With inflation on the rise, fuel rationing and continued threats of air strikes, the vast majority of the Iranian population continue to be pawns in a war with no end in sight. And speaking openly about politics in Iran still “carries obvious risks,” said Nawal Al-Maghafi at The Guardian. But there’s “no single narrative of the war,” with some believing it has “strengthened national unity” and others saying it has only “deepened repression.”

‘Abandoned by the West’
Iran has sustained billions of dollars’ worth of damage from U.S. attacks, said Maziar Motamedi at Al Jazeera. And this adds to “decades-old economic structural issues,” continually “strained by years of Western sanctions, and local mismanagement.” Inflation has risen to “nearly 90%” in the last month, with food inflation “hitting 134%”.

Many Iranians feel “abandoned” by the West, said Roxana Saberi and Fatemeh Jamalpour at The Times. They believe the U.S. and others have “largely stood by during the recent executions and the January massacre.” 

The “inaction” of the international community hits hard, said the head of a survivor charity to The Times. “If these Western countries have democracy, how come they don’t care to see that the Iranian people are suffering?” The regime’s brutal crackdown since January has left Iranians with “widespread trauma” that “spans generations and classes.” 

‘Fervor’ and ‘fear’
There’s still a “fervor” among those who support the regime, said Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Britain’s Channel 4. Many are still eager to “express their love of country and their hatred of the enemy.”

For others, the “greatest fear” is that the war will “end with the Islamic Republic still in power,” said Kelly J. Shannon at the Atlantic Council. However the conflict ends, the “remnants of the regime” will probably become “further entrenched and even more oppressive.”

Both Washington and Tehran invoke the interests of the Iranian people, said Mahmoud Rasouli at the European Consortium for Political Research, but they never allow these interests to “directly determine the direction of the conflict.” And there’s the paradox: The Iranian people are “central” to the language used around the war but “peripheral” in the “decision-making processes that shape their future.”

With the Trump administration pushing back against a swath of DEI-related federal grants, some research on major diseases, including Alzheimer’s, is caught in the crossfire. The most recent round of grant axing has resulted in two major universities losing millions in funding related to studying brain disease.

What research is being impacted?
In 2025, the U.S. awarded 52% fewer grants related to Alzheimer’s research than in 2024, according to the National Institutes of Health, with the number of grants falling from 369 to 177. That figure appears to be on track through 2026, as well, especially given recent cuts. 

The newest DEI-related funding slashes involve grant cancellations for “brain health and Alzheimer’s disease research at two leading research institutions, Emory University and the University of Pittsburgh,” said The Guardian. At least “three grants were canceled between the two institutions,” representing $15 million in funds that would have been used to study “how discrimination” or racism “affects long-term brain health.”

Black people are two times more likely to develop dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The topics “we are measuring are scientifically valid concepts,” said Andrea Rosso, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, to The Guardian. While these studies “don’t actually measure structural racism,” they do “use that as a framing for why one population is at such high risk.”

What does this mean for Alzheimer’s patients?
Many are worried that cutting Alzheimer’s research under the guise of the anti-DEI movement could negatively impact patients, specifically those who are Black. One canceled grant at the University of Pittsburgh “studied how Alzheimer’s disease risk was affected in people who live in divested, predominantly African American neighborhoods,” said The Guardian. Another grant at Emory University that was slashed “studied the impact of racial discrimination on the white matter of the brain.”

The Trump administration has also been “open about wanting a smaller NIH” and originally “proposed cutting the agency’s budget for 2026 by 40%,” said Vox. And some researchers are considering taking their studies offshore if things do not change. 

Tanzania’s opposition leader Tundu Lissu gestures to supporters as he arrives at the High Court in Dar es Salaam for a pretrial hearing. The Chadema Party chair was charged last year with treason, which carries a potential death penalty, over his campaign for electoral reform.
AFP / Getty Images

Westerns are often thought to glorify the violence and vigilantism of the 19th-century towns on the expanding American border. But the best films of the genre, including these superb entries, generally interrogate rather than reinforce that mythology.

‘High Noon’ (1952)
Gary Cooper is Marshal Will Kane, who tries to rally support from the town’s citizens when he discovers an outlaw he banished to prison is coming back on the noon train with his gang. Director Fred Zinnemann’s “unusually circumspect and politically loaded” film (pictured above) “stands out as the proto anti-Western, questioning the conventions of a genre long before doing so was in vogue,” said Scott Tobias at The Guardian. (MGM+)

‘Unforgiven’ (1992)
Clint Eastwood directed 40 films, but it’s this riveting Western that will be remembered as his masterpiece. A film that explores a “range of moral ambiguities and profound historical questions,” it also challenges the “history of the American West and furthermore Eastwood’s own role in defining the West in cinema,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Prime Video)

‘True Grit’ (2010)
Once upon a time, the Hollywood landscape was littered with Westerns of varying quality, but today they are somewhat scarce, making gems like directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of the 1969 original all the more notable. The movie “adheres to many of the familiar touchstones of the Western genre while remaining unmistakably Coen-esque,” full of “all kinds of wonderful exchanges, unforgettable scenes and moments of weirdness,” said Ryan Lambie at Den of Geek. (Paramount+)