Pension plans were starting to seem like a thing of the past. But a recent resurgence suggests this retirement benefit may be staging a comeback.

As companies work to “settle negotiations with labor unions or win over employees in fields where recruiting and retaining workers is especially competitive,” a “small but growing number” of them have begun to either reopen their pension plans or start them, said The Wall Street Journal. However, these pensions may look a little different than those of the past, as “many newer plans instead give workers market-linked returns, similar to a 401(k),” which in turn “shifts most of the investment risk to employees.” Here is what to know.

What is a pension plan?

It’s an employer-sponsored retirement savings account wherein “employers make regular contributions to a pool of money set aside to fund payments to eligible employees after they retire,” said Investopedia. Employees may also be required to make additional contributions to the plan.

Payouts in retirement depend on the type of pension plan. With a defined-benefit plan, the type of pension that used to be more common, the employer “guarantees that the employee receives a specific monthly payment after retiring and for life, regardless of the performance of the underlying investment pool,” said Investopedia. Meanwhile, with the increasingly offered defined-contribution plan, the “final benefit to the employee depends on the investment performance of the plan” and the company’s “liability ends when the total contributions are expended.”

How is a pension different from a 401(k)?

A 401(k) is another type of defined-contribution plan, but it has some meaningful differences from a pension. For one, the “employer provides the bulk of funding for a pension plan, while 401(k) plans are primarily funded by the employee,” said SoFi. This also grants the employer greater control, particularly as a “defined benefit plan generally pools money in the company’s pension fund,” as opposed to an investment account in your name, said SmartAsset.

There is also no option to bring a pension with you if you change jobs, as you can with a 401(k) rollover. Rather, “when an employee leaves a company in which they have a vested pension benefit, the employee must keep track of their pension benefit after their departure,” said Investopedia.

What are the benefits and risks of pensions?

The benefits and risks of pensions can vary widely depending on the specific plan. For instance, if the pension is a defined-benefit plan, the employee can largely count on receiving a certain amount at retirement — though “in the case of public pensions, there’s also the risk that the state or municipality will encounter economic issues and declare bankruptcy, which could result in a reduction of benefits for pension plan participants,” said SmartAsset.

With a defined-contribution plan, payout in retirement will largely depend on investment performance, similar to a 401(k). But “unlike with a 401(k) plan or IRA, you have no say in how your company invests the money in your pension fund,” which means that “if the manager of the fund makes bad investment decisions, that could result in insufficient funds for the overall pension,” said SmartAsset.

As another benefit, “both pension plans allow the worker to defer tax on the retirement plan’s earnings until withdrawals begin,” which “allows the employee to reinvest dividend income, interest income and capital gains — all of which compound and can generate a much higher rate of return,” said Investopedia.

New cases of HIV are surging at an unprecedented rate in Fiji, and the South Pacific island nation has declared a national emergency as a result. The government is doubling down on preventative measures with the help of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), as drug use and taboos around the disease contribute to the outbreak.

Why is there a crisis?

Over the last 15 years, new HIV infections have “increased 12-fold” in Fiji, according to recent UNAIDS data, said The Associated Press. As of 2025, about 9,000 people live with HIV in a country that has “less than a million people.” This means that about one in every 60 adults there has the virus, “compared with one in 167 five years ago.”

HIV is now a “national crisis,” and the government is “treating it like one,” said Fiji Health Minister Atonio Lalabalavu in a video statement on Facebook. “No more business as usual.” More people in Fiji are living with HIV than “ever before.”

Officials warn that the outbreak is not “limited to particular areas or populations,” said The New York Times. And because Fiji “serves as a regional hub for business, tourism and transport,” the surge could also affect nearby countries in the South Pacific if “left unchecked.”

Such interconnectedness may have contributed to a spike in infections, said Eamonn Murphy, the director of regional support teams in the Asia Pacific region, Central Asia and Eastern Europe for UNAIDS, to the Times. An influx of drugs like methamphetamine and cocaine during the Covid-19 pandemic added “fuel on the flame” of a longstanding HIV presence. Fiji is also one of “several global hot spots” in which a dangerous trend called bluetoothing, in which people “inject themselves with the blood of other drug users to get a cheap high,” is contributing to spikes in disease rates, said the Times.

What’s the plan to solve the crisis?

These alarming statistics don’t capture the full scale of the problem, said Renata Ram, the Fiji adviser for UNAIDS, to CNN. Most concerning is the “speed of the epidemic” and the “number of people who may be living with HIV without knowing it.” Only about 39% of Fijians living with HIV know their status, and less than a quarter (22%) are on treatment.

HIV is “not only a health issue,” said Joeli Colati, the executive director of Fiji Network Plus, an advocacy organization for HIV-positive people, to CNN. It’s also connected to “stigma, poverty, confidentiality and fear.”

Limited testing, low condom use, and shame are often cited as factors contributing to infection. And there are many reasons why people might be hesitant to seek treatment, including a “fear of being recognized at the HIV clinic,” said Colati. Fiji is a “deeply religious society” in which “premarital or casual sex is generally considered taboo,” said CNN.

Fiji’s government has “ramped up testing and treatment efforts” since January 2025, when the nation first “declared an HIV outbreak,” said the Times. However, an “outbreak-level response is no longer sufficient,” said Lalabalavu in his video statement. Moving forward, Fiji has pledged a “whole-of-government response,” including “expanded access to free testing, prevention services and treatment,” as well as harm-reduction measures such as programs that “allow people who inject drugs to exchange used needles for clean ones,” said the Times.

Fiji has “recognized the urgency of the moment and is stepping up its response,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima in a press release. It’s also a “stark reminder to the world that AIDS is not over.” HIV epidemics can “change quickly,” and countries need “health and community systems that are ready to respond urgently.”

The UK collectively donates an estimated 350,000 tons of clothes each year to our 9,900 charity shops, but the future of the sector seems in doubt as “more and more” of the outlets are closing.

Oxfam is considering shutting 100 of its 500 UK retail stores just months after the British Heart Foundation announced plans to close 150 of its 640 shops.

How do charity shops work?

When one of Britain’s earliest recorded charity shops was opened in Edinburgh in 1937, there were “queues outside” and “police on hand to manage restive shoppers”, said The Guardian.

By the 1960s, charity shops were becoming more familiar sights, and in recent years shopping for second-hand goods has lost its stigma and become recognised as a sustainable alternative to fast-fashion and throwaway culture.

The UK’s charity shops are staffed by about 223,000 volunteers and 24,900 paid employees. Together, they made more than £300 million in 2024-25. Charity shops don’t have to pay business rates, although they’re “still hit by increases in national insurance and wage bills”.

Why the decline?

Those running charity shops agree that “the glut of fast fashion” has led to a drop in the number of good-quality items being donated, said The Guardian.

“Charity shops in Britain are overwhelmed with stuff,” said Tansy Hoskins, author of “Charity Shop World: An Investigation into Community, Consumption and Waste”, in The Telegraph. The problem is they are “desperate to get rid of most of the old clothes they are given”, with most of them sold off to recycling companies in “ragbags”. The average price paid to charities for a kilo of worn clothes has “dropped from 45p to 15p” over the past decade.

Charity shops are also competing with second-hand online retailers like Vinted and eBay, which are increasingly also a resource for the charities themselves. “We need to put the higher value items that we do get on eBay to make the most money for the charity that we can,” said one charity shop manager on Reddit.

The picture is not entirely bleak. The rise of resellers who visit charity shops to buy stock to sell on themselves for profit creates a “virtuous circle”, providing the shops with “significant income”, said The Guardian, while also increasing interest in thrifting.

What’s the reaction been?

“I’m struggling to shed a single tear,” said Simon Heptinstall in The Spectator. Charity shops’ exemption from business rates has given them a “ridiculous near monopoly” on high streets, helping to push out “butchers, bakers and normal clothes shops”. Thanks to “an army” of “unpaid volunteers” and prices worthy of a “Bond Street boutique”, they rake in vast profits to support their own “sprawling corporate infrastructure”; they are no longer a community asset but an “optimised extraction racket”.

Robin Osterley, outgoing chief executive of the Charity Retail Association, has rejected suggestions that the sector is in crisis. Acknowledging that charity shops are facing challenges “maintaining their profitability in the face of some really significant rising costs”, he told Civil Society in May that I don’t “have any concerns about the future of shops”. I also “think some of the trends we’ve been seeing towards higher standards and towards larger shops in particular will continue”. He also flagged the potential of AI to “identify, describe and list donations”.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested a record number of pregnant people and placed them in detention centers where they receive subpar prenatal and postnatal care. And the agency has lost count of how many have suffered miscarriages.

What’s happening to women who miscarry in ICE custody?

The Trump administration “placed more pregnant immigrants in detention” last fall and winter than at “any time over the previous year,” said The Guardian. In October, there were at least 87 pregnant women and teens in detention, and by November, there were 101, according to government documents obtained by the outlet. ICE reported 18 miscarriages during the first nine months of the Trump administration, but the agency stopped recording miscarriages after Oct. 3. There is no updated data on miscarriages because ICE ended its contract with the Veterans Affairs Financial Services Center, which had been handling medical billing for the agency, according to internal documents.

Detained pregnant women report they are “struggling to access routine and emergency medical care,” said The Guardian. Women who miscarried or were hospitalized for pregnancy complications told the outlet they “did not receive follow-up care, despite experiencing ongoing pain and symptoms.” While it is difficult to attribute the miscarriages to the detention conditions, it is clear these “incarcerated women” are not “getting the prenatal visits that they’re supposed to get,” Deborah Ottenheimer, an obstetrician-gynecologist and medical expert with Physicians for Human Rights, said to The Guardian. They’re not getting “high-risk prenatal visits if they need them.” And if they do miscarry, the “medical care they receive is minimal to none.”

Center for Reproductive Rights reports from earlier this year also indicate high numbers of miscarriages in detention centers and, in severe cases, “allegations of coerced or unnecessary gynecological surgeries and hysterectomies without proper informed consent,” said Forbes. These reports “raise concerns about compliance with established maternal health standards.”

Is anything being done to improve the problem?

Initially, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, said the agency was tracking miscarriages in monthly reports in response to The Guardian’s follow-up questions about the missing data. Later, the spokesperson confirmed it “does not have data on miscarriages from October 2025 through June 2026,” said The Guardian. DHS has “never before acknowledged” that it lost count of miscarriages, “not even when U.S. senators asked the agency for the data.” It is convenient for the Trump administration that ICE cannot report how many miscarriages happened in its custody, because when “you don’t track something of that magnitude,” you don’t have to be “confronted with the reality of what your policies have yielded,” said Faisal Al-Juburi, the co-chief executive of Texas-based immigration services nonprofit Raíces, to The Guardian. “

In May, Democratic senators Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Jon Ossoff (Ga.) demanded answers from DHS regarding the “appalling and horrific treatment” of pregnant, postpartum and nursing women in immigration detention, in a letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and private contractors operating an ICE detention facility in Texas. The trio cited “cases of miscarriages, medical neglect and the use of shackles during pregnancy,” said The Latin Times. They also urged the Trump administration to “restore a policy presuming the release of pregnant women from immigration custody except in extraordinary circumstances.”

This letter came right after new legislation was introduced by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) that “would establish care standards for federally incarcerated pregnant people,” including those in ICE and Customs and Border Protection facilities, said Mother Jones. The bill builds on one that the “House already passed in 2022,” which only applied to those in the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ custody.

Immigration detention is known to foster “medical neglect, abusive conditions” and “utter disregard for the dignity of people,” Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project and the co-author of a letter to ICE documenting these conditions, said in an ACLU report. “What we heard from the pregnant women we interviewed” are some of the “most horrifying stories I’ve heard about detention.”

The transition from college to the “real world” is never easy. But when you add inflation, a tough labor market and the ubiquity of AI, the transition can feel especially tricky.

When the going is tough, the best bet is often to fall back on financial basics. While the larger economic environment may be out of your control, you can at least make sure your financial situation is starting off on the right track. Use these four tips as guidance after graduation.

1. Do not underestimate the importance of a budget

“When it comes to money, it’s best not to wing it,” said Investopedia. To formulate a plan, begin by getting a handle on the full details of your current situation, accounting for what income, savings and debt you have. Then, assign every dollar that hits your bank account a job, whether that is covering bills or rent, bolstering your emergency fund or paying off student loans.

Once you have made your budget, you’ll come to the hard part: sticking to it. It may sound dull, but the reality is that “staying on budget as a recent college graduate — or even better, under budget — can ensure your financial goals stay achievable,” said Navy Federal Credit Union.

2. Be open to opportunities to cut costs

Experts say “young workers need to prepare for financial uncertainties and job market challenges by staying frugal and saving what they can,” said Investopedia. This may look like relying on public transportation instead of getting a car or moving to a less trendy but more affordable neighborhood.

Another major way that many young professionals are cutting costs is by moving back home. But make sure you do not end up spending more in other areas just because mom and dad are footing the rent. “Recent grads need to use the money they save when moving back home to set them up for a stable financial future,” said Bruce Maginn, a partner at Solomon Financial, to Investopedia.

3. Start to get a handle on debt sooner than later

Although technically most student loans have a six-month grace period, that does not mean recent graduates need to wait to start paying. “If you can start making payments earlier, you’ll save on interest and establish the habit,” said NerdWallet.

There are situations where student loan debt may not be your primary concern, like if you have other high-interest debt, such as credit card debt. In that case, “put as much as possible toward the higher-interest debt first, while continuing to make minimum payments on other debt,” said Navy Federal Credit Union. “This will save you money and allow you to pay off higher-interest debt quicker, giving you more money to put toward student loan debt repayment.”

4. Use credit, but be smart about it

When finances are tight, pulling out a credit card may seem irresponsible. But using your credit wisely is one of the best things you can do to set yourself up financially. Good credit helps with everything from qualifying for better borrowing opportunities at lower rates when you need them to influencing whether or not you land an apartment when you are ready to strike out on your own.

One of the easiest ways to build your credit is to make payments on time and in full, each and every time. And if you do not yet have a credit card, student loan payments count, too.

“The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”

This was US air force secretary Troy Meink confirming for the first time at a conference in Maryland this week that such weapons exist. Meink said the US was “ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist”.

It has been an “open secret” that the US, Russia and China are developing space weapons, but to say it officially is “extraordinary”, said The Guardian. Over time, the “cooperation” of the post-Cold War era has “gradually become a potential battlefield”, and announcements such as this threaten to “accelerate a risky arms race”.

What are the weapons?

Meink declined to give any details on the capabilities of the weapons, only that they were “important from a deterrence perspective”.

There is a “broad range of possibilities” for what they could be, Clayton Swope, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told CNN. There could be “satellites capable of jamming enemy communications” or weapons that could “target and destroy ground-based equipment”. In the extreme, there might also be anti-satellite weapons that could “seek out and physically destroy” enemy satellites in orbit.

In its “war-fighting framework”, the US Space Force has acknowledged that threats of orbital strikes on the country can include “both kinetic – or physically destructive – weapons and non-kinetic ones”, said the Financial Times, implying weapons would need to be capable of nullifying them.

What is the US space strategy?

Donald Trump established the US Space Force in 2019, making it the first new branch of the US military in more than 70 years.

Under the control of the Department of the Air Force, its primary goal is “bolstering the nation’s defence capabilities” and maintaining satellites for communication and surveillance, said CNN. But last year, Trump issued an executive order underlining the USSF’s “role in not only defending assets, but also as an attacking force”, said the BBC.

Russia and China are perceived to be the main threats to US national security. The USSF claims that China already “operates space and counterspace capabilities”, while Russia “views space as a war-fighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts”.

Next year, the department is “slated to have a budget of $71.3 billion”, said The Times. New space weapons form a part of the wider “Golden Dome” missile defence shield, protecting the US from foreign attack. Trump has “championed” the “$185 billion” programme, which “would potentially involve deploying interceptors to space”.

How have others reacted?

Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for the Kremlin, told reporters that Russia believed “space must be free of any weapon” and called for “the complete demilitarisation” of space.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun has urged the US to “stop expanding military build-up in outer space, and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions”. The country “stands for peaceful use of outer space and keeping it safe” and “opposes any arms race in outer space or any attempt to weaponise it and turn it into a war zone”.

Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping told the state-owned Global Times that “if the US continues down this path, other countries may be forced to respond”.

Could this development spread?

In theory, weapons in space are banned. Following Starfish Prime – the “largest nuclear test in outer space” – in 1962, nations signed the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which “banned weapons of mass destruction in orbit”, said The Telegraph.

But while it bans the use or testing of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in orbit, “it does not prohibit the use of conventional weapons in space or the use of ground-based weapons against assets in space”, said CNN. This leaves “room for interpretation”.

And the “emerging space weapons race is not limited to the US, Russia and China”, said Al Jazeera. India has already demonstrated “anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons” capability and is “developing technologies that could allow spacecraft to operate alongside other satellites”. France has reportedly begun developing similar “co-orbital capabilities”, and the UK has “conducted on-orbit cooperative operations” in conjunction with the US.

The Secure World Foundation found that while the threats from Iran and Israel are “less visible”, they are relying on “jamming and spoofing satellite-based services” and “electronic-warfare capabilities” respectively to advance their space security. North Korea is also “racing to develop more sophisticated space-based tech”.

“There is only one reason that young people come into the city wearing balaclavas, and that is to conceal their identity to commit crime and intimidate members of the public,” said Nottinghamshire Police superintendent Chris Pearson earlier this month. “Not any longer. Your time is up.”

The city has become one of the first in the country to enact a ban on balaclavas, as part of a wider initiative, dubbed “Operation Reclaim”, to tackle youth anti-social behaviour across Nottingham.

Following masked anti-migrant protests on the south coast, other areas of the UK are looking to follow Nottingham’s lead, although opinion is divided on the extent and effectiveness of bans on face coverings.

Why is the balaclava so controversial?

Popularised by US drill rappers “wearing head coverings and ski-masks in videos”, the balaclava has become something of a transatlantic “urban fashion trend”, said The Telegraph. Ironically, the garment “is now marketed by British leisurewear outlets on the very high streets blighted by ‘ballie’ crime”.

The balaclava has traditionally been used by both “far-right” and “left-wing agitators” to conceal identities during protests, said James Hanson on LBC. But it is also a common accessory for street crime and anti-social behaviour, such as shoplifting sprees by “groups of balaclava-wearing youths”. “If you’re popping into Sainsbury’s in a balaclava, you’re hardly there to top up your Nectar points”.

The controversy over face coverings resurfaced following anti-migrant protests in Dover and Portsmouth earlier this month, in which balaclava-clad men blocked roads to try to prevent the movement of newly arrived migrants.

How will the ban work?

From today, Nottinghamshire police and council officers will be permitted to ask people to remove face coverings if they “reasonably believe” they are worn to conceal their identity, or to commit crime or anti-social behaviour. Those who refuse can be given a £70 on-the-spot fine and face referral to the Immediate Justice Programme, a scheme requiring community work including “litter picking or graffiti removal in the city centre”, said Nottinghamshire Police. If the individual is prosecuted, courts are able to impose a maximum fine of £1,000. Repeat offenders may also be issued with a criminal behaviour order, “which could ban them from the city centre indefinitely”.

Those wearing face coverings for religious, health, medical or work reasons or another legitimate purpose will not be affected by the ban.

The ban has been introduced following a public consultation in which more than 90% of 2,200 respondents supported police action. Authorities had identified around 180 city centre incidents involving face coverings or balaclavas between June 2025 and June 2026.

Are bans likely to spread?

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has told police chiefs in a private meeting that she expects them to “make full use of their powers to stop protesters wearing face coverings”, said The Independent. Current legislation already allows senior police officers to “declare a protest area where concealing one’s identity would be an offence”, but this power was not used during the Dover protests.

Other councils in the UK will be “carefully watching Nottingham’s progress”, said The Telegraph. A few areas have already adopted similar measures. In 2024, Wolverhampton City Council introduced powers allowing police to request the removal of face coverings worn with no reasonable purpose. The London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham introduced a similar policy in February this year, joined by Woking in July. “Even in leafy Cambridge”, an e-petition is calling for a Nottingham-style ban on balaclavas.

Knowing you need to save enough for retirement and actually doing it are two different things. Today’s economy has left younger generations struggling to determine how to navigate a financially tricky present while also setting something aside for the future. Along the way, many are hoping to catch a break, and maybe even enjoy themselves a little.

This conundrum has led to the rise of Coast FI (short for Coast Financial Independence). The aim of this financial planning approach is to set aside enough for retirement that, assuming reliable investment growth, people will have some room in the future to just “coast,” so to speak.

What is Coast FI?

This retirement savings strategy is a subset of the FIRE movement, which stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. But instead of the goal being early retirement, the Coast FI philosophy aims for just the former: achieving financial independence.

Without the focus on retiring as soon as possible, Coast FI “encourages a focus on a different question,” said Kiplinger. “How much would you need to have invested, such that if you didn’t touch your nest egg, it would grow to support your future retirement spending needs?”

Coast effectively refers to the point at which you have saved enough that you can breathe a sigh of relief. In other words, “Coast FI is when you have enough in investments to fund your full retirement without any more contributions,” with the idea being that “reaching Coast FI early frees you up to, say, take a lower paying job, take time off from work or try to start a business,” said The Wall Street Journal.

What is the appeal of Coast FI?

For many, the promise of freedom and flexibility. While it requires saving aggressively for retirement until you hit your target number, there is then the chance to pump the brakes. That could “free up money to travel or invest for other goals, like a down payment,” said NerdWallet. You may alternatively decide to leverage that freedom to “shift to more fulfilling, perhaps even part-time, work instead.”

Given its recent rise in popularity, having these options on the table is likely reassuring. “Younger Americans worry about how new technology like artificial intelligence will affect their careers and ponder the uncertain future of Social Security,” said the Journal.

Are there any risks to the Coast FI approach?

Despite its allure, it is important not to let Coast FI lull you into a false sense of security. “The core principle hinges on the market performing how you expect it to,” said NerdWallet, and there are, of course, no guarantees when it comes to investing. “If the market tanks in the first few years after you stop contributing, it could greatly reduce how much you have in retirement years,” said the Journal.

Estimating “how much you’ll spend in retirement and your withdrawal rate (factors that go into calculating your Coast FIRE number) can also be hard to figure if you’re decades away from retirement,” said the Journal. This raises the risk of miscalculations, depending on what kind of twists and turns your life takes.

Preliminary results from Sweden’s general election suggest a narrow three-seat lead for the centre-left opposition over the right-wing ruling bloc that had promised ministerial seats to the far-right.

The election is being fought on multiple fronts. Current prime minister and leader of the centre-right Moderate party, Ulf Kristersson, has been fighting for re-election on a platform of cutting asylum numbers and reducing gang shootings, while Magdalena Andersson, leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, has been focusing on the economy, the welfare state and suppressing the country’s growing far-right faction.

Like many nations across Europe, Sweden “has been subject to increased fragmentation” in its politics, said the Financial Times. The closeness of the votes so far herald “weeks of uncertainty” and protracted coalition talks. And the final result, and the fate of the far-right, will be closely watched elsewhere in Europe, where similar nationalist movements are gaining ground.

How does the Swedish electoral system work?

There are currently eight political parties in Sweden, and they are fighting this election in two major blocs: the Moderates, the Sweden Democrats, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals on the right, and the Social Democrats, the Left Party, the Centre Party, and the Green Party on the left.

Sweden uses a “mandate distribution” voting system, a type of proportional representation. To get “mandates”, or seats, in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament, a party must pass the minimum threshold of 4% of the vote. After that, roughly speaking, a party that gets, say, 20% of the vote will get 20% of the seats.

This means that “coalitions are the norm”, said Politico. And in those coalition-building efforts, “Sweden’s smaller parties often have outsized influence”. With the “razor-thin victory margin” currently projected for the left, “that will be true again this time”.

Why has this election been so tight?

Party campaigns this year were “unusually heated and polarised”, said The Guardian. There have been months of “personal attacks between leaders, accusations of misinformation and Maga-inspired ads”.

The friction between the two main blocs has been growing since the right-wing coalition “broke a long-standing taboo” by partnering with the Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration party with “neo-Nazi roots”. Kristersson has promised members of the party cabinet positions, should the right-wing bloc be re-elected.

With a campaign slogan of “Make Sweden Sweden again” – clearly aligning itself with Donald Trump’s Maga movement – the Sweden Democrats’ policies include banning headscarves and expanding a “repatriation grant” worth SKr350,000 (£27,000) to immigrants who have already become Swedish citizens. They have run bus advertisements, saying “Do you miss Mogadishu? The repatriation grant will help you get ​home”. One of their MPs “recently called for Muslims to simply ‘stop being Muslims’”, said The Economist, and their leader, Jimmie Åkesson, casting his vote in an immigrant neighbourhood in northern Stockholm announced that “Sweden shouldn’t look like this”.

Why does it matter?

The shifts in the balance of power triggered by this election will not only affect government decisions on taxation, welfare, health, education and crime but also “shape decisions affecting communities with limited influence over Stockholm politics” said The European Times. These include disputes over industrial development on Indigenous land, most prominently near Kiruna, which could impact the remaining Sámi reindeer-migration corridor.

This election has broader implications across the continent, too. If European centrists were hoping to take lessons from Sweden on how to beat the populist right, these “confusing” results make things “far from clear”, said The Economist. Although Sweden Democrats have suffered their first decline in support since their founding, they won’t be “too unhappy”. The party that was previously ostracised has now “attained mainstream acceptance that was once unthinkable”.

What will happen next?

It’s unlikely a final election result will be announced until Wednesday or Thursday. “Hundreds of thousands of overseas votes and late ballots” are still to be counted, said the Financial Times. Overseas votes in particular “typically skew conservative, so the final result is still considered too close to call” by some experts.

Once all the votes are in, “there is likely to be intense wooing of the smaller parties in the middle of the political spectrum”. And these talks are “likely to be protracted”. Both Kristersson and Andersson have “hinted that they might try to form centrist coalitions”.

Former cricket star and Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan now lives in a 6ft-by-8ft prison cell in the Adiala prison in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s fourth-largest city. According to his family, his conditions are dire: Khan, 73, prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been placed in indefinite solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, and is given dirty water to drink. He has lost 85% of his eyesight and his health is failing.

In a recent interview, his sons Kasim and Sulaiman, who are British citizens, accused Pakistan’s authorities of “trying to kill” their father. Pakistani officials reacted with fury; it briefly appeared that they might order a Test match against England to be abandoned. Pakistan’s government issued a statement claiming, against all the evidence, that Khan is actually being held in a seven-cell compound with home-cooked food, a TV and regular visits.

Why is the case so sensitive?

Because Khan is, to many, a national hero, and probably Pakistan’s most popular politician. Born to an affluent Pashtun family in Lahore, Khan graduated from Keble College, Oxford, in 1975, and captained Pakistan’s cricket team to World Cup victory in 1992; in Britain, he is still best known as a sportsman and a playboy, who later married Jemima Goldsmith.

But in Pakistan he became a prominent philanthropist, and then a very successful – and very divisive – populist politician. In 1996, he founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice, or PTI) party, railing against the corruption he views as endemic among the two political dynasties that have dominated Pakistani politics, the Bhutto and Sharif families. His supporters cast him as a brave challenger to a venal establishment, who fought for years to fix a broken system; his critics say he is irresponsible and has polarised Pakistani politics, by casting all opponents as crooks.

What did he do in office?

Khan became PM by a slim majority, after winning the backing of Pakistan’s military – which has intermittently ruled the country and still wields great power – in a contest marred by allegations of vote-rigging and intimidation. In power, Khan proved erratic, and his record was at best mixed. He promised to end corruption within 90 days; but according to Transparency International, it actually worsened.

Pakistan’s economic woes continued on his watch: in 2019, he was forced to negotiate a $6 billion bailout from the IMF. Although he expanded the provision of healthcare, pledges to build an “Islamic welfare state” went unfulfilled. And his independent foreign policy (he was seen as pro-Taliban, and had close links to China and Russia) was criticised in the West. Meanwhile, he worked with Pakistan’s generals to control the media and crack down on opponents, some of whom were jailed.

How did he lose power?

In April 2022, having apparently fallen out with key figures in the military, he became the first Pakistani PM to be ousted in a parliamentary confidence vote. Khan claimed that the US and Pakistan’s military had conspired to remove him, and launched street protests. Within days, news outlets in Pakistan began following an army diktat to stop referring to him by name (instead calling him “the founding chairman of the PTI”).

In November 2022, he was shot in the leg at a rally, which he also blamed on the military. The new government, meanwhile, sought to bury Khan in dozens of legal cases; in May 2023, he was arrested by paramilitaries who smashed through the windows of Islamabad’s high court, where he was appearing on corruption charges. Fresh protests erupted. Although initially bailed, Khan has been in jail since that August.

What is he accused of?

Khan has faced charges in more than 100 cases, including bribery, corruption and the leaking of state secrets. He is now serving a 14-year sentence following a corruption conviction in which prosecutors alleged that he and his third wife, Bushra Bibi received land worth up to $25 million through a charitable trust, as a bribe from a real-estate tycoon. All Khan’s other convictions have been overturned or suspended; few were of exceptional gravity by the standards of Pakistani politics.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation for Human Rights have criticised Khan’s incarceration; and, in July 2024, a UN working group said that his detention had “no legal basis” and was part of a “campaign of repression” against him and the PTI.

How has Khan responded?

In October 2022, Pakistan’s Election Commission disqualified him from running for political office for five years. The PTI has also been prevented from using its cricket bat symbol on ballot papers – a setback in a country with low literacy rates. But Khan has been undeterred. He continues to protest his innocence from jail, attracting widespread support. Using AI-generated audio clips and images, he held virtual online rallies in the run-up to the February 2024 general election, in which candidates backed by his PTI party won an unexpected victory. However, it fell short of an outright majority, and has sat in opposition since; Shehbaz Sharif of the PML(N) took over as PM, at the helm of an eight-party coalition.

Could he be released?

For the moment, his prospects appear bleak. Pakistan’s supreme court ruled in August that Khan should be transferred to hospital to undergo medical checks; instead, he was taken to a government facility for cursory checks, and was then sent straight back to 23-hour isolation. Given that some 48 Pakistani political leaders have been assassinated or executed, some observers fear the government plans to keep Khan in prison until he dies. Western governments, meanwhile, have remained largely silent about his treatment – apparently wary of angering a strategically important nuclear power.

It seems like you can place a bet on the outcome of just about anything these days: a football game, a midterm election, the Grammys, even the likelihood of an impending natural disaster. The rise of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket has made it not only possible but easy to take a stab at making money based on correctly predicting the outcome of a future event.

Before you give it a try, though, it’s worth understanding how exactly prediction markets work. It is not the same as online betting, and it’s important to know the risks involved, including shifting regulations.

How do prediction markets work?

Prediction markets “run on a type of financial instrument known as an event contract,” said NerdWallet. These contracts have a “nominal value — often $1 — and traders can buy ‘yes’ or ‘no’ positions on it for some fraction of that value.” Once the event occurs, the contract pays out to those with the position that ended up being correct.

The positions people can buy into are wide-ranging. Examples have included “when Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain will leave office, how many social media messages Elon Musk will send next month or how hot it will be in Paris on a given day,” said The New York Times. If someone were to, say, correctly bet Starmer would leave office by the end of the year, buying a 20-cent ‘yes’ position, they would have made 80 cents, minus any fees the platform may charge. But if they had bet he would not, they would lose the money they had put down.

What are the risks of prediction markets?

One risk is that not everyone will be entering on equal footing. Some people may have greater knowledge than others, whether due to expertise in that area or, in some cases, potential insider trading. “Several high-profile instances occurred this past year, including an Army soldier charged with using classified information to place bets regarding the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro,” said Kiplinger.

Similar to betting, prediction platforms can also encourage the gamification of money, potentially leading to overspending and frequent losses. “Most people don’t come out ahead,” and “more than 100,000 accounts have lost at least $1,000 on Polymarket, but only half as many have won that much,” said Kiplinger, citing a Bloomberg analysis.

While prediction markets may seem akin to investment products in some ways, they do not offer the same potential for long-term growth that investing does. “You’re going to end up with a lot more money over the course of 10 or 20 years in the market, with consistent investing, than you would with the win-some-lose-some approach of betting on sports on a weekly or monthly basis,” said Chris Woods, a certified financial planner, to NerdWallet.

Are prediction markets regulated?

Regulations are another potentially murky area for prediction markets. While currently overseen at the federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, certain “states view outcome-based markets, much like sports betting or gambling, as subject to state oversight,” said Forbes, which has led to lawsuits and uncertainty. Due to the “evolving” nature of prediction markets, “market rules, permitted contract types and regulations can change over time and may vary by jurisdiction,” said Fidelity.

While it has long been known that poor air quality from the rubble of the World Trade Center triggered health problems for New York residents, documents released by the Mamdani administration reveal officials may have known about these problems far earlier than they let on. Released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they are inspiring renewed scrutiny of New York City’s government.

What do these documents reveal?

Over 170,000 pages of documents about the Sept. 11 cleanup were posted on an online portal set up by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). The release ends a “multiyear legal battle over records concerning air quality and health concerns following Sept. 11,” the mayor’s office said in a press release. The documents suggest officials intentionally misled New York residents about the toxic air from the destroyed World Trade Center site.

People living near Ground Zero were “repeatedly reassured by officials that the air was safe, despite internal data and residents’ experiences that contradicted their claims,” said CNN. Some of the documents prove that officials had concerns about environmental testing performed just one month after the attacks and that these tests “regularly detected elevated levels of toxins, including asbestos and hard-to-detect, dangerous chemicals.” This largely contradicts what officials were saying at the time. “Every test that has been done says the air quality was in acceptable limits,” then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in February 2002. “I think some people are just never going to want to believe that.”

One notable memo sent in October 2001 to then-New York City Deputy Mayor Robert Harding described how the city could shield itself from lawsuits related to toxic air at Ground Zero. Officials were concerned these cases could arise because city health advisories led people to “return to the area too soon (causing toxic exposure or emotional harm),” said the memo. A “major concern is that if these cases make it to court, the judges and juries will be biased in favor of plaintiffs (even though the City seems to have a strong defense) and, therefore, award substantial damages to compensate individuals for their loss.”

What next?

There will likely be a push for additional documents to be released, as the latest tranche appears to “only contain a fraction of the air quality reports taken at Ground Zero,” said CNN. The city will “publish thousands more documents in the next 12 months as it reviews and redacts information,” said New York City Corporation Counsel Steven Banks, per Gothamist. At least $34.2 million has been allocated to create the document portal and keep it updated.

Many unanswered questions remain, however, as the “extent of the damage to people’s health due to exposure to all kinds of toxins is still unclear,” said Gothamist. While about 3,000 people died on Sept. 11, nearly “three times more people have died as a result of health complications in the aftermath of the attacks.”

People who “lived, worked and went to school in Lower Manhattan have lived with the health consequences of 9/11 while critical pieces of the city’s own record — HOW they got sick — remained out of reach,” said New York City Council Member Gale Brewer in a statement. The portal is a “great first step toward giving the public access.”

A “deportation war” being waged by Sweden is “tearing British families apart”, said The Telegraph.

Criticism is mounting over the country’s contentious approach to Britons who chose to make Sweden their home before Brexit.

Why are British people being deported?

The problem has been “rumbling” since Brexit, said the broadsheet. When the UK left the European Union in 2020, British citizens stopped being EU citizens, which meant they no longer had automatic right of residence status in Sweden.

A transitional period, when British citizens could apply for residence status under the withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU, ended on 31 December 2021.

By 2024, there were 14,233 applications for post-Brexit residency, including from family members joining British citizens after the deadline. Just under 4,000 were rejected, a refusal rate three times higher than any other EU state and considerably higher than the bloc’s average of between 3% and 4%, according to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

According to data from the European Commission, between 2021 and 2025, 2,490 UK nationals were ordered to leave Sweden – almost a third of the total of more than 7,500 UK nationals ordered to leave the 27 EU Member States during that period. The Migrationsverket, the Swedish government agency, said that 458 British citizens have been deported or forcibly removed since Brexit.

Who has been deported?

The rejections include some “disturbing cases of vulnerable Britons” who were told to leave either because they missed the application deadline or, in other cases, where the deadline was met, but other necessary documentation or conditions were ruled missing or unmet.

Some Britons have been “told to go” after living in the country for more than 25 years, and even “vulnerable elderly people with dementia” have been affected, said The Guardian. One 34-year-old man was deported even though he had been in Sweden since he was 10 years old. This separated him from his wife in Gothenburg, who said Brexit had “crushed families”.

A 78-year-old British widow, Joyce Thomas, had been told to remove herself from Sweden before 9 September. “I don’t take anything from this country,” she told the newspaper. “I am self-sufficient, I put money in this country, have no criminal record.” She has since won a temporary reprieve pending an appeal by her lawyer, but “her plight remains the same with the threat of a deportation merely in abeyance”, said The Guardian.

Horace Mason, 74, who has lived in Sweden for 25 years, has dementia and receives full-time care, but he’s “been given 10 days to leave” after losing a post-Brexit migration court case, said The Telegraph. According to reports, he applied in time, but Swedish authorities say he did not supply documentation confirming he met requirements to stay.

Nigel Davies, 64, had lived in Sweden for 17 years before he was taken to a deportation centre last July and driven to the airport at 4am. He wasn’t allowed to tell his teenage children what was happening, even though they were alone because his wife had died from cancer. His “only crime” was that his application to remain in Sweden was six days late.

What’s behind this?

A broader political backdrop is at play: Sweden’s current government has adopted a significantly tougher immigration policy, after Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister, said: “improving re-migration is high on my government’s agenda”.

The Sweden Democrats, a far-right party that’s “outside the government but backs it in parliament”, is exerting more influence on the scene, said Reuters. Once the country was known for its welcome to migrants, but there’s now an “insularity and “anti-British feeling”, Davies told The Telegraph.

A Foreign Office spokesperson told The Telegraph that the government “regularly raise concerns regarding Sweden’s protection of citizens’ rights” with Swedish authorities and the European Commission.

Meanwhile, the “young, the old, vulnerable people, the wealthy” will continue to be the “target of harsh and often aggressive immigration policies”, said Swedish journalist Martin Gelin in The Guardian, and, although the country goes to the polls this weekend, “it will take more than one election to get the old, tolerant Sweden back”.

With the 2026 midterm elections two months away, Republicans have been ratcheting up their verbal assaults on Democratic candidates of Muslim faith. While these attacks have most notably come against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, they may be emblematic of a larger GOP campaign against Muslims.

What are Republicans saying about Muslims?

El-Sayed has become a lightning rod for a host of anti-Muslim sentiment, including from the Trump administration. The Senate candidate is part of something “very, very evil” that is “on the rise in the United States,” Vice President JD Vance said during a speech in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights. President Donald Trump has referred to Democratic candidates as “jihadists” and also called El-Sayed a “communist who hates Jews and Israel.” El-Sayed has disavowed accusations of antisemitism.

Republicans in Congress have recently been pumping up similar attacks against Islam as a whole. “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse” and a “threat to both national security and our republic,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on X. A similar sentiment was echoed by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). “The enemy is at the gates,” Tuberville said on X in response to a photograph of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is also Muslim. In Tuberville’s own state of Alabama, Muslims “make ‌up less than half a percent of the population,” said Reuters.

Why is this the new GOP tactic?

Anti-Muslim rhetoric has “quickly become a central aspect” of the Republicans’ strategy to win the midterms, as “Muslim and Arab American political power is growing across the country,” said The New York Times. The “number of Muslim Americans running for — and winning — local, state and federal elections has steadily increased over the past decade.” There are currently 255 Muslim elected officials across 26 states, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

There has been an “escalation of messaging designed to raise alarm about Muslim Americans and Muslim candidates,” said NBC News. The Islamophobia in politics is nothing new, as it “began cropping up more pointedly 25 years ago, in the aftermath of 9/11, and it hardened as Trump began his rise.” Since then, the “undercurrent of concern and fears raised by politicians around Muslim Americans has remained steady.”

Critics say the “rhetoric unfairly targets Muslims, while Republicans say they are raising legitimate concerns about security, extremism and the role of religion in public life,” said Reuters. “If you can wrap yourself in the flag ​and you can criticize Muslims and Islam, that means you don’t ​really have to deal with the issues,” Aaron Hughes, a religious studies professor at the University of Rochester, said to Reuters. These attacks come even though many Muslims have beliefs that “dovetail with Republican orthodoxy, such as opposition to some abortion procedures and same-sex marriage.”

Others feel that Republicans “may have trouble with anti-Islam messaging heading into the midterms,” said Spectrum News. If any “candidate in the midterms wants to engage in questionable campaign behavior and make outlandish statements, this may not be something that voters are going to go for, even in a relatively conservative area,” Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, a professor of political science at the University of North Texas, told the outlet. Voters “care about core issues like cost of living, and social wars probably aren’t going to fly in a 2026 midterm election with a Republican president in office.”

From lower bills to better weather, many people are looking beyond the UK and choosing to retire abroad, but there are risks to look out for.

The number of Britons looking to retire abroad is “rapidly growing”, said Sky News, but there are hurdles before they can fulfil their dream of a life “in the sun”, especially since Brexit.

Due to a range of factors there is a “massive gap”, said Aegon, between the life people imagine in retirement and where they eventually choose to live.

Why are people retiring abroad?

An estimated 200,000 to 250,000 British retirees currently live overseas, said PensionBee, with many possibly swayed by “warmer weather, a change of lifestyle or a more affordable way of living”.

In some cases, older people are looking further afield in places such as Thailand for care homes, due to “higher standards and lower costs”, said The Times.

Popular places to retire to

France, Spain and Australia have historically been “prime candidates” for expat Brits to retire to, said Hoxton Wealth, but a “new roster of destinations” is becoming more popular due to cost of living rises, visa rule changes post-Brexit and changing tax landscapes.

Cyprus is popular among retirees, said MoneyWeek, due to the lack of inheritance or wealth taxes in place, “as well as its climate and outdoor lifestyle”, plus English is widely spoken across the country. The Republic of Ireland is also popular as “under the Common Travel Area (CTA), UK citizens have the right to live, work and retire” there without the need for a visa and there’s no formal application process for residency, “unlike a host of other EU countries post-Brexit”.

Malta and Portugal also rank high among retirees, added the financial website, thanks to their proximity to the UK as well as “balmy climates, access to healthcare and low crime levels.”

What to consider when retiring abroad

One of the biggest factors to consider when retiring abroad is your state pension.

Expats are denied the “triple lock uplift” on state pensions, said The Telegraph, if they live in around 100 countries including much of the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

This means state pension payments are frozen at the rate first received and the financial impact can be “increasingly severe”, said Rathbones, meaning people miss out on around £77,000 over 20 years.

Depending on where you take money from, you need to consider “inevitable fluctuations” in exchange rates, said Experts for Expats, as you need to be sure your income will continue to support you, even if your disposable income drops. The “default position”, may be to sell your home and move abroad, but consider whether you may decide to return to the UK and how hard and expensive it may be to get back onto the property ladder.

It is worth testing out an area first either by renting or just having a holiday, said Aegon, and working out what stage of retirement it is best for. This way you can find out what daily life actually feels like “before you redesign it entirely”.

While glucagon-like peptide-1s have been widely celebrated for transforming weight loss, some who attempt to use the medications find themselves in a less-studied patient category called nonresponders. This minority of people haven’t experienced any significant change in weight even after adjusting their dose or switching brands.

What are the influencing factors?

Between “9% and a third of participants” in clinical trials for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs lose less than 5% of their body weight after months of use, which is the threshold associated with health improvements, said The Guardian. Now, researchers are “trying to work out why” the drugs are ineffective for nonresponders — a discovery that could help doctors “tailor the use of the drugs, maximize cost-effectiveness and reduce side effects.”

The drug’s lack of efficacy cannot be blamed on patients, said Alexander Miras, an obesity expert at Ulster University, to The Guardian. If the drug does not “reduce hunger and food intake for someone,” it is “just not going to work.”

For now, the “short answer” to why some people don’t respond is that “we don’t really know,” said Miras. Research suggests that factors such as “motivation, intelligence, education and socioeconomics” are not predictors of how patients would “respond to GLP-1 medications.”

Other characteristics such as age, sex and whether or not someone has Type 2 diabetes do appear to have an effect. Studies have also suggested “ancestry might have an impact,” with the medications “most effective in people of European ancestry and least effective in people of African American ancestry,” said The Guardian.

Some may be jumping the gun, however. Many people labeled as nonresponders simply “do not take the medication correctly” or “discontinue treatment before adequate therapeutic effect can be achieved,” said Kingston University biologists Nadine Wehida and Ahmed Elbediwy at The Conversation. Studies show up to 20% to 60% of people “stop treatment within the first year” amid “widespread use of the drug in doses below the recommended amounts.”

Is there hope for nonresponders?

There is “no reliable way” to predict what group one will fall into when trying GLP-1s, said Stanford Medicine News Center. The good news is “you don’t have to wait long to find out.” In general, higher doses produce better results, so doctors “typically start patients low and increase gradually, watching for side effects.”

If the dose is not associated with any weight loss, “waiting three months on the same dose is not going to give you more answers,” said Stanford Medicine endocrinologist Sun Kim to the department’s News Center. You should “increase the dose and reassess.” Whether or not it’s working tends to become clear within the first few weeks.

Certain medical factors such as “thyroid disorders” can “disrupt metabolism,” said Yale Medicine. People with “impaired glucose regulation,” including those with diabetes, therefore tend to “lose less weight on these medications.” A less common underlying condition could also be playing a role.

Sometimes, “despite doing everything right,” a patient “just doesn’t respond the way we would hope,” said Avlin Imaeda, a Yale Medicine gastroenterologist. And this phenomenon isn’t “unique to weight-loss medications,” said Yale Medicine. Some patients may not react to “certain blood-pressure drugs, antidepressants or cancer therapies.” Biology is complex, and treatment responses can vary widely.

For those hoping for something to look forward to, a “series of promising new drugs are in development,” said The Guardian. In the meantime, for nonresponders still struggling to lose weight, “weight-loss surgery may be the only option left.”

GLP-1-based drugs not working does not “predict a lack of response to [bariatric] surgery,” said Miras. In the end, it’s “not your fault,” and it’s not the drug’s fault either. “This is purely luck.”

Hundreds of arrests across dozens of countries have been linked to “The Com”, an online community of predominantly young men who carry out acts of violence termed nihilistic extremism.

“It’s violence for the sake of violence,” EU counter-terrorism coordinator Bartjan Wegter told the Associated Press in an interview ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Unlike Islamic jihadism, “there’s not a direct link with ideology”.

What is ‘nihilistic terrorism’?

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the leading UK-based think tank dedicated to combating extremism, defines nihilistic terrorism as “violent acts lacking an ideological motivation and driven by a misanthropic world-view”.

Communities such as The Com form a “decentralised web of chats, forums and channels characterised by support for violence” but “with no specific political, ideological or religious goal”, although some factions have adopted extreme right-wing beliefs. The tactics and resultant harms of nihilistic extremists “often mirror those of ideologically motivated extremist networks”, with “some overlap between the two phenomena’s digital ecosystems, activities and cultural references”.

But this is “violence as a means of asserting oneself”, said the EU’s Wegter. It’s “a means of gaining status in those online communities”.

How do these networks recruit and operate?

Short for “The Community”, The Com is a broad online ecosystem that encourages and engages in cybercrime, extortion and violence.

Largely made up of young, male native English-language speakers, members range from “11-year-olds trying to hack Minecraft to people in their mid-20s targeting vulnerable kids online,” Aiden Sinnott, principal threat researcher at cybersecurity firm Sophos, told The Guardian.

Communicating via encrypted platforms such as Discord and Telegram, the networks serve as a pipeline where “older members of The Com contact kids and try to get them to commit increasingly sophisticated acts of criminality”.

Activities are split into three subsets. Hacker Com includes groups such as Scattered Spider, linked to last year’s massive data breaches of retailers Marks & Spencer and the Co-op. In Real Life Com phones in fake bomb threats to schools and offers violence-as-a-service contracts, and is associated with a spate of random stabbings over the last year. Lastly, Extortion Com coerces young people into sharing or live-streaming acts of self-harm, sexually explicit behaviour or even suicide.

One of the most notorious networks within Extortion Com is 764. Founded by Texas teenager Bradley Cadenhead, who is currently serving an 80-year sentence in the US for possessing child sexual abuse material, the network now has victims and perpetrators in dozens of countries.

The UK’s National Crime Agency has said reports of Com networks increased six-fold in the UK from 2022 to 2024, and researchers at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center in the US have identified at least 295 arrests across 33 countries linked to The Com.

What is being done to tackle them?

These attacks are tough to prevent or track because the perpetrators are young individuals without a criminal record, usually, “who don’t leave any footprints other than online perhaps, but then it’s often behind encrypted walls and communities,” Wegter told AP News.

Over the summer, Europol ran a campaign to target nihilistic violent extremist content online. Investigators from nine countries participated in “Referral Action Days” to disrupt the online ecosystem, limit propaganda dissemination, and find new investigative leads, including identifying around 4,340 web addresses linked to The Com.

The campaign also aimed to enhance “platforms’ response to and awareness of terrorist content online produced and disseminated by The Com groups”, said the agency.

Ukraine has spent years using its drone arsenal to great effect, both in its wartime front with Russian forces and in penetrating deep into Russian territory for daring aerial attacks on fuel and commercial infrastructure. Now, Ukraine has a new target: Russian airports and Moscow’s commercial air travel industry.

“Every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports” should know “Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a statement last week. Although Ukrainian drones have filled Russia’s skies before, Zelenskyy’s implied threat to commercial air routes suggests the war for aerial supremacy in the region has taken a new and potentially even more dangerous turn.

Why focus on commercial air travel?

Zelenskyy’s warning comes as part of Ukraine’s “effort to disrupt Russia’s economy” and “pressure Moscow to end the war,” said The Wall Street Journal. Ukraine has “vowed to avoid targeting airliners and civilian deaths.” Instead, it intends to “scale up so-called Operation Carpet,” which circulates drones “near Russian airports, forcing air-traffic control to pause takeoffs and landings.”

The strategy is “no longer simply a repetition of isolated, sporadic emergency alerts” that have shuttered Russian airways in the past, said Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Southern Command, to the Journal. Ukraine intends to “transition to constant pressure aimed at paralyzing civilian air traffic” for eastern Russia.

The problem for Russia is “not that Ukraine has to shoot down an airliner,” said industry news site Live and Let’s Fly. “Quite the opposite.” Ukrainian drones merely need to “create enough uncertainty” for authorities to close airports or until “airlines or insurers decide the risk is no longer worthwhile.” The tactic is a “useful tool of war.”

Trying to shutter an airport permanently “would be difficult,” as a “sustained attack would become predictable and easier for air-defense systems to halt,” said The Guardian. But “periodic closures of Russian airports on a semi-regular basis” are achievable by “relying on an element of surprise,” said Royal United Services Institute aviation analyst Justin Bronk to the outlet.

Ukraine has also “urged the U.N.’s aviation agency” to “ask its members ‌to fully ban operations in Russian airspace,” said Reuters. The International Civil Aviation Organization itself has observed “heightened risks of civil aircraft being targeted or caught in crossfire,” said the group in a statement this week. Though the airline industry can “reroute flights and maintain operations during conflicts,” that type of “operational ​flexibility does not address the ​fundamental security threat.”

What are Russia’s options?

Russian President Vladimir Putin “vowed that Russia would keep pummeling Ukraine” at a press conference last week where he “dismissed” Zelenskyy’s threat to Russian airspace, said The Washington Post. “If this has been voiced, it amounts to nothing less than a call for state terrorism,” said Putin. “And I would point out that they are asking us to resume negotiations and requesting face-to-face meetings. One does not negotiate with terrorists.”

Although Ukraine’s airspace has been closed to commercial travel for several years, Russia has “refused to close the country’s airspace for civil aviation, despite the escalating war,” said the Journal. While American and European operators have pulled back from Russian sorties, their absence “has proven a boon” to operators from Asia and the Middle East, thereby “offsetting the risk of operating in skies regularly penetrated by Ukrainian drones.”

Russia’s military is “focusing on striking manufacturing and storage sites around Kyiv and energy and port operations in Odessa,” said former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen on Substack. While it is “uncertain whether Zelenskyy’s warning will change the current pattern of attacks and retaliations,” it is also “hard to see” how Ukraine can “keep launching hundreds of drones (sometimes as many as a thousand)” nightly into Russia. It could simply be, said Bryen, that Zelenskyy is “saying more than he can do.”

Artificial intelligence could cause a global economic downturn, the Bank of England’s governor has warned.

Andrew Bailey is the latest in a “throng of figures” to highlight the risks posed by the most advanced versions of AI technology, said The Guardian.

What did he say?

Bailey said “frontier” AI models were “showing increasingly sophisticated autonomy and problem-solving abilities, as well as threat capabilities”.

In a two-page letter sent to international finance ministers and central bank governors, Bailey said the advanced models risk destabilising the “highly interconnected” global financial system through cyber-disruption that “can spread across jurisdictions”.

The central bank officially raised concerns about AI in July, listing the threats of a potential stock market bubble, worsened cybersecurity vulnerabilities and AI companies’ increasingly complex and opaque debt.

How would AI cause a bubble?

The inflated valuations of companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Nvidia have led to warnings that the companies are in a stock market “bubble”. This is a “significant run-up in stock prices without a corresponding increase in the value of the businesses they represent”, said The Motley Fool.

Usually, this is driven by “highly optimistic market behaviour”, said Investopedia. Then, when investors’ confidence starts to wane as they realise their hopes are not panning out, they all begin to sell off, sending stock prices tumbling and causing an abrupt contraction in the market.

The “core problem” in the markets is always debt, said Andrew Neill in the Daily Mail. But suddenly there’s “a big new kid on the block in the credit markets” in the form of America’s AI “hyperscalers”, which are “investing several trillion dollars to roll out their transformative technology” on “borrowed money”.

They’re borrowing from private credit markets, an “expensive, unregulated, opaque source of debt”. This means “voracious governments” are competing with the AI giants for credit, “pushing up the cost of borrowing”. But if AI share prices “came tumbling down” they’d bring the “whole stock-market caboodle with them” because the “continuing surge” in share prices is “overwhelmingly AI-driven”.

So what can be done?

Bailey said the sector should prioritise “appropriate steps to support safe and responsible model release and deployment on a global basis”.

But he warned that “recent developments” have “highlighted” that “many jurisdictions do not have the protocols in place to manage the development, release, and deployment of advanced frontier AI models, heightening risks for the financial sector and beyond”.

When you get married, you might assume your taxes are now a joint venture. But that does not necessarily have to be the case.

Filing jointly tends to be the more popular option among married couples, both because it’s easier and because it can offer more tax benefits, potentially resulting in a lower tax bill. For some spouses, however, filing separately may be the preferable choice.

What is the difference between married filing separately vs. jointly?

Married couples have two filing status options come tax time: married filing separately and married filing jointly. When couples file jointly, they submit just one tax return that combines “income, deductions and credits with a spouse’s, all on one tax return with the same tax rate,” said Fidelity. Meanwhile, married filing separately means that you each file your own return, keeping your income, deductions and credits, and thus tax liabilities, separate on two different tax returns.

This choice has consequences beyond whether or not you can work together on your return. It also affects your effective tax rate and your eligibility for tax deductions and credits, which in turn determines how much you pay and get back at tax time.

When can it make sense to file separately?

While married filing jointly will generally result in the lower tax bill, “filing separately might be advantageous in situations where one spouse has significant deductible expenses or concerns about joint liability, as it allows for more individualized tax treatment,” said Chase. More specifically, couples may consider married filing separately in the following situations:

One of you has high medical bills. “If one spouse’s out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed 7.5% of their individual adjusted gross income (AGI), but don’t exceed 7.5% of their joint AGI, they might be able to lower their taxes by filing separately and taking the medical deduction,” said Intuit TurboTax.

Either you or your spouse has student loan debt. “If you’re on a student loan income-driven repayment plan, filing separately could reduce your bill since it would be based on your income alone, instead of your spouse’s income and yours combined,” said Fidelity.

There are tax liabilities or other issues. “If you don’t want to be liable for your spouse’s taxes and suspect that they are hiding income or claiming deductions or credits falsely, then filing separately is probably the best option,” said Investopedia. If you sign a joint return, you are assuming responsibility.

Another factor worth evaluating is your incomes and how combining them (or keeping them separate) influences your total tax bill. For instance, “dual-income households with similarly large paychecks could be pushed into a higher tax bracket than if they filed separately,” said CNBC Select.

When is married filing jointly a better choice?

The reason filing jointly is typically more advantageous is because “joint filers usually have higher income thresholds for certain taxes and deductions,” which “means they can earn a higher income and still qualify for certain tax breaks,” said Intuit TurboTax. They can also “more easily qualify for various tax credits,” including the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child and Dependent Care Credit.

The laws of your state are also worth weighing. If you live in a community property state, where all assets earned during marriage are considered jointly owned, “couples filing separately there each have to report half of the income both spouses earned, which could nullify most of the advantages of filing separately,” said NerdWallet.

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions when it comes to bankruptcy. But it is also a process that an increasing amount of Americans are facing.

Filings at the end of March this year “were up almost 12% from a year earlier,” said NPR. This suggests that a “growing number of Americans have reached the point where the pressure of their debt has overcome the stigma of bankruptcy.” While it’s still a last resort option, it can also be a lifeline back to financial solvency.

What is bankruptcy?

Bankruptcy is a legal process that people can go through when they are unable to pay back their debt on their own. Obtaining it requires filing a petition with the courts requesting relief.

The exact form this relief will take depends upon what type of bankruptcy you qualify for. Chapter 7 bankruptcy “can discharge eligible debts entirely, but requires the filer to forfeit nonexempt assets and property,” whereas with Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you “won’t have to forfeit any property, but you’ll need to set up a repayment plan to pay back creditors,” said LendingTree.

Why do people file for bankruptcy?

In short: relief. As soon as you file for bankruptcy, an “automatic stay takes effect, temporarily halting creditors from pursuing collection actions against you, including lawsuits, foreclosure and wage garnishment,” said Investopedia. And while it is generally a last resort, if you have “exhausted all other alternatives, bankruptcy may be the only way to get the financial relief you’re seeking,” potentially even offering a “fresh financial start” after you do the requisite work, said Experian.

However, it is worth noting that bankruptcy is not a guaranteed fix. Not everyone who files will qualify. Further, “certain debts, like child support and unpaid taxes, are ineligible for discharge through bankruptcy,” said Investopedia, which means it might not be the right solution for every situation.

What are the consequences of bankruptcy?

The financial reboot that bankruptcy can offer does not necessarily come easy. For one, bankruptcy has the potential to do major damage to your credit score, remaining on your credit report for up to 10 years. “It can take several years to rebuild your credit history,” said Experian, and in the meantime, you might have limited access to borrowing opportunities, such as a mortgage, credit card or car loan. If you are approved, you will likely pay a steeper interest rate.

Bankruptcy can also result in you losing some of your assets. For instance, under Chapter 7, if you “have a lot of home equity and your home isn’t protected from sale, your trustee might choose to sell it,” said LendingTree.

As such, before you go down this path, it is worth considering some bankruptcy alternatives. Depending on your situation, a debt management plan, debt consolidation or simply negotiating directly with creditors may be a better option.

A key question when budgeting is how much of your income you should be stashing away in savings. But when you start to get into the numbers, it’s not uncommon to find there is a gap between how much it is recommended you save and how much you can actually save after all of your expenses.

This reality, intensified by persistent inflation, is why the 60/30/10 budgeting method has been rising in popularity. The ratios offer a little more room for expenses by putting a little less toward savings than the longstanding gold standard, the 50/30/20 budget.

What is the 60/30/10 budgeting method?

The 60/30/10 budgeting method breaks down your monthly income into three categories: 60% of your income will go toward essential expenses (think housing, food and transportation), 30% will go toward discretionary expenses (like going out to eat and streaming services) and the remaining 10% goes into savings or toward paying down high-interest debt.

This budgeting framework differs from the go-to 50/30/20 budget in one major way, which is how much it allocates to savings. With the 50/30/20 rule, you put only 50% toward essential expenses, instead allocating 20% to savings and debt pay-off.

How does it stack up against the classic 50/30/20 budget?

The truth is, “many individuals may find that 50% of their income just isn’t enough to cover all necessary expenses,” said Kiplinger. For people feeling strapped by steep costs, the 60/30/10 budget can offer a more forgiving framework to follow.

Some experts worry, however, that the reduced rate of savings and debt pay-off could end up hampering long-term financial progress. Setting aside 10% instead of 20% can translate to “slower progress on savings and debt repayment, which may leave you carrying high-interest balances longer,” said NerdWallet. It may also make it challenging to, say, save enough for retirement or a down payment on a home.

The reallocation from savings to essentials could sidestep addressing root problems, too. For example, if “high rent is driving costs, downsizing or relocating might be a better solution than raising your ‘needs’ to 60%,” said NerdWallet.

How can you determine the right budgeting ratio for you?

Ultimately, the “exact ratios someone should use are flexible and many people find that they need to shape it to their needs,” said Stephen Kates, a certified financial planner and the principal financial analyst for Annuity.org, to U.S. News & World Report.

The 60/30/10 budget may work well for “young adults who have higher ‘startup’ costs like a first apartment, buying a car, moving to a new city for a job, student loan repayments, etc.” said NerdWallet. On the other hand, “older individuals may want to prioritize savings over spending, leading them to trim down the 30% allocation on discretionary spending and save more for retirement,” said Kiplinger.

Whichever ratio you land on, keep in mind that it does not have to be a permanent choice. As your financial situation evolves, so, too, should your saving habits.

A senior aide to Nigel Farage and Reform UK’s head of policy have both stood down after they were filmed appearing to plot ways to avoid electoral laws on foreign donations.

Undercover investigative journalists posed as a potential Reform supporter and his wealthy American father, who paid for £32,500 of polling commissioned by Reform and which benefited the party. The polling “was not attributed to Reform, and was reported in The Telegraph and The Times without those newspapers knowing that it was commissioned by the party and paid for by the US donor”, said The Guardian. The benefit in kind was then also not reported to the Electoral Commission.

But Farage told LBC the polls in question were commissioned by an independent third party. He added: “Whilst the poll benefited Reform, it wasn’t commissioned by Reform. It had nothing to do with Reform. It was an independent third party that did it. So that’s nothing. That’s nothing. Polls are funded by overseas people every single week. Every single week.”

What was revealed?

In a meeting over oysters and wine in his Clacton constituency, Farage “met with the undercover team in late July after the three polls had been published and paid for”, said Channel 4 News, who aired the investigation by a group of journalists called Verbatim. The Reform leader believed them to be “William” and his father. Farage said the polling was “amazing” and provided “bang for buck,” adding: “It worked. Boom.”

The Channel 4 report also showed Dan Jukes, a senior adviser to Farage, suggesting a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of £500,000 for the party. Channel 4 said James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, also suggested to the undercover reporter that perhaps his father could pay for opinion polling to aid Reform’s campaigning.

Farage told LBC a “couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said” and had been “removed this morning”. But added: “The party has broken no laws, the party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever.”

Is it illegal?

Electoral law says that to be a permissible donor to a UK political party you must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK. Not disclosing funding such as the ones for the polls would be illegal and accepting this kind of foreign funding would also be illegal.

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “The law requires political parties to report all permissible donations they accept with a value over £11,180 and all impermissible donations over £500. Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.”

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported Reform to the Metropolitan Police and the force said it would assess the matter and any information provided to it.

Reform has denied any wrongdoing and said it had “been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign funded climate change activists”. Verbatim was founded by journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting.

What could the fallout be?

Farage “appears to be trying to distance himself [from] Jukes and Orr, with his comments to LBC”, said the BBC. But Jukes “is widely seen as Farage’s closest aide, who is often at his side, and is judged to have an innate sense of his boss’ instincts”. Equally “Orr, a Cambridge academic who has stepped down [as] the party’s head of policy, could also be considered to be in Farage’s inner circle”.

Reform UK chairman Lee Anderson told Sky News there was “no chance” of Jukes and Orr returning to the party. But this “appeared to be contradicted”, said the BBC, by Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who told Radio 4’s “Today” programme minutes later that “it’s not actually, in the nicest possible way, for any individual to make that determination” as the investigation continues.

If you are trying to save on your next car, you may be considering buying used instead of new. Used cars do usually cost less than new cars — but that does not mean you will automatically get a good deal on one.

“Today’s shoppers are facing record-high prices and a dwindling supply of budget-friendly inventory,” said The Washington Post, citing a new second-quarter report from car-shopping website Edmunds. Largely due to an imbalance between supply and demand, the current average price of a three-year-old used vehicle — $32,461 — is “4% higher than a year ago and a 15.5% increase from 2021.”

If you are in the market for a used car, here is what to keep in mind while shopping.

1. Know your numbers

Before you approach the negotiating table, it’s essential that you have done your homework. The first thing to figure out is how much you can actually afford to spend. “If you’re taking out a loan to pay for your car, a good rule of thumb is to cap your car expenses at 10% of your take-home pay, including your car payment and other ownership costs, such as fuel and insurance,” said Edmunds. And “if you plan to buy a car that’s out of warranty, it’s also a good idea to set aside a ‘just-in-case’ fund to cover unexpected repairs.”

If you know you need an auto loan, this is also a good time to verify your creditworthiness. Consider getting prequalified, which will not only provide a sense of how much you may be able to borrow and potential rates but also give you leverage when shopping and negotiating.

2. Make sure to comparison shop

Once you get to the point where you are eyeing up one car in particular, “look up the current market value — what other buyers have paid for that used car — in pricing guides such as Edmunds or Kelley Blue Book,” said NerdWallet. “Current pricing information from these impartial sources will give you confidence and show you how much to negotiate on a used car.”

It can also help to look at different sources. For instance, certified preowned vehicles tend to “cost the most, given that they typically have fewer miles, are often in better condition and have some warranty coverage,” whereas “private-party sales typically cost less,” though there is more effort involved, said Edmunds.

3. Dig into a vehicle’s history

A low price on a vehicle that turns out to be a lemon is not such a good deal in the end. This is why it’s important that you ask questions, and verify everything the former owner says before you sign. “Get the vehicle history report (Carfax and AutoCheck are two popular choices) to confirm the odometer reading, ownership history and reports of accidents and flood damage,” said Investopedia. And if you are “buying from a private seller, you can also ask to see a copy of maintenance records.”

Your own eyes — and nose — are a good resource too. “Visually inspect the car on a dry, sunny day to see imperfections and potential problems better,” said Consumer Reports. If you “smell mildew, the car may have been in a flood or there may be a leak somewhere, which could mean unseen water damage.”

Ulrich Siegmund was described as “the most dangerous man in Germany” by Der Spiegel in a recent cover story.

The 35-year-old is on course to lead his Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to power in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt this week, making it the first far-right government in post-war German history.

The party’s agenda, if put in place, would give the country its first look at what the AfD “hopes could ultimately be a cultural and demographic overhaul of German life”, said The New York Times.

What are their policies?

The party’s 156-page manifesto advocates a “complete 180-degree turn” in migration policy to include deportation and what it terms “remigration” – a word that has “Nazi connotations”, which could see the targeting of Ukrainian refugees who fled the war, said CNN.

Under an AfD government, gay pride flags would be banned at schools, public broadcasters and pro-democracy NGOs would lose funding, there would be a moratorium on new wind turbines and a rollback of other green policies, and large families of German origin would receive tax breaks. The party also wants to improve relations with Moscow, and would move to teach more Russian in schools.

But, in a policy more reminiscent of Zohran Mamdani, the liberal New York City mayor, the manifesto also includes provisions to make childcare, already heavily subsidised by the state, free.

“I want to give the citizens in Saxony-Anhalt their good, old, secure Germany back,” Siegmund told The New York Times earlier this year. “It will be a very beautiful country with a very good spirit of optimism,” especially “for the children, for the families.”

But judging by Siegmund’s campaign speeches, “the goal is a return to a bygone era – a time before Germany viewed itself as a country of immigration, when electricity came from nuclear power plants rather than wind turbines, and when LGBTQ+ rights were not yet recognised”, said Hans Pfeifer in Deutsche Welle.

Could they work in practice?

Eva von Angern, a state lawmaker from the far-left party Die Linke, has called the AfD’s plans a “violation of human rights and unconstitutional”, said the NYT.

But while some of the proposals appear to be “unworkable at a state level”, needing action by the federal government, “many others are feasible”, said the BBC’s Bethany Bell.

Whether they would work in practice is another matter entirely. Saxony-Anhalt has Germany’s highest share of pension-age residents, meaning it needs migrant labour. A study by DIW Berlin economic research institute reported in Modern Diplomacy estimates that under AfD policies such as stopping immigration and cutting state spending, Saxony-Anhalt would lose an average of €1,600 (£1,370) per person in annual income as well as around 10,000 jobs.

How likely is an AfD national government?

Since its founding in 2013, the AfD has evolved from a Eurosceptic party into a “full-scale populist uprising against mass migration, green energy policies and so-called wokeism”, said The Telegraph’s James Rothwell.

It has successfully expanded beyond its heartland in the former East Germany, and now consistently leads Politico’s poll of polls on national voting intention.

Standing in its way of entering national government is the Brandmauer, Germany’s political “firewall” agreement between mainstream parties to refuse to work with extremists. It has succeeded until now in keeping the AfD out of power at state and federal level, but has done nothing to harm the party’s popularity.

Some hope that the AfD taking control of Saxony-Anhalt will force the party to compromise and show that its radical political platform is unworkable and ineffectual.

Others, such as David Begrich of Miteinander, an organisation that fights right-wing extremism, fear the AfD intends to turn Saxony-Anhalt “into a testing ground for the whole country”, he told DW.

“Just how far can one go in overriding the written – and perhaps even more importantly, the unwritten – rules of democratic culture in a federal state?”

While Mormon temples may be a common sight in many cities across the United States, the average American might not realize how much land is owned by the Mormon Church. Using a largely obscure real estate company, the church has been quickly expanding its holdings in numerous states and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

How is the Mormon Church acquiring land?

The church largely purchases land through its real estate management brand, Property Reserve. While this company is “relatively unknown to many,” it plays a major role in the Mormon Church, said Bloomberg. Through a “web of subsidiaries,” Property Reserve has “accumulated billions of dollars of properties from farms and ranches to apartments and hotels, becoming one of America’s largest — and least transparent — landowners.”

Though the Mormon Church is mostly known for purchasing land to build its sprawling temples on, it is now “starting to get more involved in housing and master-planned communities — putting in some cases decades-old land holdings to work in high-growth areas including Colorado, Florida and Arizona,” said Bloomberg. The church recently “paid $240 million to acquire an apartment complex in Boca Raton, marking one of the priciest multifamily deals in South Florida” in 2026, said The Real Deal.

One of these regions in Florida being developed sits on a swath of land “almost as large as San Francisco,” said Bloomberg. The project is so massive that Florida created an “independent local government — usually first appointed by the landowners — designed to oversee funding of major infrastructure and development.” The deals have not been without controversy. The church has, for example, bought 3,000 acres of ranch land in Kyle, Texas, a “property that has been entangled in a lawsuit from an environmental group seeking to prevent the land from being developed,” said the San Antonio Express-News.

What is the impact?

The purchases “reflect both opportunity and a willingness to pay up,” said Bloomberg. The church does not disclose much financial information, but a Bloomberg review of property records “shows that the Mormon Church owns at least 2.4 million acres across the U.S. — an area almost twice the size of Delaware — with an assessed value in excess of $20 billion.” The real value of the Mormon Church’s holdings is “almost certainly much higher: The estimation doesn’t include holdings in nondisclosure states like Texas.”

The church’s most consequential purchases are driving “development on a scale that can reshape entire regions,” Bloomberg said. It comes amid an effort to further Mormon culture within the United States, from “influencers with millions of followers to TV shows such as ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.’” But the church has also “faced criticism over its multibillion-dollar real estate portfolio.” The criticism has been compounded due to the Mormon requirement that members donate 10% of their income to the church as a tithe, according to the Mormon Church’s website. The church has been sued for allegedly using these tithings to fund real estate projects.

There have also been allegations that the Mormon real estate portfolio is part of a larger shell company scheme, an accusation the church denies. In 2023, a whistleblower told “60 Minutes” that the church’s nonprofit investment manager, Ensign, was “really a clandestine hedge fund” and that “once the money went in, it didn’t go out.” Mormon officials have denied any wrongdoing. The whistleblower’s story included “unfounded allegations by a former employee who has a different view on how the church should manage its resources,” the church said in a statement.

Egg freezing is becoming an increasingly popular and visible choice among women. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently joined the ranks of public figures who have shared their experience, detailing on social media her own decision-making and the realities of undergoing the process.

The procedure, in which eggs are harvested from the ovaries and then frozen for storage, can offer women an option if they are not yet ready to conceive or have health concerns and anticipated treatments that could later impact fertility. For many people, however, the cost of egg freezing is a major obstacle.

What is the average cost of freezing your eggs?

A single cycle of egg freezing “nationally averages around $16,000,” said The Sacramento Bee, citing FertilityIQ’s patient-reported data. This “includes roughly $11,000 for the clinic procedure and about $5,000 for fertility medications.” In addition, “egg storage is typically billed separately and can cost up to about $1,000 a year, depending on the facility,” said CNN Health.

Of course, there are a number of variables that influence how closely the actual cost aligns with these averages. One is location: “Clinics in mid-size cities may charge around $10,000 per cycle, while coastal metros like New York or San Francisco can exceed $18,000 for the procedure alone,” said The Sacramento Bee.

Also, “many women need to undergo multiple cycles to get their desired egg count,” said Dr. Marcelle Cedars, a professor and director at the University of California, San Francisco’s Center for Reproductive Health, to CNBC. That multiplies the initial estimate. Finally, when women are ready to use their eggs, they have the cost of IVF to navigate, which “averages roughly $23,000 per cycle,” said The Sacramento Bee.

How much does it cost if you decide to freeze embryos instead?

Despite the price tag, there is no guarantee that egg freezing will lead to a successful pregnancy. Freezing embryos can yield a higher success rate, which is why some women opt to freeze both their eggs and their embryos. Of course, this further compounds costs.

Since the process of embryo freezing also includes sperm banking and fertilization, it generally has a higher starting cost, averaging around “$10,000-$20,000 per cycle,” said the North Carolina Center for Reproductive Medicine. Storage is also necessary; this can run up to $1,000 a year.

What options are there to help cover the costs of egg and embryo freezing?

While “some high-profile tech companies, including Meta and Apple, have advertised egg freezing as an employee perk,” the reality is that “most insurance does not cover the cost unless there is a medical reason, such as ahead of cancer treatments that will damage or destroy a woman’s eggs,” said CNN Health. In fact, said The Sacramento Bee, “only about 20% of large U.S. companies include egg freezing in their benefits.” Still, the first step when assessing costs for the procedure is to check with your health insurance plan to see what costs it may help cover, if any.

A total of “21 states have fertility preservation mandates, which means they may cover some aspects of medically necessary egg freezing (and/or sperm freezing) for qualified patients,” said CCRM Fertility. The fertility clinic itself may be willing to offer discounts or payment plans, and there are various organizations that offer financial assistance and even grants or scholarships. You might also consider using your Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds toward qualified expenses.

You finally got a raise at work. Now you feel a little more comfortable ordering in a few times a week, and you are not thinking twice if you need to opt for an Uber over taking the bus. Your quality of life may have improved, but when you look at your bank account, the numbers are more or less the same — even though your salary went up.

This phenomenon is what is known as lifestyle creep, and it’s not uncommon for it to occur when you start bringing in more money, whether due to a pay increase, a bonus or a new job. While there is a case to be made for leveling up as your career does, doing so in lockstep with your income can leave you right back where you started financially.

What is lifestyle creep, and why is it a problem?

Lifestyle creep, sometimes called lifestyle inflation, “occurs when your spending gradually increases as your income rises,” said U.S. News & World Report. Basically, what happens is those two figures move up in tandem, squeezing out the opportunity that a higher income should provide to save and invest more.

What makes it so insidious is that “it happens little by little, so you may not even realize it,” said Investopedia. In other words, “it sneaks (or creeps) up on you.” The small shifts you are making in your lifestyle, whether that be splurging on slightly nicer clothes or making your weekly latte a daily occurrence, can have big impacts. Unfortunately, “lifestyle creep can deplete your savings and prevent you from achieving long-term financial goals.”

What are the warning signs of lifestyle creep?

Improving your lifestyle and overall quality of life is not inherently a problem. To “some degree, lifestyle creep is expected,” said U.S. News & World Report. There are signs, however, that you may have taken it too far.

One sure sign that “your lifestyle may be creeping up too much can be that you begin saving and investing less and less,” said Fidelity. Another tip-off is that you have started accumulating debt, perhaps carrying a credit card balance.

You may also notice your attitude toward budgeting and tracking your spending has changed. For instance, maybe “you have stopped following your budget because you assume you’re earning enough not to have to worry about spending,” or you now “feel as if you can afford to buy whatever you want and no longer stick to previous limits,” said SoFi.

How can you avoid lifestyle creep?

To avoid falling into the trap of lifestyle creep, follow these three steps.

Make a budget. “Give all income a job to do,” said SoFi. Before you start spending, put a portion into savings and invest another amount, making sure to reserve enough to cover essentials. Anything that remains, you can allocate toward fun splurges or upgrades.

Track your spending. Often, lifestyle creep is not an intentional choice but an accrual of small shifts in spending. To make sure that does not happen, keep tabs on where your money is going. Budgeting apps make this easy to do.

Set goals. A new pair of shoes may feel nice, but reaching a financial goal, whether that is finally buying a house or being able to retire early, will arguably feel even better. “One key to avoiding lifestyle creep is to set long-term financial goals and keep your eye on the prize,” said SoFi.

While cooler fall days may be on the horizon, many students returning to school are still dealing with scorching end-of-summer temperatures. As climate change exacerbates the heat, experts say the negative effects of sizzling classrooms are here to stay, especially in school districts that may not have the resources to combat hotter weather.

How do hot classrooms affect students?

Students can often “struggle to learn in hot, stuffy classrooms,” as “air quality, temperature and ventilation” can affect how people “think, focus and perform,” said Time. These factors are aggravated in poorer school districts, where a lack of air conditioning “can impair cognitive function, while excessive heat diverts the body’s energy from learning, slows reaction time and weakens attention.” Average temperatures of 80 degrees to 90 degrees Fahrenheit and above are “known to exacerbate student absenteeism and disciplinary referrals.”

While heat has always been an issue in underfunded classrooms, it “doesn’t just affect places like Phoenix, which is well-known for its scorching temperatures that don’t always drop by much in the evenings,” Allison Poulos and Jennifer Vanos, a pair of health solutions and sustainability professors at Arizona State University, said at The Conversation. A number of cities, even in the northern U.S., are “oppressively hot when the new school year begins in August or September — and they are only getting warmer.”

Many schools have also “moved the start of the academic year earlier into the summer over the last several years,” said Poulos and Vanos, exposing kids to peak heat waves. But these schools “lack the infrastructure — from inadequate air conditioning to fields and play areas that are not shaded — to cope with high temperatures.” In 2025, 156 school districts nationwide saw an average of 30 more school days over 80 degrees Fahrenheit than they did in 1970, according to a study from the Center for Climate Integrity.

How are schools fighting the heat?

Many school districts are working to combat issues with HVAC systems directly amid concerns from parents. The superintendent of the Tulsa School District in Oklahoma “visited several schools and found the buildings she entered were cool but acknowledged that some sites are struggling with their air conditioning systems,” KOTV-DT Tulsa said. For schools that don’t yet have air conditioning, teachers are being asked to “close classroom doors once students are inside and shut blinds to help retain cool air.”

Conditions were even worse during summer school classes. In Boston, classrooms averaged 100 degrees Fahrenheit over several days in June, which parents “say forced teachers in nonair-conditioned buildings to turn off lights and spritz students with water to keep them cool,” said The Boston Globe. Once that heat wave broke, temperatures still “remained stubbornly high in some schools.” The problems continued even after the dog days of summer passed. Toward the end of August, students in a Northern Colorado district “spent the first three school days of the year leaving class two hours early” due to heat, said CBS News.

Experts say modern HVAC systems should “offer schools a way to deliver reliable heating and cooling while reducing exposure to volatile fossil fuel costs,” said Time. Using “energy tax credits and a mechanism known as Elective Pay, public school districts can receive direct financial support to invest in these improvements,” turning “what was once out of reach into a practical, near-term option.” School districts in Indiana, Virginia, Wisconsin and more are already implementing these new systems.

Meta has agreed to an $18 billion (£13.3 billion) settlement in the US to resolve claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children.

The social media giant was accused of knowingly and deliberately designing features to get children addicted to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with commentators describing it as the industry’s “tobacco moment”, said Sky News.

What happened?

Meta has agreed to make a number of changes to the way Instagram and Facebook operate for its youngest users, while denying any wrongdoing. The settlement “came as a surprise”, said BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman. “I was expecting weeks of courtroom drama.”

What will change?

The ruling could “fundamentally change the social media experience for young people in the US”, said The Guardian. The “biggest alteration” is that Meta must now “make many of its safety limitations the default setting” for accounts created by teenagers, a “pivot from its previous opt-in approach to child safety”.

The new safety barriers include a two-hour time limit on Instagram and Facebook for known teen users (direct messaging will not count towards the daily use limit). Meta agreed to limit teen accounts to only one hour a day if other platforms bring in similar time restrictions.

Notifications will be muted between midnight and 6am and between 8am and 3pm on school days. ‘Likes’ will be hidden on posts from teenagers. Meta will also enhance measures ‌to prevent children from accessing age-restricted content.

Identification or facial recognition verification systems will be used to make sure teenagers aren’t using regular Instagram accounts. But collecting identifying data poses significant privacy risks, said David Greene, legal counsel at digital privacy firm Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The case was brought by 29 US states and was based on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which is nearly 30 years old. “I would be surprised,” said Kleinman, “if these measures remain within the confines of the US for very long, as other countries will almost certainly be keen to adopt them too.”

What does it mean for social media?

The hearing was labelled as social media’s “tobacco moment”, in reference to the trials tobacco firms faced in the 1990s. A “flurry of state lawsuits” forced tobacco companies to stop sponsoring sport and advertising on public transport, banned adverts that “targeted the youth and prevented cigarette companies from putting cartoons on their packets”, said James Titcomb in The Telegraph.

Other social media companies, including YouTube, TikTok’s parent ByteDance, Snap Inc. and Discord, are facing thousands of lawsuits brought by states, school districts and individuals. The litigants claim the companies intentionally designed their platforms to keep young users hooked. The lawsuits come as politicians are considering stricter rules aimed at protecting young users.

If other tech giants follow Meta’s lead, then social media “might indeed start to look more like tobacco: still a regular part of life, but heavily regulated and restricted, and widely understood to be bad for you”.

GB News went live on 13 June 2021, the first news channel start-up in the UK since Sky News in 1989. Broadcast free on most platforms, it promised to serve audiences on the right who felt ignored by traditional media with a news agenda not governed by liberal metropolitan values and assumptions: it calls itself “the people’s channel”.

GB News had a rocky start. Chair and star presenter Andrew Neil stepped back after just two weeks on air; he later complained of a lack of professionalism and “nutty” politics. It has firmly established itself since then.

In December 2025, GB News announced that it had become the UK’s biggest news channel, by daily average viewers. In 2025 it had over 80,000 viewers between 6am and 2am, narrowly overtaking BBC News’ figures. It still trails BBC and Sky in terms of weekly audience reach, with 2.1 million; the other channels have perhaps twice that. But its higher average viewership suggests it is watched consistently by a smaller and more loyal audience.

Why is the channel’s rise significant?

Its content is not just culturally conservative: it is tilted specifically, and vociferously, towards Reform UK and the right-wing of the Conservative Party. Many of its presenters are politicians. Nigel Farage presents an evening prime-time show three nights a week, while other contributors from Reform include Lee Anderson, Richard Tice, Matt Goodwin and Darren Grimes; from the Tory right there are, among others, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Miriam Cates and Esther McVey. Michelle Dewberry, who has her own evening show, is a former Brexit Party candidate. (One former Labour MP, Gloria del Piero, serves as a presenter.)

The channel has come under fire from journalists for breaching the impartiality rules that apply to news broadcasters. Ex-Sky News editor Adam Boulton called for the channel to be stripped of its broadcasting licence.

What does GB News coverage look like?

Its content is focused strongly on populist-right themes: culture wars and “anti-woke” subjects; climate scepticism; and, most of all, illegal migration. Typically, a GB News evening show will begin with a few minutes of the presenter’s own firmly expressed views. Next, there will be four or five segments of news tilted heavily towards the channel’s favoured talking points. Then a panel of guests will discuss the issues. There’s usually a panel of two: say, Reform’s Zia Yusuf offset by one less-well-known liberal, such as Matthew Stadlen or Benjamin Butterworth, in order to provide a semblance of balance. This person is frequently shouted down by the presenter and the other panellist. Critics describe such guests as the “token leftie” or the “chew toy”.

Is this against impartiality rules?

The Broadcasting Code, a list of rules established by the communications regulator Ofcom, covers both TV and radio broadcasters: all news coverage by broadcasting companies, whether across their main channels, or elsewhere, must be presented “with due impartiality”. Ofcom stresses it doesn’t mean an equal division of time has to be given to every view or every argument represented, only that there must be a level of impartiality “adequate or appropriate” to the subject and nature of the programme.

What does this mean in practice?

In the last decade, Ofcom has permitted greater flexibility in the interpretation of its rules, allowing broadcasters to provide more partisan coverage through presenters and guests, with fewer challenging voices. The boundaries were first tested by radio stations, with LBC and TalkRadio featuring more political presenters, including politicians. GB News and Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV followed suit.

In June, the former chair of Ofcom, the Tory peer Michael Grade, gave some idea of the thinking, saying that sometimes “a sentence in a script” would be enough to comply with impartiality rules. He defended GB News, which he said represented a “majority agenda”, adding that critics just disliked perspectives outside a “liberal, Islington consensus”. Ofcom distanced itself from these views.

However, a High Court ruling from February 2025 also allowed some latitude. It found that “news programmes” must remain impartial at all times, and opinion and fact must be clearly separated, but for “current affairs programmes” – in this case, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s show – broadcasters should be given more flexibility.

Is this a matter for concern?

It opens up the possibility of a much more nakedly partisan and less factually rigorous broadcast media – along the lines of Fox News in the US, from which GB News drew inspiration. Ofcom’s investigation of an interview with Donald Trump conducted by the presenter Bev Turner may be a test case. In the interview, in November 2025, Trump claimed climate change was “a hoax”, parts of London operated under sharia law, and that the capital had no-go areas for police, none of which Turner challenged. She also told Trump it took “real backbone” to “drop so many truth bombs”. Ofcom is now looking at breaches of “due impartiality” and “material misleadingness” rules.

What do its defenders say?

To its critics, GB News is “Reform TV” – a partial, irresponsible outlet that is pushing the news agenda towards the anti-immigrant right. To its defenders, it has taken a vital step in wrenching the news out of the hands of its self-appointed liberal controllers in the mainstream media, and is providing reporting on issues that really do matter to people. A major documentary on grooming gangs in 2023 by Charlie Peters, for instance, helped to refocus attention on continuing police and local authority failures. GB News has also investigated issues such as the abuse of visas. The channel’s critics, argued Simon Evans in The Critic, “just don’t like the plebs having a show that looks them ... square in the eye”.

Who is funding GB News?

The main backers of GB News’ parent company All Perspectives, as listed on its website, are Sir Paul Marshall and the private investment firm Legatum Ventures. Nigel Farage is also a shareholder. Marshall earned the bulk of his estimated £870-950 million fortune from his fund-management company, Marshall Wace. He has long been involved in politics, having migrated from supporting the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives via support for Brexit. He co-founded the political news website UnHerd, and bought The Spectator in 2024. Marshall has said that he hopes his media outlets will fight “progressivism”.

In 2023, he established the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) with the conservative culture warrior, psychologist Jordan Peterson. Legatum, a Dubai-based fund founded in 2006 by the New Zealand billionaire Christopher Chandler, is also a backer of ARC.

GB News has lost investors £131 million since launch, although it is moving closer to breaking even. Its latest figures, for the year to May 2025, showed revenue had grown to £26 million. Its losses were still high, at £22 million, but the annual report stated that there was “no reason to believe” its investors’ support “might vary to a significant degree”.

Statement from GB News
“GB News content is not biased towards specific political parties, and the majority of our presenters are not politicians.

“We’ve been Britain’s number one news channel for more than a year because we provide bold and fearless journalism which connects with communities everywhere.

“GB News has strong support from a number of investors, and we remain firmly on track to achieve our ambition of becoming the UK’s biggest news channel across all platforms by 2028.”

Speculation is rife with just a couple of months to go until the first Autumn Budget for new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Chancellor John Healey.

“It’s an unusual high-stakes moment,” said Coutts, as Burnham has only just returned to Parliament as an MP and Healey is “fresh to the chancellorship, succeeding Rachel Reeves”. The Budget will be delivered to Parliament on 28 October.

It will come at a time when public finances are “expected to be gloomier than forecast at Rachel Reeves’ spring statement”, said The Guardian, when the Iran war had only just started.

Burnham has already announced a “handful of cost of living measures”, said Which?, which include a £2 cap on bus fares, the removal of VAT from electricity bills and a business rates tax cut for pubs and clubs.

There are plenty of clues on further cost of living support but no certainty yet on what will be announced. Healey has said, however, he wants to move “power and money out of Westminster, and into every postcode around Britain”.

Here is how the Autumn Budget could impact your finances.

Tax threshold tinkering

Burnham has committed to keep Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise income tax rates. But during the Makerfield by-election campaign he did hint at “revising the personal tax allowance”, said Which?, to amend when people’s earnings move into different tax bands.

Wealth taxes

Former chancellor Reeves unveiled a mansion tax in her final budget, which Healey is expected to “push ahead with”, said The Sun.

Other wealth taxes are still “much discussed”, said BDO, but there are fears that a straightforward wealth tax would lead to the wealthy leaving the UK. Other taxes on wealth, such as raising the capital gains tax rate, “might prove better at raising revenue”.

Property tax changes

Burnham has previously described the UK's property tax system as “outdated”, said Fidelity, and has “expressed support” for a land value tax to replace stamp duty and council tax. However, he did say during the summer that there were “no immediate plans” to abolish either one.

Social care strategy

One “bold idea”, said The Independent, is to scrap inheritance tax and replace it with a social care levy. But tax moves to fund a social care overhaul “may simply be delayed until a future budget”, added BDO, as Baroness Casey’s independent commission on adult social care is not due to report until summer 2027.

Pensions

Get set for “another period of speculation on pensions”, said Saxo.

The previous two Labour budgets had all kinds of speculation about limits being cut, such as pension tax relief, “leading to withdrawals and investors pulling money out of portfolios”.

Healey is “broadly expected”, said The Sun, to continue with plans to add pensions to estates for inheritance tax from April 2027.

Burnham has already committed to keeping the state pension triple lock but there is “persistent speculation about cutting the tax-free pension lump sum”, said WealthR. Trimming pension tax relief “could also be on the radar”.

The trial of a Libyan man linked to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been postponed at the 11th hour after new evidence emerged just days before jury selection was due to begin in Washington.

Two hundred and fifty-nine passengers and crew, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed when Pan Am flight 103, from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie, southwest Scotland, on 21 December 1988. It remains the UK’s worst ever terrorist attack.

Who was behind the bombing?

The bombing was “one of the largest and most complex acts of international terrorism ever investigated” by the FBI. “Solving the case required unprecedented international cooperation.”

Painstaking analysis of 319 tons of wreckage and thousands of pieces of evidence from a crime scene covering 845 square miles, along with thousands of interviews in 16 countries, eventually led investigators to two Libyan intelligence operatives.

In 1991 the UK and US governments charged Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah with the murders, which were believed to be retaliation for a series of confrontations between the US and Libya in the 1980s. A decade later Megrahi was found guilty at a trial held in a Scottish court specially built on a former US army base in the Netherlands and jailed for life. He was released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and returned to Tripoli to a “hero’s welcome” before dying in 2012. Fhimah was acquitted at the trial and returned to Libya.

In 2003, the Libyan government formally “accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials” and agreed to pay nearly $3 billion to the victims’ families. “It never admitted Megrahi’s guilt directly”, though, said STV News, and “questions over the evidence, competing theories about who ultimately ordered the attack, and the involvement of only one convicted individual for an operation understood to have required a state intelligence apparatus have all persisted for decades”.

Then in December 2020, 32 years to the day after the bombing, the US charged Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi as a “third conspirator”. He was taken into custody in the US two years later and has awaited trial ever since.

Why has his trial been postponed?

US prosecutors alleged the Libyan and Tunisian dual national, now in his mid-seventies, was a long-time bomb maker for Libya’s External Security Organisation, and built and primed the explosive device placed in a radio cassette player hidden inside a suitcase on flight 103.

The trial of Al-Marimi, the first person to face justice for the bombing in a US court, was due to start in May 2025 but was delayed after his lawyers said they needed more time to work through more than 400,000 files of evidence.

Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled earlier this month that an alleged 2012 confession given to a Libyan investigator could be used as evidence at the trial that was finally due to begin this week. But the trial was again pushed back, this time to early next year, after “newly discovered evidence” previously unknown to the defence and prosecutors emerged on Friday.

The fact that Friedrich “would have been extremely reluctant to allow an 11th hour postponement after months of preparation and marathon pre-trial legal battles” underlines “the potential importance of the new evidence”, said the BBC.

For the families of those killed in the attack, the trial “represents something rare in this case: a chance for evidence gathered over nearly four decades to finally be tested, cross-examined and argued over in open court, in front of a jury asked to reach a verdict”, said STV News. This would provide some closure even though a conviction “would not, on its own, resolve the wider questions that have followed the case for decades about who else was involved in ordering and directing the operation”.

Since the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants last month, terminating employment authorization for beneficiaries, South Florida has been bracing for impact. The sudden loss of TPS for so many Haitian employees who reside in the region has hit its economy hard.

What is happening in Florida?

As a result of the end of TPS for Haitian immigrants, “some home-care agencies have shut down,” said The Wall Street Journal. Nursing homes in South Florida are “scrambling to fill vacant positions,” and restaurants are “scaling back operating hours.”

Few industries have been left untouched. Hotels, retailers, airport contractors and small businesses are also struggling with staffing shortages. No other U.S. state has “more Haitian TPS holders than Florida,” said the Journal. Of the “roughly 350,000 Haitian TPS holders” in the US, almost half live in the state. Around 93,000 of them are part of the state’s workforce, according to an analysis by three immigrant-rights groups — FWD.us, Haitian Bridge Alliance and UndocuBlack Network.

The changes have affected both Haitian workers and “South Florida’s tourism industry,” said the Miami Herald. About 52,000 Haitian TPS holders were part of the workforce in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to Phillip Connor, a research fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Migration and Development, per the Herald. Of those, a “significant number worked in tourism-related jobs.”

The Department of Homeland Security has for decades “granted TPS designations for foreign-born people who can’t return to their home countries because of “unsafe conditions such as armed conflict or natural disasters,” said the Journal. When Trump returned to office, his administration moved to “terminate TPS status for 13 countries, including Haiti,” arguing that prior administrations had “misused the program by repeatedly extending its protections.” In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could end TPS status for both Haitian and Syrian nationals. There are “significantly fewer Syrian TPS holders in the U.S. than Haitian ones.”

Critics of TPS argue that people with the status “make up a fraction of the overall labor force — a loss the economy can absorb,” and that any difficulties in replacing them could “have the benefit of raising wages.” Their departure creates “real opportunities for less-educated, American-born workers,” Steven Camarota, the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, said to the Journal.

Who is feeling the impact?

Employers and deportees aren’t the only ones feeling the impact. Businesses are “terminating employees with lots of experience,” Wendi Walsh, the secretary-treasurer of the South Florida hospitality workers’ union Unite Here Local 355, said to the Herald. That will “put pressure on the workers left behind.”

The local economy will “miss the workers’ income too,” said the Herald. Haitians on TPS in South Florida provided “$1.5 billion in annual economic contributions, $174 million in annual federal and payroll taxes, and $176 million in annual state and local taxes,” according to estimates by the Princeton research fellow.

In South Florida and elsewhere across the nation, many “de-documented” immigrants are “taking refuge in a growing underground economy,” where transactions are “in cash and remain off the books,” said the Sun Sentinel. Some are “going mobile to quietly deliver services that once yielded paychecks.” Others rely on friends and family to go grocery shopping, “fearing they’ll be arrested by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Many of them are “scared the government will deport them to Haiti” when they know they “cannot survive” there, Margarette Nerette, a vice president at the Florida branch of the Service Employees International Union, which represents healthcare workers, said to the Sun Sentinel. They have “kids who go to school” but don’t seek medical care or go shopping. They don’t know “what to do to survive the crisis the government has put them in.”

If you have ever looked into how to make a budget, you’ll quickly find the calculations typically hinge on how much money you earn each month. But what if you don’t know how much you will make next month, let alone six months from now?

This kind of income uncertainty can create a wrinkle in the budgeting process for gig workers, seasonal employees, freelancers and commission-based workers. However, that does not mean they should skip budgeting altogether. Rather, those with irregular or unpredictable incomes just have to approach the budgeting process a bit differently than those with steady paychecks.

1. Plan around your worst month — not your best

If your income is high one month and low the next, you may think the best way to approach that from a budgeting perspective is to work based on the average amount you’re earning. But it’s actually “way better to start low than to start with an average,” said Ramsey Solutions, a personal finance blog. “If you budget low, you can always go up from there,” whereas if you end up “overestimating and then having to scale back later, that can put you in a real tight spot.” So find the month in which you earned the least, then build from there.

2. Make sure every dollar you earn has a purpose

When figuring out how to budget with irregular income, “one of the most effective strategies is the zero-sum budget,” said Discover. With this budgeting method, you assign every dollar that hits your bank account a specific purpose, whether that is covering groceries, contributing to your retirement account or paying off student loans.

You can use the lowest-income figure that you determined in the prior step to set a baseline for assigning purposes. Using that amount, figure out how you will put every last dollar of your income to use. Then, if there is some extra one month, you can top off your savings.

3. Create a buffer with savings

An emergency fund becomes especially important if you do not have the reliability of a regular paycheck. If one month goes off the rails — maybe you lose your most important client or have a health issue — then your savings account is what will see you through. To keep steadily building up that balance, a “good strategy is to put at least a portion of every paycheck you get into savings,” said NerdWallet. And if you aren’t “making enough to do that, you may need to branch out.”

4. Remember to plan ahead for taxes

Many people who do not earn a paycheck from a traditional employer are responsible for paying their own taxes, rather than having them automatically deducted from their paycheck. The impact can be surprising, adding another element of unpredictability. But planning can help lessen the blow. “A good rule of thumb for commissioned and self-employed people is to set aside 25% to 33% of every payment for federal and state taxes,” stashing that in a separate account reserved exclusively for quarterly estimated tax payments, said U.S. News & World Report.

CIA director John Ratcliffe made a surprise, unannounced trip to Moscow on Tuesday, the first time America’s spy chief has visited Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Kremlin said Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials but did ‌not meet President Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did tell reporters that Putin had been briefed on ​the outcome of Ratcliffe's talks.

While the visit has yet to be officially confirmed by the CIA, White House or Pentagon, reports of the “semi-secret mission” were “ringing all sorts of alarm bells in Westminster”, said Politico. “Next to nothing is known” about the trip but “analysts fear escalations against Baltic countries, or other Nato members”.

What happened?

CBS News first reported that Ratcliffe had travelled to Moscow on Tuesday “for meetings”.

A US Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted at a Moscow airport, along with a US diplomatic motorcade. Flight tracking data confirmed a large US military aircraft travelled from Washington to Russia via Latvia on Tuesday, departing later that day.

The US reportedly told Ukraine that a senior delegation would be travelling to Moscow and asked it to suspend strikes until the delegation’s departure, according to CBS.

What was the point?

In-person talks between high-level American and Russian officials are incredibly rare. And amid such secrecy “it was not immediately clear what the trip’s purpose is and whether any other senior US officials were part of the US delegation”, said The Washington Post.

John Foreman, a former British military attaché to Moscow, told BBC Radio 4’s “PM” news programme that the visit could be focused on “escalation management” given speculation that Russia could have been involved in recent drone activity in Germany. “The Americans don’t normally send such a high ranking official to Moscow unannounced at short notice unless something is up.”

The visit could also have been concerned with the release of US detainees being held in Russia, Foreman said. The CIA was involved in the 2024 prisoner exchange deal that saw Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich released, while Ratcliffe played a role in the release of Russian-American ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina last year after she was jailed in Russia for allegedly supporting Ukraine.

Was it to stop an escalation by Russia?

With US-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine remaining “mostly stalled, with the sides still far apart on core issues”, Ratcliffe’s visit comes as recent US intelligence assessments suggest that Vladimir Putin’s “risk calculus may be shifting”, said CBS News. The Russian leader appears “increasingly willing to authorise provocative actions against Nato members – including hybrid operations and other deniable measures short of conventional military action – in order to test the resolve of the alliance and the Trump administration”.

When tackling something challenging, coming up with a plan is often a good first step. That is certainly the case when it comes to paying down debt, especially when your balance is already overwhelming and still ballooning thanks to interest.

Debt management plans, which are created and administered by credit counseling agencies, aim to give you a roadmap toward getting debt-free. They can also streamline the number of monthly payments you have to worry about and potentially lower the interest rate and fees you are paying, smoothing the path even further.

What’s a debt management plan?

A debt management plan is a strategy for paying off certain types of debts, specifically unsecured debts like personal loans and credit cards. Offered by credit counseling agencies, a debt management plan “lumps your debt payments into a single payment with a reduced interest rate,” which in turn “gives you a structured path to pay off the debt over three to five years,” said NerdWallet.

Once you meet with a credit counselor to create a plan and decide to enroll, the counselor will reach out to each of your creditors, informing them of the plan and potentially negotiating the debt owed, asking them to waive fees or reduce interest. You will then make a payment each month to the credit counseling agency, which will in turn pay your creditors on your behalf. Typically, you’ll owe a one-time fee for the plan’s set-up as well as recurring monthly fees.

What are the pros and cons?

The most obvious benefit of a debt management plan: It can help you pay down your debt. “Your counselor works with you to develop a livable budget that makes room for debt payment and savings,” and they may also “negotiate with creditors to secure lower interest rates, enabling you to pay off your debts faster,” said Experian. Further, with a debt management plan, you will need to worry about just one monthly payment to the credit counseling agency.

There are trade-offs, however. “With a debt management plan, you typically must close any open credit accounts,” and “you usually can’t open new accounts until you’ve repaid your debt,” said Discover. You may initially see your credit score drop due to these closures “but not as drastically as it would with a bankruptcy or debt settlement,” which a debt management plan will help you avoid, said Experian.

And remember: This help does not come free — or fast. You will typically owe a fee for the service. In addition, the “plans often take several years to complete, and not everyone can stay the course,” said The New York Times.

When can a debt management plan be the right solution?

“People who have stable income but who find themselves juggling payments for several high-rate credit cards are generally good candidates,” said the Times. To see a debt management plan through, you need to be able to make the payments each month, as missing just one can lead to the plan’s cancellation. But with a plan, you will at least be making these payments under the structure and guidance of a professional (and hopefully with a lower rate).

Keep in mind that these plans only work for certain types of debt. It “may not be as beneficial if your largest debts are secured, such as an auto or home loan, since these can't be included,” or “if several creditors refuse to participate in the plan and reduce interest costs or fees,” said Experian.

The Trump administration has found another way to put pressure on American universities. This time it’s using the Defense Department.

The Pentagon has ordered a slew of universities to audit their relationships with foreign academic organizations, mostly in China. While some of these universities are pushing back against allegations of wrongdoing, the Pentagon is holding steady.

What is the Pentagon asking for?

The Defense Department is asking for 30 universities to “initiate immediate and comprehensive reviews of their academic, financial and research collaborations with foreign entities of concern,” according to an order released by the agency. The universities have been given until Aug. 31 to “complete a comprehensive audit of all identified foreign collaborations, assess the exposure of sensitive or export-controlled research and implement strict mitigation plans, including the termination of problematic partnerships.”

The Defense Department did not identify which universities it was targeting, but The Guardian later published a full list of the 30 schools. Some of the most prominent include Ivy League institutions Cornell University and Harvard University, as well as prestigious schools like Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University and New York University. Numerous state schools, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Minnesota and three branches of the University of California system are also listed.

If these universities do not complete these audits, they may not “maintain eligibility for future federal research funding,” said the Pentagon. The order is largely targeted at university research relationships with Chinese institutions and is the “latest effort to clamp down on alleged Chinese influence in the U.S., including in higher education,” said Time. The Trump administration has “argued that China exploits U.S.-funded research to obtain sensitive technology and intellectual property.”

The list of foreign institutions reportedly tied to U.S. universities was released by the Pentagon in July. The majority of these institutions, 88 out of 130, are in “mainland China, while the remaining institutions are in Russia and Iran,” said Time. While some of these Chinese facilities “have more explicit ties to the military, others are prominent civilian institutions with extensive international research partnerships.” Institutional links to the government are common in China given that “Chinese Communist Party structures are embedded throughout the country’s universities.”

What have the various responses been?

While some are supportive of the efforts to weed out Chinese influence among American universities, others fear that the allegations are unfounded. “We don’t appreciate the implication that we are not good partners on research security, given that we helped create this list and given that we’ve always partnered with the federal government when there have been national security concerns,” Sarah Spreitzer, the vice president at the American Council on Education, said to The Associated Press.

China is also pushing back against the Pentagon’s assertions. Beijing opposes the “overstretching of the concept of national security and the politicization or instrumentalization of normal scientific, educational and academic exchanges,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

Republicans leading the audit charge are standing firm. “Research partnerships and collaboration with Chinese entities linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese army present undeniable national security risks,” Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said in a statement.

North Korea has been hailed as “the world’s most surprising economic success story” by the leading US financial daily, The Wall Street Journal.

Despite being tightly controlled, technologically backward, and subject to crippling Western trade embargoes, the country has recorded year-on-year GDP growth of more than 3%, of which many advanced economies could only dream. Their unlikely success story has been “aided by arms sales and troop deployments to Russia” to fuel the Ukraine war, support from China, and “the ability to flout international sanctions to import more energy, components and materials”.

What has changed?

Five years after making a rare admission that the nation’s economic policies were falling short, in February Kim Jong Un addressed the Workers’ Party Congress to celebrate a turnaround, declaring “everything has fundamentally changed”. But while the supreme leader may have triumphantly taken credit for the boom, in reality “he has Russia and China to thank”, said Forbes.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, North Korea has earned an estimated $14 billion providing military support to the Kremlin, and hundreds of millions in trade and foreign aid from China. North Korea’s “emergence as a modern-day pirate state on the back of its lucrative cryptocurrency theft operations” has also helped, Shreyas Reddy of Korea Risk Group, told the Financial Times.

The effect of this influx on the so-called hermit kingdom has been sudden and startling. The regime has used some of the windfall to modernise Pyongyang with new brightly lit shopping districts filled with luxury and high-tech goods, and high-rise apartments blocks. Cars, once a rarity, are increasingly common and frequently electric, and can even be hailed with ride-sharing apps.

Outside the capital, the regime’s ambitious “20x10” regional development initiative aims to build new factories, housing and public infrastructure in 20 counties each year over a 10-year period.

All of this is an “incredible accomplishment for a country that is this poor”, regional expert Stephan Haggard told the WSJ.

Can it last?

Due to a lack of reliable data and the regime’s complete control of the media, accurately assessing what is happening on the ground in North Korea is notoriously difficult, said WioNews. But “a closer look beneath the headlines reveals a more complicated picture than either Western critics” or the Pyongyang regime acknowledge.

While the growth over the last three years appears genuine, said the Financial Times, North Korea’s “economic resurgence fell short of a genuine transformation” in that it “was mostly being driven by participation in Russia’s war in Ukraine”.

Peter Ward of the Sejong Institute in Seoul said North Korea was in the throes of a “Russian sugar high” fuelling a slew of “shovel-ready, exciting-looking projects that will catch the eye of the leader, but aren’t necessarily sustainable”.

Ultimately, said Asia Business Daily, the racks of luxury goods and the Pyongyang construction boom are “merely an optical illusion”, in that they are enjoyed “almost exclusively by the leadership and a privileged class in Pyongyang”.

North Korea remains incredibly poor. Out of its 27 million citizens, 17 million are still believed to live in extreme poverty, and the UN estimates that more than 40% of the population are undernourished. Analysts are sceptical that Kim can turn the short-term gains brought about by the war in Ukraine into sustainable long-term growth. “Knowing the North Koreans, they probably haven’t fixed the roof while the sun is shining,” said Ward.

A government minister has urged social media companies to “step up” and remove “content that celebrates dangerous driving”, after recent fatal collisions caused by young people driving on the wrong side of the road.

Seven people died in the early hours of Saturday morning when a Volkswagen Passat, containing five young men, sped the wrong way down the A66 near Middlesbrough and crashed into a police armed response vehicle. Last weekend, five teenagers were killed when their BMW, heading the wrong way down the M9 near Dublin, hit another car head-on, seriously injuring three women and a child.

“What makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that, in some cases, it is being done for social media likes,” said Justin Kelly, head of the Irish police force.

How big a problem is it?

One of the young men killed in the Passat seems to have previously shared TikTok videos of himself in a car chase with the police. And other social media accounts linked to the car’s passengers “appeared to show men in balaclavas on motorbikes and previous police chases set to rap music,” said The Times. Hundreds of videos “shot in the UK” are being “posted online to encourage young drivers to act recklessly for kudos”, according to the paper’s social media analysis.

The crash in Ireland has drawn attention to the activities of the “Lucky Dip” gang, whose members steal cars for thrills and upload footage of their joyriding “for validation and popularity”, said The Telegraph. Irish authorities have warned that they, and groups like them, are “trying to outdo each other” with videos of ever more dangerous driving.

Why are they doing it?

For excitement and for admiration from their peers. Showing off with risk-taking behaviour is nothing new, Mary Aiken, a professor of forensic cyberpsychology at the University of East London, told The Guardian, but social media “is psychologically immersive and could amplify a predisposition to taking risks and ignoring consequences”.

While they are driving, she said, they are “simultaneously filming and capturing content for posting later or live streaming. They have one foot in the real world and one foot in cyberspace. They’re thinking about the likes; they’re thinking about kudos.”

Is TikTok to blame?

The “macabre” video trend “has astonished and outraged” Ireland, and prompted debate not only about policing and criminal justice but also about social media regulation, said The Guardian.

UK defence minister Luke Pollard this morning warned social media companies that they have a decision to make. “They’ve argued against regulations, saying they can police themselves. Well, this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate it.” The government can use powers in the Online Safety Act to compel them to take this content down but, if they took steps not to allow “their algorithm to share this type of content” to begin with, then “I think we’d be in a better place”.

Ireland’s media regulator said it has asked TikTok for a “full account” of what measures it has taken over risky and reckless driving content on its platform. TikTok has said it monitors content, and removes videos and accounts that break its rules.

TikTok has declined an invitation to appear before an Irish parliament’s media committee, partly because it was the only social-media company to be asked to do so. “We all know” it’s those boys who “are responsible for what happened”, said Alan Kelly, chair of the media committee, but the platform they used was TikTok. And we “want to have assurances, not only that they’ll be reactive and take down such content, but that also they’ll proactively make sure that it doesn’t go up. Because they have the AI tools to prevent this from happening, and they need to show that they’re going to do that.”

In the summer of 1976, there was a record-breaking heatwave, inflation and youth unemployment were worryingly high, a Labour prime minister had recently resigned – and a new subculture known as “punk” was spreading rapidly among the young.

Its seed was the Sex Pistols, a band formed only the previous winter, who wouldn’t release their first single, “Anarchy in the UK”, until 26 November. But their early gigs inspired the formation of The Clash, The Damned, Buzzcocks and many other punk bands.

Plenty of adults were appalled, but punk had a powerful influence on fashion, filmmaking and graphic design as well as rock music – well beyond punk itself. Members of the tiny audiences at two shows the Pistols played that summer – in Manchester in June and July – went on to found The Fall, Joy Division, The Smiths, Simply Red and the Creation and Factory record labels.

What even is a punk?

In Shakespeare’s time, the word meant a prostitute. In American-English it became a put-down for an inept youngster and/or petty criminal, as in 1971’s “Dirty Harry”: “Well, do ya, punk?” At around the same time, US music critics were starting to use the term “punk rock” for the amateurish, shouty garage rock bands that appeared in the 1960s. It was also applied to various New York acts – the Ramones, the New York Dolls, Richard Hell – who experimented with outlandish outfits, back-to-basics songwriting, and themes of teenage alienation. But “punk rock” didn’t become a media phenomenon until it crossed the Atlantic.

Why did it take off in Britain?

Britain, at the time, had a hyperactive music press and an entertainment industry with an appetite for eccentricity and theatricality. As American record companies had long understood, these made London an ideal launchpad for pop-culture trends. (The Ramones, who drew crowds of about 150 in New York, were astonished to find themselves in front of thousands of people when they played in Camden Town in July 1976.) The Sex Pistols crystalised punk into an easily imitated package, striking every pop musician who encountered them as “shock troops from the future”, as one critic put it. “It just blew all the other rubbish away,” said Joe Strummer, who joined The Clash after seeing the Pistols play in April. They were the hottest band in London by March 1976, and by 2 December they were household names in the UK.

How did they manage that?

John Lydon (aka “Johnny Rotten”), Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock were bolshy, in their late teens or early 20s, and from deprived backgrounds. (Jones, the guitarist, was functionally illiterate until his 40s.) Lydon, the singer, was smart, gobby and gleefully provocative, which endeared him to the band’s manager, Malcolm McLaren, a fashion designer who’d briefly managed the New York Dolls. Armed with a look provided by McLaren and his then-girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood – ripped clothes, safety pins, bondage gear, spiky, dyed hair – they swiftly outraged respectable opinion. People had used rude words on television before, but never in such uncouth tones as Lydon and Jones in a regional ITV interview on 1 December 1976. The next morning they were on the front page of every newspaper (“The FILTH and the FURY!” splashed the Daily Mirror).

Was that really groundbreaking?

The Pistols’ cartoon-yob image was an important part of their confrontational, anti-establishment appeal: spitting, pogoing, fighting and vandalism were rife at punk gigs. Their raw, confrontational attitude and do-it-yourself musicianship were a reaction against expensively produced “progressive” outfits such as Pink Floyd, “hippies” and over-dressed stadium rockers such as Elton John. “Up to that point, we’d all been singing about bowling along California highways,” one Northern Irish rocker recalled of punk’s impact.

Many found it intensely liberating: female-fronted bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Slits and X-Ray Spex got a leg-up from the movement. Jamie Reid’s iconic cut-out designs for the Sex Pistols’ record covers, with their “ransom note” lettering, inspired countless posters and fanzines, helping to democratise graphic design. Vivienne Westwood became one of the UK’s leading fashion designers.

How authentic was punk really?

McLaren, who’d been to art school, liked to say that the Pistols were “my sculpture, my painting, my little artful dodgers” – an artwork inspired by the French situationists, who aimed to shock people out of their complacency with unexpected spectacles. Lydon rejected this furiously, but McLaren certainly did mould the band. He chose their name (probably), selected band members and planned their media stunts; and they did record their only album, “Never Mind the Bollocks”, in a state-of-the-art studio with a producer who’d played keyboards on The Beatles’ “White Album”. While The Clash later made it big in America, sales figures for 1976 suggest that punk was largely a hipster and media preoccupation. No punk single made the year’s UK top 50; Abba, Rod Stewart and Demis Roussos dominated the album charts.

What became of the first punks?

The Sex Pistols reached new heights of controversy by releasing “God Save the Queen” (“She ain’t no human bein’”) during the Silver Jubilee in 1977, then broke up in chaotic circumstances the following January. The Clash’s original line-up soldiered on until 1982, by which time punk rock had mutated into post-punk and new wave. Countless noisy American guitar bands with an outsider ethos have been inspired by punk, and more purist scenes still exist across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. More importantly, whenever someone with no training or credentials picks up a guitar, a brush or a pen, the spirit of punk lives on.

If you need cash and happen to own your home, the equity you have built up there can be a good place to look for it. There are a variety of ways you can tap into those funds, one of which is a cash-out refinance.

This particular option has become “increasingly popular” in recent years. “These loans are up 13% year-over-year and are expected to account for more than 40% of all mortgage refinancings in 2026,” said The Wall Street Journal, citing the Federal Housing Finance Agency. But just because cash-out refinancing is growing in popularity does not mean it’s always a good idea or the right fit for everyone.

What is a cash-out refinance?

Cash-out refinancing lets “homeowners convert part of their home equity into cash by replacing their current mortgage with a larger one,” with the “difference between the two loans paid out in cash,” said Investopedia. This distinguishes it from a typical refinance, where the new loan is for an equal amount, leaving no leftover funds.

Typically, lenders set an 80% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, which means “you can borrow up to 80% of your home’s value — minus your outstanding mortgage balance,” said LendingTree. There are often not many restrictions on how you can use the funds, whether that is home repairs or renovations, debt consolidation or a major cost, like college tuition. Keep in mind that this is a secured loan, with your home serving as collateral. It is also necessary to meet eligibility requirements to qualify.

What are the pros and cons of cash-out refinancing?

A cash-out refinance gives you access to cash, typically at a lower interest rate compared to options like credit cards or unsecured loans. Plus, if your financial profile and credit have improved since you took out your original mortgage, you could qualify for better terms.

A better rate is not a guarantee, however. If interest rates have “risen since your original mortgage, you’ll pay more on the new loan even with a credit score of 740 or higher,” said Bankrate. And “since the new mortgage is larger, that higher rate applies to more debt.” The larger balance will also often mean higher monthly payments, with your home on the line if you cannot make them. In addition, you can usually expect to pay closing costs and fees when you refinance.

When can a cash-out refinance make sense?

A big part of the decision comes down to the numbers. You will want to figure out whether you even have enough home equity to qualify — lenders will likely require at least 20% — and how much closing costs and fees will cut into the loan amount you receive. It’s also vital to consider whether the new monthly payment is feasible for your budget.

Your plan for the funds is a deciding factor as well. While some uses, like “funding a renovation that adds resale value or paying off high-interest debt,” can make sense, “if you’re covering a vacation, a car or other discretionary spending, you’re trading long-term home equity for short-term spending, and the math rarely works in your favor,” said Bankrate.

With the Trump administration pushing back against a swath of DEI-related federal grants, some research related to major diseases, including Alzheimer’s, is being caught in the crossfire. The most recent round of grant axing resulted in two major universities losing millions in funding related to studying brain disease, and experts say it could put them at a large disadvantage.

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 (NIH), with the number of grants falling from 369 to 177. The figure appears to be on track through 2026 as well, especially given the most recent cuts.

The newest 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’ve been used to study “how discrimination” — or racism — “affects long-term brain health.”

The topics “we’re measuring are scientifically valid concepts,” Andrea Rosso, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, told The Guardian. Black people are two times more likely to develop dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. And 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.”

The DEI-related funding cuts are also coming alongside additional efforts by the White House to overhaul how grants are awarded. Under newly proposed rules by the Trump administration, any “multiyear grant could be terminated at any point,” and the government “would not be allowed to fund any DEI-related activities or projects or groups that ‘deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans,’” said The Boston Globe.

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. The research tracked “socially driven Alzheimer’s disease risk factors by collecting surveys, brain imaging and blood samples.” Another grant at Emory University that was slashed by the White House “studied the impact of racial discrimination on the white matter of the brain, in part surveying participants’ self-reported incidences of discrimination.”

Behind all of these killed studies are “people waiting for answers, for therapies, for relief, for hope,” said a pain researcher at Mass General Brigham, per the Globe. This comes as the Trump administration has “been open about wanting a smaller NIH,” said Vox, and originally “proposed cutting the agency’s budget for 2026 by 40%.”

Some researchers say they are considering taking their studies offshore if things do not change. “While I hope to improve the lives of the American people with my research, if I am not able to pursue this aspiration in the U.S., I would rather continue to do so outside of the country,” one Ph.D. student said in comments about the cuts, per the Globe.

The current state of affairs “demonstrates a lack of understanding of our outcomes versus our exposures,” Ann Cohen, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, said to The Guardian. “That’s epidemiology 101.”

Every cancer has its individual mutations, and scientists have long harboured hopes of developing treatments that can be tailored specifically for each individual patient. And now early results from a final-stage trial of personalised cancer vaccines has the research world holding its breath.

US pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck have been testing a personalised mRNA vaccine on melanoma patients who had had surgery for their skin cancer. This week, the firms announced that, combined with an established immunotherapy drug, the vaccine had significantly increased the length of time the patients remained cancer-free. This is “a major success in a new field of cancer treatment” that has sent both companies’ shares “surging”, said Reuters.

The results mark “a landmark moment” for the treatment of melanoma, one of the deadliest types of skin cancer, said the study’s principal investigator Georgina Long, medical director of the non-profit Melanoma Institute Australia. This is also “a pivotal moment” for cancer research, said Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel.

How does the vaccine work?

It’s made using mRNA technology – as, famously, were some Covid-19 vaccines. But, while the Covid vaccines were created as a standard formulation for everyone, this time it’s created individually for each patient.

To do that, researchers sequence the DNA of each patient’s tumour (by analysing samples after it’s been removed) and identify its unique mutations. They then “encode selected targets into strands of mRNA”, producing a vaccine designed to teach the recipient’s immune system “to recognise and attack any tumour cells that remain”, said The Times. The result is “a personalised anti-cancer jab” specific to the patient’s tumour, said the BBC.

What do we know about the results?

Very little. The phase 3 trial involved 1,137 high-risk patients with melanoma, who were randomly assigned to receive either the vaccine and the immunotherapy drug Keytruda, or just Keytruda, for about a year.

In a similar smaller trial in 2022, Moderna reported that participants who received the vaccine and Keytruda were 44% less likely to develop new tumours or die within three years, compared to those who only received Keytruda.

Moderna has said that these new trial results “demonstrate statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements” in survival times for the vaccine group, and that there had been “no new safety concerns”. But we don’t know exactly how much the vaccine increased survival times.

The results have not been publicly released or peer-reviewed. More findings from the trial will be presented at a medical conference in October.

What could this mean?

“I think it’s fair to call this a breakthrough,” said Marco Gerlinger of the Barts Cancer Institute. These results have “much wider implications” than just for melanoma treatment, he told The Times. They are “proof of principle that personalised cancer vaccines work”,

The hope is that this personalised vaccine “will work for many other types of cancer”, said New Scientist. Moderna and Merck are already trialling similar personalised mRNA vaccines for types of bladder, kidney and lung cancer. BioNTech, “the other big mRNA company”, is also testing personalised cancer vaccines in human trials. Several of these early-stage trials have produced “promising results”.

If successful, these vaccines could prevent nearly 50,000 deaths in the US alone, Yale University estimated last year. “The positive hit here leads us ⁠into truly this next phase in immunotherapy,” Karen Knudsen of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy told Reuters. “This is an auspicious start – this is where things begin.”

What are the caveats?

Moderna and Merck have only released an interim analysis, not the full trial data. And experts “emphasise caution” until the dataset has been peer-reviewed, said the BBC.

The announcement gave Moderna’s shares “their biggest one-day jump on record”, said The Times, while Merck also rallied. But market moves are “imperfect indicators of real-world significance”, said the Financial Times. It’s “not quite the surprise clinical breakthrough” that the jump might imply. It’s “a big deal for Moderna” but, without all data, it’s “difficult to assess the magnitude, durability, and commercial relevance of benefit”.

Investors will be watching for the “next important steps”: “detailed clinical results, regulatory progress, and evidence that the technology works across other cancers”, a financial markets analyst told Sky News. Even then, they know that manufacturing personalised vaccines at scale is “expensive and complex”. One Reuters report suggested that each vaccine could cost about £147,000.

When taking out student loans, most borrowers are aware of two options: federal student loans and private loans. But amid new limits on federal loans for graduate students in particular, the availability of a third option — state-backed student loans — is becoming increasingly widespread.

While technically “states have had their own student loan offerings for decades,” a number of them have “recently moved to expand their loan offerings in anticipation of the added restrictions on federal borrowing,” said CNBC. These loans do not necessarily offer the same protections as federal loans. Still, they may be an alternative to private loans worth considering.

What are state student loan programs?

State student loan programs are offered by select states as opposed to the federal government or a private lender, and they are often overseen by a state’s department of postsecondary education. As of July, “at least 16 states offer state-run loan programs for students pursuing a postsecondary degree or credential,” said the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staff of all 50 states.

In general, state-backed loan programs “have similar requirements and benefits to federal loans: low, fixed interest rates and flexible repayment plans,” said SoFi. Specifics, however, vary by state, among other factors. For instance, “interest rates on state education loans vary by state, and can also depend on the degree program and borrower qualifications, such as income and credit score,” said CNBC. Eligibility requirements and borrowing limits can also vary.

How do state student loans compare to federal loans?

It’s “important that borrowers understand state student loan programs are excluded from federal relief options and protections,” Tiara Moultrie, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank, said to CNBC. This includes federal repayment plan options like income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), though some states do offer their own alternatives.

Further, while interest rates can be comparable to federal loans, they can also be a good bit higher. Interest rates on “some state student loans can exceed 10%,” according to a July analysis by The Century Foundation, whereas the “U.S. Department of Education’s Direct Unsubsidized Loans for graduate and professional students currently come with a flat interest rate of 8.07%,” said CNBC. But the opposite can also be true: “The interest rate for a borrower with a co-signer and a 10-year repayment term, for instance, is 6%” in Minnesota’s SELF Grad Loan program, said The New York Times.

Another major difference is in the qualification process. Federal direct subsidized loans do not have credit score requirements, but state loans may. Debt-to-income ratio and financial history could also be taken into consideration.

Who can use state loan programs?

State residency may or may not be a factor in eligibility, depending on the specific program. For example, “Minnesota’s program is open to students who are either residents of the state or out-of-state students attending a participating in-state college or university,” while “Connecticut’s program is available to Connecticut residents, or residents of seven other states (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont) who are attending an eligible Connecticut institution,” said the Times. Additionally, approval usually takes into consideration factors like “credit score, annual income, credit history, debt-to-income ratio and whether a borrower is attending a qualifying institution,” said The Century Foundation.

A new generation of drugs could transform the lives of people with narcolepsy and offer hope of future treatments for ADHD and depression.

Orexins help regulate wakefulness, as well as attention, motivation and the brain’s reward system. This month, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first orexin agonist treatment for narcolepsy. Oveporexton (sold as Orzeyful) is designed to target the cause of the chronic sleep disorder, rather than treat the symptoms with stimulants.

But “the excitement is not just about narcolepsy”, said The Economist. Inspired by the success of drugs that mimic glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), developed to treat diabetes and later used for weight-loss in medication such as Ozempic, drugmakers are “betting” that orexins could “follow a similar path”, potentially leading to treatments for conditions that “burden hundreds of millions” of people.

What are orexins?

They are two peptides (chains of amino acids that act as messengers in the brain) that are involved in the body’s sleep-wake system. Specifically, they are neuropeptides. They act as neurotransmitters, or chemicals, that carry messages between neurons. They are involved with reward and motivation.

Named after the Greek word orexis (appetite), orexins were discovered in 1998 by two teams working independently in the US. The discovery turned “the long march to develop a new kind of sleeping pill into a sprint”, said The Guardian.

But their “true role emerged” in 1999, said The Economist. People with narcolepsy were found to lack the specialised neurons that produce orexins, causing “abnormally low levels”. That means the brain “loses the ability to control when the body sleeps”, said Time.

How do they work?

In 2011, researchers at Takeda, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, found a chemical compound that could block the orexin receptor, and so promote sleep. Orexin antagonists were developed as a treatment for insomnia, differing from conventional sleeping pills that induce sedation.

But “the bigger prize may lie not in blocking orexin’s signal, but restoring it”, said The Economist. The results of Takeda’s trials of oveporexton, published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine, “created a stir”. Volunteers were able to stay awake 12.5 to 25 minutes longer with the drug (depending on the dose) than without it.

The drug “activates the orexin pathway” and “restores the brain’s ability to remain alert”, said Time. Volunteers also had fewer episodes of cataplexy, or loss of muscle control, as well as other symptoms such as hallucinations and irregular sleep. There were “no serious adverse events related to treatment”, said the Smithsonian magazine.

“It’s really a complete revolution,” Emmanuel Mignot, a sleep-medicine professor who led Takeda’s final studies, told The Wall Street Journal. “The first time patients take it, it’s like the light switch.” One 19-year-old trial participant said: “It was the first time I felt somewhat alive in the last 10 years.” “It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me,” he told Nature.

What might the future hold?

In the US and Western Europe, narcolepsy affects about one in 2,000 people, but there is no cure. Existing drugs – “decades-old stimulants and sedatives” – only manage symptoms, said The Wall Street Journal. Oveporexton and its competitors are “designed to treat the disease as a whole”. Morgan Stanley estimates that orexin-based medicines for narcolepsy and other sleep disorders could generate $16 billion a year by 2035, according to SF Globe.

Takeda is testing orexin-targeting drugs for sleep apnea and chronic daytime sleepiness. Alkermes, an Irish biotech company, is testing an orexin drug for ADHD in adults. And this year Eli Lilly (of Mounjaro fame) bought Centessa, a biotech firm with an orexin agonist in trials, in a deal potentially worth up to $7.8 billion. New research has also revealed “the essential role of orexin neurons” in motivation, said BioTechniques.

The twice-daily oral drug Orzeyful could be “a boon for the roughly 120,000 people in the United States with narcolepsy type 1”, said the Smithsonian. But its success also “opens the door to the use of orexin-mimicking drugs for other conditions associated with low levels of the chemical”, such as ADHD and depression. “Orzeyful is just the beginning,” said Andy Plump, Takeda’s president of research and development.

It is “the most sought-after weapon in the world”, said CNN. But the US-made Patriot interceptor, capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, is “the focus of a global supply crunch”, caused by “liberal use in the Gulf”, often just to counter Iranian drone attacks. Ukraine, which is being “savaged” by Russia’s “near-nightly surge” of ballistic-missile attacks, has “pretty much run out”.

What makes Patriot so special?

Patriot (Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target) is a mobile surface-to-air missile defence system, and “considered one of the most advanced” in “the US arsenal”, said The Independent. Nineteen other countries buy and operate the system, and its interceptors protect cities and military bases across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Combined with other defences, Patriot has this year intercepted more than 90% of Iran’s missiles and drones, according to the US Congressional Research Service. It is also “the only weapon capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine”, said the Financial Times.

Countering tactical ballistic missiles is “not a simple or cheap activity”, said The Guardian. To intercept them, a defensive system “needs to be remarkably sophisticated”, and building it involves “a huge amount of research and development”. Most Nato nations “have been happy for Washington to invest over decades to make the Patriot up to the job”.

The US “tightly guards the technical blueprints required to manufacture it”, said The Telegraph. So far, only Germany and Japan are licensed to make their own. Donald Trump has talked of letting Ukraine produce them but seems lately to have backtracked; Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “desperate for the technology”.

What is the stockpile situation?

Even before the US attack on Iran, Western allies “were nervous about depleting their own stocks by giving Patriot missiles to Ukraine”, said The Guardian. But the Iran war has now “created an acute global shortage”.

The US and its Gulf allies fired 943 rounds of Patriot batteries in the first 96 hours of the conflict, according to the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For context, US manufacturer Lockheed Martin only makes 620 interceptors a year.

Ukraine’s Patriot supplies been exhausted, said The Guardian. Ballistic-missile intercepts “have gone from more than 70% to none”; Russia now strikes “with impunity”. In one recent bombardment of Kyiv, Ukraine’s defences failed to intercept a single missile; 17 people were killed.

The situation is “so acute” that Kyiv has stopped disclosing the number of missiles Russia fires, to “avoid revealing how many it fails to intercept”, and “preserve public morale", said the Financial Times. Zelenskyy has “pleaded with” the US and European countries “to share more” of their stockpile with Ukraine. But such is the current depleted state of those stockpiles, they could take “months or years to be replenished”.

What does it mean for the world?

Almost all the countries that operate the Patriot system are “reliant on US production and supply chains, meaning any shortage in the US effectively becomes a global shortage”, said The Telegraph.

And such a shortage raises “urgent” questions about whether the US and its allies can “keep up in a new arms race with Russia, Iran, China and North Korea”. With those nations “ramping up production” of ballistic missiles, “the defence side is falling behind”.

The US, Germany and Japan can produce about 840 Patriot interceptors a year, said The Guardian. Russia produces about 750 Iskander ballistic missiles a year and “is looking to increase” that total. It can often take two to three interceptors – or more – to defeat an incoming missile. “And Iran has many more missiles in storage.”

Some analysts see America’s “ongoing strikes and conclude that stockpile concerns are overblown”, said the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “That is the wrong inference.” US-led forces can keep striking Iran because their stocks of bombs are “plentiful”. But “the strategic constraint” is the number of interceptors that “hold enemy launchers” at bay and “keep bases alive”. Bombs “let you keep fighting the war you are in”; interceptors decide if you can “afford to fight the next one”. The war in Iran is “creating a strategic illusion”: bombing continues but US readiness for a “larger, second-theatre conflict quietly bleeds out”.

From girl math to loud budgeting, social media has gone through its fair share of financial trends. The latest one, however, may have some staying power.

Known as moneymaxxing, this new fad focuses on making the most of, well, your money. “While the tactics can vary, the underlying goal is simple: Make sure every dollar is doing as much as it reasonably can, so you’re able to put your money where it really matters,” said Northwestern Mutual. Here’s what to know.

What is moneymaxxing?

In short, moneymaxxing “encourages people to maximize their budgets by trimming recurring expenses, redeeming rewards points — a related trend known as ‘pointsmaxxing’ — and stashing extra cash in a high‑yield savings account,” said CNBC. Other actions aligned with the movement might include evaluating how you are allocating your money and setting clear financial goals.

Admittedly, the concepts that moneymaxxing espouses are not really new, though social media has given it a fresh spin and name. “It’s kind of like the FIRE movement — financial independence, retire early — but gamified. It makes saving feel like something you can do without going the normal route,” said certified public accountant and financial planner Felicia Greenwald to Parade.

Why is moneymaxxing getting popular right now?

The rise of moneymaxxing may have something to do with the financial reality many Americans are currently facing. “Largely because of rising costs, young adults are having a hard time making it on their own,” said CNBC, with many still relying on their parents and viewing financial independence as a far-off prospect.

Moneymaxxing “helps close these gaps by encouraging people to pay more attention to their finances,” said Northwestern Mutual. From there, they can start to make more meaningful, intentional decisions, whether that means focusing on paying off debt, building an emergency fund or saving enough for a rental deposit.

The social aspect of the trend can also be motivating. “When those numbers are real, and people are talking about real figures, it’s easy for people to understand and not feel so alone in their own financial struggles,” said Greenwald.

How can you start moneymaxxing?

Moneymaxxing is a trend — but it can also be a smart way to maximize the funds you have, making the most of your financial situation no matter what it looks like. A great first step into moneymaxxing is to get a handle on how much money you have going in compared to how much is going out, and where specifically that money is going. You can then use that information to identify what is and isn’t working as efficiently as it could be.

The next step is to determine your financial priorities. “Whether the objective is to reduce debt or build a savings cushion, having a clear milestone can help you stay motivated,” said Jack Howard, the head of money wellness and behavioral finance expert at Ally Bank, to CNBC.

Finally, there is the task of figuring out how to actually achieve your financial aspirations. You might consider breaking down intimidatingly lofty goals — like building an emergency fund with six months of expenses — into smaller, more manageable chunks, like aiming to set aside a small amount each month. Financial tools can also help offload some of the work, whether that is choosing a budgeting app to help you stay on track or using automation to ensure consistent transfers to savings.

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has fired the starting gun on the next presidential election, and it’s shaping up to be the country’s closest and most consequential political contest in decades.

The left-wing leader, commonly known as Lula, has launched his campaign for a historic fourth term, vowing not to let the “shameless” right wing return to power. His chief rival will be Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup after losing office in 2022.

But the “two-man race” between Lula and Bolsonaro has “increasingly become a three-way fight” involving Donald Trump, said The Wall Street Journal. Lula has accused the US president of trying to interfere in the October election on behalf of Bolsonaro, while “tit-for-tat visa disputes and US tariffs” have plunged US-Brazilian relations to “their lowest point in years”.

Who are the main contenders?

Lula, whose first two terms spanned 2003 to 2011 and was elected again in 2023, is seeking re-election for the centre-left Workers’ Party. If the 80-year-old wins, Brazil would be the only left-wing major economy left in South America. Flávio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator, “is running as the political heir to his father”, said The Wall Street Journal. There are several other conservative and right-wing candidates but all are currently polling in the single digits.

If no one wins more than 50% of the votes on 4 October, the two frontrunners will progress to a second-round runoff on 25 October. A BTG Pactual/Nexus ​poll reported this week by Reuters suggests that a runoff would see Lula receive 47%, with Bolsonaro on 44%.

What is the likely outcome?

Lula’s approval ratings are high: certainly at “levels at which incumbents can expect to win”, said The Economist. And Bolsonaro’s campaign “took a mighty blow in May”, when leaked recordings revealed he had asked for money from a “disgraced banker at the heart of Brazil’s largest-ever bank fraud”.

But “there could still be an upset”: Lula is “seen as weak” on corruption and crime – both top voter concerns. He also spent 19 months in prison for corruption himself before his conviction was overturned on a technicality in 2021. “Many voters have never forgiven him.”

It’s possible that disillusioned voters, “unenthusiastic” about either Lula or Bolsonaro, could boost the prospects of the currently low-polling Renan Santos, leader of the Missão party. A former entrepreneur, the “firebrand outsider”, who “models himself” on Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, criticises both Bolsonaro and Lula in “slick videos posted to millions of followers”.

What is Trump up to?

Trump has already interfered in several Latin American elections since he returned to the White House, said The Economist. And “right-wing lookalikes” have won the past seven. Experts say the Brazilian vote will “serve as a test case of how far Trump and an increasingly co-ordinated global right are willing to go to reshape Latin America’s political landscape”, said The Wall Street Journal.

The US president has recently “turned up the heat on Brazil”, said The Guardian. He has proscribed Brazil’s two biggest criminal groups as terrorist organisations, a move that some observers fear could be laying the groundwork for “a US military intervention”. Trump has also revoked the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington, after Brasilia withheld approval of Trump’s own ambassadorial nominee, and denied entry to several US diplomats it accused of planning to meddle in the election.

“This reflects a dangerous convergence between Washington’s long-standing interventionist instincts in Latin America” and “the interests of Brazil’s far right”, said Brazilian journalist Raphael Tsavkko Garcia on Al Jazeera.

Sticking to your budget can be hard enough without inflation. But when prices on everything from gas to groceries are steadily creeping upward, sticking to your plans for spending can feel like a losing battle.

When your money is not stretching as far as it used to, creating a budget — and sticking to it — becomes more important than ever. And while you may not be able to push the price of gas back under $3 a gallon, there are still steps you can take to better stay on track financially amid inflation.

1. Get a handle on your current spending habits

Sure, inflation can play a role in you going over budget. But whether or not you would like to admit it, your own spending habits matter just as much. “If you haven’t already, track your purchases for a month,” then “consider whether increased expenses are due to inflation, habit creep or a little of both,” said NerdWallet.

Equipped with this information, you can make informed adjustments accordingly. Maybe you see an area where you tend to overspend, and you can commit to cutting back there. For example, perhaps you’re underestimating the actual cost of groceries each month; in this case, you could allocate more to that line item and away from others, or you might instead look for ways to get creative with meal planning and work with less.

2. Reevaluate debt

Paying down debt should not fall to the wayside entirely, even when your budget feels tight. The longer you stretch out repayment, the more you may pay in interest and the more time you will have that burden hanging over your head. You can, however, explore ways to make your debt payments take up a smaller chunk of your budget.

Taking advantage of options like a credit card balance transfer or debt consolidation loan could allow you to repay your loan at a lower interest rate. So could refinancing, a possibility for both student loans and mortgages. Just make sure you understand the drawbacks, alongside the benefits, before committing.

3. Take advantage of automation

Budgeting admittedly takes work. But using budgeting apps and automated features can help offload some of it. Not only can automation “simplify saving money and paying bills” through options like automated bill pay and automatic account transfers, but “money that goes automatically into your savings also means it’s not sitting elsewhere — like in your checking account, where you’re more likely to spend it,” said Bankrate.

Especially when prices are uncertain and trending upward, a bit of cushion in your savings can come in handy. “If possible, keep a few hundred dollars extra in your spending plan to account for costs that are higher than expected,” said NerdWallet. “That way, you can handle it when factors outside of your control put you over budget.”

4. Check in regularly

Even if you employ some tools to handle tasks automatically, your finances should never become a set-it-and-forget-it situation. That is especially true when economic conditions are shifting rapidly. A “budget loses a great deal of its value if you don’t check to see if you're sticking to it,” said TD Bank.

Plan check-ins at a regular cadence, perhaps monthly, and use that time to “review all your spending and savings to see if you're hitting your targets,” said TD Bank. If you are not, this is the time to make changes proactively — rather than reactively.