Multiple tornadoes on Tuesday have threatened the Southeast as nonstop severe weather that killed 28 people in recent days enters its final stretch, with millions in the eastern half of the United States still in the path of dangerous storms. More than 7 million people are at risk of strong tornadoes on Tuesday with severe weather underway in parts of the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys. The threat includes areas already battered by this spring’s storms, like western Kentucky and western Tennessee. Tornado watches were in effect for parts of 11 states by mid-afternoon, with damaging wind gusts, hail and heavy rain also possible in any storm. A tornado touched down in Madison County, Tennessee, near the city of Jackson, on Tuesday afternoon at a Kirkland’s warehouse, close to Jackson Regional Airport, causing substantial roof damage, according to the county’s emergency management agency. Additional tornadoes and damaging winds are possible through the evening as the storms approach the Appalachians. A tornado watch was in effect for the area, including parts of Kentucky and Virginia. Here’s the latest: Deadly weather: Violent storms have killed at least 28 people in three states since Friday: 19 in Kentucky, seven in Missouri – including five in St. Louis – and two in Virginia. There have been at least 1,800 reports to the Storm Prediction Center of damaging wind gusts, hail and tornadoes in the days of storms since Wednesday. Communities assess damage: Powerful storms slammed parts of the Plains and Mississippi Valley on Monday, with tornadoes reported in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Nebraska. At least five counties in Oklahoma sustained storm damage that ranged from downed trees and power lines to a destroyed fire station, but that number could rise as officials continue to assess the aftermath, according to the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Rare tornado emergencies: In line with extreme tornado warnings issued by the National Weather Service, on Friday an EF4 tornado roared through Illinois’ Williamson County and injured at least seven people. Two extreme warnings on Sunday turned into “large and destructive” tornado emergencies in Greensburg and Plevna, Kansas. Severe threat targets hard-hit areas Tuesday Millions of people in the eastern half of the US are at risk of severe thunderstorms on Tuesday as the storm system that spurred Monday’s damaging weather tracks east. More than 13 million people – including in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee – are under a level 3-of-5 risk of severe thunderstorms, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Some parts of the Tennessee and Ohio valleys could be hit by multiple rounds of storms. Storms lingering from Monday night intensified Tuesday morning in parts of Tennessee. These storms tracked east and expanded in scope early in the afternoon, bringing gusty winds to eastern Kentucky and at least one tornado to northern Alabama. The “large and destructive tornado” was confirmed in Madison County near Huntsville, Alabama, on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. The city is also receiving reports of “golf ball size hail and related damage along with a lot of power outages,” said Huntsville spokesperson Kelly Schrimsher. Authorities so far have not reported any injuries. The focus is shifting back to the Mississippi Valley late Tuesday, where a new round of storms – including some supercells – started to fire up and will continue to track east through the evening. Multiple tornado watches were issued for the region Tuesday afternoon as the threat started to increase. Wind gusts of up to 70 mph are also possible with these storms, the National Weather Service warned. Any supercells will bring the day’s highest risk of strong tornadoes – rated EF2 or higher – in the afternoon hours before most storms start to merge into unbroken lines in early evening. Lines of storms will pose more of a widespread damaging wind threat through the evening but could still spawn tornadoes. Six straight days of damaging storms Ferocious storms have carved through hundreds of miles of the US in recent days, generating more than 1,800 reports of damaging wind gusts, hail and tornadoes since Wednesday. More than 100 of those reports were tornadoes. National Weather Service storm survey teams are still picking through extensive damage to determine exactly how many tornadoes tore through the central and eastern US since last week, but they’ve already found at least three EF3 tornadoes and one EF4. The EF4 tornado tore through Williamson County in southern Illinois on Friday with 190 mph winds, injuring at least seven people as it damaged homes and obliterated trees. An EF3 tornado rocked the St. Louis area Friday, according to the NWS, reaching its peak intensity with 152 mph winds as it stretched a mile wide over the north side of the city. The tornado killed at least five people and injured dozens, while also “damaging or destroying thousands of buildings.” Storms also left vast destruction behind in Laurel County, Kentucky, with 17 deaths reported there over the weekend. The city of London, about 75 miles south of Lexington, was hit particularly hard. Police responding to mutual aid calls for tornado victims described the devastation as overwhelming. The storm on Friday spawned a powerful EF4 tornado in London with 170 mph winds, comparable to windspeeds in a Category 5 hurricane. The twister’s track through Pulaski and Laurel was about 55 miles long and its maximum width was about a mile long, the county said. It was the deadliest tornado in the county’s history – the last tornado, and death from a twister, confirmed in the county was in 2012. Officials are working to get residents to safety as they face the threat of more damaging storms Tuesday evening. Evacuations were set to go into effect at 6 p.m. local time in London and other devastated parts of Laurel County over fears that new storms could turn lingering debris into dangerous projectiles. The evacuation ends at 11 p.m. “It is simply unsafe to be around that much debris with this level of wind,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a Tuesday morning news conference. Sunday night saw tornadoes tear through Kansas, with authorities reporting significant damage to homes in the city of Plevna, roughly 60 miles from Wichita, and the small northwestern town of Grinnell. Plevna was under a rare tornado emergency, the most extreme tornado warning, issued by the National Weather Service. Grinnell endured a “large and extremely dangerous tornado” Sunday evening, according to the NWS. A preliminary rating put the tornado at EF2-strength, but that rating could rise as NWS survey crews continue surveying damage on Tuesday. About 20 homes were destroyed in Grinnell, which is home to fewer than 300 people, according to Gove County Sheriff Shawn Mesch. “Essentially the entire west of Grinnell was destroyed,” Mesch told CNN Monday. But despite the level of destruction, there have been no reports of injuries: “It’s insane that nobody was hurt,” he said. The threats didn’t let up Monday, with dangerous storms stretching more than 500 miles from northern Texas to Nebraska in the afternoon hours. The worst-case scenario tornado threat didn’t come to fruition, but storms still produced multiple dangerous tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Nebraska. At least five counties in Oklahoma were damaged by storms, according to the state’s emergency management. Pittsburg County, in eastern Oklahoma, was hit hard by a tornado in the evening. Sheriff’s deputies, fire personnel, and emergency management services were assessing damage, authorities said Monday. They were also checking for individuals who may be injured or trapped, the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. “Please avoid the areas damaged by the storm at this time as emergency services are in the area,” the agency said.

Simeon Rice has been announced as the next member of the Buccaneers’ Ring of Honor, but Buccaneers co-owner Bryan Glazer is lobbying for Rice to get an even greater recognition. Glazer called Rice “the missing piece to make our defense one of the greatest of all time” and said that the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s selectors have committed an oversight by not putting Rice in Canton. “From 1996 to 2005, he totaled a league-best 101.5 sacks over those eight years, more than Hall of Famers Michael Strahan and Jason Taylor,” Glazer said. “During that same stretch, his mark of eight seasons with double-digit sack totals is the seventh most in NFL history, and all six men ahead of him on that list are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Simeon’s credentials for induction into our Ring of Honor are unquestioned, but he’s equally qualified and deserving of an overdue call from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Notably, he’s the only retired player with 100 sacks over eight consecutive seasons who doesn’t own a Gold Jacket. It’s time to rectify that oversight.” Rice said getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame while his parents were still alive would have meant a lot to him because of how much it would have meant to them, but that after his parents died he thought less about it. “That’s all that meant anything to me,” Rice said. “The only thing that mattered to me was playing football. I loved this game, and it’s how I celebrated my mother and father. And they’re not with me. . . . I’m just thinking about my mother and father.” The Cardinals drafted Rice out of Illinois with the third overall pick in 1996. After five seasons in Arizona, Rice signed with the Buccaneers in free agency in 2001 and spent six seasons with the Bucs. He then played briefly with the Broncos and Colts before retiring.

When the NFL schedule was released last week, one thing that stood out was that the Jaguars are set to play just one prime time game during the 2025 season. That was notable because they added Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter after trading up in the first round of the draft and because they have former first overall pick Trevor Lawrence at quarterback. Quarterbacks are central to the league’s marketing efforts and Lawrence actually appeared in advertising for the schedule release, but the lack of spotlight games illustrates the view that his career has not unfolded as many people thought it would. On Monday, Lawrence acknowledged that things have gone the wrong way for him and the Jaguars over the last couple of years while also expressing confidence in new head coach Liam Coen’s chances of getting Jacksonville back on track. “I really like the people we have here now,” Lawrence said, via the team’s website. “I love the system. I love the staff, the players that we brought in along with the guys that were already here. I feel very confident in where we’re going and the trajectory we’re heading. You can’t change the past. I would love to have had a little more success up until this point, but this is where we’re at, and I love where we’re at. I have a lot of confidence in it, and we just have to keep putting the work in out here every day to prepare ourselves for the fall.” The Jaguars signed Lawrence to a five-year extension before last season, so they are invested in seeing things get better as soon as possible for a player who entered the league with the expectation that he’d be a lot further along by this point in his career.

The push to have NFL players participate in flag football during the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles is reportedly set for a big step forward on Tuesday. Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that a resolution allowing players to participate is expected to pass a vote of team owners during league meetings in Minneapolis. The resolution will need yes votes from 24 teams in order to pass. Under the terms of the proposal, no more than one player from each club would be able to participate with an exception for designated international players who would be able to play for their home countries. It also includes specifications for playing fields and injury protection under the salary cap for any player who might be injured during the competition. The NFL Players Association has already indicated its support for players participating in the Olympics, so an affirmative response in Tuesday’s vote would clear the path for a significant NFL presence in Los Angeles in July 2028.

Rule changes in recent years have made onside kicks extremely difficult to recover, but a proposed rule change to be voted on at this week’s league meeting may help give the kicking team a chance. The league is considering changing onside kick rules to make it easier for the kicking team to recover, adding language that restricts where players on the receiving team can line up for onside kick recovery. “The receiving team may have a maximum of three players in the setup zone not on the restraining line, but never more than one player in each of the three areas within the setup zone bordered by the sidelines and inbounds lines,” the new language says. That language is going to be confusing to most football fans, as the league’s new kickoff rules have introduced a new vocabulary that hasn’t caught on with the general public. But the gist is that the new rule is designed to spread out the receiving team and give the kicking team a better chance of placing an onside kick into an area where no one on the receiving team is waiting to recover it. Any restrictions on how the receiving team can line up on onside kicks will at least in theory give the kicking team a slightly better chance of recovering, but the reality is that even if this new rule passes, onside kicks will remain extremely hard for the kicking team to recover. Unless the NFL goes back to allowing the kicking team to line up as many players as they want on either side of the kicker, and allows those players to get a running start, don’t expect many onside kicks to succeed. And the NFL has no interest in doing that because of concerns that the old onside kick rules risked too many injuries from high-speed collisions in confined spaces. Another option would be adopting one of the onside kick alternatives that regularly get proposed, such as allowing the kicking team to put its offense back on the field, facing a fourth-and-15, and keep the ball if they convert. Such rules have led to some exciting late-game situations in minor football leagues, but so far those proposals have failed to generate significant support within the NFL. The league will also consider allowing the trailing team to try an onside kick at any point in the game. Under the current rules, which were adopted last year, onside kicks may only be attempted in the fourth quarter.

Angel Reese on Tuesday praised the WNBA for taking up an investigation into alleged abuse aimed at the Chicago Sky player and the way the league and her team have had her back. The WNBA said it was investigating reports of abuse directed towards the second-year forward during Chicago’s loss to the Indiana Fever on Saturday. “Obviously there’s no place in this league for that,” Reese said during media availability on Tuesday. “I think the WNBA and our team and our organization has done a great job supporting me.” Reese said she has received support from many people across the league following the incident and during the process of the investigation. “Obviously it’s tough, but I think I have a great support system. I’m loved by so many people and ,obviously, in the moment it is hard to hear, but my support system is great,” the 23-year-old added. “I’ve gone through so many different things in the past couple of years in my life, but I think just having the support and this love, and being a part of an organization that really supports me and loves me is something I just couldn’t imagine not being a part of.” Chicago Sky head coach Tyler Marsh gave credit to Reese with how she’s dealt with the process. “She’s handled it great. I mean, for her, it’s about basketball, so I think that’s where her mind is at and for us we want to be as locked in as possible to our game plan and what we want to do moving forward into Thursday,” Marsh said. “I mean, Angel’s a winner. Angel’s a competitor, and she wants to be there for her teammates and we’re certainly there for her as well.” Marsh added that all those at the franchise will be behind the star second-year player. “I think that we always want to be there to support each other no matter what we’re going through in our personal lives or professional lives. It’s the kind of environment that we want to create here. It’s who we want to be as individuals and who we want to be as teammates.” The WNBA said after the alleged incident that it “strongly condemns racism, hate, and discrimination in all forms,” while the Fever said they are helping the league with the investigation. Indiana’s star guard Caitlin Clark issued a similar message after a Fever practice on Monday. “There’s no place for that in our game, there’s no place for that in society,” Clark, the 2024 Rookie of the Year, told reporters after practice on Monday. “Certainly, we want every person who comes into our arena, whether player or fan, to have a great experience,” Clark added. “I appreciate the league doing that (the investigation). I appreciate that the Fever organization has been at the forefront of that since day one. The investigation we’ll leave up to them to find anything and take the proper action if so.” The Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky will play each other three more times during the regular season.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. Joe Biden often forgot top White House aides’ names, occasionally resorting to shorthand descriptions of roles like “Press” for longtime communications chief Kate Bedingfield. There was discussions of him possibly needing a wheelchair in a second term, and he sometimes ate dinner as early as 4:30 p.m. He seemed completely unfazed by a jarring debate performance that sent the Democrats into a spiral and put donations on ice. While attending a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser for his crumbling re-election campaign, he at one point blanked when face to face with George Clooney, one of the biggest stars in the world. Advertisement These are just some of the details contained in the stunning and excellent Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again from journalists Alex Thompason of Axios and Jake Tapper of CNN. Through more than 200 interviews with Biden insiders after Election Day, Democratic operatives, and frustrated loyalists who feel betrayed, the pair paints a damning portrait of an insular President whose team coddled him to the point of severely limiting his evening bookings, shielding him from bad news, and letting him continue to spout information that was objectively not true. To say this book has been the talk of the town would undersell its current buzzy dominance. Even when Biden revealed a prostate cancer diagnosis on Sunday, it was hard to digest the news outside of the conversation reignited by Original Sin about how much Biden and his team were hiding about Biden’s capabilities to continue the job for four more years. Before the announcement of that cancer diagnosis, I sat down with Thompson for a chat about this project, which is out today. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. TIME: What was Biden's team thinking? Thompson: I think in every political organization, regardless of party, there's a tension of loyalty to your principal and loyalty to the bigger mission. In Biden's camp, the tug of war clearly went to the side that cared more about him and themselves than they cared about the larger mission, the White House and the country. And I think that's how they rationalized, not just having him run for reelection, but rationalizing that this guy could do the job for four more years. Many believed that it eventually would've precipitated into a constitutional crisis because he would've not been up to the job. And the people around him were not willing to admit it. None of them confronted the principal. That's telling about the culture that was created in which questioning or stress-testing created suspicions of disloyalty. Who created that culture?

When Itay Sharon’s $3,500 worth of goods arrived at a U.S. port on May 13, the shipment was subjected to a staggering 170% tariff, or close to $6,000. That was the result of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff hikes on China since April 2, which rose as high as 145%, on top of a 25% tariff on certain goods from his first term. Had the shipment arrived a day later, however, it would have faced a 55% levy, or less than $2,000. Sharon, who sells biodegradable and compostable bin bags, diaper bags, baby wipes, and pet wipes on Amazon in the U.S. and the U.K., hasn’t decided to what degree he should pass those costs onto the consumer in the form of higher prices, which would be necessary if his long-term costs are higher, or if he should absorb most of the hit assuming costs won’t dramatically rise again, as raising prices could impact demand. The problem is: no one knows what to expect next. “The uncertainty makes doing business very difficult,” Sharon tells TIME. Advertisement Trump stunned leaders, economists, and businesses around the world when he rolled out a slate of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from nearly every country in the world—with some as high as 50%. Just a week later, however, he announced a 90-day pause on the higher tariffs to allow for trade deal negotiations, temporarily reducing every country’s rate to 10% for most goods in the meantime. Except for China: the two countries instead began an escalating tariff war that in a matter of weeks saw U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports rise as high as 145% while Chinese tariffs on American imports rose to 125%. The trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies meant that for weeks many cargo shipments from China to the U.S. were halted and ports emptied out. But following talks in Geneva last weekend, the U.S. and China reached a truce: beginning May 14 and lasting for 90-days, U.S. tariffs on most Chinese goods would be brought down to 30%, while China would lower its tariffs on U.S. imports to 10%. Read More: What the U.S.-China Trade Deal Means for Online Shoppers But for many businesses across the U.S. that rely on Chinese manufacturing, the crippling tariffs have already done some damage—and the uncertainty of what may come after three months has left businesses trying to adapt to a volatile policy situation without knowing exactly what they’re preparing for. Some have rushed to take advantage of the rollback by frontloading and stockpiling shipments. Container bookings for China to U.S. routes soared nearly 300% in the days after the truce was announced, particularly as businesses anticipate end-of-year holiday shopping demand. “Many retailers had paused or canceled shipments prior to the announcement,” Jonathan Gold, the National Retail Foundation’s vice president of supply chain and customs policy, tells TIME. “They are now working with their suppliers to quickly ramp up orders for arrival before the 90-day truce ends. This is currently the busiest time of year for retailers that are in the process of placing orders for the all-important fall and winter holiday seasons.” Not knowing what comes next has led “many importers to bring whatever possible into the U.S.,” says Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, an ocean and air freight rate analytics platform. But when the tariffs were first announced, several of the main container lines moved capacity away from the Pacific due to the fall in demand, Sand adds, so it will take a few weeks to redeploy them from other routes back to the China-U.S. route. Sea freight shipping from China to the U.S. typically takes two to five weeks, a timeline that makes it very difficult to quickly change course. “Bigger companies are better prepared for fluctuations like this, simply due to scale and also due to the fact that they may be able to absorb some of the higher tariffs better than smaller mom and pop shops,” Sand says. As big companies rush to secure cargo shipments, small and medium sized companies may also have to “scramble for what’s left in terms of capacity on board. It’s not just one rate, the big players out there pay lower freight rates, and the smaller ones often see something which is much higher.” And for many smaller companies, stockpiling isn’t as straightforward of an option. Anna Griffin, who owns an Atlanta-based small business selling luxury paper craft products that have been sourced from four factories in China since 2001, tells TIME that since her goods are designed by her company and at times even customizable, she can’t import more than a few months’ inventory. Sharon, too, says it doesn’t make sense in his business to stockpile inventory and have to pay potentially high storage costs. But even for larger companies, Donald Low, an economist at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology’s Institute of Public Policy, tells TIME that stockpiling is merely a “stop-gap measure.” The kind of “momentous, costly, sticky” business decisions, like shifting production out of China that the Trump Administration ostensibly wants, aren’t likely to be made within this 90-day window, Low says. “When companies relocate, it is not a kind of decision they take lightly. It is something that requires significant planning, financial investment, and reconfiguration of logistic arrangements. This is not something that is done in a matter of weeks or months,” says Low. “Why make any decisions if you only have a window of 90 days and you don’t know what is going to happen after?” Why relocating isn’t so easy “The last seven weeks have felt like seven years to me,” Griffin, the small business owner, tells TIME. Griffin spent the weeks after Trump’s initial tariff announcement looking at shifting production away from China. But she says, “we were met immediately with higher costs and an incredible learning curve—the quality was not going to happen in the first year of transitioning, and that’s if we could get production space” as thousands of other businesses were also looking at moving production to factories in other countries. Most factories in other countries also have higher minimum order quantities than those in China, says Ash Monga, who runs China-based supply chain management company IMEX Sourcing Services, and they often don’t have the same infrastructure that has allowed China to become such an efficient manufacturing environment. “China has been the world’s manufacturer, and they are experts at it,” Griffin says. Read More: Why China Laughs at the Idea of Americans Taking Their Manufacturing Jobs “It’s a long process,” Monga says of diversifying supply chains. In most cases, and especially for complex products or companies that hadn’t yet begun before the tariffs, it would take months, if not years. The process typically involves speaking to multiple factories, negotiating prices, and ordering and making samples—which can take multiple rounds of feedback depending on the complexity of the product—before finally being able to start production to sell. There’s a difference between “China time,” Monga says of the speed at which Chinese factories are able to go through that process, and everywhere else. “China has been doing it for so long, they’ve evolved over time and become very, very efficient.” Griffin also considered moving production into the U.S., but after speaking with multiple printers across the country, she says she found that none would be able to produce the same quality or even type of sticker that she gets made in China. “Not only could they not do it, but it was more than 200% of the cost that we’re currently paying”—even higher than paying the highest tariff to import it from China, she says. “I don’t think it’s possible for a small business to just change on a dime and find anywhere in the world,” she says. “It just couldn’t happen in the infinitesimal moment that was given to us to avoid business disruption.” Griffin has recently been able to move some production to a factory in Malaysia, which is run by the same director as the factories she works with in China, but the bulk of her production has remained in China. Sharon, who works with factories in both China and Vietnam, also looked into transitioning production to the U.S., but on top of likely increased production costs and higher minimum order quantities, he says he found that U.S. factories have been slow to respond during a critical time for his business. “I can’t work with them under these circumstances,” he says. “What’s at stake right now is the backbone of the U.S. economy, and small businesses that employ people are having to, whether we like it or not, absorb these tariffs,” Griffin says. “It’s not about getting manufacturing made in the U.S.—that’s just it: I can’t, we can’t.” Tariff uncertainty may even lead businesses toward China Over the last decade, more companies have begun pursuing a “China Plus One” strategy wherein businesses diversified their manufacturing and sourcing to include operations in at least one other country besides China to mitigate trade risks. That effort was further propelled by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global supply chains, Low says. “It became quite clear to many businesses that were producing in China to serve the world that they needed more resilience in addition to just focusing on efficiency,” Low says. Trump’s global “reciprocal” tariffs, however, demonstrate “an effort to decouple not just from China but decouple from the rest of the world as well,” Low says. Potential beneficiaries of “China Plus One,” like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia, were also initially hit with punitive tariffs, and it is not yet certain what rates they will ultimately face after the 90-day rollback. Read More: How ‘Friendshoring’ Made Southeast Asia Pivotal to the AI Revolution While Trump’s trade war ceasefire brings some short-term relief, it also, Low says, “confirmed companies’ fears that these decisions were temporary, were not long lasting, were just arbitrary ones that could easily be reversed. And as we have seen, they have been reversed.” The result could actually mean more companies staying put in China, where at least production standards are high and costs other than tariffs are low, while waiting for more long-term policy clarity. “Brands that had started to diversify away from China are now stuck mid-transition, unsure whether to double down or pull back,” says Rachel Kibbe, founder and CEO of American Circular Textiles, a coalition of industry leaders advocating for more resilient domestic supply chains. Says Low of Trump’s trade volatility: “At best it created uncertainty, and at worst it might actually have reversed the trend of ‘China Plus One,’ the trend of shifting some of the production facilities out of China, because given the uncertainty, companies would just stick with the status quo until things become clearer.” “The market really moves to the tune of the policy uncertainty from the Trump administration,” says Sand. “Such a business environment here is pretty toxic for anyone working in supply chains where predictability, reliability and resilience are key words.”

Vice President J.D. Vance questioned on Monday whether former President Joe Biden was “capable of doing the job” of Commander in Chief, following the news that Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer. “Of course, we wish the best for the former President’s health. It sounds pretty serious, but hopefully he makes the right recovery,” Vance told reporters. “I will say, whether the right time to have this conversation is now or at some point in the future, we really do need to be honest about whether the former President was capable of doing the job.” Advertisement “I don’t think he was able to do a good job for the American people,” Vance continued. Biden’s office announced on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with cancer on Friday, after doctors found a nodule on his prostate. After additional tests, doctors determined that the cancer had spread to his bones. Biden’s Gleason score, which is used to grade the aggressiveness of prostate cancers, was 9, indicating that his cancer is among the most aggressive. His office said that the cancer “appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management,” and that Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians." Read More: What Does a Gleason Score of 9 Mean? Understanding Biden’s Prostate Cancer Diagnosis Speaking to reporters on Air Force Two on Monday, Vance said he wished the former President well, but added that he didn’t believe Biden was in “good enough health” to lead the country. Vance said he blamed Biden “less” than the people around him. “Why didn’t the American people have a better sense of his health picture? Why didn’t the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with?” Vance said. “This is the guy who carries around the nuclear football for the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. This is not child’s play, and we can pray for good health, but also recognize that if you’re not in good enough health to do the job, you shouldn’t be doing the job.” Biden’s physician declared in a medical record summary released by the White House in February 2024 that Biden was “fit to successfully executive the duties of the Presidency” after a routine physical exam. But concerns over Biden’s age and cognitive fitness loomed over his reelection campaign. Calls for him to drop out of the race intensified after the first presidential debate of the 2024 election last June, and he ultimately withdrew his candidacy in July. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris later became the Democratic nominee before losing the election to President Donald Trump in November.

With summer around the corner, so too are the bugs. Insects, much like their human counterparts, are more lively in the spring and summer when the weather is warmer. And climate change means that globally summers on average could get less buggy. But when it comes to some of the more pesky pests, like ticks and mosquitoes, it could feel like there are more of them as they broaden their range of habitat or timing when they emerge for the season. Our changing climate, however, stands to impact different species of insects in different ways. Studies show that globally an increasing number of insects could be at risk for extinction. Many are also emerging either earlier or later in the year than they used to as weather patterns change. While you might be hoping to put away the bug spray, experts warn that the change could have harmful impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, and in some cases, health. Some insects are adapting to changing climates by moving to regions that might have previously been unsuitable.“They are not just expanding their ranges, but they're becoming more abundant in places where maybe they weren't as abundant before,” says Anahí Espíndola, associate professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. For some species, this can be cause for concern. For example, climate change is lengthening mosquito season and expanding the areas where mosquito-borne diseases like malaria or West Nile virus may spread. “The likelihood of certain diseases being transmitted in places where those diseases weren't really a problem before are increasing, and we are expecting those problems to actually become worse as temperatures continue to increase,” says Espíndola. In the U.S., the number of “mosquito days” with warm, humid weather the insects thrive on, have increased around the country, according to an analysis by Climate Central. Climate change is also increasing the geographical range of ticks—which could increase the spread of Lyme disease. Shifts in weather patterns meanwhile are causing some insect species to emerge at different times of the year than they once did. This change in timing can impact the insect’s chance of survival—and that of the other species that might rely on it. “Right now, we're seeing increases in temperature and increases in drought, and that will have impacts on the ability of species to survive in certain places, and the ability of species to interact with the right organisms,” says Espíndola. “If you're a pollinator, and you're emerging and you are looking for a particular group of plants that you're going to be collecting pollen or nectar from, if that plant has already flowered, you have this temporal mismatch with organisms that you should be interacting with to be able to survive.” The misalignment stands to have big impacts on ecosystems—changing how a species interacts with plants and other organisms. “That's a big concern, because those insects are pollinators for crops and they are part of food chains for terrestrial animals, and are critical to a lot of ecosystems, as well as pollinators to our own food production,” says Mario Gallio, professor in the department of neurobiology at Northwestern University, whose work focuses on how temperature impacts insect behavior. Pollination changes stand to impact our food systems. Over 80% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, mostly insects, with pollinators playing a role in over 35% of the world’s crop production. Wasps, for example, are reportedly declining in population in England as the country sees more rainy days and flooding—impacting pollination and ecosystems. While sometimes annoying, insects are more important than many of us give them credit for, say experts. “The biodiversity ecosystem, animals, birds, everything depends on robust food chains that often have insects as an important component,” says Gallio. “We are looking at impoverishing all sorts of ecosystems that have this one step that involves insects. For people who care about nature, it’s scary, for people who care about their food, it’s scary. There is plenty to be concerned about.”