling — if frustratingly incomplete — picture of two men with years of shared history. Despite the president’s repeated claims that he and Epstein were mere social acquaintances who suffered a falling out of sorts over a young woman in Trump’s former employ, the steady drip of Epstein-related material from Congress, coupled with Trump’s conspicuously ardent reactions thereof, suggest a much more robust bond.

As the president fends off a growing bipartisan push for full governmental transparency on a scandal that shows little sign of abating, here is what we know about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein’s long, complicated friendship.

1980s

While it’s unclear exactly when and where Trump and Epstein first met , Trump in a 2002 New York magazine interview said he’d known “terrific guy” Epstein “for fifteen years,” placing their initial point of contact in the mid-to-late 1980s. This was “around the time” of Trump’s 1985 purchase of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where Epstein “was also living,” said Forbes. “In my mind,” Epstein was Trump’s “best friend, you know,” former Trump Plaza Hotel and Casinos COO Jack O’Donnell said to CNN in 2025.

1992

Trump and Epstein are filmed together during a party for a segment of Faith Daniels’ talk show, “A Closer Look,” about Trump’s life post-divorce from first wife Ivana. This “most widely circulated footage” of the pair shows the two men “evidently assessing” the women at the event, which included NFL cheerleaders in town for a game, Rolling Stone said. At one point, Trump is “seen gesturing to a woman” and tells Epstein, “Look at her, back there .… She’s hot,” NBC News said. Trump later “said something else into Epstein’s ear,” prompting the financier to “double over with laughter.”

That same year, Florida-based businessman George Houraney flew 28 women to Trump’s estate for a “Calendar Girl” competition. Aside from the women, The New York Times said, the “only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.” Describing the incident to the Times, Houraney claims he said, “Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?’”

1993-2000

Trump and Epstein’s relationship continued through the ’90s, with the pair appearing in a photograph with Trump’s children Eric and Ivanka at a Harley Davidson Cafe opening in 1993. That same year, Epstein was photographed attending Trump’s second wedding to model Marla Maples. “I wish now I took more of him with Trump,” photographer Dafydd Jones said to CNN.“I had the job of photographing the Trump wedding, so I stood with the press and photographed him.”

In the subsequent four years, Trump would fly seven times on Epstein’s infamous aircraft, according to flight logs released during the trial of accomplice sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

1997 also saw Trump photographed alongside Epstein at a Victoria's Secret party in New York City. In 2000, Trump, Epstein, Maxwell and soon-to-be Trump spouse Melania Knauss posed for a series of pictures together at a party at Mar-a-Lago also attended by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince of England, who was stripped of his royal titles this year for sexual abuse and his relationship with Epstein.

2000-2006

At the dawn of the new millennium, Trump and Epstein’s apparent friendship appeared to be going strong. In 2000, though, the seeds of discontent between the two patricians were planted when Virginia Giuffre, then a teenager working as a Mar-a-Lago spa attendant, was hired away from Trump by Maxwell and Epstein as a masseuse. Giuffre, one of Epstein and Maxwell’s “most well-known sex trafficking accusers,” took her own life in early 2025, The Associated Press said. While her allegations were not part of Epstein’s criminal prosecutions, she has become “central to conspiracy theories about the case.”

By 2002, however, Trump was still singing Epstein’s public praises, describing him as a person who was a “lot of fun to be with” and who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” to New York magazine.

The next year, the pair connected again for Epstein’s 50th birthday, for which Trump penned a poem written out and formatted to look like the body of a naked woman. Trump, who initially denied The Wall Street Journal’s report on the card’s existence, signed the message “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

In 2004, whatever friendship existed between Trump and Epstein seems to have suffered a fatal blow when both men competed to purchase the enormous Maison de l’Amitie, an exclusive Palm Beach property that ultimately sold to Trump for more than $41 million. Two weeks after Trump obtained the property, Palm Beach police “fielded a tip that young women were seen coming and going from Epstein’s home,” said The Washington Post. Several months later, the local police received another complaint about Epstein, and by 2006 a grand jury had indicted him for solicitation.

2007

Trump finally “severed ties” entirely with Epstein in 2007, allegedly after the then-indicted financier “hit on the teenage daughter of a Mar-a-Lago member,” thereby damaging the “Trump brand of glitz and glamour,” The Miami Herald said. In 2025, Trump insisted that he’d made Epstein a persona non grata for “taking our people” from Mar-a-Lago, and has “long maintained” that his relationship with Epstein ended before the latter’s 2006 indictment, NPR said. But journalists who viewed Mar-a-Lago’s membership log said Epstein’s account at the club wasn’t closed until October 2007, “more than a year after he was indicted and released on bail,” said The Daily Beast.

2010

During a filmed deposition, Epstein is questioned about his relationship with Trump, and asked whether the pair had “socialized in the presence of females under the age of 18?” Epstein demurred from answering the question, citing his constitutional rights.

2015-2019

Now-shuttered media publication Gawker obtained and published Epstein’s infamous “black book” of contacts, as well as the passenger logs for Epstein’s private aircraft, in 2015. Mentioned alongside international notables like Mick Jagger and Prince Andrew, Trump’s name, among others, appeared circled in the book by Epstein’s (since-deceased) housekeeper, “supposedly to identify them as potential ‘material witnesses,’” Vanity Fair said.

The following year, an unidentified plaintiff using the name “Katie Johnson” sued both Trump and Epstein multiple times, alleging the pair raped her in 1994 when she was a 13-year-old aspiring model. The suits were all eventually withdrawn or dismissed, and to date, it is “still not clear who Katie Johnson was, or if she ever existed,” said the San Francisco Chronicle.

In 2019, Epstein was arrested and held on federal sex trafficking charges. In response to questions about their relationship, Trump said he “was not a fan of his” in an effort to “further distance himself from his former friend,” said Rolling Stone. One month later, Epstein would be dead from an apparent jail cell suicide that has provided fresh fuel for Epstein-associated conspiracy theories in the years since.

2019-2024

Trump was reportedly “shocked” at Epstein’s jailhouse death, and “believed conspiracy theories would inevitably follow,” said The Daily Beast. Trump had the “same reaction I did,” former Attorney General Bill Barr said to congressional investigators during a deposition in the summer of 2025. “How the hell did that happen, he’s in Federal custody?”

The following year, Trump surprised observers with an “unusual detour” to offer “warm words” for Maxwell, who had been arrested that past July, the Times said. Asked whether he thought Maxwell might publicly name names connected with Epstein, Trump said, “I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.” The remarks “renewed attention” on the Trump-Epstein relationship, the Times said, particularly after the president had “sought to distance himself from the disgraced financier.”

In 2024, just days before Trump was to win reelection, model Stacey Williams alleged that Trump had inappropriately groped and fondled her during a visit to Trump tower with Epstein, whom she was casually dating at the time. “I had this horrible pit in my stomach that it was somehow orchestrated,” Williams said in an interview with The Guardian. “I felt like a piece of meat.”

Now

Since returning to the White House for the second time, Trump has gone out of his way to portray himself as maximally transparent regarding Epstein, even as his efforts highlight the degree to which his administration seems unwilling to act accordingly. Schisms within the Justice Department over the White House's handling of the case quickly threatened to overshadow the administration’s attempts to rerelease tranches of largely-public Epstein-related material to select right-wing influencers. At the same time, the White House’s conspicuous efforts to court a now-imprisoned Maxwell, and her congruent efforts to secure favorable treatment, have only accentuated Trump’s associations with her and Epstein.

In early November of 2025, after weeks of congressional wrangling and dueling public statements, lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee released huge swaths of Epstein-related items, including evidence that the disgraced sex trafficker remained in close contact with many in Trump’s orbit long after he and the president had fallen out. In the aftermath of those revelations, both the House and Senate passed a bill to release the extent of the government’s Epstein documents, with key exceptions for protecting witnesses, issues of national security and other sensitive matters. In a post on Truth Social, Trump confirmed he’d signed the bill into law, but stressed that “Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories.”

The sports world was shocked following the recent indictments against an NBA head coach and players over allegations of illegal gambling operations. But while the scope of these indictments seemed unprecedented in professional leagues, there is a long history of sports betting scandals in the United States — and around the world. Some of these date to the earliest days of organized sports, and these types of scandals remain commonplace.

NBA Mafia indictments

In October 2025, the NBA was rocked by one of the largest betting scandals in the history of sports: Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones were “among 34 people indicted in connection with two separate federal gambling investigations,” said CNN. The arrests came following a multi-year investigation that spanned 11 states and involved numerous Mafia members, including “members of the notorious Bonanno, Genovese, Gambino and Lucchese crime families.”

The members of these families allegedly “fixed illegal poker games as part of a highly sophisticated and lucrative fraud scheme to cheat victims out of millions of dollars and conspired with others to perpetrate their frauds,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. in a press release. The NBA players involved would “lure unsuspecting victims to high-stakes poker games, where they were then at the mercy of concealed technology” that “ensured the victims would lose big,” Nocella alleged.

The arrests “roiled the league, from players to front offices to agents,” said NBC News. There was additional anger because Jones was “accused of disclosing privileged information to bettors about the injury status of a player.” This is a “very serious situation,” said Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle during a press conference. A day before the indictments were announced, the team’s “general counsel came down and read us all the regulations on gambling and warned our coaching staff, our players, our support staff about all these different things.”

Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter

Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani is considered one of the greatest players in modern baseball, but his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired by the team in 2024 after an investigation “revealed he sent millions in wire transfers from Ohtani's account to an illegal bookmaker,” said ESPN. Mizuhara eventually “pleaded guilty to bank fraud and filing a false tax return,” admitting to filing nearly 19,000 illegal bets that involved stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani. He is currently serving a 57-month prison sentence.

The bookmaker, Matt Bowyer, was “sentenced to just over a year in prison, a result that gave him an odd bit of freedom,” said NPR. When it came to Mizuhara’s bets, there “had to be zero handicapping on what he was picking, and the parlays were just long shots. I mean, you might as well just take 10 grand and light it on fire,” Bowyer said to NPR. Ohtani himself was never implicated in the scandal.

Phil Mickleson

Like Ohtani, Phil Mickelson is considered one of the greatest players ever in his respective sport, golf; he is one of only 17 players to win at least three of the four major golf tournaments. But a 2023 book alleged that Mickelson “bet more than $1 billion on football, basketball and baseball over the past three decades,” said ESPN. One of his bets even involved a “$400,000 wager on Team USA in the 2012 Ryder Cup in which he participated.”

The book, “Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk,” was written by famous sports gambler Billy Walters. Mickelson “made a staggering 7,065 wagers on football, basketball and baseball,” with losses totaling nearly $100 million, according to an excerpt from the book. In 2011 alone, Mickelson “made 3,154 bets — an average of nearly nine per day.”

Mickelson had previously admitted to struggles with sports gambling, writing on social media that he was “so distracted I wasn’t able to be present with the ones I love and caused a lot of harm.” But Mickelson also “denied the claims he tried to bet on the 2012 Ryder Cup,” said CNN.

Pete Rose

Pete Rose is indelibly linked to the Cincinnati Reds, helping make the Big Red Machine one of the best dynasties in baseball history. But unlike other superstar-caliber players, Rose isn’t found in the National Baseball Hall of Fame; in the early 1990s, he “came under scrutiny by the league for allegations over placing bets on baseball after several betting slips belonging to Rose were found in an Ohio restaurant,” said The Sporting News.

As the controversy grew, Rose remained adamant that he did not bet on baseball games. This came even as an independent report “ultimately found evidence to indicate Rose gambled on baseball while he was a manager of the Reds, including while he was a player-manager,” said The Sporting News. Rose was eventually declared permanently ineligible for the Hall of Fame.

Years later, Rose finally admitted to the gambling, revealing that he “bet on the Reds ‘every night’ while he was manager of the team,” said ESPN. Rose died in 2024 at the age of 83, and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred removed him from the ineligible list for the Hall of Fame, reportedly at the insistence of President Donald Trump. Rose “will have an opportunity in two years to be inducted,” said PBS News.

Paul Hornung and Alex Karras

Two of the best football players of the early NFL, Paul Hornung and Alex Karras, were suspended for “betting on league games and associating with gamblers or ‘known hoodlums,’” said The New York Times in a 1963 article. Hornung, a star halfback for the Green Bay Packers, was accused of a “pattern of betting and transmission of specific information concerning NFL games for betting purposes,” while Karras, a star defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions, had allegedly “made at least six significant bets on league games since 1958.”

It was revealed that at least “five members of the Detroit Lions bet $50 apiece on the Green Bay Packers to win the NFL championship,” said Time, revealing a wider-scale scandal than previously thought. Both Hornung and Karras served one-year suspensions from football. Hornung “returned to help the Packers win NFL championships in 1965 and 66,” said CBS Sports; Karras was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020.

Chicago Black Sox

There is perhaps no greater encapsulation of a sports scandal than this one. Given the scandal, involving the 1919 Chicago White Sox, occurred over a century ago, the exact details are unclear. But “one central and indisputable truth endures: Talented members of that White Sox club conspired with professional gamblers to rig the outcome of the 1919 World Series,” said the Society for American Baseball Research.

Eight players on the team, who were nicknamed the Black Sox by the media, were originally implicated in the scandal, most notably baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson. In court, prosecutors claimed that each of the players was “promised up to $20,000 to throw games and possibly the entire series,” said the Chicago History Museum.

A grand jury indicted the players on charges of conspiracy to defraud. But when the case went to trial, the jury “acquitted the players on all charges,” said the Chicago History Museum, and “no other charges were ever brought about for anyone else involved in the scandal.” The players were eventually banned from baseball and the Hall of Fame, but their eligibility was reinstated alongside Pete Rose’s.

The Duke of York has been marched down the honours hill, and persuaded to give up his royal titles after continued accusations about his association with the sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein.

It is a remarkable fall from grace for the late Queen’s favourite son, who was once second in line to the throne and widely feted as a Falklands War hero. Here’s how he went from popular prince to public pariah:

1999: first meets Epstein

Andrew is introduced to Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell. The British socialite, daughter of press baron Robert Maxwell, was Epstein's girlfriend at the time and had met Andrew when she was at university.

The trio quickly develop a “close friendship”, according to The Independent. Andrew is said to have invited the couple to Balmoral, his mother’s Scottish residence, that same year. In June 2000, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are guests at a party hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle and, that December, Epstein joins Andrew at a shooting weekend at Sandringham, the royal family’s Norfolk estate.

2001: infamous Virginia Giuffre photo taken

According to Virginia Giuffre, then known as Virginia Roberts, this is when she first meets Andrew. In a lawsuit filed in 2019, she said that, after a sweaty night of dancing at London’s Tramp nightclub, Andrew had sex with her at Maxwell’s townhouse – where the now-infamous photo of the three of them was allegedly taken. On two other occasions – in Epstein’s New York flat and at an “orgy” on Epstein’s private Caribbean island – she is forced to have sex with Andrew, she alleged. At the time, she is 17, and a minor under US law.

2008: Epstein jailed for sex offences

Epstein is charged by Florida prosecutors with “soliciting prostitution” and “soliciting prostitution with a minor”. He pleads guilty, after making a controversial plea deal that gives him immunity from other federal sex abuse charges, and is sentenced to 18 months in prison.

2010: Epstein released

Shortly after Epstein’s release from prison, Andrew is photographed walking with him in New York’s Central Park. Andrew later claimed his sole purpose in meeting Epstein then was to end their friendship.

2015-2016: Andrew linked to Epstein in court documents

In 2015, Buckingham Palace denies “any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors” on the part of the prince, after he was named in US court papers related to an Epstein legal case.

A year later, Andrew is again named as part of a defamation suit brought by Giuffre against Maxwell, with Giuffre claiming she was paid $15,000 (£11,180) to have sex with the prince. But these court documents are sealed, and not released until 2019.

2019: Epstein dies; Newsnight interview

In August, the court documents from the Giuffre v Maxwell case are unsealed on public interest grounds. The next day, Epstein is found dead in the New York jail cell where he had been awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He has apparently committed suicide.

In November, Andrew gives a wide-ranging interview with BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis. He says he has "no recollection" of ever meeting Giuffre, and could not have sex with her in March 2001 because he was at Pizza Express with his daughter on the day in question. He also refutes Giuffre’s description of him sweating while dancing because, he said, he has been unable to sweat since serving in the Falklands War.

The interview is widely seen as disastrous. Four days later, Andrew announces that he will be stepping back from public duties,

2021-2022: Giuffre sues; royal status downgraded

In August 2021, Giuffre files a civil suit against Andrew in the US, alleging that she was forced to have sex with him in the early 2000s. Andrew’s status as a member of the royal family is downgraded in early 2022, after a US judge rules that the case can go ahead. Andrew is stripped of his military affiliations, his royal patronages and the use of his HRH title, after more than 150 veterans write to the Queen.

In February, Andrew settles the civil case brought against him by Giuffre with an out-of-court payment of £12 million but no apology and no admission of liability.

2025: Guiffre dies; Andrew gives up titles

In April, Giuffre dies by suicide, aged 41, at her farm in Western Australia. In a statement, her family say that “she lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking”.

In October, the Mail on Sunday publishes a newly unearthed email proving that Andrew continued contact with Epstein after the 2010 New York meeting at which he’d claimed to end the friendship. The mail, dated 28 February 2011, says “we are in this together”. The BBC says the allegations are “intensely damaging” for the prince.

Just days later, after a “discussion” with the King and the Prince of Wales, Andrew gives up the use of his Duke of York title, as well as all his other remaining honours, including his membership of the Order of the Garter. It’s understood that he will not attend royal family events over Christmas. For the time being, he will continue living at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park.

In Giuffre’s memoir, published posthumously in late October, she claims that Andrew considered it “his birthright” to have sex with her. The release of the memoir adds to the “air of gloom at Buckingham Palace, which has tried to distance itself from Prince Andrew” and “heaps further pressure on the institution of monarchy”, said ITV News.

The Conservatives used their annual party conference to outline key policies they would implement if they were elected.

New economic ‘golden rule’

Kemi Badenoch’s keynote speech confirmed a new “golden rule” designed to cut government borrowing and taxes. Half of all savings in any future Tory government would go towards reducing the gap between spending and tax revenues, and the other half would fund economic policies such as tax cuts.

Stamp duty

The party will abolish the “unconservative” stamp duty tax that people pay when buying a property. The “surprise announcement” from Badenoch yesterday was “warmly welcomed” by conference attendees, said Sky News, and would be paid for by £47 billion of planned spending cuts.

Young buyers’ tax rebate

A £5,000 tax break would be offered to young people who get their first full-time job, to put the money towards a deposit on their first house. Funds would be “diverted” into a “long-term savings account”, said ITV News. But it isn’t yet clear what would happen for first-time workers “not looking to buy a home”.

Sentencing Council

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the Tories would scrap the Sentencing Council, described as “not fit for purpose”, in favour of offering ministers the power to issue guidelines to English and Welsh courts. Former Tory ministers “expressed disbelief” at the plan, said The Guardian. Ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve said it was “bonkers”.

Energy bills

A future Tory government would cut energy bills by 20% by axing the carbon tax and wind farms. The party has promised the measure would save the average family £165 a year, while there are also plans to scrap Great British Energy – a Labour initiative.

Digital addiction is a broad term for unhealthy behaviors related to spending too much time on the internet, in particular when a person cannot stop these behaviors despite experiencing negative consequences. The addiction can take many forms and is becoming more common.

The basics

Digital addiction can come in many forms, including excessive interaction with social media, internet gaming, online gambling, online shopping and online pornography. As with gambling and pornography, the internet can amplify addictions by increasing accessibility. Some people can be especially vulnerable to falling into digital addiction, like “those with high levels of internet use for socialization, education and entertainment,” said Psychiatry.org.

Those who struggle with digital addiction may “compulsively” feel the urge to check notifications or need to “spend increasing amounts of time online to achieve satisfaction,” said Northwestern Medicine. They may also tend to lose track of time while on the internet and feel “restless, moody, depressed or irritable” when attempting to cut back on phone or internet usage.

Addictive by design

It is not surprising that the internet has become so addictive. After all, it was designed that way. Many social media apps use what is called the Hook Model to keep users on their apps. In this model, the app will first trigger a person to interact, like with a notification. This, in turn, will prompt someone to enter the app. Then, the app will use a variable reward system to prompt a user to remain there. “Even if users open a social media app because of a notification, they’ll likely engage with other parts of the app as they seek additional rewards,” like endless scrolling content, said ADDitude. In a vicious circle, the users will like, save and share content that gives the app’s algorithm knowledge about what keeps them hooked.

Another way websites and apps keep people hooked is through gamification, which turns internet interactions into a game. Social media is not the only area of the internet using gamifying techniques; online shopping also employs the method. The way the shopping app Temu prices and promotes products is “deliberate,” with the company “pushing the exact consumer psychology buttons necessary to keep shoppers shopping,” said the BBC. “Customers are encouraged to keep shopping with the introduction of bonuses and coupons that mimic the rewards you might accumulate in a video game.”

Population problem

While some populations use the internet more than others, digital addiction is “not limited to a specific demographic group, and it is increasing across diverse populations,” said Psychiatry.org. More than 50% of Americans believe they are addicted to their phones, and up to 60% of teens show signs of cell phone addiction, according to research from 2024. In addition, at least 10% of American social media users are addicted to it.

Teens and young adults are some of the groups most addicted to the internet, but there has also been a stark rise in addiction for baby boomers. A recent report found that approximately 50% of the mostly baby boomer–polled sample “reported spending more than three hours daily on their smartphones” and “roughly 20% spent more than five hours per day,” said Newsweek. This suggests that a “notable portion of the Baby Boomer generation exhibits patterns associated with digital addiction,” the report said.

The consequences

Digital addiction can significantly affect a person’s mental health. Excessive internet use can lead to anxiety and depression, exacerbated by the isolating nature of the addiction. It can also cause “dishonesty, anxiety, aggression and mood swings,” said the Addiction Center. Digital addiction can affect physical health as well and lead to “body aches, carpal tunnel syndrome, insomnia, vision problems and weight gain/loss.” In the worst cases, it can lead to suicide.

Teens, in particular, “may frequently fall behind on schoolwork, stay up late and fight with parents,” said ADDitude. Adults may neglect their jobs and other responsibilities in favor of spending time on the internet, which could lead to unemployment and even homelessness. Those with ADHD may also “spend more time on digital media and have more severe symptoms of problematic internet use” compared to those without the diagnosis.

AI and addiction

The rise of AI may also be exacerbating digital addiction and potentially leading to worse mental health problems. Chatbots like ChatGPT have led many to psychosis by feeding delusions and offering unsound medical advice. A new subset of digital addiction, known as AI addiction, has become prevalent. Those who identify as AI addicts tend to use AI applications for extended periods “despite attempts to control or cut back,” said Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous. They also reported finding that their “sense of validation and emotional regulation” was tied to their use of AI models.

Still, AI may eventually lead to a decrease in digital addiction. The internet is “already so woven into every part of our lives that going cold turkey is pretty much impossible,” said The Atlantic. But the “internet’s new era may push AI skeptics to spend less time online, while another group ramps up their AI-mediated screen time.” The prevalence of AI may make people turn to the real world again, viewing it as more trustworthy. “Where going online once evoked a wide-eyed sense that the world was at our fingertips, now it requires wading into the slop like weary, hardened detectives, attempting to parse the real from the fake.”

Preventing addiction

The key to keeping internet use healthy is to establish balance, boundaries and communication, according to Psychiatry.org. Families should “consider approaches ensuring children get adequate sleep, daily physical activity, time for play and reading and discovery, time with people they care about and time to focus on learning without multitasking.”

Adults could track their screen time and try to match it to time spent off-screen. “If you have an hour online, spend an hour outside or an hour reading a book,” Lisa Strohman, a clinical psychologist and the author and founder of the Digital Citizen Academy, said to NBC News. “You want to make it at least equal to the time you’re spending on your phone.”

If you find that your internet use is affecting your life or you are unable to stop, consider addiction therapy. Therapy can “help uncover the underlying issues that may be contributing to your addictive behaviors,” said the Addiction Center. This is important if digital addiction is occurring alongside another mental illness.

Each generation develops its own dating mores, lingo and modes of operation. When two Baby Boomers were in a long-term relationship, for example, they were “going steady,” a term that seems to have no meaningful analogue today. Today’s retirees might have a particularly hard time understanding what their grandchildren are talking about, given how much contemporary dating culture is both produced and reinforced by the apps that nearly everyone uses to meet their significant other these days.

Beige flag

Everyone knows what a red flag is — maybe it’s someone who has completely lost custody of a child from a past relationship, or doesn’t exist on the Internet at all. For Gen Z, a beige flag is more innocuous. It could be someone offering a cringe or basic answer to a dating app question, or someone who owns the entire DVD set of “The Big Bang Theory.” But we should be careful not to throw too many beige flags and in the process “overlook the beauty of embracing our partners’ quirks,” said The New York Times.

Benching

Benching should be familiar to older generations as a form of “taking a break,” as in the famous Ross-and-Rachel episode of the 90s-era sitcom “Friends.” But in this case it’s unilateral — one person pressing pause on a relationship because the other “may have done something you don’t like or that has upset you” but not ending it altogether, said Essence.

Breadcrumbing

To breadcrumb someone means to give them just enough attention and communication to keep them interested in pursuing a relationship but not enough to move things forward in a meaningful way. It’s not considered a very nice thing to do because “people who have been breadcrumbed tend to feel more lonely, more helpless and less satisfied with life,” said Psychology Today.

Cuffing season

Cuffing season is the “time when many people think more deeply about romantic connections as the year winds down,” said Hinge. The term is derived from “handcuffs,” which is perhaps not the healthiest metaphor about the consequences of getting into a long-term relationship. But the idea has nevertheless taken hold with younger dating cohorts. It refers loosely to the period between Halloween and Valentine’s Day, when much of the Northern Hemisphere is cold or at least chillier than usual and when people seem to crave companionship more than usual.

Cushioning

To employ cushioning means to be dating one main person with one or more people to fall back on so you don’t get hurt. The cushion is a metaphor for a soft landing. While the technique could be employed in bad faith, it also “​​can potentially be a good thing if you’re not sure where you stand in a relationship,” said Men’s Health.

Freak matching

Are you someone who is completely obsessed with the idea that the American Deep State might be hiding a secret cache of classified information about the 1937 disappearance and presumed death of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart? If it’s important enough to you that you seek other Earhart Truthers in a romantic partner, you’re engaging in freak matching. A recent survey showed that almost 40% of respondents have “connected with someone based on this kind of offbeat compatibility,” said Vice. Bonding over shared dislikes, on the other hand, is known as “grim keeping.”

Ghosting

To ghost someone means to disappear from a relationship abruptly, with no explanation and no effort to help the other person understand why. It’s widely considered cruel and cowardly, especially because it “can lead people to question their self-worth and value as a human being,” said The New York Times.

Groundhogging

Named after the beloved 1993 Bill Murray time-loop comedy, groundhogging means to seek out the exact same type of person in a relationship over and over again — even after repeated failures or disasters. This common behavior means that you’re “stuck somewhere between a largely unsuccessful pattern and the fear of trying something new,” said The Independent.

Ick

To give someone “the ick” is to accidentally drive them away with behavior that they find gross, off-putting or cringe. This often happens for a “reason that seems pretty innocuous,” said Parents. In the 2024 Netflix comedy “Nobody Wants This,” for example, Joanne (Kristen Bell) gets “the ick” when Noah (Adam Brody) goes way over the top in an effort to impress her Mom (Stephanie Faracy). Joanne gets over it, but not everyone does.

Kittenfishing

If “catfishing” is creating an entirely fake profile to lure someone into a relationship or scam (or to get a job), “kittenfishing” is the milder version. It means to stretch the truth about certain elements of a dating profile to make yourself look better. It “involves minor stretches of truth or sugarcoating the reality of things,” said The Knot. One example: claiming to hold a job title that is higher-status than the one you have.

Love bombing

A love bomber is someone who is too much, too soon — blitzing a new love interest with texts and requests to hang out, and making florid declarations of love when most people are still trying to figure out if and how they fit together. This could describe someone who is well-intentioned but overbearing. It is more often “considered to be an abuse tactic, wherein one person showers the other with affection, compliments, gifts and attention in order to gain their trust and control or manipulate them,” said Cosmopolitan.

Orbiting

Orbiting refers to an ex who has stopped seeing you or communicating with you in the real world but who nevertheless follows and occasionally interacts with you on social media. It’s confusing behavior for the recipient because it raises the question of whether or not the person is still interested in you. For the orbiter, “checking an ex-love’s social media profiles can provide dopamine boosts, acting as a reward for curiosity,” said Forbes.

Roommate syndrome

A tale as old as romance is the charged magic shared between a new couple vanishing as soon as they move in together or marry. The term refers to relationships that begin with a “lot of passion and exciting intimacy” that often “fades over time as the rigors of life kick in,” said The Gottman Institute.

Slow fade

“The slow fade of love/its soft edge might cut you,” sang Jenny Lewis of the early-aughts alt-rock band Rilo Kiley. Today the idea of a “slow fade” has been seized by younger daters to describe the practice of diminishing communications and get-togethers rather than ghosting someone or explicitly breaking up with them. You’re “disappearing from a former romantic interest's life passively over a prolonged period of time” rather than suddenly, said Self.

Submarining

A delightfully evocative term, “submarining” means to resurface — like an underwater naval vessel coming up to refill its oxygen tanks — in a former romantic’s partner’s life after ghosting or breaking up with them. The person in question typically shows up “with no apology and acts as if no time had passed,” said NPR.

Speculation is rife about what could be in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ much anticipated Autumn Budget.

Reeves will deliver her latest fiscal update on 26 November and there are likely to be “significant changes to wealth and property taxes”, said BDO, with changes to pension tax reliefs and inheritance tax also a possibility.

The chancellor is facing pressures of a fragile global economy and “anaemic” UK growth, said Fidelity, so while everything is just speculation for now, she will be looking for “new ways to raise revenue this year”.

Here is how you can prepare.

1. Hurry up your home sale

There have been reports that property taxes could be reformed, replacing stamp duty, plus capital gains tax could be charged on the sale of certain homes.

It could be worth “pushing to complete before November” if you are currently selling, said The Times, so that you still get the capital gains tax exemption.

2. Top up your pension

Pension rules are often a source of speculation ahead of the Budget, said BBC News, with possible changes such as “tax relief available to savers and the level of the tax-free lump sum which can be withdrawn”.

It is “rarely a bad idea to top up your pension”, said Continuum, as pensions are an “incredibly tax-efficient way to save for the future”.

You could also withdraw more now before any reported restrictions but it’s “really important not to rush in”, said Rest Less, as anyone who takes money out of their pension is putting it into a taxable environment.

3. Boost ISA contributions

There is “widespread speculation”, said Fidelity, that the overall £20,000 ISA limit could be cut for cash ISAs amid a government review.

It “makes sense to make the most of the ISA system as it stands”, said Saga, by making full use of your allowance.

Stocks and shares ISAs “typically return higher growth over time” compared with cash ISAs, but may not be suitable if you may need money in a hurry “or if you’re not comfortable with a level of risk”.

4. Make use of tax allowances

Reeves may have “unfinished business” with capital gains tax, said AJ Bell, having “pushed rates up a bit” in the previous Budget.

It is worth planning how to use your £3,000 capital gains allowance, said Continuum, plus spouses and civil partners can transfer assets to each other tax-free, “letting you benefit from their allowance as well as your own”.

The “easiest way to protect your money” from tax rises is to make use of “all your allowances”, said The Times, including the £20,000 you can put in an ISA, £60,000 that can go into pensions and the £500 that can be earned in dividends outside an ISA tax-free.

5. Consider inheritance tax

Inheritance tax may be another target for the chancellor, having already used the previous Budget to apply the charge to pensions.

If she wants to “target inheritances again”, said AJ Bell, she could either reduce inheritance tax thresholds or extend the “seven-year rule” for lifetime gifts.

Making any “significant gifts” before the Budget could help “secure today’s more generous rules”, said Clarke & Wright, but “be strategic, not hasty” as acting too quickly could cause tax charges and “leave you short of funds you may need in the future”.

6. Don’t panic

Any changes may not be “implemented immediately”, said CheltenhamIFA, so it is important not to panic.

You will usually have time to digest the changes and “carefully consider how you’ll respond”. Plus, it may be worth speaking to a financial planner “rather than making a snap decision”.

It sent shockwaves through Hollywood when Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” was taken off the air following controversy over comments made by the host about the killing of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. Many in the industry, citing alleged pressure by the Trump administration’s FCC, called for the show’s network, ABC, to reverse its decision. But Kimmel is just the latest in a long line of television pundits and cable hosts (including Stephen Colbert this summer) who have faced criticism.

Jimmy Kimmel

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was suspended this month “after comments that he made about Charlie Kirk’s killing” caused a backlash among conservatives, said The Associated Press. The late-night host’s commentary was not about the actual shooting of Kirk, but rather about the right-wing reaction to it. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said during his monologue.

The comments “led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show and provoked some ominous comments from a top federal regulator,” said the AP. The decision, made by TV station conglomerate Nexstar, came hours after FCC Chair Brendan Carr “suggested Jimmy Kimmel should be suspended and said, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way’” during an interview, said CNN. The decision to ax Kimmel’s show “raised serious First Amendment concerns” among free speech watchdog groups.

Brian Kilmeade

Brian Kilmeade, a morning host on the Fox News show “Fox & Friends,” garnered a barrage of criticism after asserting on-air this month that mentally ill homeless people should be executed. Homeless people should either accept help or “decide that [they] are going to be locked up in jail. That’s the way it has to be now,” said co-host Lawrence Jones during a discussion about a North Carolina woman allegedly murdered by a mentally ill homeless man. “Or involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill ’em,” Kilmeade replied.

Anger toward Kilmeade didn’t occur “until a few days later, when clips of the comments spread quickly on social media,” The New York Times said. Once the video made the rounds, though, “heavy criticism followed” and “some called for his dismissal.” Amid the uproar, Kilmeade offered an apology days later. He “wrongly said” homeless people should get lethal injections, and apologized for the “extremely callous remark,” Kilmeade said. However, some thought the apology didn’t go far enough and urged Fox to fire him regardless.

Jimmy Fallon

While Jimmy Fallon may be known for his consistently laughing and bubbly personality on “The Tonight Show,” the host came under fire in 2023 after a report from Rolling Stone seemingly documented the show’s problematic workplace. The show has been a “toxic workplace for years — far outside the boundaries of what’s considered normal in the high-pressure world of late-night TV,” said Rolling Stone’s report.

This was due to Fallon’s “erratic behavior, and has trickled down to its ever-changing leadership teams — nine showrunners in the past nine years — who seemingly don’t know how to say no to Jimmy,” said Rolling Stone. The show’s employees claimed they were “belittled and intimidated by their bosses, including Fallon himself.” After Rolling Stone published its story, Fallon reportedly “apologized to his colleagues” during a Zoom call and said he “did not intend to ‘create that type of atmosphere for the show,’” said CNN.

Chris Cuomo

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was a mainstay on the network for years. But his career with the channel came to an end in 2021 after Cuomo allegedly “aided his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when the then-governor was accused of sexual harassment,” said CNN. The network fired Cuomo over conflict-of-interest concerns because there was “new information that came to light about his involvement with his brother’s defense.”

After being fired, Cuomo claimed CNN used him as a scapegoat and sued the network because it “repeatedly breached its agreement,” lawyers for the anchor said in a lawsuit. Cuomo became “untouchable in the world of broadcast journalism” because of CNN’s “efforts to tar and feather him.” But Cuomo eventually landed another job and currently hosts “Cuomo” on NewsNation.

Ellen DeGeneres

“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” became a daytime television staple during its 19-season run, with the eponymous host always signing off by urging her viewers to “be kind to one another.” But in 2020, this came crashing down as “DeGeneres and several senior staffers have been accused by current and former employees of fostering a toxic work environment,” said Entertainment Weekly.

The allegations of workplace misconduct and bullying arose at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and crew members were “distressed and outraged over their treatment from top producers amid the coronavirus pandemic,” said Variety. The crew members claimed they “received no written communication about the status of their working hours, pay, or inquiries about their mental and physical health from producers for over a month.” Several years after the controversy arose, in 2024, DeGeneres claimed she “got kicked out of show business for being mean.”

Matt Lauer

Matt Lauer was one of the most recognizable names on television for years as a co-host of NBC’s “Today.” But his career seemed to be irreparably damaged in 2017 after numerous women “identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment by Lauer, and their stories have been corroborated by friends or colleagues that they told at the time,” said Variety. This conduct allegedly ranged from gifting a “colleague a sex toy as a present” to a time when he summoned a “female employee to his office, and then dropped his pants.”

NBC fired the host after the allegations came to light. A later investigation found that the “allegations were credible, but that the conduct in question was never specifically reported to human resources or to senior NBC News executives,” said NPR. But at least one other media individual, former CNN anchor Don Lemon, thinks Lauer could make a comeback despite his conduct. Lauer “can set his own course” in digital news media, Lemon said.

Billy Bush

As a nephew of former President George H.W. Bush and cousin of former President George W. Bush, Billy Bush’s last name already made him famous, and he gained further notoriety as a correspondent for “Access Hollywood” and “Today.” But Bush found himself in the middle of a significant controversy in 2016, when a resurfaced 2005 clip from “Access Hollywood” showed him having a lewd conversation with Donald Trump.

The infamous tape, in which Trump boasts that he can grab women “by the pussy” because “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” also damaged Bush’s image. Bush was suspended by “Today” and soon afterwards fired. But had that tape “leaked out when it actually occurred in 2005, I would’ve been fired for an entirely different reason — killing their cash cow,” Bush said on Rob Lowe’s podcast in July 2025.” Trump “was a protected, revered source. He was a hundred million dollars in profit for NBC.”

Days after Polish and Nato forces scrambled to shoot down Russian drones that had flown into Poland’s airspace, Russian troops gathered in neighbouring Belarus for largescale war games; Indian and Iranian troops also participated. The Zapad 2025 exercises included a simulated nuclear strike. Although they were billed as defensive, analysts said they were designed to intimidate Europe.

In total, 19 drones crossed into Poland last Wednesday. Moscow’s allies claimed that they had strayed there accidentally, but days later, another Russian drone violated Romanian airspace. Warsaw said the incursion was a test of Nato’s defensive capabilities, and invoked Article 4, which brings a threat to the attention of its council. Nato then launched an operation to bolster its eastern flank. Donald Trump said he would impose tougher sanctions on Russia – but only if all Nato members stop buying Russian oil and gas and slap heavy tariffs on China.

‘Chinks in the alliance’s armour’

The sheer scale of the incursion into Poland makes it clear that this was a “calculated escalation” by Vladimir Putin”, said The Daily Telegraph. Emboldened by Trump’s indulgence, he wanted to see if Nato had the resolve to respond. Poland has painful recent experience of invasion and occupation, said The Independent. So its PM Donald Tusk’s warning that the prospect of conflict in Europe is “closer than at any time since the Second World War”, has to be taken seriously: this was the first time in Nato’s history that its member states have had to directly attack Russian forces, albeit unmanned ones.

Fortunately, for all Trump’s vacillations, Nato was still strong enough to answer the call. Yet there are “chinks in the alliance’s armour”, said The Times. Two of its members, Hungary and Slovakia, are “virtual allies of Russia”. And the leader of the US, its most powerful member, treats the Ukraine War as a “business opportunity”. Trump is making European nations buy US weapons to give to Kyiv; now he’s trying to stop them buying Russian gas, to boost sales of US liquefied natural gas.

Warning shots

Ever since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Western strategists have been asking who the Kremlin would target next, said Mark Almond in the Daily Mail. The consensus was that “small, militarily weak nations on Russia’s border”, such as Latvia or Estonia, would be the target. Yet instead, Putin picked Poland, a country which spends nearly 5% of its GDP on defence – the highest share of any Nato member – and has the third-largest standing army in the alliance, after the US and Turkey.

Does this suggest we are “teetering on the edge of World War Three”? These warning shorts certainly expose our weaknesses, said Edward Lucas in The Times. “The US insists (rightly) that Europe must take the lead in standing up to Russia.” But without it, there is nothing like a unified European alliance. Political stances vary wildly, while even supportive nations, such as France, Spain and Belgium, flinch at the risk and the cost.

Trump’s ‘latest wheeze’

Europe’s Nato powers have more than enough air power to keep the Russians out, said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon in The Daily Telegraph. But they should go further, by establishing a no-fly zone in western Ukraine. This would save thousands of lives; and as a display of power, it could be the “catalyst to get Putin around the negotiating table”.

Nonsense, said Jennifer Kavanagh on UnHerd. Ukraine – in dire straits militarily – has an interest in exaggerating the Russian threat to Europe, to scare the continent into giving more aid. Instead of responding in a bellicose fashion, and risking a wider war, Western leaders should tamp down their rhetoric and “double down on diplomacy”.

Unfortunately, any diplomatic efforts are liable to be scuppered by Trump, said Jason Corcoran in The Moscow Times. His “latest wheeze” – promising to ramp up sanctions on Russia if Nato imposes tariffs of 50% to 100% on Chinese imports – is a “cynical stalling tactic”. He knows that this would be economic suicide for Europe. He is letting Moscow “off the hook, granting Putin much-needed breathing room as the war rages on”.

India’s participation in the Zapad war games, led by the highly respected Kumaon Regiment, has “raised eyebrows” amid signs that the US may be losing a “key ally” in Asia, says Lorraine Mallinder on Al Jazeera. But despite recent tensions over US tariffs, Trump confirmed last week that India and the US were continuing negotiations. Denmark announced on Wednesday that it would buy long-range precision missiles and drones, for the first time, to combat the threat from Russia. “Russia is testing us,” said Danish PM Mette Frederiksen.

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This article appeared in History of War magazine issue 151.

On 2 September 1945, Japanese forces officially surrendered to the Republic of China, ending the brutal occupation which began in 1937. Since the end of the subsequent Chinese Civil War, this victory has been marked separately by the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China (Taiwan).

In mainland China, the communist government's role in the victory over Japan has been largely overemphasised over the decades, while the nationalist contribution has been downplayed or even extinguished from commemorations.

However, it was the nationalist government, the Kuo-min-tang (KMT), under Chiang Kai-shek, that led the main military campaigns of resistance against the Japanese and formally accepted their surrender in 1945.

Dissonance over who fought the Japanese harder, the KMT or the communists, or who is properly honoured in war memorials, now extends to the Taiwan question. Since the 1990s the island nation's politics has drifted away from the militaristic KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party now sees Japan as a diplomatic ally.

Meanwhile, China's state-owned media and its adjacent entertainment industry have fused the historical narrative of the war into a unified struggle that echoes the brief accommodation the communists and nationalists reached by 1938.

This has resulted in modern China marking the beginning of the war from 1931, when Japan seized Manchuria, until 1945 – labelling this a 'Chinese people's war of resistance' greater in scope than the previous 1937-1945 framing.

As far as the mainland is concerned, all of China was swept by the terrible ordeal and Japan's crimes are a timeless evil that sullied the course of Chinese history – never mind who was in charge of the government at this time.

The end of Japanese occupation

It took three weeks for the KMT to formalise the total surrender of all Japanese forces and civilians in 1945. Although Tokyo announced its decision to the allies on August 10 it was not until September 3 that Japanese soldiers in China were ordered to lay down their arms and a few more days passed until a formal agreement was smoothed out.

To mark the occasion a nationalist general with a sizeable retinue was sent to the former capital Nanking, still occupied by 70,000 Japanese soldiers. The venue itself was emblematic of modern China's statehood, being a war college for nationalist officers.

The once unrepentant General Yasutsugu Okamura and his staff were seated along a table and signed the act of surrender that was delivered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on the same day: September 9, 1945.

Japan's capitulation in China was far from straightforward. By Chiang Kai-shek's reckoning there were 1.3 million enemy soldiers left in the mainland. When the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria in early August it quashed and captured the million-strong Kwantung Army.

An estimated one million Japanese civilians were scattered among China's ravaged cities and 170,000 more soldiers were garrisoned in Formosa. Annexed by Japan in 1895 and subjected to a brutal ethnic cleansing, the fate of this island known today as Taiwan was decided at the Cairo Conference in 1943 when Chiang himself agreed on post-war territorial arrangements with Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt.

The calamity of the war against Japanese aggression, which is how China recognises the conflict from 1937 until 1945, took such a severe toll on the country's population, that there was little to no relief once the Japanese left.

Impact of WWII on China

China began sliding toward a new crisis soon after the KMT finalised a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union, while allowing 50,000 U.S. marines to land in the north and help repatriate Japanese POWs home.

The economic and humanitarian cost to China during WWII was immense, with 2 million soldiers perishing along with 14 million civilians. Contemporary historians now revise the death toll as high as 18 to 20 million (according to the Library of Congress Asian Reading Room), on par with the Soviet Union's losses during the war. Nonetheless, as soon as the mutual enemy was defeated, the civil war between the communists and nationalists simmered anew.

The communist leader and firebrand Mao Zedong shredded the KMT's tepid announcement of Japan's defeat in mid-August. Rather than the generous reassurance that China would not seek revenge on Japan, as uttered by Chiang himself, Mao blamed the KMT for their lack of co-operation and constant intrigues.

According to Mao, it was the communist forces who kept the Japanese divisions away from southern China's 'free' heartland where 200 million Chinese were spared the horrors of conquest.

This was a bizarre claim to make. In fact, the communists had fought short-lived campaigns against the Japanese in the early 1940s, which mostly took place in central China and the northeast.

Furthermore, the Imperial Japanese Army had reached the southern coast of China by late 1944 and even Hong Kong and Hainan island were seized as early as 1941 and 1939, respectively.

By 1947 the civil war was once again in full swing, despite heroic attempts by the U.S. envoy Gen. George C. Marshall to organise a coalition government.

In circumstances that echo current world politics, the United States was trying to solve the China question by bringing together two irreconcilable factions. Once the communists triumphed, and Mao Zedong and his circle were ensconced in Peking (Beijing) by October 1949, the entire fabric of China's national politics was in tatters.

The reeling nationalists of the KMT rebuilt their state on Formosa and organised a string of small garrisons on outer islands facing the Chinese coast as a primary line of defence for a coming invasion.

In supreme irony, by the early 1950s as the U.S. was extending support for the KMT in Taiwan, retired Japanese army generals were visiting Taipei incognito for briefings with their temporary secret allies.

The coming decades made the Peking-Taipei-Tokyo axis a complicated one. In his final years even Mao Zedong revised his views on Japan and welcomed a restoration of diplomacy. So did his successors, despite constant efforts in China to memorialise Japanese atrocities during the war of aggression, including the controversy surrounding 'comfort women' or the enslavement of women in Japanese-occupied areas.

Since the 1990s, immense monuments and exhibitions have emerged chronicling this painful and dark history, while at the same time Japan became the most reliable foreign investor in the mainland.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 151. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

Taylor Swift is the biggest name in music right now, and she is also one of the defining entertainers of the 21st century. No other pop star has captured the global zeitgeist quite like the Pennsylvania country singer-turned-pop superstar. Swift broke dozens of records in 2024 and has already been continuing her success in 2025, which isn't new for her; she has been breaking records since the time she first came on the scene in the early 2000s.

Swift's globetrotting "Eras" tour became its own cultural phenomenon and defined her status as perhaps the most dominating musician of her generation. It was the highest-grossing concert tour in history and the first to surpass $1 billion in sales. But this was only the latest in a string of record-breaking successes for Swift, who has been setting precedents in the music industry since practically her first song, making waves at record stores, movie theaters and more.

"The Tortured Poets Department," was released in 2024 following massive anticipation. Swift's popularity only grew when she announced her next album, "The Life of a Showgirl," which was released Oct. 3. The album is largely inspired by her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, whom Swift recently became engaged to.

First and only female artist to surpass 100 million RIAA album sales

It's no shocker that Swift's albums fly off the shelves, and she reached a major milestone in September 2025, becoming the first and only female artist to surpass 100 million certified album sales, as confirmed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The singer has currently sold 105 million RIAA-certified albums, according to the association's website. Her 2024 album "1989" was the one that "moved the most units with 14 million," said People.

Youngest artist to win Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards

Swift "made history at 19 by becoming the youngest artist ever" to win the CMA's Entertainer of the Year accolade, said Prestige. This is one of several awards she garnered at the CMAs that year, including Female Vocalist of the Year and Music Video of the Year.

Most American Music Awards in history

With 40 awards, Swift has taken the lead as the artist with the most American Music Awards in history. She surpassed Michael Jackson, the male artist with the most awards at 26, and Whitney Houston, who has 22. She was also recognized with the AMA's "Artist of the Decade" award in 2019 and performed a medley of some of her most popular tunes at the ceremony that year.

Most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a solo artist

In January 2024, Swift saw her music reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart for the 68th week. This surpassed Elvis Presley's 67 weeks, giving Swift the most weeks at the top of the chart ever for a solo artist. While not consecutive, this means that Swift is behind only The Beatles, The Kingston Trio and the Rolling Stones to have the most No. 1 weeks, period.

First woman with 4 albums in Billboard chart top 10 simultaneously

When "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" debuted in July 2023, it was Swift's fourth album to occupy the Billboard 200 chart's top 10 at the same time, alongside "Midnights," "Lover" and "Folklore." This made her the first woman to have four albums in the Billboard chart's top 10 simultaneously and only the second living artist to do so after Herb Alpert in 1966. Prince also previously achieved this after his death in 2016.

"It's a pretty amazing feat," Alpert said to The New York Times. "With the way radio is these days, and the way music is distributed, with streaming, I didn't think anyone in this era could do it."

Additionally, Swift set a record for most albums by a female artist to chart on the Billboard 200 in a single week with 11. According to Billboard, since 1963, Prince and The Beatles are the only other artists who charted more albums simultaneously.

Most No. 1 albums by a woman in history

Swift's re-recording of her album "Speak Now" debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart when it was released in July 2023. This was the singer's 12th album to debut at number one, breaking the record for most number one albums by a female artist in history. This record was previously held by Barbra Streisand.

Most Grammy nominations for Song of the Year

Swift is breaking records even with her nominations. The singer has earned eight Grammy nods for Song of the Year, the most in the history of the category. However, this marks one of the rare instances in which there is something she hasn't accomplished, as Swift has never actually won the award. Prior to 2024, she "shared the record with Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie, who have six nominations in the category," said Business Insider.

Longest song ever to reach No. 1

This may not be a record most people think of, but it stands nonetheless: Swift's "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" is the longest song ever to top the Billboard charts at No 1. The song is slightly over 10 minutes long and beat out one of the most famous songs in history: Don MacLean's "American Pie," which is about eight minutes long.

First woman with new number one albums in five consecutive years

Swift is the only woman to chart a new number one album on the Billboard 200 in five consecutive calendar years with 2019's "Lover," 2020's "Folklore" and "Evermore," 2021's "Fearless (Taylor's Version)" and "Red (Taylor's Version)," 2022's "Midnights," and 2023's "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)," according to Billboard. The only other artists to achieve this feat are The Beatles, Drake, Jay-Z and Paul McCartney.

Swift also became the only act to have nine records sell half a million copies in one week in the U.S. since at least 1991, when Luminate started tracking the sales, per Billboard.

Second most Hot 100-charting songs ever

When "Speak Now (Taylor's Version)" dropped in 2023, all 22 songs from the album debuted on Billboard's Hot 100. This means Swift has released 212 Hot 100-charting songs in her career, the second most of all time after she surpassed the cast of "Glee," Billboard said. She's second only to Drake, making her number one for a female artist.

First woman to dethrone herself on Hot 100

Swift shook it off in 2014 when her song "Blank Space" debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The artist she was replacing: herself, as Swift's song "Shake It Off" had previously held the top spot on the list. This makes her the only female singer to dethrone herself on top of the list.

Only artist to win Album of the Year Grammy four times

Swift made history at the 2024 Grammy Awards when she took home the Album of the Year for "Midnights," becoming the first and only person to have won the award four times. She previously won AOTY for "Fearless" in 2010, "1989" in 2016, and "Folklore" in 2021. Her win for "Folklore," which she wrote and produced during the Covid-19 lockdown, made her the first woman to win AOTY three times.

Youngest artist to win Album of the Year

Not only has she won the award four times, but Swift also became the youngest person to win an Artist of the Year Grammy when she earned her "Fearless" award in 2010 at the age of 20. This is one of the few records Swift no longer holds, as Billie Eilish "won the Grammy for her debut album, 'When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?'" in 2020 at the age of 18, said Business Insider.

Most attended concert by a female artist in the U.S.

According to Capital FM, the opening night of Swift's Eras Tour in Glendale, Arizona, in March 2023, set a record for the most attended U.S. concert by a female artist with a crowd of 69,000. Madonna reportedly held this record since 1987.

Swift's tour went on to continue breaking numerous attendance records, including at Texas' AT&T Stadium, Tennessee's Nissan Stadium, and Pennsylvania's Acrisure Stadium. "Apparently, you have broken the attendance record for any event in Pittsburgh ever," Swift told the crowd at Acrisure Stadium, adding, "No group of people this big has ever gotten together for one thing in Pittsburgh ever."

First concert tour to gross $1 billion

One of Swift's biggest milestones was setting the record for the highest-grossing music tour ever after her "Eras" tour became the first to surpass $1 billion in revenue, according to the Guinness World Records. The international tour earned $1.04 billion as of the halfway point in December 2023, according to Pollstar. She broke the record set by Elton John with his "Farewell Yellow Brick Road" tour, which lasted from 2018 through 2023 and grossed $939 million. The tour, which ended in December 2024, generated over $2 billion total, which is "double the gross ticket sales of any other concert tour in history and an extraordinary new benchmark for a white-hot international concert business," said The New York Times.

Highest-earning female musician in the industry

In October 2023, Forbes reported that Swift became a billionaire, making her the highest-earning female musician in the industry, with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion. She is also the first person to reach billionaire status with her music alone, driven in part by the success of her "Eras" tour.

Biggest vinyl sales week of modern times

Out of the 1.5 million copies in "Tortured Poets" first-week sales, 700,000 were vinyl records, breaking her record for the biggest sales week for an album on vinyl since Luminate began tracking data in 1991, Billboard said. Her latest album's sales beat the 693,000 sold by "1989 (Taylor’s Version)" in its first week in 2023.

One of the best-selling artists ever

Since the start of her career, Swift has sold an estimated 114 million albums worldwide, according to U.K. radio station Rayo. While the exact number is unclear, this makes her one of the best-selling artists of all time. She still has a long way to go to catch the number one act, The Beatles, who have reported sales of more than 230 million albums globally (though some reports say they've sold up to 600 million albums).

Most streams in a single day on Spotify

Spotify said "Tortured Poets" broke the record for most streams in a single day in the platform's history less than 12 hours after its release and was the first ever to amass over 300 million streams in a single day. The record was previously held by Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter" album.

Relatedly, the opening song on the album, "Fortnight," broke Spotify’s record for the most streams ever gained by one song in a day.

Highest-grossing concert film of all time

Given the popularity of the Eras Tour, it shouldn't be surprising that the tour's movie became the highest-grossing theatrically released concert film ever. The film, shot during one of Swift's Los Angeles shows, reportedly "earned approximately $250 million in sales, making it the highest-grossing concert film of all time," said CBS News.

Historic Billboard 200 debut

The release week of "Tortured Poets" was a smashing success, with the album debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 chart in its first week. The album also "nabbed the record for largest streaming week ever for an album since the chart started measuring by units in December 2014," Billboard said. The first-week total reached 2.61 million units, with album sales accounting for 1.914 million. With this being her 14th chart-topper, Swift now ties with Jay-Z for most number one debuts among solo artists.

Most new albums to generate Hot 100 number ones

With "Fortnight" at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, Swift broke Rihanna's record for most albums with all-new material with at least one number-one hit on the chart, as "TTPD" brought her to eight. As her seventh song to debut at the top of the Hot 100, "Fortnight" helped Swift tie with Ariana Grande for most chart-toppers among women. Drake has the most overall, with nine, but "Fortnight" also ties Swift with him for the most Hot 100 number ones this decade, as both of them have seven.

Most views for a podcast on YouTube

Forget about music — Swift is busy breaking all kinds of records. She appeared on an episode of "New Heights," a podcast hosted by her fiancé Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce, in August. The episode, during which Swift announced her 2025 album, earned the "most concurrent views for a podcast" on YouTube, said Guinness World Records, with 1.3 million people tuning in at once. The podcast episode has been viewed on the platform nearly 21 million times.

Most of us could clear out a room by attempting to sing a karaoke rendition of "I Got You Babe" or give a dramatic reading of Jack Nicholson's courtroom speech from "A Few Good Men." But a handful of artists have excelled at both music and acting. For these singers turned actors, performing on-screen is not just something they dabbled in, but rather an entire second career. Some such musicians became arguably more renowned for their movie roles than for their exploits in music.

Cher

Cher rose to fame as one half of the musical duo Sonny & Cher alongside her first husband, Sonny Bono. But in the 1980s, she branched out into serious acting starting with the biographical drama "Silkwood" (1983). She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Loretta Castorini in the 1987 romantic comedy "Moonstruck," a movie that "celebrates the family over the romantic couple" and felt "completely true to people as they are: ridiculous and passionate, in search of answers and solutions, and taking what they can get," said B. D. McClay at The New Yorker. After starring in the 1990 comedy "Mermaids," Cher refocused her career on music and has only appeared in a handful of feature films since then, most recently 2018's "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again."

Doris Day

Doris Day earned her first big hit in 1945 with "Sentimental Journey" and became a huge pop star before starring in film musicals like "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955). She headlined a number of romantic comedies in the 1950s and 1960s, including "Pillow Talk" (1959) and "Send Me No Flowers" (1964). She also starred in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956). Day was "surprisingly effective as the mother who is frantic about her child" in Hitchcock's thriller, said Bosley Crowther at The New York Times. Her final screen credit was the sitcom "The Doris Day Show," which ran from 1968 to 1973. After retiring from acting, she became an animal welfare activist.

Lady Gaga

One of the biggest established music superstars to ever make the pivot into acting, Lady Gaga's feature film debut was in director Robert Rodriguez's 2013 "Machete Kills." She later appeared in two seasons of the anthology series "American Horror Story" — but her big screen breakout came in 2018 when she played Ally in the most recent remake of the Hollywood classic "A Star Is Born" opposite Bradley Cooper. In a "transcendent Hollywood movie," Gaga delivered a "fetching and accomplished debut" playing a waitress thrust into the limelight following a chance meeting with Cooper's jaded country musician, said Owen Gleiberman at Variety. She has also scored leading roles in "House of Gucci" (2021) and "Joker: Folie à Deux" (2024) while continuing to churn out chart-topping albums.

Whitney Houston

Houston was a pop megastar with multiple #1 Billboard hits to her name, including "The Greatest Love of All," when she starred in the smash 1992 romance "The Bodyguard" as Rachel Marron, a pop star who falls in love with her bodyguard (Kevin Costner). A movie "mocked by the critics and loved by the public," said Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian, it was buttressed by the "powerhouse punch of Whitney Houston's showcase musical numbers." While her performance drew some criticism — she was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress — it also helped make her one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. After starring in the hit "Waiting to Exhale," Houston won an NAACP Image Award for her performance in "The Preacher's Wife" (1996). She died tragically in 2012 at the age of 48.

Jennifer Hudson

Hudson is one of the few stars who launched a career by getting eliminated from a season of "American Idol." Her shocking 2004 exit from the show had fans outraged, and she parlayed that fame into a multi-dimensional career as an actor and recording artist. While her Oscar-winning turn in "Dreamgirls" (2006) predated the release of her first album, she was known at the time for her singing. Her "pure delight to watch" of a performance in a film about a Supremes-esque Motown group called The Dreams meant that viewers could "finally experience the completion of the collective star-making fantasy" of "American Idol," said Dana Stevens at Slate. Hudson has subsequently "received the coveted EGOT for all four major entertainment awards, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony," said People.

Janelle Monáe

A highly regarded musical artist, Janelle Monáe won a Grammy in 2008 for her song "Many Moons" and later released several acclaimed studio albums. After doing voice work for the animated film "Rio 2," she broke out with roles in the 2016 films "Moonlight" and "Hidden Figures." In the latter, Monáe gave one of several "superb, luminous performances" as Mary Jackson, a member of a "trio of math whizzes" tasked with assisting early NASA space missions in the 1960s, said Stephanie Zacharek at Time. Her performance earned her a Critics Choice Awards nomination, and she scored another for her supporting role in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" (2022). She continues to do prolific work in both film and music.

Dolly Parton

Few performers are so successful that they spawn their own theme park with millions of visitors per year. But Dollywood is part of what makes Dolly Parton one of a kind. Beginning with her 1968 duet with Porter Wagoner, "The Last Thing on My Mind," Parton became a country music sensation and one of the best-selling musical artists of all time. She made her feature film debut in the 1980 workplace comedy "9 to 5" and received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Mona Stangley in the 1982 musical comedy "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." She also turned in a memorable performance in the 1989 melodrama "Steel Magnolias," a movie that "belongs to its actresses, who have tapped into some fundamental truths about the strength women derive from one another," said Peter Travers at Rolling Stone.

Diana Ross

Motown megastar Diana Ross rose to fame as a member of The Supremes, known for chart-topping hits like "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Baby Love." In 1972, she made her film debut as Billie Holiday in the biopic "Lady Sings the Blues." Ross delivered "one of the great performances of 1972," said Roger Ebert, in part because "she never tries to imitate Holiday, but she sings somehow in the manner of Holiday." She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role. While other films she appeared in, like "Mahogany" (1975) and "The Wiz" (1978), were less lauded at the time, they now have devoted followings. Ross also starred in two made-for-TV films in the 1990s, but has otherwise focused on music.

Frank Sinatra

Ol' Blue Eyes was a well-established music star when he moved into acting, and the singer eventually "became admired for a screen persona distinctly tougher than his smooth singing style," said All About Jazz. Starting with lighthearted musicals like "Anchors Aweigh," Sinatra gradually took on meatier roles, including in 1953's "From Here to Eternity." Perhaps his most memorable turn was in 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate," a thriller in which Sinatra plays Captain Bennett Marco, who thwarts an assassination attempt by an unwitting communist sleeper agent. Sinatra here gave a "reasoned and in many ways more mature performance than he has ever done before," said The Hollywood Reporter.

Will Smith

As one-half of the legendary hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Will Smith had won a Grammy award for the song "Summertime" before launching his acting career on the 1990 sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." A ratings success, the show led Smith to big roles in studio films like "Six Degrees of Separation," (1993) in which he plays a young conman pretending to be Sidney Poitier's son to insinuate himself into a wealthy, white family.

Smith has been an action star in movies like "Bad Boys" (1995), but has also turned in a number of critically praised dramatic performances, most recently in "King Richard" (2021), as tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams' father. This was a movie about a "fraught but loving family relationship at a pivotal time in all their lives," highlighted by Smith's "poetic physicality" in a "touching turn," said Bilge Ebiri at Variety. Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2022 for his role.

Barbra Streisand

Broadway star Barbra Streisand made her film debut in 1968's "Funny Girl," an adaptation of the stage musical she also starred in, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Streisand later played the idealistic young leftist Katie Morosky in the bittersweet 1973 romance "The Way We Were," acting opposite Robert Redford as her more conservative love interest Hubbell Gardiner. In that film, Streisand proved herself to be the "brightest, quickest female actress in movies today," said Roger Ebert at the time. She was able to inhabit her "characters with a fierce energy" yet also be "touchingly vulnerable." Streisand has been choosy about her cinematic roles since then, last appearing in 2012's "Guilt Trip."

Special mention for musical stars

In the heyday of the Hollywood musical, a number of stars emerged as staples of the genre, seamlessly blending the roles of musician and actor on and off screen. One of the most successful was Judy Garland, who toured as part of a musical vaudeville act with her sisters before signing with MGM at the age of 13 in 1935. She went on to star in more than two dozen film musicals, including the 1939 cultural touchstone "The Wizard of Oz." Garland was nominated for an Academy Award for one of her only roles in a non-musical; she played Irene Hoffmann, who was convicted by a Nazi kangaroo court, in "Judgment at Nuremberg"(1961). The film offered a "dramatic statement of moral probity," said Bosley Crowther at The New York Times.

A similar trajectory was enjoyed by Bing Crosby. While he was a more established musician than Garland had been before launching his acting career, Crosby is primarily known and remembered for his roles in musical films like "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination. He was again nominated for his portrayal of an alcoholic, down-on-his-luck actor in 1954's "The Country Girl."

Julie Andrews, who rose to musical stardom on Broadway as a child in the 1940s, struck gold in Hollywood with "Mary Poppins," her 1964 film debut in which she played the titular character, a nanny with magic powers. Her performance was a "signal triumph and she performs as easily as she sings," said Variety. She then starred in the beloved 1965 musical "The Sound of Music" and has since worked in a variety of settings, including television, film and voice work (she was Gru's Mom in the "Despicable Me" and "Minions" children's movie franchises). Incredibly, Andrews is still working at the age of 89.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 131.
Mark Galeotti is the author of Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, published by Osprey and out in paperback now

For all that he can scarcely walk past a tank or a fighter jet without a photo opportunity of him peering out of the cupola or ensconced in the cockpit, Vladimir Putin is no soldier.

He did his bare minimum reserve officer training at university, being assigned a technical rank of lieutenant, but abandoned it as soon as he could. He shows little sign of understanding the realities of warfare, from strategy and tactics to the unavoidable necessities of logistics.

This is something even Russian soldiers – even before the current war in Ukraine – uncomfortably acknowledge. Once, I was talking to a couple of officers, and when we had got past their inevitable wariness at talking to a Westerner (some drinks helped) it became clear that they had a complex attitude towards their commander-in-chief: at once respecting him as a strong and capable national leader, but at the same time unconvinced he truly understood warfare.

The irony is that, for all but three of the 25 years Putin has now directly and indirectly ruled Russia, he has been at war, declared or undeclared, domestic or foreign. Most of these wars were, in one way or another, victories, especially because they were limited in scale and objectives.

Nonetheless, it seems clear that the lessons Putin derived from them, sometimes accurate but often deeply mistaken, led him to his fateful decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022, and shaped his thinking as to how that should best be done.

The Second Chechen War: 1999 – 2009

When Putin first came to power, the challenge was to fight a domestic war with what he had at his disposal, after at least 20 years of catastrophic military decline. The rebellious Chechen people of southern Russia had in essence fought Moscow to a draw in the First Chechen War (1994-96), and even while still prime minister and president-in-waiting in 1999, Putin was determined to address this challenge.

In September 1999, a series of explosions in apartment buildings across Russia killed more than 300 people. The Chechens were blamed, and this was used to justify a renewed campaign. In October, Russian troops crossed the Chechen border, in a war that would be the making of Putin's reputation as a tough, ruthless and indomitable leader.

Unlike the previous war, the Second Chechen War was backed by massive force, supported by a comprehensive information campaign to justify its brutal methods, and also drew on Chechens willing to fight for Moscow.

This was an ugly conflict, even by the standards of civil wars. The Chechen capital, Grozny, was flattened. Chechen men were rounded up for infamous 'filtration camps', The official death toll was 5,200 Russian soldiers and police and over 16,000 rebels, but estimates of the civilian casualties range from 30,000-80,000.

Nonetheless, Moscow had demonstrated that it had the will and ability to keep its provinces in line. Most importantly, Putin felt he had proven not just that the Russian bear still had its claws, but that the ruthless use of force worked.

So long as he kept hostile journalists out and pitched this as simply a policing action against terrorists and jihadists, then his people would be happy and the West would do little but complain, and wring its hands when Russia presented it with a fait accompli.

The Georgian War: 2008

Chechnya, though, was at least legally part of the Russian Federation. What would happen when Moscow launched an operation abroad? Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili had long been a thorn in Putin's side, with his vehement anti-Russian rhetoric and his eager courtship of NATO.

To Putin – at the time technically just the prime minister, not the president, but still the undisputed master of Russia – Georgia needed to be reminded that it was part of Moscow's sphere of interest, not least to provide a warning to other neighbouring states thinking of challenging the self-proclaimed regional hegemon.

Two break-away regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, would be the pretext. Saakashvili was provoked into attacking South Ossetia, Moscow denounced this as an act of aggression and invaded, pushing government forces out of the break-away regions.

From Putin's point of view, this was another triumph. His personal bête noire Saakashvili was humbled and Georgia's drift towards the West halted. He seemed less than concerned with the details, which were rather more mixed.

Of course, Russia was always going to be able to beat tiny Georgia, whose total military amounted to just 30,000 troops, of whom many of the best were serving in the multinational force in Iraq.

However, it turned out not to have been as easy as anticipated, with the Russian offensive dogged by blunders. Half its aircraft losses were to friendly fire incidents, for example, and generals found themselves having to borrow journalists' satellite phones to give orders.

That said, this gave then-Defence Minister Serdyukov and his Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov the opportunity finally to force serious reform on the conservative generals. It was seriously overdue: only 17 percent of the Ground Forces and 3 percent of the Air Force's regiments were combat ready and half the Navy's ships were not seaworthy.

The so-called 'New Look' reforms were meant to create more capable, mobile, flexible and professional forces based on smaller brigades and battalion tactical groups rather than the old divisions. This entailed shrinking the total armed forces by 130,000 men, especially by pruning the top-heavy officer corps (one in three were dismissed), while increasing the proportion of volunteer kontraktniki to conscripts.

These reforms, ironically, possibly even undermined Russia’s capacity to fight a mass war, geared as they were to generating forces able to deploy in small-scale interventions. Many of the reforms have been subsequently reversed since the invasion of Ukraine.

Crimea and Syria: 2014-15

Under Serdyukov and his successor, Sergei Shoigu, real progress was made. However, it was at best partial. In effect, by 2014 Russia had two armies: one which had been quite successfully reformed, largely comprising the special forces and other elite units, and a rump that was still quite some way from the 'New Look' ideal.

Nonetheless, this was enough for the seizure of Crimea following Ukraine's 'Revolution of Dignity' at the start of 2014.

The Crimean Peninsula was strategically and politically crucial to Putin: home of the Black Sea Fleet and something almost every one of his subjects considered rightly theirs (it had been Russian until 1954).

When Kyiv was taken over by a new government keen on getting closer to the West, Putin decided that Crimea ought to be 'returned' and what followed was a textbook military operation. The so-called 'little green men' – Russian special forces – took over the peninsula almost without a shot being fired and it was then annexed.

One would have been hard-pressed to imagine more propitious conditions for such a coup de main: the Ukrainian military was in disarray, the new government was weak, the West did not want a confrontation, and thousands of Russian troops were already present on the peninsula.

It was a genuine triumph, but it was not a true test of the whole Russian military machine. Nonetheless, Putin was to gain an exaggerated sense of Russia's military capabilities, not fully appreciating just how unusual the circumstances were and how far its small scope required the deployment of just the best of the best.

Much the same could be said of the military deployment in Syria from 2015. Faced with the risk that Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime could fall to popular revolt, and also eager to hit back against a West that was trying politically to isolate Russia since its Crimean annexation, Moscow decided on a limited intervention.

In September 2015, Russian combat aircraft flew to their new base at Khmeimim in Syria, in the start of an operation that would see the ruthless use of air power, mercenaries and special forces to secure the regime.

While Syria was the most asymmetric of conflicts, where Russian air power was virtually unchallenged and where the enemy was divided, a militarily prepared and unified Ukraine was able to deny air superiority to its enemy.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 131. Subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

Forged In War by Mark Galeotti, published by Osprey, is on sale now

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 149.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, shocked the world. It marked the dangerous new dawn of nuclear weapons, and foreshadowed the horrific potential of World War Three should it ever break out.

The atomic bomb was a catastrophic escalation that preceded the end of the Second World War; however it followed years of escalating conventional aerial bombardment of Japan by the Allies. "If they were prepared to firebomb the country to its knees, why wouldn't they drop an atomic bomb?" historian Iain MacGregor told History of War magazine.

He adds that the firebombing of Japanese cities was the point of no return that made atomic bombing acceptable to the American leadership. "It was just another piece of ordnance."

During the Spanish Civil War, Hitler's Condor Legion devastated Guernica with high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, Coventry and other European cities followed in the Second World War.

In the Pacific Theatre, hundreds of thousands died in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and more when incendiary bombs ignited wooden homes into unstoppable firestorms. The crescendo of this devastating strategy came when the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

At the outset of the Second World War President Franklin D. Roosevelt implored the belligerents to avoid civilian casualties when bombing. Yet even as he made this plea, one of the USA's greatest aviation achievements and the eventual bearer of weapons of mass destruction, the B-29 Superfortress, was already in development.

The B-29 strategic bomber

"The strategy would be that machines do the fighting to save a hell of a lot of casualties. That doctrine dominated American policy even before Pearl Harbor," says MacGregor, whose book The Hiroshima Men chronicles the stories of the key figures involved in the atomic bomb.

He also notes the economic significance of an aircraft programme that cost more than the Manhattan Project: "Investing that kind of money meant rejuvenating America's economy.

"The aircraft industry had taken a pounding during the Great Depression. They deliberately made sure to build the plane in middle America, partly for security — no saboteur could get near it — but also because it revived entire regions of the Midwest."

It was two-and-a-half years after the attack on Pearl Harbor that the U.S. unleashed the destructive capabilities the B-29, forced by the blood-soaked Asia-Pacific campaign. During the war, Japan's military culture was ruled by a "suicidal urge", as co-author of Victory '45 Al Murray puts it. This meant any advances towards the Home Islands had a staggering cost.

"The Japanese also believed that the American psyche wouldn't have the stomach for the brutal, attritional warfare needed to get to the Home Islands. The next three years proved them wrong," says MacGregor, noting that the U.S. took more casualties in the first six months of 1945 than in the previous three years combined.

U.S. commanders looked to the B-29 as the weapon that could crush Japanese resistance and minimise Allied casualties. The Americans had outfought Japanese expectations, but U.S. deaths in the Asia-Pacific, rapidly approaching their final total of over 100,000, were making people back home queasy.

"The next jump-off point was an amphibious assault on the Japanese mainland. Military reports suggested that in the first few months there could easily have been a million Allied and four million civilian casualties," says MacGregor. In New Mexico, the world's greatest physicists were secretly working on a weapon of mass destruction that could avoid America's bloodiest campaign yet.

The firebombing of Tokyo

In August 1944 General Curtis LeMay took charge of XX Bomber Command, responsible for the bombing campaign against Japan. He found that the powerful jet stream winds over the Home Islands made high-altitude precision bombing almost impossible. So instead of relying on accuracy, he harnessed the destructive potential of tonnes of incendiary bombs.

This was most terribly demonstrated during Operation Meetinghouse, a large raid on the capital Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945. This bombing raid destroyed vast swathes of the capital and killed over 100,000 people, mainly civilians, more than four-times the estimated deaths during the bombing of Dresden a month earlier.

Meetinghouse was a new and terrible milestone in the destructive capability of air power, leaving more than an ambiguous question mark over the legality and morality of the tactic. "If we lose, we'll be tried as war criminals," LeMay soberly remarked.

Over the following five months, B-29 raids turned 66 Japanese cities to ash. Traditional wood and paper housing erupted into flames across the country. Estimates of the deaths from the bombing campaigns against Japan in the United States Strategic Bombing Survey reports range from 333,000 to 900,000, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

LeMay's use of napalm was horrifically effective, with 56-84 percent of the fatalities caused by burns. Despite the destruction, firebombing proved a failure in forcing the Japanese government to surrender. Unimaginable casualties, and the evacuation of a quarter of Japan's urban population, could not end support for the war effort.

"The Japanese were controlling information so tightly that the population didn't even know they were losing," Al Murray told History of War. "[But] perhaps there was a sneaking suspicion in the backs of their minds that the war wasn't going as well as it could." The Allies needed a more destructive weapon to break the Japanese government's ironclad commitment to fight to the bitter end.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 149. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 149.

The border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia in July 2025 originate in the region's colonial era over a hundred years ago. At least 12 Thai nationals and an unknown number of Cambodians were killed during the fighting, according to the BBC. The attacks took place in a disputed region known as the 'Emerald Triangle', which lies between Cambodia and Thailand.

The area is home to the Preah Vihear temple complex, a UNESCO heritage site dating back to the 11th century. Tensions between the two countries persisted throughout the 20th century, and was preceded by French and British colonial interests and interventions in southeast Asia. Tensions on the border escalated during the chaotic periods of the Vietnam War, Cambodian–Vietnamese War, and the Khmer Rouge dictatorship.

Origins of the Thailand-Cambodia dispute

In the early 20th century Thailand was still known as Siam, a kingdom that while under economic control of the British Empire and its unstoppable merchant fleet, had largely preserved its independence. The kingdom spent decades refashioning itself into a modern state, aided in the process by treaties with England and France that agreed on lasting borders.

Having formulated the borders of Indo-China (Vietnam) from the mid-19th century onward, France also wrangled distant Siamese provinces with treaties in 1904 and 1907. Similar arrangements were settled with the British in 1909, which ended years of incursions from the Malayan peninsula, as well as from Burma (Myanmar) in the northwest.

After renaming itself Thailand in 1939, modernisation progressed with the usual characteristics of Southeast Asian countries – foreign investment and centralised government – helped along by the country's location. Its capital Bangkok not only flourished at the mouth of a river delta but also had access to a vast gulf.

The country's interior was neatly bracketed by dense forest and mountains, leaving uninterrupted wetlands suited for large-scale rice cultivation. These advantages gave its borders paramount importance, even during the Second World War. The non-aligned Thai state fought Vichy forces in 1940 in a sudden rebuke to decades of amity.

With as many as a dozen coup d'etats sweeping its government since the 1930s Thailand's democratic tradition is unchanged today: civilian leadership in name only, while former generals enjoy important government positions with the monarchy's blessing. This age-old problem metastasised as the Cold War loomed over Southeast Asia.

By the 1960s, Bangkok's pseudo-military junta, where former generals monopolised the civilian high offices with the explicit backing of the monarch, eagerly joined any arrangement to keep the ongoing war in Vietnam at bay. This meant the unfailing support and largess of the United States.

Thailand was also briefly a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and managed to shape the newly minted Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional bloc that brought it in league with Indonesia, a country that swayed from one alliance to the next depending on its leaders' calculations.

But the 1970s and the victory of North Vietnam in 1975, as well as communists seizing Laos and Cambodia that same year, unravelled Thailand's hedging. By the middle of that decade a refugee crisis almost overwhelmed its eastern provinces as exiles from Cambodia and the fallen Republic of Vietnam arrived by any means necessary.

Isolated and enjoying diplomatic support from China, the murderous Khmer Rouge regime that dominated Cambodia was now a heavily armed menace, and the Thai army had the thankless task of keeping them at bay.

Cambodian–Vietnamese War

In 1979 Vietnam launched a surprise invasion of Cambodia, which created another refugee crisis and replaced the challenge of an unstable regime with a Vietnamese occupation now on Thailand's doorstep.

Just as in the early 20th century, Bangkok preserved its strength and sought compromise. With a communist rebellion snuffed out through amnesty and cash handouts in 1982, heartfelt diplomacy with China became essential.

The re-emergence of a viable Cambodian state in the late 1990s and its modest prosperity was not the godsend Thailand needed. Having grown to the second-largest economy in the region and with its political fault lines unresolved, Bangkok had the twin headaches of rampant drug trafficking on the Myanmar border and a post-war refugee crisis on the Cambodian border.

The independence of the kingdom once known as Kampuchea, later subsumed by French colonialism in the late 19th century, always left endangered borders where rebellion and illicit trade flourished. The risk was always too great for Bangkok to withstand, whether in the primacy of the Chakri kings or today's thinly veiled junta, so the occasional show of force was almost inevitable.

Successive prime ministers cultivated their counterparts in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, including the affable and nepotistic Hun Sen (his son has since replaced him), but the lingering question of the border remained, especially in the romanticised 'Emerald Triangle'.

While neither country sees the status of their border and its landmarks as existential — both have an abundance of arable land blessed by fair weather all year round — the stark ruins of heritage sites like the Preah Vihear temple complex become flash points because of overzealous border policing.

The 2025 border clash

The Royal Thai Armed Forces have sought to contest the 'emerald triangle' region several times in 30 years but have never launched a full-scale war. Prudence has often prevailed because the army is preoccupied with domestic politics in an affluent society.

If revisionism were the cause of the border dispute, it is a very mellowed-down version as neighbouring countries in the ASEAN bloc insist on mediation.

The problem endures as the modern statehood of Cambodia and Thailand demands that present borders be revised, with the view from Phnom Penh favouring international court rulings while Bangkok prefers the historical approach of bilateral agreements. The Thais are sticking to their successful compromises with colonial powers and Cold War rivals.

When cross-border artillery duels erupted in the middle of 2025 the almost quarter-million Cambodian and Thai civilians who fled for their lives hastened a summit organised by Malaysia over a weekend.

When a smiling Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim eventually settled the conflict with vague promises and glowing news coverage it seemed the world breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least, the worst was averted for a time.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 149. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

The thing about a gigantic pile of money is that, if properly managed, it turns into a bigger pile of money. For these families, ranked as the world's 10 richest by Bloomberg, savvy business and investment decisions or the timely application of military force to consolidate power in a resource-rich territory have combined to produce staggering wealth. And what these fabulously rich individuals do with their inherited cash ranges from buying yachts, exotic animals and vineyards to financing cherished political causes and candidates around the world.

The Walton family ($432.4 billion)

Sam Walton opened his first discount variety store in Bentonville, Arkansas, in 1962 and turned it into a retail empire "by buying up low-cost goods and selling them at lower prices than his competitors," said Fox Business. Today, Walmart operates more than 10,500 stores in 19 countries, and Walton's heirs are worth $432.4 billion. There are now three Waltons — Jim, Rob and Alice — who are worth more than $100 billion each, and their largesse "largely stems from the Walmart shares given to them by their father," said Business Insider.

The al-Nahyan family ($323.9 billion)

The discovery of oil in the 1960s set off a "breathtaking transformation" of the United Arab Emirates from a society of subsistence "date farmers, camel herders and pearl fishermen" to one of the richest countries in the world, said The New York Times. The al-Nahyan family is the hereditary monarchy of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which has increased its natural resource wealth with its pioneering sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). Among many other endeavors, the ADIA purchased a stake in the city of Chicago's parking meters in 2008, and now the "revenue from these meters has reportedly reached over $150 million annually — all flowing to the investor group led in part by ADIA," said Driven Magazine.

The al-Thani family ($172.9 billion)

Another family of Gulf royalty has turned natural resource wealth into a multifaceted and growing portfolio. "No ruling dynasty in the Arab Gulf has played a seemingly weak hand with more skill" than the al-Thani family, said Manara Magazine. The country's diplomatic and investment strategies are all about "building Qatar into an international brand that can underpin its existence and the family's longevity," said Bloomberg. Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani is a superyacht enthusiast who owns the Katara, a "$400 million mega yacht" that "comfortably accommodates up to 34 guests in 14 cabins serviced by 95 crew members," said the South China Morning Post.

The Hermès family ($170.6 billion)

Thierry Hermès was the "sixth child of an innkeeper," said Vanity Fair, who "went to Paris an orphan, proved gifted in leatherwork and opened a shop in 1837." He and his descendants built a luxury fashion empire that has survived world wars, multiple French regime changes, and an era of globalization that has led to dizzying change and competition. The luxury brand's business model is the polar opposite of Walmart, which presumably would not have much luck selling scarves that cost $4,125 each.

The Koch family ($148.5 billion)

The Kochs began their ascent to the top of the global wealth hierarchy when Fred Koch "used his training in chemical engineering to develop an improved method of turning oil into petrol" and built oil refineries in Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany, said the BBC. His son Charles was "groomed as Koch's successor, becoming president of the family business after his father died in the 1960s" and diversified the family's interests into "energy, chemicals, agriculture, finance and electronics, producing everything from toilet paper to steak." The Kochs spent more than $49 million in the 2024 election cycle, donating almost exclusively to Republicans and sending $40 million alone to the right-wing SuperPAC Americans for Prosperity Action.

The Al-Saud family ($140 billion)

Perhaps the only family in the world with a country named after them, the Al-Saud dynasty completed their conquest of the Hejaz (now Saudi Arabia) in the 1920s. While this wasn't clear then, over the years Saudi Arabia would come to control "about 20-25% of all the world's oil reserves while producing about 10-15% of the world's daily oil consumption," said Epicenter. Because the "family contains as many as 15,000 extended members," it is challenging to "accurately assess the wealth of the House of Saud," said Investopedia.

The Mars family ($133.8 billion)

You may never have heard of the Mars family, but you've almost certainly eaten its candy. The family's company, Mars Inc., based today in Virginia near the CIA's headquarters, "was founded in 1911 when Frank Mars started selling candy out of his kitchen in Tacoma, Washington," said Forbes. The family's vast confectionery empire includes Halloween staples like Snickers and M&Ms and operates 135 factories in 68 countries, employing more than 140,000 people. These bonbon barons do not enjoy the limelight and are known as a "reclusive dynasty of billionaires who spend a good deal of time on a remote ranch in Wyoming," said The Guardian.

The Ambani family ($99.6 billion)

The Ambanis are the richest family in Asia, and their empire, which includes oil and gas, telecommunications and retail businesses, has a "valuation that is equivalent to 10% of India's Gross Domestic Product," said The Independent. It all started in 1958, when Dhirubhai Ambani launched a company based in Gujarat, India, that "began as a small firm trading commodities like spices and polyester yarn" and gradually expanded to make Reliance Industries a "global powerhouse," said People. Scion Anant Ambani's 2024 reception following his wedding with Radhika Merchant was "attended by over 14,000 people" and featured "60 floral animal sculptures" that each required "over 100,000 flowers to make," said Vanity Fair. It's safe to assume that the Ambanis' soirée substantially exceeded the 2024 average U.S. wedding cost of $33,000.

The Wertheimer family ($88 billion)

In 1925, "Pierre Wertheimer, and his brother Paul struck a deal with Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel" to create "Société des Parfums Chanel with the aim of selling and producing Chanel beauty products," said Business Insider. That history means that the Wertheimer family's "destiny has been intertwined with the world's second-largest luxury brand for a century," said Women's Wear Daily. The Wertheimers are oenophiles in an era of declining wine-drinking and have acquired a large luxury wine empire, including Domaine de l'Ile on the island of Porquerolles in Provence, as well as three estates in Bordeaux and St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery in California's Napa Valley, said Wine Spectator.

The Thomson family ($87.1 billion)

Roy Thomson "turned one newspaper into a publishing empire" that is now a "global information business, providing data, software and services to the financial, legal and news industries," headlined by the Reuters newswire service, said Maclean's. Magnate David Thomson, who holds the British peerage title Baron Thomson of Fleet, co-owns the National Hockey League's Winnipeg Jets. An avid art collector, in 2002 he "outbid several museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles" to purchase Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" for $76.7 million, said The New York Times.

The natural churn of language from one generation to the next is an inevitability that should be familiar to virtually everyone. Decades ago, young Baby Boomers would describe something cool or unusual as "far out" to their puzzled Silent Generation parents. And today's young adults are largely raised by members of Generation X, who once conveyed their disgust with something gross to their Boomer Moms and Dads by exclaiming "Gag me with a spoon!" Inventing or repurposing language to express the interests, fears, obsessions and aversions of a new generation is therefore nothing new — but it certainly feels like the pace of linguistic evolution has quickened in the digital age. Generation Z, commonly defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, have unveiled a seemingly endless stream of new or altered words and phrases that predictably flabbergast their elders. If you're over the age of 30 and feel like you need a glossary to communicate with your kids or grandkids, you are not alone.

Ate

To say that something "ate" means that it was great. For example, if someone gives a particularly strong musical performance, you might greet them afterward and say, "You really ate that song." "It can also be abbreviated to “they ate” or even 'left no crumbs,'" said Education First.

Bed rotting

If you sit around in your pajamas all day scrolling TikTok and eating Frito-Lay Minis, you are engaging in "bed rotting," or what older folks used to call "lounging" "or lying around." The phrase "deliberately evokes a sense of grossness" and cultivates a "sense of rebellion" against "language surrounding mental health and self-care," said Refinery29. Bed rotters might experience "JOMO," or the "joy of missing out," or more miserably suffer from "brain rot" as they mindlessly consume online content. They also might be staying home as a deliberate choice to avoid spending money.

Big yikes

"Big yikes" is a phrase used in response to "something that's really embarrassing, disturbing or shocking," said Reader's Digest. Using it "expresses a strong sense of cringe, awkwardness or disapproval," said the International Center for Language Studies.

Bussin'

An adjective that means "amazing, fantastic, lovely and cool," the word "bussin'" is commonly traced to a 2021 Tik Tok trend, said Today. "It can also be used as a verb, in the form of "buss," said Parents, and like so many words on this list, "it actually has origins in African American Vernacular English.

Cheugy

"Cheugy" is an adjective that is "used to describe someone or something that's outdated or trying too hard," said The Cut. A high school student named Gaby Rasson is credited with inventing the term in 2013, and it is most frequently applied to dated fashion like skinny jeans and "outmoded trappings of the millennial lifestyle," said Vogue.

Clanker

As social media feeds, college entrance essays and even job applications are filled with same-sounding AI slop, the neologism industrial complex has delivered this wonderfully evocative and versatile word. A "derogatory term for robots that stems from the Star Wars universe," the term 'clanker' has become an all-purpose insult to be hurled at anything that feels like AI but purports to be human, said NPR.

Coworker core

Gen Z seems to take particular delight in highlighting the shortcomings and banality of older generations. "Coworker Core" is another way of saying something is "normie" or indicative of someone with conventional or boring taste. The idea is based on a coworker "who sometimes shows you a meme or video that could be considered" cringe.

Cringe

Another word that Gen Zers will reach for when they want to lob an insult, "cringe" means something that is embarrassing for someone else, a someone who typically is not aware that what they are saying or doing is problematic or dated. It can be applied to a wide range of situations, including a "superstitious email chain from your mom" or accidentally double-tapping an old picture in the middle of a deep dive into someone's Instagram," said Bustle.

Drip

A term for "a cool or sexy trend/style," said Parade, "drip" refers to a person's overall look. If someone is looking particularly good, you can also say that they are "drippin." It "isn't a new slang term, but it has experienced a renaissance in hip-hop over the past few years," said Genius.

Flex

A "flex" is a "showcase of accomplishments and self-promotion," said Forbes. The term is generally reserved for situations in which a person unnecessarily communicates information that makes them look good or highlights an achievement, similar to a "humblebrag."

Glow up

A way of referring to a makeover or transformation, "glow up" can also mean to "go from the bottom to the top to the point of disbelief," said Her Campus. A trend that has emerged in response has been to "glow down," which means to remove the "desire for physical improvement from the center of your life," said The Cut.

Hits different

When they want to say that something is "significantly better than usual or is way better," members of Gen Z will reach for the phrase "hits different," said Urban Dictionary. It is for situations in which a song, article of clothing or food "appeals to you in a unique way," said BBC. For example, we're hoping this article hits different than other efforts to document Gen Z slang.

Menty B

A catch-all term that applies to someone experiencing anxiety or depression, "menty b" is an abbreviated version of "mental breakdown." It has "become shorthand for something less than a full meltdown," said The Wall Street Journal, although some people worry that its overuse risks trivializing the kind of deeper emotional distress that is on the rise for younger people, driven by worries over, for example, climate change and elections.

Mid

A word that expresses disappointment, "mid" refers to "things that are essentially average or slightly below," said The New York Times. "It is one of Gen Z's favorite insults," said Politico, and young people seem to take particular delight in aiming it at the bad taste of their elders.

Neurospicy

As societal awareness of what is now called "neurodivergence" expands, young people have tried to put a more positive spin on the idea by dubbing it "neurospicy." It is a "way of describing a person who experiences multiple forms of neurodivergence," said The Conversation, although the term is not without its critics in the disability rights community.

No cap

Unlike some of Gen Z's other slang innovations, "no cap" isn't an abbreviation or appropriation of existing language. It means "no lie" and "​​often follows an unbelievable statement or serious question," said Bustle. And "if you say someone is 'capping,' then you are saying they are lying," said USA Today.

Pick-me

An adjective that refers to someone who is desperate for attention or positive reinforcement, "pick-me" is most frequently "used to describe a girl who does everything for external, mostly male validation," said CNN. Because of the term's negative connotations, it has generated backlash for being "problematic and misogynistic and has even given rise to an anti-pick-me trend on social media."

Rizz

Oxford's 2023 Word of the Year, "Rizz" is simply a "shortened form of 'charisma'" that "emerged out of internet and gaming culture," said The New York Times. The word "comes from Black cultures, as most American neologisms do" said Vox. Someone with a great deal of charisma can be called a "rizzler."

Sending me

When people want to say that something is cracking them up, they can remark that it is "sending me." The phrase is "the Gen Z equivalent of LOL," said Fortune. And while "there is no official confirmation of where the phrase originated," said The Daily Dot, its frequency of use rose in the "late 2010s."

Stan

Meaning to be a fan or enthusiast of something, "Stan" has its roots in an Eminem song "about a man who was pushed to the edge when his idol wouldn't answer his fan mail," said NPR. While it originally had somewhat negative connotations, today it "can describe any fan, regardless of dedication," and does not necessarily imply obsessiveness, said USA Today.

Sus

Another word that is essentially just an abbreviation for a longer one, "sus" is short for "suspicious" or "suspect." The neologism is traced to the "online game 'Among Us,' in which players try to determine who is an imposter working to sabotage their progress," said Business Insider. Like "mid," it has emerged as a top-tier barb wielded by Gen Zers.

Treatler

When food delivery services exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic, this new word emerged to describe people who don't recognize or appreciate the labor of DoorDash or Grubhub workers (who in this lingo operate "burrito taxis"); treatlers mistakenly believe that their indulgence is somehow more cost-effective than cooking. You are especially vulnerable to being tagged as a "treatler" — a "portmanteau of 'treat' and 'Hitler'" — if you "post online about your dissatisfaction with a gig worker," said The Standard.

Understood the assignment

If you do what you are expected to do, you have "understood the assignment." It is a "popular way to praise someone who is going above and beyond to do a good job," said Yahoo. It can also be a way of making a comparison, like someone on the political left saying that voters who cast a ballot for Kamala Harris in 2024 despite reservations about her position on the war in Gaza "understood the assignment."

Vibe

A vibe is "the overall atmosphere or feeling of a situation, person or place," said Forbes. The word is typically modified to be a phrase, including the "vibes are off" as a way of saying that someone does not feel good about a situation or development. Especially in its use as a verb to mean "to kick back and hang out, or to get along," the usage is novel, said Oprah Daily.

Yeet

"Yeet!" is something you exclaim when you're happy, excited or surprised. Confusingly, it can also be a verb, meaning to throw or eject something. The term broke into the mainstream after it appeared in a 2020 Saturday Night Live skit "starring Pete Davidson and Timothée Chalamet as rappers who broke a record for most streams on SoundCloud, yelled 'yeet' on repeat," said Today.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 138.

The Kinmen Islands is a small Taiwanese territory located a few miles off the coast of mainland China, in Xiamen Bay. The largest island is encircled by a sandy shoreline and studded by rocks. The island is 93 miles (150km) away from the Taiwan main island (formerly called Formosa), but being so close to the Fujian coast of mainland China it has historically been within range of communist artillery batteries and surveillance.

The close proximity of the Kinmen Islands to mainland China has placed it on the frontline of several conflicts between the People's Republic and the Republic of China, meaning it could be the target of any future Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

First attack on the Kinmen Islands

In 1949, Republic of China leader Chiang Kai-shek retreated his forces to the island of Formosa (the Chinese name Taiwan was rarely used at this time) after being forced to withdraw from the mainland by the communist offensive.

The defence of Formosa required a perimeter in the form of the offshore islands. Most precarious among these was the fishing community that inhabited Quemoy, or Kinmen.

Since 1948 the reeling Nationalists planned, albeit in haphazard fashion, on withdrawing from the mainland and to scatter their army's veteran divisions among China's coastal or offshore islands. By April the following year it was reported that nearly two million Nationalist soldiers and civilians had evacuated to Formosa.

When the new Communist rulers in Peking (Beijing) declared the People's Republic in October 1949, Mao Zedong was determined to quash every last vestige of the defeated Kuomintang (KMT).

With its ranks numbering in the millions, the People's Liberation Army had its orders and remained on the offensive. The Battle of Guningtou on Kinmen spanned the last weeks of October and was underway once communist troops had occupied Xiamen, the island barely 2.5 miles (4km) from Kinmen.

On 22 October it was believed at least two infantry divisions were prepared for a crossing. By the reckoning of the nationalists this force numbered at least 20,000 Communist soldiers. The amphibious operation was underway from 24 October unpredictable fighting lasted until 28 October.

Contrary to the myth of their limited skill at naval warfare, the Communists reached the shore unopposed and assaulted a spit of rock-strewn beach on the island's northern shore: this was Guningtou.

How the battle unfolded on the first day is poorly recorded, although it's known that the nationalists were caught by surprise and initially put up a feeble defence with just machine guns. The communists took appalling losses but, undeterred, moved inland on foot. The close-quarters fighting dragged on until the next day, when artillery from the Chinese coast hammered the defending KMT troops.

Less is known about the communist forces than the nationalists, who were led by trusted veterans of the KMT armed forces such as Chiang Wei-kuo, the adopted son of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek. As an officer in the Nationalist army who had trained in Germany and commanded a tank unit, he utilised what little armour could be mustered to scatter the Communists.

Another stalwart who joined the battle was no less than General Hu Lien, who had served the KMT since the 1930s and had arrived on the second day of hostilities. Communist troops had almost overrun the village of Guningtou and were halted by the timely appearance of Lien's 12th Brigade.

The balance of manpower between the communists and nationalists at Guningtou makes for a baffling assessment as both sides had troops to spare. What decided the outcome were tanks and bomber aircraft, neither of which the Communists could bring to the theatre.

In the case of the nationalists these were outdated American-made M5A1 Stuart tanks commanded by Chiang Wei-kuo. Even Wei-kuo's half brother, Chiang Ching-kuo, had a role in the fighting, although this was obscured for the sake of his political career. Having spent his formative years in the Soviet Union as a de facto hostage, he returned to China with a Russian wife and was given a suitable rank in the army.

To their credit the Chiang brothers had a profound influence preparing the offshore islands against fresh invasion attempts and the work continued after 1951 when American advisers were embedded with Nationalist units.

According to Taiwanese accounts the Battle of Guningtou lasted 56 hours. Both sides suffered appalling losses, with the communists coming off worse; their entire invasion force was decimated and some 10,000 stragglers surrendered.

The nationalists' remaining light bombers, flying in from airstrips 60 miles (100km) away, helped scatter the enemy and prevent their evacuation attempts.

For decades this attempted communist landing, memorialised by the KMT regime in Taiwan, was ignored by the Western press and only considered a smaller clash in the long struggle for Kinmen and the offshore islands.

When it was finally immortalised by Taiwan's press as a lasting victory against communism it served to bookend the defeat suffered in the mainland and raise a new 'origin story' for local heroism against invasion. It was a narrative that was acceptable for a Taiwanese citizenry fed with constant warnings about the mainland's designs on their way of life.

American intervention

During the 1950s the Taiwan Strait became the Cold War's deadliest flashpoint and a potential theatre for a nuclear showdown. Since 1949, when the Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to Formosa (Taiwan) and other offshore islands, the communists in Beijing slowly overwhelmed these garrisons. The greatest prize was the capture of sprawling Hainan in 1950 just months before one million Chinese troops, dubbed 'people's volunteers', attacked UN forces in Korea.

By 1951 President Harry S Truman's administration pivoted back to supporting the KMT after its abandonment in the late 1940s. The cherry on top was assigning the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet to sail its aircraft carriers across the strait separating the main island of Formosa from the Chinese coast, which effectively blocked any invasion attempt.

The Truman administration, then the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration later on, maintained a pro-KMT stance with the caveat that fighting would not embroil U.S. air and naval assets in Japan and the Philippines. But this is exactly what happened in the final months of 1954 when Beijing moved its forces from Korea to the coastal southern provinces.

The rationale from their perspective was clear: since 1949 KMT-backed 'guerrillas' – smuggling rings in the offshore islands such as Kinmen – had been blockading China's port cities. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) struck on 5 September with a bombardment of Formosa's island chain: the Kinmen and Matsu clusters. The Dachen, or Tachen Islands, located some 250 miles (400km) from the Taiwan coast, were pummelled into submission.

By January 1955 dozens of U.S. Navy ships organised as Task Force 502 evacuated 30,000 soldiers and civilians from the Dachens in the most brazen American intervention yet. The risk of a crossing by PLA divisions on boats panicked Taipei and the ageing Chiang Kai-shek wanted immediate American reinforcements.

A subtler approach prevailed. In a matter of weeks the superior air and naval resources of the U.S. military reinforced the Kinmen garrison with fresh artillery rounds for 6.1in (155mm) M1 Long Tom and M114 howitzers. A rare gift of the U.S. Army to their Formosan allies were divisional 8in (203mm) howitzers that had the range for hitting mainland China if they were positioned in concrete forts on the Matsus.

Over the years hundreds of U.S. advisers under the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) relocated to Taiwan. The risk to Americans embedded with KMT command staff meant there had to be strict guidelines on decision-making, so the Eisenhower administration wrung a promise from Chiang Kai-shek: there would be no attempts at a counter-invasion on the mainland in order to avoid starting World War III.

What became the First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-55) was portrayed by the global press as a high-risk skirmish that ebbed as a result of decisive American intervention. But neither Taipei or Beijing de-escalated in the ensuing years. Both sides grew their militaries, with the KMT fielding between 400,000 to 600,000 troops in its army, including airborne and marine units patterned after their American equivalents.

The remaining offshore islands, Kinmen and the tiny Matsu cluster, were reinforced with tunnel complexes and artillery. Constant surveillance and close calls with enemy aircraft were ever-present. A Mutual Defence Treaty and other obligations allowed the U.S. to deliver hundreds of brand new aircraft, including jets, to Taiwan's Republic of China Air Force.

By the summer of 1958 the intelligence from the Chinese coast set Taipei and Washington, D.C. on edge. The PLA was assessed to have collected almost 200,000 troops and hundreds of artillery pieces in Fujian for an upcoming operation. Its navy had grown by leaps and bounds with new gunboats armed with torpedoes.

Even more troubling was the rise of its air force, with 1,000 new Soviet fighters – the MiG-15 and MiG-17 – and the Ilyushin-28 medium-range bomber. Matters got out of hand once again on 23 August 1958 when coastal batteries hammered Kinmen with 40,000 shells inside 24 hours.

A shaken and injured Defence Minister Yu Ta-wei returned from Kinmen and met with the international press to make Taiwan's case: Beijing was ready to launch a full-scale assault. The 7th Fleet performed its usual mission reinforcing the islands while the ROC Air Force tangled with its rival on the mainland using air-to-air missiles. This time around the pinnacle of U.S. military technology was lavished on Taiwan.

The non-stop shelling of the Kinmen islands lasted 44 days, with the 7th Fleet taking pains to avoid getting within howitzer range as it escorted the resupply missions, while the sky buzzed with Taiwanese Saber jets. Aerial clashes with Chinese MiGs began at the start of August and lasted two months (the Cold War's first dog fights involving air-to-air missiles). The siege was lifted by October, but the circumstances remain debatable.

Did Beijing hesitate and order a cessation when its army began to run low on artillery shells? Or did the implied threat of nuclear attacks on Chinese airfields serve as enough warning from the Americans? After all, the deployment of Matador cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads on a Taiwanese air base was a poorly kept secret.

Other contingencies involved tactical nuclear warheads for 8in (203mm) howitzers and the arming the Honest John rockets destined for Taiwan with the same. The PLA continued raining artillery shells on the Kinmen islands. When President Eisenhower visited Taipei in June 1960 the PLA signalled its displeasure with 86,000 shells on Kinmen.

The pattern continued every week, albeit with fewer shells and on select days, for two decades. But the Eisenhower administration encapsulated the Taiwan Strait crises as separate campaigns of Chinese aggression.

The truth was more complicated as the two regimes that once fought a civil war on the mainland continued their struggle in the nuclear age with the world's most advanced technology. But the course of history, as always, took unexpected turns in the following decades.

By the 1960s the Chinese mastered nuclear weapons and secret diplomacy was carried out with the Americans in the years after. On 1 January 1979 the bombardment of the Kinmen islands stopped as Beijing and Washington, DC entered a new era of economic co-operation.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 112. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

Despite Formula 1 being a cultural touchstone for millions across Europe, the sport has historically struggled to gain significant traction in the United States. That has been flipped upside down in recent years. The open-wheel racing organization is gaining steam in the U.S., where NASCAR has long dominated the auto racing market.

Thanks to some key marketing and business decisions, Formula 1 has finally cracked the code on getting eyeballs and market share in the U.S. Crucially, the Netflix show "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" introduced millions of Americans to the sport. But while Formula 1 has undoubtedly experienced an increase in its U.S. viewership, some industry experts say there may be nowhere left for it to go.

How popular is Formula 1 in the US?

Formula 1 fandom in the U.S. has been growing rapidly over the past few years. The 2025 Global F1 Fan Survey, performed by the organization itself, polled Formula 1 fans in 186 countries. Of all of these nations, the U.S. "accounts for the largest share of respondents of any individual country," said the survey.

Younger audiences have largely been pushing this wave of Formula 1 popularity, and in the U.S., at least 70% of Gen Z fans "engage with F1 content daily," said the survey. Many fans seem to enjoy the races not only on television, but also in person. Among all U.S. respondents to the survey, at least "73% plan to attend a US race in the future" and "37% have purchased F1 merchandise."

In all, there are about "52 million F1 fans in America, an increase of more than 10% from 2024," said Motorsport.com. On ESPN, which broadcasts races in the U.S., the network's "live race audience has doubled since 2018 and so far this year there has been a noticeable increase in viewers for the opening five rounds of the championship."

Why has Formula 1 become more popular in the US?

The Netflix series "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" certainly played a role, and has been "credited with everything from helping F1 crack the U.S. to rejuvenating the sport itself," said CNBC. But the "Netflix effect" is only part of the reason why Formula 1 has taken off stateside.

Formula 1 has made inroads in the U.S. due to a "blend of pivotal elements — strategic maneuvers that recalibrated its course, collaborative efforts that enhanced captivating broadcasts and the burgeoning emergence of American talents" in a sport still dominated by Europeans, said USA Today. One notable decision that precipitated Formula 1's rise was the "expansion of Formula 1 races going beyond the United States Grand Prix, growing from two events in 2017 to three by 2023." These circuits "played a pivotal role in enhancing the sport's appeal" and "didn't just host races; they became epicenters of electrifying events."

American companies have also been getting in on the action by partnering with Formula 1 races and teams, creating sponsorships to draw in more fans. Since "2018, the number of American-based partners has more than doubled," said Bjorn Stenbacka of Spomotion Analytics to Motorsport.com. To "see the reach of American brands, Ferrari is a great example." Ferrari's racing division, Scuderia Ferrari, is widely considered the most iconic and popular Formula 1 team in history, and Italy has been the "number one country on its partnership list" from the beginning. But in 2024, the "U.S. passed Italy — a historical switch — and this year, so far Italy and the U.S. are equal."

Today, the team is officially known as Scuderia Ferrari HP after a branding deal with American technology company HP. All of these factors combined have resulted in a major boom in U.S. viewership. The 2024 Miami Grand Prix "attracted the largest live U.S. television audience on record for F1 as an average of 3.1 million viewers watched," said ESPN. As with other races, younger people made up a majority of the viewership; the "audience in the persons ages 18-49 demographic averaged 1.3 million."

Has this popularity plateaued?

Despite Formula 1's obvious U.S. growth, there are concerns that its popularity may have reached its peak. This was especially evident after the 2023 racing season, because while "attendance at live events stayed relatively strong in 2023, American TV ratings tumbled a bit," said The Athletic. The numbers increased in 2024, but there are still viewership oddities, particularly when it comes to the Miami Grand Prix.

That race "averaged 3.1 million viewers (a record for an F1 event)" in 2024, but "this year the number was about 30% lower, though that still makes it the year's most viewed race," said Bloomberg. However, there may be a simple explanation for why Formula 1 saw a tapering off: a lack of competition on the course.

This is largely because of the on-track supremacy of Max Verstappen. The 27-year-old Dutch-Belgian phenom has become a dominant force driving for Red Bull Racing and has become the face of Formula 1. Throughout 2023 and 2024, there was "consternation within the sport that Verstappen's stranglehold on the competition could jeopardize F1's hard-fought expansion of its U.S. fan base," said Front Office Sports. Verstappen drove to victory so regularly (particularly in 2023 when he won 19 out of 22 races) that any race he is a part of is "never going to be the best to watch, and the only exciting races have been the ones that Max is not in," said McLaren driver Lando Norris.

But while Verstappen dominated in 2023 and 2024, his 2025 has been far less successful, and he has only won two Formula 1 races in the first half of the year. This means that the races are getting more competitive and as a result, viewership could rise again. Verstappen's "lack of dominance has been a positive development toward making the sport feel less formulaic," said Bloomberg. And a tapered fandom could be burst wide open if an American were to see the kind of on-track successes that Europeans do.

If "you do get a U.S. driver and they are flamboyant, loud and successful, which is the most important piece, it could unlock a new level of viewership," John Suchenski, ESPN's senior director for programming and acquisitions, told Bloomberg. "I don't think it's necessary for the sport to thrive, because it does well with these international stars and the teams' brands are so strong, but it's an opportunity for growth if it were to happen."

The odds that an American driver dominates Formula 1 are probably low. A U.S. driver has not won a Formula 1 race in nearly five decades — Mario Andretti was the last to do so in 1978. While 58 American-born drivers have participated in Formula 1 races, the sport does not currently have any drivers born in the United States.

"He came, he bombed, he ended the war." That's how Donald Trump would sum up the events of the past week, said The Economist, but the reality was a little more complicated.

Last Saturday, 48 hours after giving Iran a two-week deadline, the US president launched the largest-ever strike by B-2 stealth bombers. Seven of the planes undertook a 37-hour surprise mission during which they dropped 14 bunker-buster bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. Trump hailed the operation as a "spectacular military success", saying the bombs had "totally obliterated" the sites.

The next day, in what was seen as a token response, Iran fired 14 missiles at a US base in Qatar. All but one of the missiles were intercepted and there were no casualties. Hours later, Trump announced the end of what he called the "12-day war" between Iran and Israel. He subsequently rounded on both sides for continuing to fight, raging that "they don't know what the fuck they're doing", after which the fragile ceasefire appeared to hold.

Trump has made many terrible decisions during his time as president, said Eliot A. Cohen in The Atlantic, but he made the right call in bombing Iran. The regime simply can't be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, and it might very well use such a weapon on Israel, which, as a former Iranian president repeatedly crowed, is "a one-bomb country".

Neutralising this problem, even if only temporarily, is a positive result. Iran's recent weak position created an opening for a strike on its nuclear facilities and the moment needed to be seized, agreed The Wall Street Journal. The risks were acceptable. Sure, Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil supply passes, but only if it's willing to lose its main source of revenue and run the risk of the US sinking its entire navy. Trump has called Iran's bluff and helped create a "rare opportunity for a more peaceful Middle East".

If the ceasefire holds, it will mean that "this harrowing episode has concluded without triggering World War III, as some feared", said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. But the conflict hasn't actually achieved the desired result of ending Iran's nuclear programme. If anything, it may have increased that threat. Leaked US intelligence reports have suggested that America's bunker-buster bombs didn't knock out all of the centrifuges in the buried Fordow plant, and may have only set back Iran's nuclear programme by a few months.

Until recently, Iran was at least partly cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. After Trump's reckless intervention, it will be even more determined to push secretly for a bomb. Iran still has a stockpile of 400kg of 60% enriched uranium, which even in its present state could be used as a crude radiological weapon, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. US and Israeli sources say they know where it is, and we must hope they can find it and make it safe. "Otherwise, the fuse on the Iranian bomb is still lit."

It's quite possible that Iran could pick up the pieces and develop a bomb over the next couple of years, said Ilan Goldenberg in Foreign Affairs. US and Israeli intelligence will need to keep a close eye on it whatever happens. The dream scenario now is that Iranian reformists win a power struggle with the hardliners, and opt to ditch the country's nuclear ambitions for the sake of an easier life. But given how well entrenched the regime is, we're more likely to end up with a situation akin to the one in Iraq after the first Gulf War – in which Iran is left with a weakened, but "more radicalised", regime.

The only thing keeping Iran's despised theocrats in power, said Karim Sadjadpour in The New York Times, is the fact that they control a repressive apparatus that's "willing to kill en masse", whereas their more numerous opponents are "unarmed, unorganised and unwilling to die en masse". But that balance may change over the months ahead as the country comes to terms with recent events. Military humiliations "expose the brittleness" of ageing regimes. Witness the Soviet Union after its Afghan invasion, or Argentina's junta after the Falklands War.

In the absence of regime change – "or a definitive shift in mentality" – we can expect a return to conflict, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. With his talk of a "12-day war", Trump was suggesting that this could be "a reordering moment for the Middle East" akin to the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It's worth remembering, though, that six years after that conflict, "Israel was once again at war with Egypt and Syria".

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 40.

Following Israel's Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's first formal order was to announce the establishment of an official army for the new nation: the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Founded on 26 May, This organisation combined several military groups and militia, and went on to acquire a status of superiority to rank as one of the world's most effective fighting forces.

Membership of the IDF included not only armed personnel from Jewish military groups active during World War II, but also Europeans who had survived the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. From 1948, the IDF superseded all other Jewish armed forces.

At Israel's birth, the IDF played a key role in Israeli society. These forces were a direct outcome of the dissolution and assimilation of the previously active Jewish underground militias and the IDF was formed in a conservative effort to withstand the later threat of Arab armies.

The IDF became determined to give expression to Zionist values and to commit itself to the protection of Israel. Between 1949 and 1956, the IDF concentrated on developing itself into a modern army and air force. Tensions between the Arabs and Jews persisted and the divisions between the two groups are still ingrained into the contemporary fabric of Middle Eastern religious and political life.

Roots of the Israel Defence Forces

The transformation of a series of disorganised underground militias to the formation of a national defence corps was a complex and haphazard affair. Various activists had to be compelled into unification, and to accept the importance of forming a single state entity to defend Israel and its borders.

The newly created Israeli government recognised the need to absorb and consolidate the armed elements that had operated during the years of the Mandate, when there was administrative and political control imposed by the British. The IDF then came about after the dismantling of all other Jewish armed forces.

The unravelling of events prior to Ben-Gurion's first order indicates that the formation of the IDF pre-dated a military struggle, at the centre of which was the Haganah – a Zionist military organisation that sought to repel Arab forces in Palestine and to defend Jewish settlements. Underpinning what in its early days was a 'softer' approach, the Haganah emphasised an adherence to principles of 'self-restraint'.

While the Haganah itself operated before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the origins of the IDF can be traced back more than 100 years. Modern Jewish settlements in Palestine were around in the 1870s and their safety depended on protection against bandits and thieves.

At the beginning of the 20th century, these settlers increasingly drew upon the services of vigilantes to protect their colonies, and established self-defence units. These, often found in the north of Israel, consisted of a motley collection of inexperienced and unprofessional men and women.

During World War I, the Zionist Movement lobbied the British government to mobilise three battalions of Jewish soldiers. These went on to be known as the Jewish Legion, which itself was followed by the introduction of other splinter groups such as the First Judean Battalion. The desire for autonomy, in order to deter external threats, culminated in the creation of the Haganah.

In the run-up to the formation of the Haganah, many Jews in the region had begun adopting an ideological commitment to counter the rise of anti-Semitism since the 1920s. Those Jews who joined the Haganah received training and were supportive of Zionist principles.

The military units that were to underscore the roots of the group could be distinguished by their knowledge of modern warfare and theories following attendance of an array of courses that were available, even though systematic and organised training programmes proved difficult to run.

The effective use of tuition was also limited, as personnel had to be in place all over Palestine and could not be detracted from their primary military role. Yet evidence of such training among the Haganah troops, albeit on a minor scale, is available as far back as the mid-1920s when, for example, 20 men attended a commanders' course in the woods on Mount Carmel, near to Haifa.

In 1941, similar programmes were still held: at Juara, for example, an isolated district near to Esdraelon where several future IDF chiefs of staff attended. Other training was sporadic yet often entailed intensive tutelage in sniping, reconnaissance and explosives. Such military education was not really tolerated by the British, but the Palestinian Jews ignored any unwanted criticism.

Jewish forces in World War II

The outbreak of World War II prompted the fragmented Jewish defence groups to bring about better organisational cohesion, though these changes were not as pronounced as was the case after 1945. Even so, during the war, Haganah reorganised and several fringe groups split into a number of self-defence forces.

At the outset, the British made it clear that it wanted Palestinian Jews to engage with them and to join in the fight within their existing armed forces. These Jews attached themselves to the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and other recognised branches of the British military. There were even units composed solely of Palestinian Jews, and of Arabs and Jews, such as the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps which was quickly despatched to France in 1940.

It was during the summer of 1940 that the Haganah set about organising itself into an effective fighting force in readiness for any Axis threat that could scupper the plans of the Yishuv (the Palestinian Jews). The Axis forces were thereby added to the list of enemies who could thwart the wishes of those wanting the creation of a Jewish state.

In the absence of being able to impose a national taxation system, financing a defence force became a problem. Voluntary contributions were not adequate to fund the activities of the Haganah and associated paramilitary groups. To some extent the Kibbutz movement, an autonomous Jewish community, was not slow in coming forward to assist, and introduced a work programme to aid the troops.

During the course of World War II, 15 Jewish groups of Palestinian Jews joined the British and they became known as the Palestine Regiment. This in turn led to the creation of the Jewish Brigade. Ben-Gurion wanted to maximise the value of these volunteers and the British promised him a force based on the model of the WWI battalions.

The British were slow to act, but eventually conceded that the brigade could be formed and it was established on 3 July 1944. Ben-Gurion's desire to form the brigade was also a reaction against a White Paper issued by the British government in 1939, which almost put an end to Jewish hopes for their own state in Palestine.

The British wanted to remove the tension and dispel attention on the Middle East in order to focus as much as possible on the imminent European crisis. This entailed pacifying the Arab majority in Palestine and reducing the military intervention there, when troops and equipment were far more in need in Europe.

Even so, the Jewish Brigade provided military backup to the British in Iraq, Syria, Italy and North Africa, and from this diverse background, the Haganah elite companies came into existence.

The Jewish Brigade served in Europe until 1946, and after the war launched itself into securing the safe passage of European refugees and contributed to the Jewish self-defence movement.

Special care and aid by the brigade was also given to survivors of concentration camps and ghettos, so its role went beyond that of merely a military outfit. However, largely because of persistent conflict with the British, the brigade was disbanded. It later became what is recognised today as the 'foundation' of the IDF.

Resistance to British rule

In the wake of Allied victory , the Haganah numbered 30,000 active personnel. The backbone of this organisation was the Palmach, which consisted of 2,000 members. At the outset, Palmach was formed to act against the onslaught of a German invasion, should the British decide to evacuate Palestine.

Preparations were also put in place to stockpile arms and military equipment to use at a later stage in the conflict. The self-defence movement also busied itself by amassing additional arms and these were smuggled into Palestine in varying degrees of risk and uncertainty; in some cases, they were illegally bought or stolen from the British.

The Jews were able to seize vital armaments such as hand grenades, rifles and mortars. Occasionally British soldiers came across workshops organised by the Haganah and they would dismantle and destroy these facilities.

It is no surprise that after the end of World War II, the Haganah saw that its main threat was not wholly Arab forces, but rather the British Army. The British were hostile to the Haganah's primary aims and there followed an engagement between the two sides that was both aggressive and violent.

The British reaction was temporarily to define the actions of the Haganah as dangerous and 'illegal'. Where its members were found to be in possession of firearms without licence, they were arrested and sentenced to jail.

While there was some tolerance of the Haganah by the British, it was more the case that the British forces were not extensive enough to police the whole of Palestine. In some instances, the British turned a blind eye to some of the Haganah's activities.

The British position in Palestine was precarious by this time, and in places the Haganah was allowed a free rein to do as it pleased. The Haganah and the British engaged in a conflict designed by the latter to impose severe restrictions on immigration and to prevent constraints on the Jews, even though evidence was fast emerging of the trauma of thousands of potential immigrants who had escaped German concentration camps.

Records show how 100 members of the Palmach invaded a stronghold at Atlit, south of Haifa, and freed 200 illegal immigrants. Such actions resulted in the death of an occupant of a British police car. The Haganah had initially wanted a bloodless struggle and it was intent on minimising the number of deaths of both British and Arab forces.

To fulfil this aim, it confined itself to damaging and sabotaging Palestine's railway network. The softer approach to attacking Arabs and the British may partly explain the label of 'semi-legal' in the Haganah's moves to effect resistance.

How the IDF was founded

The IDF's origins were based on the inclusion of men and women who had served in the Haganah and the Palmach, and these, along with other underground manpower and survivors of World War II, collectively formed the sole legal armed force in Israel.

The theme of combining both Arab and Jewish groups was later extended to the IDF after Christian and Muslim Arabs joined. The IDF assimilated these elements without compromising the Zionist standpoint of the army in any significant way. As well as those from the Haganah and Palmach, the military group referred to as Irgun was absorbed into the IDF, and another militia known as the Stern Gang.

In the months following the end of World War II, these military factions made plans to effectively co-ordinate, and the distinctive co-operation between Irgun and the Stern Gang led some to believe that these militias had joined forces at a time pre-dating the official launch of the IDF.

Both paramilitary organisations were determined to evict the British from Palestine and to form a Jewish state. From 1946 to 1947, there was a proliferation of incidents involving these paramilitary forces.

The British drew upon every aspect of their experience of colonial rule to maintain law and order, but they could not break the strong determination of the Palestinian Jews to work towards the founding of an independent Jewish state.

The British Army was criticised for the rough treatment of those who had escaped the Holocaust, some of whom were killed in their attempts to fight for independence.

Impeded by a British military interventionist presence, the Jewish underground groupings were limited in their ability to demonstrate professional competence. Yet collectively, the Haganah, Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked Arab settlements and exercised considerable violence in the town of Jaffa, villages in Galilee and northern parts of Palestine.

1948: The Battle for Jerusalem

From January 1948, Jerusalem, due to the military resistance of the Arabs, became virtually cut off from the rest of Palestine. Access to the city was only possible by the use of convoys of trucks, whose safety was put into jeopardy by opposition from Arab troops who blockaded the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Any progress to reach Jerusalem was only really feasible by the intervention of Palmach, whose members escorted the trucks in their dangerous mission to supply food and provisions to the city. As the convoys proceeded to climb the hills of Judea, the Jews were subjected to hostile Arabs armed with rifles who had constructed road blocks in readiness to resist the advancing vehicles laden with supplies.

Palestinian Arabs ambushed the convoys in actions that became more regular and 'sophisticated'. The Haganah received orders to launch Operation Nachshon to clear the way for the convoys to pass along the last few miles before reaching Jerusalem.

Fierce fighting between Jews and Arabs took place. After the British pulled out of Palestine, the two sides were left to fight each other and the battle for Jerusalem continued. By February 1948, Jerusalem was still locked in battle, and the Arab strongholds in the surrounding hills still posed a major threat to the convoys that tried to break through.

The British accompanied some of the trucks en route, but this support dwindled when the Haganah made it clear that it wanted to take full responsibility for its own security. Soon a secret passage was secured, providing a safe opening for the delivery of ample supplies.

By July 1948, 8,000 trucks reached Jerusalem, putting an end to fears that the Jews there would perish through starvation. A truce ensued, and the Haganah claimed victory, but it was not fully achieved owing to the sharing of Jerusalem between both Jews and Arabs.

Meanwhile, preparatory moves were taking place to dismantle the Stern Gang and Irgun (all Irgun members merged with Haganah and the Stern Group, apart from those based in Jerusalem) and to place their activist members to constitute a national force in the form of the IDF; this objective was realised by 31 May 1948.

The Stern Gang's leadership in the wake of integration received amnesty from prosecution in respect of its record of rebellion and conflict. As to Irgun members, they became integrated into the IDF at the beginnings of the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and the process of absorbing all military organisations into the IDF was well underway at this time.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 40. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

From deep in the ocean to high in the sky and back in our own homes, animals continue to surprise us with their intelligence and sometimes bizarre behaviours. This year, scientists have uncovered more surprising facts about the animal kingdom.

Mice do 'first aid' on their friends

Humans aren't the only animals with Good Samaritan tendencies: elephants, chimps and dolphins have all been known to come to the aid of ailing members of their own species. And now mice have been observed seemingly trying to revive their unconscious companions. For the study, published in the journal Science, lab mice were placed with another mouse that had just been anaesthetised. The healthy mice were seen to pay very close attention to the drugged mouse – sniffing at it and grooming it; and then, as it slipped further into unconsciousness, pawing at the creature and nipping it, as though trying to wake it up. In a series of tests, mice also opened unconscious cage-mates' mouths and pulled at their tongues, perhaps to clear their airways. When objects were placed in the mouths of the unconscious mice, the tongue pulling usually removed it. Mice were more likely to behave in this way if the drugged mouse was familiar to them; and the mice that received this first aid tended to wake up and walk about more quickly than a control group that was left alone. As the mice were just a few months old and hadn't seen unconscious mice being tended to by other mice, the neuroscientists, at the University of Southern California, suspect that the rodents' behaviour was instinctive, rather than learnt.

How to understand your horse

Bartenders may ask them about their long faces, but horses have a wide range of expressions, researchers have found. For the study, a team at the University of Portsmouth gathered video footage of 36 horses at an equine centre in Hampshire. They then analysed the horses' facial expressions in different situations, noting how and when their facial muscles moved. They concluded that although horses have a narrower range of expressions than humans or dogs, the way they move their heads, eyes, mouths and ears does provide an insight into their emotions. For instance, if a horse lowers its head, flares its nostrils and flattens its ears, be careful because it is probably feeling aggressive; whereas if it raises its chin, opens its mouth and shows more of the whites of its eyes, that indicates playfulness. Blinking is a sign of curiosity, and a neutral expression seems to indicate that the horse is in a good mood. "This work is a game-changer for anyone working with horses," said study co-author Dr Leanne Proops. "It gives us a new lens through which to view and interpret their behaviour, ultimately leading to better care and stronger human-animal relationships."

Wild chimps drum to their own beat

Chimps are well known to slap their hands and feet against the buttress roots of trees to create distinctive sounds that can travel up to 1,000 metres through thick rainforest. Now, researchers have established not only that the apes drum to a rhythm, but that this rhythm varies between sub-species. Those in Uganda and Tanzania, in the east of Africa, favour a jazzy "swing" pattern – a long-short-long-short rhythm, whereas the western chimps, in Guinea and Ivory Coast, go for the evenly spaced beats that are typical of rock music. The project team gathered 371 drumming episodes across 11 groups; primatologists, rhythm scientists and acoustics experts then mapped and analysed the timing and tempo of each session, to establish that the timing was non-random, and differed according to location. The suggestion is that the beat is passed down through generations, with different groups maintaining their own traditions. Rhythm has long been viewed as a fundamental aspect of human culture – playing a role in speech, music, dance and poetry and even social bonding. That chimps also have rhythm suggests that our rhythmic sense dates back seven or planes

How dolphins express incredulity

Dolphins are known to have signature whistles with which they reveal their location and announce their presence, as if saying "I'm over here". Dolphins have also been observed seeming to reply to these calls by altering them, and whistling them back – "there you are". Now, researchers in Florida who have been decoding other non-signature whistles have identified a vocalisation that seems to indicate a query, or even incredulity. They came across it when they broadcast the signature whistles of two dolphins who were swimming right next to each other. As dolphins don't waste energy by whistling for no reason, and the sound wasn't coming from either of them, the dolphins were probably confused – and each responded by emitting what has been officially termed "non-signature whistle B", but which the researchers, at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, have informally dubbed "the WTF whistle". Of course, they can't be sure of its meaning, said Tom Whipple in The Times. Nevertheless, their work has led to them being shortlisted for a new $100,000 prize for research into animal communication.

Gulls are bolder in gangs

If a single gull is eyeing up your chips, you probably don't need to worry. According to a new study, the birds are unlikely to swoop if they are alone. To test how the species reacts to unfamiliar objects, researchers in Belgium gathered 54 young herring gulls who had been bred in captivity, and placed a variety of different objects (a ball, a brush and so on) next to their food bowls. They found that the birds approached their bowls much more quickly when they were in groups of four or five than if they were alone – in 3.52 seconds instead of nearly ten. They also spent longer by their food bowls. This, said the researchers, suggests that the birds are less risk averse when they are part of a crowd. So at the seaside, it is not the lone gulls you need to keep an eye out for, it is the gangs.

Human drugs are affecting fish

The anti-anxiety drugs that pollute many rivers can change the behaviour of salmon, a study has found. Researchers in Sweden attached tiny tracking devices to 279 juvenile Atlantic salmon (or smolts) before they embarked on a ten- to 13-day journey along a river to the Baltic Sea. Some were also given clobazam, a sedative prescribed for anxiety, at levels similar to those found in many rivers. It turned out that the drugged fish were more likely to complete their journey: 25% of them reached the Baltic, compared with just 10% of the others. They were also quicker at getting through hydroelectric dams that normally hinder migration. Further lab tests showed that drugged fish were less likely to seek the safety of the shoal when faced by a predator. The results suggest that the drugs make the fish more prone to taking risks, said the team; and their accumulation in the brain may have other impacts too.

A pet is as good as a spouse

Owning a pet makes you as happy as being married – or earning an extra £70,000 a year, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Kent drew on data from a nationally representative survey in which members of 2,500 British households were asked how satisfied they were with their lives. It turned out that having a cat or dog was associated with an increase of three to four points, on a scale of one (completely dissatisfied) to seven (satisfied beyond measure). The team then used a technique devised by economists to translate intangible assets, such as living near a park, into monetary worth. The £70,000-a-year uplift might seem high, but with other studies assigning a similar value to catching up with friends once or twice a week, it makes sense, lead author Dr Adelina Gschwandtner told The Times. It is likely that "many people don't realise how important their pets are for them".

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 138.

From the earliest days of the Cold War, both the US and the USSR had nuclear weapons, but only one means of delivering a strike – long-range, strategic bombers. As the conflict wore on, technological advances changed that, and soon the two sides were capable of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

"The phrase was first coined by the US Secretary of State Robert McNamara in the early 1960s," historian and author Roger Hermiston told History of War. "In 1953 the respective nuclear weapon stockpiles of the three countries were USA: 1,169; Soviet Union: 120; and the United Kingdom: one."

Throughout the 1950s, both superpowers began developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear warheads which they stored underground in protective silos. In some cases, these missiles had several warheads and were known as Multiple Independent Re-Entrant Vehicles (MIRVs).

In addition, both sides also developed Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) that were harder to track and target because they operated beneath the oceans' surface. Between them, the bombers, ICBMs, and SLBMs formed what came to be known as the nuclear triad, a joined-up, combined-forces land, sea and air strategy that mirrored the approach to conventional warfare.

The difference, however, was that this was not a strategy designed to win a war, it was designed to prevent one.

What is the concept of MAD?

The idea of a military deterrent can be traced back to Roman times but it wasn't until the Cold War that nuclear weapons unleashed the real potential of this idea.

At its heart, it had always proposed that the threat of an overwhelming military response could be used as a psychological weapon to dissuade an enemy from attacking. As the Cold War progressed and both sides acquired vast arsenals of nuclear weapons, this concept gained more and more credence.

By the mid-1965, the combined US-USSR stockpile of nuclear weapons had grown from 3,000 in 1955 to 37,000. Enough to annihilate their respective populations and eradicate their civilisations several times over.

Rather than call a halt to the production of nuclear weapons the arms race continued unabated amid a doctrine that was named Mutually Assured Destruction. This effectively terrorised each side into keeping the peace, knowing that an act of aggression would ultimately be a suicidal one.

The seismic shifts in technology and the evolving geo-political landscape helped to define what MAD looked like. This resulted in the development of two distinct lines of strategic thinking.

One argued for what was called a 'flexible response' and spoke of the need for nonmilitary and non-nuclear options to be considered in the event of an attack. The other highlighted the need for what was known as a 'second strike capability' and made the case for having the means to respond to a nuclear attack with a retaliatory attack of similar or greater magnitude.

Operation Chrome Dome

By the early 1960s, US intelligence was claiming, wrongly as it turned out, that the Soviets had enough ICBMs to wipe out all of the US' retaliatory capability before a second strike could be launched. In keeping with the logic that had given the world MAD, the US military came up with a solution to this perceived 'missile gap' as it was called.

Operation Chrome Dome was a United States Air Force (USAF) mission that lasted from 1961 to 1968. It saw a never-ending convoy of B-52 bombers armed with nuclear warheads fly in constant rotation just outside Soviet airspace, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

At any given time, there were up to 50 fully armed B-52s in the air, guaranteeing a second strike capability even if a Soviet attack destroyed all of the US' airfields and missile sites.

Sorties typically lasted 24 hours, with planes being refuelled in mid-air, and often took the bombers, and their bombs, over large tracts of the US, Canada and Greenland. With so many sorties being flown, accidents were inevitable.

In total, there were five crashes involving thermonuclear devices including the infamous Goldsboro crash in 1961. The operation was eventually closed down in 1968 after a B-52 crashed into sea ice in North Star Bay, Greenland. The nuclear payload ruptured in the subsequent explosion causing radioactive contamination of the entire area.

Does Mutually Assured Destruction still exist?

Despite several international treaties that sought to curtail the proliferation of nuclear weapons, there were an estimated 70,000 in existence by the time the Cold War ended in 1991.

Today, that number has dropped to around 12,000, although ownership of them has spread. In addition to the US and Russia, the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea all have nuclear weapons. Because of that, deterrence still plays a vital part in global security and international relations.

Its role, however, has become far more complex, as each of those countries has its own set of deterrent relationships with those nations it views as adversaries.

There are also many other countries, such as Japan, South Korea, and the growing list of NATO states, that are closely allied to the US and therefore enjoy what's called extended deterrence status. In other words, their security is underwritten by the US nuclear capability.

The US is the only nuclear power to do this, leveraging its nuclear arsenal both militarily and diplomatically to extend and maintain its global dominance.

On the cusp of World War Three: Q&A with Roger Hermiston

Roger Hermiston is an historian, journalist and author of several books including Two Minutes To Midnight 1953, The Year of Living Dangerously The following interview originally appeared in History of War issue 106 (published March 2022).

What nuclear capabilities did the West and the USSR respectively reach in 1953 that made that year so significant?
It was the year when the world moved a dangerous step forward from the atom bomb to the new terrifying 'superbomb' – a thermonuclear explosive, based on hydrogen fusion, up to a thousand times more destructive than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Americans had produced their prototype H-bomb – codenamed Ivy Mike – in November 1952; now the Russians successfully tested their own, codenamed Joe-4, in August 1953. As a result the Doomsday Clock, that measurement of how close the world is to Armageddon, was moved to two minutes to midnight (the closest it had been in seven years of Cold War).

How much did both the White House and the Kremlin know about the other's nuclear capabilities at this time?
Not a huge amount – nowhere remotely what they know today. The Soviets had been well-informed about the American atom bomb by their Western agents, especially Klaus Fuchs, but by 1953 nearly all of them had been uncovered and arrested.

As for the West, when the Iron Curtain came down in 1947 it made it very difficult for their spies to penetrate the Kremlin. It was certainly a surprise to President Dwight Eisenhower's administration when Georgy Malenkov, the new Russian leader, announced to the Supreme Soviet that his country now had the H-bomb.

When were safeguards put in place between Moscow and Washington to prevent any accidental escalation or nuclear strike?
After the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 President JF Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev set up a 'hotline', providing direct communication between the White House and the Kremlin.

In future years additional safeguards were put in place, including the 1971 Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War and the 1972 Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents at Sea.

How did these safeguards developed during the Cold War and to what extent do they still exist?
Broad safeguards – through reducing the amount of nuclear weapons in circulation – developed through treaties like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 1991, and the Strategic Offensive Reduction treaty (SORT) in 2002.

Interestingly, on 3 January 2022 the five big nuclear powers – United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom – signed a joint statement committing themselves to 'Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races'.

You write that President Eisenhower considered a preliminary strike during the Korean War. Do we know if he had any specific plans to carry this out?
The idea of using tactical A-bombs on the battlefield to end the Korean War was discussed in seven National Security Council meetings between February and March. It never came too close to fruition, but John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State, wanted to remove the 'taboo' on the nuclear weapon and view it as simply another weapon in his nation's armoury.

Then, after the Soviets successfully tested their H-bomb in August 1953, Eisenhower, thinking about possible nuclear conflict, pondered "whether or not our duty to future generations did not require us to initiate war at the most propitious moment that we could designate".

Are there any parallels with today's rhetoric regarding nuclear arsenals?
In 1953 the most worrying moments came after the death of Stalin, with the Korean War still raging. There was optimism that we might enter a new era of 'détente' with the Soviets, but the problem was no-one really knew what his successors in the Kremlin were thinking.

Two weeks after Stalin's funeral, the shooting down of a British Lincoln bomber by a Soviet MiG fighter – killing all six crew – was a dangerous flashpoint. Today mutually assured destruction is entrenched and acknowledged, so Vladimir Putin's disturbing rhetoric will remain just that – rhetoric. By attacking the West with nuclear weapons he would invite the destruction of his own country.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issues 106 and 138. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price.

For as long as he has been a public figure at the nexus of power and finance, President Donald Trump has been in love with celebrity — especially his own — and celebrities, with whom he’s spent a lifetime socializing. From splashy Manhattan nightclub appearances to his star-studded reality television shows and now oval office photoshoots, Trump’s embrace of stardom even extends into the heart of the federal criminal justice system. Across both his terms in office, the president has seemingly gone out of his way to pardon a cavalcade of high profile celebrity offenders — often ones with whom he shares a personal connection — for crimes ranging from gun offenses to financial fraud.

After earning plaudits in his first term for his criminal justice reform work, here are the celebrities and notables Trump has pardoned since assuming the presidency.

Todd and Julie Chrisley

Convicted in 2022 on a host of financial and fraud-related charges, the eponymous stars of USA Network's "Chrisley Knows Best" hid their crimes behind their "self-presentation as self-made businesspeople," said The New York Times. The Chrisleys "don't look like terrorists to me," Trump reportedly told the pair's daughter, Savannah, while announcing the Spring 2025 pardons, Savannah said to NewsNation. "I don't know them, but give them my regards and wish them good luck," Trump added.

The pair have been "unfairly targeted and overly prosecuted by an unjust justice system," said White House spokesperson Harrison Fields in a statement to NBC News upon the pardon announcement. The family is now slated to appear in a new reality show, greenlit just days before the Chrisleys were officially pardoned on May 28, in which they will be "exposing the raw truth of their lives — past and present," per an official synopsis provided to People.

George Santos

During his brief stint in congress, former Republican Rep.George Santos made a name for himself as one of the most transparently fraudulent lawmakers in recent memory, while also luxuriating in intense public spotlight. Nevertheless, Trump’s October 2025 decision to commute Santos’ seven-year prison sentence for wire fraud was the “latest in his flagrant misuse of the pardon power,” USA Today said. The commutation is further proof that Trump sees the justice system “through a pretty clear lens” as being “weaponized against people who Democrats politically disagree with,” The New York Times reporter Michael Gold said to National Public Radio.

Jay Johnston

From his televised beginnings on cult favorite "Mr. Show" to his starring role on "Bob's Burgers," actor and comedian Jay Johnston was a mainstay on television screens for years until he was arrested and convicted for joining the mob of MAGA supporters who breached the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. Johnston was ultimately sentenced to more than a year in prison in part for having "cracked jokes and interacted with other rioters as he used a cellphone to record the violence around him," said NPR.

Johnston was ultimately pardoned in one of Trump's first presidential acts of his second term, along with hundreds of other Jan. 6 participants. Trump politicized the arrests and imprisonments of many Capitol rioters during the run-up to the 2024 election.

Rudy Giuliani

While perhaps not a “celebrity” in the traditional sense, former New York City Mayor-turned-Trump-attack-dog Rudy Giuliani was already among the president’s highest profile associates even before the president pardoned his onetime attorney for Giuliani’s role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The pardon, which came alongside similar acts of clemency for Trump’s other 2020 electoral associates in November 2025, is “primarily symbolic” since “none of those named” in the latest batch of pardons are “currently facing federal charges,” The New York Times said. The federal pardons, then, are “part of a long-shot gambit” to “influence the state-level charges” faced by Giuliani and others by serving as a “persuasive authority for the argument that the cases should be tossed out,” said The Independent

NBA YoungBoy

Born Kentrell Gaulden, rapper NBA YoungBoy ended "more than five years of legal morass" by pleading guilty to gun-related charges in multiple states in December of last year, The New York Times said, only to be made a free man as part of the president's May 28 pardon spree in late May. Gaulden's legal saga has "come to a conclusion," said attorney Drew Findling, who previously served as Trump's personal legal counsel during the since-closed Georgia election interference case. The rapper can now "concentrate on first and foremost his family, and then, of course, his amazing career," Findling said to the Times.

"I want to thank President Trump for granting me a pardon and giving me the opportunity to keep building — as a man, as a father and as an artist," the rapper said in a statement posted to social media after his release. Trump's pardon means the artist "won't have to follow the terms of his probation, including drug testing," said The Associated Press. YoungBoy's post-pardon tour has avoided "references to Donald Trump," Rolling Stone said, "even though his latest album, MASA, short for 'Make America Slime Again,' is a reference to Trump as a political figure."

Lil Wayne

The president's January 2021 pardon of rap superstar Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., came after speculation that the rapper was "angling for a pardon" after he "unexpectedly shared a photo" of himself and Trump during the 2020 campaign, Rolling Stone said. Carter, who pleaded guilty to felony gun possession in 2020 and faced up to a decade in prison, had exhibited his "generosity" through a "commitment to a variety of charities, including donations to research hospitals and a host of food banks," the White House said when it announced his pardon.

Rod Blagojevich

After initially commuting a raft of sentences (including wire fraud, solicitation of bribes and lying to the FBI) against disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2020, Trump waited until Feb. 10, 2025, to fully pardon the Democratic lawmaker. The self-proclaimed "Trumpocrat" hailed the president as a "great effing guy" in response.

Following his initial commutation, Blagojevich had become a "fierce defender of Trump as the president has faced his own legal battles," Politico said. The pair's relationship stretches back to Blagojevich's time as a cast member of Trump's popular NBC reality competition "The Apprentice," from which he was fired in the 4th week.

Michael 'Harry-O' Harris

While perhaps not a household name, Michael "Harry-O" Harris has been an instrumental figure in the music industry and hip-hop community, co-founding Death Row Records while behind bars for drug charges and attempted murder. During his incarceration, Harris not only helped launch the iconic rap label but also "negotiated deals with a variety of mainstream music labels," said the Los Angeles Times. Like Blagojevich, Harris had initially had his sentence commuted by Trump at the end of the president's first term, before being pardoned entirely as part of Trump's May clemency acts.

"This freedom is a gift," Harris said in a statement posted to Instagram thanking Trump and daughter Ivanka, as well as "Pardon-czar" Alice Marie Johnson, who has advised Trump on his clemency efforts following her own sentence commutation and eventual pardoning for drug-related offenses. "I will not waste it."

Kodak Black

Sentenced to nearly four years behind bars on federal weapons charges, rapper Kodak Black, born Bill Kapri, was initially granted clemency at the end of Trump's first term alongside fellow hip-hop star Lil Wayne. Black is a "prominent artist and community leader" who "committed to supporting a variety of charitable efforts, such as providing educational resources to students and families of fallen law enforcement officers and the underprivileged," the White House said while announcing his commuted sentence.

The "campaign" for Kapri's freedom was backed by a host of religious figures, "including Ohio pastor and former Trump advisor Darrell Scott," as well as former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was "himself pardoned by Trump" one year prior, said the BBC. Since his pardon, Black has become "very loyal to Trump," XXL Magazine said. Asked in the run up to the 2024 election whether he'd vote for Trump, Black said, "we should have Donald Trump for like 20 years like how Russian and all that sh*t be doin." That summer, he also released a pro-Trump song, "ONBOA47RD," and attended the president's inauguration ball in January.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 112.

The standoff across the Taiwan Strait began during the Chinese Civil War, which pitted the fledgling Communists and the ruling Nationalist government. Originating in 1927, the civil war stretched into the Second World War, when the two sides upheld a shaky alliance against Japan.

By December 1945 the Japanese army had been driven from the mainland and Mao Zedong's generals were able to capture Manchuria. In the city of Chungking, American envoy General George C Marshall arranged a truce between the Nationalists and Communists. By 1946, however, the Communists went on the offensive.

Armed to the teeth and with full Soviet backing, in early 1949 the old imperial capital Peking was theirs. Seeing his own generals bogged down south of the Yangtze River, the Nationalist leader and US ally Chiang Kai-shek decided to withdraw and relocate the government on the island of Formosa (Taiwan), which Japan had colonized from 1895 until 1945 and was nominally controlled by the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The Taiwan Strait formed the maritime border between the Republic of China (ROC) and People's Republic of China (PRC), which remains today.

The ROC in its new home on Taiwan endured decades of martial law, with Kai-shek as lifelong dictator. Within a year after their victory on the mainland in October 1949 the Communists received even more aid from the Soviets and expanded the borders of the PRC to Central Asia and Tibet.

On October 19, 1950 a massive PRC volunteer army fought American and United Nations troops in the Korean peninsula until the ceasefire in Panmunjom on July 27, 1953. Chairman Mao Zedong, with total faith in the strength of his military, vowed to someday conquer the Nationalists in Taiwan.

1954-1955: The First Taiwan Strait Crisis

Throughout the 1950s the Soviet Union supported the PRC by helping it industrialise and establish a centrally planned economy. The Korean War saw the relationship reach literal new heights as the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) became the largest and best-equipped in Asia thanks to hundreds of Soviet-made MiG-15 fighter jets and Il-28 light bombers.

After the end of the war, which killed an estimated one million Chinese troops, Zedong dreamt of turning the PRC into a superpower. But achieving this meant better technology was needed from the Soviets – especially submarines and nuclear weapons – and defeating his longtime foe, Kai-shek, who ruled over Taiwan.

What became the First Taiwan Strait Crisis, in 1954, was a heavy bombardment of the Quemoy (Kinmen) and Matsu islands groups. These small outposts off the coast of Fujian Province were located mere kilometers from where the PRC's People's Liberation Army (PLA) massed their troops. Since 1949 both Peking and Taipei (the seat of government in Taiwan) insisted their "final conquests" would be carried out, eventually. But this was propaganda for reassuring their respective citizens of their governments' effectiveness.

Using the pretext of Washington DC's plans for a Mutual Defense Treaty with Taipei in 1954, the PLA showed off the firepower it had received from the Soviets. The army's 122mm, 130mm and 152mm howitzers almost covered every inch of the Quemoy and Matsu islands and the latter endured a severe bombardment on September 3, 1954.

But what Mao and his inner circle could not tolerate was American resolve to defend its beleaguered ally. US Navy carrier battle groups sailed the Taiwan Strait during the drawn out confrontation. US forces avoided clashes with the PLA but the presence of the Seventh Fleet's aircraft carriers alone was a strong signal to the Chinese: attack Taiwan at your own risk.

The siege of Quemoy subsided after bilateral talks between Zedong and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who replaced the late Joseph Stalin as leader of the Soviet Union in October. Historians who revisit the First Taiwan Strait Crisis still speculate whether Zedong wanted a test of the US commitment to defending Taiwan and whether nuclear threats against China would materialise.

This was a reckless move since President Dwight D Eisenhower's own generals advised using tactical nuclear weapons against mainland China if it carried out an invasion.

1958: The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, in 1958, was more dangerous than its predecessor. As before, the PLA attacked Quemoy and Matsu with artillery, on August 23, 1958. But the garrisons on the islands had been reinforced with American-supplied 155mm and 203mm artillery along with ample rounds to spare.

Once again, the US Navy's carriers secured the strait and the Chinese navy had no means to deter them using their own gunboats. Sailing a flotilla across the 200km of open sea between Fujian and Taiwan's western coast was a risky proposition too. If the PLA gathered approximately 200,000 troops for an invasion they would need junks and barges to transport them, with inadequate air cover.

But soon enough the Communists and Nationalists were in direct combat as their respective air forces, now operating fighter jets, tangled in the skies above the Chinese coast. By 1958 the PLAAF counted a thousand MiG-15s in its arsenal. These agile Soviet-built fighters had proven themselves over the Korean peninsula and packed twin large-calibre guns.

The Republic of China Air Force, on the other hand, received superior F-86 Sabre that had also flown in Korea. The US supplied Taiwan with more than 300 of them, along with fighter-bombers and helicopters, as a maximal guarantee against Chinese aggression.

With a better designed cockpit and superior avionics the F-86 Sabre, unlike the MiGs, carried new air-to-air missiles. In a series of dog fights the Taiwanese pilots showed their mettle and trounced the PLAAF. Although the PLA drew down its forces by early September, the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis did not end in a formal sense.

The siege of Quemoy and Matsu continued for the next 20 years, though never intense enough to draw the US Navy's presence, and the sound of Chinese artillery rumbled over the sea on a regular basis. The Taiwanese garrison on the islands adapted to the situation by using their closeness with the mainland as a launching point for propaganda.

1964: China gets the bomb 

On October 17, 1964, an atomic bomb was detonated at Lop Nur, a remote testing site in the Gobi Desert, and heralded China's status as a nuclear power. The fact the detonation took place just four years after a near-total breakdown in diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union was not a coincidence.

The underlying causes of the Sino-Soviet Split in 1960 were the emerging polarities within the Communist Bloc – the Soviet Union had its chosen allies and satellites while China was steadfast in cultivating its own friends and proxies. Until the 1970s Peking had an active foreign policy to arm and train revolutionaries in the Third World.

It is well-known how the Soviets nursed China's fledgling nuclear programme in the 1950s, which blossomed in the years between the First and Second crises with Taiwan, and this was supposed to culminate in a viable nuclear triad for Peking: land-based intercontinental missiles matched with warheads delivered by air and sea.

After the breakthrough at Lop Nur further tests were carried out until 1967; however, the detonation of a hydrogen bomb not only revealed the extent of Communist China's technical know-how but also its limitations.

On a strategic level, having nuclear warheads on a few dozen Long March rockets ended the threat of nuclear blackmail by the US, but China could barely afford a nuclear arsenal as devastating and elaborate as those of the main Cold War adversaries.

Meanwhile, Taipei did not take the news sitting down. Many Asian countries at the time were either discussing or setting up clandestine nuclear weapons programmes, with varying levels of success.

Both India and Pakistan, for example, had thriving nuclear weapons programmes in the 1970s but did not actually deploy these until 1998. North and South Korea had nuclear weapons programmes as well. In Taiwan's case, a civilian nuclear energy programme was started as early as 1956, with US assistance.

By the 1970s there was growing evidence collected by the State Department of a Taiwanese enrichment programme for weapons-grade uranium as well as efforts to assemble a prototype bomb. Finally, in 1988, the CIA plant and defector Colonel Chien Hsiun-yi fled to the United States and exposed the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology's secret research programme, which was later stopped under American pressure.

1976: Death of Chairman Mao 

When China's dictator passed away from old age on September 9, 1976, the regime he left behind was reeling from the Cultural Revolution in which many senior cadres were purged, and sometimes killed.

The tense rivalry with the Soviet Union coupled with international isolation left China impoverished, despite its large industrial base. A silver lining amid this uncertainty was the improved relationship with the United States that began under President Richard Nixon. By 1978 full diplomatic relations were established between Peking and Washington DC, and the United Nations formally welcomed the PRC while invalidating the ROC's own membership.

Taiwan's importance and diplomatic standing in the world suffered as a result. The Taiwan Relations Act passed by US lawmakers in 1979 did little to mitigate the damage, although it had provisions for assisting the country with self-defense.

The thaw in the US-China relationship was barely felt in the Taiwan Strait, where the ROC Navy kept zealous guard of the open waters – more importantly, the Median Line dividing the strait – and up to 30,000 troops were stationed in Quemoy and Matsu. Although there was now renewed hope that peaceful coexistence would prevail during the 1980s, as many as five million soldiers were enlisted in China's armed forces, the majority of them in the army.

The PLAAF had 4,000 combat aircraft, most of them outdated J-6 and J-7 fighters, while China's three naval fleets totaled 2,000 ships and as many as 200 diesel submarines. Yet these numbers had no practical use under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, whose long tenure until 1993 was focused on opening up China to grow its economy.

The US military intelligence assessed that Peking (later renamed Beijing) had neither the means nor the will for an invasion as economic growth became the national priority. This proved correct – until the situation in the strait almost spiralled out of control again.

1995: The Third Strait Crisis

By the 1990s, Taiwan had developed into a prosperous democracy, and optimism for a peaceful unification flourished, until Beijing decided on a show of force. From 1992 the ruling Kuomintang party, which had governed Taiwan since 1949, reached an agreement with its rival on the mainland.

This 'consensus' was to promote the idea that a single Chinese nation existed with separate political systems. Or, in the official wording of Beijing, to accept only one Chinese nation existed and to work for peaceful reunification. But in the summer of 1995 all this progress was thrown out of the window and East Asia returned to the brink.

When Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui wanted to visit his alma mater Cornell University in the United States this was poorly received by the Chinese government.

In their view the US was recognizing a different Chinese head of state by allowing President Lee to make the trip. When he arrived in the US amid wall-to-wall media coverage the response from Beijing was furious. While no outlying Taiwanese islands came under direct attack, Beijing sent its air force and its navy on month-long drills.

To further intimidate Taipei, the PLA Rocket Force tested its latest ballistic missiles. These were carried by wheeled transporters and could be prepared for launch within minutes. The destabilizing effect of these missiles had been established earlier in the Middle East and the same technology was flourishing in the Asia-Pacific.

In a shift from its softer stance on China since the 1970s, the US Navy sent two carrier strike groups to the Taiwan Strait as a clear signal China's behavior would not be tolerated. It seemed to work as Beijing kept its forces from attacking Taiwan, although over the next 25 years China and the US were drawn into serious 'great power competition'.

2020: America sends arms

In late 2020 the US government, through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, announced it was prepared to sell 11 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers to Taiwan along with the powerful Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) ballistic missile, which has a range exceeding 500km. The HIMARS is an air-transportable truck with an armored cab and a pivoting launcher that contains a pod of six rockets.

The rockets can be swapped for a single ATACMS missile that can carry either sub-munitions spread in mid-air over a target area or a powerful unitary warhead. The ATACMS in particular is a weapon system the Taiwanese military has never fielded before, although it possesses mobile rocket launchers such as the RT2000.

The value of deploying HIMARS launchers is in long-range artillery coverage beyond the usual 20 to 25km range of most 155mm howitzers. The announcement of the ATACMS sale followed an earlier decision to sell shore-based Harpoon missiles to help the Taiwanese military fend off either an amphibious attack or a blockade.

Other US arms sales included 66 F-16V multirole fighters for the Taiwanese Air Force, whose F-CK-1s and older F-16A/Bs lagged behind China's newest fighter jets. This renewed effort to equip Taiwan for defending itself against invasion came as the likelihood of such an attack increased as Chinese military aircraft repeatedly encroached on Taiwan's air defence identification zone.

This was meant as retaliation for President Tsai Ing-wen's refusal to acknowledge the 1992 consensus of "one country, two systems" that Beijing values. Her defiance of Beijing stems from her background with the Democratic Progressive Party rather than the 'old guard' Kuomintang that had long buried the hatchet with the Chinese Communist Party.

This article originally appeared in History of War magazine issue 112. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and save on the cover price!

Keir Starmer hailed a "new era" in relations with Europe this week after the UK and Brussels agreed a post-Brexit "reset". Under the deal, announced at a summit in London with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, the EU will lift checks on food produce crossing the Channel in return for the UK committing to abide by EU food standards.

As part of a new security pact, British defence firms will be able to participate in joint EU procurement programmes. Britons will be able to use border e-gates at more EU airports. The two sides also agreed, in principle, to establish a new youth exchange scheme and work towards a joint electricity market.

The PM said the deal was a "win-win" that would deliver cheaper food and electricity bills and boost the economy by £9 billion a year by 2040. But he faced claims that he had "surrendered" to Brussels by agreeing to let EU fleets enjoy their current level of access to British waters until 2038. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called the deal a "total sell-out".

What a "stitch-up", said The Sun. Starmer has betrayed our fishing industry, brought part of our economy back under EU jurisdiction, and opened our borders to millions of workers, while agreeing to pay for the privilege. And all for what? The lifting of "vindictive checks" on our food exports, some possible contracts for our arms industry and the promise of shorter passport queues. The fisheries deal is particularly egregious, said The Daily Telegraph. The UK was due to regain full control of its waters in 2026. But it has now agreed to give EU boats access for 12 more years, more than double its original offer.

Ignore the talk of Brexit betrayal, said The Economist. This deal doesn't take us back into the single market or customs union. It just removes some of the trade frictions created by Brexit while sensibly opening the way to more defence cooperation. Starmer may have conceded more than he wished on fisheries, but given that we export around 70% of our catch to the EU, the deal will also bring benefits to our fishing industry. "As for being a rule-taker, that is merely the price that countries wishing to sell into the EU market must pay."

This article and interview originally appeared in All About History magazine issue 96. "The Sword And The Shield" by Dr Peniel E Joseph is available from Basic Books.

They didn't hold high public office, they didn't fight wars and they didn't possess vast wealth and riches. Yet, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X still managed to become two of the most iconic figures of the 20th century.

Rising to prominence at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, each became equally revered and reviled by different parts of the United States.

Both would ultimately come to be the de facto leader of their groups and each would meet an untimely and violent end at the hands of assailants whose identities and motives continue to be hotly debated.

In Dr King's role as first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Malcolm X's position as a minister and leading national spokesperson for the Nation of Islam (NOI), these two men often appeared to offer two conflicting arguments and approaches to the challenge of achieving racial justice and equality in America.

What's more, each existed in the public eye to a far greater and wider extent than any of their contemporaries fighting for African American rights and representation, and as a result each has developed their own legend.

To discover more about the lives of these two men, as well as what linked or divided them All About History magazine spoke with Dr Peniel E Joseph, an author, scholar and public speaker who holds a joint professorship at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.

"The mythology around both men frames them as opposites," he explains. "It frames Malcolm as Dr King's evil twin. It frames Dr King as this saint who would just give everybody a hug if he was alive right now and that really takes away from understanding the depth and breadth of their political power, their political radicalism and their evolution over time."

Early years of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr

First let's consider where each man came from and how that might have informed his world view.

"Martin Luther King Jr is raised in an upper-middle class, elite household in Atlanta, Georgia," Joseph tells us. "His father is a preacher, his mother is present in his life and it's a very comfortable upbringing. Malcolm X is raised in Omaha and in Lansing, Michigan on farms, so he's a country boy.

"His father is murdered by white supremacists when he's six years old and his mother is put in a psychiatric facility, so he's a foster child by the time he's in elementary school.

"Then he becomes a hustler in Boston and Harlem as a teenager and he's finally arrested for theft and spends seven years in prison," Joseph continues. "When Malcolm is in prison, Dr King is at Morehouse College, the most prestigious, historically Black, all-men's college that you could go to then or now.

"He goes and gets a theological degree at seminary school – Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania – and then gets a PhD at Boston University."

The strong religious upbringing of King clearly had a massive influence on his life, becoming a preacher himself as well as a political activist and integrating his faith deep into his speeches. Meanwhile, Malcolm's tough upbringing and the tragedies he endured help to explain the righteous anger and pain he expressed as a minister for the NOI.

However, Joseph does point out one curious similarity in their upbringing: "They're both impacted by the movie Gone With The Wind (1939). It premieres in Atlanta when Dr King is ten years old. Malcolm is 14 years old and sees that movie in Mason, Michigan, and talks about squirming in the movie theatre at all the racial stereotypes that the movie's filled with.

"It's filled with Black women who are servants who are getting slapped in the face by white women who are masters, and it's this sepia-toned, nostalgic vision of racial slavery. So that's similar."

It was during his time in prison that the then-Malcolm Little was introduced to Islam by some of his siblings and he joined the NOI. Its leader Elijah Muhammad took a personal interest in him, with letters being sent between them, before he was released in 1952.

He abandoned his 'slave name' of Little and became Malcolm X, a minister in the NOI advocating for Black separatism (which was the policy of the organisation), first in Chicago and later in Harlem, New York, which would become his base for years to come.

Two radically different approaches

The formative years of each man's life are ultimately what frames them as polarised voices in a similar struggle. "Malcolm X is really Black America's prosecuting attorney and he is going to be charging white America with a series of crimes against Black humanity," explains Joseph.

"I argue in 'The Sword And The Shield' (Basic Books, 2020) that in a way his life's work boils down to radical Black dignity, and what he means by Black dignity is really Black people having the political self-determination to decide their own political futures and fates.

"They define racism and they define anti-racism and what social justice looks like for themselves. It's connected to the United States, but globally it's also connected to African decolonisation, African independence, Third World independence, Middle East politics, all of it."

Radical Black dignity is also, importantly, about building up a Black cultural identity that is independent of white America and building self-worth, which is a big part of where ideas like Black Power would later come from. King naturally comes to things from a different direction.

"Martin Luther King Jr is really the defence attorney," says Joseph. "He defends Black lives to white people and white lives to Black people. He's really advocating for radical Black citizenship and his notion of citizenship is going to get more expansive over time; it's going to be more than just voting rights and ending segregation. It's going to become about ending poverty, food justice, health care, a living wage, universal basic income for everyone."

So radical Black citizenship is about outward expression, about African Americans having an impact on the social systems that are in place, becoming engaged and demanding to be heard.

These two approaches, one that builds personal identity and another that looks to express that identity and have it recognised by a system that's set up to ignore Black voices, seem more complementary than adversarial when we look at them from a slight remove.

"Their differences really become differences of tactics rather than goals," says Joseph. "They're both going to come to see that you need dignity and citizenship and those goals are going to converge over time, but it's the tactics and how we get to those goals."

Famously, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr did not always see eye to eye. Malcolm X in particular took aim at King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on multiple occasions (likely because he was a high-profile target and Malcolm was nothing if not media savvy).

Malcolm regularly referred to King as an 'Uncle Tom', implying that his nonviolent strategy was either too accommodating to white America or even saying he was being subsidised by white America to keep African Americans defenceless.

King for his part warned, "Fiery, demagogic oratory in the Black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as [Malcolm X] has done, can reap nothing but grief."

And yet despite the animosity between the two men publicly, Malcolm X continually attempted to reach out to King over the years. He sent articles and NOI reading materials and invited him to speeches and meetings.

On July 31, 1963, Malcolm X even publicly called for unity. "If capitalistic Kennedy and communistic Khrushchev can find something in common on which to form a United Front despite their tremendous ideological differences, it is a disgrace for Negro leaders not to be able to submerge our 'minor' differences in order to seek a common solution to a common problem posed by a Common Enemy," he wrote, inviting Civil Rights leaders to join him in Harlem to speak at a rally.

But they did not attend, perhaps because shortly after they would be attending the March on Washington and they were deep in planning. The slight was taken, though, with Malcolm dismissing the August 1963 event the 'Farce on Washington'.

Despite the rhetoric, Joseph thinks Malcolm was still learning much from King's activities. "Dr King is the person who helps mobilise Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 and King is going to be facing German Shepherds and fire hoses and it's going to be a big, global media spectacle," he says.

"King writes his famous 'Letter From Birmingham Jail' during that period. Malcolm is in Washington DC for most of that spring as temporary head of Mosque No. 4 there and he's really going to be influenced by King's mobilisations – his ability to mobilise large numbers of people – even as he's critical of King because of the nonviolence and the fact that so many kids and women are being brutalised."

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King meet

The really big shift in world view for Malcolm X came in 1964 as he gradually broke away from Elijah Muhammad (who was mired in allegations of extramarital affairs) and the NOI and sought to define his own path forward.

"By 1964 in 'The Ballot Or The Bullet' speech, you see Malcolm X talking about voting rights as part of Black liberation and freedom," explains Joseph. "You see him in an interview with Robert Penn Warren saying that he and Dr King have the same goal, which is human dignity, but they have different ways of getting there."

It's around this time that Malcolm X left the United States for several months, travelling to Egypt, Lebanon, Liberia, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana and Saudi Arabia, including taking his pilgrimage to Mecca where he received his new Islamic name, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

The trip made a big impression on him, and he spoke subsequently about how seeing Muslims of so many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds worshipping together opened his eyes to the real possibility of racial integration and peace.

All of this actually took place not long after the two men had met for what would be the first and only time. In the midst of the passing of the Civil Rights Act, as it was being filibustered on the Senate floor, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X crossed paths on Capitol Hill.

"They both come and are talking to reporters and doing press conferences in support of the Civil Rights Act," says Joseph. "They're both coming there for the same reason. People are surprised that Malcolm is there and he's watching the Senate and he's doing his interviews and there's a point where Malcolm is in the same room as Dr King and on the couch while Dr King is doing his press conference and they meet afterwards, exchanging pleasantries."

It was a moment captured by only a couple of photos, catching them mid-conversation with Malcolm recorded as saying, "I'm throwing myself into the heart of the Civil Rights struggle."

Malcolm X continued to make overtures to King in the months that followed, offering him protection in St Augustine, Florida, that spring as protestors fought for desegregation of its beaches and playgrounds and later in Selma, Alabama, as King's attention turned to voting rights where he felt he had a role to play.

"I think Malcolm gave King more room to operate and I think Malcolm knew this," says Joseph. "When he visits Selma shortly before his own death, he's trying to visit Dr King in February of 1965 in Alabama, but King is jailed and he gets to visit Coretta Scott King, gives a speech and visits some of the student organisers.

"He tells Coretta Scott King that he's only there to support her husband and he wants people to know that if her husband's advocacy of voting rights is not accomplished that there are other alternative forces out there that are going to be led by him. So he definitely offers King more strategic leeway."

Impact of Malcolm X's assassination

Whether or not the two men could have ultimately found a way to coordinate their approaches in a less ad hoc fashion we will never know because on February 21, 1965, just days before the Selma to Montgomery marches were about to be attempted by King's movement, Malcolm X was assassinated in New York.

The impact of his death would be felt throughout the movement, and profoundly by King.

"One of the surprising things is that we don't discuss the way in which the person who is most radicalised by Malcolm's assassination is Martin Luther King Jr," Joseph explains.

"He breaks with Lyndon Johnson on April 4, 1967, with the Riverside Church speech in New York, where he says that the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. Malcolm had always talked about racial slavery and how racial slavery had shaped the present and King talks about that much more after 1965."

As King turns his attention to economic inequality through the mid- to late-1960s, he digs deeper and deeper into the wider historic inequalities and injustices of America. "He becomes this very prophetic, radical figure after Malcolm's assassination and he's much more interested in race and Blackness too," says Joseph.

"There's a speech he makes in 1967 where he says they even tell you 'A white lie is better than a Black lie'. He gets into it in a granular way; and this is King, not Malcolm. It's Dr King who says that the halls of the US Congress are 'running wild with racism'.

"King is testifying before the Kerner Commission, the president's riot commission, and talking about the depth and breadth of white racism," Joseph continues.

"He speaks to the American Psychological Association in September 1967 and says that white people in the United States are producing chaos, blame Black people for the chaos and say there would be peace if not for the chaos that they produce.

"He's really much more candid and much more blunt, much more radical, much more revolutionary and there are no more meetings with the president of the United States."

It is perhaps because they evolved and were willing to learn from one another that each has remained as relevant today as they were in the 1960s. The question that hangs around them, though, is could either of them have achieved as much as they did if the other hadn't been there challenging them?

"I think they both need each other," concludes Joseph. "They both have misapprehensions about each other and they make mistakes about each other. King thinks Malcolm is this narrow, anti-white Black nationalist. Malcolm thinks King is this bourgeois, reform-minded Uncle Tom when they start out. Neither of them are those things, so they both needed the other."

What's more, the contributions of each remain important to this day. "Dr King is this major global political mobiliser and the way in which he frames this idea of racial justice globally is very important, and the numbers he attracts are very important," says Joseph.

Meanwhile Malcolm has perhaps given us much of the vocabulary around racial justice even in the 21st century: "Malcolm is the first modern activist who is really saying Black lives matter in a really deep and definitive way and becomes the avatar of the Black Power movement."

President Donald Trump has been at the center of ethics concerns going all the way back to his 2016 candidacy, largely as a result of his strong business ties that critics say could represent significant conflicts of interest. These conflicts, many of which have to do with his Middle East dealings, have continued to cast a shadow over his presidency amid his second term in the White House.

Middle East dealings

The Trump Organization has long had ties to Middle Eastern nations. The company made several business deals in the region during Trump's first term and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, inked a $2 billion investment with the Saudi crown prince after leaving the White House. But in his second term as president, any "past conflict-of-interest concerns about Trump seem petty, as he strikes deals with Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and members of the ruling families of the Arab world," said Mother Jones.

In one notable instance, Trump's son Eric "signed a deal with representatives from a Saudi real estate development firm, reputed to have links to the Saudi royal family, to build a Trump-branded resort just north of Doha, Qatar," said Mother Jones. But this is just one of a slew of connections the Trump Organization has to Middle Eastern deals. The president's sons have been "crisscrossing the Middle East, laying the groundwork for deals that will benefit the company and, in some instances, Trump himself," said The Washington Post. Trump has also "declined to duplicate his first-term pledge to not advance his personal business interests from the White House."

One of the most visible Middle East conflicts relates to Trump's plan to accept a $400 million plane from Qatar to be used as the next Air Force One. Accepting the plane could "violate the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which bars any U.S. official from accepting 'any present' of 'any kind whatsoever, from any king, prince or foreign state,'" said USA Today. Democrats and Republicans expressed concern over the plane given Qatar's alleged ties to state-sponsored terrorism. The deal "strikes me as being rife with political espionage, ethical and constitutional problems,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told CNBC.

Cryptocurrency

Trump has frequently been accused by his opponents of using the presidency for financial gain, and this has only ramped up in his second term with the advent of Trump-branded cryptocurrency. Trump launched a pair of crypto coins named after himself and first lady Melania Trump, and experts say the "tokens provide a way for foreign buyers to curry favor, as Trump-affiliated companies owned 80% of all stock and stand to benefit when the price rises," said Reuters.

In the first two weeks following its debut, Trump's crypto coin alone brought in $100 million in fees, Reuters reported. Trump also has a 60% stake in a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial. Using these crypto channels, there is "virtually no cap on the amount of money a person or government could funnel to the president, his family and the growing list of entities they control," said CNN.

Presidents "giving access to campaign donors is nothing new," but crypto "offers a level of anonymity and scale that the White House has never seen," said CNN. Even while Trump and his administration have downplayed the conflicts with his crypto brand, many "crypto advocates on the right aren't loving the optics of a president directly enriching himself and his family through an industry" that he is "actively working to deregulate."

Real estate

The Trump Organization has continued to pursue real estate deals throughout both of Trump's terms, including the aforementioned Trump resort deal in Qatar. Several of these deals "have connections to foreign governments in the Middle East," which is "raising concerns that Mr. Trump's financial interests could influence foreign policy," said The New York Times.

This includes deals in India, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam, among others. Many of these are branding plays in which the Trump Organization "sells its name to international developers that build residential and resort complexes and sell luxury units at a premium, they hope, based on Trump's perceived star power," said the Times. Trump's plan to take control of Gaza and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East" has also generated significant controversy.

Beyond his new buildings, potential conflicts have also erupted due to how Trump has used his existing properties during his presidency. The office of the president "provides Trump with an unlimited marketing platform to promote his properties," said the left-leaning watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). During interviews, Trump "finds or manufactures opportunities to shower his hotels, resorts and golf courses with praise and uses his influence to drive business to his properties." Trump often visits these locations himself, and his "near-constant presence at properties that he owns and profits from signals to those looking to influence him and his administration that they should follow suit."

Trump products

From Trump Steaks to a shuttered airline, the president has tried to sell dozens of products with his name on them over the years. But as president, these types of MAGA-aligned products "illustrate just how closely Trump's personal business interests are entwined with his politics," said CNN. This includes everything from urging his followers to "buy limited edition guitars that bear his signature and Trump-themed fragrances that 'represent winning,'" to an $899 "limited-edition" Trump inaugural watch.

The "opaque structure of the companies that produce these items could create fresh conflicts of interest for Trump — with few public details about who Trump is in business with and how much he profits," said ABC News. There is some publicly available information about his crypto business, but when it comes to his merchandise, he has undergone an "unprecedented effort to commoditize his political platform." And when it comes to any products not on his official website, the "external companies that Trump licenses to sell his other items aren't subject to oversight."

Personal financial gain

Trump has maintained that he does not have any conflicts of interest as president. But he has "drawn scrutiny in Washington" from "political opponents and even some allies, who point out that the president has not divested from the Trump Organization and continues to profit from — and personally promote — these business ventures in his second term," said NBC News.

The exact amount of money Trump has personally made in his second term is unclear. In just the first month after his return to the White House, Trump's ventures netted him about $80 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, largely due to a $40 million deal with Amazon to produce a Melania Trump documentary. And thanks to his merchandising, along with a massive boost from his crypto coins, Trump has "more than doubled his estimated fortune, from $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion," said Forbes.

While there is an Office of Government Ethics whose job it is to investigate these types of conflicts, the "Trump administration has really been putting those systems under stress or just outright ignoring them," Eric Petry, a counsel for the Brennan Center's Elections and Government Program, said to Vox. Within the "executive branch, some of the tools that we typically look to to police conflicts are not going to be effective. It's a real problem that federal conflicts of interest laws don't apply to the president and vice president."

Washington and London hailed a "historic" agreement last week after the UK became the first country to seal a deal with President Trump since he launched his global trade war.

The deal cut US tariffs on British car exports from 27.5% to 10%, and removed all levies on British steel, aluminium and Rolls-Royce engines. In exchange, the UK offered greater market access to US agricultural exports, including beef and corn ethanol, although it retained its ban on chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef.

Trump announced the deal in a televised event in the Oval Office, flanked by Britain's US ambassador, Peter Mandelson; Keir Starmer joined by speakerphone. No. 10 later described it as a "win for both nations" and promised to build on it. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, said Britain had been "shafted", noting that the deal provides less-favourable trading terms than we had before Trump's "liberation day".

Starmer should be congratulated for this deal, which has saved thousands of British jobs, said The Independent. His calm, non-confrontational approach to Trump has paid off. The PM did well to get the UK to the front of the queue, agreed The Times. The fact remains, though, that this is more of a "damage limitation exercise" than "an unbridled triumph". Most UK goods still face a blanket 10% tariff. And the lower levy on British cars only applies to a quota of 100,000, which matches our current level of exports to the US, effectively placing "a ceiling on future sales".

Much remains to be hammered out, said the Daily Mail. There's still no clarity over pharmaceuticals, for instance, or Trump's threatened film tariffs. The worry is that Starmer will scupper further progress in his "desperation to reset relations with the EU", whose leaders he is meeting next week. Reducing friction with the EU, our largest trading partner, is the key to boosting our economic growth, said the FT. Compared with this, the deal with the US, like the earlier one with India, is "little more than a sideshow".

The next full moon

The next full moon is at 6:14 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 4, and is the final full moon of 2025.

The full moon, which has been a source of fascination throughout history, from precipitating werewolf transformations to controlling the tides. Across the globe, it has also been an important part of cultural and spiritual practices. The full moon — the period when the moon is at its largest and brightest — is merely one part of the lunar cycle, which is approximately one month in length. While it can be seen globally, the time of viewing naturally varies from time zone to time zone.

Here is a look at all the full moons during 2025.

Dates and times for full moons this year

Here is when you can see the full moon according to NASA's Sky Event Calendar:

Jan. 13 (Wolf Moon) — 22:27 UTC, 5:27 pm EST

Feb. 12 (Snow Moon) — 13:53 UTC, 8:53 am EST

March 14 (Worm Moon) — 7:55 UTC, 2:55 am EST — Lunar Eclipse

April 12 (Pink Moon) — 1:22 UTC (Apr 13), 8:22 pm EST — Micromoon (most distant of the year)

May 12 (Flower Moon) — 17:56 UTC, 12:56 pm EST

June 11 (Strawberry Moon) — 8:44 UTC, 3:44 am EST

July 10 (Buck Moon) — 21:37 UTC, 4:37 pm EST

Aug. 9 (Sturgeon Moon) — 8:55 UTC, 3:55 am EST

Sept. 7 (Corn Moon) — 19:09 UTC, 2:09 pm EST — Lunar Eclipse

Oct. 6 (Hunter's Moon) — 4:48 UTC (Oct. 7), 11:48 pm EST — Supermoon and Harvest Moon (closest full moon to autumnal equinox)

Nov. 5 (Beaver Moon) — 13:19 UTC, 8:19 am EST — Supermoon (closest of the year)

Dec. 4 (Cold Moon) — 23:14 UTC, 6:14 pm EST — Supermoon

The moon is not capable of producing its own light, so what we see from Earth is a reflection of the sun's light shining on the moon. Still, the moon is orbiting around the Earth while the Earth is orbiting around the sun, which affects how much light shines on the moon. As the moon goes around the Earth, "different parts of it are illuminated by the sun," said The Planetary Society. "But because the same side of the Moon always points toward Earth, most of the time some of the illuminated part (daytime on the Moon) faces away from us. And, some of the non-illuminated part (nighttime on the Moon) faces toward us."

The lunar cycle and the full moon

How we see the moon from Earth can be tracked with the lunar cycle, which is approximately 29.5 days. During that time, the moon goes through eight phases: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent. Essentially, the moon is not visible in its new moon phase and gains more visibility until it becomes a full moon — and then reduces in visibility once more. The full moon is "as close as we come to seeing the sun's illumination of the entire day side of the moon, said NASA. The moon appears full for approximately two days before beginning to wane.

Some full moons are more special than others. Of the 12 full moons that occur in a year, three or four of them may be supermoons, which is when the full moon "occurs at the closest point to Earth during its orbit," making it appear "larger and brighter," said the Natural History Museum. In another visual spectacle, sometimes the full moon can have a lunar halo, which is an "optical illusion" that causes a large bright ring surrounding it, said Space.com (a sister site of The Week). "This striking and often beautiful halo around the moon is caused by the refraction of moonlight from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere." The halos are not uncommon and can occur at any time of year, but they are most common in the winter months. They are also most visible when a full moon is surrounded by thin cirrus clouds.

Full moon names and meanings

The names listed above originate from the Old Farmer's Almanac, which "come from Native American, Colonial American or other traditional North American sources passed down through generations." Usually, the name refers to an identifiable seasonal marker of the month.

The Wolf Moon was named as such because "the howling of wolves was often heard at this time of year."

The Snow Moon referred to the high level of snowfall during this time of year.

The Worm Moon paid homage to the earthworms appearing as spring comes.

The Pink Moon "heralded the appearance of the 'moss pink,' or wild ground phlox — one of the first spring wildflowers."

The Flower Moon was named because of the springtime bloom.

The Strawberry Moon was in reference to "the time to gather ripening strawberries in what is now the northeastern United States."

The Buck Moon referred to the time of year when the male deer's antlers are in full growth.

The Sturgeon Moon was when "The Great Lakes and Lake Champlain sturgeon were said to be most readily caught."

The Corn Moon was the time of year when corn was harvested.

The Hunter's Moon was "the month when the game is fattened up for winter," and was the "time for hunting and laying in a store of provisions for the long months ahead."

The Beaver Moon was named for the time beavers finished preparing for the winter.

The Cold Moon is at the time of year when the winter cold becomes strongest.

Different cultures also name the moons differently. Chinese culture, Celtic culture and several Indigenous groups have their own names for the moons, usually referring to the seasons, the environment or mythological stories. The almanac also lists several other names the moons are referred to by. For example, the Wolf Moon is also referred to as the Canada Goose Moon, the Center Moon and the Frost Exploding Moon.

Israel's security cabinet this week approved a new plan which, according to one official, entailed "the conquest of the Gaza Strip" and its indefinite occupation.

Under the plan, dubbed "Operation Gideon's Chariots", Israel will send thousands of troops into Gaza later this month. Rather than attacking Hamas targets then retreating – Israel's strategy until now – troops will remain to stop Hamas regrouping. Officials said the population would have to be moved for their "protection"; there has also been talk of "voluntary" removals abroad. "We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip," said the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.

The Israeli cabinet also approved a plan to allow aid into the Strip via Israeli-controlled "distribution hubs". Owing to Israel's blockade, the UN and other agencies have not been able to deliver food, fuel and other aid for over two months.

This plan "marks a turning point in the 19-month-old war", and a shift in Israel's "tactics and philosophy", said The Jerusalem Post. While the previous approach was "effective in degrading Hamas's military capabilities", it "failed to dislodge its civilian rule", or to secure the release of the 59 hostages still in Gaza, 24 of whom are thought to be alive. Ministers and the new chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, are banking on a new aggressive strategy achieving what phase one of the war did not.

It's not without political risk, however: many Israelis will not support this new campaign. Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that Prime Minister Netanyahu's true aim is "to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land", said the FT. At any rate, the plan is sure to add to the "unfathomable suffering" of Gaza's 2.1 million residents, who will be driven into "ever-narrowing pockets of the shattered Strip". Astonishingly, Israel's allies have barely commented on the proposal. "They should be ashamed of their silence."

Being a fan of George R.R. Martin has become an exercise in extreme patience, as the acclaimed fantasy author doles out updates for the yet-to-be-seen next installment in the "Game of Thrones" book series, "The Winds of Winter." For well over a decade, the novel has remained one of the world’s most anticipated books, but there is still no clear end in sight for fans waiting on its release.

Martin may not be finished with the sixth book of the intended seven-book series, but he has taken on some interesting side quests in the meantime, including a number of "Game of Thrones" spinoff shows. Earlier this year, he published a peer-reviewed physics paper that he coauthored for the American Journal of Physics, and more recently, he helped debut the news about a de-extinction project featuring a creature most famously known for being on the sigil of House Stark. But fantasy fans don't seem to be satisfied with these activities, and many are beginning to wonder whether the next installment in the acclaimed fantasy series will ever see the light of day. Despite this, Martin seemingly remains confident that the next tale of the Starks and the Lannisters will hit shelves — one day.

June 2010: Martin has written four chapters of 'The Winds of Winter'

Martin announced he had moved two completed chapters (told from Arianne's point of view) from "A Dance with Dragons," the fifth book in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, into the sixth book, "The Winds of Winter." He described this as "good news for" "The Winds of Winter," as he now had "four chapters done for that one (an Arya, a Sansa, and two Ariannes)."

July 2010: Martin has written more than 100 pages

The following month in a blog update, Martin again said he had moved a chapter, this time focused on Aeron Greyjoy, into "The Winds of Winter" from "A Dance with Dragons." "The good news is that I seem to have written more than a hundred pages of 'The Winds of Winter' already," he said on his blog.

April 2011: Martin predicts 'The Winds of Winter' will take three years to finish

In an interview with The Guardian, Martin predicted he would complete "The Winds of Winter" in about three years, a faster pace than the previous book. "Realistically, it's going to take me three years to finish the next one at a good pace," he said, adding, "I hope it doesn't take me six years like this last one has."

July 2011: 'A Dance with Dragons' is published

Martin published the series' fifth novel, "A Dance with Dragons." To this day, it is still the last full "Song of Ice and Fire" installment, and it ends with several major cliffhangers, including the apparent death of Jon Snow. The novel hit bookshelves just a few weeks after the "Game of Thrones" season 1 finale.

The month "A Dance with Dragons" was published, Martin tells Entertainment Weekly that he would return to working on "The Winds of Winter" in January 2012.

October 2012: Martin has written 400 pages

Martin provided a promising update when he told Adria's News, "I've already written 400 pages of my sixth book, and I really look forward to publishing it in 2014." However, he warned he was "really bad" at predictions, and "of these 400 pages, only 200 are really finished because I still have to revise the other 200 pages, which are in a rough version and I still have to work on them a lot."

April 2015: Martin hopes to release the book by 2016

Despite Martin's 2014 predictions, the book was nowhere to be found more than two years later. But in April 2015, he noted he hoped to finish before the sixth season of "Game of Thrones" aired the following year, telling Entertainment Weekly this "has been important to me all along."

This deadline was significant because season six was the point at which the HBO show began covering the events of "The Winds of Winter" in a major way after passing the published book material. Martin told EW he's doing "anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done," including canceling convention appearances.

January 2016: Martin reveals he missed multiple deadlines in 2015

Martin said it gave him "no pleasure" to report that "The Winds of Winter" was still unfinished. He described how his publishers gave him two separate deadlines the previous year, first in October and then in December, to complete the book in order to ensure it would be out before "Game of Thrones'" sixth season, but "unfortunately, the writing did not go as fast or as well as I would have liked."

In May 2015, the October deadline "seemed very do-able to me," Martin said on his blog. By August, Martin said he felt "confident" he could complete the book by the end of the year but missed both deadlines. "I tried, I promise you," he added. "I failed. I blew the Halloween deadline, and I've now blown the end of the year deadline." Martin told fans he is still "months away" from finishing, "and that's if the writing goes well," though he is "not going to set another deadline for myself to trip over."

February 2016: Martin isn't writing anything else until 'Winds' is finished

In a comment on his blog the following month, Martin promised he was "not writing anything until he delivered "Winds of Winter." "Teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions, forewords, nothing," he added. "And I've dropped all my editing projects but Wild Cards." Martin, however, later walked this back.

January 2017: Martin predicts the book will be out 'this year'

A year later, Martin admitted he was still "not done" with the book and said he hadn't made as much progress "as I hoped a year ago, when I thought to be done by now." He added, "I think it will be out this year. (But hey, I thought the same thing last year)."

July 2017: Martin confirms he'll release 'a Westeros book' in 2018

Martin told fans that he is "still months away" from finishing "The Winds of Winter." And despite his earlier statement that he wasn't writing anything else until "Winds" was done, he is working on the book "Fire & Blood," a history of the Targaryen dynasty. He says he isn't sure whether "Fire & Blood" or "The Winds of Winter" will be published first, though. "I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018 … and who knows, maybe two," Martin writes. "A boy can dream."

April 2018: Martin confirms 'Winds' isn't coming in 2018

A boy can keep dreaming; in an April 2018 blog, Martin confirmed "Winds of Winter" would not be published before the end of the year, so "you're going to have to keep waiting."

June 2018: Martin says 'Winds' is still his 'top priority'

After news that HBO greenlit a pilot for its first "Game of Thrones" spinoff series, Martin assured fans that "Winds of Winter" remained his "top priority," adding that it was "ridiculous to think otherwise."

November 2018: 'Fire & Blood' is published

A new Westeros book did, in fact, come out in 2018, but it was "Fire & Blood," not "The Winds of Winter." "Fire & Blood" eventually serves as the source material for the Game of Thrones prequel series "House of the Dragon".

The month of Fire & Blood's release in November 2018, Martin told Entertainment Weekly he was "mad" at himself for not finishing "Winds of Winter" yet and has "had dark nights of the soul where I've pounded my head against the keyboard and said, 'God, will I ever finish this? The show is going further and further forward and I'm falling further and further behind. What the hell is happening here?'" The Wall Street Journal reported Martin was "in hiding" at an undisclosed remote mountain "he visits when he wants to hunker down to finish a book."

Later, during a Penguin Random House Q&A he said he paused working on "The Winds of Winter" for some time to finish "Fire & Blood" so it could serve as source material for the "House of the Dragon" series.

May 2019: Martin jokes fans can 'imprison me' if he's not finished by July 2020

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Martin jokingly told fans that "if I don't have 'The Winds of Winter' in hand when I arrive in New Zealand" for the World Science Fiction Convention in July 2020, "you have here my formal written permission to imprison me in a small cabin on White Island, overlooking that lake of sulfuric acid, until I'm done."

June 2020: Martin still has a 'long way to go'

Just a month before that infamous "imprison me" deadline, Martin said on his blog that he was "spending long hours every day" on the book and was "making steady progress." But "it's going to be a huge book," he added, "and I still have a long way to go." The pandemic gave him an out though, since the World Science Fiction Convention was virtual that year, meaning he technically never physically arrived there.

February 2021: Martin still has 'hundreds of more pages to write'

Martin revealed that he wrote "hundreds and hundreds of pages" of "Winds of Winter" in 2020, calling it his best year on the project yet. "Why? I don't know," he mused. "Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll. Sometimes I do get on a roll." However, Martin cautioned he still had "hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion," adding, "that's what 2021 is for, I hope." But, "I have a zillion other things to do as well," he said.

March 2022: Martin admits he made 'less' progress in 2021

Martin wrote a similar blog near the start of 2022, stating that he'd "made a lot of progress on Winds in 2020, and less in 2021 … but 'less' is not 'none.'" Martin seemed to be easing fans into the idea that "Winds" was no longer his only priority, in contrast to his prior promise to write nothing else until it was finished.

"Westeros has become bigger than 'The Winds of Winter,'" he said, describing the "enormous number of projects" he has on his plate, including a second volume of "Fire & Blood" (which he has already written a "couple hundred pages" of) and more "Dunk & Egg" novellas. Plus, Martin pointed out he was "heavily involved" in all of the "Game of Thrones" spinoff shows, which have taken up a "ton" of his time and attention. "I know, I know, for many of you out there, only one of those projects matters," Martin said. "I am sorry for you. They ALL matter to me."

October 2022: Martin is 'three-quarters of the way done'

Martin provided his most substantial progress update in years during a Penguin Random House Q&A in October 2022, revealing he's "about three-quarters of the way done" with the book.

This same month, on The Late Show, Martin said he had finished writing the storylines of "a couple of" characters. "But it's still going to take me a while," he added. To put this in perspective, these comments come over seven years after Martin felt he could realistically complete the book within a few months.

December 2022: Martin has 400 or 500 pages left to write

Martin got more specific in an interview on Stephen Colbert's "Tooning Out the News," saying he has written roughly 1,100 or 1,200 pages and needed to write "another 400, 500" more. Martin seemed to be referring to manuscript pages, which differ from published book pages. For comparison, Martin said "A Dance with Dragons" and "A Storm of Swords" were about 1,500 manuscript pages, but each was around 1,000 pages when published.

In his Penguin Random House Q&A, Martin suggested part of what's been taking so long is his frequent rewriting. He found himself "re-reading some chapters that I'd written earlier, and I didn't like them well enough, so I kind of ripped them apart and rewrote them."

April 2023: Martin to produce new 'Game of Thrones' spinoff

A second "Game of Thrones" prequel series called "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight" was ordered in April 2023, and HBO says Martin will serve as writer and producer. This series will be based on his "Dunk & Egg" novellas.

But Martin still plans to publish more "Dunk & Egg" stories, so he once again finds himself in a situation where an HBO show could eventually pass his published material. "Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other "Dunk & Egg" novellas that I have planned," Martin said on his blog. "There are … gulp … more of them than I had once thought."

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November 2023: Martin hits another slump

Speaking to Bangcast, the author said he still only had 1,100 pages done, the same amount he had as of December 2022. "Maybe I should've started writing smaller books when I began this but it's tough," he said. "That's the main thing that dominates most of my working life."

July 2024: Martin scolds impatient fans

The author has taken note of the wild speculation and impatience surrounding his progress that has been ruminating online. Last year, he had a meeting with one of his editors in London and "the internet went nuts," Martin said on his blog. But having meetings with his editors was just a part of doing business and did not "signify that some momentous announcement is at hand," he added. When the book is done, "the word will not trickle out, there WILL be a big announcement…where and when I cannot say."

This update came a few months after Martin mentioned "Winds of Winter" while sharing his thoughts on another upcoming GOT spin-off, an adaptation of his novella "The Hedge Knight." "The show will make its debut next year…and if it does well, 'The Sworn Sword' and 'The Mystery Knight' will follow," he said. "By which time I hope to have finished some more Dunk & Egg stories (yes, after I finish 'The Winds of Winter')."

September 2024: Martin gets a few new pages done

In the first spot of positive news in a while, Martin revealed that he had made progress with both "The Winds of Winter" and the second part of his Targaryen history book "Fire & Blood," titled "Blood & Fire." While he was able to add new pages to both projects, he had a more difficult time getting work done. After the recent death of his friend, science fiction author Howard Waldrop, Martin struggled to find "much solace in my work," Martin said on his Not a Blog site. "Writing came hard … I would have liked to turn out a lot more." The various television projects he was working on also "ate up most of those months."

October 2024: Martin makes coy references to the unfinished novel

In yet another blog update, Martin mused about his recent trip to Amsterdam, which inspired the city of Braavos, one of the wealthiest cities depicted in Westeros. Some readers assumed the town was based on Venice because of the many canals. "Did you know that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice?" Martin said. He added that one day, he would like to "write that story about Braavos we were developing for HBO." While the project was shelved years ago, that does not mean he "won’t go back to it… after 'WINDS OF WINTER' is done, of course."

Martin also mentioned the book in an update earlier in October for his "Dunk & Egg" series. Over the years, he has created many characters, all of whom he considers his "literary children," he said, but "Dunk & Egg were special." He intends to finish the rest of their tales "in my copious spare time after I finish 'THE WINDS OF WINTER,' yes, yes, I know."

December 2024: Martin admits naysayers might be right

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter about four short films he financed based on the work of his friend, Howard Waldrop, Martin took a moment to address the long-awaited novel. "Unfortunately, I am 13 years late," he said. "Every time I say that, I’m [like], 'How could I be 13 years late?' I don't know, it happens a day at a time." He again noted that the book is "still a priority." He also admitted that some fans had already given up, saying he'd never be finished. "Maybe they're right. I don’t know. I’m alive right now! I seem pretty vital!" He added that he could never retire from writing as he is "not a golfer."

April 2025: Martin calls 'TWOW' the 'curse of my life'

The author made headlines for posing with recently born dire wolf pups. The biotech start-up, Colossal Biosciences, said that it had utilized "end-to-end de-extinction technology" to extract DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull, resulting in the creation of three "healthy dire wolf puppies." Martin featured the extinct creatures heavily in his series and was ecstatic about the arrival of the pups. However, he soon faced mockery from fans on social media, who pointed out that we got "real dire wolves" before "The Winds of Winter."

When he was asked about those comments in an interview with Time, Martin said the book was "the curse of my life." There is "no doubt" the book is "13 years late," but he is "still working on it." He has made some progress, and then "other things divert my attention and suddenly I have a deadline for one of the HBO shows, I have something else to do."

It's easy to forget, amid this epic delay, that "The Winds of Winter" won't even end the series, as Martin intends to follow it up with a seventh book, "A Dream of Spring." On his blog, Martin said he plans to "finish 'The Winds of Winter,' and then do either 'A Dream of Spring' or volume two of Fire & Blood, and slip in a new 'Dunk & Egg' between each of those in my copious spare time," which should "keep me ahead of" HBO's "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms." As book fans know by now, though, Martin's words are like the wind. They may have an effect, but they are unfortunately not quite tangible.

July 2025: Martin hints that the book is nearing completion

In yet another bit of slim, yet good news for fans, Martin insinuated in an interview with Penguin Random House that "The Winds of Winter" had about 1,500 pages completed. Given that this would already make it the longest installment in the series, it seems the book may finally be nearing the finish line — but don't get your hopes up just yet. "It's a challenging book," said Martin, and this is part of the issue. Some of the "point-of-view characters' chapters are already finished, but I still need to interweave their narratives to create one cohesive plot."

It was also revealed that Martin will be producing a film adaptation of "Elden Ring," the popular fantasy video game franchise that he helped create the world for. How much involvement Martin will have as a producer is unclear, though he described the film as "kickass" in a blog post, with "first rate director" Alex Garland at the helm. So while "The Winds of Winter" may still be the priority, "Elden Ring" is just one more can of fuel to add to Martin's fantasy bonfire.

August 2025: Martin confronted by fan

The wait for the book seems to be getting to some fans. At a Seattle comic convention where Martin appeared on a Q & A panel, one "person, claiming to be a 'fan' of the writer's work, told the author he was 'not going to be around for much longer' and asked how he felt about fellow panelist Brandon Sanderson finishing the series," said NME.

The question "led to boos from fellow attendees" and was "denounced by others on the panel," said NME.

October 2025: Martin seems to admit the book is still unfinished

In an interview published on a fan website, Martin gave "perhaps the clearest and most brutal sign yet that the book remains unfinished," said the International Business Times. While he didn't outright admit this, his words seemed to infer that much of the book remains undone.

The comments came in reference to a lawsuit that Martin, along with other authors, filed against OpenAI in 2023, alleging copyright infringement. You "can't outlaw new technology. You can try, people have tried throughout history, but it's here to stay," Martin said. The "most striking aspect" of Martin's comments is the assertion that "no computer will ever write 'The Winds of Winter,'" and his insistence that the book not be written by a machine "serves as a clear indicator that the human writing process is still incomplete."

October 2025: Martin addresses the controversies around the book

Fans were hoping for a big update from Martin when he appeared later in October at a panel for New York Comic Con — but they came away largely disappointed. "I know there's all this controversy about 'Winds of Winter' and how late it is, but I've always had trouble with deadlines," Martin said when asked about the book's progress. "I don't feel happy breaching contracts or missing deadlines or anything like that."

Martin also made note of his other projects that he is working on, including an executive producer role on the AMC drama "Dark Winds" and "Game of Thrones"-adjacent material like "House of the Dragon." Martin does "love 'Winds of Winter.' I'm still interested in it, I'm still working on it, but honestly, I love these other things too," he said.

December 2025: Martin wants to knight fans, but they remain unimpressed

In anticipation of the release of his "Game of Thrones" prequel series, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," Martin made another announcement that ruffled feathers. The author teamed up with HBO to invite fans to compete in a contest that gives winners the chance to attend the LA premiere and be personally knighted by Martin. The campaign, dubbed the #KnightChallenge, is seeking out individuals who embody the spirit of the show's hero, Ser Duncan the Tall, by exhibiting "honor, courage, self-sacrifice," Martin said in an X post. The announcement video "came with a bit of backlash from fans demanding that he should finish 'The Winds of Winter' instead," Fandomwire said.

The new show, based on Martin's "Tales of Dunk and Egg" novellas, is set to premiere on Jan. 18, 2026.

In his first address to staff at the Health and Human Services Department this past February, then newly-confirmed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proudly proclaimed that "nothing is going to be off limits" in his effort to end chronic childhood illnesses. Intended as a rallying call for his agenda of vaccine skepticism and scientific revisionism, Kennedy's enthusiasm for working without "limits" has been evident throughout his long career in the public eye — first as an acclaimed environmentalist and now as one of the most consequential health care figures in the world.

But just ten months into his tenure, Kennedy has "turned his back on science and the safety of the American people," said Rep. Haley Stevens, a Michigan democrat who filed long-shot articles of impeachment against the HHS secretary in December, accusing him of being a "direct threat to our nation's health and security." The impeachment effort "underscored" how Kennedy, who has "violated several pledges he made to members of congress to win confirmation," is now a "top target for lawmakers, especially Democrats," said The New York Times.

While neither a physician nor a researcher himself, Kennedy has nevertheless been at the forefront of what he and President Donald Trump have dubbed the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, upending whole swaths of the country's health care and scientific infrastructure. The secretary represents a "profound, immediate and unprecedented threat" to the nation's health, said six former Surgeons General in an October opinion essay for The Washington Post (through a spokesperson, HHS dismissed the concerns as coming from those "who presided over the decline in America's public health"). Kennedy is a "dangerous person," nephew Jack Schlossberg said to MSNBC. "I mean, when he's not making infomercials for Steak 'n Shake and Coca-Cola, he's spreading misinformation and lies that are leading to deaths around the country."

As Kennedy continues to reshape the nation's approach to illness and fitness, here are some of his most controversial moments.

Instigated and oversaw turmoil at the CDC

In June 2025, Kennedy fired the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee, replacing them with a "cast that includes contrarians, anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists," The Atlantic said. In late August, Kennedy attempted to oust CDC Director Susan Monarez, a longtime federal employee and Trump appointee, after she resisted pressure to "change vaccine policy and fire senior staff," The Washington Post said. Pushing Monarez out is "more than an administrative shake-up," said KFF Health News. It's "a major offensive" designed to "seize control of the agency and impose an anti-vaccine, anti-science agenda."

Employees also blame Kennedy's "inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation" as helping "stoke" the shooting attack at the CDC's Atlanta campus in the summer of 2025, said Axios. Kennedy is "complicit in dismantling America's public health infrastructure" and endangers public health "by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information," said an open letter to the secretary signed by over 800 current and former HHS employees after the CDC shooting. Under Kennedy's leadership, public trust in the CDC has dropped to its "lowest point since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic," The Hill said in the fall of 2025, reflecting "the toll" from the secretary's "significant changes" to his department.

Spread conspiracies linking autism to Tylenol and circumcision

Speaking at his first official press briefing as the Health and Human Services Secretary, Kennedy in April 2025 claimed without evidence or further explanation that autistic children "will never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted." The remarks were "plainly untrue," said Jessica Grose at The New York Times. By implying that "those who are not able to be gainfully employed are somehow lesser citizens," Kennedy has shown he is "not fit to be in charge of the health of the country," Grose said. In the months that followed, Kennedy has continued to focus on autism as a disease to be cured, claiming against scientific consensus that Tylenol — and as a corollary, circumcisions — are significantly responsible for the cognitive condition. Countries that use the most acetaminophen also have the "highest level of autism," Kennedy said during an October cabinet meeting, cautioning that while he doesn't have proof of this, "we're doing the studies to make the proof.” Kennedy also claimed to have seen a TikTok video of a woman "gobbling Tylenol," adding that the woman had a "baby in her placenta" despite human fetuses developing in the uterus.

Promoted anti-vaccine rhetoric and disrupted childhood vaccination scheduling

Though Kennedy vehemently insists he is not anti-vaccine, his record on the matter suggests otherwise. Most notably, he has promoted the "scientifically discredited belief that childhood vaccines cause autism," The New York Times said, a notion that has "been rejected by more than a dozen peer-reviewed scientific studies across multiple countries."

Moreover, he has repeatedly questioned the safety of the Covid-19 vaccine, made numerous misleading claims about the way vaccines are tested, and even falsely alleged that HIV, the virus that later leads to AIDS if left untreated, originated from a vaccine program, CNN fact checker and reporter Daniel Dale said in an appearance on CNN. "So what do you call someone like Mr. Kennedy who devotes their time, energy, public remarks to devoting entirely fake claims about vaccines killing people in all manner of ways?" Dale added."I think 'anti-vax' is a fair descriptor."

Most recently, Kennedy "disregarded a scientific review process that has been in place for decades" when he announced that the government no longer recommends Covid-19 vaccinations for pregnant women and healthy children, said The Associated Press. "There's no new data or information," said Michael Osterholm, the director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, to the AP. "Just them flying by the seat of their pants." Kennedy continued his vaccination scheduling disruption by overseeing a "controversial" CDC vote in December that "reversed decades of standard medical practice giving newborns the hepatitis B vaccine," NBC News said. And with Trump "all in" behind his secretary, Kennedy now has general orders to "review the childhood vaccine schedule and potentially revise it," said Politico.

Had an extended affair with a political reporter on the campaign trail

In late 2024, New York magazine placed political reporter Olivia Nuzzi on leave for having "engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign." While Nuzzi stressed that her relationship with Kennedy was both entirely consensual and purely digital, her ex-fiance, political reporter Ryan Lizza, claimed in court filings that Kennedy, unnamed in the documents, had tried to "possess," "control" and "impregnate" Nuzzi. As one of the “most powerful men in the country," said Slate, RFK not only "spent a considerable amount of time having a virtual affair with a journalist during his campaign," but also "used her as a political resource as he plotted his ascent to the Cabinet."

In response to the scandal, Kennedy’s camp went "on the offensive," painting Nuzzi as having pursued the former-candidate "aggressively," said Rolling Stone.

Encouraged the spread of bird flu in poultry farms

Faced with the perennial public health threat posed by avian flu, Kennedy in March 2025 suggested poultry farms allow infections to proceed unimpeded as a means of identifying what birds had a natural immunity to the disease. Poultry farmers "should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock," Kennedy said to Fox News, "so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds that are immune to it."

For veterinary scientists, Kennedy's proposal is "inhumane and dangerous," and could ultimately have "enormous economic consequences," The New York Times said. In May, HHS announced it was cancelling some $700 million in funds pledged to pharmacology company Moderna to develop a vaccination for avian flu. By "willfully rejecting a tool with the potential to save millions of lives" Kennedy is being "at best shortsighted and at worst catastrophic," The Washington Post said.

Suggested Covid was designed to spare Jews and Chinese people

In July 2023, Kennedy claimed that Covid could have been a bioweapon designed to target and disproportionately attack "certain races," like Caucasians and Black people, and spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, who he said are the "most immune" to the virus. "We don't know whether it was deliberately targeted or not," he said during a press dinner captured on video, "but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact." He later insisted that he never "suggested that the Covid-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews" and was instead referring to a study that "serves as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons," CNN said.

Blamed gender dysphoria on chemicals in the environment

Kennedy has repeatedly alleged that exposure to chemicals — endocrine disruptors, namely — is causing gender dysphoria in children and contributing to a rise in LGBTQ+ youth. Speaking on a June 2022 episode of his podcast, Kennedy said he wants to "pursue just one question on these … endocrine disruptors" because "we're seeing these impacts that people suspect are very different than in ages past about sexual identification among children and sexual confusion, gender confusion."

His comments were based on a study that found that one endocrine disruptor, in particular, can cause a small percentage of male frogs to become female, though experts say there is no evidence that such chemicals cause gender dysphoria in human children. Kennedy's remarks have been "mischaracterized," a spokesperson said to CNN. He was "merely suggesting that, given copious research on the effects on other vertebrates, this possibility deserves further research."

Linked school shootings with antidepressants

Speaking to comedian Bill Maher on an episode of the podcast "Club Random with Bill Maher," Kennedy linked an increase in school shootings to the increased prescription of antidepressants. "Kids always had access to guns, and there was no time in American history or human history where kids were going to schools and shooting their classmates," Kennedy said, repeating a claim he previously made to Canadian broadcaster Mark Steyn. "It really started happening conterminous with the introduction of these drugs, with Prozac and the other drugs." Scientists have found "no biological plausibility" of a link between the use of antidepressants and mass shootings, Ragy Girgis, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, said to The New York Times. Were there a link, "one would expect it to be pronounced, or at least much greater than we are seeing," Dr. James Knoll of SUNY Upstate Medical University said to Politifact in 2019.

Mistreated animal corpses

During the 2024 presidential election, Kennedy blamed the "little bit of the redneck in me" for his decision to dump a dead bear carcass in Central Park in 2014, admitting to the convoluted scheme in an interview with comedian Rosanne Barr he shared to his X account. "Maybe that's where I got my brain worm," Kennedy later said to The New Yorker, referencing his 2012 admission in a court deposition obtained by The New York Times that he had once contracted a parasite which "got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died."

Shortly after Kennedy fessed up to his ursine adventure, daughter Kick Kennedy said in an interview with Town & Country that when she was six, her father had heard a dead whale had washed ashore near Hyannis Port. The elder Kennedy "ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale's head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan," Town & Country said. "Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet," Kick added. In her memoir "Unscripted," wife Cheryl Hines describes a similar situation during an early date with Kennedy. "I would've sworn I was dreaming," Hines said. "But my feet were cold and the rancid smell of roadkill in Bobby's minivan was enough to know all of it was real."

Kennedy has also emphatically denied a Vanity Fair report that he'd eaten dog while on vacation in Korea in 2010. "The article is a lot of garbage," Kennedy said on the "Breaking Points" podcast. "The picture that they said is of me eating a dog, it's actually me eating a goat in Patagonia on a whitewater trip many years ago on the Futaleufu River."

President Donald Trump's second administration has not been lacking in scandal. One of the largest incidents recently occurred among high-ranking administration officials and has been dubbed "Signalgate." But this is far from the White House's only controversy related to national security.

Signalgate

On March 24, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, revealed that he had been added to a group chat in the messaging app Signal about an upcoming U.S. strike against the Houthis in Yemen. Members of the chat included Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and others.

Soon after Goldberg was added to the chat, bombs began falling in Yemen, confirming that the conversation was real. It is "not uncommon for national security officials to communicate on Signal," said Goldberg in his initial article. But the app is "used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters — not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action." The discussion "concerned the timing and rationale of attacks on the Houthis" and eventually "veered toward the operational," Goldberg said in a follow-up article.

The White House defended the use of Signal for these classified conversations, and Waltz later claimed that Goldberg had been "sucked into" the group chat. "Nobody was texting war plans," Hegseth later told reporters, an assertion that turned out to be false. But the event represented "what national security experts say is one of the most serious White House national security breaches in years, if not decades," said USA Today. Both Republicans and Democrats expressed concern over the leak, and some vowed to get to the "bottom of whether the security breach violated laws like the Espionage Act, which prohibits gathering, transmitting or losing national defense."

Use of Gmail

Following Signalgate, Waltz found himself in more hot water after a report in The Washington Post alleged that he used Gmail to conduct government business. Most damningly, a "senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies." This included emails concerning "sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict." The aide reportedly used their personal Gmail account, while other agency colleagues used their government Gmail accounts.

Waltz himself has had "less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents," according to the Post. Gmail counts millions of users and is much less secure than even Signal, so the incident "risks further damage to the standing of Waltz" and "places further scrutiny" upon U.S. intelligence agencies, said The Guardian. It marks the "latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials," said the Post.

NSA firings

Trump has taken drastic steps to reduce the size of the federal government, and some of these moves have generated national security concerns — most notably, a series of firings at the National Security Agency (NSA). The most significant axings were of U.S. Cyber Command head and NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and NSA Deputy Director Wendy Noble. Haugh was "ousted because Laura Loomer, a far-right wing conspiracy theorist and Trump adviser, had accused him and his deputy of disloyalty," said The New York Times.

Haugh and Noble were two of "several national security officials fired" on Loomer's advice, said the Times. Members of Trump's National Security Council were also let go, and the "criterion Loomer appears to be using as she looks to oust people she sees as disloyal is their connections to critics of the Trump administration." Congress members from both sides of the aisle expressed concern over the firings, though more of this anger came from Democrats. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) "raised alarm about Laura Loomer's influence in the Trump administration," said The Hill.

The firings "severely compromise our ability to keep Americans safe" and it is "inexplicable that the administration would remove the senior leaders of NSA/CYBERCOM without cause or warning, and risk disrupting critical ongoing intelligence operations," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement. Russia and China are "laughing at us because we just fired the absolute best leaders," said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) to CBS News.

Defense cuts

Beyond slashing jobs, budget cuts could also cut into the country's national security apparatus, experts say. Trump has overseen a "systematic degradation of its national security apparatus in just two months," said Time, part of a $580 million cut in spending for the Department of Defense. This has led to "diminished cyber offensive and defensive operations" that "offer adversaries unnecessary relief and expose the U.S. to new threats. It's part of a weakening of government institutions that leaves American national security at risk, according to analysts.

When it comes to the fired Defense Department employees, it remains "unclear how many, if any, will be exempt due to national security considerations, and that it is still unclear how people will be contacted," said NPR. The "list of priorities and possible cuts has troubled some on Capitol Hill who could see their own priorities come to an end." The list of total budget cuts includes at least 80 CIA workers, and the White House is reviewing a list of 3,600 FBI employees, including those involved in the FBI's Jan. 6 investigation and members of the FBI's counterterrorism division, for potential dismissal," said Time.

Database consolidation

Many details about the lives of the 330 million Americans are held in disconnected databases across the federal government — but that could change if Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk get their way. The White House is "now trying to connect the dots of that disparate information," according to The New York Times. This includes sensitive data such as gross income, Social Security numbers, medical records, gambling debts and "at least 263 more categories of data."

Trump has signed an executive order calling for the "consolidation of unclassified agency records" throughout federal agencies as part of his plan to weed out fraud. But this raised the "prospect of creating a kind of data trove about Americans that the government has never had before, and that members of the president's own party have historically opposed," said the Times.

Musk and DOGE have reportedly attempted to access large swaths of Americans' personal information in order to consolidate it, ignoring the "objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections," said the Times. While the "unclassified agency records" do not contain classified data, they included "personally sensitive information on virtually everyone in America." If Trump and Musk's plan came to fruition, it could "create a national security vulnerability that could be targeted by hostile nation states."

Since the post-1968 reforms that opened presidential nominations to binding primaries and caucuses, there have only been four cycles that didn't feature an incumbent or former president. But assuming that President Donald Trump doesn't seek an unconstitutional third term, 2028 will be one of them. These are some of the names being bandied about by political insiders looking ahead to the next election.

The Democrats already jockeying for position

Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg served as Secretary of Transportation from 2021 to 2025, and his frequent appearances on right-wing outlets like Fox News "have been master classes in poise and articulation," said Advocate. He recently decided not to seek a Senate seat in Michigan, a "decision framed by several allies and people in his inner circle as putting him in the strongest possible position to seek the presidency," said Politico.

Gavin Newsom

Newsom has been governor of California since 2019. He "built his national profile opposing the Republican president during his first term," said Los Angeles Times. But in March Newsom caused a stir by inviting far-right operative Charlie Kirk onto his podcast, "angering many of the liberal activists whom Newsom would need to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028," said The Washington Post.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The New York Democrat has taken on a leading role opposing the Trump administration's policies, including barnstorming the country with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-N.Y.). Ocasio-Cortez is "positioning herself well for a run," and the 35-year-old "would bring much-needed youthful vigour to a decaying party," said UnHerd.

JB Pritzker

The governor of Illinois since 2019, Pritzker has chosen a very different lane from Newsom, standing up for communities under fire from the Trump administration. He has distinguished himself by "pitching his potent combination of working-class issues, sharp business sense and reputation as a good-natured brawler," said Bloomberg. But Pritzker, who is not subject to term limits, "has yet to say whether he will seek a rare but not unprecedented third term as governor," said the Chicago Tribune.

Josh Shapiro

Shortlisted as Kamala Harris' running mate in 2024, Pennsylvania's governor is still in his first term. Shapiro has been "performing a balancing act in approaching the Trump administration," said NBC News. He has "cemented his image as a moderate willing to work across the aisle," said The Philadelphia Inquirer but remains "largely untested on the national stage."

Tim Walz

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee remains Minnesota's governor until 2027 and said he would "rather fight Trump from his position as governor" than seek the state's open U.S. Senate seat next year, said The New Yorker. That decision means that Walz may throw his hat in for the 2028 nomination. Walz "launched a national tour of town halls in Republican House districts, traveling the country," said Axios, further fueling speculation about 2028.

Gretchen Whitmer

The two-term Michigan governor was one of the many names discussed to replace former President Joe Biden during the summer of 2024. Her double-digit reelection in a down year for Democrats in 2022 combined with her popularity in the purple state of Michigan turned her into a national figure. In terms of 2028 contenders, "there are few politicians talked about more than" Whitmer, said The New York Times.

Other names

Former vice president and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is "expected to make a decision by the end of the summer" about running for governor of California, said the Los Angeles Times, and could still run for president again. Popular Democratic governors like Jared Polis of Colorado could join the fray, as could prominent Trump critics in the Senate like Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), whose day-long filibuster in April means that he is "most likely going to run again," said The Conversation. Celebrities like businessman Mark Cuban and ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith are also in the mix.

A shorter list of Republicans in the shadow of J.D. Vance

Nikki Haley

In the past, the runner-up in the GOP primary often had the inside track on the next open nomination. It is not clear whether this rule will apply to former UN Ambassador and 2024 GOP runner-up Nikki Haley, who at this point represents a defeated faction in the party. It is also "not likely she would have" President Trump's backing "if she runs in 2028," said Fox News, which could cripple her chances.

Ron DeSantis

Like Haley, the Florida governor's biggest challenge as he prepares a 2028 presidential bid is to "win back supporters of the Republican leader whom he dared to challenge in the last election," said The Associated Press. DeSantis, who ended his 2024 campaign after a disappointing showing in the Iowa GOP caucus, remains popular in Florida and was reelected by nearly 20 points in 2022 in what was once a swing state.

Kristi Noem

Noem, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, was "floated as a potential running mate for Trump last year" before he picked J.D. Vance and "has since become a loyal and vocal supporter of the president, said The Hill. She seems to have survived the scandal from her memoir, in which she found herself "under fire for killing her family's 14-month-old dog and boasting about it," said The New York Times.

Marco Rubio

Rubio ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016, losing the nomination to Trump. Now, the former Florida senator is the Secretary of State in the second Trump administration and "needs to decide how much he wants to go along with things that clearly run counter to his previous principles," such as siding with Russia in the Ukraine conflict, said The Washington Post.

J.D. Vance

The sitting vice president is just 40 years old and will benefit from having a "group of younger, more populist Republicans who are vocally advocating" for him as Trump's successor, said Semafor. No incumbent vice president in the modern period who has sought his or her party's nomination has failed to get it. Even better, "Trump's longtime aides and allies have begun throwing their support behind Vance," said The Independent.

Glenn Youngkin

Rumored as a more mainstream alternative to President Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, Youngkin never ended up throwing his hat in the ring. Virginia's popular GOP governor is subject to the state's unusual one-term-at-a-time limit and cannot seek re-election in 2025. He is "seen as staunchly conservative but has a broad appeal, stretching outside of the MAGA movement," said The Hill.

Other names

Vance's presumed dominance of the field makes the GOP's long-list considerably shorter than those of the Democrats. But those who received support in a recent Yougov poll include the president's son Donald Trump, Jr., Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, CIA Director Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Immigrants who journey to the United States for a better life often say they are coming in search of the American dream. But many people in the U.S. — immigrants and natural-born citizens alike — now seem to feel that dream is closer to a fantasy. And based on current lifestyle metrics, they aren't necessarily wrong, as the American dream continues to shift.

What is the American dream?

It's a "century-old phrase used to describe the idea that anyone can achieve success in the United States through hard work and determination," Pew Research Center said. The American dream defines a land where "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each," said historian James Truslow Adams, who coined the phrase in his 1931 book "The Epic of America."

"Upward mobility became the calling card of American life" with the arrival of the Puritans, who were looking for an alternative to the Old World system in which people "born with titles" were "able to be wealthy and powerful just by virtue of their birth," author Adam Chandler said to Smithsonian Magazine. The idea that anyone can improve their station with hard work and dedication still draws people to America.

Adams wrote "The Epic of America" at the height of the Great Depression, so his American dream concept was largely aspirational. But a decade later, the dream was coming true.

More than 90% of children born in 1940 ended up better off than their parents, MIT economist Nathaniel Hendren and Harvard economist Raj Chetty have found. But "only around half of those born in the 1980s were able to say the same," The Wall Street Journal said. "It's still a coin flip whether or not you'll earn more than your parents," Hendren said, "but mobility probably hit a record low in the early 2020s."

Is the American dream still attainable?

A narrow 53% majority believes it is, Pew found in an April 2024 poll, while another 41% said it was once possible to attain but no longer. Older and wealthier people were about 25 percentage points more likely than younger and lower-income Americans to say the American dream is possible on the American dream, while people with a college degree were 7 points more bullish than those with less education. Pew found that 31% of respondents felt they had achieved the American team, 36% said they were on their way to achieving it and 30% said it was out of reach.

This lack of optimism is especially apparent when it comes to younger people. A January 2025 survey from UCLA found that 86% of young Americans "want to achieve the American dream in some capacity — but indicate finances are a significant barrier." The poll also found this has a large effect on young people's overall demeanor, with 71% saying that this difficulty of achieving the American dream makes it harder for me to find happiness than prior generations.

A July 2024 Wall Street Journal/NORC survey found that people "overwhelmingly desire all the traditional trappings of the American dream" — which the Journal described as "owning a home, having a family, and looking forward to a comfortable retirement" — "but very few believe they can easily achieve it." For example, 98% of respondents said owning a home was an essential life goal but only 10% said homeownership was at at least somewhat easy to attain.

Marriage, homeownership and a comfortable retirement seem less like American goals than universal ones. But "people are right to feel that the American dream has become harder to achieve both in terms of their chances of doing better than their parents and their chances of rising out of poverty," Harvard's Chetty said to the Journal.

Why is the American dream increasingly out of reach?

Growing wealth and income inequality and decades of stagnant wages have raised the height of the ceiling for the American dream while leaving the vast majority of people near the floor. Despite America's reputation as a land of opportunity, "there is less movement up and down the economic ladder here than in many other countries," the Brookings Institution said in a 2022 report. In America today, "wealth inequality is high. And wealth status is sticky," and this combination creates "sharp class divides which are at odds with the American dream." This disparity has been building for a while; a 2014 press release from the House Ways and Means Committee said that the U.S. needs "policies that grow the economy and create jobs so the next generation of Americans can realize the American Dream," and that too many Americans faced "mounting bills and student loan debt."

Journalist David Leonhardt, who wrote about the fading American Dream in his 2023 book "Ours Was the Shining Future," primarily blames this stratification on the restructuring of the U.S. economy, from the democratic capitalism that helped create America's large middle class, to the laissez-faire "greed is good" policies that replaced it starting in the 1980s. And thanks to political shifts — Democrats, increasingly college-educated and socially liberal, haven't been able to win enough power to tip the economy back in the other direction, and Republicans aren't interested — "there is no longer a mass movement focused on improving economic outcomes for most Americans," he said in his book. "The country's largest activist groups, on both the left and the right, are focused on other subjects."

While the dream may still technically be reachable for some, a large portion of Americans, particularly young people, simply no longer feel that way. Gen Z and millennial Americans "still really want financial security and independence, but many feel like the cards are stacked against them and the system is rigged," said Yalda Uhls, a professor in psychology at UCLA. Notably, high interest and mortgage rates, rising insurance costs, low housing stock and soaring real estate prices have also made it harder for first-time homebuyers to purchase a house, something 75% of Americans consider an essential component of the American dream, according to a Realtor.com survey.

And while "income and wealth inequality have both soared" in America, the "clearest sign of our problems" is the "stagnation of life expectancy for working-class people," Leonhardt said at The New York Times. "In 1980, the U.S. had a typical life expectancy for an affluent country," but now it ranks lower than its peers and even many poorer countries.

Can the dream be revived?

If "the American political system helped create today's problems," then surely "the American political system can solve them," Leonhardt said at the Times. The American dream was made real largely by organized labor, civil rights crusaders and other "often grass-roots political movements" that steadily nudged the government into creating the America they envisioned. If the revitalized labor movement and other groups representing the bottom 90% of Americans can coalesce into a "mass movement organized around the goal of lifting living standards" for the middle class and working class, he added, it "might well succeed. It has before."

Not everyone agrees that the dream is dying. "The American dream is of individual upward mobility, not social progress toward uniformity," John Early and former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) said in the Journal in 2023. And that "American dream is alive and well." Three recent studies, they said, suggest that the "vast majority" of U.S. adults still "have higher income than their parents did."

If Americans "want to figure out why people don't feel like they're staying above water, we need to examine issues of income disparity and social wealth," Bhaskar Sunkara said at The Guardian. This would involve reupping social democracy platforms to better align with those in Europe, Sunkara added. The U.S. can "pursue taxation policies that better redistribute wealth and create greater state support for health care, childcare, housing and job training," while also focusing on additional support for worker unionization and domestic manufacturing.

One shining example is Washington County, Wisconsin, which has started a program to "remove five main barriers to increasing the supply of affordable housing," said the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The county also "made solving basic needs a priority," such as directing post-Covid recovery funds to generate lost revenue. Areas like this across the U.S. "can choose to build. We can choose to cultivate strong communities. We can choose to place people over politics."

As President Donald Trump continues to make large changes to the federal government, one state more than 4,700 miles from the White House is reportedly already feeling a significant financial burden. Hawaii is reportedly dealing with problems in several of its economic sectors as a result of Trump's policies, which have left many in the Aloha State concerned for their future.

Hawaii's agriculture and tourism industries could be among the hardest hit of any state in the country as Trump pauses funding for federal farming programs, and his global tariffs are expected to slow tourism across the United States. Many Hawaiians have cast doubt on the state's financial health and are worried that cuts to federal programs could directly affect them.

Farming funds

Agriculture is one industry where Hawaiians could feel burdened. There are about 6,500 farmers in the state, according to the USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture. But since Trump "paused funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and cut other U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, nearly $90 million in funding for Hawaii and Pacific region farms and food system organizations has been frozen or cut," said NBC News.

This has led to "great confusion among local farmers about what is frozen and what is not," said Hawaii Farm Bureau Executive Director Brian Miyamoto to NBC. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which "provides technical and financial assistance to agricultural producers, is safe for now." But other farming-related programs "may have had their funding frozen" or face uncertain futures.

Hawaii's farming industry already suffers from many logistical issues due to its location; about 90% of the island state's food is imported. This makes it "hard for local farmers to keep prices competitive," and the "high cost of locally grown food often deters price-conscious consumers," said Hawaii News Now. But now there is "new anxiety about cuts to federal subsidies and USDA programs on top of ongoing challenges."

Tourism dollars

Tourism is one of Hawaii's biggest industries; more than 9.6 million people visited the Hawaiian Islands in 2024, according to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. But some of Trump's "policy reversals and delays have made it difficult for Hawaii's visitor industry to know where tourism will end up," said the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

In particular, Trump's tariffs on Canada, which have drawn the ire of Canadian tourists, could "broadly dampen international arrivals to Hawaii, which in many markets still are struggling to recover to prepandemic levels," said the Star-Advertiser. About 5% of Hawaiian tourists are Canadian. But the tariffs could also affect the 75% of Hawaiian tourists who are American, and many are "concerned that tariff-related trade wars could hurt Hawaii's bread-and-butter U.S. consumers, who ultimately will pay more for goods and serv­ices, causing them to pull back on luxury and long-haul travel."

Beyond this, a "suddenly imposed ban on travel by federal employees has left hotel rooms unexpectedly empty," said the Honolulu Civil Beat. There has been a "massive drop in government travel," and "properties are scrambling to make up for the loss," Alvin Wong, the director of sales and marketing for the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort and Spa, said to the Civil Beat. Some economists have also said that the "barrage of new policies and cost-cutting initiatives had in many cases left them stumped about the likely impacts."

Medicare and Medicaid cuts

Ever since Trump retook office, reports have circulated about potential cuts to Medicare and Medicaid subsidies, which could significantly affect Hawaiians. The two programs reportedly provide services for nearly 50% of the state: 305,000 Hawaiians were enrolled in Medicare in 2024, according to Healthinsurance.gov, and 406,000 were enrolled in Medicaid, according to Medquest.

Hawaiians "would be unable to come up with the funding likely to take care of their diabetes or their heart disease or other serious problems that they have" if cuts occur, Dr. Jack Lewin, the administrator of the Hawaii Health Planning & Development Agency, said to Hawaii Public Radio. This would lead to "significant crises in terms of preventable morbidity and mortality across a population of people," as there "aren't that many discretionary areas that can be cut effectively" without causing harm.

However, Hawaii health care workers are urging caution for now. The American "people have to know that what we stand for is for them," said Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) to KITV Honolulu. Championing rural health, in particular, is "absolutely what we need in Hawaii."

Tariffs and overall costs

The tariffs, which Trump has implemented on imports from every other country in the world, could raise prices across the U.S., with Hawaii bearing the brunt of these increases. The "cost of basic necessities is expected to rise even more here in the islands," said KITV, with everything from food to building materials expected to go up in price. These building material increases could exacerbate the state's already dire housing crisis and "also lead to higher prices of most all other goods."

This could "price out future first-time home buyers, especially," said Andrew Pereira, a spokesman for the Pacific Resource Partnership, to KITV. Buying a car could also become pricey in Hawaii. Hawaiian auto dealers ended 2024 on a down note but were "expecting a rebound this year until the enthusiasm was abruptly halted" by Trump's tariffs, said the Star-Advertiser. Dealers are "concerned there could be higher prices in Hawaii," Melissa Pavlicek, the executive director of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association, said to the outlet.

Auto dealers were "caught off guard because there was little to no mention of tariffs on foreign auto imports during the run-up to the November election," said the Star-Advertiser. But Trump's 25% tariffs on these imports have now gone into effect, and because Hawaii represents a key trading territory between Asian markets and the West Coast, it "could be particularly vulnerable to a trade war triggered by Trump's ongoing tariffs."

In total, the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization estimates that Trump's actions "could result in the loss of more than 2,000 local jobs, placing Hawaii's economy at risk of recession," said KHON-TV Honolulu. Hawaii will "feel the adverse effects of federal policies over the next several years, pulling job growth to zero and real GDP growth down to 1.6%" in 2025, according to the university. This could eventually lead to a "recession and undermine long-term growth prospects."

Last month, after years of being refused exit from Romania, where he stands accused of sex trafficking and rape, social media influencer Andrew Tate set foot once again on American soil. It was a surprise Florida homecoming for this leading figure in the far-right "manosphere" of internet personalities whose Romanian arrest and detention once seemed the final act of his unapologetically misogynist enterprise.

While his return to the United States might imply a second act for the controversial podcaster — particularly given initial allegations that his being allowed to leave Romania was the result of political pressure from the Trump administration — it took mere days for Tate's legal troubles to overshadow his startling repatriation. Claiming to have made a "thorough review of the evidence," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said on X that he had begun a "now-active criminal investigation" into Tate's human trafficking and assault allegations. "Florida is not a place where you are welcome with that type of conduct," said Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), whose administration is steeped in much of the same far-right milieu as Tate, at the news of the latter's arrival in his state. Florida has "no involvement" in Tate's return, DeSantis stressed.

Serious criminal allegations aside, Tate has long been a controversial figure for his embrace of — and proselytizing for — an overtly sexist worldview in which women exist largely for the pleasure of men. Below is how Andrew Tate sees half the world's population, in his own words.

On women in general

"Intrinsically lazy" [Jan 2021]

"I'm not saying they're property. I am saying they are given to the man and belong to the man" [July 2022]

"You cannot be responsible for a dog if it doesn't obey you, or a child if it doesn't obey you, or a woman that doesn't obey you" [July 2022]

"Women are born with innate power. But every time someone f--ks them they give some away. He takes it. And that's why the most powerful men have slept with endless women, and why the least magical women have slept with endless men" [July 2023]

"Women shouldn't vote because they don't care about issues outside of how THEY feel" [Sept 2024]

"Feminism is a lie and women have zero power without men" [Dec 2024]

"Fact. Women are sex workers. Their primary job now is to find one customer, called a boyfriend, to pay for their entire lives in return for pussy. If they fail at this they do only fans or porn, the same game with more than one customer. If they're ugly, they work a job (badly) and are miserable" [Dec 2024]

"Bitter old hoes always mad the hot young girls get the money men" [Feb 2025]

"Cities are for women to be their worst selves and look for perma entertainment which men pay for" [March 2025]

On his personal treatment of women

"If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bare [sic] some responsibility" [Oct 2017]

"(I am) absolutely a misogynist" [Jan 2021]

"I'm a realist, and when you're a realist, you're sexist. There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist" [Jan 2021]

"My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she's quality, get her to fall in love with me to where she'd do anything I say, and then get her on webcam so we could become rich together" [personal website, deleted in 2022]

"If you want a woman who's perfect for you, you must build her to be perfect for you. A woman who is understanding and kind and who respects you does not exist unless you force her to be that way" [Tate "PhD" course, 2024]

"I don't give a s--t about having sex with beautiful women. I f--k them so they listen to me" [date unknown]

"I'm all over the place, so I end up with all these chicks just stuck in the house, sitting there, bored, completely in love with me. And of course they don't go out. They're not allowed out" [date unknown, cited by Business Insider]

[If accused of cheating by a woman] "It's bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her up by the neck" [date unknown, cited by The New York Times]

"I have nothing to talk to women about beside either sleeping with them or… wait, that's it" [date unknown]

"You can't get the girl to work for you if you haven't f----- her before" [date unknown, cited by ABC News]

On former Vice President Kamala Harris

"She's largely incompetent. I don't think I've ever heard her put a compendious coherent sentence together" [July 2023]

On Taylor Swift

I could easily f--k Taylor Swift and end her feminism shit real G dick moves but she's ancient. Pyramids were brand new when she was born. THIRTY-FOUR!? If you're a girl, why even live past 30 unless you have kids? [June 2024]

On Ariana Grande

"You're too skinny and i would no longer f--k you" [Feb 2025]

On environmentalist Greta Thunberg

"Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions" [Dec 2022]

On his sister

"I have a sister. My sister and I, we don't really talk. We don't talk because she goes to feminist rallies and believes Trump's a racist. I know: How can Andrew Tate have a low-IQ sister?" [date unknown]

On his mother

"Very much subservient to my father, which was a good thing" [Sept 2022]

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's almost unfathomable wealth is not his only source of fame. He was also the subject of a widely praised 2010 film directed by David Fincher about Zuckerberg's creation of Facebook as a Harvard undergraduate during the early 2000s, and the inner workings of his social media properties have been the subject of intense political scrutiny for more than a decade.

Facebook and Instagram's importance in the media ecosystem has made the decision-making inside Zuckerberg's organizations an issue of intense public debate. Yet Zuckerberg's dual role as tech titan and media mogul would have been difficult to imagine when Facebook was just a dorm room side project for Zuckerberg and his friends — one that unexpectedly turned into a globe-spanning media leviathan. His company's products are now part of everyday life, for better or worse, for billions of people around the world.

How he amassed his fortune

The story of Facebook's origins at elite Harvard University is well-known. Zuckerberg, who hails from Dobbs Ferry, New York, in suburban Westchester County, had already built sophisticated software before he got to the Ivy League. When he was "somewhere around 10 or 12 years old," Zuckerberg "built a chat service for his family — and for his dad’s dental business" that he called "ZuckNet," said Vox. In high school, he created a program called Synapse, "that would keep track of every song the user played on a computer" and after determining the user's preferences "would begin to make playlists" of recommended music," said The Harvard Crimson. Spotify would later turn that basic model into a multi-billion dollar business empire.

At Harvard, Zuckerberg created Facemash, a "hot or not clone" which "had already made Mark a bit of a celebrity on campus," said Business Insider. The site pulled student photos from Harvard's website and allowed users to pick which person was better looking, and Zuckerberg was nearly expelled for creating it. A group of students led by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra had been trying to find a programmer for a site they called Harvard Connections when Zuckerberg and several collaborators launched a website with a strikingly similar concept, called "TheFacebook." When it launched on February 4, 2004, "the site's membership was initially limited to Harvard students — with no Like button and no News Feed," said Yahoo News. Four months later, Zuckerberg had "secured an investment of $500,000 from Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist." Meanwhile, as the company was taking off, the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra sued Zuckerberg and obtained "a settlement in 2008 that included 1.2 million shares in the company each," said The Independent. That lawsuit provided much of the drama in Fincher's movie "The Social Network."

In its original iteration as "Thefacebook.com," the site "was just a collection of profiles where people listed their favorite movies, quotes and that sort of thing," said Forbes. It was certainly not the first social networking site, an honor that belongs to Classmates.com, launched in 1995, and 1997's Six Degrees, which included "popular features such as profiles, friends lists and school affiliations in one service," said CBS News. But Zuckerberg's site took off and soon eclipsed existing leaders like MySpace.

By the end of 2004, Facebook had more than a million users, and in 2006, Yahoo "sought to buy Facebook for a billion dollars." In the end "Zuckerberg turned them all down," said The New Yorker. Membership for the site was initially restricted to people studying at Harvard, and then college and high school students. By 2006, Zuckerberg decided to open up membership on the site to anyone. The company "needed to relax its membership rules in order to keep up with its existing members after they graduated from college and got jobs," said The New York Times. Zuckerberg's big payday arrived in 2012, when he took the company public with an "initial public offering that valued Facebook at $104 billion," a staggering figure that was "higher than those of McDonald's, Citigroup, Amazon and all but a handful of other American companies."

A transformation in how people connect to each other

Facebook ultimately "forever changed how people connect, how businesses make money, how politicians seize power, and how information flows across communities and cultures," said Wired. At one time, the site's networking properties were credited with helping dissidents topple authoritarian regimes, including in Egypt during the 2010-2011 Arab Spring. Facebook was a "place for venting the outrage resulting from years of repression, economic instability and individual frustration," said The New York Times, and activists created pages on the site that helped them coordinate efforts to overthrow the country's authoritarian regime. Zuckerberg's hot-or-not site had somehow transformed itself into a tool of revolution.

Not all of those changes are regarded as positive, as Facebook has more recently taken the blame for exacerbating partisan polarization in the United States, acting as a conduit for misinformation and using its algorithms to encourage unhealthy behavior and addiction. In a 2021 CNN poll, more than three-quarters of Americans said "that Facebook makes society worse, not better," and almost half said "they know someone who they think was persuaded to believe in a conspiracy theory because of content on Facebook," said CNN. Facebook is a "cruel portrait of us," all of its users "entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore," said Zadie Smith in The New York Review of Books.

In 2021, Zuckerberg rebranded his company "Meta" to lean into the concept of a "virtual universe where people will roam freely as avatars, attending virtual business meetings, shopping in virtual stores and socializing at virtual get-togethers," said The Washington Post. Zuckerberg's Metaverse "became the obsession of the tech world and a quick hack to win over Wall Street investors," but the concept flopped spectacularly because when "offered the opportunity to try it out, nobody actually used the Metaverse," said Business Insider. The company is investing billions in artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, including "its own humanoid robot hardware, with an initial focus on household chores," said Yahoo News. Today, the company has a market cap of $1.69 trillion. Facebook has more than three billion active users worldwide, with another two billion each on Meta platforms Whatsapp and Instagram. The company "primarily makes money by selling advertising space on its various social media platforms," said Investopedia.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, operate the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a "​​philanthropic investment company" that is "one of the most well-funded philanthropies in human history," said Vox. When the initiative was announced, Zuckerberg and Chan were said to "donate 99% of their Facebook shares over their lifetimes" to the initiative, said The Guardian. Today, Forbes lists Zuckerberg as the world's second-richest individual, behind Elon Musk, with a net worth of $230.7 billion as of March 1, 2025. Bloomberg estimates his wealth at the slightly higher level of $236 billion.

Most wealthy Americans have a similar origin story: They were born into wealth and made more of it, or they were raised in a comfortable, upper-middle-class lifestyle they leveraged to catapult themselves into the elite. Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban truly does have humble beginnings, growing up in a working class Pittsburgh area where his father worked in a car upholstery shop.

Cuban's journey to the ranks of the wealthiest Americans is full of seemingly improbable gambles and decisions that led him to create and sell companies at just the right moment. And unlike many other billionaires, Cuban continues to be an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump. So much so there has been speculation about a potential 2028 presidential bid that Cuban has brushed off.

How he amassed his fortune

Cuban hustled his way through college at Indiana University with a variety of side ventures. His entrepreneurial spirit existed "before he was even of legal drinking age," when the future business magnate "opened a bar called Motley's Pub" to help put himself through school, said CNBC. After graduating with a business degree in 1981, Cuban returned to Pittsburgh to work for Mellon Bank, where he "helped the bank join the just-starting digital revolution" by digitizing paper operations, said Business Insider. The following year he decamped for Dallas with "a little cash, wrinkled clothes, a sleeping bag, a two-seat car with a hole in the floorboard and an invite to bunk with five guys in a three-bedroom apartment," said The Dallas Morning News. There Cuban bartended before getting a job in sales with a small company called Your Business Software. He was later fired "after defying the boss' order to open the store, rather than close a software deal off-site."

Cuban then struck out on his own. He founded the consulting business MicroSolutions, which specialized in "hooking together PCs at small businesses so teams could share information," said Business Insider. Over the course of the 1980s, Cuban built MicroSolutions into a thriving company where he "relentlessly pursued clients, often working 16-hour days to close deals," said The Quota. For "seven vacationless years," Cuban built MicroSolutions into "a national leader in systems integration and custom applications for local and wide area networks," said Mark Cuban Companies. He sold MicroSolutions to CompuServe for $6 million in 1990 and considered retiring early. But his "get-rich-quick mentality" ultimately left him "hungry for more" after becoming a millionaire at age 32, said Yahoo Finance.

After he sold MicroSolutions, Cuban made a number of investments and then moved to Los Angeles to briefly dabble in acting. His credits include playing a character named "Villain" in the 1995 action film "Lost at Sea." That same year, he started working on a company he and his friend Todd Wagner eventually called Broadcast.com, which was "one of the first companies to get into the streaming business" and was eventually sold to Yahoo for an "eye-popping $5.7 billion at the peak of the dot-com bubble in 1999," said The New York Times. Cuban and Wagner were "ahead of the curve, offering what we now recognize as streaming audio and video long before YouTube and other platforms existed," said Yahoo Finance. Unfortunately for Yahoo, there were too many obstacles to a successful streaming service to make it work; Cuban had gotten out just in time. "The service soon disappeared, as did the executives who engineered the deal," said Fortune, deeming it one of the five worst tech acquisitions ever in 2013. Cuban was nevertheless suddenly one of the richest people in the world.

A billionaire who became the 'best owner in sports'

Cuban, in addition to his business interests, was a sports enthusiast and in 2000 he used his windfall from the Yahoo deal to purchase a majority stake in the NBA's Dallas Mavericks for $285 million. At the time, the team was mired in a decade-long playoff drought and had yet to appear in the sport's championship series, the NBA Finals, since their inaugural season in 1980/1981. Cuban was a hands-on owner who "attended almost every practice" and spent games not in the luxury boxes but "mere feet away from the team bench, close enough to communicate with his employees throughout the course of the game," said ESPN. Cuban helped turn the Mavericks into a consistent winner, and the team won its first NBA championship in 2011. Cuban is the "best owner in sports," said D Magazine, because he "spends lavishly to win, swaps players ruthlessly, creates new revenue streams, and lives and dies with his team." The Mavericks made the playoffs every year for the first twelve seasons that Cuban owned the team.

The increase in the Mavericks' value during their run of success was the primary driver of Cuban's growing wealth over the course of the 2000s. By 2023, the team was "at least seven times as valuable now as they were when Cuban first purchased them," said The Sporting News. That year they lost the NBA finals to the Boston Celtics in what turned out to be Cuban's swan song as the team's primary owner. In 2023, Cuban sold his majority stake in the Mavericks for $3.5 billion but retained a minority stake in the team. "Cuban cited new business ventures and family considerations as the primary reasons for the sale," said Yahoo Finance. "I don't want my kids potentially feeling the pressure to walk into my spot as owner," said Cuban.

Mark Cuban Companies now operates a dizzying array of businesses, including Cost Plus Drug Company and Paladin, a pro bono legal networking platform. He also continued his love of movies by buying independent film distributor and production company Magnolia Pictures in 2003, which now operates "under Cuban and Wagner's 2929 Entertainment," said Deadline. As an executive producer, "Cuban has been nominated for seven Academy Awards," including for the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck," said ABC. In 2011, he became a main cast member and investor on the reality TV program "Shark Tank." Cuban's "broad suite of investments on the show had made a net loss," said Yahoo Finance. Cuban announced in October 2024 that he would depart the show at the end of its 16th season.

Forbes estimates Cuban's net worth at $5.7 billion as of Feb. 26, which ranks 595th in the world. Bloomberg pegs it at $8.06 billion and places him at number 378 on its global index of the world's wealthiest people.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is one of the most recognizable members of an uber-wealthy global elite. As the owner of the Washington Post since 2013, he is also a frequent target of critics on both sides of the American political divide.

Like many of the world's most fabulously wealthy, Bezos' path to riches was greased with family wealth — but it was Bezos' vision that turned an online hub for used books in the early internet era into a world-best market hegemony powerful enough to muscle out competition in virtually any field over the course of 30 years. In large part because Amazon delivery trucks are a ubiquitous presence on America's streets, Bezos has since accumulated enough wealth to be richer than many of the world's countries.

How did he amass his fortune?

Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. After college, Bezos went to work for a financial technology startup, Fitel, before moving to banking and then to the hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. in 1990, where he was "tasked with researching potential business opportunities involving the then brand-new internet landscape," said CNBC. There, he would show "many of the idiosyncratic qualities his employees would later observe at Amazon," including "constantly recording ideas in a notebook he carried with him," said Brad Stone in an excerpt from his 2013 book "The Everything Store."

Bezos and his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, left the hedge fund to start the organization that would become Amazon in 1994, initially operating it out of a Seattle garage. Originally called "Cadabra," the name "later changed because it sounded too much like "cadaver," or a dead human body used for research," said Yahoo. Amazon.com was launched in 1995 as an online bookseller and a year later it was considered one of the "well-established internet shops" pressuring brick-and-mortar retailers like Barnes and Noble as well as smaller, independent bookstores, said The New York Times in 1996. Amazon "survived early prophecies of doom" and eventually "branched out into selling music, movies, electronics and toys during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s." The company struggled through, but ultimately survived, the e-commerce crash of the early 2000s.

Bezos took the firm public in 1997, and due to a rapid increase in the company's value, he "appeared on Forbes list of America's 400 wealthiest people for the first time in 1998," said Yahoo Finance, with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion at the time. He would never again fall out of the exclusive billionaire club. Yet Amazon itself would not develop into the market-dominating behemoth it is today until much later. As late as 2004, it was "still mostly selling just books and DVDs," even as it was "under siege from multiple sides" including retailers like Best Buy, said Vox. That is when Bezos' firm launched the company's Prime subscription service, a "$79-a-year loyalty program that includes free two-day shipping on any order," said CNN. The yearly subscription fee kept shoppers in the Amazon universe, and eventually made making purchases on the site so easy as to be near-seamless. Today, "75% of Americans now use Amazon Prime, a record level of penetration," said Business Insider.

Over the years, Amazon continued to add innovative new products that disrupted existing industries, including the Kindle, a digital reader that "dominated every corner of the ebook industry" and today "might as well be synonymous with ebook, with its massive reach that accounts for 68% of overall" market for electronic book sales, said Book Riot. But it is Amazon's dominance of the global package shipping market, driven by Prime subscribers, that has made Bezos one of the richest people in history. Bezos "built the sprawling logistics and delivery empire" necessary "for many of us to buy almost anything we want with a click," said Vox. The company's labor practices and market dominance have been the target of regulatory investigations. Conditions in the company's warehouses have also drawn "scrutiny from government officials, labor groups and workers over high injury rates for the past several years," said The Guardian. Perhaps not coincidentally, in 2024 Amazon argued in a legal filing "that the "National Labor Relations Board was unconstitutional," said The New York Times.

Amazon's global network of warehouses, fulfillment centers and delivery services "is the envy of, and inspiration for, Amazon's business partners and competitors," said Vox. Amazon is also one of the largest private employers in the country and in February 2025 "dethroned Walmart in quarterly revenue for the first time ever," said CNBC. Amazon's market cap is an astonishing $2.36 trillion, according to Forbes.

Branching out to space, finance and journalism

As his Amazon empire grew larger and larger, Bezos became involved with a variety of other ventures. In 2005, he created Bezos Expeditions, a venture capital and investment fund "through which he owns stakes in many companies including space-transportation startup Blue Origin," said The Wall Street Journal. In 2013, he bought the Washington Post for $250 million in cash, a maneuver which "stunned the media industry and sent shockwaves around Washington D.C.," said Politico. Bezos promised staff "that his ownership would bring no radical change to the paper's core values." In 2017, after Donald Trump's first presidential victory, Bezos added "Democracy Dies in Darkness," a "dramatic and alliterative phrase," beneath the paper's digital masthead, said the Post. The paper "lost $77 million" in 2023 and has "seen a dramatic 50% drop in audience since the highs of 2020," said CNN. In 2024, Bezos pulled the paper's endorsement of Kamala Harris, triggering an exodus of tens of thousands of subscribers as well as a number of staff.

Bezos' net worth took a hit from one of the world's most expensive divorces. In 2019, he and MacKenzie Scott announced that they were splitting. As part of the settlement, "Bezos handed Scott a 4% stake in Amazon, transferring a total of $38 billion in shares into her name," said the Independent. Bezos was, at the time, the world's richest man, and even shaving $38 billion off of his fortune left him with $119 billion. It would not be long before the external shock of a global pandemic helped his fortune recover.

The Covid-19 pandemic "disproportionately padded the wealth of the richest," including Bezos, said The Guardian. As the demand for delivery services skyrocketed during the acute phase of the pandemic, Amazon's value soared, as did Bezos' net worth. Amazon's stock price went from just under $91 a share on February 28, 2020 to more than $173 a share in mid-October of 2020. Bezos' net worth jumped to more than $200 billion in 2021 but marginally declined to $196 billion by March 2024, said Yahoo Finance. That still made him the second-richest person in the world. Forbes, on the other hand, pegs his net worth at $233.1 billion as of February 21, 2025, which ranks him third on the list of the world's wealthiest people, with Meta's Mark Zuckerberg taking second place.