If you were among the 68,500 fans in the stands to watch the National Football League’s (NFL) San Francisco 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 6, 2024, you could be forgiven for forgetting that football is a fall and winter sport. Temperatures at game time that day peaked at 98°F—hot enough that the 49ers swapped out their uniforms, switching from red jerseys and gold pants to red jerseys and white pants, to reflect more heat away. “Hopefully [that] helps a little,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told ESPN before the game. The two teams got through the day without serious injury, but athletic exertion in extreme heat can be dangerous—even deadly. Players are at risk of heat exhaustion, characterized by symptoms including faintness, dizziness, fatigue, weak or rapid pulse, and low blood pressure; and heat stroke, with symptoms including high core body temperature, change in mental or emotional state, racing heart rate, rapid breathing, nausea, and headache. In extreme cases, excessive heat can lead to organ damage, heart failure, and death. The league’s Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles won’t face anything like that punishment during this Sunday’s Super Bowl, which will take place in New Orleans, where the forecast high for game day is 75°F. And, in any case, the game will be played in an indoor stadium. Either way, there is no escaping the fact that the world is steadily—and dangerously—heating up. This year was the first to see the planet register average temperatures 1.5°C (2.7°F) higher than pre-industrial levels, the benchmark established by the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which seeks to limit future warming to well below 2°C in the 21st century, with a preferred target no higher than 1.5°C. The NFL might seem like an afterthought in an existential crisis like climate change, but the league is, all the same, feeling the pain. In a new survey conducted by the research and communications group Climate Central, analysts used open source data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to track the temperature trends in all 30 NFL cities during football’s September to December regular season, from 1970 to 2024. The result: over that time, temperatures have risen in every one of those cities by an average of 2.8°F. Las Vegas and Minneapolis warmed the most (5.1°F and 5°F respectively), and Los Angeles warmed the least at 0.4°F. Every city but L.A. experienced at least 1°F of warming. Those cities are, of course, getting especially hot in the summer, often subjecting players to dangerous conditions not only during training camp, which begins in July, but into the first month of the season too. “In some of these places it’s a minor concern,’” says Jen Brady, senior data analyst for Climate Central. “But in some of these southern cities we could have serious health issues playing in September. We’ve seen a pretty steady climb [in temperatures] everywhere.” No surprise, it’s those sun belt cities that are experiencing things especially acutely. Phoenix, home to the Cardinals, saw an increase of 4.4°F. The Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys are feeling 3.5°F and 3.3°F of warming respectively. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are getting a 3.2°F bump. New Orleans and their Saints register at 3.8°F. But some northern-tier cities, like Minneapolis, score high as well. Cleveland, home to the Browns, clocks in at 3.3°F. The Buffalo Bills are experiencing a 3.2°F increase, the Philadelphia Eagles 3.1°F, and the Green Bay Packers, in Wisconsin, are seeing 4.4°F of warming. Detroit’s Lions play in an indoor stadium, but outdoors, things have gotten 3.8°F hotter. “Upper Midwest cities are warming aggressively,” says Brady. “They are all seeing a lot of temperature increases in the winter.” Paradoxically, that can lead to more snow storms during games, like the blizzard that buried the Buffalo Bills’ stadium when they played the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 1, 2024. That, explains Brady, is because the Great Lakes aren’t freezing, leading to an increase in lake effect storms. Those are caused when the atmosphere picks up moisture from open water and then dumps it back on land in the form of snow. Some cities, for the moment, have been less affected by the warming trend. Sunny Jacksonville, where the Jaguars play, has seen only a 1.5°F increase, as has mid-Atlantic Baltimore, home to the Ravens. Washington, home to the Commanders, has nearly mirrored nearby Baltimore, with just a 1.6°F increase. Temperatures in New York, where the Jets and the Giants share a stadium, have risen just 2°F. In Kansas City, the Chiefs’ home, the increase is a comparatively modest 2.2°F. Climate Central tracks not just average rising temperatures, but extremely hot days, which are defined as days on which the thermometer hits or exceeds 91°F. Here, the findings have been troubling. Among 242 locations analyzed around the U.S., 172, or 71%, now experience at least one more week of extremely hot days than they did in the early 1970s. The 30 NFL cities exceed that, registering, on average, 14 more extremely hot days than in 1970. “Heat is the number one weather killer in the U.S. and that’s often overlooked,” says Brady. “It can do a lot of things to your body—to your heart and your lungs and your breathing.” All of this is just one more red flag that Earth’s climate is heading into new and perilous territory. “It’s definitely at a point at which you say, ‘OK, we’re getting to dangerous levels here,’” says Brady. “We’ve seen it with the hurricanes that have been so large and disastrous and with wildfires and high temperatures. It’s not a tipping point yet, but it’s a warning.”
If your job involves sitting in front of a screen all day, there’s a good chance your eyes are paying the price. After hours of emails, video calls, and spreadsheets, you may be left with symptoms like a headache, dry or uncomfortable eyes, and blurry vision. “It’s an occupational hazard in a digital society,” says Dr. Douglas Wisner, chief of cataract and primary eye care at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. Why do these visual symptoms happen, and are they cause for concern? Here’s what to know. Why does looking at screens cause blurry vision? There are two main reasons, says Amy Watts, director of vision rehabilitation at Massachusetts Eye and Ear hospital. First, you blink much less than normal when you’re focusing on a screen, which dries out the eyes. “Your eyelids are like your windshield wipers on your car. They’re making sure that the surface is smooth and clear,” she says. When you’re not blinking as much, it’s as if raindrops are accumulating on your windshield, making it harder to see. Holiday inbound tourism thrives Branded Content Holiday inbound tourism thrives By China Daily Second, the muscles in your eyes get tired after hours of training your focus on a fixed point. “All of these muscles have to work just perfectly…in order to see clearly,” Watts says. They get tired as the day goes on, and vision slips as a result. These issues can lead to temporarily blurred vision and a range of other symptoms, including headaches as well as redness, itchiness, fatigue, or general discomfort in the eyes. How can I avoid or treat digital eye strain? Taking visual breaks throughout your work day is the most important thing you can do. Experts often suggest following the 20/20/20 rule, which says that every 20 minutes, you should look at least 20 feet into the distance for 20 seconds or longer. But recent research suggests that even the 20/20/20 method may not be enough to avoid digital eye strain, and that longer breaks—say, a five-minute break every hour—may be better. Read More: Are ‘Broken Skin Barriers’ a Real Thing? "Overall, the message is: take a break and don’t focus on a computer screen for eight hours,” Watts says. “It helps to relax your focus and let those muscles take a little break.” (Short breaks are also a great opportunity to get up, stretch, and move, which can improve overall health.) Eye drops can also help counter the dryness that comes from reduced blinking, Watts says. You can use eye drops to treat symptoms you’re already experiencing, but they work best when used preventively. If you know you tend to get blurry vision at the end of the day, put in drops every few hours throughout the day, Watts recommends. Just make sure you’re using preservative-free products, as drops with preservatives can irritate the eyes, she says. Finally, make sure your lighting is bright and your screens are clean, Watts says. A dirty or smudged screen makes it harder for your eyes to focus, so they fatigue faster. What about blue-light glasses? Is it worth wearing glasses that claim to block the blue light from digital devices? “The best I can say is it doesn’t hurt,” says Steven Reed, president of the American Optometric Association. But there’s not much data on these products, and studies that have been published suggest they don’t do much to alleviate eye strain. While you probably don’t have to shell out money for blue-light glasses, Wisner says it is worth limiting screen time before bed, since using devices at night can interfere with sleep. “Not getting good sleep is also a cause of chronic fatigue and then eye strain,” he says. “It all builds on itself.” Should I be concerned about digital eye strain? Don’t worry too much, Wisner says. Most of the time, digital eye strain is not a signal of a major issue or damage, but rather an understandable side effect of using your eyes in a way they were not designed to work. “For hundreds and thousands of years, we weren’t doing these things to our bodies: sitting at a desk and staring at a computer or reading all day long,” Wisner says. “Our bodies were not adapted for this.” Read More: How to Relax and Unwind Without Drinking Alcohol That said, regular, persistent, or severe eye strain can be a sign of underlying vision problems, Reed says, so it’s worth getting checked out if the symptoms are bothersome or don’t clear up through simple solutions like breaks and eye drops. There may be a relatively quick fix, like using over-the-counter reading glasses or tweaking a prescription you already have, Wisner says. And if your children complain of symptoms like blurry vision and eye discomfort after using devices, take them seriously, Reed says. Some studies suggest that screen use can contribute to myopia, or nearsightedness, among children whose eyes are still developing, so it’s worth getting any symptoms checked out by a doctor, Reed says.
Another patient has received a transplant with a genetically modified pig kidney. Tim Andrews, a 66-year-old who lives in Concord, N.H., has end-stage kidney disease and had been on dialysis for more than two years to compensate for his failing kidney function. He received the pig kidney at Massachusetts General Hospital on Jan. 25. as part of a new study authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which will include a total of three patients. Andrews was discharged on Feb. 1 and is staying in the Boston area for follow-up before returning home. Doctors say the transplanted pig kidney is functioning normally and producing urine. The hope is that pig kidneys could help ease the organ-shortage problem in the U.S. According to the transplant team, Andrews had just a 9% chance of receiving a human kidney in the next five years, and a nearly 50% chance of being removed from the transplant wait list because of his deteriorating health. His dialysis left him unable to continue with many of his usually activities, and he had a heart attack in 2023. As of last September, nearly 90,000 people were waiting for a kidney, and in 2023, just over 27,000 transplants were performed—revealing the gap between demand and supply that xenotransplants, or animal-to-human transplants, could address. Restoring a city’s charm Branded Content Restoring a city’s charm By China Daily How pig kidneys can work in humans The challenge with this type of transplant is that the human body often rejects foreign tissue. Andrews' pig kidney is possible because of several new genetic advances including cloning and the gene-editing platform CRISPR, which allowed scientists to modify the organ to make it more compatible with the human immune system. The company that created the the kidney, eGenesis, removed three major pig proteins on the organ, introduced seven human genes to reduce the chances it would be rejected, and disabled certain viruses in the pig genome that would have been harmful to the patient. This process has been done once before. Richard Slayman, who was 62 at the time of his transplant in March 2024, recovered well, but died two months later due to causes unrelated to the kidney, according to his doctors. Read More: 8 Ways to Shorten Your Wait for a Doctor’s Appointment With Andrews, “it’s the exact same kidney and the same genetic [modifications] that Mr. Slayman received,” says Michael Curtis, CEO of eGenesis. “We learned enough from Mr. Slayman to say it looks good enough, and the data are compelling enough that we should absolutely try again.” Surgeons from Massachusetts General Hospital on Saturday, Jan. 25 successfully transplanted a genetically-edited pig kidney into 66-year-old Tim Andrews of Concord, N.H. Surgeons from Massachusetts General Hospital on Jan. 25 successfully transplanted a genetically-edited pig kidney into 66-year-old Tim Andrews of Concord, N.H.Kate Flock—MGH Photography There is one major change, however, from Slayman’s case. The surgical team, in consultation with the FDA, decided to operate on a patient with less-severe end-stage kidney disease. While Slayman had been on dialysis for eight years and had had a kidney transplant and heart disease, Andrews had only been on dialysis for two years and has a stronger cardiovascular system. That may lead to better outcomes for Andrews and give doctors more insights about who is a good transplant candidate: someone with severe enough kidney disease, but who isn't too ill that they can’t benefit from the transplant. “Xenotransplant represents a turning point by eliminating organ shortage as a barrier to transplant,” said Dr. Leonardo Riella, medical director for kidney transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital, at a press briefing. “It offers a solution far superior to dialysis.” Just as Slayman did, Andrews also received an experimental drug called tegoprubart to suppress his immune system and increase the chances that the pig kidney would not be rejected. Developed by Eledon Pharmaceuticals, the drug is being studied in several trials involving human kidney transplants. Next step: clinical trials eGenesis isn’t the only company developing pig organs for human transplant. In February, the FDA approved the first large trial of pig kidneys in people, conducted by United Therapeutics, which also modifies pig organs to make them more compatible for humans. The trial will ultimately involve 50 patients, if the first few do well after 12 weeks. Curtis says that the encouraging results from the first two pig-kidney patients, Slayman and Andrews, are leading to discussions about other animal organs that could be transplanted, including pig hearts. Results from baboons that have received genetically modified pig hearts are so far “impressive,” he says. While the company and transplant surgeons initially planned on using pig hearts as a bridge for patients waiting for human hearts—for anywhere from 100-200 days—the baboons have survived for more than 500 days. “The results suggest that maybe we can do destination transplants and don’t have to go through bridge,” says Curtis. But more studies will be needed before that’s clear. Read More: What to Do If Your Doctor Doesn’t Take Your Symptoms Seriously For now, Andrews' transplant team will monitor his health closely; his progress will determine when and whether the next two patients in the trial receive pig kidneys. “The first time I saw Tim in the clinic, he was frail and struggling with complications from diabetes," Riello said at the press conference. "Dialysis was taking a severe toll on his body, and his path to transplant [with a human kidney] was not certain.” But when Andrews was discharged, he walked out of the hospital on his own, holding his wife’s hand. “Tim’s journey is more than one patient’s success,” Riello said. “It represents hope for the millions suffering from kidney failure, and brings us one step closer to making xenotransplant a viable, widespread solution for the organ shortage crisis.” Correction, Feb. 11 The original version of this story misstated that the patient is the second to ever receive a pig kidney transplant. He is the second to undergo the procedure with this type of genetically modified pig kidney.
On Feb. 7, New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an order to temporarily close live bird markets after cases of avian influenza, or bird flu, were detected in seven markets in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx in the past week. The closures apply to all bird markets, including those that didn't report any cases, in New York City, Westchester, Suffolk, and Nassau counties. The order requires market owners to sell or otherwise remove all live birds and conduct a thorough cleaning and disinfection of their facilities—even if bird flu wasn't detected there. All markets must remain closed for five days after the cleaning to confirm they are free of the H5N1 bird flu virus so that the virus won't spread again when live animals are reintroduced. Here's what to know about the decision and what it means for bird flu to be detected in poultry. Will closing the markets reduce the threat of bird flu? “Getting ahead of any biological threat—in this case, amongst birds—is good to do,” says Dr. Raj Panjabi, senior partner at Flagship Pioneering and former leader of the National Security Council’s pandemic office. Panjabi coordinated the White House’s response to bird flu in 2022. “I like that New York is being proactive here, and leveraging the state agriculture commissioner and the health commissioner at the state as well as city level, to coordinate.” Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang Branded Content Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang By China Daily Jarra Jagne, professor of practice in the department of public and ecosystem health at Cornell Veterinary School, says some of the infected birds had died and were reported by market operators, while some were detected by the state's routine surveillance for H5N1. Jagne's lab is funded by New York State Animal Health Diagnostics Lab, and her team performs testing for the state for a number of infectious diseases in chickens and other species. Because of the extensive testing network, she says, the cases "were picked up pretty early." New York State health commissioner Dr. James McDonald says once the positive tests were confirmed, the state health and agriculture departments decided to close all markets in several counties, including those that had not reported any infections. "When you get a result from surveillance, now you have new information," he says. "That's when you need to take the prudent next step, and this is the prudent next step. We know if we act now, we have a better chance of not seeing the virus spread to others." How are birds in live markets getting infected? There are many ways birds could be infected. Some could have picked up the infection from the farms where they originated; the virus is currently prevalent in wild birds, and as they leave feces in the environment, birds on farms or commercial operations could become exposed and infected. Jagne says that in January, her lab found 23 cases of H5N1 in wild birds from 12 counties in New York. In markets in particular, people might also be spreading the virus to the chickens. "People walking into markets could have been on the beach and picked up some feces on their shoes from Canada geese," says Jagne. "Farmers could also be bringing it in from farms after walking into chicken houses with infected feces. It's really hard to pinpoint the source of the virus." Should other states also shut down live bird markets? "I think it’s worth considering,” says Panjabi. During his tenure in the White House, when H5 bird flu viruses began causing outbreaks, he says “it was really challenging, because in wild bird populations, there are certain times of year when they will be more active in migration and also have more active virus. Detection of the virus in wild birds gets outbreaks spiraling.” Read More: What to Know About the H5N9 Bird Flu Panjabi says New York’s actions will be closely watched by public health and agriculture experts. “What we’ve generally seen is that while there is short-term pain, there is less spread over the long term,” he says. While commercial poultry farms have a number of policies in place now to recognize and intervene if animals get sick, live bird markets are less regulated and have fewer protection measures in place. Typically, “a seller of birds may not recognize the symptoms and signs of infection, no one is wearing personal protective equipment, and they are not cleaning and sanitizing,” he says. “We know the risk [of disease in people] increases if there is more human interaction with poultry, especially in less-controlled environments.” How widespread is bird flu? Outbreaks among commercial poultry farms have jumped in the last two months. The U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that 85 flocks and nearly 24 million birds were affected by H5N1 by the end of January. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says the increasing number of outbreaks may be due to higher amounts of H5N1 in the environment. Infected wild birds leave behind feces, which comes in contact with commercial flocks. “This virus is common in the environment, and it’s blowing around. That’s different from anything we’ve seen before,” he says. Can I get bird flu from eating chicken or eggs? According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eating properly cooked chicken and eggs is safe, but “eating undercooked or uncooked poultry, eggs or consuming unpasteurized milk from infected dairy cows could also be an exposure risk for infection with avian influenza A viruses.” “The current risk to New Yorkers of bird flu (H5N1) remains low," said New York City health department acting commissioner Michelle Morse in a statement. "Avian influenza viruses only present a wider risk if the virus develops the ability to transmit between people—which we have not seen." To protect themselves from the virus, McDonald says people should not drink raw milk; pasteurization can kill the virus. And when it comes to chickens, he says that "no birds from impacted establishments are sold or allowed to enter the food supply." But if an infected chicken slips in undetected, cooking chicken and eggs properly can neutralize the virus and make the products safe to eat.
In his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump has sought to take a wrecking ball to climate and environmental policy. He has directed his administration to roll back a wide range of regulations and aims to undercut the agencies that enforce them by targeting staff. The moves, he claims, will free businesses of ballooning compliance costs and allow them to prosper. “Overregulation stops American entrepreneurship, crushes small business, reduces consumer choice, discourages innovation, and infringes on the liberties of American citizens,” reads a White House fact sheet explaining the deregulatory agenda. Some companies may celebrate, particularly smaller firms where compliance costs have an outsized influence on the bottomline. But the speed and scale of the effort to nix climate regulations also comes at a price—and not just for efforts to cut emissions. Businesses rely on stable policy regimes to invest and grow their business. And, right now, any company with even a tangential connection to climate and energy is feeling a good deal of uncertainty. Despite the real financial costs of all this uncertainty, most corporations are reluctant to speak up publicly even as they fret behind closed doors. Trump can always make things worse—going as far as to target specific companies that get in his way—and so executives are learning to stay quiet. But in regulatory filings, where companies are legally required to speak plainly about risks to their business, companies warn about the financial consequences from rapid climate policy shifts. The Ford Motor Company lists the back-and-forth on climate policy between administrations in a section on “legal and regulatory risks” that might materially affect their business. Bank of America alludes to the “divergent views of stakeholders” on climate chances and warns that “heightened legal and compliance risk” now comes from all sides as the firm works on climate. Dow, the chemical company, lists climate change among its business risks, including “changes in public sentiment and political leadership, including government incentives and tax credits to promote emission reductions.” After the election, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told Semafor that the U.S. needs a more consistent approach.“The polarization and political back-and-forth that we see in [the U.S.] is not good for the country, not good for society. It’s frankly not good for business,” he said. “What we need is more thoughtful, consistent regulation.” Even changes that many companies are upbeat about—think of faster permitting for energy infrastructure—come with significant risks. For one, it may be difficult to rapidly permit projects if the workforce responsible for doing so has been fired. But, perhaps more importantly in the long term, is the question of what will hold up in court. Much of what the Trump Administration does through a flurry of executive action will be contested, and the time it takes to see that play out has a cost as companies remain in limbo unsure how to deploy their funds. In the first week of the Trump presidency, I highlighted the complexities of his anti-climate push—most importantly that his moves will face off against the realities of the market. But it’s also true that in light of the urgency of climate change, even just gumming up the market can have a meaningful effect, slowing down the pace of the green transition.
Two tornadoes touched down in eastern Tennessee on Thursday night, killing two people and causing widespread damage to rural communities outside Knoxville, the authorities said. In Morgan County, Tenn., a mother and daughter were killed at home and three other people were injured when a tornado touched down about 8 p.m., according to local emergency management officials. The tornado also damaged or destroyed more than a dozen homes, WVLT News reported. The National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn., confirmed that the tornado, which was rated an EF2, reached wind speeds of up to 135 miles per hour. The second tornado, which hit Grainger County, Tenn., about 9:30 p.m., was rated an EF1 tornado with wind speeds of up to 110 m.p.h., according to the Weather Service. There were no deaths or reports of residential damage. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Researchers rate tornadoes using the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF) from 0 to 5. Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee said on social media that he would travel to the area on Friday and asked that his followers join him “in lifting our neighboring Tennesseans up in prayer as response teams help survivors.” Last year was among the most intense years for tornadoes in a decade, bringing 1,910 confirmed tornadoes across the United States. Twenty tornadoes have already been confirmed in 2025. The tornadoes in Morgan and Grainger Counties were the first in eastern Tennessee this year, the Weather Service said. Since 1950, the area has experienced 13 confirmed tornadoes in the month of February. The severe weather also affected power, phone and internet communications across the area. As of Friday morning, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said there were 2,300 reports of power outages statewide.In Morgan County, more than 100 emergency workers were deployed to canvass the area in the aftermath of the tornado. The storm also brought heavy rains, winds and hail, said Aaron Evans, a spokesman for emergency management in Morgan County. In an interview, Mr. Evans said that the community had grown accustomed to severe weather events, adding that the county had experienced three tornadoes in the past three years. “Unfortunately, everyone is kind of familiar with what goes on and what could happen,” Mr. Evans said. “Everyone tries to be well prepared.” Mr. Evans said his agency had received dozens of calls from residents offering help with food, water and other donated supplies, adding that the close-knit community is full of residents willing to help their fellow neighbors. “These are especially resilient people,” Mr. Evans said.
James Akot has three goats. He shares them with his wife, his mother, three younger siblings, and two of his cousin's children, in a household in Northern Bahr el Ghazal in South Sudan. The crops Akot's family planted were washed away in the floods last year, the fourth and worst flood in the region in four consecutive years. This month, food deliveries were due to arrive to his region to tide families over until the next crop. But in late January, Akot and his neighbors heard that these deliveries would not be coming. A volunteer community organizer, Akot is reluctant to talk about his woes; many in his region are so much worse off. Four of the local health centers have closed. Cholera cases are ticking up. Too many children are malnourished. There's a local refugee camp, Wedwill, overflowing with families who have fled war from just across the border in Sudan. Not all of this is because in early February, USAID funds were frozen for all but the most emergency and lifesaving missions; the World Food Programme had already announced it would need $404 million to serve the region before the 90-day pause imposed by the U.S. government on foreign aid. But the stoppage is making many dire situations into desperate ones. "This is not about one organization," says Marta Valdes Garcia, humanitarian director of Oxfam International. "It's a full humanitarian system that is working, and, under a specific coordination, aims to deliver humanitarian assistance for millions of people around the globe. The stop-work order is shaking the whole system." I ask Akot, 34, what he will do now. That's when he mentions the goats. "I have to sell one goat to get 10 kg [22 lbs.] of flour," he says. "We can eat it maybe for five to six days, because we are extended family. Then I sell another one. So for these 15 days, we are going to sell three goats. We don't know what will happen from there." He laughs, nervously, as he faces the enormity of it. TIME spoke to humanitarian workers—many of whom asked not to be named for fear of reprisals to their employers—about the implications of the suspension. Schools for fourth- to sixth-grade girls are being closed in Afghanistan. Families are returning to destroyed neighborhoods in Gaza with no access to clean water, shelter, or provisions. Funding for teachers and supplies in Uganda has dried up. Tons of seeds are currently sitting in a warehouse in Haiti instead of being distributed to farmers. Maternal health and family-planning clinics in Malawi are shuttered. In Bangladesh, food assistance for refugees will be cut by half in March and run out entirely in April. "As bad as all these are, the things that you're not able to see right now are going to be the really devastating things," says a representative from an aid organization that works on nutrition in the Horn of Africa. "We're prioritizing severe acute malnutrition instead of moderate acute malnutrition. But if a child moves from moderate to severe acute malnutrition, there are all these developmental problems it causes and stunts them for the rest of their life. So we're literally causing kids to have an entire life of poor health because of the decisions we have to make." As the Trump Administration has pursued its goal of reducing government spending, it seems to be taking the same approach as big cats do when pursuing prey: move fast and take down the most vulnerable first. And the results are just as brutal. The U.S. was the biggest distributor of funds to countries in crisis, providing more than 40% of the world's nonmilitary foreign aid. When that wallet is suddenly zipped, even for three months, it puts the aid network under so much pressure that small holes in the web of support grow into chasms. And while any step back in funding by the world's richest economy is going to send shudders through the sector, this pullback came at a particularly disastrous time. Wars and political instability in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa have created crises that are difficult and expensive to alleviate. Natural calamities—floods, earthquakes, droughts, landslides—have also drained resources. Last year Germany, another big donor country, also scaled back its foreign aid, but didn't stop it completely. Because the future has become very uncertain, the careful planning and coordination aid organizations need to do is almost impossible. "We work in spaces like Syria or the occupied Palestinian territories that are very volatile," says Valdes Garcia. "The coordination mechanism that we have is put in place in order to support an efficient and effective response, to keep people safe, and to ensure that the response that is delivered is quality." One of the biggest issues aid workers on the ground are worried about is water sanitation. Under the terms of the funding pause, organizations are allowed to pursue "life-saving" activities, including emergency food distribution. But there is no point in delivering food if there is no clean water with which to wash and prepare it. "It was not clearly stated whether water sanitation was included in the waiver," says Valdes Garcia. Without access to clean water, people die, not just of thirst, but of waterborne diseases such as cholera. The nutrition organization in the Horn of Africa is continuing to truck water into communities with none but is not sure about whether water-treatment kits are also allowed, so they've paused distribution of those until funds are released. It galls many humanitarian workers that the USAID is being reviewed for wasting government money while many of the investments they have made in areas that take a while to pay off, such as education, are being frittered away. After the U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan, humanitarian agencies spent months negotiating with Afghan leaders to allow girls to go to school beyond third grade in some regions. Aid agencies there worry that even if funds for the schools are restored after 90 days, the hard-won memoranda of understanding signed by the authorities may need to be renegotiated. "We have lost precious time in which girls can access schools, we may be losing negotiating power with the de facto authorities, and we may lose core design elements that are critical," says one agency director. Even in places where school is welcome, advances are being lost. Peter Waiswa works for the Global Compassion Coalition in Uganda and is the chairperson of the school management committee of Bulogo Primary School, where the academic year has just begun. He does not think it will last long. For many years, USAID has supported rural Ugandan children's education by paying for teachers' salaries and some supplies, through a program known as Universal Public Education. "Most of these schools that have been administering this program have put their students on high alert not to come to school," says Waiswa, since they won't be able to operate. "I am talking about millions of students, both in primary and secondary schools." Many of the parents, who live on less than a dollar a day, will not be able to afford to send them if they have to buy supplies. Agriculture is another area where the halt has squandered effort and time. World Relief, one of the few agencies funded by USAID to speak up about the impact of the funding cut, says it has 3.9 metric tons of bean seeds in Haiti that it cannot distribute, because of the stop-work order. "If they are not distributed soon, then the seeds will rot, farmers will miss planting season, and families will be at high risk for food insecurity," the organization said in a statement to TIME. "These are real people, real lives, hanging in the balance. This isn't about politics; it's about the very real consequences of these funding delays on the people we serve." It's easy to give in to despair, but for Akot and those who are bearing the brunt of the reduction in aid, that's just one more thing they can't afford. "Thinking about it, sometimes it gives you a hard time," he says of his family's situation. "I just keep encouraging them, 'Let's wait. Maybe this decision will be considered by the President of the United States.'" That's what I can tell them. But as for now, we do not have an idea of what we can do."
The Office of Personnel Management is housed inside a concrete and glass federal building three blocks west of White House. The agency’s name conjures images of dull and ordinary backend government work, but it’s arguably the most powerful human resources department in America. It holds detailed records on 2.1 million federal workers and millions more Americans who have applied for those jobs. It also has the email address for nearly every federal employee. As President Trump and Elon Musk have waged war on the federal service and congressionally mandated spending over the last two weeks, much of those efforts have revolved around Musk and his allies harnessing government data in unprecedented, and perhaps legally questionable, ways. The executive suites on the fifth floor of OPM’s Washington headquarters are at the center of that effort. For career officials at the OPM, the alarm bells started going off during transition meetings with incoming Trump officials. Such meetings usually involve handing off details from the outgoing administration about the status of major projects, the nuts and bolts of the organization’s structure, and how to onboard new hires. But Trump’s team was unusually fixated on OPM’s computer systems, says a current OPM official. During those early meetings, Greg Hogan, who has since been installed as OPM’s new chief information officer, spent a lot of time asking about the computer systems, how they are accessed, what the security measures are in place and how security patches get installed. “My spidey sense was going off,” says the OPM official, who has been involved in briefing previous Presidential transition teams during changes of administrations. “The questions were all about IT.” Federal workers came to quickly understand how much OPM was changing on Jan. 28, when most of them received an email from a new government-wide email system originating from within the agency. It offered them eight months’ pay in exchange for their resignation. (Shortly after those emails went out, employees at agencies like USDA and NOAA said their email accounts were inundated with spam.) The buyout offer is currently in limbo, after a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked it in response to a lawsuit by labor unions. The blanket call for resignations was only the most visible way in which the new administration is harnessing OPM’s resources to advance Trump’s agenda. In the last two weeks, administration officials have moved to install Trump appointees into crucial technical jobs at OPM, many of which Congress intended to be filled by career officials whose work spans administrations of both parties. Musk allies are working to change that in virtually every agency, and they are using OPM’s role as the central hub for the government’s hiring practices to do it. This week, Trump’s political appointees ousted OPM’s chief financial officer Erica Roach, a career official who was in charge of managing $1 trillion in deposits held by the Earned Benefits Trust Funds that include the retirement accounts and health benefit funds for most of the federal workforce. After Roach was informed she had been demoted she chose to resign, according to a current OPM official. The White House and OPM did not return requests for comment. A few days before, the agency’s top technology officer, Melvin Brown, was reassigned to a different office, allowing Hogan, a Trump ally, to fill a position that normally goes to career civil servants. Charles Ezell, OPM’s acting director, intends for that switch to become a pattern across the federal government. On Tuesday, a little-noticed memo sent by Ezell to every cabinet department and agency jumpstarted what could be a radical change in how the federal government hires its top tech officers, also known as chief information officers or CIOs. Currently, the CIOs at most agencies are considered “career reserved” positions, meaning those roles can only be filled from the existing ranks of the federal government senior executive service. Multiple administrations have followed that hiring practice for CIOs, judging that they are fitting the definition in current law that states a position is designated career reserved “if the filling of the position by a career appointee is necessary to ensure impartiality, or the public’s confidence in the impartiality, of the Government.” But Trump’s new leadership at OPM is arguing that chief information officers in those roles shouldn’t be limited to career government officials because the decisions made by CIOs impact policy. “A modern agency CIO is not a mere engineer, scientist or technocrat,” Ezell wrote in his memo. “He does not spend his days writing complex lines of code, setting up secure networks, or performing other ‘highly technical’ tasks. Instead, he crafts and effectuates policy, and sets and deploys his budget, based on his Administration’s priorities.” Ezell gave agencies until Feb. 14 to request OPM strip the career federal service requirement from the CIO role. This administrative change would pave the way for political appointees running Trump’s agencies to recruit candidates from outside the career federal service for those positions. Putting hand-picked candidates in those crucial IT roles across the government will give DOGE and the Trump White House more centralized access to massive troves of data about the federal workforce and government spending. That’s by design. But it has raised concerns that the administration will ignore typical safeguards in place to prioritize employee privacy and protect against foreign intelligence hacking. OPM’s senior leadership has been overtaken with Musk allies, including senior advisor Brian Bjelde, who recently worked for Musk’s SpaceX as vice president of human resources; chief of staff Amanda Scales, who had previously worked for Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI; and senior adviser Anthony Armstrong, who worked as a banker on Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter. Another person who has been instrumental in pushing through the new actions is Andrew Kloster, OPM’s new general counsel, who worked in the White House during Trump’s first term and was recently former congressman Matt Gaetz’s general counsel. Some senior career officials at OPM have already been locked out of key databases. There is concern that political appointees have access to systems, including the Enterprise Human Resources Integration, without standard safeguard procedures designed to keep information private. That system includes information like pay grades, length of service, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and home addresses. On Friday, Jan. 31, Bjelde told career supervisors at the Office of Personnel Management that the “target” was to cut 70% of the agency’s staff, a move that a current OPM official predicted would hobble the teams responsible for overseeing health care benefits and retirement-planning for the federal workforce.
Sara Sidner, an anchor and correspondent for CNN, has reported live from war zones, political uprisings, and natural disasters. But putting herself in the headlines was far more nerve-wracking. Staring straight into the camera, Sidner announced during a January 2024 broadcast that she had been diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. She urged women—and particularly Black women, who she noted are roughly 40% more likely than white women to die from the disease—to get screened and “catch it before I did.” Sidner, 52, didn’t always plan to be so public; at first, she thought she’d keep the news private and quietly muscle through her recovery. But when she learned her cancer was advanced enough to require intensive treatment, she realized there was no way to keep the situation to herself. Instead, she decided to tell the world. Speaking so publicly about her health was “uncomfortable,” Sidner says. “It is putting yourself in this very vulnerable position where you know there are likely going to be negative comments. But I don’t care. Living, and helping someone else live through this, is a far greater power.” Sidner has used her platform to share intimate details from her treatment, posting about chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation on Instagram and even allowing cameras into the room for her last radiation session. The goal, she says, was to demystify what can be a terrifying process—especially for women of color, who tend to be diagnosed when the disease is more advanced, and thus harder to treat, compared to white women. That’s true for lots of reasons, including disparities in socioeconomic status and access to medical care, but stigma plays a part, too. “Particularly in the Black community, and some other communities of color, there is a shame around it. There is a fear around just the word cancer,” Sidner says. “People are worried about being seen as weak.” Sidner has demonstrated that facing cancer is, in fact, about strength. At one point, she kept a bucket by her anchor desk in case she felt nauseated on air. She also went for a run six weeks after a double mastectomy. She has even thanked the disease for “choosing” her and transforming her outlook on life. “We don’t have much time in the dash between our birth and our death,” she says. “Do you want it to be filled with stress and worrying about things you can’t control or aren’t worth your time? Or do you want to wake up in the morning and say, ‘Thank you’? I choose the latter.” Though she’s done with treatments for now, Sidner isn’t done with advocacy. Next, she wants to raise awareness about the long tail of cancer recovery, which for her includes years of medications as well as early menopause. “That’s something we need to talk about more,” she says. “I want women to know that they are so amazing, resilient, and beautiful in their ability to get through it and work through it.”
