Of all the contenders to be the next pope, Danny Kind might not be an obvious choice. His shaggy hair is tinted green, and the other day he was wearing a Korn T-shirt under his ceremonial robes. “I’m an Ashkenazi Jew from Orlando, so I’m not very Catholic,” he said. There’s also that. None of this is disqualifying in a class at the University of Chicago called “The Italian Renaissance: Dante, Machiavelli, and the Wars of Popes and Kings,” better known by students as “pope class” or “pope LARP” (as in live-action role play). The centerpiece of the class is a simulation of the conclave of 1492, an historical gathering rife with accusations of scandal and corruption. This is the 15th year since Prof. Ada Palmer began running the simulation, but the first time that it has been interrupted by the death of an actual pope. Pope Francis died on April 21, the same day that the students were set to vote in their own conclave.The class arrived that day at Rockefeller Chapel, a Gothic Revival structure on campus that stands in for the Sistine Chapel, with a surreal sense of the weight of their decision. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “I’m a Catholic so it kind of sucked for me, but there was a lot of excitement,” said Joseph DePaula, 21, a third-year student who took the class two years ago and returned this year as a volunteer. When Mr. Kind from Orlando — Cardinal Ascanio Sforza in the simulation — was elected on the fifth ballot, volunteers waved white flags from a balcony, symbolizing the smoke that billows from the Sistine Chapel when the cardinals have chosen a new pope. Dr. Palmer, a historian and novelist, compared the class to the history version of a language immersion class. And the approach does more than help students recall names and dates. It is also a lesson in “plural power,” where anyone can change the course of history. In the simulation, “everybody has power but nobody has control,” Dr. Palmer said. “Even the most powerful people don’t actually manage to control things enough to get the outcome they want, and even the least powerful people, when they work at it, can affect and influence what happens in the end.”By last week, the final stretch of the simulation, some students had a hard time differentiating their real lives from their 15th-century identities. Elsa Cukierman, who portrayed the nobleman Franceschetto Cybo, said she once accidentally called her real-life boyfriend by the name of her character’s wife. Others frantically responded to reports of a rival’s treachery on their phones at a nightclub at 3 a.m. “Don’t eat, don’t speak, just pope,” said Julia Morales, who painted her nails baby blue to match the dress she wore as Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of the real Pope Alexander VI. (Events evolved differently in this year’s simulation.)“We’re great friends in real life,” chimed in Emily Curran, dressed in the red robes of Cardinal Ardicino della Porta Jr., who opposed the Borgia family’s aspirations. “We just haven’t been able to hang out because we can’t talk about anything else but pope class.” On April 30, the final day of the simulation, the students arrived in a bustle of excitement. They rifled through the racks of clothing that Dr. Palmer has procured over the years from sources like Renaissance fairs and the BBC’s costume department. She has alerts on Etsy and eBay for the phrase “used Shakespeare costume.” The pope opened the proceedings with a moment of silence. At one point he assented to a petition to give an Italian cardinal control over a town in Bologna with an enthusiastic “hell, yeah!”A duel broke out between Michael Tarchaniota Marullus and Pandolfo IV Malatesta. Then the pope himself threw off his robes to initiate his own duel with Cesare Borgia. (Borgia immediately surrendered, to the pope’s apparent disappointment.) In real life, the 1492 conclave ended with the selection of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI, an outcome so heavily influenced by bribery that it inspired new rules against simony, or the selling of church offices. But the class is a simulation, not a re-enactment, Dr. Palmer explained. That means that while students portray (mostly) real-life historical figures, they are set loose to make their own decisions. Thus the 2025 election of Ascanio Sforza, a figure who did exist, as Pope Ambrose, who did not. The recent success of the movie “Conclave” added to the feeling that the simulation was relevant to the real world this year. One group went to the theater in cardinal costumes, on loan from Dr. Palmer. As for the real conclave in Rome this week, Mr. Kind and several others said they were rooting for Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, a contender from the Philippines who is often called the “Asian Francis.”At the end of the final simulation, students bought art and made hasty marriage arrangements, rushing to fulfill as many of their characters’ objectives as possible. Then they took off their costumes and made their way to a classroom, where they debriefed and revealed various schemes and misunderstandings. Cesare Borgia arrived toting a skateboard. Mr. Kind opened up his laptop and put on a playlist including Joy Division and Modest Mouse. A cluster of gods and angels snacked on Oreos. For Mr. Kind, his election as Pope Ambrose was the culmination of years of dreaming. He heard about the class from a high-school history teacher, and wrote his admissions essay to the university about his desire to participate. Right before the vote, he kissed his grandfather’s small silver mezuza, which he wears around his neck. Mr. Kind is not the first Jewish pope, Dr. Palmer said. There have also been two Muslim popes and a transgender Catholic pope. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Kind broke down in tears when he removed his red cardinal vestments to don the white and gold robes of the Vicar of Christ. The experience was almost intoxicating. “Last Monday I got to excommunicate a guy,” he recounted. And given the circumstances swirling outside campus, it was hard not to muse about the possibility of real power. “As far as I know, I’m the only person in the world claiming to be the pope right now,” Mr. Kind said. “I think that technically makes me pope.”

From vehicle exhaust to manufacturing plumes, nearly every person in the world breathes in unhealthy air on a daily basis. The impact is deadly: air pollution is responsible for 7 million premature deaths around the world per year according to the World Health Organization (WHO), making it the second leading risk factor for death behind high blood pressure. But that number could be significantly cut, researchers say, if we reduce greenhouse gases and air pollutants. A new study published in the journal Earth’s Future on May 6 found that up to 250,000 deaths from poor air quality in central and western Europe alone could be prevented by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced. The researchers, from the University of Leeds in England, looked at the health impacts in Europe in 2014 and 2050 from exposure to two types of pollution. The first is fine particulate matter, which can penetrate deep into the lungs and pose the greatest health risks. This pollution comes from sources such as wildfires or construction sites. The other is surface level ozone, which forms when sunlight interacts with certain pollutants like nitrogen oxides, and is the result of things like vehicle exhaust and factory emissions. Exposure to these air pollutants can lead to long-term health complications, including stroke, heart disease, and pneumonia. The team examined three scenarios in which policymakers took low, medium, and high levels of action to combat climate change, and created an atmospheric chemistry model to simulate the possible air quality in 2050. The researchers defined a high level of action as being one where emissions from the housing, industry, transport, and agricultural sectors are cut for 70% of the population of Western and Central Europe to below the WHO's air quality guideline for annual fine particulate matter. Doing so, they found, would improve air quality across the continent and lead to large reductions in mortality overall. And it could help tackle health inequities. Globally, poorer communities are more likely to be exposed to unhealthy air quality when compared with higher-income areas. Researchers found that disadvantaged regions of Europe currently have proportionally higher death rates compared to higher-income regions. Their findings show that a significant reduction in emissions—seen in the high action scenario—would help reduce that inequality. But under the medium and low impact scenarios health impacts would worsen, highlighting the necessity of aggressive climate mitigation practices. Air pollution in Europe has been on the decline for the last two decades, as the E.U. has adopted more comprehensive clean air policies, however more work remains to be done. There are still regions across the E.U. that have pollutant concentrations that exceed the bloc’s current standards. The researchers hope that their findings might encourage policymakers to consider not just the health impacts of air pollution, but also how emissions reduction solutions can help marginalized communities who are disproportionately impacted. “The strategies that policymakers take to mitigate climate change will have considerable implications for human exposure to air quality, not least of which are the number of deaths,” lead author Connor Clayton, a PhD student in the School of Earth and Environment and the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at Leeds University, said in a press release. “But they also urgently need to consider the persistent inequity of exposure between wealthier and more deprived populations which continues to be an issue even though air pollution has reduced across Europe.”

President Donald Trump has been in office for more than three months, but he is still constantly bringing up his predecessor. Whether it’s casting blame or aspersions, Trump can’t stop talking about former President Joe Biden. In recent weeks, he’s mentioned Biden when asked about the stock market, the war in Gaza, what he’s doing to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and his decision to send Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador. On Friday, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump when he’ll take responsibility for the performance of the U.S. economy. “I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy,” Trump said. It was one of about 20 mentions of “Biden” Trump made in the interview, according to the transcript. The previous week, Trump mentioned Biden a dozen times during an interview with TIME. In the Trump White House's first 100 days, “Biden” was the fifth most frequently used word, according to a TIME analysis of transcripts of his public remarks and those of key spokespeople. The former President’s last name was uttered more than “border” and just less than the word “deal.” The most frequently used word was “great,” followed by “American” and “tariff.” To come up with the tally, TIME used an AI algorithm to analyze 92 events where Trump made on-camera remarks as well as press briefings his top officials held at the White House. Andrew Bates, Biden’s former senior deputy White House press secretary, views the constant blaming of his former boss as "counterproductive" for Trump. “The economy was better off when Joe Biden left office—Trump actively damaged it, and so every time he says Joe Biden’s name it just makes people remember a time when the economy was better,” Bates says. Yet Trump appears more than happy to continue blaming Biden for bad economic news. After the Commerce Department released data last week showing the gross domestic product shrank slightly in the first quarter, Trump said “This is Biden,” and then made clear a similar response may be coming in July. “You could even say the next quarter is sort of Biden.” Polls suggest the public is likely to connect any upcoming economic troubles to Trump’s trade war. Gallup polling released in late April found that 70% of Americans believe Trump’s new tariffs will cost the U.S. more than they generate in the short term. And 89% of American adults believe the tariffs will likely result in higher prices. In recent weeks, Biden has started stepping back into the spotlight. In mid-April, he gave a speech in which he criticized Trump’s haphazard firings and cost cuttings in the federal government, saying Trump’s administration is “shooting first and aiming later” and described Trump’s first months in office as being full of “damage” and “destruction” to programs that serve veterans and seniors. On Thursday, Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden will join the hosts of ABC’s The View. Biden’s return to the national stage comes ahead of the release of multiple books looking at how his aides grappled with questions about his mental acuity during his time in office. At the end of May, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson plan to publish “Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.” The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey, The New York Times’ Tyler Pager and the Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf teamed up to write “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,” which is slated for early July.

Since its closure in 1963, Alcatraz Prison has become the stuff of legend. The seemingly inescapable federal penitentiary on a California island surrounded by frigid and powerful currents gained notoriety for housing some of history’s most famous prisoners, from Al “Scarface” Capone to George “Machine Gun” Kelly. But now, decades since the island was purchased by the National Park Service and turned into a popular tourist destination, Donald Trump wants to convert it back into a prison. What Trump said about Alcatraz “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” the President posted on Truth Social on Sunday evening, announcing that he has directed the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security to “reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt” prison on Alcatraz Island to “house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.” The move comes as Trump has pursued more aggressively punitive policies in his second term, including signing orders that encourage the use of extreme sentences and the death penalty, that target incarcerated trans women, and that expand police powers. Trump has also been criticized for eschewing the rule of law in carrying out a mass deportation campaign, detaining and deporting both undocumented immigrants as well as people legally in the U.S. without due process. At an April meeting between Trump and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, Trump said he’d be “all for” deporting Americans to El Salvador next. In January, Trump ordered the opening of a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. has long leased a site from Cuba, to which his Administration would send the “worst criminal aliens.” “When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump added in his Truth Social post. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally.” Trump told reporters on Sunday night while returning to the White House from Florida that his Alcatraz plan was “just an idea I’ve had” to counter the “radicalized judges [that] want to have trials for every single—think of it—every single person that’s in our country illegally.” Alcatraz is “a symbol of law and order,” he said. “It’s got quite a history, frankly.” Experts, however, say Trump misunderstands the history and functionality of Alcatraz. “So many of his policies sound good—at least to those with the same politics—as long as you don’t think about them too seriously,” Ashley Rubin, an associate professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, tells TIME. “If you do, you realize all the practical problems and holes in the reasoning and how if we actually do these things, it will just make us worse off. Reopening Alcatraz is like that. It would be much safer for Americans and punitive toward criminals to use our current prison system than to reopen a tourist attraction.” The history of Alcatraz and why it closed Long before Alcatraz became the site of a prison, it was a military fortress. Originally the land of the Ohlone people indigenous to the San Francisco Bay Area, the island was named La Isla de las Alcatraces after its large pelicans that a Spanish Navy officer who arrived in 1775 thought were gannets, called alactraces in Spanish. Later, the island became a U.S. naval defense fort after the Mexican-American War of 1848. The U.S. military also used the island to hold prisoners, including confederate sympathizers during the Civil War and Hopi Native Americans who resisted the government’s land decrees and mandatory education programs in 1895. By 1912, it was rebuilt as an official military prison. In 1933, the Justice Department took over the island and made it a maximum-security federal penitentiary, partly in response to a rise in organized crime during prohibition. If the surrounding conditions didn’t make escape a hard enough prospect, the prison was retrofitted so that each prisoner was kept to one cell, and one guard was on duty for every three prisoners. Thirty-six men attempted 14 different escapes over the 29 years that the prison was open, and nearly all were caught or died in the attempt. But the prison closed in March 1963. Its facilities were crumbling and would have cost $3 to $5 million to restore, and its isolated location made operating costs too expensive to maintain—nearly three times higher than any other federal prison, according to the Bureau of Prisons—because everything, including potable water, had to be shipped in. The prison has long been a site of public fascination. It was featured in the 1962 film Birdman of Alcatraz about Robert Stroud, a convicted felon who studied the birds he saw while incarcerated and became an ornithologist, even finding a cure to a common avian hemorrhagic disease. It was also featured in the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz, starring Clint Eastwood, and based on the real-life 1962 attempted escape of three prisoners who were never found, as well as in the 1996 fictional action thriller The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. After its purchase by the NPS in 1972, the island has become a major tourist attraction and brings in more than a million visitors each year, according to the agency. How the Bureau of Prisons and others have responded—and what experts tell TIME of Trump’s proposal A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons told the Associated Press that the BOP will “comply with all Presidential Orders,” but did not explain how it would restore or reopen the prison while it is under the jurisdiction of the NPS, whose staff and funding have been threatened by Trump cuts, particularly while the BOP is struggling to keep its own facilities open amid deteriorating infrastructure and staffing shortages. “The President’s proposal is not a serious one,” former House Speaker and California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi posted on X. David Ward, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Minnesota who interviewed and wrote about prisoners at Alcatraz, tells TIME that there’s little practical use to try to reopen Alcatraz as a prison, but Trump may be more interested in its name and legacy than practicality. “The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE,” Trump said in his Truth Social announcement. Rubin says that even historically, Alcatraz was not the most efficient or most punitive maximum-security prison. Rather, it served more as a “public relations piece” and “administrative salve.” For one, its capacity is limited by the island’s size. When the prison was functioning, it could hold at maximum around 300 people—or up to about 1,000 if overcrowded. And while it was billed to hold “the worst of the worst,” in reality, says Rubin, it held just a handful of notorious criminals along with some prisoners who had previously managed to escape or who were “difficult” at other prisons: “People like to talk about the Hannibal Lecters of the world, but they usually don’t end up in these types of facilities. It’s usually people who are just a thorn in the side of administrators.” If the BOP were to go ahead with rebuilding Alcatraz, however, the old prison facility is significantly deteriorated and would have to be entirely rebuilt, Rubin says, which would likely take years and could go beyond Trump’s term. Another possibility, Rubin suggests, would be for Alcatraz to become a “rapid turnover facility,” where the Administration might send people without due process before deporting them, in which case it would mostly serve as a “photo-op” for Trump. “The publicity of Alcatraz Island is what [Trump] wants: a bastion where inmates are treated inhumanely because they deserve it,” says Ward. It’s a “monument to punishment and brutality.” Given the challenges restoring the island prison presents, Trump could even pursue his goal of “reopening” Alcatraz by transplanting the name elsewhere, such as El Salvador. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s been done: After Alcatraz closed, it was succeeded by two supermax prisons: “New Alcatraz” in Marion, Illinois, and the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” in Florence, Colorado. “The name Alcatraz always goes with the prisons because it conveys the message the government likes to have,” says Ward, “which is, ‘we’re doing real punishment for the bad guys.’”

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” President Donald Trump posted on his social platform Truth Social on Sunday night. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” But experts tell TIME that it’s not clear how such a policy would work or who would be charged such a tariff. “I know it’s not the U.S. government or the President’s job to understand how movies are made,” says entertainment consultant Kathryn Arnold, “but if you understand how complex and interconnected the global film market is—both on a production and a distribution level—it’s devastating and doesn’t make any sense.” While the President identified a real problem—the U.S. film industry has indeed suffered as production increasingly moves overseas—experts agree that Trump’s seemingly favorite policy tool, tariffs, isn’t really an applicable solution. Trump’s global trade war thus far has involved slapping levies on foreign goods, for which the U.S. is a net-importer. But foreign films are intellectual property and part of the global trade of services, for which the U.S. is actually a net-exporter. “The operating theory that the Trump Administration seems to be embracing is that if they make foreign manufacturing more appealing for any part of American industry, it will result in domestic manufacturing improving. So if there are tariffs on anything foreign, it’s supposed to inspire manufacturing domestically,” says Tom Nunan, a continuing lecturer at the School of Theater, Film and Television at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “It was predictable that it would turn to entertainment as well.” “If it’s cost-prohibitive to produce motion pictures and episodic television, or to acquire motion pictures or episodic television from foreign territories, then it would stand to reason, at least from his Administration’s standpoint, that foreign production would return to the United States. I think that’s the operating theory, at least,” says Nunan, adding however that “it’s not black or white like that.” Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Sunday night, Trump said: “other nations have been stealing the moviemaking capabilities from the United States.” Trump added that he has done “very strong research” over the past week and that “Hollywood is being destroyed” and “if they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States, then we should have a tariff on movies that come in.” While Hollywood has seen a decline in production in recent years, in part due to rising labor costs, Arnold tells TIME that one way Trump could actually try to reverse that trend is by offering incentives, such as tax credits, for shooting in the U.S., which some foreign countries and cities already do as well as several U.S. states. But that would only impact one aspect of filmmaking, and some films shoot across multiple locations. Arnold added that many films are also co-produced by multiple production companies across countries. Offering an incentive for specific aspects of production would be much more straightforward than trying to determine whether a film is “American” or “foreign” in order to penalize the latter. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has said that although services are not subject to tariffs, they can be subject to trade barriers like regulatory requirements. But when it comes to film and entertainment, imposing certain restrictions can lead to a dramatically less free media environment within the country. In China, foreign films—defined as any film not produced by domestically licensed production companies, which can have no more than a 49% foreign partnership stake—are subject to strict censorship and quotas, which require going through state-run distributors. And in response to Trump’s recent tariffs against the country’s goods, the Chinese government announced it would “moderately reduce” the quota of U.S. movies allowed into its massive but tightly controlled market. There’s also the risk that other countries would retaliate to a foreign-film tariff. And with the film industry being one of America’s strongest service-sector exports—according to the latest Motion Picture Association economic impact report, from 2023, it “generated a positive balance of trade in every major market in the world” for the U.S.—Center for Strategic and International Studies economic adviser and former president of the National Foreign Trade Council William Reinsch told Reuters: “We have a lot more to lose than to gain.” Trump’s foreign-film tariff proposal, which has sent jitters through the entertainment industry, came after he met at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend with actor Jon Voight, whom the President had previously named “special ambassador” to Hollywood. Voight addressed the meeting in a video statement shared on Monday, saying that, after consulting with industry leaders, he presented recommendations to Trump for “certain tax provisions that can help the industry” to address the decline in domestic film production. The recommendations, according to a press release by Voight’s manager’s firm SP Media Group, included “federal tax incentives, significant changes to several tax codes, the establishment of co-production treaties with foreign countries, and infrastructure subsidies for theater owners, film and television production companies, and post-production companies.” According to the release, the proposal “also includes a focus on job training, and tariffs in certain limited circumstances.” Scott Karol, the president of SP Media Group who was also at the meeting with Voight and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, clarified to Bloomberg that “bad actors” who take their entire production overseas would face a tariff equal to any incentives they received from other countries, while co-producers would receive credit for their U.S. spending. Still, with all the questions hanging over the tariff proposal and how it may be implemented, White House spokesperson Kush Desai clarified in a statement on Monday that “no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made,” adding that “the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive.” Trump himself also suggested Monday that he may not pursue the tariff idea if pushback is too strong. “I’m not looking to hurt the industry. I want to help the industry,” he said, noting that he plans to consult members of the film industry. “I want to make sure they’re happy with it, because we’re all about jobs.”

There has been ongoing discussion as to whether President Donald Trump will seek a third term—only strengthened by the fact the Trump Store is now selling “Trump 2028” merchandise. In his April 22 interview with TIME, Trump said: “I'd rather not discuss that now, but as you know, there are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known. But I don't believe in loopholes. I don't believe in using loopholes.” Per the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. constitution, this is the second—and final—term that Trump can serve. In an interview with the Atlantic, published on April 28, the topic came up once again, with Trump saying that running for a third term was not something he is looking into. However, speculation continued. In his latest interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, which aired on Sunday, May 4, Trump appeared to set the record straight, emphasizing once more that it’s “not something” he’s looking to do and elaborating on his decision. “I'm looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward,” Trump told host Kristen Welker. "I just want to serve, do a great job. I’ll be an eight-year President, I’ll be a two-term President. I always thought that was very important, to be honest with you." Trump did, however, state that he’s had numerous requests to seek an additional term. “So many people want me to do it. I've never had requests so strong as that,” Trump said of the third term rhetoric. “I think it’s so strong and we have tremendous people… you look at [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio and [Vice President] J.D. Vance, who is fantastic, I could name 10 to 15 people right now just sitting here,” he said. When asked about a possible successor, Trump said it was “far too early” to say definitively, but once again mentioned Vance and Rubio by name. "Certainly you would say that [if] somebody’s the VP, if that person is outstanding, I guess that person would have an advantage," Trump said of Vance, adding: "But you know, it could be that he’d be challenged by somebody. We have a lot of good people in this party." Trump’s latest comments contrast what he told Welker in his last interview on Meet the Press, whereby he teased “there are methods” for seeking out a third term. “I’m not joking,” Trump said in March, when asked to clarify whether he wanted another term. “But I’m not—it is far too early to think about it.” But in his most recent sit-down, Trump seemed to highlight that he knew “to the best of [his] knowledge,” he would not be able to do it. Trump’s clarification also comes after he told a Michigan crowd at a rally on April 29 that he had “already served” a third term. “We actually already served three [terms], if you count. But remember, I like the victories, I like the three victories which we absolutely had. I just don't like the results of the middle term,” Trump said, once again denying the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

In March 2025, it was announced that the U.S. would no longer support international public health programs that vaccinated millions of children worldwide. This is a hit to children worldwide on top of the Trump administration cuts to U.S. AID programs that provided basic nutrition for hundreds of thousands of children worldwide. One may interpret these directives as a reflection that the current U.S. political leadership no longer believes that the U.S. has an obligation to non-American children. But one only needs to look at what is happening in the U.S. now to see that the lack of care for children at home, as the administration signals to cut the Vaccines for Children program, which supports disease-preventative efforts in the U.S. Advertisement Examining what has evolved from the culture wars of the past several years, one sees a slew of policies detrimental to children in many ways. Rather than reflecting mainstream pediatric and educational philosophy, these policies mirror the political creep of fringe groups and politicians to impose their viewpoints on other people's children. These policies impact infection control, education, nutrition, healthcare, and the environment. Front-page news is now dotted with reports of a resurgence in vaccine-preventable infections, including measles. But contrary to some, vaccinations have never been a matter of personal choice in this country, but rather a 100-year-old societal obligation to keep America safe. In fact, the majority of Americans support childhood vaccination (about 70%), according to a January 2025 report by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). Yet, the measles outbreaks happening across the U.S. are predictable consequences of a well-funded anti-vaccine movement that has pushed for laws encouraging vaccine exemptions and the weakening of school vaccine requirements.

This spring brought the annual wave of prospective students to colleges nationwide, with young people and their parents eager to learn about majors and campus life. Unfortunately, the most important issue of all — the cost of college — was too often omitted from those conversations. Confusion about what a college education will cost any given family is creating a disheartening landscape, especially for working- and middle-class families who may not have been made aware of how much financial aid they could be eligible for. This challenge is compounded by renewed efforts from the Trump administration to tax endowments and cut research funding, restricting revenue sources that help make college more affordable. Headlines often spotlight $100,000 sticker prices at elite private colleges. But even flagship public universities are increasingly — and understandably — seen as financially out of reach. “Everyone I went to high school with either went to Tech or UFS,” one rural Arkansas student told a researcher, referring to Arkansas Tech University and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. “Nobody really went to Fayetteville because they thought, ‘I can’t afford that. I’m not uppity.’” For many families, the actual price of a college education remains unclear, buried beneath complex formulas and inconsistent messaging. As doubts about affordability grow, so too does the sense that the lofty promise of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 Higher Education Act — to make college broadly accessible through meaningful financial aid — has fallen short. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT A 2025 survey by the Lumina Foundation, which is focused on accessibility in higher education, in partnership with Gallup, found that a mere 18 percent of Americans without a college degree believe four-year college tuition is “fair.” Nearly a third of Americans think college “isn’t worth the cost,” and another 47 percent believe it is worth the cost only if a student does not need any loans, according to the Pew Research Center.This growing skepticism is reshaping where — and whether — students apply and enroll, and it underscores the urgent need for action. Thankfully, some progress is already underway. In recent decades, many universities have expanded need-based aid, determined by household income and family assets, to all admitted students. Still, these efforts are often overshadowed by the universities’ high sticker prices.Most colleges offer cost calculators to help students and families estimate their aid package. But they are often confusing and ask for detailed financial information that many parents — let alone 17-year-olds — don’t have on hand. And because colleges use different calculators, trying to compare schools quickly turns time-consuming. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT As part of our ongoing effort to clarify and improve public understanding of higher education, we created a graphic — a template any college can use — that more accurately reflects the true cost of attending the University of Pennsylvania. It illustrates that the widely cited $100,000 sticker price is not what most students will ultimately pay.At some of the nation’s most selective and high-cost institutions — including the University of Pennsylvania — students from families earning $75,000 or less annually often pay nothing at all. Financial aid packages comprised entirely of grants cover not only tuition but also room, board, books, fees, essential supplies such as a computer and travel expenses. While eligibility thresholds and cost calculations vary by school, elite colleges including Harvard, M.I.T., Princeton, Dartmouth and the University of Chicago offer similar levels of support to low- and middle-income families. For middle-income families — those earning between $75,000 and $200,000 per year, typically with additional consideration for those with multiple children in college at the same time — not only is college tuition frequently fully paid for, but students often receive additional aid. As a result, these families can access some of the most selective colleges at a significant discount — at least 66 percent off full sticker price at Penn, a representative example. Large university endowments often draw criticism, but they play a crucial role in expanding access to higher education. Endowment returns are used to cover faculty salaries and other expenses. But a 2024 study by NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments, that analyzes college endowment performance and spending, showed that nearly half of the money earned from endowment returns went to financial aid. At schools with total annual costs nearing $92,000, it takes roughly $2 million in endowed funds for the return to fully support just one student. It is true that between 2006 and 2024 average in-state tuition and fees have risen from $9,040 to $11,610, but when you factor in grant aid (excluding loans) fees have dropped from $3,940 to $2,480, according to a College Board study. Even though students still face costs for housing, food and books, they are paying less for their education today than they did two decades ago. The trend holds true at community colleges as well. In 35 states, tuition at two-year institutions is now free for many low-income students, and overall tuition costs at community colleges have declined.But just as progress is being made — not only in expanding financial aid but improving transparency around who qualifies for it — the Trump administration now threatens to reverse that momentum. Deep cuts to federal research funding could force universities to scale back budgets, eliminate undergraduate programs and reduce financial aid. In addition, efforts to restrict international enrollment risk slashing tuition revenue — losses that institutions may offset by raising costs for domestic students. And now, Republican lawmakers are pushing to expand the endowment tax and increase its rate — a move that may sound like accountability, but in reality would penalize students in need of support. At Penn, the existing $10 million endowment tax already diverts an amount that could fully cover tuition and expenses for roughly 110 low-income students. Current proposals would raise that tax tenfold, potentially shutting out more than 1,100 students. Is that really the direction we want to go in — making it harder for talented students to access the opportunities they’ve earned? A high-quality education isn’t only for the wealthiest Americans. It can be for everyone — if we commit to providing robust financial aid, clearly communicating real costs and protecting institutional resources like endowments that are meant to open doors, not be taxed shut.

A former assistant admissions director at Emmanuel College in Boston was arrested Friday and accused of soliciting an underage applicant for sex, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors charged the director, Jacob Henriques, 29, with one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor after he used his position to gain access to the personal information of admitted and prospective students, and tried to solicit them for sex, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts. In a statement, Emmanuel College said that it fired Mr. Henriques after contacting law enforcement and starting an investigation. “Emmanuel College is saddened, angered and shocked by these serious federal allegations,” it said. Whether Mr. Henriques had legal representation was not immediately clear. On April 25, Mr. Henriques found the personal information of at least three of the students after meeting with several, prosecutors said. He then contacted and offered to “pay them for some fun,” the authorities added, and sent pornographic videos or images in some cases. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The same day, he began contacting a fourth victim after she committed to attending the college, according to prosecutors. One of the victims, a 17-year-old, toured the college with Mr. Henriques on April 25, prosecutors said. Mr. Henriques asked her what grade she was in, and hours after the tour, he began texting the victim on the phone number on her admissions form, prosecutors said. He offered to pay her $400 for “some fun” and told her that he had pornographic videos and pictures for her, prosecutors said. He continued to contact her that night, refusing to tell her his identity or how he had her number, they added. Mr. Henriques then sent the prospective student five pornographic videos and asked whether she wanted to engage in sexual acts with him, prosecutors said. After her multiple refusals, Mr. Henriques continued to text her, saying “he would buy her anything she wanted” if she changed her mind, prosecutors said. Over the following days, he went into her admissions profile nearly 50 times, according to the Justice Department. Mr. Henriques contacted the student through email after she blocked his number, prosecutors said. A profile of Mr. Henriques that had been on Emmanuel College’s website said that he graduated in 2021 and was an “avid Boston sports fan,” and that his favorite thing about the college was its small classes, which allowed students “to connect with peers and faculty.” If Mr. Henriques is convicted, he could receive from 10 years to life in prison, the Justice Department said. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Boston on Monday.

The weeks-long Eta Aquariid meteor shower is about to reach its peak, and people across both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres will have the opportunity to enjoy the spectacular event, which is visible to the naked eye. Here’s what people need to know in order to get the best glimpse at the Eta Aquariids. What are the Eta Aquariids? The Eta Aquariids meteor shower peaks in May of each year, per NASA. These meteors are specifically known for their speed, and Eta Aquariid meteors can travel about 40.7 miles (65.4 kilometers) per second into Earth's atmosphere, leaving trails behind them which observers can view for several seconds to minutes. The Eta Aquariids are created from space debris that originate from comet 1P/Halley—often considered the most famous comet. Each time Halley returns to the inner solar system, it sprays ice and rock, and though Halley only makes its way around the Sun every 76 years or so, its debris causes two different meteor showers each year: the Eta Aquariid meteor shower in May and the Orionids in October. When are the Eta Aquariids set to peak? While expert viewpoints differ as to the exact dates and peak times, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS), the Eta Aquariids have been active since April 15, and are expected to remain so until May 27. They are set to peak on the mornings of May 4, 5, and 6. These are the ideal mornings for those in the Northern Hemisphere to view the meteor shower, and under optimal conditions—meaning without city lights—observers should be able to see about 10 to 15 Eta Aquariids per hour. Areas in the United States that boast lower instances of light pollution—such as national parks like Big Bend in Texas or Death Valley in California—will have prime viewing opportunities. Although safety precautions should be paramount for skywatchers venturing into the great outdoors. However, those in the Southern Hemisphere will have optimal viewing opportunities, and, if lucky, could see over 50 meteors per hour. When is the best time to view the meteor shower and how can people watch? According to NASA, the best time to watch will be at 2 a.m. local time on May 6. It’s recommended that viewers give their eyes some time—around 30 minutes—to adjust to the dark. “Avoid looking at bright lights, such as your cell phone, too, as this will take your eyes off the sky and ruin your night vision,” reads the guidance from NASA. Viewers do not need telescopes or any special equipment to enjoy the event, but the darker the sky, the easier it will be to view the meteor shower, and the AMS states that even “a gain of one magnitude in sky darkness can lead to a doubling of observed meteors.” So, it is suggested for those near city lights to travel away from the brightly-lit streets.