Years ago, stress kept Hannah Eden up at night before her CrossFit events. Beating her competitors “meant everything,” she says. But having a baby changed her mindset. Training for a half-Ironman in Hawaii, she focused less on the competition, and more on her own performance. “I was so grateful just that my body could do this, eight months postpartum,” she says. Feeling less pressure, she excelled, finishing the June race at a surprisingly fast pace. “It was such an individual journey,” she says. Like Eden, I’ve been chasing my (far less impressive) personal records lately: I run a 5K at an empty high school track every weekend, stubbornly trying to beat my fastest time ever, which I set years ago. I check my pace and, if I’m near my personal record, I push through agony to try to break it. My quest for a “PR,” as it’s called, is more exciting than going through the motions at the gym, and the extra exertion is boosting my cardio. Despite the empty track, I’m not alone: TikTok and Instagram are full of posts on PRs for running, lifting weights, punching reflex balls, deep-sea diving, and everything in between. “PRs are absolutely trending right now,” Eden says. Meanwhile, fitness trackers, smart machines, and coaches help people choose the right PR goals and achieve them. “With self-quantification becoming more precise and accurate, people enjoy the feedback,” says Hengchen Dai, an associate professor who studies decision-making at UCLA. Findings from Dai and others are pointing to a new science of PRs and how to nail them. Why PRs boost motivation People become more motivated and excel more when they set specific goals. PR goals can work especially well because they’re precisely tailored to your ability. “A personal best is tuned to an almost perfect level of personalized difficulty,” says Ashton Anderson, a University of Toronto associate professor of computer science who’s studied PRs in chess. “Beating your PR is achievable, but by definition it’s difficult, since you’ve never done it before. This calibrated difficulty gives personal bests their motivational power.” With PRs, “you’re not seeking approval from a peer group,” says writer Oliver Burkeman, who emphasizes personally meaningful goals in his book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. “Like the stoics, you focus on what you can control, without tormenting yourself over what you can’t.” Read More: What to Expect at Your First Therapy Session Competition with others, by contrast, may distract rather than motivate. “If you don’t measure up, you could be improving but still feel like a failure,” says Andrew Martin, a researcher of motivation at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Seeking a PR involves fewer unlucky breaks and clearer outcomes. (PR goals help students learn, too, Martin has found.) Of course, some people thrive on rivalries with others—think Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, or Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Both PR goals and external competition “can facilitate performance in the sports arena, classroom, and workplace,” says Andrew Elliot, a psychology professor at the University of Rochester. People with competitive personalities and higher skill levels may benefit uniquely by testing themselves against opponents. Elliot, for one, gets “tremendous enjoyment” from the challenges of his peers. Such competition and PRs aren’t mutually exclusive; it’s often helpful to get elements of both, studies show. Over the long haul, though, people who concentrate more on PRs may enjoy more intrinsic motivation, well-being, and steady devotion to their goals, Elliot says. “Social comparison can demotivate us and feel threatening, leading to burnout,” says Ilana Brody, a PhD student and Dai’s collaborator at UCLA. How to go for a PR Choose the activity PRs help with intrinsic motivation partly because they let people be creative. What you do and how you do it are totally up to you. BJ Fogg, a social scientist at Stanford University and author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, recommends choosing an area where you’re naturally proficient. Fogg is “terrible” at endurance races, so he goes for PRs involving shorter bursts. “I’m oddly good at one-minute sprint rowing,” he says. Or you could pick more of an uphill battle. Running 5Ks enticed me because I’d never shown much talent for it. Similarly, Eden wondered if finishing a half-Ironman just months after giving birth was hopeless. Barely able to run a mile at first, what intrigued her most was that the goal seemed nearly impossible. Read More: Should You Tape Your Mouth Shut When You Sleep? Such PR-striving enables self-discovery—separating self-imposed limits from what you’re truly capable of—and this is why many are drawn to them, suspects Eden, who helps people achieve PRs as an iFIT and NordicTrack trainer. “Doing hard things is becoming cool again,” she says. And many get ideas about what’s achievable by watching others on social media. “Maybe you don’t have the typical runner’s body shape, but you see someone who looks like you posting their time,” Eden says. Perhaps you’re a runner after all. Pick a benchmark After choosing the activity, set your sights on a specific measure. Beginners might pick a PR goal just slightly better than their previous best. Such a win garners social-media bragging rights, and it’s deeply satisfying—if the PR celebration dances are any indication. You can add a stretch goal for further improvement. Find stats on the performance of people your age and fitness level, and choose a measure reflecting these stats. It should seem like a step change beyond your current ability but feel just reachable with 2-3 months of dedicated training. “It makes a difference if you find your reference group, and then within that, you can have multiple levels to try for,” says Alex Karwoski, a Peloton instructor and former Olympic rower. Read More: What to Do if You Have Sleep Apnea “The goal should be challenging but realistic,” Dai says. People often appreciate round numbers, like going for an hour-mark in a marathon, because they’re easy to remember—plus they simply look more significant, Brody says. Another strategy is to identify new PR goals at the beginning of a week, month, or year—perhaps 2025?—especially after periods of subpar performance, Dai has found. “These moments really make people feel different from their past self, increasing their confidence to do better going forward,” Dai says. Game-day The day of your PR attempt, get fired up. Right before my 5K runs, I listen to Eric Thomas’s motivational speeches. His over-the-top style (“You have to want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe!”) cracks me up, but his voice echoes in my head as I run. And I push harder. Visualize success and dress the part. Research shows that visualizing peak performance can help enable the real thing. Dress like a champ expecting greatness—maybe gold shoes like Usain Bolt to achieve your PR for fastest walk ever. Write a letter of congratulations to your future self, another research-backed approach. Read More: What to Know About Orienteering, the ‘Thinking Sport’ The beauty of PRs is they happen in unexpected ways. Maybe you fell short of your PR for consecutive pushups, but your fitness tracker reveals another type of PR: pushups on a record-number of days that month. Fogg looks for these surprise PRs. “I’m tricking myself in a way because I’m only looking at the successes, but seeing the successes motivates me to keep going.” It’s also useful to focus on PRs for smaller activities that support an overall goal. Fogg wanted a new PR for pull-ups, so he created a “tiny habit” of hanging on the pull-up bar to build his grip strength. Some days, he’d hang for just 5 seconds, but most days he could do more, eventually managing a PR of 1 minute, 15 seconds. The additional strength enabled record pull-ups. “If you’re very consistent with doing a habit, you’ll make progress and achieve things you wouldn’t otherwise.” Celebrate After achieving a PR, celebrate to “help yourself feel successful,” Fogg says. Once you start looking for PRs, you may spot them everywhere, along with more opportunities to celebrate—like a PR for the slowest mile ever run while smiling the whole time. Or a PR for most attempts at a PR without achieving it. I didn’t beat my 5K time for a PR for a record 46 tries. On try 47, I succeeded, but I’m just as proud of my perseverance PR. Don’t celebrate so much that you start avoiding the activity. After a PR, people tend to quit while they’re ahead, fearing they’ll do worse next time, Anderson has found. This sacrifices the opportunity to build on momentum. Family record? Competing against yourself, instead of others, may seem like a recipe for loneliness. Fortunately, the “personal” part of PRs can be interpreted loosely; families or communities can strive for PRs together. After dinner, a family could team up to set its fastest time for clearing the table, dishwashing, and taking out the trash—and get a light post-meal workout in the process. I’m working on a father-son 5K PR with my nine-year-old (he runs 1K, I cover the rest). Karwoski’s fitness-oriented family tries to beat its previous times when circuit training together. Karwoski also competes in team relays, sharing “personal” records with his runner friends. Don’t push too hard A PR goal can be counterproductive if it threatens your self-esteem. “It’s strange how some people turn leisure into more work” by going for PRs in exercise, Burkeman says. Although he thinks many people probably benefit from PR goals without any downsides, Burkeman notes that the PR chase is inherently endless. “It’s always going to be true that, at any point, you haven’t exceeded your most recent personal best. If the goal always slips away, that’s a tough way to live.” Too much PR tracking can backfire, research shows. “Although measuring your behavior and progress can increase time spent on those actions, it can also undermine intrinsic motivation to succeed,” Brody says. Read More: Rock Climbing Is a Thrill. It’s Also Really Good for You Enjoy breaks for mental and physical recovery. Successful athletes “welcome distractions into their lives,” says Karwoski, the Olympic rower. “They do better long-term because of it.” An instructor can recommend training tips and milestones toward PRs. Some exercise machines connect to real-life coaches (like Karwoski and Eden) and AI coaches focusing on PR goals. Eden preaches “progressive overload”: gradually increasing training rather than ramping it up too quickly, which causes injuries. Fitness trackers like Fitbit build workouts based on people’s goals, fitness level, and stress. To avoid injury and burnout, rotate your PR goals seasonally. I find that fall weather is good for running PRs. In winter and summer, I shelter inside my gym for PRs in strength training, balance, and flexibility. Spring is ideal tennis weather, ripe for a most-matches-played PR. Seasons of life As people get older, it’s often harder to achieve PRs, but that can depend on how the PR is framed. At 61, Elliot’s muscle mass has declined, affecting his ability to exercise the way he used to. Now, he frames his goals around trying not to lose his capabilities, rather than setting PRs. These maintenance goals—trying to preserve old PRs as much as possible, rather than achieve new ones—are less motivating, research shows. “It’s not ideal,” he says. Fogg, who is also 61, knows he can’t do as many pull-ups as his teenage self. But he’s staying motivated by reframing the situation, looking to hit his PR for this decade of life. “Twelve pull-ups is my personal best for my 60s,” he says. So far. “Resetting the target is so important with age and as a mom,” Eden adds. Older amateurs may compensate by becoming more strategic about training. Anderson notes that chess players’ raw cognitive ability starts declining around ages 30-35. “But for nearly all amateurs, there’s so much strategy to pick up, they can still improve throughout their lives,” he says. As it applies to fitness, this would mean that PRs remain possible if people keep learning how to excel in their chosen activity.

A 13-year-old girl in Canada became so sick with H5N1, or bird flu, in late 2024 that she had to be put on a ventilator. Around the same time, a senior in Louisiana was diagnosed with the first "severe" case in the U.S. As bird flu continues to ramp up, many are wondering what tools—namely, vaccines—we have to fight it if such intervention becomes necessary. “Public-health and infectious disease folks around the world are watching bird flu very, very carefully,” says Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and spokesperson for the Infectious Disease Society of America. “The concern is that this virus could acquire the capacity to attach to human cells and spread widely. That would be opening the door to a new pandemic for sure.” For that to happen, the H5N1 virus would have to develop the right mutations that allow it to more easily infect human cells—a process that could occur more easily if someone were to be infected with both seasonal flu and H5N1, for instance, allowing the two viruses to exchange genetic information and recombine into a strain that readily infects and spreads among people. Branded Content XPRIZE at the 2025 TIME100 Summit: Making the Impossible, Possible By XPRIZE Fortunately, that hasn’t occurred yet, but health officials aren’t waiting around. Work on a vaccine is underway to protect the public in the event of a pandemic, and earlier this year, Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pointed to mRNA as a preferred platform for the shot since vaccines can be developed and distributed quickly. Here's the latest on the efforts to develop a new bird flu vaccine. Is there already an H5N1 vaccine? Several vaccines target H5N1, and the national stockpile has doses of all of them. These shots target different strains of H5N1 that were circulating when the vaccines were developed years ago, but health experts expect they would still provide some protection against severe disease. "Fortunately, current vaccine candidates neutralize the circulating strains in vitro," wrote health officials from the U.S. National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases in a Dec. 31 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. A small number of healthy volunteers have been vaccinated with these H5N1 vaccines, and the antibodies they generated appeared to neutralize the circulating virus in lab tests. But these vaccines have not yet been tested in a clinical trial, since there have not been enough H5N1 infections in humans to compare vaccinated people to unvaccinated. What about an mRNA vaccine for H5N1? There isn't one yet, but several companies—including Moderna, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (in collaboration with CureVac)—are working on such a shot. In July, the U.S. government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) awarded Moderna $176 million to develop its updated mRNA H5N1 vaccine. All of the mRNA vaccine candidates are in early stages of testing in people for safety and efficacy. The shots rely on the same mRNA technology that was used to create COVID-19 vaccines. In recent weeks, scientists led by a team at the CDC reported that an mRNA-based H5N1 vaccine helped ferrets generate strong antibody responses against the virus and to survive a lethal dose that killed ferrets that hadn't received the vaccine. Read More: We Are Not Safe from Bird Flu Until We Protect Farmworkers Dr. Drew Weissman, director of vaccine research at Penn Medicine and a 2023 Nobel Prize winner for his work in pioneering mRNA technology for vaccines, and his colleagues also reported encouraging results with a vaccine they developed and tested in ferrets. The shot, which targeted the strain of H5N1 causing recent infections in chicken and cattle, prevented severe illness and death from H5N1 in the ferrets. Unvaccinated animals did not survive. “The real advantage of mRNA vaccines in the context of a pandemic is the ability to update the vaccines as needed,” says Scott Hensley, professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine who worked with Weissman to develop the vaccine. “The beauty of mRNA is the ability within a moment’s notice to change the vaccine.” How soon could an updated vaccine be made available? While developing an mRNA vaccine would take just a matter of months, testing the shot in clinical trials would take longer. “We know the vaccines would be well tolerated and safe because they were in the context of COVID-19,” says Hensley. “But any new antigen needs to be tested.” In order to avoid delays in providing vaccines to the public in case of a pandemic, governments should be investing in conducting large-scale, late-stage clinical tests before a pandemic breaks out, Hensley says. “It would be investing in something that you’re not certain is going to cause a pandemic,” he says. “But it’s a decision that governments need to make. In my opinion, it would be money well spent when dealing with a virus that has the potential of this particular virus.” Another way to avoid that delay and reduce the number of people who become sick with a pandemic-level bird flu is by developing and distributing a more broadly targeted vaccine. Influenza comes in four main subtypes—A, B, C, and D—and two, A and B, cause most infections in people. (H5N1 is type A.) Hensley developed a vaccine candidate that can recognize all 20 of the A and B influenza subtypes—including H5N1—and found that it generated strong immune responses in mice and ferrets. In addition, when the vaccinated ferrets were exposed to slightly different influenza variants within those subtypes, they still produced good immune responses against them. Read More: What to Know About Walking Pneumonia While the vaccine didn't protect the animals from getting infected, they didn't get as sick. “What it does is prime the immune system to respond and clear the virus faster,” says Hensley. “So the idea would be to prime the population with this type of vaccine that would limit initial severe disease and death in case of a pandemic. That would buy some time for more specifically matched vaccines that could be developed and used as boosters. Schools wouldn’t have to close down, and people might still be infected but not dying.” The National Institutes of Health is sponsoring trials of this vaccine, which could change the way we vaccinate against flu and other emerging threats. Hensley says that if proven safe and effective, such a broadly targeted shot would ideally be given to young babies so their immune systems could be trained to recognize a wide range of influenza types early on. That would set them up for quicker and more effective immune responses to vaccines and infections as they got older. Who should get vaccinated against H5N1? Because the CDC says that the risk of bird flu is still low for the general public, there are no recommendations for anyone in the U.S. to get vaccinated against H5N1 at the moment. Some experts believe dairy workers and others who have close contact with animals likely to be infected, such as poultry and cattle, should be vaccinated to protect them from infection, but U.S. health officials have not made this decision yet, noting that a full understanding of the risks of H5N1 to people and the benefits of the vaccine aren't entirely clear. Finland has offered people at higher risk of exposure to bird flu—including those in the fur industry who handle wild boars and those in the poultry industry—a bird flu vaccine made by Seqirus, which uses a more traditional vaccine technology that includes an inactivated form of the virus.

Cold air seeped south of the Canadian border and into the United States on Friday, the start of what the National Weather Service is calling a “significant Arctic outbreak” that is expected to bring frigid conditions to large swaths of the country this weekend and last into mid-January. While most of the cold was still in southern Canada on Friday, the United States was getting its first wave of it. Chilly air was spreading into the northern High Plains, across northeastern Montana, across northern North Dakota and into northwestern Minnesota, according to the Weather Prediction Center. In parts of northern North Dakota, temperatures dropped to a bone-chilling minus 10 degrees, with wind chills making it feel like 20 to even 30 degrees below zero. “It’s quite brutal,” said David Hamrick, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. “This is just the leading edge, the tip of the iceberg in terms of Arctic air mass coverage. The cold is coming down in waves” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Winter storms are also expected to follow in the wake of the plunging temperatures. Temperatures are forecast to plummet below average for much of the nation, with the most severe cold gripping areas east of the Rocky Mountains and reaching as far south as the Gulf Coast and Florida. Dangerous wind chills are likely across many areas of the Southeast, too.“This will likely be the most significant cold we have seen in years,” said forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Wakefield, Va., adding that the bout of below-normal temperatures “is likely to prevail into mid-January.”This Arctic outbreak is expected to bring a sustained period of cold weather across the northern Plains, Great Lakes, Midwest and East Coast as well. Snow and ice are predicted, too. The Weather Prediction Center has also warned that a winter storm will begin in the Central Plains on Saturday night. Heavy snow and significant icing are expected to spread east, potentially affecting the Mid-Atlantic by early next week.The current forecast includes a high likelihood of at least six inches of snow in parts of the Central Plains and Mississippi Valley, particularly along and north of Interstate 70. Icing is also expected, with sleet and freezing rain forecast for eastern Kansas and the Ozarks. These hazards may extend into the Tennessee and low Ohio Valleys through the weekend, and parts of the southern Appalachian Mountains could experience icing by Sunday. On Sunday and Monday, the risk of severe weather, including strong winds and lightning, could extend to parts of eastern Texas, much of Louisiana and Mississippi, into southern Arkansas and possibly western Tennessee. Next week the Climate Prediction Center’s hazards outlook predicts a high risk of much-below-normal temperatures for the Southeastern United States and portions of the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys. Heavy snow is also possible for the Great Lakes region and portions of the Southern Plains through the Mid-Atlantic toward the end of the week. Social media buzz about the chance of a foot of snow in Atlanta has drawn some doubts from local forecasters. Dylan Lusk, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Atlanta, wrote that “ingredients to get snow in the south are fickle,” and that for such a scenario to unfold, two weather systems would need to converge in a unique way. “Experience tells me not to get my hopes up for snow just yet. Stay tuned to the forecast!”The National Weather Service echoed this uncertainty in its latest advisory, saying that the timing and trajectory of the storm track will be key factors in identifying areas that could get the most significant weather. While the possibility of snow next week remains less predictable, forecasters are much more certain about the cold. “This has the potential to be a fairly significant Arctic outbreak,” said meteorologist Scott Kleebauer with the Weather Prediction Center. “The one thing for sure is that it’s going to get cold, and it’s going to last a fairly long period of time.”

Data from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism indicates that alcohol consumption in the U.S. has risen overall. But research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows that lifetime drinking, past month drinking, and past year drinking among young people began to decline around the year 2000. That means that such declines have especially impacted Generation Z, defined as anyone born from 1997 to 2012, and some Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996. A 2023 survey from Gallup found that the share of adults under age 35 who say they ever drink dropped ten percentage points in two decades, to 62% in 2021-2023 from 72% in 2001-2003. “It is becoming clear that, for whatever reasons, today’s younger generations are just less interested in alcohol and are more likely than older generations to see it as risky for their health and to participate in periods of abstinence like Dry January,” said National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism George F. Koob in a statement. There isn’t one clear reason for alcohol’s decline among Gen Z, but experts point to a variety of factors. One may be changing laws, including the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which set the age to purchase or publicly possess alcoholic beverages to 21. Prior to that, the minimum age to drink was 18. Alcohol’s social reputation has also changed. “It makes sense that older drinkers are drinking more, given that Baby Boomers were steeped in a heavier drinking culture,” said Koob. Adds Sybil Marsh, a physician specializing in family medicine and addiction: “There was a time where drinking some alcohol was a badge of maturity and was sophisticated. But now, it's only one out of a whole range of ways that people can relax or show sophistication and so on.” Marijuana could be a part of that shift. The drug is legal in nearly half of all U.S. states for recreational use. Nearly 80% of Americans live in a county with at least one cannabis dispensary, according to the Pew Research Center, and cannabis has been put into drinks being marketed to younger consumers. Koob says it's unclear whether the decline in drinking among Gen Z Americans has to do with a preference for drugs. The 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 36.5% of adults aged 18 to 25 consumed marijuana in the past year. And if you look at marijuana use across a lifetime, some 1 in 2 adults in the same age range have at least tried marijuana, according to the same study. Still, that study showed alcohol use in the past year exceeded marijuana use, with 68.1% of the same age group consuming alcohol. Another contributing factor has to do with the changing socialization patterns of younger generations. “Alcohol tends to be a social drug, even for young people, so part of the decline in underage drinking could be related to less in-person socializing,” said Koob. On average, the amount of time people spent with friends in-person decreased from 30 hours a month in 2003 to 10 hours a month in 2020, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the epidemic of loneliness. That decline was especially marked for people aged 15 to 24. Marsh says that younger generations are much more interested in living healthy lifestyles than generations past, and evolving alcohol marketing tactics reflect those changing values. “If you look at alcohol marketing, they're sort of stopping short of saying it's healthy to have some drinks, but that drinking can be part of a healthy lifestyle,” she says, “as opposed to the Gen X type of marketing, which was like, ‘party hard.’” There’s been a wave of sober bars opening across the U.S.—Hekate in New York City, Sans Bar in Austin, and The Sober Social in Atlanta, to name a few—to accommodate for changing attitudes about alcohol. Emerson Haven, a 26-year-old stage director and student based in New York City, occasionally drinks in social settings, but often opts for a sober night out for health reasons. “There’s a history of alcoholism in my family, so I'm just careful about it. I never drink alcohol if I feel like I'm having a bad day, because I don't want to create that association,” he says. “And then sometimes I just don't enjoy the feeling of being drunk.”

The last of 2024 is in the rearview mirror. But before forgetting it ever existed, consider reflecting on everything good and bad and weird and inspiring that happened to you over the past 12 months. “When we stop and stand and look back at where we’ve been, and how we felt when we were there, it can serve as a blueprint for where we want to go forward,” says Caroline Fenkel, chief clinical officer with the virtual mental-health platform Charlie Health. By asking yourself a series of probing questions, you’ll become more self-aware and figure out how to make changes that can boost your happiness and well-being in the New Year. Think of it as a “gentle inventory, rather than a high-stakes self-assessment,” she adds. Where to start? Ask yourself who and what strengthens or drains you. These insights can help you better manage your energy. Fenkel likes to regularly take inventory of what's adding a net positive to her life, for example—like taking care of the ducks in her pond—and what registers as a net negative, like spending too much time on social media. If something makes you particularly happy, “do it over and over and over again,” she says. (More duck-feeding for Fenkel in 2025.) We asked experts to share what we ought to ask ourselves at the start of 2025 to make it our best year yet. Branded Content XPRIZE at the 2025 TIME100 Summit: Making the Impossible, Possible By XPRIZE 1. What brought me genuine joy last year? And what took it away? Take a moment to reflect on what made you happiest over the past year—and don't overthink it. Whatever pops into your mind was a “peak experience,” says Lauren Farina, a psychotherapist in Chicago. “It reveals our truest, most authentic desires, beyond what we've been conditioned to believe we should be doing or what we’re expected to be doing.” Once you’ve landed on your happiest moments, brainstorm practical ways to integrate more of those experiences into your day-to-day life in 2025. Maybe you took a trip to Sedona and were flooded with the kind of awe you haven't felt since you were a kid. You probably can't visit every weekend, but you could commit to other ways of spending more time in nature wherever you live, Farina suggests. Read More: What to Expect at Your First Therapy Session It’s equally important to reflect on what stole your energy or diminished your spirits over the past year. What kind of boundaries can you set to limit those stressful experiences? What can you let go of or delegate to someone else? “Our feelings are messengers, and it’s our job to decipher those,” Farina says—and to make smart changes accordingly. 2. Which relationships felt nourishing, and which depleted me? Your relationships with other people are core to your happiness, Fenkel points out. Some feed you, while others zap all your energy. Take some time to figure out who falls into which category. Then, make it a point to prioritize the connections that energize you, while taking a step back from the ones that deplete you. “Detach with love,” she advises. “You have to protect yourself, and that's OK.” That doesn’t necessarily mean cutting the draining person out of your life; rather, you might set boundaries around how much time you spend together, or clearly communicate expectations for interactions. 3. How balanced did my time feel between work, family time, social commitments, and rest? Looking back, you might realize you leaned too heavily into one of these areas at the expense of others. If work dominated your 2024, think through how you can protect more of your personal time; or, if you didn't show up professionally the way you hoped, brainstorm how you’ll shift into a new gear. “It's so tough to live a balanced life, but the only way you're going to have that balance is if you stop and reflect on it,” Fenkel says. She suggests getting into the habit of doing this kind of check-in quarterly: “OK, here are the number of days I took off work last quarter and didn't check my Slack or my email at all.” Having that type of hard data on hand will help you carve out time for what's most important to you, she says. 4. What should I say no to? What would I like to say yes to? If you need to get better acquainted with a certain two-letter word in 2025, start by examining the barriers that are keeping you from saying no. You might worry, for example, that you're going to let people down, that you won't be loved anymore, or that your friends will be mad at you, says Gabrielle Morse, a licensed mental health counselor in New York City. “Whether it’s physical discomfort or resentment, there are all sorts of things that come up emotionally from putting our needs last,” she says. Eventually, your bitterness about prioritizing other people will bubble over, tarnishing your relationships and happiness. Read More: Is Intermittent Fasting Good or Bad for You? On the other hand, maybe you need to say yes more, especially to things you feel like you have deprioritized because of other obligations. Lots of people stifle their own desires, like leaning into creative pursuits, to accommodate others, Morse points out. “This is an invitation to ask yourself what you want,” Morse says. “It could end up being meaningful and fulfilling.” 5. What positive qualities did I notice in myself in 2024? When people reflect on their year, they often tick off accomplishments, like getting promoted at work. “They reduce themselves to this one thing, and they're so much more than that,” says Morse. “What’s so much more important are the qualities they're able to see in themselves.” She suggests thinking about ways you’ve grown or shown strength and resilience—or been true to your authentic self. Maybe you made progress breaking old patterns, like people-pleasing, Morse points out, or set new boundaries with family. Perhaps you persevered through a challenging health diagnosis or another hardship that could have knocked you down. Celebrate those wins—they’ll help ensure the upcoming year is your best yet. 6. What am I most proud of and grateful for over the past year? Most people are conditioned to focus on what’s going wrong. (Fires don’t put themselves out, after all.) Give yourself a break and instead reflect on something positive, Farina says, like what you're particularly proud of or grateful for. “That can shift our perspective to filter in more of what goes right, and more of what brings us joy,” she says. “It's a way of seeing our subconscious with a new belief system”—and that will serve you well throughout the New Year. 7. How can I make peace with last year's problems? This is one of Farina’s favorite ways to turn challenges into opportunities. “Problems or crises are invitations or opportunities to evolve,” she says. You might realize, for example, that in order to come to terms with your stressful job, you need to practice mindfulness; or, to improve your relationship with your mother-in-law, you’ll need to work on becoming a better communicator. Read More: 9 Ways to Embrace Winter—Even if You Think You Hate It Maybe something life-altering happened to you in 2024, and you’ll need to adopt a new mindset or communication strategy in order to cope. “Within a crisis or loss or trauma is an opportunity for you to grow,” Farina says. 8. Are my goals specific and attainable? Targeted goals can keep you on track, but vague ones can derail you. If you want to get in shape, for example, better to commit to working out for 30 minutes every morning than simply vowing to “exercise more” or burning yourself out with three-hour gym sessions. Read More: The Surprising Benefits of Talking Out Loud to Yourself “You want something that's very specific and that you can actually do,” says Dr. Ashley Zucker, a psychiatrist with Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “It might seem like it's not a high enough goal, but it's a great place to start. You can always add to it later.” Similarly, try not to overdo the number of goals you're working on at any one time; one or two is ideal, Zucker says. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’ll get overwhelmed and spend more time stressing than achieving. 9. Am I being kind to myself? No matter how your year goes, you’re going to have bad days. Be honest: Do you extend yourself enough grace when you hit these road bumps? One of Zucker’s favorite questions to ask herself is: “What would I say if my daughter was in this situation?” “Play that out in your head,” she says, talking to yourself the way you would your loved one. And remember: “There’s always tomorrow, and there’s always later today. Give yourself those second, third, fourth, and fifth opportunities.” 10. What would I do in 2025 if I weren't afraid? Reflecting on what you would do if you weren't consumed with worry can help expose the ways fear plays a role in your daily life. “It’s not that we should never make decisions out of fear,” Farina adds. “But we should at least pause before defaulting to a fear-based choice.” By considering the ways that being afraid is holding you back, you might take a leap of faith in 2025 that changes the course of your year for the better.

Do you feel overwhelmed by daily tasks? Catch yourself thinking negative or pessimistic thoughts? Blame your high cortisol levels, influencers would have you believe. Online, cortisol—commonly called the “stress hormone”—is a hot topic and frequent scapegoat. Type “cortisol levels” or “howtoreducecortisol” into TikTok, and you’ll be met with hundreds of millions of posts, name-dropping the hormone as responsible for everything from a puffy face (#cortistolface) to a bloated midsection. There are just as many hacks for how to handle it. Beauty and wellness brands have also jumped on the cortisol bandwagon and released products, sometimes marketed as “anti-stress,” that claim to reduce cortisol. Advertisement Considering that stress has become a bogeyman for everything that ails us, it’s perhaps not surprising that people are zeroing in on tamping down the hormone aligned with it. But what exactly is cortisol? Do we really need to be fixated on our levels? And when can we fairly blame it for health issues? How cortisol works The cortisol fixation has made its way from the internet to doctors' offices. And people have questions. “In all my years of being a doctor, I’ve never heard cortisol being mentioned so much by patients,” says Dr. Molly McBride, an ob-gyn and women’s health specialist in New York City. “Now with TikTok running amok, everybody is asking for cortisol checks.” More in Health The Scientific Search for Youth Why Do I Keep Having Recurring Dreams? Dermatologists Have a Dirty Little Secret The Best Longevity Habit You’re Not Thinking About Personal Trainers Share the No. 1 Tip That Has Changed Their Lives Cortisol is a hormone synthesized from cholesterol that is produced by the adrenal glands. When we are stressed or in fight-or-flight mode, the brain kicks off a process that results in the body producing cortisol. “Cortisol then stimulates our body to increase blood pressure and metabolize fats, carbohydrates, and protein so we have the energy to respond to the stressor,” says Dr. David Kim, a dermatologist in New York City. Cortisol is essential for regulating circadian rhythms and reacting to internal and external stressors. “It really is an adaptive hormone,” critical for our acute stress response and the recovery from it, says Rajita Sinha, a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. We all have cortisol, in other words, and we all need it.

Donald Trump is no stranger to controversial pardons. He granted clemency to accused war criminals in 2020 and, since returning to the White House in January, has extended the same mercy to over a thousand Capitol rioters, including some convicted of violent crimes, as well as the the founder of Silk Road, an online marketplace for drugs and illegal services, who had been serving a life sentence. Now, conservative media personality Ben Shapiro wants the President to turn his attention to Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted in Minnesota of the 2020 killing of George Floyd and who pleaded guilty to two federal civil rights violations, resulting in dual state and federal sentences of over 20 years each, which he is serving concurrently. On Tuesday, before Shapiro attended Trump’s speech to Congress as a guest of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Shapiro posted an open letter to Trump on his site The Daily Wire and launched a petition at PardonDerek.com that claimed Chauvin was “unjustly convicted” for Floyd’s death, which in large part inspired a nationwide wave Black Lives Matter protests. Shapiro asserted: “Make no mistake—the Derek Chauvin conviction represents the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics. The country cannot turn the page on that dark, divisive, and racist era without righting this terrible wrong.” “It would be incredibly controversial,” Shapiro said in a Tuesday segment about the pardon petition on his popular eponymous web podcast, “but I think that it’s absolutely necessary.” Suggesting that the petition has already begun to get attention from those in the halls of power, tech billionaire and presidential adviser Elon Musk responded to a clip of the segment shared on X, adding: “Something to think about.” Who is Derek Chauvin? Chauvin, who is now 48, worked with the Minneapolis Police Department for 19 years before Floyd’s death. In 2020, the Associated Press reported that, based on personnel files, Chauvin had first studied cooking and served in the Army in the late 1990s as a military police officer. His time with the department prior to the fateful incident was already rife with issues: the New York Times reported in 2020 that Chauvin was reputedly a “tough Dirty Harry” whose performance led to at least 22 complaints or internal investigations—though only one had resulted in disciplinary action. But Chauvin had also received accolades for his police work. The department reportedly issued him two medals of valor: in 2006 after he opened fire on a stabbing suspect who aimed a shotgun at him and his colleagues, and in 2008 for responding to an armed-man incident. He also received two medals of commendation, per the AP: in 2008 after he and a partner tackled a fleeing suspect with a pistol, and in 2009 for apprehending a group of gang members while working as an off-duty security guard at a Minneapolis nightclub. On May 25, 2020, Chauvin and three other police officers, responding to reports of the alleged use of a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store, encountered Floyd, a 46-year old Black man. In apprehending Floyd, Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes. In videos captured by bystanders, Floyd could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” before going limp. Floyd was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. In an interview on Fox News in June 2020, Trump said he “couldn’t really watch” the video of Floyd’s apprehension and, without naming him, said of Chauvin: “That man has some big problems, there’s no question about it—the police officer, what he did.” In April 2021, Chauvin was convicted by a Minnesota jury of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, and he received a 22.5-year sentence in June that year. In December 2021, after an agreement with prosecutors, Chauvin pleaded guilty before a federal court to two civil rights violations, including admitting to kneeing on Floyd’s neck even after he became unresponsive, resulting in Floyd’s death. He received a federal sentence of 21 years, to be served concurrently with his state sentence but in federal prison. Chauvin attempted to appeal his state conviction, citing how highly-publicized the case was and pressure on the jury, but Minnesota’s appellate court upheld the conviction. He tried to take his appeal to the Supreme Court, but in November 2023, it declined to review his case. Chauvin moved from a Minnesota state prison to a federal facility in Tucson, Ariz., in August 2022, but in November 2023, he was stabbed 22 times by a fellow inmate. Chauvin was then moved to a “low security” prison in Big Spring, Texas, in August 2024, where he continues to serve his sentences, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, with a scheduled release date of Nov. 18, 2037. What would a pardon do? Calls for Trump to pardon Chauvin did not originate with Shapiro. Right-wing figures such as Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec have campaigned for Trump to do so since even before he took office again in January. But while Shapiro’s petition has received support from some, it’s received pushback from others, notably Floyd’s brother. In a statement to CNN’s Sara Sidner, Philonise Floyd said that if Trump were to pardon Chauvin: “It would hurt us. It is so personal. We saw our brother tortured to death.” Philonise added that it would “set America back 400 years” and that “the ones pushing for this are trying to remove any power that black Americans have to get justice. It is disgusting. Why would you do this? Why would you re-injure this family and America.” Shapiro and others have suggested that Chauvin was not responsible for Floyd’s death, and that Floyd actually died from a drug overdose. Washington Post reporter Robert Samuels, who co-authored a Pulitzer-winning book on Floyd’s life and death, said this theory is “based on misinformation” in a thread of posts on X. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who oversaw Chauvin’s state prosecution, pointed out to HuffPost that Trump cannot pardon a state conviction. “The only conceivable purpose,” Ellison suggested of the push for a federal pardon, “would be to express yet more disrespect for George Floyd and more disrespect for the rule of law.” Some conservatives have even flagged that a federal pardon may do Chauvin more harm than good. National Review contributor Andrew McCarthy wrote in a recent column that while he believes Chauvin did not get a fair trial, Chauvin voluntarily pleaded guilty to the federal charges at the time because it afforded him relative safety in federal custody compared to a state prison. “State prisons, populated by many inmates associated with violent gangs, can be extremely perilous for former police officers who worked in the state,” writes McCarthy. “To be sure, any prison is apt to be tough for former cops—criminals are vengeful toward convicted cops who wielded their state power against those criminals on the outside and are now at their mercy.”

Sara Sidner, anchor and senior national correspondent for CNN, told the audience at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner on Tuesday night that she did 16 rounds of chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2023—and worked the entire time through it. The room erupted into loud applause. “It is possible to live your life while trying to kill cancer,” Sidner said. “We’ve come such a long way, and I just quickly want to say to this room: whoever is in this room that is a nurse, a doctor, a physician, a researcher, someone who is creating drugs for us—thank you. Thank you for the research. Thank you for your work; we need it so, so much.” Advertisement Sidner was joined onstage by Dr. Vinod Balachandran, surgeon-scientist and director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Victor Bulto, president of the U.S. unit for Novartis, which sponsored the event in New York City. The three appeared on a panel moderated by TIME senior health correspondent Alice Park to discuss the groundbreaking innovations in cancer detection, treatment, and prevention—and the research that still needs to be done. Sidner, who is a 2025 TIME Closers honoree, said she hadn’t always planned on publicly sharing her cancer diagnosis. But when she learned she had stage III breast cancer, she realized she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret from everyone. “You have spent your life telling other people’s stories—maybe this is something you need to tell, and tell it in a really honest, sometimes embarrassing, way. Tell people what it’s like going through this journey,” she recalled thinking.

President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities,” on March 20. The purpose of the motion is to dismantle the Department of Education—continuing his central battle in shrinking the size of the federal government, a charge spearheaded by his Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE], under the watchful eye of Elon Musk. Linda McMahon, the newly-instated Secretary of the Department of Education, was present when Trump signed the Executive Order. “[Trump] wants to improve education for children, he wants to get those dollars—even more dollars—back to the states, without the bureaucracy of Washington,” she later told reporters. The Federal Student Aid (FSA) program is roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo,” states the Executive Order about the almost $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio. “But although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid. The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students.” McMahon addressed concerns from those with student loans when speaking to press. “Student loans currently are handled by the Department of Education, but I think that they should perhaps be managed by someone else, another department,” she said. “Whether they go back to the private sector, or perhaps they go to the Treasury. But as of right now, we’re not taking any action against student loans, except that we probably are going to renew collection.” The concerns regarding student loans started to grow significantly after an announcement was made on March 11 that nearly 50% of the Department of Education is set to be laid off this month—a part of its “final mission,” according to the department’s website. During his announcement of the Executive Order, Trump acknowledged that the “core necessities” of the Department will still continue—including distribution of Pell Grants, which are a form of federal student aid for higher education. Trump also acknowledged that he will not be able to completely close the Department of Education without the backing of Congress, and he would need Democratic votes to make that happen. “The Democrats know it’s right. I hope they’re going to be voting for it,” Trump said. “Because ultimately, it may come before them.” Amid Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education, experts are concerned about the complicated and difficult process—and how it will affect student loans. What does the Department of Education do? The Department of Education has many different and varied responsibilities under its current formation—aside from distributing and handling financial aid through the Office of Federal Student Aid. The Department was established by Congress in 1979, and its responsibilities have typically been issued by lawmakers, since the U.S. Constitution does not have guidelines for education at the federal level. The department provides 13.6% of funding for public K-12 education, according to the Education Data Initiative. Important funding streams for the department to send to local schools include Title I—which describes federal allocation of supplemental financial assistance to school districts/schools with a high percentage of children from low-income families, as well as grants under IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), providing money to districts to serve and teach students with disabilities. What has Trump said will happen to student loans? In the Oval Office on March 6, Trump was asked what department or agency would handle student loans if the Department of Education was dismantled. Trump told reporters that he doesn’t believe student loans should be run under the Department of Education, and instead will likely end up being run under the Treasury Department, the Small Business Administration (SBA), or the Commerce Department. “We’ve actually had that discussion today,” Trump said. “The loans would be brought into a group where they really do that…that is, by the way, the most complicated thing in moving, but it’s really simple if you do that.” Trump said he hopes specifically for the SBA to get a hold of them, which he says Kelly Loeffler—a Republican, a former senator from Georgia, and the new administrator of the SBA— has already expressed interest in. “Kelly really liked it and would like to do it,” he told reporters. On March 21, the day after Trump signed the Executive Order, he announced his intention to move forward with his plans to move the student loan portfolio to the SBA. “I've decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler, [who] is a terrific person, will handle all of the student loan portfolio," the President said, speaking from the Oval Office. “We have a portfolio that's very large, lots of loans, tens of thousands of loans—pretty complicated deal. And that's coming out of the Department of Education immediately.” Elsewhere on March 21, the SBA announced plans to lay off 43% of its workforce. What are experts saying about Trump’s plan? According to Andrew Gillen, research fellow at the Cato Institute for Economic Freedom, the SBA would be a “strange choice” because the office is set up to process small business loans, Gillen “doubts” they’d be set up to handle over 40 million student loan borrowers. Gillen and Jonathan E. Collins, an assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, both argue that it will be more likely a job for the Treasury Department. “A lot of the student loan repayment programs already require income verification, which the Treasury Department already has,” Gillen told TIME on March 7. “So, from an efficiency perspective, that makes sense. And they're already scaled up to handle millions of new borrowers.” The outstanding federal student loan balance is $1.693 trillion, per the Education Data Initiative, and is managed separately from the department’s policy apparatus, primarily through the FSA. Gillen says, though, that the topic of student loans is completely separate from Trump’s issues with the Department of Education, considering that many big financial aid programs—including the Pell Grant and work study—existed before there was a Department of Education. Whether they would run better, or more equitably, outside the Education Department depends heavily on where Trump ends up moving student loan administration. Much of the uncertainty around student loan forgiveness, per Gillen,, is not related to the Trump Administration, but rather the student loans cases that are moving through the court system—particularly the Biden-Harris Administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, which was blocked by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in mid-February. But with the massive layoffs at the department, there are concerns as to whether there will be enough government capacity to work on student loan relief. “Even if the courts uphold the federal student aid relief and we continue to see things like the Pell Grant program making investments in higher education opportunities, and even if we see some version of a research grants program that is able to survive this anti-DEI purge, who is going to actually process these things?” Collins remarked, following the initial news of the planned layoffs. “How does work get done when no one is at work?” Collins also argued that if cutting wasteful spending is what DOGE wants to do, the Department of Education is not the place—considering that the department has the smallest staff of the 15 Cabinet agencies. “It's clear that this is more of a political game,” he said. “It’s become more about what the Department of Education represents than what the Department of Education actually does.” What has happened regarding student loans since Trump returned to the White House? In late February, the Department of Education shut down parts of the applications for SAVE and other income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. Though Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, a far-right Heritage Foundation policy plan unveiled in April 2023, the initiative has since been mirrored in many of his early actions. The Project 2025 document suggested phasing out IDR plans for student loan borrowers as well, and replacing it with a one-size-fits-all IDR plan. In June 2024, the Center for American Progress stated that this plan would “mean spiked monthly student loan payments, ballooning interest, and heavy blows to credit scores.” The document also suggested transferring the FSA—the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation—to “a new government corporation with professional governance and management” and that the Administration should consider returning to a system in “which private lenders, backed by government guarantees, would compete to offer student loans, including subsidized and unsubsidized, loans.” Gillen said with so much uncertainty, the fallout of what Trump’s plans are for the Education Department cannot be fully predicted—and this uncertainty has caused alarm among student loan borrowers and forgiveness advocates. “Borrowers already struggle with massive call wait times to contact their servicers. The likely disruptions caused by a resource-starved Department of Education without the ability or desire to ensure proper oversight of loan servicers, will result in mass chaos, more delinquencies and defaults, and worse,” the Student Borrower Protection Center wrote on its website on March 3. On March 7, Trump signed an Executive Order entitled “Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness” in which he moved to limit eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), which has allowed government workers like teachers or police, as well as nonprofit, receive loan forgiveness after making consecutive payments for 10 years. In the Executive Order, Trump excludes from the program “individuals employed by organizations whose activities have a substantial illegal purpose.” The President’s aim is to exclude organizations and nonprofits that engage in activities he says support "illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property, and disruption of the public order, which threaten the security and stability of the United States." “Instead of alleviating worker shortages in necessary occupations, the PSLF Program has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means,” the Executive Order reads. On March 19, the American Federation of Teachers announced they were suing the Trump Administration for their actions in regards to student loans and the PSLF program. For Collins, his overall concern about student loans is how further changes to the system might impact affordability—one of Trump’s major assurances that he campaigned on—especially as student loans typically allow for more affordable access to higher education. “The story of the higher education system in America is that it has been a ladder for opportunity,” Collins said. “And now you're kicking the ladder when folks are in the middle of the climb. So what's the pathway to the top now?” It’s this concern that remains at the forefront of Collins’ mind, and that of many others, as the future and direction of student loans remains uncertain.

President Donald Trump blinked. Sort of. At 1:18 p.m. on Wednesday, after almost a week of economic free fall, Trump announced a 90-day pause on most of the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs that had sent global markets spiraling. At the same time, he announced a surge in punitive tariffs on China, his biggest trade foe and the largest source of U.S. imports, to 125%. And he still kept in place his new blanket 10% tariff on most goods to the rest of the world, including Mexico and Canada. While markets acted with giddiness and the White House took a victory lap, it was an obvious climb-down but not a full-on retreat. And, like so much else in Trump’s hour-by-hour zigzag, both global leaders and millions of businesses have no confidence that the latest rules will still be in place by the time I finish typing this sentence. “It took great courage for him to stay the course until this moment,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in the White House driveway. “This was his strategy all along,” he later added, just one day after press secretary Karoline Leavitt had boasted of Trump’s “spine of steel” as reporters asked if he was considering a tariff pause. “Look, nothing is over yet,” Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn. “We’ll see how it all works out.” (When asked if the falling bond market played a role in his latest pivot, he said, "The bond market right now is beautiful. But I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.") It was the head-spinning embodiment of a chaos that has colored Washington—and much of the globe—over the last week, in which a mercurial President set into motion a global panic that disappeared $11 trillion from Wall Street, elevated the average U.S. tariff rate to its highest level since 1909, and launched, in some estimates, the largest effective tax hike on American families in over 70 years. Since Trump announced a so-called “tariff wall” around the U.S., nations have been phoning Washington with profers to write new trade deals, or at least understand what in the world Trump was looking to gain in this standoff. It was like Trump had been made the new king of the sandbox after throwing a tantrum that traumatized his bullied rivals. White House officials say Trump will involve himself directly in the new nation-by-nation trade talks that will now dominate the next three months. It stands to be a fun hustle for a man who fancies himself a master dealmaker. It also stands to leave tremendous uncertainty heading into the summer and leave Congress watching, as disoriented as ever. That frustration from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue has been palpable since Trump returned to power in January and became urgently undeniable in the last week. Take Sen. Mark Warner’s indignation Tuesday during a remarkable exchange with Jamieson Greer, Trump’s top trade representative. The Virginia Democrat used his turn grilling Greer during a Senate Finance Committee hearing to register his utter contempt for the new tariffs that were set to go into effect hours later, not knowing they would partly evaporate just a few hours after that. At one point rising to what some would describe as shouted incredulity, Warner noted that many of the tariffs made, to his eye, zero sense—especially those levied on nations that already buy more from the U.S. than the U.S. does them. “We have a trade surplus with Australia. We have a free-trade agreement. They are an incredibly important national security partner. Why were they whacked with a tariff?” Warner roared. Greer kept his cool and noted the 10% tariff is on the low end. “We should be running up the score,” he told the Senators, saying the proceeds could help reduce the national pile of red ink. It was the kind of head-scratching argument that Trump officials and allies have offered in recent days to defend a trade strategy in search of a clear objective. Warner gave perhaps the kindest answer he could muster: “Sir, you are a much smarter person than that answer.” Most of Washington shares Warner’s reaction over tariffs that seem guided solely by Trump’s grievance and gut. The tit-for-tat escalation led to immediate retaliation, including China levying a massive new charge on its imports from the U.S. Europe responded with 25% tariffs on many American-made products heading into those markets. And Wall Street was on track for another day of decline before Trump shocked investors again by pushing pause for three months on much of the carnage he had inflicted. While Trump was still spinning the tariffs as here-to-stay pieces of policy on Wednesday, it was clear his support was flaking. Even his most reliable defenders and apologists were growing weary of the talk about these tariffs, which are only just now starting to be felt. “I love President Trump,” Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said on his podcast. “I am his strongest supporter in the Senate. I think he’s doing incredible things as President. But here’s one thing to understand: A tariff is a tax, and it is a tax principally on American consumers.” It was a similar warning from podcaster Ben Shapiro, another Trump booster. “The President’s vision of international trade is, I’m sorry to say, mistaken,” he said. Before the news shocked markets, I chatted with Brad Setser, who served in the Obama-era Treasury Department and Biden-era trade office. He rightly predicted Wednesday’s answer to a tee, down to the precise baseline tariff. But he noted trade deals take time and a mutual understanding of the outcomes. “The problem is that it isn't yet clear to anyone—most importantly, the countries trying to negotiate off ramps—what an acceptable deal would look like,” he told me. Although Trump repeatedly said the tariffs were not a starting point for negotiations, the White House had been bragging that dozens of countries have approached the administration about side deals to get around the sting of these taxes. It was a hint that maybe Trump was just playing yet another one of his reality show-style games. Before the latest retreat, Scott Lincicome, a trade expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, outlined for me three ways this could end: Trump could find sufficient blowback and walk away from his aggressive moves; the courts could step in and say this has been an over-broad reach of emergency powers; or Congress could step in. “They’re all terrible,” Lincicome said. “The courts are a coin toss. Congress is feckless.” Indeed, which is why Trump’s sudden lurch—even a temporary one—came out of nowhere and jolted markets and sent Washington shouting into the void. “It sucks, but it’s not Armageddon,” Lincicome said. “I’m not an optimist, I promise. You do have to be careful about being too hysterical.” Maybe that’s the answer for weathering this second Trump era. That, or just waiting until the President changes his mind.