The pandemic inspired new vigilance about germs, including more frequent and thorough house cleaning—changes that stuck with many of us years later. But while cleanliness is a virtue, germ fixation is not. Cleaning your house too thoroughly, or with the wrong kinds of products, can be harmful to health. Of particular concern is the overzealous use of potent disinfectants that kill 99% of common bacteria. “The pandemic has had a long-term impact, and people use stronger disinfectants now,” says Orianne Dumas, a respiratory epidemiologist at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research. “We’re cleaning more than we ever have, for both good and bad, depending on how people do it,” says Jill Heins Nesvold, senior director of indoor air quality at the American Lung Association. Here’s what researchers know about the risks and how to clean house effectively while protecting yourself and those around you. Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang Branded Content Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang By China Daily Concerning ingredients Studies reveal that the air inside our homes is more polluted than the air outdoors, and a portion of these toxins come from household cleaners. They contain scores of chemicals linked to health problems, including those that affect breathing. However, these risks depend on the dose. In 2023, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group researched 30 common cleaning products and found that all together, they contained 193 chemicals hazardous to health. Many are volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, such as acetone, methanol, and glycols like 2-butoxyethanol. These evaporate easily into the air, where they can be inhaled, trigger allergic reactions, and irritate the eyes, nose, and throat. Too much irritation can inflame and damage the airway, potentially resulting in breathing issues. Higher asthma rates have been observed in people who clean professionally and even in ordinary people exposed to these irritants as infrequently as once per week. There’s also an association with lung weakness. One study found professional cleaners have a 43% higher risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than the general population. Dumas says that more research is needed to establish this COPD link in people who just clean their own houses, who have less exposure. Read More: Are ‘Broken Skin Barriers’ a Real Thing? The potential impacts go beyond the respiratory system. Once inhaled, VOCs can mimic the activity of hormones, disrupting the endocrine system. Such disruptions may increase cancer risk. As with COPD, some studies suggest higher cancer rates among cleaning professionals, but research hasn’t shown the same link among casual household users, Dumas notes. Overexposure can mean different things. Big doses of harsh disinfectants can disrupt health rapidly, while lower amounts used too frequently over the years can also be harmful. “You could use a cleaning product once per week for 10 years, or two times per day for one year, and get the same exposure,” Heins Nesvold says. “With a lot of use, you’ll have the effects more quickly.” Use just a few high-quality products To protect yourself while cleaning your house, start by using fewer products to limit contact with lots of chemicals. You could select a multi-purpose cleaner instead of the specialist approach: one for glass, another for the bathtub, a specific floor product, and so on. “Reevaluate your product arsenal to find places to cut back,” advises Samara Geller, senior director of cleaning science at EWG. Another easy swap: Instead of a kitchen-specific cleaner, use dish soap and water on your counters. “You don’t necessarily need a unique kitchen product,” Geller says. Disinfect only when necessary Don’t overdo it with bleach and other strong disinfectants. “Cleaning should not be synonymous with disinfection,” says Doug Collins, a chemist at Bucknell University who studies cleaning products. You want the cleaning horsepower of a disinfectant when up against serious filth like bacteria, viruses, mold, and fungi. That’s why hospitals use disinfectants daily. For your home, though, plain soap and water will often work just fine. “Soap is really good at grabbing greasy stuff,” Collins says. He suggests alcohol-based products—ones without added chemicals for killing germs—as another example of basic cleaners that do the job. Improper use of bleach is especially harmful. Bleach is a great disinfectant because it’s a strong oxidant, but this quality also makes it potentially dangerous. The body has antioxidants that “tamp down on bleach’s oxidative potential and counteract it,” Collins explains, but if you’re exposed routinely, “there’s leakage through that defense mechanism that can cause damage.” Read More: Is Intermittent Fasting Good or Bad for You? Collins’s two small children have a knack for turning his bathroom into a crud-filled wrecking zone. When they do, he reaches for bleach, but that’s the rare exception. “We do need to disinfect, but not every day, and maybe not even every week,” Dumas says. A few times per month only, recommends Asa Bradman, an environmental health scientist at the University of California, Merced. If there’s an immunocompromised person in the household, “that’s a different circumstance,” Geller says, warranting more disinfectant. Another example from Heins Nesvold: if an ill house guest sneezes repeatedly, a thorough cleaning is probably wise. When you disinfect, do so in a targeted manner. Focus on high-touch surfaces like faucets and doorknobs, advises Akiko Iwasaki, professor of immunobiology at Yale University. “While excessive use of cleaning products and disinfectants containing synthetic chemicals may harm the human body, when used properly, they can reduce transmission of infections,” Iwasaki says. Consider bleach alternatives You could opt for other bleach alternatives besides soap and alcohol, such as hydrogen peroxide. “We recommend hydrogen peroxide because it’s effective, and pure forms break down into water and oxygen,” Bradman says. It’s easy to remove from surfaces, he adds, whereas bleach often leaves an irritating residue lasting several days after cleaning. Vinegar breaks up dirt with less risk than bleach, too, though it’s not as powerful. Collins recommends distilled white vinegar and other acid-based cleaners like lactic or citric acid. You still have to be careful, though. Inhaling vinegar directly could cause “respiratory triggers,” says Bradman. Read More: 6 Things to Eat to Reduce Your Cancer Risk Avoid mixing products. Never combine bleach with vinegar, ammonia, or products that have hydrogen peroxide, such as toilet bowl cleaners. The resulting chemical reactions release gases that are toxic and damaging. One large exposure to chlorine gas—produced from mixing bleach and acidic cleaners—can cause reactive airways dysfunction syndrome (RADS), an irritant-induced form of asthma, Geller says. Follow directions on the bottle that spell out safety precautions, including dangerous mixtures. “It’s key to choose the right product for the right job and follow the label,” says Nicholas Georges, senior VP of scientific and international affairs for the Household and Commercial Products Association, which represents companies making these products. Go fragrance-free Products labeled fragrance-free may be preferable. This is a tricky one, as we often take satisfaction in cleaners with fresh scents, like pine or lemon—a reward for battling the dirt. However, some of the chemicals responsible for these smells, such as limonene, are the very VOCs that groups including EWG have identified as potentially problematic. Research shows that 35% of Americans using fragranced products report symptoms like breathing issues and migraines. Fragrance-free cleaners release fewer VOCs. “They’re healthier,” says Bradman, who steers clear of strong scents. Georges notes that companies perform risk assessments on cleaners to ensure safety and reduce liability. Products must meet fragrance-ingredient standards for protecting health developed by the International Fragrance Association. Try certified “green” cleaners Several organizations certify specific cleaning products as better for health. The American Lung Association and EWG recommend looking for cleaners certified as Safer Choice, a label created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “We’re big supporters of Safer Choice,” Georges says. In 2019, EWG developed its own EWG Verified certification for cleaning products. Specific ingredients can also be checked for toxicity against lists compiled by EWG and the EPA. Another consideration is whether a product is advertised as “green,” suggesting it uses natural ingredients. Separate studies by EWG and Bradman found that green products tend to have fewer hazardous VOCs. The quality of these products varies, though. “There’s a lot of diversity in these green products,” Dumas says. Some government regulations aim to control false product claims about being green, but there’s a lack of enforcement. Dumas has found that some green cleaners contribute to asthma risk, partly because natural ingredients aren’t necessarily good for you. For instance, some green cleaners include essential oils, which “may be natural, but could still be volatile” and therefore irritating, Bradman explains. Read More: Green Tea Is Even Better For You Than You Think Make sure to check the product’s chemical ingredients on its label and online. “Transparency is critical,” Georges says. When products have at least one chemical that’s an allergen—meaning it could affect people with sensitivities, such as asthma—the label has to disclose this, Georges explains. And the specific ingredients, both allergens and other ingredient types, must be listed on the company website or product-specific sites, in addition to on the label, he says. In its 2023 study, EWG found some chemicals in the air that weren’t listed on product labels. “Oftentimes the label is only scratching the surface of what’s contained in the formula,” Geller says. This discrepancy doesn’t necessarily mean that companies are being deceitful. Rather, it’s hard to predict the byproducts of chemicals once they’re “in the bottle and co-mingling,” Geller says. Another unknowable factor is what substances the chemicals will encounter after they’re released in people’s homes, such as particulate matter. These secondary reactions can form new substances like formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, Geller explains. Air things out People can further reduce their exposures by circulating the air during cleaning and immediately after. Open windows, run fans, and keep the HVAC system on. “Really get that air circulating to move the chemicals out of the space,” Geller says. Collins runs the bathroom fan for at least 15 minutes after he’s cleaned his kids’ mess. You can also reduce your chemical exposure by protecting your skin and airways while you clean. For heavy-duty cleaning, consider wearing gloves and an N95 mask. Limit use of sprays that contain chemicals called quaternary ammonium compounds, Collins says. These “quats” differ from VOCs in that they don’t evaporate quickly into the air, but when sprayed they’re easily inhaled, risking irritation and endocrine disruption. Even sprays without quats could harm health if they’re breathed in too much, so try spraying into a cloth first and then wiping surfaces with the cloth. This should reduce how much spray a person inhales, especially if they wear a mask, Collins says. Read More: 6 Health Myths About Oils Those who are especially sensitive to chemicals, including kids and people with asthma, should go outside during cleaning if possible. In a 2025 study, Dumas found that the overuse of cleaning products in daycares is associated with wheezing symptoms in children under age three. Bradman helped to develop a toolkit on safe cleaning protocols for daycare providers. Pregnant women, too, should take precautions, since some research shows a link between exposure during pregnancy and childhood asthma. If you’re craving that fresh-as-morning-dew smell after you tidy, you can create it without fragranced cleaners. Geller recommends simmering a pot of water with your favorite herbs and spices. Just don’t shy away from disinfectants when you’re looking to banish unhealthy mildews and other tough-to-clean causes of malodor. “The Lung Association isn’t anti-cleaning product,” Heins Nesvold says. “We just want people to be really knowledgeable about what they’re putting into the air they breathe.

Most of us are pretty adept by now at managing COVID-19, with an armor of past infections, vaccinations, self-tests, and antiviral medications like Paxlovid. In the latest study, however, researchers report that taking Paxlovid may not provide as much benefit as doctors originally thought—particularly for older people who are vaccinated. In a research letter published in JAMA on Feb. 20, Dr. John Mafi, associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and his colleagues used Canadian data to explore what happened when people took Paxlovid. A Canadian health policy in 2022 allowed prescriptions for Paxlovid only for symptomatic people around age 70 in order to reserve the medication for those who needed it most. Older people are at higher risk of developing complications from COVID-19. The policy allowed the scientists to compare people in this age group who took Paxlovid to those who didn’t. Among the nearly 1.5 million people they studied, those who received prescriptions for the drug did not have significantly different rates of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 than those who didn’t get the drug. Most of the people studied were vaccinated. Restoring a city’s charm Branded Content Restoring a city’s charm By China Daily “Our main finding was that among vaccinated older adults, Paxlovid showed no statistically significant reduction in COVID-19 hospitalizations or on mortality,” says Mafi, the study’s lead author. That’s very different from the results that Paxlovid’s maker, Pfizer, first reported in 2022. In that study, Pfizer found that the drug reduced hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 by 89% compared to people receiving placebo. But the group they studied was mostly middle-aged and unvaccinated, which is a much different population than exists today. “Yet that 2022 Pfizer study was and continues to be used to support the assumption that the benefits of Paxlovid in unvaccinated adults also apply to vaccinated adults,” says Mafi. “That’s what is being used to justify its perceived effectiveness—and its list price at $1,650 per treatment course.” In a statement, Pfizer said it could not comment on a study in which it did not participate, but that the company "remain[s] confident in Paxlovid's clinical effectiveness at preventing severe outcomes, including hospitalization and death, from COVID-19 in patients at high risk of severe illness." Read More: Long COVID Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think It Does Paxlovid is meant to help those at high risk of developing complications from COVID-19, including the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, and those with multiple underlying health conditions. That remains a primary criterion for prescribing the medication, which is now available for anyone age 12 or older and who is at high risk of severe disease. Still, Mafi says there aren't strong data on how Paxlovid affects the disease course in people who are vaccinated. His findings suggest that the benefits are about four times smaller than those reported by Pfizer. “We are not saying that Paxlovid is useless,” says Mafi. “What this research is saying is that its effectiveness in older groups who are most vulnerable to COVID-19, but who are vaccinated, is far lower than what the earlier evidence from unvaccinated groups showed.” More research is needed, but doctors can consider this new information when deciding whether to recommend a patient take Paxlovid. Other important factors include a person's medical history, the medication's risk of relatively mild side effects, and Paxlovid rebound, in which people taking Paxlovid may test positive again after testing negative. Dr. Katherine Kahn, distinguished professor of medicine at UCLA and the study’s senior author, says that she will discuss the latest results with her patients, and “for generally health people, I’m not encouraging or discouraging [Paxlovid] if they meet the criteria for taking it,” she says. “But for people with higher risk of morbidity or mortality, we’re more likely to say we might consider [Paxlovid] at this time, even though we don’t know 100% if you will benefit.” The new study raises questions for future research. It doesn’t take into account, for instance, how past infections might cause the body to respond to Paxlovid. Mafi and Kahn say that they were also not able to delve more deeply into participants’ vaccination history—how many and which doses they received—or confirm whether they took Paxlovid within five days of their first symptoms, when the drug is most effective. But they are planning to access the individual-level data and do a more in-depth analysis of other factors that may impact how effective the drug is at reducing hospitalizations and deaths. “One of the conclusions of this study is the recommendation for more studies, of both older individuals and those who are vaccinated, of the effectiveness of Paxlovid,” says Kahn.

An atmospheric river of moisture was draped across the Pacific Northwest on Saturday and will deliver breezy winds and drenching rains to Washington and Oregon into Sunday. A second quick-hitting system is expected to sweep the region Monday into Tuesday and bring more rain and potentially stronger winds. During the back-to-back storms, heavy rain could cause flooding and strong winds could knock out power and down trees. Forecasters are calling these typical winter storms, although this winter has been anything but typical for the region. Washington and Oregon are famously wet and gray in winter, and a bulk of their precipitation comes from these sorts of storms. But this year, both states saw unusual dry stretches in January. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We had weeks where it was sunny every day,” said Anna Ruhl, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, Ore. Between Friday and Tuesday, Seattle is expected to record two and a half inches of rain, and Portland could pick up about two inches. Those amounts are in stark contrast to the rainfall totals from January. The Portland International Airport recorded a little less than three inches last month, down from the five it typically records in January. The discrepancy is more extreme in Seattle, which measured 1.92 inches of rain last month, compared with the 5.78 inches in a typical January. February was already on track to make up some of the deficit. A storm brought rain and snow to the region earlier this week, and the approaching atmospheric river is predicted to be strong, bringing a bigger dose of precipitation. Atmospheric rivers are ribbons of water vapor that stretch for thousands of miles and are carried through the sky by powerful winds. Upon hitting land, the atmospheric rivers can release heavy rain, especially as they move up and over mountains. This system will deliver multiple waves of moisture. As there often is with this type of storm, “there remains uncertainty as to the rainfall amounts” the region is expected to see, said Jacob DeFlitch, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Seattle. He warned that the rain would likely lead to “significant rises” on the region’s rivers, prompting a risk of flooding. Some of the highest precipitation totals are expected over the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, where over six inches of rain could fall at the coast and over 10 inches of precipitation in the mountains from Friday to Tuesday. Snow is expected to mainly fall at elevations above 7,000 to 8,000 feet, but more rain than snow is expected in the mountains with this system, which is warm and pulling in moisture from the subtropics, as is usual with atmospheric rivers. Rain is likely to fall on snow that’s already on the ground, and could trigger snow melt and water rushing down into streams and rivers.Rivers are forecast to swell, with several expected to get close to flood stage. The Skokomish River, which flows from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound in Washington, is poised to spill its banks over the weekend. The flood forecast for rivers is constantly changing, and people should turn to their local Weather Service offices for the latest information. To the north, the storm will affect British Columbia, with Vancouver Island expected to record seven to 10 inches of rain and Vancouver a little less, said Chad Hecht, a meteorologist with the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California, San Diego. To the south, the system will brush far Northern California, with locations across Del Norte County poised to get up to five inches of rain. Mr. Hecht said that anyone living between British Columbia and far Northern California should prepare for days of rain. “You could have a multiday event, maybe 72 hours-plus for some locations,” Mr. Hecht said. “It’s going to be a wet couple of days.” The big, wet weekend storm will be followed by a second “more compact” system that’s not an atmospheric river, Mr. DeFlitch said. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “It may be strengthening as it approaches land, and that could result in strong winds,” he said. “There’s still uncertainty in the forecast.”

A backcountry snowboarder was killed in an avalanche on Thursday in a remote part of southwestern Colorado, the fourth person to die in a mountain slide this week in the western United States following several winter storms. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center said that the victim was traversing a terrain feature known as The Nose, near Silverton, Colo., when the person got caught in the avalanche. A skier who was with the snowboarder escaped the avalanche, the authorities said. Emergency responders used a helicopter to try to rescue the snowboarder, but the person did not survive, the center said. Rescuers were alerted about the avalanche by the staff from a nearby backcountry hut. The avalanche added to what has been a deadly week in the West. On Monday, two skiers were caught in an avalanche in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, one that occurred at a height of 6,700 feet on a south-facing slope. Their bodies were recovered on Tuesday. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Also on Monday, an avalanche claimed the life of a backcountry skier in California near Lake Tahoe. The Sierra Avalanche Center said that the skier was traveling alone when he triggered the avalanche, which carried him downslope over rocks and through trees. The victim was buried beneath more than four feet of snow against a tree, the center said.

David L. Boren, a popular reform-minded Democrat who led Oklahoma as its governor and then represented it for three terms in the United States Senate, where he was an influential voice on national intelligence, died on Thursday at his home in Norman, Okla. He was 83. The death was confirmed by Clark Brewster, his lawyer. The son of an Oklahoma congressman, Mr. Boren rose from academic brilliance as a Rhodes scholar into a steppingstone political career as a state legislator (1967-75), the nation’s youngest governor (1975-79) and a member of the Senate (1979-94), where he became the longest serving chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. His Sooner eminence grew further when he served as president of the University of Oklahoma. To dramatize his campaign for the governorship in 1974, a 5,000-strong “Boren Broom Brigade” converged on the Capitol in Oklahoma City as Mr. Boren vowed to “sweep out the old guard” with reforms. In his single term, he cut state income taxes, abolished inheritance taxes for spouses, pushed through anti-crime laws, improved a troubled prison system, funded public education for gifted students, and invoked so-called sunset laws to eliminate some 100 state agencies, commissions and boards. A reliably red state today, Oklahoma was long a Democratic stronghold until recent decades.Rising to national prominence in the Senate, Mr. Boren became a centrist, allying himself on many issues with President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, both Republicans. He championed tax cuts and campaign finance reforms to limit the influence of wealthy donors. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, from 1987 to 1993, he helped shape foreign policy and was a mentor to George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. Mr. Boren was also instrumental in building bipartisan support for sanctions against South Africa over its apartheid racial laws, and in 1990 he helped secure the release of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader, after 27 years in prison. Mr. Mandela went on to serve as the president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and he and Mr. Boren became friends. Mr. Boren resigned midway through his third Senate term to accept the presidency of the University of Oklahoma. In his long tenure there, from 1994 to 2018, he increased enrollments and the number of scholarships, introduced new academic and research programs, raised more funds for endowed professorships, expanded student housing and added classrooms.For most of his university presidency, Mr. Boren was never far from the national political spotlight. There was talk in 2007 of a third-party presidential campaign by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, with Mr. Boren as a possible running mate. But in 2008, Mr. Boren endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president. Mr. Obama later named Mr. Boren co-chairman of the nonpartisan President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Mr. Boren also made national headlines in 2015 by closing the campus chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of the nation’s largest college fraternities, after a video showed white fraternity members singing a racist chant that included anti-Black slurs, a reference to lynching and vows that African Americans would never be allowed to join the campus chapter. Mr. Boren retired as the university’s president in 2018. Months later, in February 2019, Oklahoma news outlets reported that a former student and teaching assistant at the university, Jess Eddy, had reported to the Norman Police Department that Mr. Boren had made unwanted sexual advances toward him in a Houston hotel room in November 2010. Both were drinking alcohol, he said. They and other university personnel were in Houston for a weekend of conferences on alumni affairs, fund-raising and student recruitment. The accuser, a University of Oklahoma graduate, was quoted as saying in multiple interviews with nondoc.com, an Oklahoma-based independent journalism website, that Mr. Boren had sexually harassed him with “touching” and “kisses” about “once or twice a semester” from 2010 to 2012. The university hired the law firm Jones Day to investigate the allegations. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation also got involved. Nondoc.com said Mr. Eddy had acknowledged that he had called Mr. Boren and “asked him for compensation for my pain and suffering” and that he had said he regretted that call. Bob Burke, a lawyer for Mr. Boren, rejected the allegations. “Even though we have received no complaint, President Boren emphatically denies any inappropriate behavior or unlawful activity,” he said. “He has been a dedicated public servant for more than 50 years, and his life is an open book in Oklahoma.” The results of the Jones Day investigation were never released, and the allegations did not lead to criminal charges or civil litigation. The episode nevertheless prompted Mr. Boren to sever his ties with the university.David Lyle Boren was born on April 21, 1941, in Washington to Representative Lyle H. Boren and Christine (McKown) Boren. He had a younger sister, Susan. His father, who served in the House from 1937 to 1947, was a conservative Oklahoma Democrat who opposed the growth of government and what he regarded as excessive federal spending. David grew up and attended schools in Seminole, Okla., before graduating in 1959 from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Md. He went on to Yale University, where he majored in American history, joined the Yale Conservative Party and was president of the Yale Political Union. He graduated in 1963 near the top of his class. As a Rhodes scholar, he earned a master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford in 1965. Plunging into Oklahoma politics, Mr. Boren won a seat in the state’s House of Representatives in 1966 and served four two-year terms. He earned a law degree at the University of Oklahoma in 1968; was in the Oklahoma National Guard for a decade, rising to captain in command of a supply company; and was chairman of the social sciences department at Oklahoma Baptist University, in Shawnee. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The Watergate scandal, which forced President Richard M. Nixon to resign in 1974, had permeated politics when Mr. Boren ran for governor that year, and he cast himself as a state-government reformer. He defeated the incumbent Democratic governor, David Hall, in a primary, and a Republican, James Inhofe, in the general election. (Mr. Inhofe was later elected to the House and the Senate. He died in July.) At 33, Mr. Boren was the nation’s youngest governor when he took office in January 1975. As governor, he reformed the state’s workers’ compensation law and fostered many improvements to Oklahoma’s correctional system, which was still reeling from a 1973 riot at the overcrowded state penitentiary at McAlester that left three dead and $20 million in damage. He also drew wide attention during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s by calling for the nationwide deregulation of natural gas prices. President Carter named him chairman of a task force to study the problem. His actions positioned him well for his next move, up to the Senate.Shortly after graduating from law school in 1968, Mr. Boren had married Janna Lou Little, whose father, Reuel Little, ran for governor on the American Party ticket in 1970. The couple were divorced in 1976. In 1977, Mr. Boren married Molly W. Shi, an Oklahoma county judge. They exchanged vows at the Governor’s Mansion. He is survived by his wife; two children from his first marriage, David Daniel Boren and Carrie Headington; and a number of grandchildren. His sister, Susan Boren-Dorman, died in 2020. Mr. Boren’s son, who goes by the name Daniel, was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat in 2004 and served four terms before returning to private life. David Boren was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1988. As his 26-year political career drew to a close in 1994, Mr. Boren wrote an opinion article for The New York Times titled “Why I Am Leaving the Senate.” He told of his exhaustion after years of 14-hour days with little time for reflection, family relationships, personal friendships or even time to exchange ideas with fellow senators. “I have come to believe that the revitalization of our nation will not come from Washington but from the grass roots — from those who become active in their own communities,” he wrote. “If America gets everything else right but fails to provide for the education of the next generation, we will lose our strength as a society. A reporter asked me, ‘Why would you give up power and influence to become a university president?’ My answer: At this point, I feel I can do more good at the university.” In 2011, he published “A Letter to America,” a short book warning that the nation was in trouble because, he said, unrestrained partisanship, the corrosive influence of big money and the growing divide between the very wealthy and everyone else had virtually paralyzed the political processes. “In truth,” he wrote, “we are in grave danger of declining as a nation.”

Geopolitics has found a new battleground: on ice. The U.S. and Canada men’s ice hockey teams, set to play in the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament final on Thursday night, have come to represent more than just their athletic skill. On both sides of the border, the rivalry in the rink has been seen by some as an extension of the political tensions between the once-friendly allies. As President Donald Trump has incensed Canadians with tariff threats and talk of the nation becoming the “51st” U.S. state, fans at a previous game between the neighbors on Saturday in Montreal booed during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, which has become an emerging trend. “We’re not booing your hockey players. We’re not booing your country. We’re not even booing you,” a Canadian fan posted on X. “We’re booing [Trump] who keeps threatening our sovereignty for zero reason. Once he leaves us alone it’ll stop.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in attendance, also posted a clip of the crowd standing and boisterously singing the Canadian national anthem, captioning the post, which some saw as a dig at his American counterpart, with the anthem’s closing words, “We stand on guard for thee.” The antagonism wasn’t kept to just the stands: players scuffled three times within the first nine seconds of playing time in the game, which ended in a 3-1 victory for the U.S. The U.S. players involved in the brawls said they simply wanted to send a message—“It’s our time”—to their sporting rivals. But both the violence and triumph were celebrated by Trump supporters online. “AMERICA IS BACK,” proclaimed pro-Trump social media influencer Philip Anderson. “Mr. President, we are still not sick and tired of winning!” posted author Nick Adams. Bill Guerin, general manager of the U.S. team, said Tuesday on Fox News about the Saturday game: “I think there was a little bit of a political flare to it. It’s just the time that we’re in. I think our guys used that as inspiration.” He added that he would welcome Trump to attend the championship game on Thursday. “We’re just trying to represent our country the best way we can,” Guerin said. Trump responded on Truth Social on Thursday, saying he wouldn’t be able to make it to the game but that he’d call the U.S. team “to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State.” Saturday’s game was the most-viewed non-Stanley Cup final telecast since 2019, ESPN said, and Thursday’s final is certain to crank up the intensity. The 4 Nations Face-Off is a new best-on-best tournament—featuring top National Hockey League players representing the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Finland—replacing this year’s NHL annual All-Star game. Historically, Canada has won the past three—and nine of all 13—best-on-best tournaments, according to the NHL, while the U.S. has won once by defeating Canada at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. The tournament’s round-robin games, which began on Feb. 12, have been played in Montreal and Boston. Canada and the U.S., who each won twice and lost once, will go head-to-head again, this time in Boston, for the final on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET, airing on ESPN and streaming on Disney+.

President Donald Trump has a fondness for giving himself nicknames: “very stable genius,” “Honest Don,” and now “the king.” The latest title gives critics the most pause. Trump bestowed on himself the monarchical moniker on Wednesday after proclaiming victory over New York’s new car-traffic toll plan for Manhattan. Trump posted on Truth Social: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich then posted on X a screenshot of Trump’s post, juxtaposed with an AI-generated image of Trump in a crown with the New York skyline behind him. Official White House social media accounts also quoted Trump’s post and shared an illustration of Trump in a crown, with “TRUMP” in place of a familiar-looking magazine logo and the words: “Long Live the King.” Trump’s royal assertion has drawn criticism, including from Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who said in a statement, “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king.” She added that “New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years. We sure as hell are not going to start now.” Rep. Don Beyer (D, Va.) echoed Hochul’s reminder: “We don’t have kings in the USA.” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, reiterated Beyer’s words in his State of the State address, adding “my oath is to the Constitution of our state and our nation. We don’t have kings in America, and I won’t bend the knee to one.” Some Trump defenders claim the posts are harmless trolling, a reference flown over liberals’ heads. “I’m going to be the king of New York real estate,” Trump told his peers when he was in college, a classmate recalled to the Boston Globe in 2018. “He used to think he was the king of New York,” former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res told the New York Daily News in 2021. “The king of New York is back to reclaim the city that he built,” Donald Trump Jr. announced last year when his father held a rally at Madison Square Garden. Over the weekend, Trump posted a Napoleon-inspired statement suggesting he’s above the law. He’s repeatedly teased the unconstitutional idea of serving a third term. And in an interview alongside adviser Elon Musk that aired on Fox News on Feb. 18, Musk suggested—not for the first time—that Trump ought to have supreme authority, unrestricted by the courts. “If the will of the President is not implemented, and the President is representative of the people,” Musk said, “that means the will of the people is not being implemented, and that means we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy.” America’s Founding Fathers didn’t envision the U.S. as a bureaucracy or a democracy. They envisioned it as a republic—defined by James Madison as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.” The very principle that the country would not be ruled by an all-powerful king was foundational to the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the Constitution, the latter of which was hammered out during a contentious convention in 1787. To be sure, not every Founding Father was against the idea of an authoritative executive branch leader. Some, including Alexander Hamilton, argued in favor of a single executive, rather than a group of people, which risked the “danger of difference of opinion,” as he wrote in the Federalist Papers. Others believed, as Edmund Randolph put it during debate, that a unitary executive would be “the fetus of monarchy.” Amid public concerns that the crafters of the Constitution would create a monarchy, according to the University of Houston’s Digital History Project, a Philadelphia newspaper reported on the negotiations, quoting a delegate, who said: “Tho’ we cannot, affirmatively, tell you what we are doing, we can, negatively, tell you what we are not doing—we never once thought of a king.” The Constitution that resulted outlined a separation of powers between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, serving together as a system of checks and balances to prevent the kind of tyrannical rule that the colonies fought to free themselves from. Thomas Paine had written in Common Sense in 1776: “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.” “There were so many issues where the founders disagreed, but this was not one of them,” historian Holly Brewer told ABC News last year of the consensus that a President would not be effectively made “an elected king.” “The American solution,” summarized writer Richard Hurowitz in an essay for TIME in 2018, was “an executive strong enough to be effective but checked enough to prevent tyranny.” But even the Founders realized that such a solution, as Hurowitz put it, “remains unfortunately dependent to some degree on the character of the President and the electorate that supports him.” When Benjamin Franklin was asked on the last day of the convention in 1787 whether the delegates had created a monarchy or a republic, Franklin famously responded: “a republic, if you can keep it.” In 1814, John Adams, by then a former President, wrote that unchecked democracy can be just as pernicious as monarchy and “never lasts long.” “It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” “Absolute power intoxicates alike despots, monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats,” Adams also wrote, warning that dissatisfaction with the state of government could give rise to a democratic public yearning for a strongman. “They soon cry, ‘this will not do; we have gone too far! We are all in the wrong! We are none of us safe! We must unite in some clever fellow, who can protect us all—Caesar, [Napoleon] Bonaparte, who you will! Though we distrust, hate, and abhor them all; yet we must submit to one or another of them, stand by him, cry him up to the skies, and swear that he is the greatest, best, and finest man that ever lived!’”

In his first month in office, President Donald Trump and his Administration have taken a number of actions affecting abortion and reproductive healthcare access, both within the United States and internationally—and reproductive rights advocates worry that more is still to come. Trump has publicly expressed his anti-abortion views, but he was vague during his most recent presidential campaign about the specific moves he would make on abortion, sidestepping questions about whether he would veto a national ban if it crossed his desk. However, reproductive rights activists, medical providers, politicians, and legal experts feared and expected that his Administration would curtail access to abortion, as well as other reproductive health services. Mary Ziegler—a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law with an expertise in abortion—says that some of the actions the Trump Administration has taken so far on the issue are “part of the standard playbook for Republican presidents.” She adds, “There’s a sort of pendulum that swings back and forth depending on whether a Republican or Democrat is in the White House.” At the same time, Ziegler says Trump has taken some of these actions a step further, such as when his Justice Department said that it would be curtailing prosecutions against anti-abortion protesters accused of obstructing access to abortion and reproductive health clinics. While the Administration has already taken several significant steps on abortion, Ziegler says, “we’re still in kind of a wait and see mode” for others. “He didn’t ask day one for Congress to pass and deliver to his desk an abortion ban, [but] no one should take comfort in that,” says Nancy Northup, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “This Administration is going to be the most anti-abortion Administration that we’ve ever seen in U.S. history, with no backstop of federal constitutional protection. The steps that he’s taken so far do reveal that it is going to be a vibrant anti-abortion agenda.” What has the Trump Administration done to affect access domestically? In his first week in office, Trump pardoned several anti-abortion protesters convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law meant to protect abortion clinics and their patients by prohibiting people from physically blocking or threatening force against patients. A day later, a top official in Trump’s Justice Department issued a memo that said prosecutions against people accused of violating the FACE Act will now “be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances” or in situations where there are “significant aggravating factors,” effectively ordering the department to curtail such prosecutions. Under former President Joe Biden, the Justice Department pursued cases against dozens of people accused of violating the FACE Act. While Ziegler says many expect that the law won’t be enforced as rigorously under a Republican president, this announcement takes it a step further by openly declaring that the department won’t be prioritizing these cases Northup says that six of the people who were pardoned by Trump’s order had been convicted last year of violating the FACE Act, after they had blocked patients from entering a Michigan reproductive healthcare clinic that the Center for Reproductive Rights represents. “This is sending a clear signal to anti-abortion extremists that the Trump Administration will turn a blind eye to the type of blockades and violence and threats of violence that women have to go through to get access to the clinics, and that clinic staff have to deal with on a daily basis,” Northup says. Also in his first week in office, Trump signed an Executive Order committing to enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion. The order revokes two Executive Orders that Biden had signed during his presidency—one that encouraged the government to widen and protect reproductive healthcare access, and another that categorized abortion as healthcare. Northup accuses Trump of slipping anti-abortion sentiment into other policies he’s enacted in his first month in office. She points to the Executive Order the President signed that proclaimed that the U.S. will only recognize “two sexes, male and female.” “That [order] obviously both guts access to gender-affirming care, which is of deep concern, but also in that Executive Order itself, it embedded personhood language because when it talked about there being a policy of the United States to recognize two genders, they basically said that a person begins at conception,” Northup says. “They are sneaking into all federal policy this notion of personhood beginning with a fertilized egg as opposed to all rights and privileges that begin at birth.” Reproductive rights advocates say that Trump and his Administration have made their anti-abortion views clear. Soon after Trump was sworn in, reproductiverights.gov, a federal website launched under the Biden Administration that shared information about abortion and reproductive healthcare, went dark. That same week, Vice President J.D. Vance gave an in-person speech at an annual anti-abortion rally, March for Life, in Washington, D.C., calling Trump the “most pro-life American President of our lifetimes” and praising the actions Trump took on abortion in his first presidential term, crediting him for the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. While Trump didn’t appear at the rally in person, he gave a pre-recorded video address, in which he promised to support anti-abortion protesters. What has the Administration done to affect access internationally? Experts say that one of the most significant actions Trump has taken in his first month affecting access to reproductive healthcare globally is the Administration’s freeze on foreign aid. The U.S. government provided more than 40% of all humanitarian aid that the United Nations tracked during 2024, and is the largest single aid donor in the world. For the 2024 fiscal year, Congress appropriated $575 million for family planning, in addition to $32.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which researches and supports sexual and reproductive health and rights. Elizabeth Sully, principal research scientist at the Institute, says that level of funding has generally received bipartisan support and has been stable for nearly a decade. Because of the Helms Amendment, which bars using foreign assistance to fund abortions, that money wasn’t going toward abortion care, Sully says. According to a recent Guttmacher analysis, those funds can provide 47.6 million women and couples with contraceptive care every year and prevent 17.1 million unintended pregnancies, which can save the lives of an estimated 34,000 women and girls who, without that care, could have died from pregnancy and childbirth complications. “Family planning is a life-saving intervention,” Sully says. But with the freeze, international family planning programs receiving U.S. aid have been forced to halt services, and the Guttmacher Institute estimates that more than 3 million women and girls have been denied contraceptive care so far as a result. The Guttmacher Institute predicts that, over the course of the full 90-day review period, about 11.7 million women and girls will be denied contraceptive care, leading to 4.2 million women and girls experiencing unintended pregnancies, and 8,340 dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications. On Feb.13, a federal judge ordered the Trump Administration to temporarily lift the suspension of foreign aid, but the Administration’s lawyers are defending the freeze, arguing that the judge’s order doesn’t prevent the State Department from suspending foreign assistance programs. At this point, it’s unclear if the judge’s order will lead to the resumption of foreign assistance programs. “What’s so hard right now is the unpredictability of all of this,” Sully says. “You can go to a clinic now that maybe you’d been to before, and that’s where you’d been receiving your injections or your contraceptive pills, or you were talking with a provider about an IUD, and you show up to that clinic now and its doors are closed, or there’s no commodities in stock, and no one can tell you when to come back.” Dr. Sierra Washington, director of Stony Brook’s Center for Global Health Equity and a member of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics’ Committee on Safe Abortion, practices medicine in Mozambique. She says the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provides a lot of care in Mozambique, and that the impact the freeze will have “keeps [her] up at night.” She worries the freeze will lead to a resurgence of HIV, rise in unsafe abortions, and an increase in maternal mortality. “It’s just a matter of weeks before we’ll start to see real impact on shortages in condoms and contraceptives starting to plague the entire health system, and that just means we’re going to see more women dying of unsafe abortion and dying of unsafe delivery,” Washington says. “It’s just a real tragedy.” “I don’t believe that [Trump Administration officials] understand how interrelated we all are, and that condoms … actually prevent the spread of HIV, and that HIV doesn’t really respect international borders,” she continues, adding that a rise in HIV prevalence could “reach the American border and will permeate throughout the world.” Also in his first week in office, Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule, which prohibits foreign organizations receiving U.S. aid from providing, referring to, or discussing abortion care. Many reproductive health experts anticipated the move, since it’s a policy often enacted by Republican presidents and rescinded by Democratic ones. During Trump’s first term in office, he expanded the order to apply to any global health funding distributed by the U.S., not just ones specific to family planning services, which Sully says had “far-reaching impacts” beyond abortion care. The Guttmacher Institute found that in some regions in Ethiopia and Uganda, the previously seen trend of increased contraceptive use came to a halt or even reversed course after the first Trump Administration enacted the Global Gag Rule. “Its supposed intended aim is abortion, but when you have declines in family planning, you have more people who end up having unintended pregnancies, and you actually have more abortions,” Sully says. The Trump Administration also announced that the U.S. was rejoining the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a non-binding pact the U.S. had joined toward the end of Trump’s first term that promotes anti-abortion policies and has garnered support from more than 30 countries, including Uganda and Hungary. Biden withdrew the U.S. from the declaration when he took office. What could Trump do next? Most experts TIME spoke to agree that the Trump Administration will continue to take steps curtailing abortion and reproductive healthcare access. One of the most pressing issues experts are watching is what actions the Administration will take on mifepristone, a drug that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for abortion purposes more than two decades ago but has recently been unsuccessfully challenged in court by a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations. During his confirmation hearings to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave vague responses when asked about mifepristone, saying only that the President asked him “to study the safety” of the drug but “has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it.” Ziegler says it’s hard to say if the Trump Administration would revoke the FDA’s approval for mifepristone entirely, or if it would roll back Biden-era policies that made the drug more accessible, including allowing it to be prescribed via telehealth and received by mail. Either move would have a significant impact on abortion access nationwide; Northup says that access to medication abortion through telehealth and mail has been a “lifeline” to many patients in a post-Dobbs America. Experts are also waiting to see if the Department of Justice will use the Comstock Act, a 19th century anti-obscenity law, to ban the mailing of abortion pills. Looking further down the line, Ziegler says that Trump will likely continue to appoint conservative federal judges, as he did in his first term, who can have a major impact on abortion laws, now that many state-level restrictions are being fought in court. It can take time for Trump to pick judges and get them confirmed, let alone the years it can take for cases to be filed and work their way up through the court system, so the impact may not be immediate, but it could be considerable. “Those judges will be making decisions that impact access to abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, all kinds of reproductive health services,” Ziegler says. “Over time, the more the courts are transformed, the more, I think, explosive kinds of outcomes we can see on reproductive issues.” Some expected the Trump Administration to make even more dramatic moves on abortion soon after the President was sworn in. Part of the holdup may be because Trump and his Administration could have “some trepidation” about taking dramatic steps if Trump is trying to appeal to both the majority of Americans who support abortion rights and his anti-abortion supporters, Ziegler says. Sully also notes that, “Trump took office right away, but we’ve had to wait for confirmations for a number of leaders of these departments” who would oversee many abortion-related policy changes, including on mifepristone and the Comstock Act. Advocates maintain that people should be concerned about what’s to come. Northup points out that Roe was in effect throughout Trump’s first presidency, offering a “really important protection” that restricted what steps his Administration could take on abortion. Now that Roe has been overturned, that constitutional right guaranteeing abortion access and limiting his authority is no longer in place, Northup says. “Everybody who cares about access to abortion care—and that is the strong majority of people in the United States—should be on red alert for what this Administration will do to try to cut off access in those states where abortion is still legal,” Northup says.

When J.D. Vance walked on the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland on Thursday, he admitted he was still a little jet-lagged. Last week, he'd traveled to Paris, where he'd called for Europe to roll back its regulations on artificial intelligence, and then Munich, where he criticized the continent's commitment to democracy but didn’t mention Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. A jovial Vance was now back in Washington, D.C. after having traveled to San Diego for a family wedding. “I’m in a good place right now, I got some sleep last night,” Vance said. European leaders likely haven’t been so lucky. Vance’s visit, his pointed criticism of European nations, and Trump’s moves signaling a willingness to align himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin have sent the continent’s leaders into urgent huddles, as they figure out how to navigate a potential world without American security guarantees against Russian aggression. While the dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy has shocked and troubled many in Washington, there were few signs of such concerns among the MAGA-friendly attendees at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland. When Vance brought up his Munich speech at the annual four-day gathering, the crowd at the conference cheered. Later in the day, when House Speaker Mike Johnson was asked in an on-stage interview about the prospect of Congress approving more funding to help Ukraine, he said, “There’s no appetite for that.” He then turned to the crowd. “What do you think?” A murmur of nos and boos moved across the room. Thirty days into his presidency, the crowd at CPAC had few complaints about Trump’s accomplishments thus far, including his turning away from the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine. In the past week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russia’s foreign minister to discuss ending the conflict without Ukrainian officials in the room. That meeting upended three years of American foreign policy that the U.S. would do “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Then this week, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator,” a moniker he’s never used to describe Putin, and falsely alleged it was Ukraine that started the war, and not Russia’s 2022 tank blitz toward Kyiv. At CPAC, Johnson defended Trump’s public criticism of Zelensky, saying it was part of a strategy to lay the groundwork for Ukraine and Russia to reach a deal to end the war. “You’ve got to give him room to operate and do what he does,” Johnson said. “He’s doing a level set.” Conference speakers, which included right-wing leaders from other countries, were at times more interested in prodding Europe than delving into Ukraine’s future. Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is currently President of the European Conservative Reformist Party, called Europe a “continent in decline.” Liz Truss, a former British prime minister, said on Wednesday that the British state “is now failing” and she hopes to see a movement in Britain “like you have in the U.S. with MAGA.” Truss told CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp on stage that she would like to see a British CPAC conference in the future. “It’s a deal!” Schlapp said. Some of the talk echoed Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said, "The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values." Attendees at CPAC didn’t seem too upset at the prospect of Trump abruptly turning his back on a country Russia invaded. “We can’t sacrifice our own people here who are hurting, who we see every day, just to help other people in other nations,” says Indira Roberts, 58, who works in medical sales in Greensboro, N.C. Ann Kertef, 72, drove to the conference from Annapolis, Md., and said she’s concerned that the money that’s gone to Ukraine hasn’t been well spent. The U.S. has provided $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine’s defense since the start of the Russian invasion. “Why is there no accountability for this money? Something goes wrong in this country, we do nothing, and we’re sending billions and billions of dollars to these people? I do have some compassion for these people, but not unaccountable.” Hogan Gidley, a GOP strategist and former Trump campaign spokesman, says that Trump supporters want to see the war in Ukraine end, but aren’t caught up in the details of how that happens. “They know Donald Trump kept peace around the globe the first time around and they have confidence and trust he’ll do it again.” Gidley says. “How he gets there is less important to them.”

Raquel Willis isn’t afraid to take risks. She has organized large-scale marches to protest violence against Black trans lives and rallied outside the Supreme Court to support the trans youth at the center of the ongoing case U.S. v. Skrmetti, which will decide whether gender-affirming health care bans for minors are constitutional. Last December, Willis was arrested at the Capitol for staging a bathroom sit-in in defiance of a proposal to ban trans women from women’s restrooms on federal property. The title of her 2023 memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom, underlines her fearlessness. But to Willis, “a proud Southern, Black, trans, queer woman” from Augusta, Ga., the riskiest thing she’s done so far is choose to live authentically. “Our society is not primed to honor queerness or transness,” she says. Willis, 33, is the co-founder of Gender Liberation Movement (GLM), the grassroots collective responsible for the Brooklyn Liberation Marches that drew thousands of people in 2020 and 2021. In 2024, GLM organized an inaugural Gender Liberation March in Washington, D.C., in an effort to highlight the ways in which the fights for abortion and trans rights are connected. “For us, gender liberation is about bodily autonomy, self-­determination, the pursuit of fulfillment, and collectivism,” she explains. “We want to be the glue between these different fights and get people talking about how restrictive ideas around gender impact us all.” The way Willis sees it, restrictions on choices surrounding our bodies pose a danger to everyone, no matter how you identify. “Many institutions have failed us and will continue to do so,” she says. Since President Trump’s Inauguration, a number of Executive Orders targeting trans and gender-nonconforming people have already been signed—one states that the U.S. will only recognize “two sexes, male and female.” But thinking of the long road ahead, Willis is trying to maintain a sense of calm. “We have to remember that communities on the margins have experienced struggles and hardships in every era. We’ll figure out solutions that serve us.” And, perhaps unsurprisingly, she adds, “I’m going to find ways to take risks to move us closer to collective liberation.”