President Donald Trump on Friday said is signing an executive order to keep TikTok running in the U.S. for another 75 days to give his administration more time to broker a deal to bring the social media platform under American ownership.
Congress had mandated that the platform be divested from China by Jan. 19 or barred in the U.S. on national security grounds, but Trump moved unilaterally to extend the deadline to this weekend, as he sought to negotiate an agreement to keep it running. Trump has recently entertained an array of offers from U.S. businesses seeking to buy a share of the popular social media site, but Chinas ByteDance, which owns TikTok and its closely-held algorithm, has insisted the platform is not for sale.
My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress, Trump posted on his social media platform. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.
Trump added: We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal.
TikTok, which has headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety, and Chinas Foreign Ministry has said Chinas government has never and will not ask companies to collect or provide data, information or intelligence held in foreign countries.
Trumps delay of the ban marks the second time that he has temporarily blocked the 2024 law that banned the popular social video app after the deadline passed for ByteDance to divest. That law that was passed with bipartisan support in Congress and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which said the ban was necessary for national security.
If the extension keeps control of TikToks algorithm under ByteDances authority, those national security concerns persist.
Chris Pierson, CEO of the cybersecurity and privacy protection platform BlackCloak, said that if the algorithm is still controlled by ByteDance, then it is still controlled by a company that is in a foreign, adversarial nation state that actually could use that data for other means.
The main reason for all this is the control of data and the control of the algorithm, said Pierson, who served on the Department of Homeland Securitys Privacy Committee and Cybersecurity Subcommittee for more than a decade. If neither of those two things change, then it has not changed the underlying purpose, and it has not changed the underlying risks that are presented.
The Republican presidents executive orders have spurred more than 130 lawsuits in the little more than two months he has been in office, but his order delaying a ban on TikTok has barely generated a peep. None of those suits challenges his temporary block of the law banning TikTok.
The law allows for one 90-day reprieve, but only if theres a deal on the table and a formal notification to Congress. Trumps actions so far violate the law, said Alan Rozenshtein, an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota.
Rozenshtein pushed back on Trumps claim that delaying the ban is an extension.Hes not extending anything. This continues to simply be a unilateral non enforcement declaration, he said. All hes doing is saying that he will not enforce the law for 75 more days. The law is still in effect. The companies are still violating it by providing services to Tiktok.
The national security risks posed by TikTok persist under this extension, he said.
The extension comes at a time when Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they werent sure.
Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.
Daniel Ryave, in Washington, D.C., runs the TikTok account @SATPrepTutor with about 175,000 followers. It offers testing advice and helps Ryave find tutoring students. He has Instagram and YouTube accounts, but TikTok is better for reaching people, he said.
Almost all of my new students come through TikTok, he said. A big chunk of my revenue is from one-on-one tutoring, and thats a great way to source clients.
When he heard about the extension, he was relieved, he said.
This extension will allow students to continue accessing high quality short form educational content that they arent seeking out elsewhere, he said.
Fatima Hussein and Sarah Parvini, Associated Press
AP Business Writer Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this story.
For all of the risks and potential dangers associated with crypto, it is still becoming an increasingly mainstream asset. Thats according to the latest data from the National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA), a non-profit aimed at helping Americans better understand cryptocurrency and digital assets.
One in five Americans currently owns cryptocurrency in some shape or form, according to the NCAs 2025 State of Crypto Holders Report. The report, which was produced with The Harris Poll, also finds that nearly 40% use crypto to pay for goods or services, and that two-thirds say that crypto has a positive impact on their lives.
The data was sourced from a Harris Poll survey conducted in January and February this year, from a pool of 54,000 respondents that was winnowed down to 10,000 crypto holders. It’s the largest survey conducted to date of crypto holders.
A couple of other interesting findings include that nearly 40% of American crypto holders live in the Southmore than double the amount that live in the Midwest (17%) or the Northeast (18%). Twenty-six percent live in the West. Also, while 14% of crypto holders work in the tech sector, 12% work in construction. And only 7%, a perhaps surprisingly low number, work in finance.
The report also notes that crypto owners are a fairly diverse set, and that one reason is that crypto has a surprisingly low bar for entry. That is truein many cases, all thats needed to start purchasing crypto is a brokerage account and a few dollars, as many cryptocurrencies have low values.
But that also makes it a fairly risky field. In 2023, for instance, the amount lost to crypto scams added up to more than $5.6 billion, according to FBI data. Early estimates seem to indicate that the total lost to crypto scams during 2024 will be at least double that amount.
Either way, the report points to a rather obvious conclusion: Crypto seems to be growing, and even becoming more mainstream. Of course, that’s as the NCA is also pushing for more mainstream adoption of crypto itself. The organization launched just one month ago.
In the wake of immigration enforcement showing up on college campuses, and in some cases detaining students and revoking student visas, universities are responding. But the reaction has been strikingly different from school to school across the U.S.Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio clarified the Trump administrations right to rescind student visas and deport international students who are critical of Israels U.S.-backed takeover of Palestine. At a press conference he said that at least 300 student visas have already been revoked. The statements, along with the ongoing uptick in immigration raids, further stoked fear in international students.
Declarations of support
Amid the worries, some universities are standing firmly by their international students. Tufts University made a bold show of support for Rumeysa Ozturk, the international graduate student who was taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 25. Ozturk was cornered by agents while off-campus after she, along with three other students, wrote an op-ed urging divestment from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel. Ozturk was accused of supporting Hamas, while the article made no mention of the group.On April 2, Tufts University President Sunil Kumar issued a declaration in support of a motion filed by Ozturk’s legal team. The statement made clear that Tufts supports Ozturk and believes there are absolutely no legal grounds for her detainment. “The University has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.” The statement called for the students immediate release so that she can continue her education at the university.
Updated guidance for the international school community
Other schools are responding to the possibility of deportations and detainments, too, simply by updating guidance on school platforms or sending school-wide emails. In February, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore sent a memo to its student body, advising bystanders not to intervene with immigration agents. “Obstructing or otherwise interfering with certain government activity can be a crime,” the memo states. “Do not attempt to notify any person who may be subject to federal immigration enforcement that federal law enforcement officers are present, or engage in any behavior in an effort to enable them to leave the premises or hide.”A representative from JHU told Fast Company in an emailed statement that the university shares the “concerns arising from recent detentions of international students and scholars across the country” and pointed to the importance of “due-process.” The statement continued, explaining that the school “does not provide information about the immigration status of members of our community unless required by law, and Johns Hopkins safety, security, and police officers do not request information regarding citizenship,” but said if immigration agents presented a warrant or court order, the university would comply. The representative pointed to JHU’s personalized immigration-related service and support for international students through its Office of International Services.The representative did not respond to a question about whether the university would consider issuing a declaration of support, similar to Tufts’, if a student were to be taken into custody by DHS.Temple University in Philadelphia released a statement regarding immigration enforcements recent arrests and detainment of students on other campuses, too. In it, President John Fry wrote, Please know that if a similar situation were to arise here at Temple University, we are committed to doing all we lawfully can to assist our students in these circumstances. When pressed, as to whether the school would offer legal statements of support to students if detained, a representative deferred Fast Company to another representative who, ultimately, did not reply by the time of publication. Shortly after Fry’s statement, the university announced that one student had their visa revoked and self-deported.Harvards Dean of Students, Thomas G. Dunne, similarly addressed concerns over possible deportations or detainments in a school-wide email. The email did not advise students on what to do in the presence of ICE, but rather, directed students to the Harvard University Police Department and Harvard Office of the General Counsel. Yale went further, publishing a page on the school website dedicated to answering student questions on what their rights are when it comes to dealing with immigration agents. It advised students that agents must present a warrant to enter nonpublic areas of campus, and gave specific and thorough advice for both students and staff on what to do when encountering immigration enforcement.
Penalizing students for exercising first amendment rights
Stunningly, other schools have gone in another direction entirely, seeming to turn away from supporting international students and graduates. At Columbia University, outraged students chained themselves to the gate outside the school this week to protest the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, the graduate student who was taken by ICE agents after organizing pro-Palestinians demonstrations. And some staff have come out fiercely against the arrest. But the university hasn’t released statements pressing for Khalils release.Instead, Columbia itself has even disciplined students for participating in pro-Palestine demonstrations. In a campus-wide email, the school’s judicial board announced they had expelled, suspended, and even revoked degrees from some students who occupied Hamilton Hall last spring to protest the ongoing genocide. The announcement said the board determined findings and issued sanctions to students ranging from multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall last spring.
In response to questions on whether the school would consider releasing a statement in support of Khalil, a representative pointed Fast Company to a March 13 statement, which said, Columbia continues to make every effort to ensure that our campus, students, faculty, and staff are safe. Columbia is committed to upholding the law, and we expect city, state, and federal agencies to do the same. The representative did not say if the school would provide legal statements to help expedite Khalil’s release.
Some say, it’s not enough
As universities are being tested, some students and staff feel that the response from their schools have been utterly inadequate. A graduate student worker with the Johns Hopkins University Union, who only wanted to be referred to as April M. for safety reasons, told Fast Company that JHU has “refused” to meet the needs of students and workers. “International students and workers make up a significant percentage of Hopkins’ population, and Hopkins Justice Collective has been making a clear call for a sanctuary campus and denunciation of current university practices, which the university has not only ignored, but papered over with essentially an affirmation of our feelings.”They added, “Acknowledgment means nothing when student visas can be revoked without notice.” The graduate student also said that students at JHU are actively wiping their phones, cancelling flights to their home countries, and staying inside out of fear, all while the university ramps up its private police force, “growing the punitive muscle of the university that costs millions.”The feeling that universities aren’t doing enough to stand up to the new anti-first-amendment push is shared by some professors, too. Jason Stanley, an American professor of philosophy at Yale who wrote the books How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them and Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, is taking his lessons, and at least two other professors, to Canada. Suddenly if youre not a citizen of the United States, you cant comment on politics if youre a professor? Stanley told CNN on his decision to move out of the country. Thats crazy, said Stanley. Thats not a free society.While the professor blames the Trump administration, he feels now is the time for colleges to stand up to the president. Instead, he isn’t seeing the reaction from universities that he would’ve hoped for, saying, “Theyre humiliating the universities and I dont see the universities standing up to it.”
Nintendo is pushing back preorders for its upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 while it figures out the implications of President Donald Trump’s aggressive global tariffs.
It’s unclear when preorders will actually begin. They were supposed to start Wednesday, ahead of a June 5 launch date.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” a spokesperson for the Japan-based company tells Fast Company. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”
The BBC reported that the announcement will only apply to the U.S. market.
Nintendo revealed its highly anticipated Switch 2 on Wednesday with a price tag of $449.99. But the announcement coincided with Trump’s most sweeping tariffs to date. Many economists expect the move to cause a spike in inflation, with some warning of an impeding recession.
Nintendo hasn’t announced where its Switch 2 will be produced, but the original console was made in China and Vietnam, which now have new, steep tariffs in place. Companies either must swallow those costs or pass them onto consumers. It’s unclear whether Nintendo will raise that price tag or not.
I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums.
I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
This love of learning history continued into my years as a graduate student of history, when I would spend hours at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum learning about the history of human flight and ballooning. As a professor, Ive integrated the institutions exhibits into my history courses.
The Trump administration, however, is not happy with the way the Smithsonian Institution and other U.S. museums are portraying history.
On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which asserted, Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nations history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. Under this historical revision, our Nations unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.
Trump singled out a few museums, including the Smithsonian, dedicating a whole section of the order on saving the institution from divisive, race-centered ideology.
Of course, history is contested. There will always be a variety of views about what should be included and excluded from Americas story. For example, in my own research, I found that Prohibition-era school boards in the 1920s argued over whether it was appropriate for history textbooks to include pictures of soldiers drinking to illustrate the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion.
But most recent debates center on how much attention should be given to the history of the nations accomplishments over its darker chapters. The Smithsonian, as a national institution that receives most of its funds from the federal government, has sometimes found itself in the crosshairs.
Americas historical repository
The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 thanks to its namesake, British chemist James Smithson.
Smithson willed his estate to his nephew and stated that if his nephew died without an heir, the moneyroughly US$15 million in todays dollarswould be donated to the U.S. to found an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.
An 1816 portrait of British chemist James Smithson by Henri-Joseph Johns. [Image: Wiki Commons]
The idea of a national institution dedicated to history, science and learning was contentious from the start.
In her book The Stranger and the Statesman, historian Nina Burleigh shows how Smithsons bequest was nearly lost due to battles between competing interests.
Southern plantation owners and western frontiersmen, including President Andrew Jackson, saw the establishment of a national museum as an unnecessary assertion of federal power. They also challenged the very idea of accepting a gift from a non-American and thought that it was beneath the dignity of the government to confer immortality on someone simply because of a large donation.
In the end, a group led by congressman and former president John Quincy Adams ensured Smithsons vision was realized. Adams felt that the country was failing to live up to its early promise. He thought a national museum was an important way to burnish the ideals of the young republic and educate the public.
Today, the Smithsonian runs 14 education and research centers, the National Zoo and 21 museums, including the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was created with bipartisan support during President George W. Bushs administration.
In the introduction to his book Smithsonians History of America in 101 Objects, cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin talks about how the institution has also supported hundreds of small and large institutions outside of the nations capital.
In 2024, the Smithsonian sent over 2 million artifacts on loan to museums in 52 U.S. states and territories and 33 foreign countries. It also partners with over 200 affiliate museums. YouGov has periodically tracked Americans approval of the Smithsonian, which has held steady at roughly 68% approval and 2% disapproval since 2020.
Smithsonian in the crosshairs
Precursors to the Trump administrations efforts to reshape the Smithsonian took place in the 1990s.
In 1991, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which was then known as the National Museum of American Art, created an exhibition titled The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920. Conservatives complained that th museum portrayed western expansion as a tale of conquest and destruction, rather than one of progress and nation-building. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the exhibit represented an entirely hostile ideological assault on the nations founding and history.
The exhibition proved popular: Attendance to the National Museum of American Art was 60% higher than it had been during the same period the year prior. But the debate raised questions about whether public museums were able to express ideas that are critical of the U.S. without risk of censorship.
In 1994, controversy again erupted, this time at the National Air and Space Museum over a forthcoming exhibition centered on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima 50 years prior.
Should the exhibition explore the loss of Japanese lives? Or emphasize the U.S. war victory?
Veterans groups insisted that the atomic bomb ended the war and saved 1 million American lives, and demanded the removal of photographs of the destruction and a melted Japanese school lunch box from the exhibit. Meanwhile, other activists protested the exhibition by arguing that a symbol of human destruction shouldnt be commemorated at an institution thats supposed to celebrate human achievement.
Republicans won the House in 1994 and threatened cuts to the Smithsonians budget over the Enola Gay exhibition, compelling curators to walk a tightrope. In the end, the fuselage of the Enola Gay was displayed in the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. But the exhibit would not tell the full story of the planes role in the war from a myriad of perspectives.
Trump enters the fray
In 2019, The New York Times launched the 1619 project, which aimed to reframe the countrys history by placing slavery and its consequences at its very center. The first Trump administration quickly responded by forming its 1776 commission. In January 2021, it produced a report critiquing the 1619 project, claiming that an emphasis on the countrys history of racism and slavery was counterproductive to promoting patriotic education.
That same year, Trump pledged to build a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live, with 250 statues to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
President Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021. Trump reissued it after retaking the White House, and pointed to figures hed like to see included, such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Betsy Ross, Sitting Bull, Bob Hope, Thurgood Marshall and Whitney Houston.
I dont think there is anything wrong with honoring Americans, though I think a focus on celebrities and major figures clouds the fascinating histories of ordinary Americans. I also find it troubling that there seems to be such a concerted effort to so forcefully shape the teaching and understanding of history via threats and bullying. Yale historian Jason Stanley has written about how aspiring authoritarian governments seek to control historical narratives and discourage an exploration of the complexities of the past.
Historical scholarship requires an openness to debate and a willingness to embrace new findings and perspectives. It also involves the humility to accept that no oneleast of all the governmenthas a monopoly on the truth.
In his executive order, Trump noted that Museums in our Nations capital should be places where individuals go to learn. I share that view. Doing so, however, means not dismantling history, but instead complicating the storyin all its messy glory.
The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution.
Jennifer Tucker is a professor of history at Wesleyan University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, issued an urgent alert about dengue fever, a painful and sometimes deadly mosquito-borne illness common in tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Some 3,500 travelers from the United States contracted dengue abroad in 2024, according to the CDC, an 84% increase over 2023. This trend is expected to continue, the agency said, noting that Florida, California, and New York, in that order, are likely to see the biggest surges this year.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency put out a similar warning, noting that there were 900 cases of travel-related dengue in the U.K. in 2024, almost 300 more infections than the preceding year. The two reports relayed a similar array of statistics about dengue, its symptoms, and rising caseloads. But the U.K. Health Security Agency included a crucial piece of information that the CDC omitted: It noted why cases are breaking records. The rise is driven by climate change, rising temperatures, and flooding, it said.
In the past, the CDC has readily acknowledged the role climate change plays in the transmission of dengue feverbut the political conditions that influence scientific research and federal public health communications in the U.S. have undergone seismic shifts in the months since President Donald Trump took office. The new administration has purged federal agency websites of mentions of equity and climate change and sought to dismantle the scientific infrastructure that agencies like the CDC use to understand and respond to a range of health risksincluding those posed by global warming.
Last week, ProPublica reported that the National Institutes of Health, or NIHthe largest source of funding for medical research in the worldwill shut down all future funding opportunities for climate and health research. It remains to be seen whether ongoing grants for research at this intersection will be allowed to continue. A few days later, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his agency plans to cull 10,000 people from its workforce, including new cuts at CDC, an agency that was established in 1946 in order to prevent a different mosquito-borne illness, malaria, from spreading across the U.S.
Taken together, the suite of directives will prevent the U.S. and other nations whose scientists rely on NIH funding from preparing for and responding to dengue fever at the exact moment when climate change is causing cases of the disease to skyrocket. The abrupt subversion of the personnel and institutions tasked with responding to a threat like dengue bodes poorly for future health crises as climate change causes carriers of disease like mosquitoes, fungi, and ticks to expand their historical ranges and infiltrate new zones.
The disease pressure in the last couple of years is very dramatic and its going in one directionup, said Scott ONeill, founder of the World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit organization that infects mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria to fight disease in 14 countries. For example, Brazilthe country that consistently registers the highest number of dengue casesrecorded a historic 10 million cases last year. The country reported 1.7 million cases in 2023.
The two types of mosquitoes that most often infect humans with dengue, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, thrive in the warm, moist conditions made more prevalent by rising atmospheric temperatures caused by fossil fuel combustion. The vast majority of annual dengue cases are asymptomatic, but about 25% of people infected, depending on the population, develop symptoms like fever, headache, and joint pain. A small percentage of those cases result in severe sickness, hospitalization, and even death.
The number of severe dengue infections corresponds roughly to the size of the pool of people infected every year. In 2023, when there were 6 million total dengue infections, 6,000 people died. In 2024, a year when there were more than 13 million cases registered globally, over 8,000 people died.
There is no cure for dengue. Patients in wealthier countries generally fare better than patients in developing regions with limited access to medical interventions like blood transfusions and places where waves of dengue patients overwhelm already-strained healthcare systems. Two dengue vaccines are available in some countries, but both have serious limitations in terms of efficacy and how long they confer immunity.
The NIH began taking climate change and health research seriously in 2021, and the institutes have funded dozens of studies that probe every aspect of the climate-dengue connection since. NIH-funded researchers have sought to understand how warmer temperatures shift the geographic ranges of Aedes mosquitoes, which factors predict dengue outbreaks, and how communities can protect themselves from dengue following extreme weather events.
These studies have taken place in the southeastern U.S., where dengue is becoming more prevalent, and internationally, in countries like Peru and Brazil, where dengue is a near-constant threat. The NIH has also funded studies that bring the world closer to finding medical and technological interventions: more effective vaccines and genetically engineered mosquitoes that cant develop dengue, among other solutions.
Disease doesnt have national borders, said an American vector biologist who has received funding from the NIH in the past. She askednot to have her name or affiliated academic institution mentioned in this story out of fear of reprisal from the Trump administration. Im worried that if were not studying it, were just going to watch it continue to happen and we wont be prepared.
Americans arent just bringing cases of dengue fever home with them from trips abroad; the disease is also spreading locally with more intensity in warmer regions of the country and its territories. Last March, Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency amid an explosion of cases on the island. By the end of 2024, Puerto Rico registered over 6,000 casespassing the threshold at which an outbreak officially becomes an epidemic. More than half of the known infections led to hospitalization. Close to 1,000 cases have been reported there so far this year, a 113% increase over the same period in 2024. California and Florida reported 18 and 91 locally-acquired cases of dengue, respectively, last year. California registered its first-ever locally-acquired case of dengue in 2023.
Dengue is already found in many places in the U.S. that have never seen this disease before, said Renzo Guinto, a physician and head of the Planetary Health Initiative at the Duke-NUS medical school in Singapore. To combat this emerging climate-related health threat, U.S. scientists must collaborate with others working in dengue overseas. With no resources and capacity, how can such collaboration occur?
There are limited non-government sources of funding for climate and health research. The money that is available to American researchers is primarily offered by private foundations like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. The grants these philanthropies offer annually pale in comparison to the $40 million Congress made available annually through the NIH for climate and health research in the two years before Trump took office. Researchers will be forced to compete for a small pool of funding in the coming years, which will likely lead to fewer studies and less innovation in the years to come. The end result will be that much less of this work would be donewe would all tell you to the detriment of Americans long term, said the vector biologist.
As dengue spreads with more intensity in the countries where it is already common and slips across borders into zones like North America where the disease is still comparatively rare, its clear countries need to expand their arsenals of disease-fighting weapons. But the U.S. appears to be leading a charge in the opposite direction, with thousands of lives at stake.
Were at a time when we need acceleration of innovation and solutions to very pressing global problems, said ONeill, whose organization receives funding from governments around the world, including the U.S. Its not the time to let ideology drive science rather than let science drive itself.
This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
Most of us know the general (albeit simplified) story: Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov used a stimuluslike a metronomearound the dogs he was studying, and soon, the hounds would start to salivate.
They had learned that the sound meant food was coming. The phenomenon, now known as classical conditioning, became one of modern psychologys foundational discoveries. It’s an unconscious process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a naturally occurring stimulus, eventually leading to a connection between the two. The dogs, seeing the researcher who often brings them food or hearing the noise of the cart on its way, would immediately know they were about to have a meal.
Flash forward 120 years: my dog and I are riding through San Francisco in a self-driving car. Ive taken Waymos autonomous vehicles dozens of times, often with my 9-year-old chiweenie, Poppy, nestled on my lap. She usually naps peacefully, facing inward, oblivious to the world outside.
Near the end of each ride, the car makes a familiar ding-dong chime, followed by a womans voice reminding me to take my phone, keys, and wallet. Poppy, unfazed, would remain in a deep sleep until the car stopped, I unbuckled my seatbelt, and picked her up to get out. Back to the world of smells and fresh air!
Lately, Ive noticed something strange: As soon as the ding sounds, Poppy wakes up, turns around, and readies herself at the door without my helpevery single time.
Is this . . . Pavlovs Waymo?
As a serious journalist in pursuit of all the hard-hitting truths, I emailed the veterinary team at Bond Vet. The short answer to my not-so-serious question? Yes.
“In practical terms, the sound acts as a cue, prompting her anticipation to leave. This behavior develops because the sound repeatedly coincides with the end of the ride, and the reward of getting out reinforces her response,” Dr. Lisa Lippman, director of virtual medicine at Bond Vet, said in an email. “Dogs are incredibly perceptive and often pick up on routines and environmental cues like this, its a great example of how they learn and adapt!”
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found in 2021 that common household noises, like a microwave beep or the chirp of a smoke detector, can cause a dog anxiety. Thankfully, Poppy doesn’t seem very anxious about the car’s noise (although humans are notoriously bad at sensing a dog’s stress or real emotions). But it made me think of the constant notifications and dings of our world.
At the same time as our pets, we as humans are being classically conditioned. The microwave beep alerts us that we’re about to be rewarded with food, the “tudum” sound when you open the Netflix app prepares us for entertainment, the Waymo chime let’s us know it’s almost time to get out. Brands especially have utilized classical conditioning to associate their product with an emotion.
“When we play sound feedback for Waymo riders, our guiding philosophy is to be friendly and helpful,” Waymo’s Head of Design and Customer Research Ryan Powell said over email. “That means playing sounds that feel connected and familiar, but not intrusive. We want to be thoughtful about how and when we play sound, so that riders can rely on these signals for their safety and comfort. Sometimes we’ll play sound followed by a voice explanation for more detail.”
A crackdown on foreign students is alarming colleges, who say the Trump administration is using new tactics and vague justifications to push some students out of the country.College officials worry the new approach will keep foreigners from wanting to study in the U.S.Students stripped of their entry visas are receiving orders from the Department of Homeland Security to leave the country immediatelya break from past practice that often permitted them to stay and complete their studies.Some students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism or criminal infractionsor even traffic violations. Others have been left wondering how they ran afoul of the government.At Minnesota State University in Mankato, President Edward Inch told the campus Wednesday that visas had been revoked for five international students for unclear reasons.He said school officials learned about the revocations when they ran a status check in a database of international students after the detention of a Turkish student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The State Department said the detention was related to a drunken driving conviction.“These are troubling times, and this situation is unlike any we have navigated before,” Inch wrote in a letter to campus.President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, and federal agents started by detaining Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card-holder and Palestinian activist who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week students are being targeted for involvement in protests along with others tied to “potential criminal activity.”In the past two weeks, the government apparently has widened its crackdown. Officials from colleges around the country have discovered international students have had their entry visas revoked and, in many cases, their legal residency status terminated by authorities without noticeincluding students at Arizona State, Cornell, North Carolina State, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas, and the University of Colorado.Some of the students are working to leave the country on their own, but students at Tufts and the University of Alabama have been detained by immigration authoritiesin the Tufts case, even before the university knew the student’s legal status had changed.
Feds bypass colleges to move against students
In this new wave of enforcement, school officials say the federal government is quietly deleting foreigners’ student records instead of going through colleges, as was done in the past.Students are being ordered to leave the country with a suddenness that universities have rarely seen, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.In the past, when international students have had entry visas revoked, they generally have been allowed to keep legal residency status. They could stay in the country to study, but would need to renew their visa if they left the U.S. and wanted to return. Now, increasing numbers of students are having their legal status terminated, exposing them to the risk of being arrested.“None of this is regular practice,” Feldblum said.At North Carolina State University, two students from Saudi Arabia left the U.S. after learning their legal status as students was terminated, the university said. N.C. State said it will work with the students to complete their semester from outside the country.Philip Vasto, who lived with one of the students, said his roommate, in graduate school for engineering management, was apolitical and did not attend protests against the war in Gaza. When the government told his roommate his student status had been terminated, it did not give a reason, Vasto said.Since returning to Saudi Arabia, Vasto said his former roommate’s top concern is getting into another university.“He’s made his peace with it,” he said. “He doesn’t want to allow it to steal his peace any further.”
Database checks turn up students in jeopardy
At the University of Texas at Austin, staff checking a federal database discovered two people on student visas had their permission to be in the U.S. terminated, a person familiar with the situation said. The person declined to be identified for fear of retaliation.One of the people, from India, had their legal status terminated April 3. The federal system indicated the person had been identified in a criminal records check “and/or has had their visa revoked.” The other person, from Lebanon, had their legal status terminated March 28 due to a criminal records check, according to the federal database.Both people were graduates remaining in the U.S. on student visas, using an option allowing people to gain professional experience after completing coursework. Both were employed full time and apparently had not violated requirements for pursuing work experience, the person familiar with the situation said.Some students have had visas revoked by the State Department under an obscure law barring noncitizens whose presence could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Trump invoked the law in a January order demanding action against campus anti-Semitism.But some students targeted in recent weeks have had no clear link to political activism. Some have been ordered to leave over misdemeanor crimes or traffic infractions, Feldblum said. In some cases, students were targeted for infractions that had been previously reported to the government.Some of the alleged infractions would not have drawn scrutiny in the past and will likely be a test of students’ First Amendment rights as cases work their way through court, said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.“In some ways, what the administration is doing is really retroactive,” she said. “Rather than saying, ‘This is going to be the standard that we’re applying going forward,’ they’re going back and vetting students based on past expressions or past behavior.”The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department over the issue. It’s unclear whether more visas are being revoked than usual, but officials fear a chilling effect on international exchange.Many of the association’s members have recently seen at least one student have their visas revoked, said Bernie Burrola, a vice president at the group. With little information from the government, colleges have been interviewing students or searching social media for a connection to political activism.“The universities can’t seem to find anything that seems to be related to Gaza or social media posts or protests,” Burrola said. “Some of these are sponsored students by foreign governments, where they specifically are very hesitant to get involved in protests.”There’s no clear thread indicating which students are being targeted, but some have been from the Middle East and China, he said.America’s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the orld’s brightest mindsand they’ve brought important tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U.S. colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.“We should not take for granted that that’s just the way things are and will always be,” she said.
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Collin Binkley, Annie Ma and Makiya Seminera, Associated Press
On Wednesday, Trump announced a wide ranging series of reciprocal tariffs on imported goods from countries including China and Japan. But near the top of the list was a country you might not have thought about a lot in terms of its status as international power broker: Vietnam.
With a 46% tariff, Vietnam is one of the hardest hit countries on the list. All sorts of goods are made there these days, including furniture and technological hardware. But the most sensitive industry may be apparel and performance footwearwith a special emphasis on footwear. Ninty-nine percent of all footwear sold in the U.S. is imported. And 50% of Nikes shoes are made in Vietnam, specifically. The country produces a significant number of shoes for the entire industry, including Adidas, On, Reebok, Deckers (which includes Hoka, Ugg, and Teva), and Brooks (the number one running brand in the U.S.).
When asked how they planned to respond to this policy, none of these brands opted to comment for this story. Stock prices for Nike, Adidas, On Holdings, and Deckers each dropped approximately 15% following the announcement.
It almost feels intentionally directed at the [performance footwear] industry, says David Swartz, senior equity analyst, consumer research, for Morningstar, who has called the tariffs potentially disastrous to the industry in an investor report published yesterday. (Disclosure: Morningstar and Fast Company share the same owner.) To be clear, Swartz sees no upside to this government decision, noting that the chances that any of this leads to substantial manufacturing of footwear and apparel in the U.S. are practically zero. And its another reason that he, like many others, simply cannot imagine that they will stick.
Why the focus on Vietnam?
Swartz recognizes that targeting Vietnam likely had less to do with the companies or industry being affected than it did the simple balance sheet math that drove Trumps tariffs. Vietnam does not import nearly the amount of goods from the U.S. that we do from them. But by any common sense, that imbalance is to be expected.
The US economy is like 70x that of Vietnam, so it seems pretty obvious to me that Vietnam is going to buy fewer American products than we buy from them, but what do I know? says Swartz. I only have a masters degree in economics from Yale, so I dont know anything.
While senseless on paper, the tariffs could have lasting repercussions on the industry if they stick. And the worlds biggest performance brands would have little recourse if that happened.
The crux of the problem is that, since the 1990s, apparel and footwear has moved abroad. As Swartz explains, performance companies in particular invested billions of dollars into the roads, ports, factories, and rail lines that make up the complex supply chain feeding Vietnamese infrastructure.
Its in everyones interest to keep these factories working. Vietnam relies on the business for their economy. Corporations rely on Vietnam to produce goods. Nike, for instance, doesnt own a single one of its factories globally.
You cant just call a factory in India and say can you make 20 million of shoes for me, they don’t have the capacity, says Swartz. Idle factories dont exist globally. An unused factory is shut down, and its staff is fired. Furthermore, specialized production methods behind modern footwear dont exist everywhere. Sewing is simple. But injection molded foam composites, polymer production, and complex fabric weaving are other topics. A modern sneaker may have as many as 100 parts produced in different factories, and if any one component doesnt arrive in time, everything is slowed down. Building an infrastructure of factories with interdependent specialized production methodsand with workers skilled enough to operate themcan take years.
So what about just shifting production across Asia? The tariffs are high about everywhere, and given the long lead time to set up necessary factories, Swartz doesnt believe it makes sense of any company to attempt to shift manufacturing to save a few percentage points in tariffs. And shifting the entirety of a business like Nike’s could take years.
So what happens now?
Officially, tariffs will begin on any products not on a boat from Vietnam by April 5th, according to the logistics firm Flexport. They expect consumers will see costs rise on goods as soon as April 9th.
In the short term, shoes are going to keep being made. Swartz believes that the costs of these tariffs will be distributed between the factory, the brand, and consumers.
The pain is gonna be spread out. I think certain companies are going to have more negation power than others. Let’s say Nike uses a factory for apparel or footwear, it works with that factory over potentially decades. They can negotiate with them[saying] we need to reduce what we pay you this year while tariffs are goingThe factory is not going to say, we wont work with Nike anymore. They can’t do that. They would go bankrupt.
Smaller companies, and retailers like Macys and Kohls that produce many private label goods in Vietnam, could face less flexible factories. Their prices will either have to go up, or the thin margins of our struggling retailers will grow even thinner. Private label brands offer retailers excellent margins, which is why companies like Walmart and Target invest so much into their own lines of appliances, fashion, and home goods. (And yes, each sources private label goods from Vietnam.)
Long term, no matter how things play out, Swartz sees no reality in which the industry caves and moves manufacturing to the U.S. He lists all sorts of reasons, ranging fro the price of labor (which he ballparks at $400/month for your average factory employee in Vietnama rate no American would take with our cost of living), to our lack of raw materials (90% of the world’s cotton is grown in one region of China), to our pure inability to produce these goods (the U.S. has but a handful of yarn spinning factories needed to produce textiles), to our own discomfort facing the environmental costs of consumerism.
Dyeing alone takes giant amounts of water, notes Swartz. You couldnt even get it [here]. If someone said were going to start dyeing in Minnesota and were gonna drain this lake to get the water, Im pretty sure theyd say no.
But in any case, Swartz imagines that, if tariffs dont change, were going to all see significantly higher prices on shoes and companies will ultimately sell less of them, especially in an economy already likely heading toward a recession.
It may not be so easy for Nike to sell Lebron shoes if they have to raise the price from $180 to $240. They will sell less volume ultimately, says Swartz. Its basic supply and demand. Increase price, it reduces demand. Economic laws have not been changed.
Back in the summer of 2024, Boars Head recalled seven million pounds of deli meat that had been linked to a deadly listeria outbreak that spanned numerous U.S. states. That outbreak led to the deaths of multiple people and caused the company to shutter one of its processing facilities, which was located in Virginia.
The recall led to a brand crisis for Boars Head, and by November 2024, when the outbreak was declared over, a total of 10 people had died, and 61 became sick. The event led to class action lawsuits against the company, one of which has now been settled. Heres what to know about the settlement and whether you can claim any compensation.
Class action settlement
Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc. has now agreed to settle a class action lawsuit related to the recall. The case, Pompilio, et al. v. Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc., was filed in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York.
According to the official settlement website, the class action suit alleged that the recall economically harmed the plaintiffs. Its important to note that as part of the settlement, Boars Head has not admitted to any wrongdoing, as is common with most class action settlements.
As part of the settlement, Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc. has agreed to pay claimants $3.1 million, minus court costs and other fees.
Am I included in the settlement?
You are included in the settlementand can make a claimif you meet the courts Settlement Class Member description.
The court says a Settlement Class Member is All natural persons who purchased in the United States any Covered Products between the earliest date of manufacture of any Covered Product (May 10, 2024) and August 12, 2024 for personal, family or household use, and not for resale, except for any Excluded Persons.
Excluded Persons are defined on the settlement website.
How much can I get from the settlement?
You are eligible to receive a portion of the settlement if you meet one of the following two criteria:
You have proof of purchase for a product covered under the settlement. If you have proof of purchase for a covered product, you are eligible to receive the full purchase price for each unit of Covered Product listed on the Proof of Purchase, subject to adjustment as set forth below.
You do not have proof of purchase for a product covered under the settlement. In this case, you can receive the average retail price for up to two (2) Covered Products claimed per Household, subject to adjustment as set forth below.
The adjustments listed above can be found here in the settlements FAQ.
How can I file a claim?
The easiest way to file a claim is by using the claim form on the settlement website. The FAQ lists additional methods to file a claim.
When do I need to file a claim by?
Claims must be filed by May 16, 2025. That is also the date that class action members have until to exclude themselves from the class action lawsuit or object to it.
The class action settlement is conditional upon the approval of the court. That hearing is expected to take place on August 13, 2025.
Full details of the class action settlement can be found on the settlement website here.
