TikTok has withdrawn a controversial filter that allowed users to alter their photos to make themselves look heavier. Each AI-filtered video on the app follows the same pattern. It starts with an unedited photo of the user—usually slim—before the “chubby filter” trickles down the screen, altering the subject’s physique, while the song “Anxiety” by American rapper and singer-songwriter Doechii plays. As more and more of these videos appeared, a backlash built from users concerned about an implicit body-shaming message. People began commenting on them—“this trend is mean girl coded,” wrote one user, whose comment received more than 5,000 likes. TikToker sadiebass16 said in a video: “Imagine you’re just trying to exist on this app and you see thousands of people using an AI filter to have a body that looks like your body, shaming it and all the comments being like ‘ugh, imagine.’ A lot of people can imagine.” Luna, a health and wellbeing app for teens, also criticized the filter for promoting “body shaming and unhealthy beauty standards.” CNN has reached out to TikTok for comment. The company told the BBC it had removed the filter from its app and that it was reviewing videos that featured the filter, making them ineligible for recommendation and blocking them from teen accounts. TikTok added that the filter was uploaded by a company called CapCut, which is a separate entity but has the same parent company, ByteDance. A search Monday morning for “chubby filter” brought up no results on the phone app. However, a search on the desktop version still threw up some content. There are hundreds of filters on TikTok, and many are harmless—for example, adding bunny ears or a dog nose to a face. However, the app’s beauty filters have been widely criticized as damaging to users’ self-esteem. One such filter smoothes out wrinkles, supposedly returning users to their teenage selves but potentially playing into ageist beauty tropes. The chubby filter, critics say, reinforces the widely perceived connection between beauty and thinness. A TikToker who posts under the name SaffsStuff took the filter to task in a video that has received more than 100,000 views: “I don’t think it’s funny, I don’t think it’s light-hearted. I think it’s part of this bigger problem of diet culture and heroin chic really becoming a proper, proper trend on social media at the moment.” One small study from 2019 linked the use of social media filters with higher acceptance of cosmetic surgery, while researchers from Harvard Business Review found in 2021 that people with high confidence in their looks can actually be more unsettled by seeing “improvements” to their face than those who already had insecurities. TikTok announced last November that children under the age of 18 would no longer have access to beauty filters following a report it commissioned that investigated the impact of these effects on young people.

Kim Haberly’s dark blonde hair hangs behind her shoulders away from her face. Her almond-shaped eyes are faintly ringed by the yellow tone of an almost-healed bruise. There are two thumb-sized divots next to her hairline (barely perceptible until she points it out) from her recent temple lift, a cosmetic surgery that lifts the outer brow. Ironically, her swollen face looks plump and round despite her partial buccal fat removal — a procedure that extracts the soft pads of tissue found inside the cheeks to create a slimmer face. Still, she could pop to the store without raising so much as an eyebrow from on-lookers. It’s not until Haberly turns her face to the right and raises the camera close to her ear, displaying two freshly sutured incisions, that you might suspect she is fresh out of a facelift. “I’ve woken up really swollen today because I slept on my side,” Haberly told CNN over a video call from her hotel in Turkey. Last month, Haberly traveled over 7,700 miles from her home in Perth, Australia to receive one of the most invasive facial surgeries available: a deep plane facelift. The advanced lifting technique — which has become a favorite of specialist surgeons for its apparent longer lasting results — not only repositions the top layer of skin (known as an endoscopic facelift) but also the complex network of tissue and fibrous muscles below. At 37, Haberly, who also had a neck lift operation, is almost a decade more junior than the youngest average facelift candidate in Australia, and in the eyes of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), is at least a whopping 18 years ahead of schedule. Traditionally used to reduce signs of aging, the facelift is often associated with those in later life. In the US, almost 60% of facelift patients in 2023 were aged between 55 and 69, according to ASPS. Similarly Generation X, which encompasses those aged from 45 to 60, were the primary age group seeking out facelifts in Australia that same year, research from the Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery and Medicine shows. And although there is no published data on the average age of a facelift patient in the UK, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) recently reported the procedure is “more common among those 50 and above.” Yet, in the last few years, an increasing number of younger people have been seeking out the surgery — not as an anti-aging method but to finesse their features, having grown up in an extremely digital world where their physical appearances are constantly on show. According to the ASPS, the number of facelift patients in 2023 aged between 20-29 and 30-39 each jumped by 7% compared to the previous year, while those from the 40-54 age group grew by just 3%. Dr. Jonathan Zelken, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Newport Beach, California, who has performed a number of facelifts, has found that some of his clients in their 20s and 30s “want sharper jaw lines, sharper cheeks, sharper brows,” he told CNN over the phone. Rather than eliminate wrinkles, their goal is to enhance their existing appearance, Dr. Zelken explained. “​​It’s not a rejuvenation strategy. It’s a beautification strategy.” Mainstream appeal The first known facelift was performed at Berlin’s Charite Hospital over 120 years ago. In 1901, an intrepid German doctor called Eugene von Holländer was approached by a Polish aristocrat looking for smoother skin. With her hands clasped to the sides of her face, the well-to-do woman is said to have demonstrated her request by lifting the corners of her mouth and cheeks. But Holländer was initially reluctant to operate, given that no such operation existed. Ultimately, as he recorded in his 1912 medical paper, he fell victim to “the art of feminine persuasion” and readied his scalpel. While there is little public information about patient zero, including her name, Holländer’s notes of her “aging wrinkles” and “drooping cheeks” suggest she was around the age of a prototypical candidate. Over a century later, the surgery is breaking new ground once again. This time, with those under 40. It’s a controversial procedure, but Dr. Zelken is largely in support of the newfound interest from this burgeoning demographic, whose operations have produced some of his “favorite” results. “It’s almost like you are doing a filter for social media in real life by doing these procedures,” said Dr. Zelken, who was hesitant to share the cost of his work, but pointed to Southern California’s ballpark range of $30,000 to $100,000 per facelift. While he acknowledged that a 20-something year old looking for a facelift would be a “yellow flag,” he wouldn’t be deterred solely on that. “It’s hard to put an age minimum on this procedure,” Dr. Zelken reasoned. Even where there are no drooping cheeks or aging wrinkles, “you can achieve really attractive change,” he said. That’s also the opinion of some facelift patients. Emily Cipryk was 28 years old when she flew from Toronto, Canada to Istanbul, Turkey for a deep plane mid-facelift — a procedure that raises the tissue and skin around the corner of eyes as well as cheeks. “I really wanted to enhance myself, just to feel good about myself again,” she told CNN on a phone call. Cipryk’s previous job in financial technology during the pandemic meant she was on Zoom calls for hours a day, with her face constantly reflected back at her. “I partied a lot, from university until my late 20s, and it caught up with me… I just didn’t look good,” she said. Cipryk received a total of six surgeries at once, including a blepharoplasty, lip lift, a rhinoplasty and partial buccal fat removal, which cost a total of €13,000 (about $14,140). The process was entirely financed by her fiancé, who also traveled with her to Turkey. “I did six procedures at once so I could just get it all done,” said Cipryk. She noted that she was “very happy” with the results. While Cipryk’s procedures went well, she cautioned others to “be careful” when selecting a surgeon in Turkey. “People get ahead of themselves and think, ‘Oh, it’s so cheap, I can afford it.’ And they might go to someone who’s not even a real plastic surgeon,” she said. “I’ve heard of people going to a real estate agent to get a hair transplant (because) they’re not doing their research.” In 2023, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons published a joint statement with the Turkish Society of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons warning of a rise in “serious complications and even deaths” linked to the “significant increase in numbers of patients travelling abroad for aesthetic plastic surgery.” Online pressures Using plastic surgery to maintain a youthful and symmetric appearance is not a new concept. Cosmetic procedures were first popularized in the early 20th century by Hollywood actors concerned with enhancing their on-screen appearance. But with the advent of social media and and the popularization of selfies, the pressures once reserved for those on the world stage now affect many individuals. Catherine*, a 33-year-old from Southern California, spends much of her time on Instagram and TikTok. “I’m watching videos of girls who are in their early 20s that are Instagram influencers and also celebrities who get the best work done,” she told CNN over a phone call. “So, you’re looking at all these people who are a lot younger and they’re perfect, and you’re really chasing that, even though that’s maybe not attainable for the average person.” For Haberly, the desire for a facelift was partly born out of the rapid weight loss she achieved through semaglutide injections, which led her to drop about 15 pounds. Around three years ago, she started to notice loose skin around her jawline and began using sports tape — designed to support muscles and ligament injuries — to hide these areas. It also didn’t help that as part of Haberly’s job as a hair colorist, she would often film her clients’ coloring sessions and post them on Instagram. Despite not being the focal point of the video, Haberly would often receive disparaging comments such as “You look haggard, you look old.” Haberly recounted: “That was probably more when the camera was lower. I would always know when I was going to get those (comments) because I could see myself when I posted that video.” Ultimately, Haberly opted to undergo a facelift surgery, as she hoped it would “help the longevity of my career, which is really important.” How young is too young? Some surgeons are more wary of operating on younger patients. Haberly initially struggled to access the type of facelift she wanted in Australia — a country which requires a psychiatric test prior to a consultation with a cosmetic surgeon. She passed her mental health checks but was warned by local doctors on having a drastic procedure at her age. One surgeon offered an alternative, less invasive option that involved repositioning the skin rather than removing it entirely. Harberly was recommended by another doctor to wait until she was 50 for a facelift — but she didn’t want to reverse the clock, she wanted to pause it. “I want it now while I’m traveling the world and I’m out there and my face is everywhere,” she said. A similar sentiment was shared by Naomi*, a 45-year-old patient of Dr. Zelken’s who had a deep plane facelift last year. “I want to enjoy it now,” she told CNN. “I don’t want to wait until things get worse and worse… Let’s get ahead of it.” On why a facelift appealed to her, Catherine explained: “I went through eight years of school plus grad school. I think the stress starts to show on you.” She added that she also felt insecure about some “asymmetry” caused by a medically necessary neck operation in her 20s, and after years of consistent Botox and laser therapy, she wanted “something that was 100% guaranteed to give me a result.” Catherine’s operation, which took place at her local clinic and included a lower face and deep plane neck lift, as well as the extra expense of overnight monitoring from a nurse, cost between $25,000 and $30,000. However, there’s reason to be cautious, according to Dr. Kelly Killeen, a board-certified plastic surgeon based in Beverly Hills. “The older population, they’re looking at the surgery because they want to restore something they had in their youth. Whereas younger people are sometimes chasing something that doesn’t exist,” she told CNN over a phone call. Face-tuning apps play a role in this, Killeen explained, pointing to facial laxity — a term used by surgeons to refer to looser skin — as an example that may seem unappealing but is expected with daily movement and neck function. “It doesn’t feel normal (to younger patients) because with the way people edit their photos and shoot their videos, you can’t sometimes see that celebrities have laxity in (physical) areas (that) bend,” explained Killeen, pointing to the neck and jaw as examples. Health and safety Whether young facelift patients encounter greater risks than those in their 50s and 60s is disputed from surgeon to surgeon. In Dr. Zelken’s view, surgery complications such as nerve damage or muscle paralysis could be felt more deeply by a younger patient, as opposed to someone older. One disadvantage of starting young is the higher likelihood of repeat operations, warned Californian surgeon Dr. Carl Truesdale. “Someone who is searching for a facelift when they’re younger are less tolerant of age in their face, so they’re going to be more sensitive to seeing age in their face when they’re older, right?” he said. The more surgeries that are performed over a lifetime, the higher potential there is for traumatized tissue, Dr. Truesdale added, noting that revision operations are inherently more challenging. He estimated that last year he turned down facelift operations for around 50 people under the age of 40, with the reason that they “don’t need it.” Determined to undergo the procedure, Haberly eventually scheduled a virtual consultation with a doctor in Turkey, communicating with a receptionist via Whatsapp and sending through photos of her face, pinching her skin and moving her head as directed. Her surgeon in Istanbul then sent through a procedure plan along with the price — $19,425 — and she flew overseas. When Haberly woke up the day after her surgery, the sensation in her body was unbearable. The swelling and bruising she went on to experience was underestimated by doctors, who weaned her off pain medication prematurely, leading to “excruciating pain” as a result, she said. “For two days straight, I was shaking (and) trembling,” Haberly recalled. Watching the clock on the hospital wall in a foreign country, minutes seemed to stretch into hours. “I remember saying to my mom, ‘What if I die from this pain? What if this pain never goes away?’” she said. By day five, Haberly didn’t require any more pain relief. “I’d never recommend anyone do this. But you know, pain becomes distant,” she said. “I can see how happy I’m going to be with the results.”

“I never thought that Medicaid would become an issue in my family, but it has.” That was the first line of a note I received this week from a retired investment industry veteran whose autistic son receives coverage from the program. A similar email arrived from one of the most affluent towns in California. Yes, Medicaid primarily serves Americans with the lowest incomes, and you may not count yourself among them. But now that the program is potentially on the chopping block, as Republicans in Congress seek to make up to $2 trillion in spending cuts, it’s a good time to consider others who qualify. It could be an aging parent who needs nursing home care, whose significant nest egg has been drained after 20 years of retirement. Or it could be a 26-year-old adult child who can’t be covered on your health insurance anymore but is not yet making much money. Or perhaps it’s a severely disabled child. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Millions of people who are financially comfortable now may be just one bad break away from needing Medicaid for themselves or a member of their immediate family. Without coverage, the cost of care for an aging parent or a sick or disabled child — of any age — can be ruinous. Medicaid is a shield against anxiety for the luckiest among us. If there is any chance your family could face enormous bills from situations like the ones that follow, the Medicaid policy debate affects you, too. Long-Term Care Medicaid pays for nursing home and other long-term care for people who have mostly run out of money. (Medicare does not pay for such care in most circumstances.) Often, middle-aged people are astounded when they start helping an aging parent or another relative and find that the median annual cost of a semiprivate room in a nursing home is $111,325, according to an annual survey by Genworth, a company in the long-term-care planning business. They’re relieved when nursing home employees tell them that their parents will qualify for Medicaid once those parents draw down their own funds (or already do qualify) — and it won’t cost the adult children anything. “This is everybody’s coverage,” said David C. Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. Your 26-Year-Old Adult One law that most people don’t appreciate until they hit their 20s (or their child does) is a requirement that health insurers allow most parents to keep that child on their plan until the child turns 26, providing it offers coverage for dependents. After turning 26, they’re on their own. And no matter how well-off you are, it doesn’t guarantee that your 26-year-old will have gainful employment, let alone the kind that has employer-provided health insurance. Enter Medicaid, which often covers individual adults who earn no more than $21,597 annually. The website for KFF, a nonprofit health research group, has a number of clear explainers on various categories of eligibility. (Which state you live in can matter a lot for all categories of Medicaid beneficiaries, and states administer the programs.) People in their 50s don’t usually boast about their 20-something children being on Medicaid. I know of two recipients in my circle in this category, because I inquire about such things. Ask around; they’re probably in your circle, too. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The Disabled For most children with an incurable but not fatal condition — and many adults with a disability that prevents them from working or earning much — there is usually at least one family member managing some aspect of their care. But those family members may not be paying for it. If your minor child has, say, spina bifida or cerebral palsy, your health insurance may not cover every therapy or the health aides who will allow you to avoid becoming a full-time caregiver. Medicaid often steps in to pay for many such expenses, no matter how much the parents earn. Some adult children with autism may not be able to work, drive to work or live alone without a lot of help. But they may still want independence. The assistance and aides necessary for them to live away from family, though, may not be on the family’s dime. Medicaid pays many expenses for those who are eligible, no matter their parents’ assets. So if you’re pregnant or considering becoming a parent, Medicaid is a likely backstop if your child ends up needing an enormous amount of care. The same thing is true if your 20-year-old college student has a disabling accident, your 25-year-old has a severe stroke and only partly recovers or your 30-year-old has a life-altering mental health diagnosis. It may also be true if you want to adopt. When Kelly M. Smith and his partner adopted two brothers from the Connecticut foster-care system and moved them to North Carolina, the boys qualified for Medicaid and stayed on it until they were young adults. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Later on, Mr. Smith’s grandmother turned 100 and could no longer live alone. Medicaid paid for her nursing home care until she died. “Medicaid supports everyone, including us upper-incomers,” he said. Mr. Smith sent me the loveliest picture of his family, and he wasn’t the only one who shared snapshots. But the messages with some of those photos were harrowing. When parents hear about the possibility of even moderate Medicaid cuts, they are scared out of their minds. They’re also teeming with rage at what they see as the cruelty of it all. President Trump has promised not to cut the program. Rhetoric around Medicaid “fraud, waste and abuse” floats in the ether, but there is no formal legislative blueprint yet. All we have for now are the statistics and the stories. The statistics are these: Medicaid pays for roughly 50 percent of long-term services and support (like nursing homes and in-home care), according to KFF, and the program covers more than 70 million people. The stories are yours to tell — and to coax out of others who might otherwise be disinclined to discuss a delicate part of their financial lives. “Talk about it. Celebrate it,” said Brittany van der Salm, who spent years working for consulting firms that helped states improve their Medicaid programs. “It’s something to be proud of. You’ve made a great decision for yourself in seeking and getting care.”

Hugues Oyarzabal, one of Europe’s most accomplished surfers and among the first to record spectacular feats from inside the curl of a wave using digital cameras, died on Feb. 21 at his home in Biarritz, France. He was 39. His parents, Charles and Lucette Oyarzabal, said he had taken his own life. Friends told The New York Times that Oyarzabal had lived with bipolar disorder from childhood. “His physical and psychological suffering took its toll,” his parents told The Times through a translator. “He has chosen to leave us, to rediscover the peace and serenity he has been unable to find over the last few years.” Oyarzabal surfed some of the most challenging waves in the world, from the Basque coasts of northern Spain and southwestern France to Southern Africa and beyond. In his later years, he found what he called “a second home” in Indonesia, spending part of every year there and seeking out spots that had rarely, if ever, been surfed, notably at Desert Point, on Lombok island, east of Bali, and at Uluwatu, on the Bukit Peninsula. He also made acclaimed surfing documentaries, including “Peace and Left,” a multipart series, its title referring to a “left-hand wave,” one that breaks to the left from a surfer’s perspective. Oyarzabal began videotaping his surfing exploits in 2001, as a teenager, using a Mini-DV camcorder in a waterproof box attached to his board. He captured images of himself riding through “tubes” or “barrels” — the tunnels of air created inside cresting waves, which the greatest surfers can ride in for hundreds of yards. He is believed to have been the first to film himself inside a barrel, and to photograph and videotape himself looking backward through one. He later moved on to more sophisticated GoPro digital cameras as they came on the market. In December 2012, when he was 26, he was invited to Hawaii to be honored at the first-ever GoPro Awards ceremony. The American surfer Kelly Slater, an 11-time world champion, presented him with an award for his photography and video work. One “selfie” image captured him inside the tube of a wave in Skeleton Bay, Namibia. Nowadays, extreme sports athletes, from big wave surfers to mountain climbers, commonly use GoPro or other point-of-view cameras, placing them all over their bodies or on their equipment. Oyarzabal is thought to be the first surfer to create a device that clamped a camera to his teeth, affording the most direct point of view of a surfer. His surfing friends variously described him as idiosyncratic, unpredictable, manic, lovable and loyal. Hugues Oyarzabal (roughly pronounced OO-geh oy-ar-ZAH-bahl) was born on March 7, 1985, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a fishing port in the Basque region of southwestern France. He grew up in the village of Biriatou, on the French side of the river Bidassoa. When he began surfing in Indonesia, he added another first name, Waian (Balinese for “firstborn son”). It led to his logo, WHO (for Waian Hugues Oyarzabal), which he used on his website and in photographs. At elementary school in Biriatou, Hugues excelled at tennis and paleta, a court sport similar to pelota, in which a leather bat or glove is used to smack a ball against a wall. But at age 11 he fell in love with surfing, starting in the Bay of Biscay on the Basque coast. During high school in Hendaye, near his home, he surfed some of the most formidable waves off Basque beaches. One beach, Belharra, on the French Basque coast, was the scene of rare but violent waves that were considered unsurfable, known to have swallowed up many a fishing boat. But Oyarzabal took on the challenge and succeeded. (The surf was later calmed by a breakwater.) His passion for surfing became so consuming that he left school at 16 and, financed by his understanding parents, moved to the Sunshine Coast of Australia to enroll in a sports and education program under a private coach, who improved his surfing and his English. For the rest of his life, Oyarzabal considered himself a so-called freesurfer, unbound by the need to compete and instead content to be at one with the waves, performing unique feats that became famous among the global surfing community. “I’m always looking to try different things,” he told the Britain-based Surf Europe magazine in 2006. “I hate the idea of having a surf routine.” In Australia, he met Jana Kondo, who returned with him to France, where they were married in 2006. They traveled to surfing beaches around the world. In 2011, they had a daughter, Kailani, meaning “sea and sky” in Hawaiian, and Oyarzabal later taught her to surf. She is now an accomplished surfer in her own right. The marriage ended in divorce in 2013. Oyarzabal’s daughter and parents are his only immediate survivors. After his death, about 100 surfers gave Oyarzabal a Hawaiian-style farewell by paddling out from Hendaye, close to his home, to scatter flowers on the water. Half a world away, fellow surfers in Indonesia did the same.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. It’s never been more clear that the Democratic Party—both activist and rank-and-file wings alike—is spoiling for a fight. The broad feistiness within the party exploded last week after Chuck Schumer helped Republicans pass a nakedly partisan spending plan over the objection of the majority of his fellow Democratic Senators. The moment is giving prominent Democrats their best chance yet to provide their own vision for dragging their party out of its current state of almost-total irrelevance. The dynamic seems like it is coasting toward a satisfying release of pent-up pressure. It also may matter for naught. The latest polls confirm this is a crisis moment for Democrats. Their brand is at an all-time low. Just 29% of all Americans have a positive view of the party, a 20-point swing from January 2021 when Trump was leaving office and Joe Biden was moving into the White House, according to polling released this week from CNN. Just 63% of Democrats hold positive views of their party. But what’s most revealing is what the party faithful want to see out of its leaders. A whopping 57% of Democrats say their party needs to mainly work to block Republicans’ agenda, a shift from 23% of the same segment who wanted opposition to be the central goal during the first year of Trump’s term. To be clear, this is not 2017, and the current fight is taking on an entirely different shade of contempt. The Resistance may not be showing up like it did for Trump’s first term; that does not mean a more muscular opposition lacks a constituency. There’s no reason to think that this give-’em-hell sentiment is temporary. Those CNN numbers are from a poll taken in the days before almost a dozen Senate Democrats, led by Schumer, helped Republicans avoid a government shutdown. The boiling debate over that fracturing vote is now driving the conversation over how Democrats should move forward. For the party’s leading voices—many of them hopefuls in the 2028 shadow presidential primary—their answer to the Schumer Rorschach test may take on outsized weight. Take Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has been not-so-subtly making the pre-2028 rounds. On Tuesday, he stopped by the Center For American Progress for the first of that think tank’s sessions helping navigate the second Trump era. When given a chance to back up Schumer’s vote that kept the government’s lights on facing a midnight deadline at the end of last week, Pritzker took a pass. “Look, he’s the elected Leader,” Pritzker said. “I disagree with what he did and vehemently so. But I also know that he has done good work as a Senate Leader in other ways.” It was artful evasion that might serve him well in town halls up in New Hampshire, where he is already a familiar face in the state that historically held the first-in-the-nation primary and where he will headline the state Democratic Party’s biggest fundraiser next month. The counterpoint to Pritzker’s light touch on Schumer is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has been merciless in her disapproval of Schumer’s decision. Even before Schumer made his alliance with the GOP spending plan official, she was having talks with fellow Democrats about putting in motion a primary challenge against her fellow New Yorker in 2028. Even centrist and middling Democrats were suddenly interested in what a Sen. AOC would look like. Across the political spectrum, there was a sincere uneasiness about how Democrats were moving forward. Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland so far is alone in openly calling for Schumer to exit, but he is likely to find companions if things continue apace. Once the run-of-the-mill lawmakers’ consultants can show them polling to prove this isn’t a risky footing, expect plenty of others to follow. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, is working to broaden his base in ways that are either canny or clumsy; the verdict is still out. He urged Senate Democrats to shut the government down rather than give Republicans the win on a spending plan that made deep cuts, but also defended his recent chummy conversation with conservative insiders like Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. “I think we all agreed after the last election that it’s important for Democrats to explore new and unique ways of talking to people,” Newsom told supporters by email. (Perhaps that stance is why, according to a new book, Trump was terrified to face the California Governor if he were to have replaced Biden on the ticket last year.) For those liberals who’ve already unfollowed Newsom on Bluesky, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz may be more their speed. As Republicans are shutting down town halls to avoid angry constituents, Walz is backfilling with a tour of House districts with Republican incumbents. On the topic of Senate Democrats and shutting down the government, Walz recently put the issue to an Omaha audience, “I get the overwhelming feeling that the vast majority of people wish they would have voted no. Is that true?” The audience erupted with applause. But Walz, who has proven to be a much better player when given a free hand to campaign as he sees best, stayed firmly in the lane of pragmatists. “Chuck understands and what folks understand is that a shutdown comes at a hell of a price,” Walz told the local NPR affiliate. That approach also came through during an earlier Walz stop in Des Moines, where he seemed to suggest the search for the party’s next leader is a pointless one. “There is not going to be a charismatic leader ride in and do this. It is going to be people coming out on a beautiful Friday afternoon, demanding change and holding people accountable.” There is no shortage of others whose recent moves seem less focused on steering the party forward, and more about claiming their space on 2028 bingo cards. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore headlined a white-tie dinner with Washington insiders just this weekend, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last week passed on a Senate run in Michigan, and no one is taking their eye off Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, or former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Then there’s former Vice President Kamala Harris, the substitute for Biden late in the 2024 race who is telling everyone asking that she is likely to make a call on a 2028 race by the end of the summer. All of this is feeding the still-in-the-womb 2028 background rumbling inside the opposition party that is sharply divided over just how much capital-O opposing needs to be done, and to what ends. Trump will remain a driving force for the foreseeable future. Unlike Republicans, who this week telegraphed that they were ready to stay the course for 2028 when they made Vice President J.D. Vance the Republican National Committee’s chief fundraiser, the Democrats do not have a unified understanding of how to handle the coming months, let alone the midterms or 2028. If they do not find a general map, their time in the wilderness will continue to be completely dictated by Trump and his allies. But as the internal bickering drags on, all weary voters are seeing is a party with no shortage of talk about fighting Trump, but without a steady notion of how to actually do it.

Last spring, when my wife and I were preparing to welcome our first child, we started a list of baby gear — a rite of passage for parents. The difference with our list, or so I thought, was that it would contain only the best stuff because it was vetted by me, a tech columnist with 20 years of experience testing products. After our baby arrived in the summer, I learned I was wrong. It turns out there is no best baby gear, because what worked for other parents often didn’t work for us. Even though I had picked a top-rated stroller, its wheels were inadequate for our neighborhood’s pothole-riddled streets. The electronic bottle warmer listed as a must-have by many Redditors was too slow at heating up milk for our vocal newborn. The Snoo, the $1,700 robotic bassinet with a cult following, did nothing to lull our little one to sleep. Now past the sleepless nights of the newborn phase, my wife and I wound up with a well-rested, content child. What helped, in part, was pivoting to a different approach with baby gear, analyzing our particular problems as new parents and looking for ways to solve them. My highs and lows with baby tech may not be every parent’s experience. But the lessons I learned from my misadventures, from internet-controlled night lights to nanny cams, should be universally applicable. Here’s what to know. Knowledge triumphs over fancy gizmos, including Snoo When our daughter was first born, she snoozed effortlessly in a no-frills bassinet I bought from another parent through Facebook Marketplace. But when she turned about 3 months old, she began loudly protesting naps. That made me consider the Snoo, the chicly designed white bassinet that automatically sways and plays sounds to soothe a fussy baby. Among parents, the Snoo is a polarizing product not just because of its price ($1,700, or $160 a month for rental). Several of my friends with the privilege of owning one called the device a godsend that saved them from the brink of insanity. Others said their child hated it. I had read the book about soothing newborns written by the Snoo’s creator, Harvey Karp, so I wanted to give it a shot. Fortunately, a friend lent me a Snoo. I downloaded a companion app and paid a $20 subscription for access to some of its extra perks, including a rocking motion that mimicked the bumps and jostles of riding in a car. My baby was initially unfazed when we strapped her in. But when she started crying and the bassinet reacted by swaying and playing white noise, she cried even louder. After a few weeks of experimenting, we reverted to her old-school bassinet. A spokeswoman for Happiest Baby, the company behind Snoo, said it was ideal to acclimate babies to the product as soon as they were born because it simulates the movements and sounds a baby experiences inside a mother’s womb. However, the company advertises Snoo as suitable for babies up to 6 months of age, and my daughter fit this criterion. Editors’ Picks Kristen Stewart Thinks the Critics at Cannes Are Being Too Nice These Boomer Radicals in Vermont Just Want to Be ‘Good Progressives’ How to Manage Your Blood Sugar With Exercise The tech that eventually helped? E-books. One late night, I downloaded a $14 e-book by a pediatrician about infant psychology and sleep. I began to understand why my 3-month-old was fighting sleep and how to anticipate when she would need a nap. We tried the book’s methods, and within a few weeks my baby began napping regularly and sleeping through the night. Knowledge is more powerful — and cheaper to access — than a fancy bassinet. The best tech helped parents with broken brains My wife and I found the most useful baby tech to be smartphone apps that helped us process information in our sleep-deprived state. The free app Huckleberry, a tool for parents to log bottle feedings, diaper changes and sleep durations for their babies, was crucial for my wife and me to communicate the baby’s needs with each other when we took turns working shifts. It also provided useful data for our pediatrician. Also helpful was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s free Milestones app, which shows a checklist of a child’s expected developmental milestones at each age, such as learning to roll at 6 months. When she was about 7 months old, our daughter began to crawl. We could no longer take our eyes off her, so we shifted to consuming more parenting literature through a different medium: audiobooks. Single-task baby tech is unnecessary Lots of popular baby tech are gadgets that serve a single purpose. The $60 Hatch Rest, a night light that plays white noise, is a product on many parents’ lists of must-haves for helping babies sleep. The $250 Nanit Pro, a webcam that can alert you to a baby’s movements and cries, is another. So is the $50 Philips Avent electronic bottle warmer, which heats up a bottle of refrigerated milk with the press of a button in a few minutes. I received all of those products as gifts through our registry. Though I liked using them, I ultimately realized other products I already owned could accomplish the same tasks. The Nanit webcam had an impressive set of features for monitoring our baby, including a tool that automatically detected what time I put her to bed and what time she woke up. But that feature required the camera to be mounted on a tall tripod against a wall to get a bird’s-eye view of the crib, which was unfeasible with the layout of our bedroom. We used the Nanit just like any webcam for periodically checking on the video feed of our child in her crib. That could also be done with any general-purpose security camera, like the $100 indoor Nest Cam. Our baby slept better in pitch dark, so the Hatch Rest’s night light, the colors of which can be changed through a smartphone app, proved unhelpful. (Maybe when our daughter is older she will appreciate that the light can be set on a timer so it illuminates when it’s time for her to wake up.) We used only the feature for playing white noise. When we traveled, we used a tablet or smartphone to play white noise in the hotel room, making a dedicated sound machine superfluous. The Philips Avent bottle warmer initially seemed useful, but every caregiver for our daughter, including relatives, my wife, myself and now our nanny, stopped using it. We each independently realized that a metal coffee mug partly filled with hot water from the sink was faster. This is not to say that any of the aforementioned products won’t work well for another parent. But the problem with the premise of the best baby gear is that it requires any two infants to be alike, which is rarely the case. It’s best to start with getting to know your baby before starting a list, rather than the other way around.

Deciding where to live has always been a high-stakes financial decision, but a changing climate makes it even more critical. Just ask any of the millions of Americans who have already experienced the destruction that a warming planet can deliver to your doorstep. For them, a theoretical risk has already become an all too personal one. More people are facing some degree of climate-related risk, whether it’s exposure to increasingly powerful storms endemic to a hotter atmosphere or a rising susceptibility to droughts. The challenge is knowing just how much risk you face, what you’re willing or able to accept and what you can do to reduce the threats. This is particularly true for people when much of their wealth may be tied up in their home (or will be, if you’re contemplating a purchase). And how do you truly know what’s safe, anyway? There isn’t a manual for this type of assessment, and the threats aren’t fully knowable for the particular region, city or parcel of land you call home (or hope to). But there are more resources now, even if they’re imperfect and incomplete. We delved into many of them and assembled a guide, with a series of questions nested within six sections, to help you gauge the climate vulnerability of a particular place or home. For all too long, weather-driven risks have been shrouded or simply ignored. But there are more warning signals now, and we should heed them and educate ourselves about the relative risks.

When Eleanor H., 66, called the Social Security Administration last month seeking details about her retirement benefits, she didn’t expect to comfort the representative who answered. The woman started sobbing. “I asked her what was wrong, and she said she and her co-workers were informed by email to accept a taxable $20,000 payout or risk termination,” said Eleanor, who lives in New Jersey (she asked to use only her first name out of privacy concerns). The rep still answered all of Eleanor’s questions. “Through her tears she said, ‘What am I going to do?’” The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the “third rail” of politics — largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken its chain saw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12 percent of its work force, at a time its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff. Many current and former Social Security officials fear the cuts could create gaping holes in the agency’s infrastructure, destabilizing the program, which keeps millions of people out of poverty and large percentages of retirees rely on for the bulk of their income. The actions have caused Social Security employees and former commissioners and executives of both parties to sound alarm bells, saying it would be difficult to repair the damage, which could threaten access to benefits. “Everything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” said Martin O’Malley, the most recent former Social Security commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He said he feared that Mr. Musk’s team had taken most of the actions necessary to create a total system collapse, whether in skyrocketing wait times for customer service, system interruptions or a timely payment of benefits. In a statement to The New York Times, the Social Security Administration said that it was “identifying efficiencies and reducing costs, with a renewed focus on mission critical work,” including streamlining redundant layers of management, and is “committed to ensuring Americans get the help they need.” Social Security benefits cannot be changed without legislation passed by Congress. But the delivery of those paychecks — and enabling new people to enroll or make changes — rests upon a complex set of systems that are powered using programming languages developed in the 1970s. The people who can most deftly operate the agency’s old systems are, perhaps not surprisingly, nearing or already eligible for retirement. At least 30 percent of the technical staff in the office of the chief information officer fits in those categories, former executives estimated. “We are looking at a degradation of the system as a whole because we have a whole line of expertise walking out the door,” said Shelley Washington, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1923, a unit of the federal workers’ union. “They are firing first and aiming later.” He said the delivery of checks for people already enrolled in the system shouldn’t be affected, for now — but it’s becoming increasingly uncertain who will be around to quickly fix issues when they arise. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Michael Astrue, a former agency commissioner appointed by President George W. Bush, said it appeared that Mr. Musk has imported the strategy he used when he bought Twitter, “where you go into some place established, level it and then figure you’re going to improvise your way out,” he said, speaking at a briefing on Thursday held by the National Academy of Social Insurance. “It’s extremely destructive.” Jason Fichtner, who held several positions at the agency, including deputy commissioner and chief economist, put it even more bluntly at the briefing. “It’s more like a drunk operating a wrecking ball,” he said. The White House issued a statement on Tuesday, reiterating that President Trump would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.Few dispute that the aging technology needs a reboot. The system hasn’t undergone a major overhaul because Congress hasn’t allocated money for it. It’s also an enormous undertaking, and a lack of continuity in leadership makes it difficult to carry out, current and former technology staff and executives said. It would take an estimated five to seven years and cost more than $2 billion, according to one former technology executive, who didn’t want to be named because the analysis had not been completed. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Though experts familiar with the agency’s operations acknowledged there was room to improve efficiency, they said it was already run leanly. The agency functions on a budget of less than 1 percent of its annual benefit payments, which provide retirement, survivor and disability payments. “This is extremely low,” Mr. O’Malley said, noting that it’s far lower than the administrative costs of private insurers. Confidentiality concerns That hasn’t stopped Mr. Musk’s team. Even without a permanent commissioner, the agency is making big decisions: It has already said it would eliminate 7,000 of its 57,000-person work force, and will close six of its 10 regional offices, which coordinate and provide support to employees. Of its 1,200 field offices that directly serve the public, more than 40 are to be closed, according to Social Security Works, an advocacy group. The group is trying to track the changes, but said that its data was based on an unreliable list released by DOGE. (The Social Security headquarters itself was also on a closings list, then later dropped.) Two dozen senior staff members have announced their departures, including the agency’s top three cybersecurity executives, according to a memo issued on Feb. 28 from Leland C. Dudek, the Social Security Administration’s acting commissioner. He took the reins when Michelle King, the previous acting commissioner, left abruptly after refusing to give DOGE representatives access to private data. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Tiffany Flick, the agency’s former acting chief of staff with 30 years of service at Social Security, recently recounted the events around that episode, which also led to her retirement. She expressed deep concerns about the safety of the confidential data and the program overall, according to her sworn testimony on March 6 in a federal lawsuit. The data, she said, has already been misinterpreted and used to spread misinformation. Mike Russo, the new chief information officer, “seemed completely focused on questions from DOGE officials based on the general myth of supposed widespread Social Security fraud, rather than facts,” Ms. Flick said. The “disregard for critical processes” and the “significant loss of expertise” have left her seriously concerned the programs will not continue to operate without disruption. “That could result in benefit payments not being paid out or delays in payments,” she said. Angela Digeronimo, a claims specialist and a union leader in New Jersey who has been with Social Security for 28 years, said she believed she was witnessing a dismantling of the agency. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “It will affect the public in a very tangible way,” she said, speaking in her capacity as a union official, noting that it already takes about eight months for applicants to the disability program to learn if they’re eligible. “I hate to say this, but more and more people will die while waiting for a medical determination on their disability claim.” Customer service concerns Nicole Francis, a financial planner in New York, called the agency last month on behalf of a 100-year-old client who wanted to change the bank into which her benefits were deposited. Ms. Francis knew there would be a wait, but she didn’t expect it to be more than two hours. Instead of holding, she visited her client at home and helped her make the change with a new online account. “Not all senior Americans have a trusted representative and should have the option of telephone customer service,” she said. Last week, in an effort to combat fraud, the agency said it would no longer allow beneficiaries to change bank information over the phone — only online or in person. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Musk has said that he wants to cut waste, fraud and abuse at the agency, but he and President Trump have continued to repeat false claims that millions of dead people are collecting benefits. In fact, the Social Security Office of the Inspector General, which is charged with uncovering fraud and inefficiencies, published a report in 2023 that explains why these people don’t have recorded deaths, but also do not collect checks. “Both Musk and Trump are grossly mischaracterizing the death data,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a former agency adviser. (Mr. Trump also fired the acting inspector general.) Last week, Mr. Musk, who has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, claimed that programs like it are used to attract illegal immigrants. The agency has said it collects more than $20 billion in payroll taxes annually from unauthorized workers, most of whom never collect benefits. “Mixing up these allegations of fraud with these partisan attacks, I think, kind of confuses the public,” said Jack Smalligan, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a former deputy associate director at the Office of Management and Budget. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The administration’s aggressive cost-cutting has begun to worry retirees like Eleanor H., who reached the distressed Social Security representative. She said she won’t be able to survive in retirement without her Social Security check, but has become so concerned about the administration’s actions that she called to see how much she would receive if she filed for benefits early, a few months before her full retirement age. Healthy retirees are often advised against claiming early because waiting longer locks in a higher benefit. The representative assured Eleanor that she thought her retirement benefits would be safe. “They will be busy coming for us,” she told her.

Car shopping may be especially challenging this year. President Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on all vehicles assembled outside the United States took effect on Wednesday. The tariffs will also apply to imported auto parts, beginning May 3, though carmakers will not have to pay duties on parts like engines or batteries that were made in the United States and later installed in cars in Mexican or Canadian factories. The tariffs could deal a major blow to the auto industry, which has also been affected by a second set of tariffs, 25 percent on imports of steel and aluminum, that took effect last month. This translates to a daunting market for car shoppers, who are already rattled by the high cost of new vehicles and the expensive loans to buy them. What impact could tariffs have on car prices? The potential impact of the tariffs on prices for new American cars ranges from $2,500 to $4,500 for some small crossovers and sedans to $10,000 to $12,000 for full-size S.U.V.s and $15,000 or more for some battery-electric vehicles, according to the latest estimates from Anderson Economic Group, a consulting firm in East Lansing, Mich. The effect on luxury cars imported from Europe and Asia could be much higher — $20,000 or more. The average transaction price for a new vehicle is about $45,000 or more than $48,000, depending on the data source. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “It’s a crazy situation for consumers, and even more difficult for manufacturers,” said Patrick Anderson, chief executive of the Anderson firm. The impact of the tariffs would vary by car model, since some rely more on imported parts than others. But rather than vastly increasing the price of specific vehicles, the industry is likely to spread increases across all types — “like peanut butter” — to smooth out the price increases, said Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at the market research firm J.D. Power. Mr. Anderson said manufacturers would “almost certainly cut back” on models that became significantly more expensive. What if I want to buy a car this year? Much remains uncertain, including how long the tariffs would stay in place. “We literally have no idea,” said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at the automotive site Edmunds.com. So if a new car wasn’t on your radar, there’s no need to rush to buy one, he said. A car is an expensive purchase. It’s important, he said, to take time to research models and get one that fits your needs and your budget. “Don’t panic-buy a car valued at $47,000.” Still, if you were planning to shop for a new car in the next few months anyway, and the model with your preferred features is available now, it may make sense to buy sooner rather than later. Jennifer Newman, editor in chief of the online car shopping site Cars.com, said that inventories of new cars were plentiful and that tariffs shouldn’t affect vehicles that were already sitting on sales lots. “If you’re thinking about buying a car, you need to be shopping now,” she said. And if you’re interested in an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid, now could also be a good time to consider one because you may qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 if you buy or lease a new one. (The Trump administration has said it aims to reduce or repeal the credit, although Mr. Trump also went on television last month to announce he is buying a Tesla.) But make sure an E.V. truly “suits you,” said Jake Fisher, senior director of the Consumer Reports auto test center. Weigh factors like how far you typically drive, he said, and whether you’ll have access to a charger at home or at work. Are used cars a better option? Used cars are also expected to get more expensive. Dealers, anticipating potential disruptions in the new car pipeline, are likely to step up purchases of used cars to stock their lots, Mr. Jominy said, and that will help to drive up used car prices. A quirk of the car leasing market is also expected to contribute to a tighter supply of the most desirable used cars — typically, those that are less than five years old. Many car leases last 36 months, and drivers often return them to the dealer when the lease ends, making them available for purchase. But three years ago, in 2022, there weren’t many cars available to lease because of chip shortages and other pandemic-related factors, Mr. Yoon said. So that means fewer off-lease cars are available for sale this year, which tends to raise prices. All of which means that if you’re in the market for a used car, you may pay more for a gently used vehicle or have to consider an older one. The average used car was listed for about $25,000 in January, according to the Kelley Blue Book, a used-car price guide. What’s happening with consumer protections for car shoppers? The Trump administration has moved to hobble the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency that oversees consumer loans, including automobile financing, by laying off staff and seeking to limit its funding. (The efforts are being challenged in court.) The bureau had previously been assertive in scrutinizing auto lenders. In 2023, under the Biden administration, the bureau ordered Toyota Motor Credit, the company’s U.S.-based auto financing arm, to pay $60 million for withholding refunds when consumers canceled add-on products like gap insurance. The bureau also accused the lender of falsely reporting that borrowers had missed payments, resulting in “tarnished” credit reports. And last year, the agency flagged illegal practices at auto finance companies, including repossessing cars even after borrowers had made timely payments or received loan extensions. Separately, a new rule adopted by the Federal Trade Commission that was aimed at protecting car shoppers from hidden fees and bait-and-switch pricing tactics at dealerships had been scheduled to take effect last summer but was struck down in January by a federal appeals court. The F.T.C. had said the so-called CARS rule, short for Combating Auto Retail Scams, would make it easier for people to shop around based on a car’s actual price, and would save buyers an estimated $3.4 billion a year. How should I prepare to buy a car? “Buying a car is always a tricky thing to do,” said John Van Alst, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, and uncertainty around the impact of tariffs “really makes it difficult.” Nevertheless, he said, some common-sense rules for buying a car still apply. Before heading to the dealership, research the cost of your preferred model and features. Check your credit report ahead of time and get preapproved for a loan from a bank or credit union so you can compare terms and won’t feel pressured to accept the dealership’s offering. Ms. Newman at Cars.com said that you did not have to negotiate price in person. You can do it by text or email, which can help create a record of the terms offered. Take a copy when you go to the dealer to settle the final details. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT When buying a used car, check independently with a vehicle history service like CarFax or AutoCheck to see if the car has been in an accident or damaged in a flood. Don’t simply accept the dealer’s copy in case it’s out of date, Mr. Van Alst said. There’s also a federal database at vehiclehistory.gov. Check for open recalls at safercar.gov, Mr. Van Alst said. “Don’t buy a car with an open safety recall.” If the reports turn up no red flags, he said, ask to take the car to both a mechanic and an auto body shop for an inspection to make sure the car is mechanically sound and safe. Skip dealer add-ons like gap insurance or upholstery protection. “They’re usually a horrible deal,” he said, adding that they are ripe for unfair markups. Where can I complain if I have a problem? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s complaint portal remains active. You can also complain to state consumer protection offices, which are often run by the state attorney general’s office.

While the slopes may still be open across much of North America, it’s time to think about next season. The major passes, including Epic and Ikon, as well as the smaller Mountain Collective, have recently announced sales for the 2025-26 season. The Indy Pass has already completed its early sales, although opportunities to purchase it will likely resurface later. Though the ski website SnowBrains found that most prices went up between 6 and 7 percent, spring sales are when passes are cheapest. “Now is the time to save and go skiing for under $100 a day,” said Dan Sherman, chief marketing officer at Ski.com, which offers ski packages. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The term “passes” has evolved to encompass prepurchased products that start with one-day tickets and aim to wean skiers off the walk-up window. Vail Resorts said three-quarters of its visitors last season used one of its Epic Passes, saving up to 65 percent on window prices. The strategy, said Mr. Sherman, “is to get people locked in early and reward them with discounted pricing.” Here’s a look at next season’s offerings. Epic Pass Despite a rough 2024-25 season in which patrollers at Vail’s Park City Mountain Resort waged a strike over the holiday season, Vail Resorts broke the introductory-price $1,000 threshold for its 2025-26 Epic Pass, now on sale for $1,051. (Last year the pass started at $982 and ended at $1,107). The pass offers unlimited access to Vail’s 42 resorts, including Vail Mountain and Breckenridge in Colorado, Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia, and Stowe in Vermont. Next season, Epic Pass will include five days at Verbier 4 Vallées in Switzerland, with more than 250 miles of runs across six ski resorts. Those purchasing the Epic Pass also get discounts on lift tickets for friends. Pass holders, including those with day passes, receive 20 percent off on-mountain food, lodging, gear rental and lessons. At Ski.com, Mr. Sherman counted more than 50 Epic configurations across variables like age and location. The Epic Local Pass (now $783) offers more restricted access to the Vail portfolio, but unlimited access to 29 resorts, including Breckenridge, Crested Butte and Keystone in Colorado. Epic Day Passes, which can be purchased for intervals between one and seven days, start from $47 to $100 a day, depending on the resort. Vail won’t say when prices will increase, but they tend to rise until going off sale; last year Epic passes were available until Dec. 2. Ikon Pass Sales of the Ikon Pass, offered by Alterra Mountain Company, begin March 13. The $1,329 pass offers unlimited access to 18 destinations, including Steamboat and Copper Mountain in Colorado; Mammoth Mountain and Palisades Tahoe in Calif.; and Crystal Mountain in Washington. Passholders get up to seven days each at 41 resorts, including Aspen Snowmass in Colorado; Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming, and Killington in Vermont. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The pass also covers resorts abroad, including SkiBig3 in Alberta; Kitzbühel; and — new this year — Ischgl in Austria; Zermatt and St. Moritz in Switzerland; Niseko United in Japan; and Valle Nevado in Chile. Ikon also has different subscription levels, including the cheaper Ikon Base Pass for $909, with unlimited access at 14 North American destinations and up to five days at 39 destinations worldwide, with blackout dates. Also subject to blackouts, the Ikon Session Pass is available in increments of two, three or four days at one or more of 43 destinations. A two-day pass starts at $259. Depending on the pass, perks this year include spring skiing, 25 percent off the window rate for friends or family, and discounts on food at several resorts. The Ikon Pass is typically available through early to mid-December. Mountain Collective The Mountain Collective offers two days each at 26 ski areas — many overlap with Ikon resorts — without blackout dates. Currently on sale, the 2025-26 adult pass costs $639 and includes Alta Ski Area and Snowbird in Utah, Aspen Snowmass, Jackson Hole and Sun Valley. Abroad, it includes resorts in Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Japan and New Zealand. Pass holders can get extra days at half off the window rate at most resorts. Friends and family get a 25 percent discount on one-day lift tickets, limited to eight tickets. Indy Pass The Indy Pass offers access to two days each at independently owned resorts, mostly in North America. For the next season, Indy made a guarantee of no fewer than 250 resorts and has added new-to-Indy resorts, including Burke Mountain in Vermont and Corralco Mountain & Ski Resort in Chile. Sales of the $369 pass closed on March 10, but the company suggests joining the waiting list to learn about new offers. Last October, for example, it reopened sales for a few weeks, closing Nov. 10. With just two days at each resort, Indy Pass best serves skiers interested in trying several resorts.